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Fundamental geodynamic changes from vertical tectonics to lateral subduction occurred during the Neoarchean, yet detailed processes related to this transition and initiation of modern-style subduction remain enigmatic. Successive Neoarchean magmatic rocks including both plume-derived komatiites and subduction-related supracrustal and intrusive rocks appeared and preserved key information on the late Archean geodynamic changes in the Western Shandong Province granite-greenstone belt (WSP), North China Craton. In this study, whole-rock geochemical and Sm-Nd isotopic data and zircon U-Pb and Lu-Hf isotopes are reported for early Neoarchean supracrustal and intrusive rocks for the WSP. Temporally, the early Neoarchean magmatic movements in the WSP can be subdivided into two stages, including the early stage (2.77–2.69 Ga) and the late stage (2.69–2.60 Ga). Spatially, from southwest to northeast, intrusive rocks with similar ages define three belts (A, B, and C). Early stage tholeiitic and enriched meta-basalts were plume-related, representing oceanic crust opening from a pre-early Neoarchean continent. Slab subduction at least initiated at ca. 2.74 Ga and generated various Neoarchean tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorites, quartz diorites, and arc-related volcanic rocks and mafic intrusions. Episodic emergence of meta-basaltic rocks and/or mafic intrusions with depleted εHf(t) values and low (La/Yb)N ratios indicates frequent slab break-offs during ca. 2.70–2.68 Ga, 2.66–2.64 Ga, and 2.62–2.60 Ga due to a relatively hotter mantle and regional heating by mantle plume. Secular geochemical changes of mafic and felsic rocks in this study outline roles of slab subduction in contributions of cooling the mantle, secular mantle refertilization, and crustal growth.

As an important factor affecting the mangrove wetland ecosystem, water quality has become the focus of attention in recent years. Therefore, many studies have focused on the prediction of water quality to help establish a regulatory framework for the assessment and management of water pollution and ecosystem health. To make a more accurate and comprehensive forecast analysis of water quality, we propose a method for water quality prediction based on the multi-time scale bidirectional LSTM network. In the method, we improve data integrity and data volume through data preprocessing. And the network processes input data forward and backward and considers the dependencies at multiple time scales. Besides, we use the Box-Behnken experimental design method to adjust hyper-parameters in the process of modeling. In this study, we apply this method to the water quality prediction research of Beilun Estuary, and the performance of our proposed model is evaluated and compared with other models. The experiment results show that this model has better performance in water quality prediction than that of using LSTM or bidirectional LSTM alone. Graphical Abstract Schematic of research work.

Supramolecular capsules are desirable containers for the study of molecular behavior in small spaces and offer applications in transport, catalysis, and material science. We report here the use of chalcogen bonding to form container assemblies that are stable in water. Cavitands

The impacts of diurnal atmospheric forcing on the summer salinity change in the East China Sea are investigated using the Regional Ocean Modeling System, forced by the hourly and daily reanalysis of wind and insolation. The differences between the forcing of these two frequencies reveal a dipole pattern of salinity change with a positive salinity deviation (1–2 psu) offshore of the Yangtze River estuary, and a negative deviation (from −1 to −0.5 psu) along the Jiangsu Coast. Further dye tracking experiments confirm that diurnal forcing strengthened the northwestward longshore freshwater transport (NLFT) of the Yangtze River by 5.2 × 109 m3 and reduced the mean water age of 7 days. Sensitivity experiments using different forcing combinations suggest that the diurnal wind, that is, the land–sea breeze, is the key to developing the dipole pattern of salinity change and the NLFT. Through the experiment, the land–sea breeze induced a mean clockwise circulation offshore of the Yangtze River estuary. The above changes resulted from both the nonlinearity of wind stress averaging (i.e., the square nature of wind stress) and the baroclinic adjustment related to the diurnal salinity variation, which is directly connected to the diurnal swing of the Yangtze River front. The baroclinic adjustment generated a dipole pattern of vorticity changes offshore of the Yangtze River estuary and a coherent northwestward jet current strengthening the NLFT. These processes developed the summer dipole pattern of the salinity change.

In the present work, the geometry, electronic structure, and infrared spectra (IR) of meso-tetra-substituted porphyrin have been investigated theoretically. The optimization of geometries and electronic structure calculations of meso-tetraphenylporphyrin (TPP) and meso-tetra(3-pyridyl)porphyrin (T3PyP) are performed on the basis of density functional theory. The substitution of pyridyl for phenyl in meso-tetra-substituted porphyrins can result into the reduction of molecular size, including the molecular diameter, as well as the size of the central ring of porphin. It has also been found that the molecular orbital energies of T3PyP are smaller than the counterparts of TPP whereas there is almost no change in the HOMO–LOMO gap. Additionally, the infrared spectrum of TPP and T3PyP has been compared in order to determine whether there is a red shift or a blue shift.

In this study, the cDNA of mature bovine interferon-α (BoIFN-α) gene was cloned and expressed in the Escherichia coli expression system. Total RNA was extracted from bovine liver cells and reverse transcribed into cDNA, and then BoIFN-α gene fragment was amplified with specific primers by PCR method before being ligated into the pET-32a (+) expression vector. Since the pET-32a (+) plasmid expresses the thioredoxin A (TrxA) tag protein, it can increase the solubility of the target protein. In order to express the target protein, the pET-32a-BoIFN-α recombinant plasmid was transformed into E. coli Rosetta (DE3) strain followed by IPTG induction. It was found that the recombinant fusion protein Trx-rBoIFN-α was finally expressed in a soluble form in the host cell, accounting for about 33.45% of the total cellular protein. The protein was purified by two-step chromatography, including Ni2+-chelating Sepharose affinity chromatography and DEAE anion exchange chromatography. The purity of the purified product reached 93.0%, and the cytopathic effects (CPE) inhibition method was adopted to determine the antiviral activity of the expressed fusion protein in vesicular stomatitis virus/ Madin-Darby bovine kidney cells titration system. The specific activity of the recombinant fusion protein Trx-rBoIFN-α was measured as (3.6 ± 0.25) × 106 U/mg. After cutting of the Trx tag protein by enterokinase digestion, the remaining solo protein was confirmed as rBoIFN-α protein by Western blot assay. These findings will enable us to produce a large number of bioactive rBoIFN-α protein for future application.

