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The optimal designing of the hybrid energy system (HES) is a challenging task due to the multiple objectives and various uncertainties. Especially for HES, primarily powered by solar energy, the reference solar radiation data directly impact the result of the optimization design. To incorporate the stochastic characteristics of solar radiation into the sizing process, a data-driven stochastic modeling method for solar radiation is proposed. The method involves two layers of stochastic processes that capture the intraday variation and daily evolution of solar radiation. First, the clearness index (CI) is introduced to describe the radiation intensity at different times. Then, the daily clearness state (DCS) is proposed, based on the statistical indicators of the intraday CI. The Markov model is used to describe the stochastic evolutionary characteristics between different DCSs. The probabilistic distribution of the CI under different DCS is obtained based on the diffusion kernel density estimation (DKDE), which is used for the stochastic generation of the CI at various times of the day. Finally, the radiation profile required for the optimal design is obtained by the stochastic generation of the DCS sequences and the intraday clearness index under corresponding states. A case study of an off-grid solar-powered HES is provided to illustrate this methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims/Introduction: Serum asprosin is expected to become a screening indicator in early‐stage diabetic heart disease. The relationship between serum asprosin and left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) was studied in elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in the community. Materials and Methods: A total of 252 elderly patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were recruited from Zhuoma Community Care Station and Chengbei West Street Community Care Service Center in Changzhi City of Shanxi Province from November 2019 to July 2021. Patients were divided into the LVDD group (n = 195) and the non‐LVDD group (n = 57). The t‐test, Mann–Whitney U test, and χ2 test were used to compare indicators between the LVDD group and the non‐LVDD group. Pearson or Spearman correlation analysis was adopted to evaluate the correlation between serum asprosin and other clinical data. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied to analyze the influencing factors on LVDD. Results: Compared with patients without LVDD, patients with LVDD had a higher level of low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C), fasting blood glucose (FPG), and asprosin, but a lower level of early diastolic movement speed (A) to diastolic movement velocity (E) (E/A). Asprosin was positively associated with waist circumference (WC), body mass index (BMI), creatinine, triglycerides (P < 0.05), and negatively associated with E/A and high density lipoprotein cholesterol HDL‐C (P < 0.05). The risk of LVDD increased with elevated asprosin levels after adjustment for age, systolic blood pressure (SBP), BMI, FPG, and LDL‐C. Compared with patients in the lowest tertile of serum asprosin (<275.25 pg/mL), a serum level of asprosin between 275.25–355.08 pg/mL [OR (95% CI) is 2.368 (1.169–4.796), P < 0.05] and asprosin >355.08 pg/mL [OR (95% CI) is 2.549 (1.275–5.095), P < 0.05] patients have a higher risk of left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. Conclusions: Serum asprosin was positively associated with left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, and the risk of LVDD increased significantly with increased serum levels of asprosin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sequencing the mitochondrial genome has been increasingly important for the investigation of primary mitochondrial diseases (PMD) and mitochondrial genetics. To overcome the limitations originating from PCR-based mtDNA enrichment, we set out to develop and evaluate a PCR-independent approach in this study, named Pime-Seq (PCR-independent mtDNA enrichment and next generation Sequencing). Results: By using the optimized mtDNA enrichment procedure, the mtDNA reads ratio reached 88.0 ± 7.9% in the sequencing library when applied on human PBMC samples. We found the variants called by Pime-Seq were highly consistent among technical repeats. To evaluate the accuracy and reliability of this method, we compared Pime-Seq with lrPCR based NGS by performing both methods simultaneously on 45 samples, yielding 1677 concordant variants, as well as 146 discordant variants with low-level heteroplasmic fraction, in which Pime-Seq showed higher reliability. Furthermore, we applied Pime-Seq on 4 samples of PMD patients retrospectively, and successfully detected all the pathogenic mtDNA variants. In addition, we performed a prospective study on 192 apparently healthy pregnant women during prenatal screening, in which Pime-Seq identified pathogenic mtDNA variants in 4 samples, providing extra information for better health monitoring in these cases. Conclusions: Pime-Seq can obtain highly enriched mtDNA in a PCR-independent manner for high quality and reliable mtDNA deep-sequencing, which provides us an effective and promising tool for detecting mtDNA variants for both clinical and research purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual trial assembly (VTA) using 3D laser scanning as the digital carrier can overcome the shortcomings of time‐consuming and costly physical preassembly. However, its application in large steel structures with bolted connections remains limited. First, this study introduces a novel approach for acquiring multiscale point cloud data of large steel members using terrestrial laser scanners (TLSs) and hand‐held scanner (HHS). This approach considers both the global data and the local details of the steel members. Additionally, a precise registration method based on magnetic 3D targets is proposed for multiscale point clouds, which enables the registration accuracy of multisource point clouds to reach submillimeter precision. Subsequently, a novel algorithm for feature point screening is introduced, which utilizes a dichotomous point cloud grid approach to identify and extract a significant quantity of bolt holes effectively. This approach enables fully automated and fast extraction of the point cloud on the cylindrical inner surface of the holes. Finally, the bounding box and Procrustes analysis approach are employed to perform VTA using the point cloud of the cylindrical bolt holes as the assembled features. The accuracy and feasibility of the above method are verified by a down‐scale modeling experiment and project test, which provide technical support for the VTA of large steel truss structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trunk canker poses a major threat to the production of Chinese hickory tree (Carya cathayensis Sarg.), which is primarily determined by Botryosphaeriaceae. In our previous work, we identified Botryosphaeria dothidea as the predominant pathogen of this disease. However, it is still unclear about corresponding gene families and mechanisms associated with B. dothidea's pathogenicity on Chinese hickory tree. Here, we present a comparative analysis of high-quality genome assemblies of Botryosphaeria dothidea and other isolated pathogens, showing highly syntenic relationships between B. dothidea and its closely related species and the conservative evolution of the Botryosphaeriaceae family. Higher GC contents were found in the genomes of B. dothidea and three other isolated pathogens (Botryshaeria cortices, Botryshaeria fabicerciana, and Botryshaeria qingyuanensis) compared to Macrophomina phaseolina, Neofusicoccum parvum, Diplodia corticola, and Lasiodiplodia theobromae. An investigation of genes specific to or expanded in B. dothidea revealed that one secreted glucanase, one orsellinic acid biosynthesis enzyme, and two MFS transporters positively regulated B. dothidea's pathogenicity. We also observed an overrepresentation of viral integrase like gene and heterokaryon incompatibility proteins in the B. dothidea's genome. In addition, we observed one LRR-domain-containing protein and two Sec-domain-containing proteins (Sec_1 and Sec_7) that underwent positive selection. This study will help to understand B. dothidea's pathogenicity and potential influence on the infection of Chinese hickory, which will help in the development of disease control and ensure the security of Chinese hickory production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bottom water coning is the main reason to reduce the recovery of horizontal bottom water reservoir. By water coning, we mean the oil-water interface changes from a horizontal state to a mound-shaped cone and breaks through to the wellbore. Autonomous inflow control device (AICD) is an important instrument maintain normal production after bottom water coning, however, the resistance increasing ability of the