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Background: Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) often have chronic low-grade inflammation in the intestinal mucosa. Some dietary components are known to be associated with inflammation. However, there is currently limited research on the relationship between dietary inflammatory potential and the risk of IBS. Methods: A total of 129,408 participants in the UK Biobank were included in this study. Energy-Adjusted Dietary Inflammatory Index (E-DII) based on 26 nutrients and the Empirical Dietary Inflammatory Pattern (EDIP) based on 17 food groups were constructed, and on the basis of the tertiles, the continuous score was categorized into proinflammatory, neutral, and antiinflammatory categories. Associations between IBS and E-DII and EDIP were investigated by multivariable Cox proportional hazard models. Potential confounders including sociodemographic, lifestyle, body mass index (BMI), psychological state, type 2 diabetes, and thyroiditis were adjusted. In addition, subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis were also performed. Finally, a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was employed to explore the independent causality of nutrients and dietary-derived serum antioxidants with IBS. Results: In the cohort study, over a median follow-up period of 13.26 years, 2421(1.87%) participants developed IBS. In the E-DII categories, after adjusting for the confounders, individuals in the proinflammatory diet category had a higher risk of IBS compared with the antiinflammatory category (HR 1.15, 95% CI 1.03–1.28, p = 0.015, p trend = 0.017) and neutral category (HR 1.13, 95% CI 1.01–1.26, p = 0.030, p trend = 0.017). In the EDIP categories, after adjusting for the confounders, individuals in the proinflammatory diet category had a higher risk of IBS compared with antiinflammatory category (HR 1.19, 95% CI 1.06–1.33, p = 0.002, p trend = 0.002) but no significant association compared with neutral category (HR 1.10, 95% CI 0.99–1.23, p = 0.067, p trend = 0.002). In the MR analysis, genetically determined intake levels of 16 nutrients and 6 dietary sources of circulating antioxidants did not have a causal effect on IBS. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that proinflammatory dietary components are independent risk factors for IBS. However, there is no causal relationship between individual nutrient intake or serum antioxidants from dietary sources and IBS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass customization poses one of the primary challenges for manufacturing firms seeking to maintain competitiveness by satisfying diverse and ever-changing demands. The purpose of this study is to present a mechanism illustrating how internal cross-functional integration promotes mass customization by leveraging external supply chain partners and emphasizing the contingent role of product characteristics. Using 223 samples collected from multi-sources of manufacturing firms worldwide, regression and bootstrap analyses are applied to test the proposed moderated mediation research model. Our findings reveal that a firm's capability of cross-functional integration plays an important role in directly promoting its mass customization performance and indirectly doing so through supply chain alignment. Moreover, our findings underscore that this indirect mechanism is more pronounced when products are designed to be highly modular. Based on our findings, manufacturing firms can enhance mass customization more efficiently and effectively by integrating internal cross-functional collaboration and product modularization, thereby fostering alignment within the external supply chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of existing face inpainting methods primarily focus on generating a single result that visually resembles the original image. The generation of diverse and plausible results has emerged as a new branch in image restoration, often referred to as "Pluralistic Image Completion". However, most diversity methods simply use random latent vectors to generate multiple results, leading to uncontrollable outcomes. To overcome these limitations, we introduce a novel architecture known as the Reference-Guided Directional Diverse Face Inpainting Network. In this paper, instead of using a background image as reference, which is typically used in image restoration, we have used a face image, which can have many different characteristics from the original image, including but not limited to gender and age, to serve as a reference face style. Our network firstly infers the semantic information of the masked face, i.e., the face parsing map, based on the partial image and its mask, which subsequently guides and constrains directional diverse generator network. The network will learn the distribution of face images from different domains in a low-dimensional manifold space. To validate our method, we conducted extensive experiments on the CelebAMask-HQ dataset. Our method not only produces high-quality oriented diverse results but also complements the images with the style of the reference face image. Additionally, our diverse results maintain correct facial feature distribution and sizes, rather than being random. Our network has achieved SOTA results in face diverse inpainting when writing. Code will is available at https://github.com/nothingwithyou/RDFINet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since business processes are important assets of enterprises, thousands of business processes are modeled. After modeling business process models, a problem arises here is how to improve the efficiency of these models? In this paper, we propose a novel approach to refactor business process models with process fragments substitution for efficiency improvement. First, we propose a process model smell for identifying inefficient process fragments in business process models based on a sequence relation matrix and a data dependency matrix. Second, we propose a refactoring technique to replace inefficient process fragments in business process models with efficient process fragments. After refactoring, concurrent execution of business tasks in efficient process fragments can be maximized, so the efficiency of business process models can be improved. Experiments show our approach can improve efficiency of business process models effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have suggested that exposure to air pollutants may be associated with specific blood indicators or anemia in certain populations. However, there is insufficient epidemiological data and prospective evidence to evaluate the relationship between environmental air pollution and specific types of anemia. We conducted a large-scale prospective cohort study based on the UK Biobank. Annual average concentrations of NO2, PM2.5, PM2.5-10, and PM10 were obtained from the ESCAPE study using the Land Use Regression (LUR) model. The association between atmospheric pollutants and different types of anemia was investigated using the Cox proportional hazards model. Furthermore, restricted cubic splines were used to explore exposure-response relationships for positive associations, followed by stratification and effect modification analyses by gender and age. After adjusting for demographic characteristics, 3-4 of the four types of air pollution were significantly associated with an increased risk of iron deficiency, vitamin B12 deficiency and folate deficiency anemia, while there was no significant association with other defined types of anemia. After full adjustment, we estimated that the hazard ratios (HRs) of iron deficiency anemia associated with each 10 μg/m3 increase in NO2, PM2.5, and PM10 were 1.04 (95%CI: 1.02, 1.07), 2.00 (95%CI: 1.71, 2.33), and 1.10 (95%CI: 1.02, 1.20) respectively. The HRs of folate deficiency