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) plays an irreplaceable role in many energy-conversion processes. Low-cost catalysts with high activity and stability are eagerly needed to improve the sluggish O...

For the development of advanced flexible and wearable electronic devices, functional electrolytes with excellent conductivity, temperature tolerance, and desirable mechanical properties need to be engineered. Herein, an alkaline double-network hydrogel with high conductivity and superior mechanical and antifreezing properties is designed and promisingly utilized as the flexible electrolyte in all-solid-state zinc-air batteries. The conductive hydrogel is comprised of covalently cross-linked polyelectrolyte poly(2-acrylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid potassium salt) (PAMPS-K) and interpenetrating methyl cellulose (MC) in the presence of concentrated alkaline solutions. The covalently cross-linked PAMPS-K skeleton and interpenetrating MC chains endow the hydrogel with good mechanical strength, toughness, an extremely rapid self-recovery capability, and an outstanding antifatigue property. Gratifyingly, the entrapment of a concentrated alkaline solution in the hydrogel matrix yields an extremely high ionic conductivity (105 mS cm-1 at 25 °C) and an excellent antifreezing capacity. The hydrogel retains comparable conductivity and eligible strength to withstand various mechanical deformations at -20 °C. The all-solid-state zinc-air batteries using PAMPS-K/MC hydrogels as flexible alkaline electrolytes exhibit comparable values of specific capacity (764.7 mAh g-1), energy capacity (850.2 mWh g-1), cycling stability, and mechanical flexibility. The batteries still possess competitive electrochemical performances even when the operating temperature drops to -20 °C.

Due to the discovery of innovative and practical neural architectures, deep learning has achieved bright successes in many fields, such as computer vision, natural language processing, recommendation systems, etc. To reach high performance, researchers have to adjust neural architectures and choose training tricks very carefully. The manual trial-and-error process for discovering the best neural network configuration consumes plenty of manpower. The neural architecture search (NAS) aims to alleviate this issue by automatically configuring neural networks. Recently, the rapid development of NAS has shown significant achievements. Novel neural network architectures that outperform the state-of-the-art handcrafted networks have been discovered in image classification benchmarks. In this paper, we survey NAS from a technical view. By summarizing the previous NAS approaches, we drew a picture of NAS for readers including problem definition, search approaches, progress towards practical applications and possible future directions. We hope that this paper can help beginners start their researches on NAS.

This study represents a systematic chemical and biological study of the rufomycin (RUF) class of cyclic heptapeptides, which our anti-TB drug discovery efforts have identified as potentially promising anti-TB agents that newly target the caseinolytic protein C1, ClpC1. Eight new RUF analogues, rufomycins NBZ1-NBZ8 (1-8), as well as five known peptides (9-13) were isolated and characterized from the Streptomyces atratus strain MJM3502. Advanced Marfey's and X-ray crystallographic analysis led to the assignment of the absolute configuration of the RUFs. Several isolates exhibited potent activity against both pathogens M. tuberculosis H37Rv and M. abscessus, paired with favorable selectivity (selectivity index >60), which collectively underscores the promise of the rufomycins as potential anti-TB drug leads.

With the improvement in the service accuracy and expansion of the application scope of satellite navigation systems, users now have high demands for system integrity that are directly related to navigation safety. As a crucial index to measure the reliability of satellite navigation systems, integrity is the ability of the system to send an alarm when an abnormity occurs. The new-generation Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS-3) prioritized the upgrading of system integrity as an important objective in system construction. Because the system provides both basic navigation and satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS) services by the operational control system, BDS-3 adopts an integrated integrity monitoring and processing strategy that applies satellite autonomous integrity monitoring and ground-based integrity monitoring for both the basic navigation service and SBAS navigation service. BDS-3 also uses an improved and refined integrity parameter system to provide slow, fast and real-time integrity parameters for basic navigation, and provide SBAS-provided integrity information messages in accordance with Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) specification and dual frequency, multi-constellation (DFMC) specification to support the SBAS signal frequency, single constellation operation and DFMC operation respectively. The performance of BDS-3 system integrity monitoring is preliminarily verified during on-orbit testing in different states, including normal operation, satellite clock failure and satellite ephemeris failure. The results show that satellite autonomous integrity monitoring, ground-based integrity monitoring and satellite-based augmentation all correctly work within the system. Satellite autonomous integrity monitoring can detect satellite clock failure but not satellite orbit failure. However, ground-based integrity monitoring can detect both. Moreover, the satellite-based augmentation integrity system monitors the differential range error after satellite ephemeris and clock error corrections based on user requirements. Compared to the near minute-level time-to-alert capability of ground-based integrity monitoring, satellite autonomous integrity monitoring reduces the system alert time to less than 4 s. With a combined satellite-ground monitoring strategy and the implementation of different monitoring technologies, the BDS-3 integrity of service has been considerably improved.

