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The modular multilevel converter-based high voltage direct current transmission (MMC-HVDC) technology has become an effective integrating method for large-capacity offshore wind farms. However, if AC side faults occur between the MMC and the wind farm, conventional current differential protection might not detect the enlarge fault current at the wind farm and the MMC. In the worst case, MMC blocking may occur and can cause relay refusal. Therefore, a novel singular value decomposition (SVD) based pilot protection is proposed to address this problem. A Hankel matrix is established for the short-circuit current at each end of the AC line and can rapidly detects the singularity of the signal and its derivative. The SVD method only uses a short time window which enables the detection of the fault features before MMC blocking occurs. A detailed model of an offshore wind farm connected to the MMC-HVDC system is established in the real-time digital simulator (RTDS). A protection device compliant with industry standards is used to implement the SVD-based protection algorithm. Hardware-in- loop dynamic experimental tests are conducted to verify the performance of the proposed protection method. The experimental results demonstrate that the SVD-based protection method has excellent performance during various fault scenarios.

In this article, power converters are used in the integrated wind farms and can change the fault characteristics of the power system. The conventional pilot protection suffers from low sensitivity, or even the risk of maloperation. In order to address these problems, the fault features of the transient current of various power sources are analyzed and a novel pilot protection based on cosine similarity is proposed. To validate the proposed protection, the real time digital simulator hardware-in-loop tests are carried out to verify the proposed method. In addition, a field short-circuit test is conducted in a real wind farm to examine the performances of the proposed protection. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can be potential option for industrial applications.

The wide application of power electronic component in power system with renewable energy sources has changed the fault characteristics of conventional power system, resulting in the performance degradation of conventional protection, and even the risk of maloperation and rejection. This brings challenges to the security and stability of the power grid. Therefore, in order to solve these problems, a novel principle of pilot protection based on structural similarity and square error method is proposed. The structural similarity criterion makes use of the difference of fault characteristics between renewable sources and synchronous generators to identify internal faults, while the square error auxiliary criterion is used to solve abnormal calculation of the existing similarity based protection. The detailed model of grid-connected renewable energy power plant is built in Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) and the proposed protection algorithm is solidified in the industrial protection device. The effectiveness of the proposed principle is verified by hardware-in-loop dynamic simulation experiments. Compared with conventional differential protection, the proposed protection shows excellent performance in speed and reliability during various faults. In addition, a field short-circuit test is carried out in a real wind farm to verify the effectiveness of the proposed protection scheme. It is proved that this proposed method has the prospect for industrial application.

OBJECTIVE To compare the pharmacokinetics of cefquinome sulfate in ducklings and goslings after IV or IM administration of a single dose. ANIMALS 216 healthy Muscovy ducklings (Cairina moschata) and 216 healthy Sichuan white goslings (Anser cygnoides). PROCEDURES Ducklings and goslings were each randomly assigned to 3 groups (n = 72/group) that received a single dose (2 mg/kg) of injectable cefquinome sulfate administered IV or IM or of injectable cefquinome sulfate suspension administered IM. Blood samples were collected at various points after drug administration (n = 6 birds/time point). Plasma cefquinome concentrations were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography with UV detection, and pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated with a 2-compartment model method. RESULTS After IV injection, mean distribution half-life of cefquinome was longer in goslings (0.446 hours) than in ducklings (0.019 hours), whereas volume of distribution at steady state was greater (0.432 vs 0.042 L/kg) and elimination half-life was slower (1.737 vs 0.972 hours). After IM administration of injectable cefquinome sulfate, bioavailability of the drug was higher in goslings (113.9%) than in ducklings (67.5%). After IM administration of injectable cefquinome sulfate suspension, bioavailability was also higher in goslings (123.1%) than in ducklings (96.8%), whereas elimination half-life was slower (6.917 vs 1.895 hours, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE In goslings, IV administration of cefquinome resulted in slower distribution and metabolism of the drug than in ducklings and IM administration resulted in higher bioavailability. The delayed-release effect of the injectable cefquinome sulfate suspension when administered IM was observed only in goslings.