anemia with each 10 μg/m3 increase in NO2, PM2.5, PM2.5-10, and PM10 were 1.25 (95%CI: 1.12, 1.40), 4.61 (95%CI: 2.03, 10.47), 2.81 (95%CI: 1.11, 7.08), and 1.99 (95%CI: 1.25, 3.15) respectively. For vitamin B12 deficiency anemia, no significant association with atmospheric pollution was found. Additionally, we estimated almost linear exposure-response curves between air pollution and anemia, and interaction analyses suggested that gender and age did not modify the association between air pollution and anemia. Our research provided reliable evidence for the association between long-term exposure to PM10, PM2.5, PM2.5-10, NO2, and several types of anemia. NO2, PM2.5, and PM10 significantly increased the risk of iron deficiency anemia and folate deficiency anemia. Additionally, we found that the smaller the PM diameter, the higher the risk, and folate deficiency anemia was more susceptible to air pollution than iron deficiency anemia. No association was observed between the four types of air pollution and hemolytic anemia, aplastic anemia, and other types of anemia. Although the mechanisms are not well understood, we emphasize the need to limit the levels of PM and NO2 in the environment to reduce the potential impact of air pollution on folate and iron deficiency anemia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OSCA/TMEM63 channels are the largest known family of mechanosensitive channels1–3, playing critical roles in plant4–7 and mammalian8,9 mechanotransduction. Here we determined 44 cryogenic electron microscopy structures of OSCA/TMEM63 channels in different environments to investigate the molecular basis of OSCA/TMEM63 channel mechanosensitivity. In nanodiscs, we mimicked increased membrane tension and observed a dilated pore with membrane access in one of the OSCA1.2 subunits. In liposomes, we captured the fully open structure of OSCA1.2 in the inside-in orientation, in which the pore shows a large lateral opening to the membrane. Unusually for ion channels, structural, functional and computational evidence supports the existence of a ‘proteo-lipidic pore’ in which lipids act as a wall of the ion permeation pathway. In the less tension-sensitive homologue OSCA3.1, we identified an ‘interlocking’ lipid tightly bound in the central cleft, keeping the channel closed. Mutation of the lipid-coordinating residues induced OSCA3.1 activation, revealing a conserved open conformation of OSCA channels. Our structures provide a global picture of the OSCA channel gating cycle, uncover the importance of bound lipids and show that each subunit can open independently. This expands both our understanding of channel-mediated mechanotransduction and channel pore formation, with important mechanistic implications for the TMEM16 and TMC protein families.The molecular basis of OSCA/TMEM63 channel mechanosensitivity was investigated by determining 44 cryogenic electron microscopy structures of channels in different environments, expanding understanding of channel-mediated mechanotransduction and pore formation, with implications for two protein families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stellar chemical compositions can be altered by ingestion of planetary material1,2 and/or planet formation, which removes refractory material from the protostellar disk3,4. These ‘planet signatures’ appear as correlations between elemental abundance differences and the dust condensation temperature3,5,6. Detecting these planet signatures, however, is challenging owing to unknown occurrence rates, small amplitudes and heterogeneous star samples with large differences in stellar ages7,8. Therefore, stars born together (that is, co-natal) with identical compositions can facilitate the detection of planet signatures. Although previous spectroscopic studies have been limited to a small number of binary stars9–13, the Gaia satellite14 provides opportunities for detecting stellar chemical signatures of planets among co-moving pairs of stars confirmed to be co-natal15,16. Here we report high-precision chemical abundances for a homogeneous sample of ninety-one co-natal pairs of stars with a well defined selection function and identify at least seven instances of planetary ingestion, corresponding to an occurrence rate of eight per cent. An independent Bayesian indicator is deployed, which can effectively disentangle the planet signatures from other factors, such as random abundance variation and atomic diffusion17. Our study provides evidence of planet signatures and facilitates a deeper understanding of the star–planet–chemistry connection by providing observational constraints on the mechanisms of planet engulfment, formation and evolution.By analysing the chemical abundance differences of pairs of co-moving stars born together, it is found that about 8% show chemical signatures that indicate ingestion of planetary material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rotary blade-disk-shaft (RBDS) coupling system is the core part of the aero-engine and gas turbine, and blade crack is one of the most common faults for the RBDS system. First, to analyze the fault mechanism of blade crack and to investigate the effects of blade crack on the three-dimensional blade tip clearance (3D-BTC) of RBDS system, a novel dynamic model of the RBDS system with the blade crack is developed based on the continuum theory. In this model, the blade radial deformation, flap-wise bending, and chordwise bending are comprehensively considered. Then, combining the blade breathing crack model based on the three-dimensional stress state of the blade, the dynamic model of the RBDS system with blade crack is developed so that the 3D-BTC of blade crack can be obtained. The dynamic model is validated by comparing it with the finite element model and experiments. Besides, based on the analysis of the 3D-BTC dynamic response of RBDS system, the 3D-BTC difference vectors of RBDS system are proposed and the effects of blade crack on the 3D-BTC difference vector are investigated. The simulation results show that the largest element of the 3D-BTC difference vectors indicates which blade is cracked. The largest element of the 3D-BTC difference vector increases with the blade crack depth, and it changes non-monotonically as the blade crack location moves from the blade root toward the blade tip. At last, the 3D-BTC of RBDS system with blade crack is obtained based on the optical-fiber-based measurement system, and the 3D-BTC difference vectors are constructed. The experimental results show that the variation trends of the largest elements of the 3D-BTC difference vectors are consistent with the simulation results, which indicates that the 3D-BTC difference vectors can be applied in the blade crack fault diagnosis of the RBDS system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-layer perceptron (MLP) is a class of Artificial Neural Networks widely used in regression, classification, and prediction. To accelerate the training of MLP, more cores can be used for parallel computing on many-core systems. However, with the increasing number of cores integrated into the chip, the communication bottleneck in the training of MLP on electrical network-on-chip (ENoC) becomes severe, degrading MLP training performance. Replacing ENoC with optical network-on-chip (ONoC) can break the communication bottleneck in MLP training. To facilitate the development of ONoC for MLP training, it is necessary to compare and model the MLP training performance of ONoC and ENoC in advance. This paper first analyzes and compares the differences between ONoC and ENoC. Then, we formulate the performance and energy model of MLP training on ONoC and ENoC by analyzing the communication and computation time, static energy, and dynamic energy consumption, respectively. Furthermore, we conduct extensive simulations to compare their MLP training performance and