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Abstract Human enterovirus A71 (EV‐A71) is a significant etiological agent responsible for epidemics of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) in Asia‐Pacific regions. There are presently no licensed antivirals against EV‐A71, and the druggable target for EV‐A71 remains very limited. The phenotypic hit 10,10′‐bis(trifluoromethyl) marinopyrrole A derivative, herein termed MPA‐CF3, is a novel potent small‐molecule inhibitor against EV‐A71, but its pharmacological target(s) and antiviral mechanisms are not defined. Here, quantitative chemoproteomics deciphered the antiviral target of MAP‐CF3 as host factor coatomer subunit zeta‐1 (COPZ1). Mechanistically, MPA‐CF3 disrupts the interaction of COPZ1 with the EV‐A71 nonstructural protein 2C by destabilizing COPZ1 upon binding. The destruction of this interaction blocks the coatomer‐mediated transport of 2C to endoplasmic reticulum, and ultimately inhibits EV‐A71 replication. Taken together, our study disclosed that MPA‐CF3 can be a structurally novel host‐targeting anti‐EV‐A71 agent, providing a structural basis for developing the COPZ1‐targeting broad‐spectrum antivirals against enteroviruses. The mechanistic elucidation of MPA‐CF3 against EV‐A71 may offer an alternative COPZ1‐involved therapeutic pathway for enterovirus infection.

Abstract Si, as a narrow bandgap semiconductor with a broadband absorption for sunlight, is considered to be a very competitive photoelectrode material for solar‐driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. However, there are major barriers in construction of efficient and stable Si‐based PEC cell, including low photovoltage, sluggish reaction kinetics, and poor stability in electrolytes. This review focuses on the strategies to solve these issues and summarizes recent progress. The working principles of PEC water splitting are first introduced. Then the strategies for improving Si‐based photoelectrode performances are discussed, including (1) the regulation of Si surface morphology for enhancing light harvesting, (2) band structure engineering strategies to reduce recombination of photogenerated carriers, and (3) modification of protection layers for long stability and loading cocatalysts on Si‐based photoelectrodes for accelerating water splitting. Lastly, we have presented some issues of Si‐based photoelectrode materials, which should be addressed in future research.

Real-time and effective early warning of highway engineering construction sites is the key to ensuring the safety of highway engineering construction. At present, highway engineering construction safety early warning is limited by the experience of relevant personnel at the site and the dynamic changes of the project site environment. Therefore, the creation of a more active, smarter, and more effective real-time early warning model for construction safety is a strong complement to current research and has important theoretical and practical implications. The Internet of Things is the third wave of the information industry after computers, the Internet, and mobile communication networks. It is of great significance to promote the development of science and technology, economic growth, and social progress. Aiming at the shortcomings of the inadequate safety management methods for highway engineering construction in China, the inefficient efficiency of safety production supervision and management, and the emphasis on single and sporty supervision methods, a real-time early warning model for highway engineering construction safety based on the Internet of Things technology was constructed. By quantifying, scoring, and statistics of the safety situation during the construction process, the model achieves the goals of real-time monitoring, early warning, and handling hidden safety hazards. It overcomes problems such as untimely and unscientific safety issues in the past and effectively improves China’s highway engineering construction. The experimental comparison between the real-time early warning model and the traditional early warning model in this paper shows that the accuracy of the early warning model proposed in this paper is improved by nearly 5%, and the false alarm rate is reduced by nearly 4%.

The development of vessels can provide important information about the growth status of animal embryos. It is, therefore, important to automatically locate the deformed vessel branches from the embryo images. However, very few vessel detectors can accurately locate all vessel branches when the captured images are low quality and the implied vessel shapes are complex. In this study, a new framework consisting of vessel region extraction and snake shape optimisation is proposed. The main contribution in this detector is a novel open snake model based on the global guidance field and deformation template initialisation. Experimental results on a specific application of an embryo vessel database [Database and source codes: https://github.com/wcxie/Egg‐embryro‐vessel‐location/.] demonstrate that the proposed algorithm not only locates the vessel shape properly but also obtains the orientations of embryo vessel branches accurately. Comparison to traditional guidance fields and the active appearance model illustrates the effectiveness and competitiveness of the proposed model.

Abstract Background Carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19‐9 and histological grade can serve as indicators of the biological characteristics of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Aims The aim of this study was to investigate the combined impact of preoperative CA19‐9 levels and histological grade on prognosis and classification accuracy in PDAC patients. Methods and results A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 612 patients with PDAC who underwent curative pancreatectomy, and a biological risk model based on preoperative CA19‐9 levels and histology grade was established. The prognostic importance of the biological risk model was evaluated, and its validity was confirmed through a validation cohort of 218 patients. The survival of patients with PDAC was independently associated with preoperative CA19‐9 levels and histology grade, indicating a biological risk. This biological risk was incorporated into the eighth edition of the TNM staging system, leading to the development of a modified TNM (mTNM) staging system. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves demonstrated that the mTNM staging system had a significantly larger area under the curve (AUC) than the TNM staging system. The discriminatory capacity of the mTNM staging system was further validated in an independent cohort. Conclusion Biological risk based on preoperative CA19‐9 and histological grade could predict the survival of patients with PDAC. The incorporation of biological risk into the TNM staging system has the potential to enhance the accuracy of patient classification in PDAC, predicting patient survival and enabling the development of individualized treatment plans.