Background Early recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major obstacle to improving the prognosis, and no widely accepted adjuvant therapy guideline for patients post-liver resection is available. Currently, all available methods and biomarkers are insufficient to accurately predict post-operation HCC patients’ risk of early recurrence and their response to adjuvant therapy. Methods In this study, we downloaded four gene expression datasets (GSE14520, GSE54236, GSE87630, and GSE109211) from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and identified 34 common differentially expressed genes associated with HCC dysregulation and response to adjuvant sorafenib. Then, we constructed a novel 11-messenger RNA predictive model by using ROC curves analysis, univariate Cox regression analysis, and LASSO Cox regression analysis. Furthermore, we validated the predictive values of the risk model in GSE14520 and TCGA-LIHC cohorts by using Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, multivariable Cox regression analysis, and decision curve analysis, respectively. Results The risk score model could identify patients with a high risk of HCC recurrence at the early stage and could predict the response of patients to adjuvant sorafenib. Patients with a high risk score had a worse recurrence rate in training cohorts (2-year: p < 0.0001, hazard ratio (HR): 4.658, confidence interval 95% CI [2.895–7.495]; 5-year: p < 0.0001, HR: 3.251, 95% CI [2.155–4.904]) and external validation cohorts (2-year: p < 0.001, HR: 3.65, 95% CI [2.001–6.658]; 5-year: p < 0.001, HR: 3.156, 95% CI [1.78–5.596]). The AUC values of the risk score model for predicting tumor early recurrence were 0.746 and 0.618, and that of the risk score model for predicting the response to adjuvant sorafenib were 0.722 and 0.708 in the different cohort, respectively. Multivariable Cox regression analysis and decision curve analysis also showed that the risk score model was superior to and independent of other clinicopathologic characteristics. Moreover, the risk score model had excellent abilities to predict the overall survival and HCC recurrence of patients with the same tumor stage category. Conclusions Our risk model is a reliable and superior predictive tool. With this model, we could optimize the risk stratification based on early tumor recurrence and could evaluate the response of patients to adjuvant sorafenib after liver resection.

This study aims to evaluate the relationship between home parenting environment and the cognitive and psychomotor development in children under 5 years old by using meta-analysis. A systematic search of the Chinese and English databases including Pubmed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, CNKI, Weipu, Wanfang, and CBMdisc databases from January 1, 1990, to July 31, 2021, was performed. Articles concerning the relationship between home parenting environment and the cognitive and psychomotor development in children under 5 years old were included. Review Manager 5.4 was used for meta-analysis. Subgroup analysis in terms of age and region were performed. A total of 12 articles were included, including 11 in English and 1 in Chinese. Meta-analysis showed that there was significant relationship between home parenting environment and the cognitive and psychomotor development of children (r = 0.31; r = 0.21). Subgroup analysis showed that correlation between home parenting environment and the cognitive and psychomotor development of children was stronger in children over 18 months compared to those under 17 months [(r = 0.33, r = 0.21) vs. (r = 0.28, r = 0.17)]. The converted summary r value between home parenting environment and cognitive development in developing and developed countries was both 0.32. Conclusively, there is a positive correlation between the home parenting environment and the cognitive and psychomotor development of children under 5 years old. Improving the home parenting environment of children is beneficial to promote their early development.

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is the basis of future intelligent transportation systems. Both the control signaling and data dissemination services in IoV must be transmitted with high reliability and low latency so that safety can be guaranteed. Based on the discussion and analyses of issues in achieving high reliability low latency transmissions, we present in this paper a Polar code-based overlapping transmission scheme in which simultaneous transmissions from different nodes to the same receiving node are allowed to use the same time-frequency resource block. To effectively eliminate multiple access interference introduced by the overlapped nonorthogonal transmissions, a successive cancellation list-based improved interference elimination decoding algorithm (SCL-based IIEDA) is proposed to retrieve the Polar coded information. Numerical results show that the SCL-based IIEDA performs well on information recovery in the presented transmission scheme. In addition, it is shown that the proposed scheme not only significantly reduces the acknowledgment overhead but also greatly improves the spectral efficiency.

This paper proposes a compact and wideband dual-port dual-frequency UAV antenna composed of an antenna array and a wideband planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA). The antenna can realize simultaneous wireless power transmission and communication transmission. The antenna is composed of a $2 \times 2$ patch antenna array and a PIFA, and its resonance center frequencies are 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, respectively. To suppress surface waves and improve port isolation, a shorted square ring patch is introduced. PIFA achieves wideband characteristics by etching a slot. The simulated gains of the antenna at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz are 11.28 dBi and 6.17 dBi respectively. The isolation between the two ports is larger than 25 dB. The VSWR is less than 2 dB in the designed low-frequency band and high-frequency band. At the same time, the antenna maintains a compact size of $0.982 \lambda_{0} \times 0.898 \lambda_{0} \times 0.019 \lambda_{0}$. This enables the proposed antenna to be easily mounted on the UAV.

Background Diabetes has significant effects on bone metabolism. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can cause osteoporotic fracture. However, it remains challenging to diagnose osteoporosis in type 2 diabetes by bone mineral density which lacks regular changes. Seen another way, osteoporosis can be ascribed to the imbalance of bone metabolism, which is closely related to diabetes as well. Methods Here, to assist clinicians in diagnosing osteoporosis in type 2 diabetes, an efficient and simple SVM (support vector machine) model was established based on different combinations of biochemical indexes, which were collected from patients who did the test of bone turn-over markers (BTMs) from January 2016 to March 2018 in the department of endocrine, Zhongda Hospital affiliated to Southeast University. The classification was done based on a software package of machine learning in Python. The classification performance was measured by SKLearn program incorporated in the Python software package and compared with the clinical diagnostic results. Results The predicting accuracy rate of final model was above 88%, with feature combination of sex, age, BMI (body mass index), TP1NP (total procollagen I N-terminal propeptide) and OSTEOC (osteocalcin). Conclusions Experimental results show that the model showed an anticipant result for early detection and daily monitoring on type 2 diabetic osteoporosis.