energy consumption with our simulation infrastructure. The experimental results show the MLP training time of ONoC has been reduced by 65.16% and 52.51% on average in different numbers of cores and batch sizes compared with ENoC. The results also exhibit that ONoC overall has 54.86% and 43.13% on average energy reduction in different numbers of cores and batch sizes compared with ENoC. However, with a small number of cores (e.g., less than 50) in MLP training, ENoC consumes less energy than ONoC. These experiments confirm that generally ONoC is a good replacement for ENoC when using a large number of cores in terms of performance and energy consumption for MLP training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isolation and analysis of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from the phytopathogenic fungus Setosphaeria turcica f. sp. zeae revealed the presence of a new double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) virus, tentatively named "Setosphaeria turcica polymycovirus 2" (StPmV2). The genome of StPmV2 consists of five segments (dsRNA1-5), ranging in size from 965 bp to 2462 bp. Each dsRNA contains one open reading frame (ORF) flanked by 5' and 3' untranslated regions (UTRs) with conserved terminal sequences. The putative protein encoded by dsRNA1 shows 64.52% amino acid sequence identity to the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) of the most closely related virus, Cladosporium cladosporioides virus 1, which belongs to the family Polymycoviridae. dsRNAs 2-4 encode the putative coat protein, methyltransferase (MTR), and proline-alanine-serine-rich protein (PASrp), respectively, and dsRNA5 encodes a protein of unknown function. Phylogenetic analysis based on the RdRp protein indicated that StPmV2 clustered with members of the family Polymycoviridae and is therefore a new mycovirus belonging to the genus Polymycovirus in the family Polymycoviridae. In addition, three other distinct isolates of StPmV2 were identified: one isolated from S. turcica f. sp. zeae and two from S. turcica f. sp. sorghi. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a polymycovirus infecting both S. turcica f. sp. zeae and S. turcica f. sp. sorghi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arginine (Arg), as a basic amino acid, has been reported to be involved in regulation of gut motility. However, the evidence is limited and the underlying mechanism is not fully understood. Our study was conducted to investigate the effects of L-Arg on spontaneous contraction of the longitudinal muscle strip (LMS) of the rat colon and the relevant mechanisms. An organ bath system was used to detect the contractile force of the LMS. Whole-cell voltage-clamp techniques were applied to observe alterations in the currents of large conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (KCa) channels, voltage-dependent potassium (KV) channels, and L-type Ca2+ channels (LTCCs) in smooth muscle cells (SMCs) of the colon. We found that L-Arg within the physiological concentration had no effect on contraction of LMS, while 1 mM L-Arg significantly increased both the amplitude and frequency of LMS contractility. And the increase in force was mucosa-dependent, whereas changes in frequency as well as in amplitude were inhibited by atropine. In addition, L-Arg (1 mM) activated the LTTCs and inhibited both KCa channels and KV channels on SMCs. Thus, L-Arg above the physiological concentration exerted an excitatory effect on colonic LM contraction, and stimulation by L-Arg was mediated by ACh. In addition, LTCCs, KCa channels, and KV channels on SMCs were involved in the action of L-Arg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen production via a two-step thermochemical cycle based on solar energy has attracted increasing attention. However, the severe irreversible loss causes the low efficiency. To make sense of the irreversibility, an in-depth thermodynamic model for the solar driven two-step thermochemical cycles is proposed. Different from previous literatures solely focusing on the energy loss and irreversibility of devices, this work decouples a complex energy conversion process in three sub-processes, i.e., reaction, heat transfer and re-radiation, acquiring the cause of irreversible loss. The results from the case study indicate that the main irreversibility caused by inert sweeping gas for decreasing the reduction reaction temperature dominates the cycle efficiency. Decreasing reduction reaction temperature without severe energy penalty of inert sweeping gas is important to reducing this irreversible loss. A favorable performance is achieved by decreasing re-oxidation rate, increasing hydrolysis conversion rate and achieving a thermochemical cycle with a lower equilibrium temperature of reduction reaction at atmosphere pressure. The research clarifies the essence of process irrrversibility in solar thermichemical cycles, and the findings point out the potential to develop efficient solar driven two-step thermochemical cycles for hydrogen production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet of vehicles (IoV) is gradually combined with connected autonomous vehicles (CAV), which accelerates the development of CAV. In order to meet the service requirements of CAV, mobile edge computing (MEC) provides IoV with a novel paradigm which provides services by fast processing vehicle tasks at the road side units distributed near target vehicles. In this way, vehicle tasks can be offloaded to edge servers deployed in road side units (RSU). A vehicle tasks offloading problem requires load balance of edge servers to be maintained with minimum total time cost. Thus, we proposed a vehicle tasks offloading method (VTO) in which the vehicle tasks offloading problem is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem. Hence, we design a multi-objective optimization evolutionary algorithm basing on improving the strength pare to evolutionary algorithm (SPEA2) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and multiple criteria decision making (MCDM). Through theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation, the results shows that the performance of VTO is effective and efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular edge computing (VEC) is emerging as a new computing paradigm to improve the quality of vehicular services and enhance the capabilities of vehicles. It enables performing tasks with low latency by deploying computing and storage resources close to vehicles. However, the traditional task offloading schemes only focus on one-shot offloading, taking less into consideration task dependency. Furthermore, the continuous action space problem during task offloading should be considered. In this paper, an efficient dependency-aware task offloading scheme for VEC with vehicle-edge-cloud collaborative computation is proposed, where subtasks can be processed locally or can be offloaded to an edge server, or a cloud server for execution. Specifically, first, the directed acyclic graph (DAG) is utilized to model the dependency of subtasks. Second, a task offloading algorithm based on Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DDPG) was proposed to obtain the optimal offloading strategy in a vehicle-edge-cloud environment, which efficiently solves the continuous control problem and helps reach fast convergence. Finally, extensive simulation experiments have been conducted, and the experimental results show that the proposed scheme can improve performance by about 13.62% on average against three baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular edge computing (VEC) is emerging as a novel computing paradigm to meet low latency demands for computation-intensive vehicular applications. However, most existing offloading schemes do not take the dynamic edge-cloud computing environment into account, resulting in