The thermal conductivity (TC) of gutta-percha, zinc oxide, and carbon nanotubes nanocomposites (GP/ZnO@CNTs) is improved greatly by the oriented CNTs, which is induced by shear field of the capillary rheometer. Furthermore, the effects of shear rate and temperature on the orientation of CNTs and the TC of the nanocomposites are investigated. The results of Raman show that the degree of orientation of CNTs increases with the increment of shear rate and/or temperature, which greatly improves the thermal conductance of the nanocomposites when the orientation degree is equal to 10.8. Compared with the GP/ZnO@CNTs nanocomposites with random CNTs, the highest TC of GP/ZnO@CNTs nanocomposites with oriented CNTs is increased by 81.2%, which is up to 2.50 W m−1K−1.

Understanding and controlling parasitic reactions at the electrode–electrolyte interface (EEI) in Li-ion batteries is essential to enhance and predict the battery cycle life. Recent work has shown ...

Oxidative cleavage reactions of arylalkenes by tert-butyl hydroperoxide that occur by free radical processes provide access to carboxylic acid or ketone products. However, the pathway to these cleavage products is complex, initiated by regioselective oxygen radical addition to the carbon-carbon double bond. Subsequent reactions of the initially formed benzyl radical lead eventually to carbon-carbon cleavage. Thorough investigations of these reactions have identified numerous reaction intermediates that are on the pathways to final product formation, and they have identified a new synthetic methodology for the synthesis of peroxy radical addition-induced hydroperoxide formation.

In noisy evolutionary optimization, sampling is a common strategy to deal with noise, which evaluates the fitness of a solution multiple times (called sample size) independently and then uses the average to approximate the true fitness. Previous studies mainly focused on the empirical design of efficient sampling strategies, and the few theoretical analyses mainly proved the effectiveness of sampling with a fixed sample size in some situations. There are many fundamental theoretical issues to be addressed. In this paper, we first investigate the effect of sample size. By analyzing the (1+1)-EA on noisy LeadingOnes, we show that as the sample size increases, the running time can reduce from exponential to polynomial, but then return to exponential. This discloses that a proper sample size is crucial in practice. Then, we investigate what other strategies can work when sampling with any fixed sample size fails. By two illustrative examples, we prove that using parent populations can be better, and if using parent populations is also ineffective, adaptive sampling (i.e., sampling with an adaptive sample size) can work.

A strategy of aerobic oxidative C(sp3)–C(sp3) bond cleavage of N-ethylaniline derivatives bearing azaarenes for the synthesis of N-aryl formamides has been developed. This approach was carried out ...

A copper-catalyzed asymmetric hydrosilylation of β-nitroethyl aryl ketones has been disclosed, and the corresponding chiral alcohols could be obtained in high yields (up to 99% yield) and excellent enantioselectivities (up to 96% ee). Moreover, the reaction worked well on a gram scale with 0.3 mol % of ligand loading, indicating that our protocol has potential applications in the synthesis of important pharmaceuticals such as Tranylcypromine and Ticagrelor.

Since the positive influences of defects on the performance of electroceramics were discovered, investigations concerning on defects and aliovalent doping routes have grown rapidly in the fields of inorganic chemistry and condensed matter physics. In this article, we summarized the types of defects in electroceramics as well as characterization tools of defects and highlighted the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic defects on the material performances with the emphasis on dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties. We mainly introduced defect related theoretical simulation and experimental results in several typical incipient ferroelectrics, ferroelectrics, and antiferroelectrics. Hence, the influences of defects on the crystal lattice were summed up, and then the main physical mechanisms were highlighted. Particularly, the performance enhancements of aliovalently doped electroceramics were also evaluated and reviewed. Finally, the outlook and challenges were discussed on the basis of their current developments. This article covers not only an overview of the state-of-the-art advances of defects and aliovalent doping routes in electroceramics but also the future prospects that may open another window to tune the electrical performance of electroceramics via intentionally introducing certain defects.

At present, the primary technical deterrent to the use of strawberry harvesting robots is the low harvest rate, and there is a need to improve the accuracy and real-time performance of the localization algorithms to detect the picking point on the strawberry stem. The pose estimation of the fruit target (the direction of the fruit axis) can improve the accuracy of the localization algorithm. This study proposes a novel harvesting robot for the ridge-planted strawberries as well as a fruit pose estimator called rotated YOLO (R-YOLO), which significantly improves the localization precision of the picking points. First, the lightweight network Mobilenet-V1 was used to replace the convolution neural network as the backbone network for feature extraction. The simplified network structure substantially increased the operating speed. Second, the rotation angle parameter $\alpha $ was used to label the training set and set the anchors; the rotation of the bounding boxes of the target fruits was predicted using logistic regression with the rotated anchors. The test results of a set of 100 strawberry images showed that the proposed model's average recognition rate to be 94.43% and the recall rate to be 93.46%. Eighteen frames per second (FPS) were processed on the embedded controller of the robot, demonstrating good real-time performance. Compared with several other target detection methods used for the fruit harvesting robots, the proposed model exhibited better performance in terms of real-time detection and localization accuracy of the picking points. Field test results showed that the harvesting success rate reached 84.35% in modified situations. The results of this study provide technical support for improving the target detection of the embedded controller of harvesting robots.