swirl type AICD is insufficient at present, which seriously affects the water control effect. Aiming this problem, this paper designs a multi-stage resistance-increasing and composite type AICD. The separation mechanism of oil-water two phases in this structure, the resistance form of oil-water single phase and the resistance-increasing principle of water phase are analyzed. Establishing the dual-phase multi-stage separation and resistance-increasing model, and verified by measuring the throttling pressure drop and oil-water volume fraction of the AICD, it is found that the composite type AICD has the effect of ICD and AICD at the same time, which can balance the production rate of each well section at the initial stage of production, delay the occurrence of bottom water coning. In the middle and later stages of production, water-blocking can be effectively increased to achieve water control and stable production. After structural sensitivity analysis, the influence law of various structural parameters on the water control performance of composite AICD was obtained. The simulation calculation results show that, compared with the existing swirl type AICD, composite AICD has higher sensitivity to moisture content, the water phase throttling pressure drop is increased by 4.5 times on average. The composite AICD is suitable for the entire stage of horizontal well production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transverse synchronization of vertical displacements of all jacking-up points is an important monitoring indicator to replace bearings in assembled multigirder bridges during the jacking phase. Currently, using target paper to identify the 3D coordinates of control points reduces the complexity of monitoring operations and improves the stability of data precision. However, the existing planar target locating methods have low accuracy, inefficiency, and subjectivity, which seriously hinders the construction process of bearing replacement. Accurately obtaining the center coordinates of multiple targets from a point cloud in a short monitoring period remains a challenge. This study proposes a high-precision automated algorithm to extract target center points in low-density point clouds to quickly calculate real target center points. First, we construct a standard point cloud model of the target papers for scanning, including color and geometric features. Then, we extract the measured point cloud of the typical jacking operation phase based on the reflection intensity and size information. Next, we map the intensity values of the measured point cloud into the color channel and register the measured point cloud with its standard point cloud model using the normal vector estimation and colored ICP algorithms. Finally, we extract the center point of the measured targets. Numerical experiments and engineering test results show that the proposed method converges quickly with high precision and good robustness, which saves 91.4% of the time compared with the traditional method. In general, this research can provide effective technical support for 3D laser scanning in monitoring the operation phase of bridge jacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, considerable efforts have been expended on understanding the Janus kinase/signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK/STAT) signaling pathway in leukemia, following the identification of the JAK2V617F mutation in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). The aim of this review is to summarize the latest progress in our understanding of the involvement of the JAK/STAT signaling pathway in the development of leukemia. We also attempt to provide insights into the current use of JAK/STAT inhibitors in leukemia therapy and explore pertinent clinical trials in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unique characteristics, such as high magnetic moment, high Curie temperature, large magnetic crystalline anisotropy, and low cost, make the τ-phase MnAl a promising candidate as the market alternatives which could fill the gap between the rare earth magnets and ferrite magnets. Because at low temperatures the metal will become more brittle, the cryomilling technology may allow the τ-phase MnAl to be broken quickly and introduce few crystal defects, and then obtain better permanent magnetic properties. In this study, the cryomilling technology was used to grind the τ-phase MnAl, and the structural and magnetic properties of the obtained powder sample were investigated. It was found that compared to room-temperature ball milling, the morphology of cryomilled powders is granular and the powder agglomeration is dramatically suppressed at a low temperature, and as a result the larger particles tend to be broken down into smaller ones rather than being agglomerated to larger thin layers. The grain size D reduced continuously from 145 nm to 36 nm when the sample was milled for 120 minutes. The coercivity increased with increasing the cryo-milling time, while the saturation magnetization decreased. The maximum coercivity of up to 4.9 kOe was obtained by cryo-milling for 100 minutes. By the neutron diffraction analysis, it was confirmed that the decrease of the saturation magnetization with increasing milling time is mainly due to the migration of Mn atoms from 1a site to the 1d site and the decrease of Mn atomic magnetic moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asphalt hot regeneration pavement maintenance vehicle is a type of in situ heating waste asphalt special vehicle equipment for mix and regeneration of aged asphalt. When waste asphalt mixture is heated and melted, a lot of organic fumes are typically produced, along with dust from the mixing process. Because of the complex composition of the exhaust gases produced by asphalt hot regeneration pavement maintenance vehicles, it can be difficult to purify and remove them using a single method. In order to effectively purify exhaust gas with complicated compositions, a multistage combined treatment dust removal system structure is presented that includes cyclone sections, spray sections, and adsorption sections. With an emphasis on the cyclone section structure with the dust-gas separation function, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to analyze the internal flow field characteristics, turbulence intensity, tangential velocity, and velocity field vector characteristics. The results reveal that the more symmetrical the distribution of tangential velocity field and static pressure field is, the greater the cyclone dust collector's dust removal efficiency is, the more stable the flow field is, and the lower the turbulence intensity is. Furthermore, the center cyclone's growing speed is adversely connected with dust removal effectiveness. As a result, an antiventuri cyclone dust collector with a scrambling column was designed. When the inlet air speed is 6 m/s, the dust removal efficiency of the improved device is 97.0%, which is 5.1% higher than that of the original device, and when the inlet air speed is 8 m/s, the dust removal efficiency of the improved device is 97.3%, which is 4.16% higher than that of the original device. With the increase of the inlet air speed, the difference between them keeps decreasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize ear development determines the crop yield, and many important transcription factors (TFs) have been identified to function in this process. However, their transcriptional regulation mechanisms are still elusive. In this study, we generated the genome-wide DNA binding sites for 8 TFs which are known to function or highly expressed in inflorescence by applying the tsCUT&Tag method in maize leaf protoplast. We exposed a regulatory grid of 4 WUSCHEL-related homeobox (WOX) genes and revealed their potential regulatory mechanisms. In addition, a hierarchical regulation network for the determinacy and specification of maize inflorescence meristems were also constructed using the binding profiles of a floral development gene INDETERMINATE FLORAL APEX1 (IFA1) and 3 MADS-box genes. Our study provides an in-depth understanding and new insights of the regulatory mechanisms during maize inflorescence development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WO3:Eu3+ powder was prepared by microemulsion method with cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a surfactant. The prepared WO3:Eu3+ samples were wrapped with SiO2 by a coating method. The WO3:Eu3+@ SiO2 nanocomposites with the core-shell structure were prepared by controlling tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) content (1, 3, 5 and 7%) and water–alcohol ratio (1:3, 1:1.5, 1:1 and 2:1). The structure, morphology and luminescence properties of the prepared WO3:Eu3+@ SiO2 samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM and fluorescence spectra. The results show that the prepared WO3:Eu3+@SiO2 nanocomposites are spherical and granular, and the average