high delay performance. In this paper, we propose an efficient offloading scheme based on deep reinforcement learning for VEC with edge-cloud computing cooperation, where computation-intensive tasks can be executed locally or can be offloaded to an edge server, or a cloud server. By jointly considering: i) the dynamic edge-cloud computing environment; ii) fast offloading decisions, we leverage deep reinforcement learning to minimize the average processing delay of tasks by effectively integrating the computation resources of vehicles, edge servers, and the cloud server. Specifically, a deep Q-network (DQN) is used to adaptively learn optimal offloading schemes in the dynamic environment by balancing the exploration process and the exploitation process. Furthermore, the offloading scheme can be quickly learned by speeding up the convergence of the training process of DQN, which is good for fast offloading decisions. We conduct extensive simulation experiments and the experimental results show that the proposed offloading scheme can achieve a good performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the hydrophilic nature of paper mulch, it is easy to absorb water during use, which will reduce its mechanical properties and durability, thus affecting its performance. Therefore, the development of paper mulch is hindered. In this paper, in order to improve the hydrophobic performance of paper mulch, we successfully prepared superhydrophobic silicon dioxide/paper mulch by simple, efficient and environmentally friendly solution immersion method without the introduction of adhesive. The contact Angle and rolling Angle between the prepared super hydrophobic paper mulch and water are 156.4° and 1.8°, respectively. The water drop is easy to roll on its surface, and has excellent water drop bouncing performance, which can play an excellent water-repellent function. Studies have shown that the superhydrophobicity of silicon dioxide/paper mulch is less affected by its surface roughness, mainly because the surface covered by a layer of silicon dioxide reduces the surface energy of the paper mulch, and the silicon dioxide on the surface of the paper mulch is enough to reduce the damage of aging on the paper mulch. In addition, the decrease in the contact angle of the SiO2/paper mulch and the increase in the rolling angle after aging are due to the decrease in the amount of SiO2 adhesion on the surface of the paper mulch and the increase in the degree of exposure of fiber bundles. Studies have found that the superhydrophobic paper mulch can reduce the influence of its own aging on its rolling angle after being subjected to friction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resistance to chemotherapy drugs is a major factor affecting the surgical outcome and prognosis of osteosarcoma patients. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) play an important role in tumor resistance to chemotherapy. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the role and mechanism of circRNA circ-chitinase 3-like 1.2 (CHI3L1.2) in resistance to cisplatin chemotherapy in osteosarcoma. We found that circ-CHI3L1.2 levels were higher in cisplatin-resistant cells than in their parent cells. circ-CHI3L1.2 knockdown decreased the half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of cisplatin and the expression levels of P-glycoprotein (P-gp), multidrug-resistance protein 1 (MRP1), and glutathione-S-transferase Pi1 (GSTP1), and promoted apoptosis of cisplatin-resistant osteosarcoma cells. In addition, circ-CHI3L1.2 knockdown induced mesenchymal to epithelial transition (MET) and suppressed cell migration and invasion. The competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) mechanism indicated that circ-CHI3L1.2 targets the micro-RNA (miR)-340-5p-lysophosphatidic acid acyltransferase β (LPAATβ) axis, and inhibition of miR-340-5p alleviates the effect of circ-CHI3L1.2 knockdown. In conclusion, circ-CHI3L1.2 levels were increased in cisplatin-resistant osteosarcoma cells and circ-CHI3L1.2 knockdown sensitized cisplatin-resistant osteosarcoma cells to cisplatin through the miR-340-5p-LPAATβ axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) is the primary causative agent of porcine circovirus-associated diseases in swine, the most common of which are postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome (PMWS) and porcine dermatitis and nephropathy syndrome (PDNS). To investigate the prevalence and genetic diversity of PCV2 in Hebei Province, Northern China, from 2016 to 2019, a total of 448 suspected cases of PCV2 infection were studied, and 179 samples were positive for PCV2. A pathological and histopathological examination suggested PCV2 to be cause of the observed lesions. Phylogenetic analysis showed that four genotypes were prevalent in Hebei Province: PCV2a, 2b, 2d, and 2e. Analysis of PCV2 strains using RDP4 and SimPlot showed that there were genetic recombination events among PCV2 strains in Hebei Province. A total of 3284 serum samples were screened by ELISA, and the positive rate of PCV2 antibodies was 73.9% (2428/3284). This study provides a scientific reference for the prevention and treatment of PCV2 in Hebei Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve wideband scaled measurement of low observable object scattering characteristics, the scaling design of the related absorbing material has been within the scope of researchers over recent years. In this work, a tunable material was designed to meet the wideband and high-precision requirements for scaling measurements. The material was produced using magnetorheological (MR) fluid, composed of silicon rubber and flaky carbonyl iron particles (CIPs), and an electric magnet. According to the results, applying the magnetic field made the CIPs in the MR fluid aligned with respect to different parallelism depth. Furthermore, the larger the field strength, the lower the permittivity and the higher the permeability. Based on the Maxwell–Garnett mixing rule, two parameters could be interpolated within a frequency range of 18–40 GHz. Changing the magnetic field resulted in the tunable absorbing property of the composite at frequencies of 2–40 GHz and the adjustable reflection loss in the region of −22 dB to –3 dB. While the thickness of the full-size absorbing coating was 0.7–0.9 mm at 10 GHz and a scale factor of 4, the designed material was as thick as 0.8 mm, and the average radar cross-section (RCS) error of coating plates was less than 0.5 dB. In addition, the scaled frequency band could be tunable within a range of 36–40 GHz as the absorber was as thin as 2 mm, and the mean RCS error was found to be less than 0.6 dB. Therefore, the MR fluid was shown to be a promising candidate for scaled measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chatter has a detrimental effect on the milling process, which makes the chatter stability prediction very critical in milling. This paper presents a new semi-discretization method (SDM) based on predictor-corrector scheme to predict the stability of milling process. Firstly, the dynamic of the milling system is modelled by delay-differential equation (DDE), and the forced vibration duration is divided into many parts. Secondly, the DDE is integrated on the small time interval. The time-delay term and the periodic coefficient matrix are taken as an operator and approximated by second-order interpolation polynomial. And then, the state transition matrix is constructed based on predictor-corrector scheme. The proposed method is validated by comparing it with the benchmark. In general, the proposed method is superior compared with the benchmark in terms of the rate of convergence. Besides, the proposed method is also a robust method. The computational efficiency of the proposed method is proved to be good. For a one degree of freedom (1-DOF) milling system under full