Flows around a dual step cylinder are numerically investigated at a Reynolds number of 200 for three diameter ratios (D/d) of 2, 1.43 and 1.19. Simulation results reveal three distinctive vortex shedding modes: (i) the N-S mode for D/ d = 2 , (ii) the transition mode for D/ d = 1 . 43 , and (iii) the L-S mode for D/ d = 1 . 19 . The vortex shedding frequency transition from the smaller-diameter cylinder to the larger-diameter one, the dominant shedding frequency downstream of the larger cylinder, and the vortex interactions exhibit significant differences in the three vortex shedding modes. As D/ d = 2 , the direct cross-boundary and half-loop connections take place downstream of the step where vortex dislocations are essentially fixed. When decreasing D/d, two new vortex interactions, the double-half-loop and three-half-loop connections, appear with a larger spanwise vortex dislocation occurrence range. In addition, flows in different D/d cases are governed by a distinctive vortex shedding law. A pair of streamwise vortices occur downstream the centroid of the larger cylinder. This reduces the cylinder step effect on the local vortex shedding, absorbing the shear layer of the spanwise N-cell vortices, and making the hydrodynamic force coefficients smaller. Interestingly, these fluid force coefficients further decrease as D/d increases.

Flow battery technology offers a promising low-cost option for stationary energy storage applications. Aqueous zinc–nickel battery chemistry is intrinsically safer than non-aqueous battery chemistry (e.g. lithium-based batteries) and offers comparable energy density. In this work, we show how combining high power density and low-yield stress electrodes can minimize energy loss due to pumping, and have demonstrate methods to achieve high energy and power density for ZnO/Ni(OH)2 electrodes by changing composition and optimizing testing protocols. Firstly, mechanically stable and homogeneous Ni(OH)2/carbon and ZnO/Zn flowable electrodes in 7 M KOH electrolyte were designed using a microgel dispersion as the suspending matrix. By determining the critical volume fractions for conductivity percolation, colloidal suspensions with 6.2 vol% of carbon and 23.1 vol% of Zn were selected for preparing catholytes and anolytes to ensure that these semi-solid electrodes possess high voltage and high coulombic efficiencies. The resulting flowable electrodes exhibited non-Newtonian rheology with a yield stress of approximately ∼200 Pa, which assists in maintaining mechanical stability of the suspensions. An energy density of up to 134 W h Lcatholyte−1 and power density up to ∼159 mW cmgeo.−2 was demonstrated for semi-solid ZnO/Ni(OH)2 electrodes, and coulombic efficiency of 94% was achieved during cycling by optimizing the charging protocol to 60% SOC of Ni(OH)2. Lastly, semi-solid ZnO and Ni(OH)2 flow cells were built and tested using an intermittent mode of operation. The high energy and power densities, high coulombic efficiency, and negligible pumping loss of the Zn–Ni semi-solid electrodes developed in the present work present a promising system for further development.

Aims: The benefits of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on yield and phosphorus (P) uptake of crops have commonly been studied by inoculating a single mycorrhizal fungal species in pot experiments. Yet, how the native AMF community affects the performance of different maize varieties under field conditions remains obscure. Methods: In-growth cores with and without rotation were used in three soils that differed in P application to assess shoot biomass, P uptake, and mycorrhizal colonization of three maize varietal groups, encompassing four inbred lines, 12 hybrids, and four landraces. Results: Rotating cores drastically reduced mycorrhizal colonization, biomass and P uptake for each varietal group at every P level. Performance of plants at natural mycorrhizal colonization at 30 kg P ha−1 was equal to that of reduced-mycorrhizal plants at 60 kg P ha−1, suggesting the potential for adequate mycorrhizal management to save P fertilizer. Conclusion: There were no significant differences between varietal groups for mycorrhizal responsiveness, confirming that the ability to associate with and benefit from AMF has been maintained in modern breeding. Mycorrhizal plants both exhibited higher P acquisition efficiency and higher P use efficiency than reduced-mycorrhizal plants. Disadvantages of in-growth cores should be duly considered.

Twelve undescribed bisindole alkaloids, tabernaemontines A–L, were simultaneously isolated from the leaves of Tabernaemontana bovina and their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic methods. All alkaloids consist of two Aspidosperma-type units with various intramolecular linkages. Particularly, tabernaemontines A–D were assembled through C-3/14′ with a large angle strain, whilst tabernaemontines E–K adopted a preferential conformation. Tabernaemontine L was assembled via a C-14/10′ connection. Tabernaemontines F, K and L showed good inhibition of microglial activation. As a representative of Aspidosperma-type dimers, the P38 MAPK activation inhibition properties of tabernaemontine F were tested. The promising results revealed this compound as a potential candidate for the treatment of chronic neurodegenerative diseases.

Surfactant-assisted enzymatic hydrolysis was used to extract the flavor compounds from piper nigrum L. The extraction conditions were optimized through orthogonal and single-factor experiments. The extracted piperine content, measured with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and UV spectrophotometric, was used as experimental index. The optimized conditions were as follows: the amount of cellulase, neutral protease and surfactant (sodium stearoyl lactylate) addition was 0.08%, 0.1% and 0.4% (w/w) respectively. The solid–liquid ratio was 1:5 (g/mL), the enzymolysis temperature and time were 60°C and 4 h, and the granularity was less than 10 mesh. Under these conditions, the content of the extracted piperine was 4.54% (UV spectrophotometric) and 4.42% (HPLC), respectively. Meanwhile, the mechanisms of the enzymatic reaction, as well as the role of the surfactant in enzymatic hydrolysis process were discussed.