particle size is below 100 nm. Under the condition of different TEOS contents, the strongest characteristic peak is located at 554 nm in the green light band at the excitation wavelength of 328 nm. Among the different water–alcohol ratio conditions, the prepared WO3:Eu3+@SiO2 nanocomposite has the strongest luminescence intensity at the water–alcohol ratio of 1:3, and the excitation wavelength is 328 nm. The excitation spectra measured at 612 nm have prominent characteristic peaks at 362, 394, 422, 465 and 499 nm, which correspond to the transition of 7F0→5D4, 7F0→5L6, 7F0→5D3, 7F0→5D2 and 7F0→5D1, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an efficient modified method of characteristics with adjust advection (MMOCAA) domain decomposition method (DDM) is analyzed for solving advection diffusion equations. On each non-overlapping block divided sub-domains, we take two half time steps along x -direction and y -direction, to solve the numerical solutions on each sub-domain at every time interval, respectively. The intermediate numerical solutions in the interiors of sub-domains are first computed by redefining three mass fluxes. Then we compute the other intermediate interior numerical solutions by the weighted scheme from the previous modified solutions. Finally, the interior solutions are computed by the splitting implicit solute-flux coupled scheme while the interface fluxes are computed explicitly by the local multi-point weighted scheme. The conservation, stability and convergence of our schemes are proved strictly. Numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the theoretical results and efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strip casting technique was first used in this work to prepare the Sm2Fe17 parent alloys. Next, the Sm2Fe17N3 powders were synthesized using a gas–solid reaction of Sm2Fe17 powders with N2. Then, the anisotropic Sm2Fe17N3 powders with high performance were prepared by a surfactant-assisted grinding method in gasoline solvent. It was found that the coercivity (iHc) of ground powders increases with decreasing the average particle size (Dm), while the saturation magnetization (Ms) decreases. The maximum value of iHc of 17.5 kOe was obtained at the Dm = 1.3 µm. The ground powders with Dm of 3.1 µm show a remanence ratio (Mr/Ms) over 95% and a maximum energy product [(BH)max] of 35 MGOe. The Sm2Fe17N3 powder exhibited a very high iHc of 36.1 kOe at 10 K. Above 300 K, Sm2Fe17N3 powders mixed with epoxy resin showed a low remanence temperature coefficient of α(RT-100°C) = −0.077% °C−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cranial radiation therapy is one of the most effective treatments for childhood brain cancers. Despite the ameliorated survival rate of juvenile patients, radiation exposure-induced brain neurogenic region injury could markedly impair patients' cognitive functions and even their quality of life. Determining the mechanism underlying neural stem cells (NSCs) response to irradiation stress is a crucial therapeutic strategy for cognitive impairment. The present study demonstrated that X-ray irradiation arrested NSCs' cell cycle and impacted cell differentiation. To further characterize irradiation-induced molecular alterations in NSCs, two-dimensional high-resolution mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics analyses were conducted to explore the mechanism underlying ionizing radiation's influence on stem cell differentiation. We observed that ionizing radiation suppressed intracellular protein transport, neuron projection development, etc., particularly in differentiated cells. Redox proteomics was performed for the quantification of cysteine thiol modifications in order to profile the oxidation-reduction status of proteins in stem cells that underwent ionizing radiation treatment. Via conjoint screening of protein expression abundance and redox status datasets, several significantly expressed and oxidized proteins were identified in differentiating NSCs subjected to X-ray irradiation. Among these proteins, succinate dehydrogenase [ubiquinone] flavoprotein subunit, mitochondrial (sdha) and the acyl carrier protein, mitochondrial (Ndufab1) were highly related to neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and Huntington's disease, illustrating the dual-character of NSCs in cell differentiation: following exposure to ionizing radiation, the normal differentiation of NSCs was compromised, and the upregulated oxidized proteins implied a degenerative differentiation trajectory. These findings could be integrated into research on neurodegenerative diseases and future preventive strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Brain malignancies encompass gliomas and brain metastases originating from extracranial tumours including lung cancer. Approximately 50% of patients with lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) will eventually develop brain metastases. However, the specific characteristics of gliomas and lung‐to‐brain metastases (LC) are largely unknown. Methods: We applied single‐cell RNA sequencing to profile immune and nonimmune cells in 4 glioma and 10 LC samples. Results: Our analysis revealed that tumour microenvironment (TME) cells are present in heterogeneous subpopulations. LC reprogramed cells into immune suppressed state, including microglia, macrophages, endothelial cells, and CD8+ T cells, with unique cell proportions and gene signatures. Particularly, we identified that a subset of macrophages was associated with poor prognosis. ROS (reactive oxygen species)‐producing neutrophils was found to participant in angiogenesis. Furthermore, endothelial cells participated in active communication with fibroblasts. Metastatic epithelial cells exhibited high heterogeneity in chromosomal instability (CIN) and cell population. Conclusions: Our findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the heterogenicity of the tumor microenvironment and tumour cells and it will be crucial for successful immunotherapy development for brain metastasis of lung cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to study the influence mechanism of the motion accuracy of the air static pressure guide system, this article combines the internal transmission law of the driving part of the table and the coupling analysis of solid damping and micro-scale gas damping and establishes the stepping motor, ball screw, nut, and motion table. The four-degree-of-freedom operation model was used to study the response simulation and dynamic characteristics of the entire table under the influence of various components. Combined with the damping characteristics extracted from the experiment, the influence mechanism of micro-gap solids and gas damping on the motion accuracy of the air-floating table is analyzed, and the optimal structural scheme that can effectively improve the accuracy and stability is proposed to improve the performance of the air-floating table and ultra-precision machine tools, processing accuracy to solve key technical problems in improving nano-machining accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rice blast, caused by the hemibiotrophic plant pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae, is a devastating disease that threatens rice crop production worldwide. The molecular interactions that underlie the rice-M. oryzae interaction have received much attention. However, genome-wide research focusing on alternative splicing (AS) has not been well-studied in rice—M. oryzae interactions. AS in plants leads to diverse proteomes without an expansion in gene numbers to regulate cellular processes during abiotic or biotic stress. The Pi21 gene negatively regulates rice resistance to M. oryzae infection, and thus the Pi21-RNAi silenced transgenic line (#241) exhibits partial but durable resistance. We compared the AS landscape in #241 and "Nipponbare" (Nip) during interacting with M. oryzae Guy11, and the alternative 3′ splice-site (A3SS) is the most common AS type. GO enrichment analysis of #241-specific differentially alternatively spliced genes (DASGs) revealed that WRKY transcription factors (TFs), bHLH TFs, F-box protein with leucine rich repeats, AAA-type ATPase, and protein kinase were enriched in the GO terms "response to jasmonate acid (JA)" and "ethylene (ET)" at 24 h post-inoculation (hpi). At 48 hpi, one #241-specific DASG, ubiquitin gene (Os08g0295000), was predicted to be involved in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. In silico analysis combined with PCR amplification confirmed that multiple isoforms are produced by Os08g0295000 and a skipped exon (SE) event results in isoform switching during interaction with M. oryzae. Protein–protein interaction (PPI) network analysis predicted that Os08g0295000-encoding proteins may interact with SNARE protein Q9LGF8 (Uniprot ID) to cooperatively regulate rice's response to M. oryzae. This study uncovered the AS profile of rice in response to M. oryzae, which