This paper describes how the maximum blur radius affects the depth results by depth from the defocus (DFD) method based on liquid crystal (LC) lens. Boundary frequency is determined by the maximum blur radius. It is found that if the maximum blur radius used in the calculation is larger than the real value, the depth resolution obtained is reduced; on the other hand, if one smaller than the real value is used, the depth resolution in the middle range of the scene is increased, but errors occur in the near and far planes. Using the maximum blur radius close to the real one results in the best depth results.

BackgroundCongenital cavus foot deformity (CFD) (congenital =present at birth) is a disease very disabling that could connected to the mobility, neurologic entities and the imbalance of synergistic intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the patients, and the problem is even dynamic (often progressive). Here, we report the clinical and radiographic manifestations of one Chinese Han congenital CFD family and 23 congenital CFD patients. In the congenital CFD family, the proband’s mother and brother are also CFD patients. ResultsWe performed whole-exome sequencing for three patients and two healthy people in this family, and sequenced the Frizzled Class Receptor 4 (FZD4) for the other. One novel FZD4 mutation (exon2 c.1589G>A; p.G530E, NM_012193) was identified. Then mutations in FZD4 gene were further examined in 23 congenital CFD patients, and also find FZD4 mutation (FZD4:NM_012193:exon1:c.205C>T:p.H69Y) in one congenital CFD patient. ConclusionsOur study suggested that the congenital cavus foot deformity might be associated with the identified mutations in FZD4.

Micro expression is a facial feature that can reflect the most real emotional state hidden in the human heart. This is a very short process and difficult to capture accurately. Based convolutional network, a new network architecture (SHCFNet) is proposed to extract the spatial-temporal feature of peak frames, the optical flow between onset and apex frame and its derivative (optical strain). The proposed network stacks these features from the outcomes of the previous layer. Then, the stacked feature is merged with the convolution feature of the previous layer, which enhances the learnability of neurons. The performance of the proposed SHCFNet are evaluated on four benchmark datasets: CASME I, CASME II, SAMM and SMIC, and compared with other advanced networks.

The fault characteristics of wind power converter have an adverse effect on conventional protection. According to the analysis of the fault characteristics, a novel pilot protection based on the similarity of time-frequency matrix is proposed. The detailed model of grid-connected wind farm is built in real time digital simulator (RTDS) with external control devices. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed protection has the characteristics of high speed and high reliability. The proposed method also has good robustness in the case of fault resistance.

A combined strategy of torque error feed-forward control and blade-pitch angle servo control is proposed to improve the dynamic power capture for wind turbine maximum power point tracking (MPPT). Aerodynamic torque is estimated using the unscented Kalman filter (UKF). Wind speed and tip speed ratio (TSR) are estimated using the Newton&ndash, Raphson method. The error between the estimated aerodynamic torque and the steady optimal torque is used as the feed-forward signal to control the generator torque. The gain parameters in the feed-forward path are nonlinearly regulated by the estimated generator speed. The estimated TSR is used as the reference signal for the optimal blade-pitch angle regulation at non-optimal TSR working points, which can improve the wind power capture for a wider non-optimal TSR range. The Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence (FAST) code is used to simulate the aerodynamics and mechanical aspects of wind turbines while MATLAB/SIMULINK is used to simulate the doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) system. The example of a 5 MW wind turbine model reveals that the new method is able to improve the dynamic response of wind turbine MPPT and wind power capture.

This paper proposes a novel refocusing method that can effectively, digitally refocus objects on the arbitrary plane of the three-dimensional scene from the all-in-focus intensity and depth image pair with a liquid crystal (LC) lens camera. LC lens imaging system combines the transient prosperity of LC lens and the image process to simultaneously obtain the large depth of field intensity and depth image. The LC lens imaging system captured a set of constant magnification images with different focused distances between the two LC lens states’ switching. Then the depth information will be calculated with the far- and near-focused images, and the large depth of field intensity will be fused from the sets of images.

The technique of micro-laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (μLIBS) usually refers to analyzing the surface of the sample using a compact focused laser beam in the optical microscope range. Compared to conventional laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), it can provide more abundant form, structure, and content information on a smaller, less sample condition. Hence, the application field is very wide. In this paper, the basic status of μLIBS in the selection of laser source and the structure of optical path system is introduced, and its application in metal, semiconductor, animal and plant fields is reviewed. The existing problems and potential development direction is pointed out.