Impact loads widely exist in practical engineering and often cause cumulative damage and cracks or even fracture failure of concrete structures with their repeated long-term action. This experimental research is conducted on the damage evolution characteristics of concrete under impact loads by regarding C50 nonreinforced concrete as the research object and using a self-developed drop-weight device with electromechanical impedance measurement technology. Results show the following. (1) Under low-energy impact, concrete damage has long continuous development process and remarkable cumulative effects. An apparently sudden break characteristic appears before failure. Under high-energy impact, concrete damage accumulates rapidly, and piezoceramic patch signals grow linearly. (2) The root mean square deviation (RMSD) of the concrete increases exponentially with impact times. Particularly, when the RMSD exceeds 0.075, the concrete damage process enters the rapid development stage and approaches the critical failure state. (3) Under the experimental conditions in this study, the relationship between the ultimate impact times (damage life) and impact heights of the concrete samples shows the development trend of the power function. The above results can provide reference for the research on service life prediction methods of concrete structures under impact loads.

When shield tunnelling is in a water-rich sand stratum with poor bearing capacity, instability is easily generated, and even ground collapses may occur. The variation of pore water pressure in a water-rich sand stratum during shield tunnelling was analyzed based on a large-scale cross-river shield tunnel in China, which was also investigated by a three-dimensional fluid-solid coupling finite element model. The results show that the influence range of the pore water pressure in front of the excavation face is approximately 2.0 times the excavation diameter and 1.5 times on both sides of the shield. The tunnelling steps would cause obvious variation in the pore water pressure and lead to great disturbance to the surrounding fine sand stratum. The quality of filter cake and the set of support pressure imposes an important impact on the nonlinear variation in the pore pressure, which could cause great disturbance to the stratum. To ensure the safety of the subsequent tunnelling in the fine sand layer, effective treatment should be taken.

A series of problems, including large deformation of supporting structures, shotcrete peeling, and yielding of the steel frame, occurs constantly during tunnel construction in soft clay layers. These problems considerably raise the risk of tunnel construction. Thus, the deformation characteristics of soft clay around the tunnel during construction must be investigated to guarantee safety. In this research, a field test was conducted on 50 sections of a tunnel, which was built in high-plasticity clay layers. Then, the deformation characteristics of surrounding rocks and influencing laws caused by burial depth, invasion thickness of soft clay, and atmospheric precipitation were discussed. Results indicated that surrounding rocks are most likely to undergo large deformation during tunnel construction when the burial depth of tunnel ranges from 1.5D to 2.5D (D is the tunnel excavation span). Tunnel deformation also increases rapidly when the invasion thickness exceeds 60% of the tunnel height. The ratio between clay thickness and burial depth of the tunnel is another crucial index that could cause a large tunnel deformation as it exceeds 0.25. In addition, a significant correlation was observed between tunnel deformation and rainfall during the construction period. The deformation of surrounding rocks increases rapidly with rainfall and will continually develop for 1-2 weeks when the average daily rainfall is greater than 4 mm.

Dewatering using the dewatering systems composed of diaphragm walls and pumping wells is commonly adopted for deep excavations that are undertaken in deep aquifers. However, dewatering can sometimes induce environmental problems, especially when diaphragm walls cannot effectively cut off the aquifers. This paper mainly presents an innovative excavation technique combining dewatering excavation and underwater excavation without drainage, which is employed for a deep shaft excavation in ultrathick aquifers (up to 60–70 m thick aquifer) in Fuzhou, China. The shaft excavation with the depth of 41.6 m below the ground surface (BGS) is divided into two major phases, that is, (1) the first part of the excavation (the depth of 23.6 m BGS) is conducted by the way of conventional dewatering and braced excavation (Phase I) and (2) the second excavation with the depth of 23.6 m to 41.6 m BGS is carried out by the novel underwater excavation without drainage technique (Phase II). Field monitoring results show that the ratios of maximum ground surface settlement δvm to the excavation depth He in this case ranged from 0.03% to 0.1%. Most of the ratios of maximum lateral wall deflection δhm to excavation depth He are less than 0.1%. All these results are lesser than that predicted by empirical methods, which also confirmed the applicability of this innovative excavation. Thus, this innovative solution can be applicable to other deep excavations that are undertaken in ultrathick aquifers, especially for the excavation of coarse sediments with high permeability.

During deep foundation pit construction, the structural clearance intrusion, which is caused by the complex formation conditions and the inefficient drilling equipment, is usually detected due to the vertical deviation of piles. To meet construction requirements, pile parts intruding into the structural clearance are supposed to be excised. However, the sectional flexural strength of the pile is bound to decrease with partial excision, which would reduce the bearing capacity of the enclosing structure during construction. In this paper, a theoretical derivation of the normal sectional flexural strength of the partially excised circular pile is proposed. The derivation adopts the assumption of the plane section and steel ring equivalence and can be solved by the bisection method. Furthermore, the calculation method is applied to the pile evaluation of a practical engineering; also, the method is verified by the numerical method. The application results show that the excision of rebar and pile’s sectional area will cause a rapid linear decline in the sectional flexural strength. After excising 18 cm radial thickness of the circular pile (ϕ800 mm) and 6 longitudinal rebars, the sectional flexural strength of the pile decreases to 58% from the origin, which cannot meet the support requirement. The analysis indicates that pile reinforcements must be carried out to maintain the construction safety.