will help to explore the linkage between AS and durable rice resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of the N-rich proteins (NRPs) gene family play important roles in the plant endoplasmic reticulum stress in response, which can be triggered by plant pathogens' infection. Previous studies of the NRP gene family have been limited to only a few plants, such as soybean and Arabidopsis thaliana. Thus, their evolutionary characteristics in the Oryza species and biological functions in rice defense against the pathogenic fungus Magnaporthe oryzae have remained unexplored. In the present study, we demonstrated that the NRP genes family may have originated in the early stages of plant evolution, and that they have been strongly conserved during the evolution of the Oryza species. Domain organization of NRPs was found to be highly conserved within but not between subgroups. OsNRP1, an NRP gene in the Oryza sativa japonica group, was specifically up-regulated during the early stages of rice-M. oryzae interactions-inhibited M. oryzae infection. Predicted protein-protein interaction networks and transcription-factor binding sites revealed a candidate interactor, bZIP50, which may be involved in OsNRP1-mediated rice resistance against M. oryzae infection. Taken together, our results established a basis for future studies of the NRP gene family and provided molecular insights into rice immune responses to M. oryzae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discussed a novel self-centering rocking (SCR) bridge system equipped with shape memory alloy (SMA)-based piers, with a particular focus on the benefit of the SCR bridge system in a life-cycle context. The study commences with an introduction of the SCR bridge system; subsequently, a life-cycle loss and resilience assessment framework for the SCR bridge system is presented. Specifically, the seismic fragility, resilience, and life-cycle loss associated with the SCR and conventional bridge systems were addressed. The proposed life-cycle assessment framework was finally applied to two highway bridges with and without SMA washer-based rocking piers, considering the representative hazard scenarios that could happen within the investigated regions. The results revealed that the novel SCR pier bridge system slightly increased the bearing displacement but extensively reduced the pier curvature ductility due to the rocking mechanism. The SCR bridge system kept a lower life-cycle loss level and exhibited more resilient performance than the conventional bridge, especially in the region with higher seismic intensities. Indirect loss can be significantly larger than the direct loss, specifically for the earthquakes with a relatively low probability of occurrence. The SCR bridge system outperformed the conventional system in terms of recovery time, where a quick recovery after an earthquake and drastically decreased the social and economic losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase the energy dissipation capacity and deformation capacity of the beam-column connections, and save space for realizing more architectural functions in the frame structure, a new type of metallic damper is developed that is installed inside the connection area and is convenient to assemble and disassemble. The components and construction procedure of the damper are explained, and according to the analysis on the force transfer mechanism of the beam-column connections equipped with this damper, their deformation capacity and energy dissipation can be greatly improved. To verify the cyclic behavior of the new rotational metallic damper, an experimental study is conducted and the failure process and hysteretic behavior of the test specimens with different damping materials are reported. The load-deformation behavior, bending moment capacity, overstrength, and energy dissipation capacity are analyzed, and it is found that the specimens made of low-yield-point steel BLY160 and high-strength steel Q345GJ have both demonstrated a ductile failure pattern and stable and energy-dissipative hysteretic behavior. The rotational capacity of the damper can be as large as 0.08, and the specimen composed of BLY160 presents a significant strain-hardening phenomenon as its overstrength factor has exceeded 2.0. Both specimens have excellent energy dissipation capacity under large deformations, but the specimen made of BLY160 is more energy-dissipative under small deformations as its yielding strength is much low than Q345GJ. Meanwhile, formulas to calculate the bending moment capacity of the damper are deduced. Subsequently, a numerical investigation is carried out to establish an accurate finite-element model for simulating the cyclic behavior of the damper. Based on the proposed numerical model, the influence of shear or axial forces induced by the connection on the damper is evaluated, and an optimization procedure is conducted to further increase the seismic performance of the rotational damper. In the end, the typical frame substructures with a traditional beam-column connection, with typical metallic dampers, and with the proposed rotational damper are analyzed, and the results show that the rotational damper could more effectively improve the deformation capacity and energy dissipation efficiency of the substructure compared with other dampers. Then, nonlinear time-history analysis is performed on a case-studied structure with and without the rotational damper, and the results prove that the new rotational metallic damper can significantly improve the seismic performance of the structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a physics-inspired contrastive learning paradigm for low-light enhancement, called PIE. PIE primarily addresses three issues: (i) To resolve the problem of existing learning-based methods often training a LLE model with strict pixel-correspondence image pairs, we eliminate the need for pixel-correspondence paired training data and instead train with unpaired images. (ii) To address the disregard for negative samples and the inadequacy of their generation in existing methods, we incorporate physics-inspired contrastive learning for LLE and design the Bag of Curves (BoC) method to generate more reasonable negative samples that closely adhere to the underlying physical imaging principle. (iii) To overcome the reliance on semantic ground truths in existing methods, we propose an unsupervised regional segmentation module, ensuring regional brightness consistency while eliminating the dependency on semantic ground truths. Overall, the proposed PIE can effectively learn from unpaired positive/negative samples and smoothly realize non-semantic regional enhancement, which is clearly different from existing LLE efforts. Besides the novel architecture of PIE, we explore the gain of PIE on downstream tasks such as semantic segmentation and face detection. Training on readily available open data and extensive experiments demonstrate that our method surpasses the state-of-the-art LLE models over six independent cross-scenes datasets. PIE runs fast with reasonable GFLOPs in test time, making it easy to use on mobile devices. Code available [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive brain tumor in adults. In addition to genetic causes, the tumor microenvironment (TME), including stiffening of the extracellular matrix (ECM), is a main driver of GBM progression. Mechano-transduction and the unfolded protein response (UPR) are essential for tumor-cell adaptation to harsh TME conditions. Here, we studied the effect of a variable stiff ECM on the morphology and malignant properties of GBM stem cells (GSCs) and, moreover, examined the possible involvement of the UPR sensor PERK herein. For this, stiffness-tunable human blood plasma (HBP)/alginate hydrogels were generated to mimic ECM stiffening. GSCs showed stiffness-dependent adaptation characterized by elongated morphology, increased proliferation, and motility which was accompanied by F-Actin cytoskeletal remodeling. Interestingly, in PERK-deficient GSCs, stiffness adaptation was severely impaired, which was evidenced by low F-Actin levels, the absence of F-Actin remodeling, and decreased cell proliferation and migration. This impairment could be linked with Filamin-A (FLN-A) expression, a known interactor of PERK, which was strongly reduced in PERK-deficient GSCs. In conclusion, we identified a novel PERK/FLNA/F-Actin mechano-adaptive mechanism and found a new function for PERK in the cellular adaptation to ECM stiffening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biology and physics underlying glioblastoma is not yet completely understood, resulting in the limited efficacy of current clinical therapy. Recent studies have indicated the importance of mechanical stress on the development and malignancy of cancer. Various types of mechanical stress activate adaptive tumor cell responses that include alterations in the extracellular matrix (ECM) which