A new multitime programmable (MTP) non-volatile memory (NVM) cell using high voltage NMOS is proposed. A PMOS transistor is used for programming, erasing, and reading, and a high voltage NMOS is used for selecting the memory cell. The memory cell has fewer number of transistors and terminals compared with the typical conventional memory cell. This reduces the area consumption and simplifies the implementation of memory's external circuit. In addition, the subthreshold swing (SS) of the memory cell is improved for larger coupling ratio. Experimental investigation on transfer characteristics, endurance, retention, and threshold voltage VTH shift and leakage current of the high voltage NMOS of the memory cell are presented. The experimental endurance behaviour of the proposed memory cell is superior to the conventional memory cell.

Dust deposition on photovoltaic (PV) modules is related to environmental and weather conditions and results in a reduction in power generation efficiency over time. The effects of films on the transmittance can be obtained by testing sample glasses coated with silicon and fluorine super-hydrophobic films with a spectrophotometer. Red soil particles with a diameter of 25 μm were selected to simulate the process of natural dust deposition on PV module samples, and an incubator of constant temperature and humidity was used to simulate the condensation process. PV module samples were irradiated by a solar simulator after the aforementioned simulation process, and the effects of different amounts of sediment in unit areas on the photovoltaic properties and spectral characteristics were determined. The experimental results indicate that the influence of dust on the power generation efficiency of PV modules coated with fluorine super-hydrophobic film is smaller than that for PV modules coated with silicon super-hydrophobic film and that the super-hydrophobic films can not only greatly reduce the dust accumulation on the surface of PV modules but also increase the generating efficiency.

Distributed energy is an energy supply mode based on load demand side. It aims at maximizing energy utilization and environmental benefits, integrates and optimizes various energy demands and resource allocation of users, and adopts a new energy system with demand response design and modular allocation. Because most of the energy it consumes is renewable and clean, it is environmentally friendly. Energy community is an important part of active distribution system. The method of power grid planning is studied and analyzed, and the energy management model of energy community is established. On this basis, the active distribution system is studied comprehensively and solidly. The research results can effectively improve the economy and reliability of active distribution system, and promote the large-scale grid connection of renewable energy. By using the heat storage system to periodically transfer heat load, the contradiction between the ratio of electric load to heat load in microgrid and the electric heat ratio of cogeneration system can be alleviated, thus realizing efficient and economical electric heat dispatching.

Wildfires are one of the costliest and deadliest natural disasters in the US, causing damage to millions of hectares of forest resources and threatening the lives of people and animals. Of particular importance are risks to firefighters and operational forces, which highlights the need for leveraging technology to minimize danger to people and property. FLAME (Fire Luminosity Airborne-based Machine learning Evaluation) offers a dataset of aerial images of fires along with methods for fire detection and segmentation which can help firefighters and researchers to develop optimal fire management strategies. This paper provides a fire image dataset collected by drones during a prescribed burning piled detritus in an Arizona pine forest. The dataset includes video recordings and thermal heatmaps captured by infrared cameras. The captured videos and images are annotated and labeled frame-wise to help researchers easily apply their fire detection and modeling algorithms. The paper also highlights solutions to two machine learning problems: (1) Binary classification of video frames based on the presence [and absence] of fire flames. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method is developed that achieved a 76% classification accuracy. (2) Fire detection using segmentation methods to precisely determine fire borders. A deep learning method is designed based on the U-Net up-sampling and down-sampling approach to extract a fire mask from the video frames. Our FLAME method approached a precision of 92% and a recall of 84%. Future research will expand the technique for free burning broadcast fire using thermal images., Comment: 27 Pages, 7 Figures, 4 Tables

With the development of MCUs and the deterioration of the electromagnetic environment, it has led microcontroller unit (MCU) electromagnetic susceptibility (EMS) to transient burst interference to become the focus on academics and enterprises. Most electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) studies of MCUs have not taken into account the contrasting nature of differing architectures. Subsequently, different MCU architectures may possess varying physical parameters, often resulting in different susceptibility EMI outcomes. This paper shall focus on the relationship between MCU architectures and its EMC susceptibility. Upon close examination, test results have shown to exhibit variances in relation to the two types of MCU architectures with regards to susceptibility of electrical fast transients (EFT) burst. Consequently, the underlying reasons resulting in MCU susceptibility variations based on differing MCU architectures shall also be elaborated on further.

An analytical model of the initial fast charge loss mechanism for the logic embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) is proposed in this paper for the first time. The charge loss phenomenon is caused by the contact-etch-stop-layer (CESL) capacitive effect, which screens part of the charge in the floating gate of the memory cell. Empirical equations are proposed to describe the formation process of the CESL capacitive effect, and the proposed model fits the experimental results excellently including the temperature dependence. The new model will be very helpful for the designers to accurately predict the memory's data retention capability. Furthermore, it can also be used to improve the initial fast charge loss of the logic eNVM.

In underwater wireless sensor networks, time synchronization and localization are basic requirements in many applications. A joint synchronization and localization framework is expected to provide better accuracy. In this paper, we propose a unified framework to execute synchronization and localization simultaneously taking stratification effect into account. In this method, the stratification effect of underwater medium is modeled using a ray tracing approach. The maximum likelihood (ML) estimator is derived, which is shown to be highly nonlinear and nonconvex. Therefore, we employ the Gauss-Newton algorithm to solve the original nonconvex ML problem in an iterative manner. Furthermore, the Cramér-Rao lower bound for this problem is derived as a benchmark. Simulation results indicate that the proposed method outperforms the existing methods in both accuracy and energy efficiency.