immersion condition, the stability lobe diagrams obtained by the proposed method are much closer to the reference than those obtained by the PCHDM and UNIM, especially in the peak of the lobes. The proposed method also can be used to predict the stability for a 2-DOF milling system accurately. It is also indicated from this study that the prediction accuracy of the SDM can be improved by combining the predictor-corrector scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering scaffolds to augment the repair of hard-to-soft multitissue musculoskeletal tissue units, such as bone-tendon, to simultaneously support tissue healing and functional movement has had limited success. Overcoming this challenge will require not only precise spatial control of bone- and tendon-like biomechanical properties, but also consideration of the resultant biomechanical cues, as well as the embedded biochemical cues imparted by these scaffolds. Here, we report on the effects of a spatially engineered combination of stiffness and growth factor (GF) cues to control bone-tendon-like differentiation in vitro and tissue formation in vivo. This was achieved using mechanically graded, bone- and tendon-like QHM polyurethane (QHM: Q: Quadrol; H: hexamethylene diisocyanate; M: methacrylic anhydride) scaffolds selectively biopatterned with osteogenic bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) and tenogenic fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2). First, material characterization, including porosity, surface roughness, contact angle, and microindentation measurements, was performed. Second, in vitro studies demonstrated that increased material stiffness promoted GF-mediated osteoblast differentiation and reduced tenocyte differentiation. Sustained GF exposure masked this stiffness effect. Third, in vivo studies involving subcutaneous implantation of mechanically graded and biochemically patterned QHM scaffolds (composed of these bone- and tendon-promoting GFs biopatterned on biphasic bone and tendon biomechanically mimicking regions) in mice demonstrated spatial control of bone- and tendon-like tissue formation. Altogether, these data provide new insights for future engineering of scaffolds to augment hard-to-soft multitissue repair. Schematic illustration showing our overall approach, studies performed, and envisioned application. Our strategy combines biomechanical and biochemical cues from a mechanically graded biomaterial and GF biopatterning, respectively, to spatially control bone- and tendon-like differentiation. Here, experiments (i) characterized our biomaterial, (ii) investigated the interplay between biomechanical and biochemical cues in vitro, and (iii) assessed the ability of our GF-biopatterned and biphasic biomaterial to spatially control bone- and tendon-like tissue formation in vivo. The envisioned goal of this study is to develop a biomaterial for treating large-to-massive tendon injuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vanadium phosphorus oxide (VPO) catalysts promoted by phosphorus-based ionic liquids (ILs) as structure directing agent and promoters have been innovatively synthesized and investigated for selective oxidation of n-butane to maleic anhydride (MA). The catalytic performances showed that the IL addition notably improved the n-butane conversion and MA selectivity, during which the optimized 3%IL-VPO catalyst exhibited the maximum MA yield of 59.2% that is much better than that of blank VPO with 49.4% MA yield under the same reaction conditions. XRD, FI-IR, Raman, SEM, TG, BET, XPS and H2-TPR techniques were utilized combinatorically to elaborate the synergistic effect of cations and anions of ILs. Results demonstrated that IL-cations oriented synthesis of VPO precursor showing a vertically intercrossed slice structure morphology having smaller lamellar thickness. Correspondingly, it notably enhanced the specific surface area of the VPO catalysts and exposed the more active surface of (VO)2P2O7 after activation. Meanwhile, IL-anions as promoters largely modulated the P/V ratio, valence state of V and oxygen species amounts on the surface of VPO catalyst, etc. All of these influence factors were subsequently discussed in detail and correlated to the catalytic performance of VPO catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study aimed to investigate the longitudinal changes and risk factors of anxiety and depression, as well as their values in predicting major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) occurrence in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients. Methods: Every 3 months until 36 months (M36), 190 newly diagnosed CHD patients were consecutively recruited and followed up. Anxiety and depression were assessed using hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) at each follow-up timepoint. Meanwhile, MACE occurrence was recorded. Results: Anxiety occurrence sustainably increased from 42.6% at baseline to 51.1% at M36; meanwhile, depression occurrence also sustainably elevated from 33.3% at baseline to 43.7% at M36. Then, independent risk factors for anxiety and depression at baseline/1 year/2 years/3 years were assessed, which revealed that female, diabetes, and higher Gensini score independently predicted anxiety occurrence at each time point, while single/divorced/widowed status independently predicted anxiety occurrence at some specific time points; regarding depression, female, single/divorced/widowed status, diabetes and higher Gensini score independently predicted depression occurrence at each time point, whereas higher education duration, family history of CHD and age > 60 years only predicted depression at some individual time points. Interestingly, baseline/1-year depression were correlated with increased accumulating MACE occurrence, while no correlation of baseline/1-year /2-year/3-year anxiety or 2-year/3-year depression with accumulating MACE occurrence was found. Conclusion: Anxiety and depression are common and progress sustainably with female, diabetes, and higher Gensini score as their independent risk factors; meanwhile, depression but not anxiety may predict increased accumulating MACE occurrence in CHD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To assess the effectiveness of tricortical iliac crest allografts with anterolateral instrumentation after single-stage surgery for thoracic and lumbar spinal tuberculosis (TB). Fifty-six patients with thoracic and lumbar spinal TB underwent single-stage anterior radical debridement, interbody fusion with tricortical iliac crest allografts and anterolateral single rod instrumentation. All patients were given 18 months of antituberculosis chemotherapy. The patients were followed up regularly, and their clinical manifestations, roentgenogram results, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and liver function test were the results to be concerned. Radiographs were analysed before surgery, immediately after surgery, and at the final follow-up examination. Mean follow-up period was 37.5 months in 52 patients, and 4 patients were lost to follow-up. No patients had superficial wound infections, and all the incisions healed within 2 weeks. No graft fracture, collapse, or sliding was observed. The average bony fusion time was 10.6 months. Bony fusion was observed in all 52 patients within 18 months. The average degrees of kyphotic correction loss for thoracic and lumbar spine were 6.71° and 2.78° respectively. Although it took a long time to achieve solid fusion, tricortical iliac crest allografts were found to be convenient and safe to be used in spinal TB surgery. They may be effective options for interbody fusion, deformity correction and correction maintenance with anterolateral single rod instrumentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has gained worldwide attentions as it provides the service