The aim of this study was to develop a new efficient strategy that uses the Vector form Intrinsic Finite-element (VFIFE) method to conduct the static and dynamic analyses of marine pipes. Nonlinear problems, such as large displacement, small strain, and contact and collision, can be analyzed using a unified calculation process in the VFIFE method according to the fundamental theories of point value description, path element, and reverse motion. This method enables analysis without the need to integrate the stiffness matrix of the structure, because only motion equations of particles established according to Newton's second law are required. These characteristics of the VFIFE facilitate the modeling and computation efficiencies in analyzing the nonlinear dynamic problem of flexible pipe with large deflections. In this study, a three-dimensional (3-D) dynamical model based on 3-D beam element was established according to the VFIFE method. The deep-sea flexible pipe was described by a set of spatial mass particles linked by 3-D beam element. The motion and configuration of the pipe are determined by these spatial particles. Based on this model, a simulation procedure to predict the 3-D dynamical behavior of flexible pipe was developed and verified. It was found that the spatial configuration and static internal force of the mining pipe can be obtained by calculating the stationary state of pipe motion. Using this simulation procedure, an analysis was conducted on the static and dynamic behaviors of the flexible mining pipe based on a 1000-m sea trial system. The results of the analysis proved that the VFIFE method can be efficiently applied to the static and dynamic analyses of marine pipes. (C) 2020 Society of Naval Architects of Korea. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.

Carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were prepared by electrospinning, and silver (Ag) ions were grown on the surface of the CNFs by in situ solution synthesis. The structure and morphology of obtained Ag-doped CNFs (Ag-CNFs) were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The gas sensibility of the composite fiber was investigated by ammonia (NH3) obtained by natural volatilization from 1 to 4 mL of NH3 solution at room temperature. It was found that the fibers exhibited a sensitive current corresponding to different NH3 concentrations and a greater response at high concentrations. The sensing mechanism was discussed, and the good absorptivity was demonstrated. The results show that Ag-CNF is a promising material for the detection of toxic NH3.

A new mechanism of La-catalyzed amidation of N-methylbenzylamine with p-chlorobenzaldehyde has been computationally proposed, where L2La[NR1R2] (I) rather than previously proposed L2La[OCHRNR1R2] (II) is the catalytically active species. Interestingly, the side-product alcohol acting as a proton relay to reduce reaction energy barrier could participate in the regeneration of I. Besides, DFT calculations suggest that an addition of alcohol additive into the initial reaction system could accelerate the reaction, which has been further verified by experiments.

Silicon germanium (SiGe) alloys hold promise for thermoelectric power generation at high temperatures and have been applied in deep-space missions. However, enhancement of the dimensionless thermoelectric figure-of-merit (ZT) is still needed for practical civil applications of SiGe. In this work, we report high-performance oxide/SiGe bulk composites that were obtained via hot-press sintering of mixed powders composed of phosphorus (P)-doped SiGe prepared via mechanical alloying, using a ball-milling technique and La-Nb-doped SrTiO3 (La-Nb-STO). The La-Nb-STO powder was obtained from ball milling of a bulk La-Nb-STO sample that was sintered via hot pressing of hydrothermally synthesized La-Nb-STO powder. Controlling the amount of La-Nb-STO nanoparticles added to SiGe matrix increased the power factor by optimizing the electron concentration and mobility in the composite. In addition, compared with single-phase P-doped SiGe, the second phase decreased the thermal conductivity because of additional phonon scattering at the interface. As a result, a high ZT of 0.91 was realized in the n-type oxide/SiGe bulk composite at 1000 K, which was 18% larger than that for the typical materials used in space flight missions and 5% higher than the single-phase SiGe alloys obtained in the present study. The strategy used in this study could also be viable to further enhance the ZT of nanostructured n-type SiGe and SrTiO3-based oxide materials.

Calcite/zeolite mixture (CZ) can be used to construct a capping layer for the simultaneous management of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) liberation from sediments into the overlying water (OVER-water). However, its control efficiency of sedimentary P release still needs to be improved. To address this issue, an iron-modified CZ (Fe-CZ) was synthesized, characterized, and employed as a capping material to simultaneously prevent P and N release from sediments into OVER-water. Batch and microcosm incubation experiments were performed to study the efficiency and mechanism for the control of P and N release from sediments by capping Fe-CZ. Results showed that sediment capping with Fe-CZ resulted in the significant reduction of soluble reactive P (SRP) and ammonium-N (NH3-N) in OVER-water, with reduction rates of 77.8–99.7% and 54.0–96.7%, respectively. Furthermore, the Fe-CZ capping layer decreased the SRP concentration in the pore water (PORE-water) at depth of 0–30 mm and reduced the concentration of PORE-water NH3-N at depth of 0–50 mm. Moreover, the Fe-CZ capping layer gave rise to the great decrement of the concentration of the labile P measured by DGT (diffusive gradient in thin films) technology (P-DGT) in the profile of OVER-water and sediment. Additionally, the Fe-CZ capping resulted in the reduction of redox-sensitive P (P-BD) in the 0–50 mm sediment and caused the transformation of P-BD to calcium-bound P (P-HCl) and residual P (P-RES) in the 0–10 mm sediment as well as to P-RES in the 10–20 mm sediment. Results of this work indicate that the Fe-CZ capping has a high potential for the simultaneous management of P and N release from sediments, and the decrease of the contents of sediment P-DGT, sediment P-BD, PORE-water SRP and PORE-water NH3-N as well as the conversion of mobile P to more stable P in the top sediment should have a significant role in the simultaneous interception of sedimentary P and N liberation into OVER-water by the Fe-CZ capping.