Background: Surgical site infection (SSI) hampers the advantages of surgical management, which requires early forecast particularly in patients receiving colorectal surgery. This study is to explore potential relationship between individual abdominal anatomic characteristics including subcutaneous fat thickness (SFT), rectus abdominis thickness (RAT), and abdomen depth (AD), with the incidence of SSI in elective radical resection of colon malignancy. Materials and Methods: This retrospective case-control study has recruited 55 patients in each SSI and non-SSI group with propensity score match method. Demographics, clinical attributes, and pre- and intra-operative information were compared between groups with univariate analysis to elicit significant parameters, which were subsequently brought into logistic regression and receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results: Patients with SSI showed lower preoperative albumin (p = 0.0022), higher RAT (p = 0.014), AD (p = 0.029), and the multiplied value (RAT × AD) (p = 0.0026) contrasted with patients without SSI. Logistic regression demonstrated RAT × AD as an independent risk factor for SSI (OR = 1.007, p < 0.001) and a biomarker for SSI prediction (AUC = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.74 ~ 0.91). Conclusions: Preoperative RAT and abdomen depth are associated with the risk of postoperative SSI in patients receiving elective radical resection of colon cancer. Trial Registration: www.researchregistry.com, identifier researchregistry3669.

Graphene exhibits properties of atomic thickness, high transparency, and high carrier mobility, which is highly desirable for a flexible transparent conductive material. However, the electronic properties of large-area chemical vapor deposition grown graphene film suffer from insulated polymer contaminations introduced by the transfer process and the easily cracked nature. Here, we report a preparation method of a transfer-medium-free large-area nanofiber-reinforced graphene (a-PAN/G) film simply by annealing the electrostatically spun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers on the graphene film. The film could be free-standing on water and suspended in air with high transparency and enhanced electrical and mechanical properties compared to that of a monolayer graphene film. The flexible transparent a-PAN/G films were demonstrated as active materials for sensitive pressure sensors. The obtained pressure sensors demonstrate high sensitivity (44.5 kPa-1 within 1.2 kPa), low operating voltage (0.01-0.5 V), and excellent stability for 5500 loading-unloading cycles, revealing promising potential applications in wearable electronics.

In this paper, a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) amplify-and-forward (AF) relay system with direct link is investigated, where simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technique is applied at the multiple-antenna relay node which splits the received signal into two parts, one portion is used for information decoding (ID) and the other portion is adopted for energy harvesting (EH). By considering power splitting (PS) scheme of SWIPT, the relay node consumes the harvested energy to forward the ID signal to the destination. We design the precoding matrixes of the source and relay nodes to derive the achievable rate. Finally, the analytical results are validated by the simulations.

In this paper, a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) two-way amplify-and-forward (AF) relay system is investigated, where simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) technique is applied at the massive-antenna relay node which splits the received signal into two parts, one portion is used for information decoding (ID) and the other portion is adopted for energy harvesting (EH). By considering power splitting (PS) scheme of SWIPT, the relay node consumes the harvested energy to forward the ID signal to two users. When the number of relay antennas approaches to infinity, the deterministic sum-rate of the relay system is analyzed. The close-form expression of optimal PS factor is derived. Finally, the analytical results are validated by the simulations.

4040 Background: PD-1 inhibitor and chemotherapy have shown significant clinical benefits in 1L-treatment of G/GEJ. While it is not clear for locally advanced stage. The aim of this single-arm phase Ib trial is to assess the feasibility of sintilimab (PD-1 inhibitor) in combination with cCRT in locally advanced GC. Methods: Patients (pts) with initial histopathologically confirmed G/GEJ adenocarcinoma, diagnosed as locally advanced III-IVA per AJCC 8th and ECOG PS of 0-1 were eligible. Sintilimab (200mg, iv, Q3W) was given with CRT sandwich in sequence of one induction chemotherapy (S-1+Nab-PTX), weekly Nab-PTX(80-100mg/m2, d1, d8, d15, d22), concurrent radiotherapy (45Gy/1.8Gy*25f), and one consolidation chemotherapy (S-1+Nab-PTX). Pts received three additional combinations of sintilimab and chemotherapy after surgery or investigator’s best choice for unresectable pts after planned therapy. The primary endpoint was pCR and a Simon two-stage was employed at first 9 pts. This interim analysis was pre-planned after finishing stage I assessment. Accrual is ongoing with another 25 in next stage. Results: In the first stage, 5 out of 9 pts achieved pCR and passed to next stage. As of 7th Feb 2021, 28 pts met inclusion criteria with median age 67 yrs (range 47-81), men 86%, PS 1 25%, cT3/4a/4b 28%/54%/18%, cN1/N2/N3 7%/50%/43% and Borrmann II/III/IV 57%/18%/25%. The location on GEJ and G was 14% and 86%. Of 23 pts completed neoadjuvant, all were evaluated as D2-surgery feasibility. 19 pts had completed gastrectomy (4 pts waiting for surgery) with pCR 42.1% (8/19), MPR (≤10% viable tumor cells) 73.7% (14/19) and R0 resection 94.7% (18/19). Down-staging to pT0 and pN0 were both observed in 42.1%. The median follow-up was 5.8m unavailable for survival evaluation at present. Grade (gr) 3-4 TRAE occurred in 39.3% (11/28) pts with most common events as myelosuppression (39.3%) and increased transaminase (10.7%). IrAEs occurred in 21.4% (6/28) pts with one gr 4 hepatitis and others gr 1-2. Peri-operative complications occurred in 3 pts with gr 1-2 pneumonia, increased transaminase, and ileus. No death or unexpected toxicity observed. Conclusions: SHARED interim analysis demonstrated a promising feasibility of sintilimab in combination with cCRT with preliminary impressive pCR & MPR and acceptable toxicity in phase III-IVA G/GEJ cancer. These results warrant further accrual and evaluation. Clinical trial information: ChiCTR1900024428.

