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CD74 was initially thought to participate mainly in antigen presentation as an MHC class II chaperone. Recent studies have shown that CD74 plays an important role within the cell and throughout the immune system in a wide spectrum of neoplasms. However, the role of CD74 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains elusive. In this study, HCC tissues from Zhongshan Hospital and data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were obtained and analyzed. Immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry, and single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) were performed to detect the characteristics of CD74+ cells and explore their impact on the tumor microenvironment (TME) of HCC. Our data revealed that stromal CD74+ cell enrichment was associated with favorable prognosis in patients with HCC. CD74 was abundant in a large portion of HCC specimens and prominently distributed on stromal macrophages. scRNA-seq data also indicated that the pathways related to immune response were significantly upregulated in CD74+ macrophages. High infiltration of CD74+ macrophages was associated with increased infiltration of CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) with enhanced effector functions in HCC. Besides, blocking CD74 weakened the antitumor activity and proliferation ability of CD8+ CTLs in HCC. Our findings highlight the critical role of CD74 in HCC. New drugs and antibodies targeting CD74 may be effective strategies for HCC therapy.

This report derives the exact solutions for the problem of a magneto-electro-elastic cylinder with a penny-shaped and embedded crack subjected to transient thermal load. Thermal cracking is analysed in the theoretical framework of linear magneto-electro-thermo-elasticity. The heat conduction equation for a magneto-electro-thermo-elastic cylinder with a finite size is solved using the standard method of separation variables. The coupling magneto-electro-thermo-elastic fields are determined in a stationary case via the Hankel integral transform. Based on Abel’s integral equation and the dual integral equation, the mathematical formulations for the permeable crack conditions are derived. Solutions to the elastic, electric, and magnetic intensity factors are obtained. Due to the explicitness of these solutions, they are very interesting for the design and analysis of magneto-electro-thermo-elastic composites.

Microstructures of Cu–4.7Sn (%) alloys prepared by two-phase zone continuous casting (TZCC) technology contain large columnar grains and small grains. A compound grain structure, composed of a large columnar grain and at least one small grain within it, is observed and called as grain-covered grains (GCGs). Distribution of small grains, their numbers and sizes as well as numbers and sizes of columnar grains were characterized quantitatively by metallographic microscope. Back propagation (BP) artificial neural network was employed to build a model to predict microstructures produced by different processing parameters. Inputs of the model are five processing parameters, which are temperatures of melt, mold and cooling water, speed of TZCC, and cooling distance. Outputs of the model are nine microstructure quantities, which are numbers of small grains within columnar grains, at the boundaries of the columnar grains, or at the surface of the alloy, the maximum and the minimum numbers of small grains within a columnar grain, numbers of columnar grains with or without small grains, and sizes of small grains and columnar grains. The model yields precise prediction, which lays foundation for controlling microstructures of alloys prepared by TZCC.

We propose a novel quantum dialogue protocol by using the generalized Bell states and entanglement swapping. In the protocol, a sequence of ordered two-qutrit entangled states acts as quantum information channel for exchanging secret messages directly and simultaneously. Besides, a secret key string is shared between the communicants to overcome information leakage. Different from those previous information leakage-resistant quantum dialogue protocols, the particles, composed of one of each pair of entangled states, are transmitted only one time in the proposed protocol. Security analysis shows that our protocol can overcome information leakage and resist several well-known attacks. Moreover, the efficiency of our scheme is acceptable.

The technologies of brush plating and dealloying were used to treat the surface of rolled copper foil. Zn–Ni and Sn–Zn alloy coatings were prepared. The laws of plating solutions composition and technological parameters on coatings quality were investigated. The results show that with the decreasing of main elements mass ratio or increasing of brush time, thickness and corrosion resistance of Zn–Ni alloy coating increase. With the increasing of brush plating voltage or time, surface roughness of Sn–Zn alloy coating decreases. Turning up brush plating voltage could raise deposition rate of sub-tin and zinc ions and refine surface grains of coating. The angle of dealloying has the significant effect on the roughness of dealloyed Sn–Zn alloy coating. As the dealloying angle increases, surface roughness of dealloyed Sn–Zn alloy coating increases. The contribution of dealloying time to surface roughness of treated coating is obviously larger than that of corrosion solution concentration.