In order to effectively deal with large amounts of complex organic pollutants in the harmful distillation residues with low energy consumption, a novel two-stage fluid-bed/fixed-bed system was designed to catalyze oxidation of acrylic acid production residue. The effects of fluid-bed temperature, gaseous hourly space velocity (GHSV), and oxygen excess rate on the purification of acrylic acid production residue in the two-stage fluid-bed/fixed-bed system were studied to prove the feasibility of the method. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the discharged liquid was

In a study of the potential anti-inflammatory constituents from Kalimeris shimadae, six new sesquiterpenes, kalshinoids A-F (1-6), together with 21 known compounds (7-27), were isolated. The structures and absolute configurations of the new compounds were discerned from extensive spectroscopic analysis, and the absolute configurations of kalshinoids A, B, E, and F were established by ECD calculations. Furthermore, the identified compounds were tested for anti-inflammatory activity as assessed by inhibition of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in THP-1 cells. Three sesquiterpenes [kalshinoid F, 4(15)-eudesmen-1β,7,11-triol, and 4α,10α,11-trihydroxy-1βH,5βH-guai-7(8)-ene] reduced levels of TNF-α in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated THP-1 cells in a concentration-dependent manner and were more potent than dexamethasone. These natural sesquiterpenes merit further investigation as possible anti-inflammatory agents.

Most of existing machine learning algorithms do not natively support nominal attributes, so it is essential to develop the data transformation of nominal attributes into high-quality numeric ones. Conditional Probability Transformation (CPT), using conditional probability terms to transform categories in nominal attributes, is competitive with state-of-the-art transformation methods such as One-Hot Encoding (OHE) and Separability Split Value Transformation (SSVT). However, it may be difficult to accurately estimate conditional probability terms when training data is insufficient or there exist strong dependencies among its attributes. Inspired by the fine-tuning method for improving conditional probability terms in distance measures, we proposed a Fine-Tuned Conditional Probability Transformation (FTCPT). In addition, we proposed an Improved SSV (ISSV) based on fine-tuned conditional probability terms, and used our Modified MIC-based Feature Selection method to further improve the performance of FTCPT. Experiment results show that the proposed methods can improve the quality of data transformation, thereby contribute to improving the classification performance of subsequent machine learning algorithm.

Due to the unique properties of flexible electronic devices, various microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices based on flexible substrate have been proposed for miniaturization, lightweight, and intelligent applications. Obviously, the deformation of flexible substrate inevitably affects the performance of flexible MEMS devices. This article first investigates the static modeling of bending characteristics on the flexible V-shaped beam actuator, which is the most representative MEMS thermal actuator. This article focused on a comprehensive static analysis of bending mechanical property based on the flexible substrate. The innovation of static modeling is obtaining variation regularity of bending characteristics by establishing the deformation coupling model of V-beam structure and flexible substrate. The V-shaped beam thermal actuators are designed and fabricated on flexible liquid crystal polymer (LCP) substrate, and the influence of bending substrate on the actuation performance of the device is revealed by calculation, simulation, and experiment. The experimental results demonstrate that the actuation current of the V-shaped beam actuator rises up proportionally with the increase of angle and the decrease of beam length. When flexible substrate bends gradually from curvature 0 to 33.3 (1/m), the rates of measured actuation current change are 17.05%, 13.70%, and 10.24%, corresponding to different angles of 13°, 20°, and 27° at $600~\mu \text{m}$ length of V-shaped beams. Meanwhile, the rates of measured actuation current change are 9.22%, 13.22%, and 13.70%, corresponding to different lengths of 400, 500, and $600~\mu \text{m}$ at 20° angle of V-shaped beams. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical calculation results of static modeling, and the error is less than 3.7%.

With reduced dehydrogenation enthalpy change and reduced dehydrogenation temperature compared with its phenol-cyclohexanol pair, sodium phenoxide-cyclohexanolate pair developed recently is promising for large-scale energy storage and long-distance hydrogen transportation. In the present work, we investigate the kinetic behavior of the pair in the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation in water over three commercial catalysts. It is shown that 5% Ru/Al2O3 and 5% Pt/C perform well in the hydrogenation and dehydrogenation, respectively. Kinetic analyses show that the hydrogenation of sodium phenoxide is of first-order with respect to H2 pressure and zero-order to the concentration of sodium phenoxide in the presence of Ru/Al2O3 catalyst. >99% conversion of cyclohexanol and >99% selectivity to phenoxide can be achieved in the dehydrogenation catalyzed by Pt/C catalyst and in the presence of NaOH at 100 °C, where cyclohexanone was observed as an intermediate. According to the kinetic analysis, the hydrogenation of sodium phenoxide may undergo the hydrolysis and hydrogenation pathway. For the dehydrogenation, an intermediate, i.e., cyclohexanone, was detected and two possible pathways are proposed accordingly.

In this paper, a design optimization procedure for midfrequency structural/acoustic systems is proposed, based on the statistical modal energy distribution analysis model. In the optimization model...

Low temperature stability has limited the applications at elevated temperature for ABO3-type lead-free ceramics. And multi-grade resonances of piezoelectric ceramics are hardly obtained although the resonances are very important in some applications such as filter and resonator. High piezoelectric properties and large mechanical quality factors with multi-grade resonances can be obtained in (Li+-La3+) co-doped BaTiO3 ceramics, and excellent temperature stabilities are achieved in the ceramics. It has been shown that the thermal treatments both with and without electric field at 200 °C improve the piezoelectric properties and thermal stability further. Large piezoelectric constant (272 pC N1) and huge mechanical quality factor (2010) was obtained after thermal-electrical treatment, which is caused by Li+-La3+ ionic pair aligning along the external electric filed during thermal-electrical treatment. Moreover, the present study provides an effective method to design combination properties with high temperature stability for ABO3 perovskite ferroelectric ceramics.