of collecting real-time traffic information to improve the road safety. The IoV users can offload their computing tasks to the edge computing devices (ECDs) for low latency execution and the cloud can be engaged to process big data with sufficient computing resources. Though galactic convenience brought by the IoV cloud-edge computing system, it remains a challenge to manage the resource of ECDs by reducing the energy and time consumption while avoiding the situation of overload or underload of the ECDs to maintain the system-stability. Moreover, during the movement of the vehicles, the computing tasks and data may be uploaded to different ECDs and the data continuity may be destroyed. In this paper, a multi-objective computation offloading method (MOC) for IoV in cloud-edge computing is proposed to deal with the challenges above. A vehicle-to-vehicle communication-based route obtaining algorithm is designed first. Then, in order to ensure the trustworth of the IoV data, which ECD to upload the computing tasks to is selected. Under the case that all ECDs are overloaded, the computation offloading between ECDs and cloud is considered. In addition, non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm III is adopted to realize the multi-objective optimization of decreasing the load balancing rate and reduce the energy consumption in ECDs and shorten the time during processing the computing tasks. Furthermore, we employ the simple additive weighting and multiple criteria decision making to evaluate the solutions of our proposed method. Finally, experimental evaluations are conducted to validate the efficiency and effectiveness of our proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many clinical studies have shown a satisfactory clinical efficacy using bone cement-augmented pedicle screw in osteoporotic spine, however, few studies have involved the application of this type of screw in lumbar spondylolisthesis. This study aims to investigate the mid-term clinical outcome of bone cement-injectable cannulated pedicle screw (CICPS) in lumbar spondylolisthesis with osteoporosis. From 2011 to 2015, twenty-three patients with transforminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) using CICPS for lumbar spondylolisthesis were enrolled in the study. Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) were used to evaluate faunctional recovery and physical pain; and operation time, blood loss and hospitalization time were recorded, respectively. Radiograph and computed tomography of lumbar spine was performed to assess loss of the intervertebral disc space height, fixation loosening, and the rate of bony fusion. The average follow-up time of 23 patients was 22.5 ± 10.2 months (range, 6–36 months). According to VAS and ODI scores, postoperative pain sensation and activity function were significantly improved (p < 0.05). The height of the intervertebral disc space was reduced by 0.4 ± 1.1 mm, and the bone graft fusion rate was 100%. No cases of internal fixation loosening or screw pullout was observed. CICPS using cement augmentation may suggest as a feasible surgical technique in osteoporotic patients with lumbar spondylolisthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) has recently been indicated as a novel method for treating obesity. However, the optimal stimulation parameters were unknown and mechanisms were poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of VNS on food intake and body weight in diet-induced obesity (DIO) rats and its possible mechanism involving autonomic functions and gut hormones. Methods: Ten control rats and 16 DIO rats were chronically implanted with one pair of electrodes in the subdiaphragmatic vagal nerve. VNS with different stimulation parameters and sham-VNS were performed in control rats. In a chronic study, 8 DIO rats were applied with VNS and another 8 DIO rats were treated with sham-VNS for 4 weeks. Food intake, body weight, gastric emptying, heart rate variability (HRV), and gut hormones were evaluated. Results: In DIO rats, the food intake (p < 0.001) and body weight (p < 0.001) were significantly decreased in the VNS group, compared with the sham-VNS group. VNS decreased the sympathovagal ratio (p = 0.003) and increased vagal activity (p = 0.032) assessed from the spectral analysis of HRV. It also increased plasma levels of glucagon-like peptide-1 (p = 0.012), polypeptide YY (p = 0.008), and pancreatic polypeptide (p = 0.008) in DIO rats. Physiologically, VNS delayed solid gastric emptying (p < 0.001) and increased gastric volume (p = 0.004). Conclusion: VNS with appropriate parameters reduced food intake and body weight by delaying gastric emptying mediated via the enhancement of vagal activity and release of anorexigenic hormones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diffusion adaptive networks (DANs) have many applications such as signal processing, mobile wireless sensor network and the internet of things (IoT). Unlike the classical centralized networks, a DAN uses the information exchange among local neighbors to solve global problems. The performance of the DAN highly depends on the combination matrix policies, which raises the issue of the optimal selection of the combination matrix. However, traditional combination policies focus on either the steady-state error or the convergence speed. Inspired by the solution of minimizing the mean square deviation (MSD) of the DAN, this paper proposes two efficient adaptive combination policies: 1) relative-instantaneous-error combination policy and 2) relative-deviation combination policy. These two policies are related to the inverse of noise by different metrics. Computer simulations verify that the proposed combination policies outperform the existing combination rules in either steady-state error or convergence rate in various noise environments. Finally, we apply the two combined rules to the collaborative target-tracking problem and achieve expected results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic Matrix (TM) estimation is important for network management and traffic engineering. However, current estimation methods are insufficient in estimation accuracy and measurement cost. In this paper, by using the flow measurement capability in Software Defined Networks (SDN), we propose an Online Information Gain Maximization based SDN traffic matrix estimation method IGME. IGME uses the information gain metric to determine which flows are most informative, and then constructs the measurement flow set iteratively until the accuracy requirement is satisfied or the measurement resource constraint is reached. The experiment results on three Internet measurement datasets show that IGME can improve the estimation accuracy only by consuming a small amount of measurement resource. Besides, the iteration feature of IGME provides a means to dynamically adjust the measurement flow selection choice, so as to adapt to the time-varying characteristics of the network traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a complicated disease with several variants caused by different cellular and molecular mechanisms. The characterization of this heterogeneity supports the definition that the disease consists of many endotypes, such as eosinophilic and neutrophilic CRS, and so on. This study aimed to explore group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) in neutrophilic CRS without nasal polyps (CRSsNP) and with nasal polyps (CRSwNP), and evaluate ILC2s across characteristics of the disease.Methods: Nasal biopsy samples were obtained from normal subjects or subjects with CRSsNP or CRSwNP during surgery. ILC2s were sorted and purified as CD45+Lin−CD127+CD4−CD8−CRTH2+CD161+ cells through flow cytometry, and were compared among three groups of subjects. Then, these samples were cultured in vitro, and inflammatory factors were assessed in tissue