Background: Adult obesity has become a serious human health issue. However, no existing study has explored the relationship between obesity and climatic conditions at the time of birth. To determine whether the birth month and climatic conditions at birth correlate with the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases. Methods: This observational study included 264,574 Chinese participants. All participants were enrolled between 2008 and 2014 .Initially, 382,325 Chinese participants were selected from a population-based sample, after which 264,574 participants were randomly selected by the complete data and appropriate age. All data were measured by the same observers who were blinded to patient groupings. Findings: Individuals born in June, July, and August had the lowest risks of obesity and hypertension. Therefore, the prevalence of adult obesity may be significantly affected by climatic conditions during the birth month. Our research indicates a new direction for exploration of the contributions of climatic factors and time of birth to adult obesity. Interpretation: Participants born in June had the lowest body mass index and prevalence of overweight and obesity among all participants. The highest prevalence of these categories was observed in February and September, which yielded a clear V-type trend curve. Similar trends were observed for obesity-related diseases such as hypertension. Adult obesity correlated linearly with the average temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric pressure of the birth month (P

Spermatogonia stem cells (SSCs), also named the male germline stem cells (mGSCs), which is located at the base of the seminiferous tubules of testis, is the basis for generating sperm steadily in male animals. Currently, there are some preliminary study on the self-renewal and differentiation of SSCs, but further mechanism, especially in large animals, has not been clearly understood. Ras/ERK1/2 pathway is widely distributed in multiple cells in vivo. It plays an important role in cell proliferation, differentiation and so on. However, the study on the function for the self-renewal of dairy goats SSCs has not been investigated. In this study, the dairy goat SSCs characterization were evaluated by semi-RT-PCR, alkaline phosphatase (AP) staining, and immunofluorescence staining. Then, Ras/ERK1/2 pathway was blocked by specific MEK1/2 inhibitor PD0325901. We analyzed the proliferation by cell number, cell growth curve, Brdu incorporation assay, and cell cycle analysis. The results showed that the proliferation was significantly inhibited by PD0325901. Cell apoptosis induced by blocking the Ras/ERK1/2 pathway was analyzed by TUNEL. The expression of ETV5 and BCL6B, the downstream gene of Ras/ERK1/2 pathway, was downregulated. This study suggest that the Ras/ERK1/2 pathway plays a critical role in maintaining the self-renewal of dairy goat SSCs via regulation of ETV5 and BCL6B. This study laid a foundation for insights into the mechanism of SSCs self-renewal comprehensively.

Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) provide a promising approach for ocean monitoring. Locating the sensor nodes (SNs) in UWSNs is critical for annotating data samples. However, the global positioning system (GPS) is not available underwater. The locations of SNs are usually interpreted from anchor nodes which are deployed at known locations on the seafloor or sea surface. Due to the characteristics of UWSNs such as node sparsity, network asynchrony, energy restriction and sound propagation speed uncertainty, to locate the SN accurately is challenging. In this paper, we propose a factor graph framework and a Gaussian message-based belief propagation algorithm for the joint localization and synchronization problem. Particularly, the proposed algorithm jointly estimates the SN's position and clock offset as well as the sound propagation speed in a fully distributed fashion. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm converges in a few iterations and achieves good performance.

The bandgap reference circuits are very sensitive to electromagnetic interferences (EMI) which induce voltage offset on their outputs. Two bandgap chips with different technologies are designed for EMC study. The conducted immunity of VDD and VSS pins are tested following direct power injection (DPI) method. The aim of this study is to compare the susceptibility characteristics of same bandgap circuit but with SI and Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technologies.