Traditional technologies for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) create human experiences through visual and auditory stimuli that replicate sensations associated with the physical world. The most widespread VR and AR systems use head-mounted displays, accelerometers and loudspeakers as the basis for three-dimensional, computer-generated environments that can exist in isolation or as overlays on actual scenery. In comparison to the eyes and the ears, the skin is a relatively underexplored sensory interface for VR and AR technology that could, nevertheless, greatly enhance experiences at a qualitative level, with direct relevance in areas such as communications, entertainment and medicine1,2. Here we present a wireless, battery-free platform of electronic systems and haptic (that is, touch-based) interfaces capable of softly laminating onto the curved surfaces of the skin to communicate information via spatio-temporally programmable patterns of localized mechanical vibrations. We describe the materials, device structures, power delivery strategies and communication schemes that serve as the foundations for such platforms. The resulting technology creates many opportunities for use where the skin provides an electronically programmable communication and sensory input channel to the body, as demonstrated through applications in social media and personal engagement, prosthetic control and feedback, and gaming and entertainment. Interfaces for epidermal virtual reality technology are demonstrated that can communicate by programmable patterns of localized mechanical vibrations.

Thallium as a highly toxic metal element has been listed as one of priority drinking water contaminants. In this study, manganese oxide nanoparticles were synthesized through a simple hydrothermal method and applied for the removal of thallium(I). The adsorbent was composed of numerous needle-like nanorods and had an average volume diameter of 230 nm after heat-drying procedure. The crystal form of adsorbent was determined as α-MnO2. The adsorbent exhibited a much faster adsorption rate than most of previously reported adsorbent, achieving over 66.4% of equilibrium adsorption capacity in the first 10 min. The adsorption process was found to be highly affected by solution pH and higher than 100 mg/g of adsorption capacity could be obtained in a wide pH range of 6.0-10.0. The isotherm study indicated that the adsorption of Tl(I) on the adsorbent was favorable and governed by a chemisorption process, with the maximum adsorption capacity of 505.5 mg/g at pH 7.0. The adsorption process was confirmed to be thermodynamically spontaneous and endothermic. The presence of Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+, and Cu2+ cations had certain negative effects on the uptake of Tl(I). Based on the batch experiments and XPS analysis, the deprotonated hydroxyl groups that bonded to manganese atoms worked as the binding sites for the effective removal of Tl(I) ions and no redox reaction occurred during the adsorption process.

The computational procedures of higher-order implicit integrators for mechanical systems with friction are provided in this paper. The dynamic equations are established using the augmented Lagrangian formulation, and set-valued friction forces are described by projection functions. To reduce the accuracy loss caused by event transitions and to eliminate spurious oscillations in the acceleration, a new robust event-driven scheme, which accurately detects event transitions and corrects the friction forces and accelerations at switching points, is proposed. The numerical performance of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by solving several benchmark problems. Numerical results show that the newly developed scheme can approximately achieve second-order accuracy, and they are more accurate than the classical Moreau time-stepping scheme under close computational efforts. Finally, a slider-crank system is simulated to prove the validity of the developed method for nonlinear mechanical systems with friction.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small noncoding RNAs of ∼21 nt in length, which have regulatory roles in many biological processes. In animals, proper functioning of the circadian clock, which is closely linked to the fitness of almost all living organisms, is regulated by miRNAs. However, to date, there have been no reports of the roles of miRNA in regulation of the plant circadian rhythm. Here, we report a natural variant of miR397 that lengthens the circadian period and controls flowering time in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). Highly conserved among angiosperms, the miRNA miR397 has two members in Arabidopsis: miR397a and miR397b. However, only miR397b significantly delayed flowering. Our results suggest that miR397b controls flowering by targeting CASEIN KINASE II SUBUNIT BETA3 (CKB3), in turn modulating the circadian period of CIRCADIAN CLOCK ASSOCIATED1 (CCA1). We further demonstrated that CCA1 directly bound to the promoter of MIR397B and suppressed its expression, forming a miR397b-CKB3-CCA1 circadian regulation feedback circuit. Evolutionary analysis revealed that miR397b is a newly evolved genetic variant in Arabidopsis, and the miR397b targeting mode may have a role in enhancing plant fitness. Our results provide evidence for miRNA-mediated circadian regulation in plants and suggest the existence of a feedback loop to manipulate plant flowering through the regulation of circadian rhythm.

A Ni-catalyzed 1,2-acyl migration triggered by C–C bond cleavage was developed. The process of 1,2-acyl migration followed by olefin isomerization provides a convenient access to α,β-unsaturated ketones, which are well-known building blocks in organic synthesis. Experimental and computational studies show that the selective β-hydride elimination and Ni-hydride reinsertion play an essential role in this reaction.

The Al0.3CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy (HEA) particles reinforced Cu matrix composites (CMCs) were fabricated by mechanical alloying and sintering. Transition layer structure was obtained by multi-step ball milling to investigate the related influence on element diffusion behavior and wear properties of CMCs. The results indicate that a new Cu transition layer is generated, and the thickness is about 5 μm. Cr element diffuses into the interface via the transition layer, which forms the complex oxide. Because of the structure of Cu transition layer, the diffusion rates of Ni, Co and Fe increase, especially the Ni element. The wear resistance of CMCs is improved by 30%, which is due to the improvement of interface bonding strength, compared with the CMCs without transition layer. This method is applicable to the development of advanced HEA reinforced metallic matrix composites.

From a suite of advanced magic-angle spinning (MAS) NMR spectroscopy and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) experiments, we present a comprehensive structural analysis of pyrophosphate-bearing calcium ...