In this paper, we present an innovative method of double balanced differential configuration, in which two adjacent single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) from the same wafer are configured as the first balanced structure, and the output signal from the first balanced stage is subtracted by the attenuated gate driving signal as the second balanced stage. The compact device is cooled down to 236 K to be characterized. At a gate repetition rate of 400 MHz and a 1 550 nm laser repetition rate of 10 MHz, the maximum photon detection efficiency of 13.5% can be achieved. The dark count rate is about 10−4 ns−1 at photon detection efficiency of 10%. The afterpulsing probability decreases with time exponentially. It is shown that this configuration is effective to discriminate the ultra-weak avalanche signal in high speed gating rates.

Copper foils with gradient structure in thickness direction and different roughnesses on two surfaces were fabricated by double rolling. The two surface morphologies of double-rolled copper foils are quite different, and the surface roughness values are 61 and 1095 nm, respectively. The roughness value of matt surface can meet the requirement for bonding the resin matrix with copper foils used for flexible printed circuit boards, thus may omit traditional roughening treatment; the microstructure of double-rolled copper foils demonstrates an obviously asymmetric gradient feature. From bright surface to matt surface in thickness direction, the average grain size first increases from 2.3 to 7.4 μm and then decreases to 3.6 μm; compared with conventional rolled copper foils, the double-rolled copper foils exhibit a remarkably increased bending fatigue life, and the increased range is about 16.2%.

One isolate from bark beetle galleries was identified and characterized using morphological and molecular methodology, and described and illustrated based on these data. These results identified a new species distribution record in China for Neoscytalidium novaehollandiae. Species morphology and micrographs are provided in this paper. The specimens are stored in Northeast Forestry University.

A deformation measurement method of interframe displacement was proposed in this paper. By online monitoring the shape dimensions of both the deformation zone and its adjacent zone by machine vision, the initial and terminative positions of deformation were dynamically identified during dieless drawing, and the global monitoring and online closed-loop control of the deformation zone were achieved. The dieless drawing process was systematically carried out on NiTi shape memory alloy wires. It is shown that the deformation measurement method of interframe displacement can track the axial displacement of the wires, but this cannot be achieved by traditional machine vision. The initial and terminative positions of deformation can be accurately identified by this method. The proposed rectifying control technology can effectively decrease the wire diameter fluctuation during dieless drawing, that is, the standard deviation of the wire diameter fluctuation could be decreased from 0.30 to 0.08 mm after three passes of dieless drawing, indicating that the control system has a good rectifying ability.

Copper cladding aluminum (CCA) rods with a diameter of 30 mm and a sheath thickness of 3 mm were fabricated by horizontal core-filling continuous casting (HCFC) technology. The microstructure and morphology, distribution of chemical components, and phase composition of the interface between Cu and Al were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). The formation mechanism of the interface and the effects of key processing parameters, e.g., aluminum casting temperature, secondary cooling intensity, and mean withdrawing speed on the interfacial microstructure and bonding strength were investigated. The results show that the CCA rod has a multilayered interface, which is composed of three sublayers—sublayer I is Cu9Al4 layer, sublayer II is CuAl2 layer, and sublayer III is composed of α-Al/CuAl2 pseudo eutectic. The thickness of sublayer III, which occupies 92 to 99 pct of the total thickness of the interface, is much larger than the thicknesses of sublayers I and II. However, the interfacial bonding strength is dominated by the thicknesses of sublayers I and II; i.e., the bonding strength decreases with the rise of the thicknesses of sublayers I and II. When raising the aluminum casting temperature, the total thickness of the interface increases while the thicknesses of sublayers I and II decrease and the bonding strength increases. Either augmenting the secondary cooling intensity or increasing the mean withdrawing speed results in the decrease in both total thickness of the interface and the thicknesses of sublayers I and II, and an increase in the interfacial bonding strength. The CCA rod with the largest interfacial bonding strength of 67.9 ± 0.5 MPa was fabricated under such processing parameters as copper casting temperature 1503 K (1230 °C), aluminum casting temperature 1063 K (790 °C), primary cooling water flux 600 L/h, secondary cooling water flux 700 L/h, and mean withdrawing speed 87 mm/min. The total thickness of the interface of the CCA rod fabricated under the preceding processing parameters is about 75 μm, while the thicknesses of sublayers I and II are about 1.1 and 0.1 μm, respectively.