cultures. After that, human recombinant (rm) interleukin (IL)-33 or IL-17 were administered into the cultures, and we again examined relevant inflammatory substances.Results: ILC2s were upregulated in neutrophilic CRSsNP and CRSwNP patients, and there were no statistical differences between them. Eosinophil cation protein (ECP), myeloperoxidase (MPO), IL-25, IL-33, IL-5, IL-13, interferon (IFN)-γ and IL-17 were increased in the cultures, however, only concentrations of MPO, IFN-γ and IL-17 were enhanced in CRSwNP tissues compared to CRSsNP ones. After administration of rmIL-33, ECP, IL-5 and IL-13 were all increased in tissues from CRSsNP and CRSwNP patients, however, there were no significant differences between them. Finally, we evaluated concentrations of several above inflammatory factors after the treatment of rmIL-17, and found that MPO and IFN-γ were enhanced in these two phenotypes of patients, and were elevated significantly in CRSwNP tissue cultures.Conclusion: These findings show that ILC2s might be inactivated in neutrophilic CRSsNP and CRSwNP based on this pilot study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to broaden the absorption band and maintain a high absorption coefficient, a structural absorber was designed based on rubber-added carbonyl iron particles (CIPs) and polylactic acid added carbon fiber (PLA-CF). The hybrid-patterned composite was fabricated using three-dimensional printing and a conventional compression molding method. The electromagnetic parameters of the CIPs and PLA-CF were tested with a vector network analyzer. The effective permittivity and permeability of the layer element were derived as the two parameters were set in commercial software. Then the parameters of the elements with different CIP content were calculated based on the Maxwell-Garnett mixing rule and the interpolate method. Finally, the reflection loss (RL) and shielding effectiveness (SE) were optimized using a genetic algorithm. The results indicate that structural composites with 1.82 mm thickness exhibit excellent absorption (minimum RL − 15.18 dB) in the 8-14 GHz range band, while the SE was larger than 10 dB and RL less than − 10 dB when the thickness was 7.92 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Person re-identification means retrieving a same person in large amounts of images among disjoint camera views. An effective and robust similarity measure between a person image pair plays an important role in the re-identification tasks. In this work, we propose a new metric learning method based on least squares for person re-identification. Specifically, the similar training images pairs are used to learn a linear transformation matrix by being projected to finite discrete discriminant points using regression model; then, the metric matrix can be deduced by solving least squares problem with a closed form solution. We call it discriminant analytical least squares (DALS) metric. In addition, we develop the incremental learning scheme of DALS, which is particularly valuable in model retraining when given additional samples. Furthermore, DALS could be effectively kernelized to further improve the matching performance. Extensive experiments on the VIPeR, GRID, PRID450S and CUHK01 datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phosphorus slag (PS) can be used as a supplementary cementitious material due to its potential hydrating activity. However, its usage has been limited by its adverse effects, including prolonged setting and lowered early-stage strength. In this study, we achieved ultrafine granulation of PS using wetmilling (reducing d50 to as low as 2.02 μm) in order to increase its activity, and examined the physico-chemical properties of the resulting materials, including particle-size distribution, slurry pH, zeta potential, and activity index, as well as how their replacement level and granularity affect the setting time and mechanical performance of PS-cement mixture systems. The results suggested that as the granularity increases, there are significant boosts in the uniformity of particle sizes, slurry pH, and activity index, and the effects on cement paste, including setting times, and early- and late-stage strengths, are significantly mitigated. When d50=2.02 μm, the slurry becomes strongly alkaline (pH=12.16) compared to the initial d50=20.75 μm (pH=9.49), and the activity is increased by 73%; when used at 40% replacement, the PS-cement mixture system can reach a 28 d compressive strength of 93.2 MPa, 36% higher than that of the pure cement control group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A powerful platform of digital brain is proposed using crowd wisdom for brain research, based on the computational artificial intelligence model of synthesis reasoning and multi-source analogical generating. The design of the platform aims to make it a comprehensive brain database, a brain phantom generator, a brain knowledge base, and an intelligent assistant for research on neurological and psychiatric diseases and brain development. Using big data, crowd wisdom, and high performance computers may significantly enhance the capability of the platform. Preliminary achievements along this track are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The improved ectopic osteogenesis of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated antigen 4-Ig-modified bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs-CTLA4) has been demonstrated but the mechanisms involved remain to be determined. The extracellular matrix (ECM) has recently been reported to play a vital role in bone formation and periostin (POSTN) has been suggested as a key member in constructing the ECM in bone tissue. We found that POSTN expression in the MSCs-CTLA4 group is significantly enhanced compared with that in the MSCs group, not only in tissue-engineered bone (TEB) with femur heterotopic transplantation in vivo but also under the immune activation condition in vitro. This ectopic osteogenesis effect is in accordance with POSTN expression. We also found that the soluble POSTN treatment up-regulates osteogenic marker expression in MSCs, including runt-related transcription factor 2, collagen 1, osteocalcin, osterix, and alkaline phosphatase and calcium nodule formation. These effects are diminished when the soluble POSTN is neutralized. Our results demonstrate that POSTN promotes the osteogenic differentiation of MSCs and that CTLA4 enhances the ectopic osteogenesis of MSCs-CTLA4-based TEB, potentially by maintaining POSTN expression in xenotransplantation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enhanced osteogenesis of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) modified by expression of cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA4) has been shown in previous studies, but the mechanism remains unknown. Here we found that the bone repair effect of CTLA4-modified MSCs in demineralized bone matrix (DBM) in a rabbit radius defect model was significantly better than that observed for unmodified MSCs in DBM or DBM alone, and the periostin (POSTN) expression in CTLA4-modified MSCs was significantly higher than that in unmodified MSCs both in vivo and in vitro. In addition, we also found that treatment of CTLA4-modified MSCs with soluble POSTN could inhibit the glycogen synthase kinase-3β activity and increase β-catenin expression through up-regulation of lipoprotein-related protein-6 phosphorylation to promote osteogenic differentiation, but blocking of integrin αvβ3, a receptor of POSTN, could suppress these effects. Our data demonstrated that POSTN expressed in response to CTLA4 can promote the osteogenesis of xenotransplanted MSCs through interaction with Wnt/β-catenin pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11280-022-01011-8. B Correction to: World Wide Web b https://doi.org/10.1007/s11280-022-01011-8 The original version of this article, unfortunately, contained mistakes. Correction to: Task offloading for vehicular edge computing with edge-cloud cooperation. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Previous studies indicated that P2Y1 and P2Y2 receptors, which are widely distributed in the enteric nervous system, are related to pain, while TRPV1 may contribute to visceral pain and hypersensitivity states in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Other studies showed that ATP activates the capsaicin-sensitive TRPV1 channel via P2Y receptors.Aim: To detect the expression of P2Y1, P2Y2, and TRPV1 receptors in diarrhea-predominant IBS (IBS-D) patients and analyze any correlations with abdominal pain and to investigate interactions between P2Y receptors and the TRPV1 receptor in IBS-D patients.Methods: Rectosigmoid biopsies were collected from patients with IBS-D (n = 36) and healthy controls (n = 15). Abdominal pain was scored using a 10-cm visual analogue scale. Expression levels of P2Y1, P2Y2, and TRPV1 receptors in rectosigmoid biopsies were determined by real-time PCR and double-labeling immunofluorescence with specific antibodies.Results: Both mRNA and protein expression levels of P2Y1, P2Y2, and TRPV1 receptors were increased in IBS-D compared with controls. Of these receptors, P2Y2 expression correlated with the maximum pain scores (p = 0.02, r = 0.63, Spearman correlation) in IBS-D patients. However, no relationships were detected between P2Y receptors and the TRPV1 receptor.Conclusion: In the present study, we identified an increased expression of P2Y1 and P2Y2 receptors in the rectosigmoid mucosa of IBS-D patients, and P2Y2 correlated with abdominal pain. Furthermore, we identified an increase in TRPV1 expression; however, there were no correlations found between P2Y receptors and the TRPV1 receptor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epoxy adhesive as an engineering material has more and more applications in industry. But to date, water resistance of the adhesive is still a very difficult problem to be solved. By mimicking mussel adhesive proteins, dopamine (DA) was applied as one of the two curing agents of epoxy adhesive to improve the water resistance of the adhesive, and the other was phenethylamine (PEA). The effects of the contents of DA on both adhesion property and water absorption of epoxy/PEA/DA adhesives were investigated in detail. The results of lap shear test (LST) showed that the adhesion strength of the epoxy adhesives after the introduction of proper amount of DA was still up to 7 MPa even after the sample was immersed in water for over 230 days. And then the effects of metal ions Zn(II) and Fe(III) on the adhesion properties of the epoxy adhesives were also further studied. It was found that the adhesion strength of the adhesives, when the content of DA was no more than 5 wt%, can be further increased through the complexation of a small quantity of ferric ions with DA. The coordination mechanism of catechol with Fe(III) ions in the system has been investigated by both UV/Vis spectra and XRD curves. The results testified that more bis-catecholate complexes form at high DA: Fe ratios and thus the adhesives have higher cohesion strength for having more regular structures after curing. In a word, the introductions of proper amount of DA and metal ion endow the epoxy adhesive better water resistance and excellent adhesion properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interspecific hybrids often produce extensive gametic variation due to poor chromosome pairing and unbalanced chromosome segregation. To elucidate the influence of interspecific hybridisation on pollen variation in Populus L., we compared pollen size among three P. deltoides Marsh. clones, two P. nigra L. clones, and three P. deltoides × P. nigra hybrids and investigated the cytological mechanism of pollen variation by observing meiotic chromosome behaviour and microtubules. The frequency of shrunken and unstainable pollen grains was higher in the hybrids (15.54-57.28 %) than in the non-hybrid clones (0.98-4.82 %). The distribution of stained pollen size ranged more broadly in the hybrids than in the non-hybrids, suggesting that hybridisation increases pollen size variation. Precocious chromosome migration and lagging chromosomes were common in the hybrids, indicating poor chromosome pairing. Some micronuclei formed minispindles in metaphase II and emanated secondary nuclear-based radial microtubule systems in telophase II, undergoing cytokinesis to develop into microcytes in the meiotic products. Eliminated micronuclei might result in the formation of aneuploid pollen. The frequency of sporads with microcytes was higher in the hybrids (3.19-11.08 %) than in the non-hybrids (0-0.94 %). Disoriented spindles, including fused and tripolar spindles, led to the formation of dyads and triads, contributing to unreduced pollen production. These results provide new insights into the gametic variation of Populus interspecific hybrids and reveal several 2n pollen producers, which will be valuable in polyploid breeding of the section Aigeiros Duby. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent forensic studies have revealed quite a few construction site catastrophes are associated with failure of temporary structures (e.g., collapse of formworks, scaffoldings, etc.). This is particularly crucial for those located in dense urban areas where the failure of a temporary structure not only impacts the site itself but may also damage adjacent structures and cause injuries and casualties of passers-by. In this paper, the work of evaluating the optimum feature detection and matching algorithm is reported, which is the key in realizing a real-time visual sensing-based surveillance method in order to monitor the integrity and safety of on-site temporary structures. A series of experiments are designed and conducted to test three algorithms: population-based intelligent digital image correlation (DIC), David Lowe's Scale-invariant feature transform, and Hessian matrix-based speeded-up robust features. In these experiments, synthetic images through 2D geometrical translation, rotation, deformation, and illumination changes are generated to provide the sample data and ground truths. As the experiment output, the accuracy and efficiency of these algorithms are measured and compared with each other. Analyses including feasibility of interest point localization with specific regions and the error estimation with respect to real-world distances are conducted. The results show that the DIC algorithm holds the most promise to be implemented in structural monitoring, but several challenges still remain, which call for efforts to further improvement of the technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Haze formation in beer is a trait closely related to beer quality and it is largely affected by the haze active proteins (HAPs) in barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.). Up to date, little is known about the genetics of HAPs and relevant genes. In this study, we obtained the beer samples from a Franklin/Yerong double haploid (DH) population and the two parents using micro-malting and micro-brewing, and determined tannin-related HAPs. It was found that there was a wide difference in HAPs among all lines of the DH population, and Yerong had a higher HAPs content than Franklin. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis identified five QTLs associated with HAPs in beer, being located on chromosomes 1HS, 5HL and 6HS, respectively. The loci QHAP1.FrYe- 1H and QHAP2.FrYe- 1H were overlapped in the short arm of chromosome 1H, and they controlled HAP1 and HAP2, respectively. Moreover, the candidate genes were also predicted based on published whole barley genome sequence and corresponding gene annotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]