Design of hollow carbon structure by using metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs) precursors has come under the spotlight in electrochemical energy related applications due to its structure advantages. Here, a bimetal-based MOF (Zn and Fe) is adopted to synthesize hollow carbon nanobox with encapsulation of FeP nanoparticles. An unique core-shell architecture consisting of Zn-Fe Prussian blue analogue (PBA) core and polydopamine shell is first synthesized, followed by pyrolysis-oxidation-phosphorization process to prepare monodispersed FeP nanoparticles encapsulated in hollow carbon nanobox (denoted as FeP/HCNB). Electrochemical hydrogen evolution activity is chosen to investigate the structure advantage of FeP/HCNB. It achieves overpotentials of −88 mV and −180 mV at 10 mA cm−2 in acidic and alkaline solutions, respectively, and continuous operation for 15 h (start at 20 mA cm−2). It is therefore expected that the synthetic strategy of nanobox would enlighten the preparation of various nanostructures for different applications.

The Chebyshev–Fourier collocation spectral method (CSM), in which the Chebyshev collocation method is applied in both radial and axial directions and the Fourier collocation method is applied in azimuthal direction, is developed to solve the Poisson equation with Neumann boundary condition in cylindrical coordinates. In order to avoid the axis at r = 0 , the Chebyshev–Gauss–Lobatto collocation point is adopted in radial direction and the number of points is set to be even. These direct solvers are developed to solve three-dimensional transient incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with projection method. The approach, in which the Neumann boundary condition is constructed for solving the Poisson equation based on the Chebyshev–Fourier CSM, is testified to be easily and efficiently implemented. Furthermore, the approach is applied for solving the swirling flows in an enclosed cylinder by the rotation of an end wall.

In the present work, Zn-incorporated TiO2 coatings are prepared through a one-step micro-arc oxidation (MAO) method on a grade 4 pure titanium with the addition of either Na2Zn-EDTA solution or ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) as Zn sources. The microstructural features of both Zn-incorporated TiO2 coatings were systematically examined. It is revealed that different Zn sources result in significant difference of phase component, chemical state, composition and morphology between the resultant Zn-incorporated MAO coatings. Zn species could be present as ZnO and Zn(OH)2 in the coating when Na2Zn-EDTA was used as Zn source whereas the presence of ZnO nano-clusters is obvious on the coating surface with ZnO NPs as Zn source. The addition of ZnO NPs during the MAO process also leads to a lower Zn content of the resultant coating, which is more defective with increased thickness in comparison to that of Na2Zn-EDTA. Further, antibacterial property and osteogenic activity of both Zn-incorporated coatings were examined. Both Zn-incorporated coatings exhibit favourable bacterial inhibition ability and bone formability, suggesting the successful synthesis of bifunctional coatings through the facile one-step micro-arc oxidation method.

From a large ensemble of 34 silicate-based glasses from the borosilicate, phosphosilicate, and borophosphosilicate systems that comprise either Na as a sole glass-network modifier or when mixed wit ...

The application of the conventional arithmetic mean method to calculation of the rock particle size composition parameters is limited to the normal type of distribution and may result in high error of calculated parameters. In view of this, a new method to calculate the rock particle size composition parameters is proposed in this paper. The method was called “a weighted mean method.” A detailed theoretical basis for the new method is presented, and the calculation formula expressions are derived. The calculation process is demonstrated with an example. In order to verify the accuracy of the new method, the calculation results are compared with those of the conventional arithmetic mean method. It was shown that the new method can be applied to calculate rock particle size composition parameters in cases where the granulometric parameter distribution is unknown or differs from normal distribution. The results show that the proposed method is more accurate and widely applicable.

We address a method of pedestrian segmentation in a video in a spatio-temporally consistent way. For this purpose, given a bounding box sequence of each pedestrian obtained by a conventional pedestrian detector and tracker, we construct a spatio-temporal graph on a video and segment each pedestrian on the basis of a well-established graph-cut segmentation framework. More specifically, we consider three terms as an energy function for the graph-cut segmentation: (1) a data term, (2) a spatial pairwise term, and (3) a temporal pairwise term. To maintain better temporal consistency of segmentation even under relatively large motions, we introduce a transportation minimization framework that provides a temporal correspondence. Moreover, we introduce the edge-sticky superpixel to maintain the spatial consistency of object boundaries. In experiments, we demonstrate that the proposed method improves segmentation accuracy indices, such as the average and weighted intersection of union on TUD datasets and the PETS2009 dataset at both the instance level and semantic level.

Fundamental characteristics of hydrogen flame in diluted atmosphere may have important guiding value for controlling the operation of argon-circulated hydrogen engines. In this paper, the impact of thermal-atmosphere (T ≥ 940 K, N2/O2, Ar/O2 and CO2/O2) on the flame characteristics of hydrogen jet were investigated experimentally and numerically based on a controllable active thermal-atmosphere burner. The effects of different diluents on flame liftoff height and luminosity were quantitatively analyzed and the different luminosity of the hydrogen jet flame under different dilution gas atmosphere was explained with the chemical reaction kinetics. Different critical temperatures exist in different atmospheres. The flame luminosity is in the increasing order of CO2/O2-, Ar/O2- and N2/O2-atmosphere. The analysis speculates that CO2* is generated in the flame of CO2/O2-atmosphere. The difference in axial velocity and mixture fraction under different dilution gas atmospheres is mainly influenced by the thermal atmosphere and the physical properties of the dilution gas, which also has a great influence on the jet before the autoignition occurs.