Tin bronze wires were produced by dieless drawing. The effects of heating power, the distance between cooler and heater as well as feeding speed on the diameter, the temperature field, and the deformation region profile of the wires were investigated. The results indicated that each processing parameter exhibited both lower and upper limits of stable deformation based on the criterion of stable deformation with the diameter fluctuation of ±0.05 mm. Both the temperature and its gradient of the deformation region increased with increasing heating power under stable deformation, but decreased with an increase in feeding speed. As the distance between cooler and heater increased, the temperature of the deformation region increased and the slope of the deformation region profile decreased. The processing limit map of stable deformation exhibited a closed curve and the unstable deformation consisted of wire breakage and diameter fluctuations.

The back-propagation neural (BPN) network was proposed to model the relationship between the parameters of the dieless drawing process and the microstructures of the QSi3-1 silicon bronze alloy. Combined with image processing techniques, grain sizes and grain-boundary morphologies were respectively determined by the quantitative metallographic method and the fractal theory. The outcomes obtained show that the deformed microstructures exhibit typical fractal features, and the boundaries can be characterized quantitatively by fractal dimensions. With the temperature of 600–800°C and the drawing speed of 0.67–1.00 mm·s−1, either a lower temperature or a higher speed will cause a smaller grain size together with an elevated fractal dimension. The developed model can be capable for forecasting the microstructure evolution with a minimum error. The average relative errors between the predicted results and the experimental values of grain size and fractal dimension are 3.9% and 0.9%, respectively.

Copper cladding aluminum (CCA) rods with a diameter of 30 mm and a sheath thickness of 3 mm were fabricated by horizontal core-filling continuous casting (HCFC) technology. The effects of key processing parameters, such as the length of the mandrel tube of composite mold, aluminum casting temperature, flux of the secondary cooling water, and mean withdrawing speed were optimized based on some quality criteria, including the uniformity of the sheath thickness, integrality of the rods, and thickness of the interface. The causes of internal flaws formation of CCA rods were also discussed. The results showed that the continuity of the liquid aluminum core-filling process and the interface reaction control between solid copper and liquid aluminum were two key problems that strongly affected the stability of the casting process and the product quality. Our research indicated that for the CCA rod with the previously mentioned size, the optimal length of mandrel tube was 210 mm. A shorter mandrel tube allowed of easier erosion at the interface, which led to a nonuniform sheath thickness. Conversely, it tended to result in a discontinuous filling process of liquid aluminum, which causes shrinkage or cold shuts. The optimal casting temperatures of copper and aluminum were 1503 K (1230 °C) and 1043 K to 1123 K (770 °C to 850 °C), respectively. When the casting temperature of aluminum was below 1043 K (770 °C), the casting process would be discontinuous, resulting in shrinkages or cold shuts. Nevertheless, when the casting temperature of aluminum was higher than 1123 K (850 °C), a severe interface reaction between solid copper and liquid aluminum would occur. The proper flux of the secondary cooling water and the mean withdrawing speed were determined as 600 to 800 L/h and 60 to 87 mm/min, respectively. In the previously mentioned proper ranges of processing parameters, the interfacial shear strengths of CCA rods were 40.5 to 67.9 MPa.

The microstructure and mechanical properties of Cu-12wt%Al alloy wires which are composed of continuous columnar crystals after dieless drawing forming at drawing speed of 1.0–1.4 mm/s and deformation temperature of 600–900°C were analyzed, and deformation behavior of the alloy during dieless drawing forming was experimentally investigated. The results showed that in the above-mentioned conditions, recrystallization phenomenon was not found during dieless drawing forming. When a drawing speed of 1.0 mm/s was used, the grain boundaries were out of straight gradually with increasing deformation temperature from 600°C to 900°C, and tensile strength of the dieless drawn Cu-12wt%Al alloy wires increased while elongations decreased with increasing deformation temperature. At drawing speed of 1.1–1.2 mm/s and deformation temperature of 600°C, the effect of dieless drawing forming process on the microstructure of the alloy was inconspicuous, and when drawing speed was up to 1.3–1.4 mm/s, the grain boundaries of continuous columnar crystals became zigzag while there was little effect of drawing speed of 1.1–1.4 mm/s on the elongation and tensile strength of the alloy wires.

Quantitatively evaluation of antibacterial activities of inorganic antibacterial agents is an urgent problem to be solved. Using experimental data by an orthogonal design, a prediction model of the relation between conditions of preparing inorganic antibacterial agents and their antibacterial activities has been developed. This is accomplished by introducing BP artificial neural networks in the study of inorganic antibacterial agents. It provides a theoretical support for the development and research on inorganic antibacterial agents.