have an impact on tumor malignancy. In this review, we describe and discuss the current knowledge of the effects of ECM alterations and mechanical stress on GBM aggressiveness. Gradual changes in the brain ECM have been connected to the biological and physical alterations of GBM cells. For example, increased expression of several ECM components such as glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), hyaluronic acid (HA), proteoglycans and fibrous proteins result in stiffening of the brain ECM, which alters inter- and intracellular signaling activity. Several mechanosensing signaling pathways have been identified that orchestrate adaptive responses, such as Hippo/YAP, CD44, and actin skeleton signaling, which remodel the cytoskeleton and affect cellular properties such as cell–cell/ECM interactions, growth, and migration/invasion of GBM cells. In vitro, hydrogels are used as a model to mimic the stiffening of the brain ECM and reconstruct its mechanics, which we also discuss. Overall, we provide an overview of the tumor microenvironmental landscape of GBM with a focus on ECM stiffening and its associated adaptive cellular signaling pathways and their possible therapeutic exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Object detection has made tremendous strides in computer vision. Small object detection with appearance degradation is a prominent challenge, especially for aerial observations. To collect sufficient positive/negative samples for heuristic training, most object detectors preset region anchors in order to calculate intersection-over-union (IoU) against the ground-truth data. In this case, small objects are frequently abandoned or mislabeled. In this article, we present an effective dynamic enhancement anchor network (DEA-Net) to construct a novel training sample generator. Different from the other state-of-the-art (SOTA) techniques, the proposed network leverages a sample discriminator to realize interactive sample screening between an anchor-based unit and an anchor-free unit to generate eligible samples. Besides, multi-task joint training with a conservative anchor-based inference scheme enhances the performance of the proposed model while reducing computational complexity. The proposed scheme supports both oriented and horizontal object detection tasks. Extensive experiments on two challenging aerial benchmarks (i.e., Dataset of Object deTection in Aerial images (DOTA) and HRSC2016) indicate that our method achieves SOTA performance in accuracy with moderate inference speed and computational overhead for training. On DOTA, our DEA-Net which integrated with the baseline of RoI-transformer surpasses the advanced method by 0.40% mean-average-precision (mAP) for oriented object detection with a weaker backbone network (ResNet-101 vs. ResNet-152) and 3.08% mAP for horizontal object detection with the same backbone. Besides, our DEA-Net which integrated with the baseline of ReDet achieves the SOTA performance by 80.37%. On HRSC2016, it surpasses the previous best model by 1.1% using only three horizontal anchors. The source code and the training set are made publicly available at https://github.com/QxGeng/DEA-Net. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly active two-dimensional (2D) nanocomposites have been widely concerned in the field of gas sensors because of their unique advantages and synergistic effects. 2D/2D SnO 2 nanosheets/Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene nanocomposites were synthesized by using layered Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene and uniform SnO 2 nanosheets by hydrothermal method. Characterization results show that the SnO 2 nanosheets are well dispersed and vertically anchored on the layered Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene surface, forming heterogeneous interfaces. Based on the gas-adsorption capabilities and synergistic effects of electronic properties, SnO 2 nanosheets/Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene nanocomposites show high triethylamine (TEA) gas-sensing performance at low temperature (140 °C). The sensor responses of the nanocomposites and pure SnO 2 nanosheets to 50 ppm of TEA are 33.9 and 3.4, respectively. An enhancement mechanism for SnO 2 nanosheets/Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene nanocomposites is proposed for highly sensitive and selective detection of TEA at low temperature. The combination strategy of two-dimensional metal oxide semiconductor and multilayer MXene provides a new way for the development of cryogenic gas sensors in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the most sensitive and direct indicator of global climate change, the freezing and thawing of the Antarctic ice sheet is of great significance for research on surface mass and energy balance. In this study, four representative regions in Antarctica were selected and correlation analysis, Granger causality testing, and cluster analysis were applied to comprehensively analyze the correlation and response of spatiotemporal variation in freeze-thaw and temperature. The conclusions are as follows. (1) In the Antarctic Peninsula, a phenomenon was demonstrated that the summer shifts rearward. Hotter December and colder March temperatures were observed in the Amery Ice Shelf and Queen Maud Land. (2) The Antarctic Peninsula featured the most severe degree of melting among the four regions, with the largest melt area in the past 30 years appearing during the 2015/2016 season. However, the number of melt days in most areas of the Antarctic Peninsula was observed to have decreased. (3) There is a strong correlation between the freeze-thaw state of the Antarctic ice sheet and temperature, as well as spatial differences among regions, but the data were clustered at different time scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Male infertility is a worldwide problem with limitations in the treatment. Phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors (PDE5is) is the first choice for the treatment of erectile dysfunction, more and more studies show that it has a certain effect on male infertility in recent years. But there was currently no high quality of systematic review to evaluate the effects of PDE5is on semen quality. Materials and Methods: We retrieved the electronic databases of MEDLINE, PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, etc. Related randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were collected and selected up to May 20, 2020. We have searched literature with terms “male infertility”, “phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors”, “PDE5i”, “Tadalafil”, “Sildenafil”, “Vardenafil”, “Udenafil”, “Avanafil”, “semen”, and “sperm”. Mean value and its standard deviation were used to perform quantitative analysis. All statistical analyses were conducted by RevMan 5.3 and Stata software. Results: There were a total of 1,121 participants in the nine included studies. There was a statistically significant improvement treated with PDE5is compared with sham therapy, which including sperm concentration (mean difference [MD]=1.96, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.70–2.21, p<0.001; MD=3.22, 95% CI=1.96–4.48, p<0.001), straight progressive motility (%) Grade A (MD=3.71, 95% CI=2.21–5.20, p<0.001), sperm motility (MD=8.09, 95% CI=7.83–8.36, p<0.001), morphologically normal spermatozoa (%) (MD=0.67, 95% CI=0.20–1.15, p=0.005; MD=1.27, 95% CI=0.02–2.52, p=0.05), sperm abnormalities (%) (MD=-0.64, 95% CI=-0.81–-0.47, p<0.001), and progressive motile sperm (MD=5.34, 95% CI=3.87–6.81, p<0.001). Conclusions: In this meta-analysis of nine RCTs, treatment with PDE5is could improve some indicators of male sperm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three-dimensional(3D) measurement technology based on structured light fringe projection has the advantages of high efficiency, simplicity and non-contact acquisition. However, its measurement quality is heavily dependent on the reflective properties of the target surface. For a highly reflective surface, overexposure may be caused in some areas of the image, bringing decoding errors and causing the degradation of accuracy or even measurement failure. In recent years, a lot of researches have been done on this problem and many methods have been proposed. However, a systematic survey of these methods is still lacking. In this work, a review of the structured light 3D measurement techniques for highly reflective surfaces is presented. Firstly, the challenges posed by surface reflectivity to structured light 3D measurement are analyzed. Secondly, recent methods, which are classified into two categories, are reviewed. Finally, the accuracy and efficiency of these methods are discussed, and the trends of future researches are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: The genus Diploderma Hallowell, 1861 (Squamata, Agamidae), currently consists of 46 species, which are distributed across East