The metallic honeycomb core structure has important engineering applications in the aerospace and aviation fields due to several advantages, such as being lightweight, its strong resistance to deformation in high-temperature environments, and its excellent energy absorption characteristics. In the present study, a transient heating experimental system for high-speed flight vehicles was developed to study the thermal insulation characteristics of a superalloy honeycomb core structure at different thermal shock rates $$(5\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}{\cdot }\mathrm{s}^{-1}\, \mathrm{to}\,30\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}{\cdot }\mathrm{s}^{-1})$$ . The highest instantaneous temperature tested was $$950\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$$ . The three-dimensional finite element method was used to numerically calculate the thermal insulation characteristics of the metallic honeycomb core structure in a high-speed thermal shock environment. The calculated results agree well with the experimental results; this agreement demonstrates that to an extent, numerical calculations are a better alternative than expensive experiments. The results of this study provide an important reference for the thermal protection design of metallic honeycomb core structures of high-speed flight vehicles.

The metallic honeycomb core structure has great value in engineering applications in the areas of aeronautics and astronautics because of its lightweight structure, heat insulation performance and strong resistance to deformation. Through the self-developed aerodynamic heating experiment simulation system, the heat transfer characteristics of a metallic honeycomb core panel were tested from 200 °C to 900 °C. The heat insulation effects at various temperatures were also obtained experimentally. A three-dimensional (3-D) finite element model was used to numerically compute the heat-transfer properties of the metallic honeycomb core panel, and all of the internal radiation of the honeycomb core panel, the heat conduction of the metal structure, and the heat transfer of the air within the honeycomb core cavities were considered in the numerical simulation. Overall, the experimental results agreed well with the numerical simulations. The equivalent thermal conductivity of the metallic honeycomb core panel varied from 0.447 W/(m °C) to 1.52 W/(m °C) when the front surface temperature increased from 200 °C to 900 °C. The findings in this study provide an important foundation for the safety design of high-speed aircraft.

GB/T 28925-2012 is a standard of P. R. China for active radio frequency identification (RFID). It defines wireless communications between reader and tag at 2.45GHz. Framed Slotted Binary Tree (FSBT) anti-collision protocol is adapted in it. However, performance of FSBT is not evaluated and parameters of FSBT are not estimated. A metrics for evaluating time performance and another metrics for evaluating energy performance were proposed with unknown number of tags. They were used to analyze and evaluate the performance as well as help in selecting parameters. Finally, simulation results indicate that this protocol has better performance than previous protocols. Its time metrics can achieve above 1.24, while binary tree is 0.96. Its energy metrics can achieve above 1.39, while dynamic frame slotted ALOHA is 1.09. Its system efficiency can achieve above 47% with unknown number of tags in large scale scenarios.

Source localization is one of the essential tasks for underwater acoustic sensor networks (UASNs). The sound speed in water environments varies with depth, therefore the sound waves do not propagate along a straight line, this phenomenon is described as stratification effect. Some range-based UASNs localization algorithms with stratification compensation have been proposed. All these algorithms need to measure the propagation delays for exchanged messages among the nodes. However, these time-based algorithms usually suffer from synchronization errors caused by the node clock skew and clock offset. Thus, we propose a received signal strength (RSS)-based UASNs localization algorithm with stratification compensation (NRA-WSE). In NRA-WSE, urick propagation model is introduced to characterize the RSS, and the stratification effect is modeled by using ray tracing method, then, we adopt the Newton-Raphson algorithm to solve the source location. Finally, we compare our solution to the localization method based on a straight-line propagation model (NRA-NSE). Simulation results show that NRA-WSE performs superbly and meets the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB).

In the process of three-dimensional detection with computer vision, there is a highlighted phenomenon in metal artifact surface. It leads to the interference problem in subsequent detection. To solve this question, a method of image highlight elimination is proposed which is based on color space conversion technology. Firstly, the RGB color space is converted into the Y′CbCr color space, the luminance value is adjusted, and then, the highlighted part of the image with luminance adjustment polynomial that obtained using cubic spline interpolation is disposed. Finally, the removed highlighted image in the RGB color space is obtained. Experimental results show that this method can not only effectively remove the highlighted metal in the image, but also have a better performance on preserving the texture information of the original image.

This paper presents a method for the automatic adjustment of the laser defocusing amount in micro-laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. A microscopic optical imaging system consisting of a CCD camera and a 20× objective lens was adopted to realize the method. The real-time auto-focusing of the system was achieved by detecting the effective pixels of the light spot generated by the laser pointer. The focusing accuracy of the method could achieve 3 μm. The element concentrations of Mn and Ni in low-alloy steels were analyzed at a crater diameter of about 35 μm using the presented method. After using the presented method, the determination coefficients of Mn and Ni both exceeded 0.997, with the root-mean-square errors being 0.0133 and 0.0395, respectively. Scanning analysis was performed on the inclined plane and the curved surface by means of focusing control and non-focusing control. Ten characteristic spectral lines of Fe were selected as the analysis lines. With the focusing control, the average relative standard deviations obtained on the inclined plane and curved surface were both less than 5%, and much less than the values without focusing control, 14.6% and 40.39%.