Asia (inclusive of Japan) and the northern part of the Indochinese Peninsula, primarily inhabiting dry valley regions in Western China. This article introduces a novel species of Diploderma based on its unique morphological features and molecular evidence, discovered in the lower valley of the Dadu River in Sichuan Province, Western China. Phylogenetic analysis using ND2 data suggests that this new taxon is distinct from its congeners. Morphologically, the new species can be differentiated from other Diploderma species by an assemblage of 46 specific characteristics. Principal component analysis (PCA) further demonstrates that this new species is clearly distinguishable from its closest relative, D. splendidum. Given these multiple lines of evidence, we describe this species from the lower Dadu River valley as a newly identified species, D. daduense sp. nov. This discovery brings the total number of recognized species within the genus Diploderma to 47. This study describes a novel species of Diploderma (Squamata, Agamidae) from the lower valley of the Dadu River of the Sichuan Province of Western China based on its distinct morphological features and molecular evidence. D. daduense sp. nov. can be distinguished from its congeners by its tympanum concealed; head mainly green-yellow, supplemented by black; skin folds under the nuchal and dorsal crest obviously present in adult males only, its vertebral crest discontinuous between nuchal and dorsal sections with a distinct gap; transverse gular fold present but not obvious in some individuals; gular spot absent in both sexes; dorsolateral stripes green-yellow anteriorly, cyan in the center and blurry off-white posteriorly in adult males, the upper edge of dorsolateral stripes strongly jagged in adult males; no radial stripes around the eyes; inner-lip coloration smoky-white, and the coloration of the tongue and oral cavity as a light-flesh color in life; bright green-yellow transverse stripes on dorsal body in males; black patches are evenly distributed along the vertebral line between the dorsolateral stripes from the neck to the base of the tail in males; beech-brown or gray-brown line along the vertebral line with heart-shaped or diamond-shaped black patches on the dorsal body in females; and supratemporals fewer than four on at least one side. The phylogenetic tree based on mitochondrial ND2 sequences indicates that D. daduense sp. nov. forms an independent clade with strong support 1/100 in ML bootstrap/Bayesian posterior probability and is the sister group to D. splendidum. At the inter-species level, the p-distance is at least 6.95%, further confirming that an independent species had been identified. Our work raises the number of species within the genus Diploderma to 47. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an essential component of offshore bridges, stay cables are prone to vibrations due to their low inherent damping characteristics. Various dampers have been used for cable vibration control; however, the experimental research and theoretical study of inertial dampers on real cables have not been conducted sufficiently. This study aims to investigate the damping performance of a novel viscous inertial damper (VID) and focuses on the frequency-dependent and displacement amplification phenomena of a cable-damper system. Tests were first conducted to verify the energy consumption capacity of a prototype damper. A shallow cable-VID system was established. Theoretically, complex-valued modes were analyzed to determine the influence of the inertial and viscous coefficients on the cable's frequency and mode damping ratio. The test results and numerical analysis show that the VID has a good damping effect on the shallow cable. Considering multiple adjacent cable modes, the inertial and viscous coefficients can be optimized. After optimizing, the VID can simultaneously maximize both adjacent symmetric and antisymmetric modes' damping ratios. The two frequencies are almost the same. The displacement amplification of the VID shows that a VID can overcome the shortcomings of displacement loss caused by traditional oil dampers. The implications of these findings of the VID on shallow cable are discussed, which will guide future research and applications of the VID or other inerter dampers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eddy currents are induced by rapidly switching currents of the gradient coils in an magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, which is typically cylindrical in shape; hence, the use of cylindrical coordinates is more numerically efficient. We develop the energy conserved splitting finite-difference time-domain (EC-S-FDTD) scheme in the cylindrical coordinates to estimate the eddy currents. The important feature is that this scheme conserves energy and is unconditionally stable. The transformation results in numerical singularities are formed at the internal boundary, and we formulate methods to handle these singularities and efficiently solve the equations. The accuracy of the scheme and energy conversation property are tested, and the performance of the proposed method will be evaluated using two numerical simulations, cylindrical transmission lines, and eddy currents induced by Z-gradient coils. Our numerical results indicate that current density distribution reflects the differences in the tissues by their dielectric properties and has second-order convergence in time and space while preserving energy conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve load capacity and transmission characteristics of crossed-axis helical gear drive, a generation approach of the gear pair with small-angle based on the curve contact element is proposed. Contact principle based on spatial curve meshing relationships is introduced and geometric models of tooth profiles are developed according to a pair of mated conjugate curves. Furthermore, a mathematical model of crossed-axis helical gear drive with small-angle is established. Numerical examples are illustrated for this research using the 10° shaft angle, and the computerized simulation is also developed based on the solid models. According to gear geometry and finite element method, general characteristics including undercutting conditions, sliding ratios and contact stress for tooth profiles are analyzed. Comparisons with crossed-axis involute gears are also carried out. Finally, the gear prototype is processed using the gear milling method and a basic performance test is conducted. Analysis results show that the new gear pair has well contact characteristics. Further studies on the dynamic analysis and precision manufacturing method will be carried out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eastern Pacific leatherback turtle population (Dermochelys coriacea) has declined precipitously in recent years. One of the major causes is bycatch from coastal and pelagic fisheries. Fisheries observations are often underutilized, despite strong potential for this data to affect policy. In this study, we created a spatiotemporal species distribution model that synthesizes fisheries observations with remotely sensed environmental data. The model will be developed into a dynamic management tool for the Eastern Pacific leatherback population. We obtained leatherback observation data from multiple fisheries that have operated in the Southeast Pacific (2001–2018). A dynamic Poisson point process model was applied to predict leatherback intensity (observation per unit area) as a function of dynamic environmental covariates. This model serves as a tool for application by managers and stakeholders toward the reduction of leatherback turtle bycatch and provides a modeling framework for analyzing fisheries observations from other vulnerable populations and species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the effect of simulated weightlessness on the pharmacokinetics of orally administered moxifloxacin and the antacid Maalox or the antidiarrheal Pepto-Bismol using a tail-suspended (TS) rat model of microgravity. Fasted control and TS, jugular-vein-cannulated, male Sprague-Dawley rats received either a single 5 mg/kg intravenous dose or a single 10 mg/kg oral dose of moxifloxacin alone or with a 0.625 mL/kg oral dose of Maalox or a 1.43 mL/kg oral dose of Pepto-Bismol. Plasma concentrations of moxifloxacin were measured by HPLC. Pharmacokinetic data were analyzed using WinNonlin. Simulated weightlessness had no effect on moxifloxacin disposition after intravenous administration but significantly decreased the extent of moxifloxacin oral absorption. The coadministration of moxifloxacin with Maalox to either control or TS rats caused significant reductions in the rate and extent of moxifloxacin absorption. In contrast, the coadministration of moxifloxacin with Pepto-Bismol to TS rats had no significant effect on either the rate or the extent of moxifloxacin absorption. These interactions showed dose staggering when oral administrations of Pepto-Bismol and moxifloxacin were separated by 60 min in control rats but not in TS rats. Dose staggering was more apparent after the coadministration of Maalox and moxifloxacin in TS rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Three Schwartz-D metallic heat exchangers (HX) with different unit sizes are developed. • The effects of unit size on flow characteristics and performance of HXs are analyzed. • Dimensionless parameters based on unit size may be appropriate for correlating experimental data. As a representative type of triple periodic minimal surface (TPMS) topology, the S-D structure exhibits distinctive heat transfer properties and is ideal for constructing high-performance heat exchangers (HXs). To explore the effect of unit size on the flow and heat transfer performance, three crossflow S-D HXs with different unit sizes and the same porosity are designed and produced by metal additive manufacturing in this study. Simulation results show that the reduction in unit size induces a larger scale of bifurcation flow and increases the frequency of flow area change in HX. Experimental results demonstrate that when the smallest unit size is adopted, the HX's effectiveness can be improved by at least 10%, but at the cost of a 42% increase in pressure drop. Meanwhile, the advantage of small unit size in heat transfer enhancement will be further expanded under large flow rate conditions. In addition, it is found that the effect of flow ratio on the heat transfer performance of the S-D HXs appears to be linear, and the unit-based Reynold number may be an appropriate dimensionless parameter for correlating their pressure drop and heat transfer data. All in all, this study is expected to provide a better understanding and guidance for the design and optimization of TPMS HXs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defect detection is now an active research area for production quality assurance. Traditional visual inspection systems are developed by human beings, which is a time‐consuming, labour‐intensive, and highly error‐prone process, and are therefore unreliable. To overcome these problems, the authors proposed a new method for detecting defects when printing on a 3D micro‐textured surface. They utilise an orientation code as the basis to resist the fluctuations in illumination. Based on the consistency of the pixel pairs, they developed a model called multiple paired pixel consistency to represent the statistical relationship between each pixel pair in defect‐free images. Finally, based on this model, they designed a defect detection method. Even with different defect sizes, illumination conditions, noise intensities, and other characteristics, the performance of the proposed algorithm is extremely stable and highly accurate, and the recall, precision, and F‐measure in most of the results can reach 0.85,0.93, and 0.9, respectively. In addition, the defect detection rate can reach almost 100%. This demonstrates that the authors' approach can achieve state‐of‐the‐art accuracy in real industrial applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lightning fire is an important influencing factor of grassland ecology. It is one of the important ignition sources of grassland fire. The previous researches on lightning fires were mainly focused on forests, but researches on grassland were insufficient. In this paper, the impulse voltage generator was used to evaluate the breakdown characteristics of grass bed. The relationship of breakdown voltage to moisture content and bulk density was obtained. Based on the impulse current generator, an artificial lightning ignition prediction model of impulse current was derived. Results show that the breakdown voltage of grass bed decreases rapidly with the increase of moisture content. With the increase of peak current, the total lightning energy increases, while the heating efficiency decreases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urinary tract infections (UTI), associated with vesicoureteral reflux (VUR), can lead to chronic kidney disease. Genetic alterations in the innate immune defenses contribute to UTI risk. We investigated a novel gene, Dachsous Cadherin-Related 1 (DCHS1), in children with UTI. We determined absolute DNA copy number (CN) of DCHS1 in children with UTI. In this case-control study, we utilized multiple complementary methods to determine the genomic CN of DCHS1. Children with (n = 370) and without (n = 71) VUR from two well-phenotyped clinical trials of UTI were copy-typed and compared to 491 healthy controls with no known history of VUR or UTI. Less than 1% of controls had a single copy of DCHS1, while 31% of children with UTI and no VUR and 7% of children with UTI and VUR had a single copy of the DCHS1 gene. Using immunostaining, we localized expression postnatally to the bladder and renal epithelia. Mice were also challenged with two uropathogenic Escherichia coli strains, and Dchs1 mRNA was quantified. This study represents the first report of DCHS1 in association with pediatric UTI. We hypothesize that its role in innate immunity is critical to lower urinary tract defense. Further investigation is required to determine the role of DCHS1 in innate immunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is more difficult to develop the low-cost spinal cord injury repair materials with high stability and biocompatibility for the biomedical applications. Herein, for the first time, we demonstrated the functional restoration of an injured spinal cord by the nano CeO2 particles assembled onto poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL)/resveratrol (RVL) were synthesized using the biocompatible ionic liquid. The as-prepared biocompatible nanomaterials were characterized and confirmed by using different instruments such as Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy for functional groups identification, X-ray diffraction for crystalline nature, Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy for morphological structure, Dynamic light scattering for size distribution of the nanoparticles and thermogravimetric analysis for thermal properties. The synergetic effect between the uniform distributions of nano-sized CeO2 particles onto the PCL polymer with RVL can remarkably enhance the catalytic performance. Biofabricated nano-cerium oxide loaded PCL with RVL revealed that treatment significantly preserved hydrogen peroxide and also good catalytic performance. This study presents a nano-sized cerium oxide particles loaded PCL with RVL biocompatible materials have been providing highly efficient regenerative activity and biocompatibility in spinal card regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grayscale-thermal tracking has attracted a great deal of attention due to its capability of fusing two different yet complementary target observations. Existing methods often consider extracting the discriminative target information and exploring the target correlation among different images as two separate issues, ignoring their interdependence. This may cause tracking drifts in challenging video pairs. This paper presents a collaborative encoding model called joint correlation and discriminant analysis based inver-sparse representation (JCDA-InvSR) to jointly encode the target candidates in the grayscale and thermal video sequences. In particular, we develop a multi-objective programming to integrate the feature selection and the multi-view correlation analysis into a unified optimization problem in JCDA-InvSR, which can simultaneously highlight the special characters of the grayscale and thermal targets through alternately optimizing two aspects: the target discrimination within a given image and the target correlation across different images. For robust grayscale-thermal tracking, we also incorporate the prior knowledge of target candidate codes into the SVM based target classifier to overcome the overfitting caused by limited training labels. Extensive experiments on GTOT and RGBT234 datasets illustrate the promising performance of our tracking framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the precise deployment dynamical behavior is studied for a planetary rover mast mechanism of spacecraft undergoing large attitude adjustment motion. In the conventional dynamic formulation, flexible appendages of mast attached to spacecraft are taken as linear deformations with isotropic material, and it can result in improper responses. Therefore, the present model takes into account the coupling relations between geometric nonlinearity and laminated structure characteristics. Accordingly, by introducing the nonlinear constitutive relation of laminated materials based on the higher-order shear deformation theory, the nonlinear dynamic model of the planetary rover mast mechanism composed of laminated composite material is deduced based on the virtual work principle including geometric nonlinearity and material nonlinearity. By