Using active control methods for load mitigation in wind turbines could greatly reduce the cost of per kilowatt hour of wind power. In this work, the combined pitch and trailing edge flap control (CPFC) for load mitigation of wind turbines is investigated. The CPFC includes an individual pitch control (IPC) loop and a trailing edge flap control (TEFC) loop, which are combined by a load frequency division control algorithm. The IPC loop is mainly used to mitigate the low frequency loads, and the TEFC loop is mainly used to mitigate the high frequency loads. The CPFC adopts both an azimuth angle feed-forward and a loads feedback control strategy. The azimuth angle feed-forward control strategy should mitigate the asymmetrical loads caused by observable disturbances. and the loads feedback control strategy should decrease asymmetrical loads by closed loop control. A simulation is carried out on the joint platform of FAST and MATLAB. The simulation results show that the damage equivalent load (DEL) of blade root out-of-plane bending moment is reduced by 53.7% while using CPFC, compared to collective pitch control (CPC), and the standard deviation of blade tip out-of-plane deflection is reduced by 50.2% while using CPFC, compared to CPC. The results demonstrate that the CPFC can mitigate the fatigue loads of wind turbines as anticipated.

This paper reports on the laser notching technology in C70S6 steel for fracture splitting connecting rod using a Nd:YAG pulsed laser. The effects of process parameters on starting notch (SN) dimension and morphology were investigated by both finite element method (FEM) simulations and physical experiments for various process parameters. Optical microscopy and the scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used for the measurement of SN dimension and the observation of SN morphology in the experiment. The results were compared with the predictions. It was found that the FEM simulations results showed good consistency with the experiments, which indicates that the finite element model is feasible and reliable. Based on the principal findings from the two methods, optimum ranges of process parameters for different fracture splitting connecting rods were predicted, which are a flexibly adjusting notch depth, a curvature radius less than 0.08 mm and an opening angle within the range 18–26°. The results indicate that the predicting ranges are suitable for making good SNs, which has also been proved by the fracture splitting experiments.

Heterostructures based on graphene and other 2D atomic crystals exhibit fascinating properties and intriguing potential in flexible optoelectronics, where graphene films function as transparent electrodes and other building blocks are used as photoactive materials. However, large-scale production of such heterostructures with superior performance is still in early stages. Herein, for the first time, the preparation of a submeter-sized, vertically stacked heterojunction of lead iodide (PbI2 )/graphene on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film by vapor deposition of PbI2 on graphene/PET substrate at a temperature lower than 200 °C is demonstrated. This film is subsequently used to fabricate bendable graphene/PbI2 /graphene sandwiched photodetectors, which exhibit high responsivity (45 A W-1 cm-2 ), fast response (35 µs rise, 20 µs decay), and high-resolution imaging capability (1 µm). This study may pave a facile pathway for scalable production of high-performance flexible devices.

The high repair traffic and the long repair time of erasure coding have posed a new challenge: how to minimise the amount of data transferred among nodes and reduce the repair time when repairing the lost data. Existing schemes are mostly designed for single node failures, which incur high network traffic and result in low efficiency. In this paper, we propose a traffic efficient repair scheme TERS suitable for repairing data losses when multiple nodes fail. To evaluate the repair cost and the repair time, we provide an implementation of integrating TERS into HDFS-RAID. The numerical results confirm that TERS reduces the repair traffic by 44% on average compared with the traditional erasure codes and regenerating codes. Theoretical analysis shows that TERS effectively reduces the repair time.

Using Physical Layer Network Coding in Two-way Relay Channels, different carrier frequency in Multiple Access phase will cause serious performance loss of wireless communication systems. Joint Physical-layer Network Coding and Channel Coding can improve system performance and reduce facility complexity to a large extant. However, a great majority of these designs only consider synchronization at present. This paper proposes joint design of PNC and LDPC with complete frequency offset of single-node and average frequency offset of two-node in condition of carrier frequency offsets. We design two corresponding frequency offset filters and reanalyze their useful signal part and noise distribution. Simulation results indicate that two proposed joint PNC and LDPC with carrier frequency offsets have a great performance compared with traditional Physical-layer Network Coding.

The thermal protection performance of superalloy honeycomb structure in high-temperature environments are important for thermal protection design of high-speed aircrafts. By using a self-developed transient aerodynamic thermal simulation system, the thermal protection performance of superalloy honeycomb panel was tested in this paper at different transient heating rates ranging from 5°C/s to 30°C/s, with the maximum instantaneous temperature reaching 950°C. Furthermore, the thermal protection performance of superalloy honeycomb structure under simulated thermal environments was computed for different high heating rates by using 3D finite element method, and a comparison between calculational and experimental results was carried out. The results of this research provide an important reference for the design of thermal protection systems comprising superalloy honeycomb panel.