comparing the experiments results and those of present nonlinear model, the correctness and accuracy of present nonlinear model are verified. Furthermore, numerical examples are presented to investigate the nonlinear laminated material effect on deployment dynamical behavior of the planetary rover mast mechanism using different laying angles and curvature radii, and the results also testify the accuracy and efficiency of the formulation. The conclusions have important theoretical value and practical engineering significance for the dynamic characteristics and vibration control of attitude adjustment of planetary rover mast mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fatigue strength of a gear tooth surface is affected by various factors, which subsequently impacts the transmission performance of gears. Usually, shot peening treatment is carried out during processing to improve the performance of gears. Most current studies focus on theoretical descriptions and simulation analyses of shot peening treatment. However, in this paper, the relationships among shot peening treatment, residual stress, and bending fatigue strength of a gear tooth surface are discussed, through experimental methods. Based on X-ray stress analysis, at select locations on the test samples, the residual stresses on gear tooth surfaces with and without shot peening treatment are determined and contrasted. The results show that shot peening treatment can effectively increase the residual stress on gear tooth surfaces. In addition, an electromagnetic resonance fatigue tester is used to analyze the bending fatigue strength of gear tooth surfaces. The test results indicate that the bending fatigue strength of the gear teeth with shot peening is higher than that of the gear teeth without shot peening. The obtained conclusions lay the foundation for further practical engineering applications of gears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The non‐invasive prenatal screening (NIPS) has been introduced into clinical practice with a high sensitivity and specificity. Although the false‐negative results are inevitable and important, limited false‐negative NIPS results have been reported and studied previously. In this study, we aim to report and analyze false‐negative results detected in the NIPS cases with a low‐risk result. Methods: NIPS was performed using whole‐genome massively parallel shotgun sequencing for screening common trisomies, rare autosomal aneuploidies, and subchromosome copy number variants. All the NIPS cases with a low‐risk result performed in our center in 2017 were followed‐up using medical records and telephone interview at 3 months after delivery. Fetal ultrasound results and available genetic diagnostic testing results were collected for pregnancies with adverse outcomes. The genetic diagnostic testing referred to chromosomal microarray analysis or fluorescent in situ hybridization on amniotic fluid cells, fetal skin tissue, neonatal peripheral blood, or available placental biopsies. Results: By following‐up 10,975 low‐risk results, we found 166 NIPS cases with adverse pregnancy outcomes, in which eight cases had diagnostic testing. Among them, four false‐negative cases were confirmed, including one trisomy 18 caused by placental mosaicism, one mosaic tetrasomy 12p, and 2 microdeletion/microduplication cases. Conclusion: Our results revealed that mosaicism contributes to a major cause of false negative in NIPS, and highlighted the importance of ultrasound in identifying these false‐negative results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specific DNA mutations underlying several genetic defects associated with embryo loss or reduced calf survivability have been identified in dairy cattle, and a convenient and cost-effective platform is required for their routine screening. We developed Kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) assays for discrimination of the wild-type alleles from the associated defective alleles at each of 8 common genetic defects in Holstein cattle, involving 5 SNP [HH1, HH3, HH4, bovine leukocyte adhesion deficiency (BLAD), and complex vertebral malformation (CVM)] and 3 insertion or deletion mutations [HH5, haplotype for cholesterol deficiency (HCD), and brachyspina (BS)]. A total of 390 cows from a Chinese Holstein herd were genotyped and the carriers identified at 7 of these 8 loci (except HH4), with the highest carrier frequencies found for CVM (10.5%) and HH1 (10.0%), followed by HH3 (2.6%), BS (2.1%), HCD (1.3%), HH5 (0.8%), and BLAD (0.5%). Surprisingly, 102 cows (26.2%) carried at least 1 of the 7 defective alleles. Our results demonstrate that these KASP assays are simple, rapid, and reliable for the detection of multiple genetic defects. The high carrier frequency of these genetic defects indicates an urgent need for routine molecular testing to eliminate the deleterious alleles from Chinese Holstein cattle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Grape buds exhibit non-uniform, or delayed, break in early spring in subtropical regions because the accumulation of chilling is insufficient. Hydrogen cyanamide (H2CN2, HC) can partially replace chilling to effectively promote bud sprouting and is used widely in warm winter areas. However, the exact underlying mechanism of grape bud release from endodormancy induced by HC remains elusive. Results: In this study, the transcriptome of grape winter buds under in vitro conditions following HC and water treatment (control) was analyzed using RNA-seq technology. A total of 6772 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. Furthermore, the gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analysis revealed that starch and sucrose metabolism and plant hormone signaling transduction were most enriched out of the 50 total pathways. HC treatment induced the upregulated expression of sucrose synthase (SUS), sucrose phosphate synthase (SPS), α-amylase (AM), and β-amylase (BM) and downregulated expression of sucrose invertase (INV), hexokinase (HK), fructokinase (FK), soluble starch synthase (SS), and granule-bound starch synthase (GBSS). Hence, the starch concentration in the HC-treated group was significantly lower than that in control, whereas soluble sugar content in the HC-treated group increased quickly and was higher than that in control between 0 and 8 d. The concentration of indoleacetic acid (IAA) and zeatin (ZT) increased, whereas that of abscisic acid (ABA) and gibberellin (GA) decreased in HC treated group, which coincided with the expression level of genes involved in above hormone signals. The content of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and enzyme activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POD) were increased in grape buds with HC treatment, whereas catalase (CAT) activity was decreased. HC treatment increased the expression of POD, SOD, primary amine oxidase (PAO), polyamine oxidase (PAOX), and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px). Conclusion: Based on these results, it is possible to propose a mechanistic model that underlies the regulation of endodormancy release in grapevine buds by exogenous HC application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of absolute stability analysis for neutral-type Lur'e systems with time-varying delays is investigated. Novel delay-decomposing approaches are proposed to divide the variation interval of the delay into three unequal subintervals. Some new augment Lyapunov–Krasovskii functionals (LKFs) are defined on the obtained subintervals. The integral inequality method and the reciprocally convex technique are utilized to deal with the derivative of the LKFs. Several improved delay-dependent criteria are derived in terms of the linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Compared with some previous criteria, the proposed ones give the results with less conservatism and lower numerical complexity. Two numerical examples are included to illustrate the effectiveness and the improvement of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanomotors are of great importance when studying nanoelectromechanical systems that contain carbon nanotube (CNT) based nanomotors for controlled motion in water using a rotating electric field. In this paper, Y-type nanomotor structures based on CNTs immersed in an aqueous solution are designed, and systems with different Y-type structure angles are simulated using molecular dynamics. The simulation results suggest that when the rotating electric field speed is appropriate, changing the Y-type structure angle can adjust the hysteresis (forward and backward motion) of nanomotor rotors during rotation. Precise control over the rotation angle of the nanomotor rotor improves its working efficiency. The enclosed simulation results are an important reference when designing nanoscale propellers and complex structured nanogear systems in aqueous solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]