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As wind farms grow in number and size worldwide, it is important that their potential impacts on the environment are studied and understood. The Fitch parameterization implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model since version 3.3 is a widely used tool today to study such impacts. We identified two important issues related to the way the added turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) generated by a wind farm is treated in the WRF Model with the Fitch parameterization. The first issue is a simple “bug” in the WRF code, and the second issue is the excessive value of a coefficient, called CTKE, that relates TKE to the turbine electromechanical losses. These two issues directly affect the way that a wind farm wake evolves, and they impact properties like near-surface temperature and wind speed at the wind farm as well as behind it in the wake. We provide a bug fix and a revised value of CTKE that is one-quarter of the original value. This 0.25 correction factor is empirical; future studies should examine its dependence on parameters such as atmospheric stability, grid resolution, and wind farm layout. We present the results obtained with the Fitch parameterization in the WRF Model for a single turbine with and without the bug fix and the corrected CTKE and compare them with high-fidelity large-eddy simulations. These two issues have not been discovered before because they interact with one another in such a way that their combined effect is a somewhat realistic vertical TKE profile at the wind farm and a realistic wind speed deficit in the wake. All WRF simulations that used the Fitch wind farm parameterization are affected, and their conclusions may need to be revisited.

Although serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing could decrease the morality of prostate cancer (PCa), its low specificity usually led to misdiagnosis due to prostatitis or benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3) as an alternative prostate tumor-specificity biomarker could be used to increase the specificity of PCa diagnosis, however, it usually required sophisticated operation and expensive equipment for routine detection. Herein, we constructed an early detection platform for prostate cancer with reverse transcriptase-recombinase aided amplification (RT-RAA) and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 based nucleic acid test strip. The amplicons of PCA3 and kallikrein related peptidase 3 (KLK3) gene, which amplified simultaneously by single-amplification unit of RT-RAA were specifically recognized by Cas9-sgRNA and visual on the nucleic acid test strip by naked eyes without instruments. Simultaneously detection of PCA3 and KLK3 gene could improve specificity and accuracy of the diagnosis but avoid mutual interference. In addition, the platform presented a detection limit of 500 fg/μL and 50 fg/μL in PCA3 and KLK3 gene, respectively. Furthermore, the analysis result of signal ratio of PCA3 to KLK3 gene of urine and peripheral blood specimens from 32 men with suspected prostate cancer on test strips illustrated that the area under the curve values of urine and peripheral blood specimens were 0.998 and 1.0 respectively. In summary, our study highlighted a facile strategy to design an accurate prostate cancer gene detection platform which had the potential to conduct prostate cancer early detection in the resource-limited or other point-of-care testing (POCT) environments.

Lead-free double perovskites are regarded as stable and green optoelectronic alternatives to single perovskites, but may exhibit indirect band gaps and high effective masses, thus limiting their maximum photovoltaic efficiency. Considering that the trial-and-error experimental and computational approaches cannot quickly identify ideal candidates, we propose an ensemble learning workflow to screen all suitable double perovskites from the periodic table, with a high predictive accuracy of 92% and a computed speed that is ∼10

Micro-nanobubbles can spontaneously generate hydroxyl free radicals (OH). Urea is a cheap reductant and can react with NO

GMrepo (data repository for Gut Microbiota) is a database of curated and consistently annotated human gut metagenomes. Its main purpose is to facilitate the reusability and accessibility of the rapidly growing human metagenomic data. This is achieved by consistently annotating the microbial contents of collected samples using state-of-art toolsets and by manual curation of the meta-data of the corresponding human hosts. GMrepo organizes the collected samples according to their associated phenotypes and includes all possible related meta-data such as age, sex, country, body-mass-index (BMI) and recent antibiotics usage. To make relevant information easier to access, GMrepo is equipped with a graphical query builder, enabling users to make customized, complex and biologically relevant queries. For example, to find (1) samples from healthy individuals of 18 to 25 years old with BMIs between 18.5 and 24.9, or (2) projects that are related to colorectal neoplasms, with each containing >100 samples and both patients and healthy controls. Precomputed species/genus relative abundances, prevalence within and across phenotypes, and pairwise co-occurrence information are all available at the website and accessible through programmable interfaces. So far, GMrepo contains 58 903 human gut samples/runs (including 17 618 metagenomes and 41 285 amplicons) from 253 projects concerning 92 phenotypes. GMrepo is freely available at: https://gmrepo.humangut.info.

With the large-scale use of intermittent renewable energy worldwide, such as wind energy and solar energy, energy storage systems are urgently needed and have been rapidly developed. Technologies o ...

Wind energy has been growing steadily in the U.S. and worldwide in the past decades. As wind farms are projected to increase in size and number, however, concerns are rising about possible undesira...

This paper reports Pb isotopes in different fractions following the three step BCR and 1 M HCl extractions on river sediments from lower reaches of the Xiangjiang river in China, and highlights the importance of Pb isotopes in heavy metal contamination assessment. Lead concentrations and Pb isotopes in bulk sediments and sediment fractions (leachates and residues) from the river were analysed using ICP-MS techniques. Results showed that sediments were highly enriched with Pb with enrichment factors5.5, while Pb in sediments was dominated by reducible and residual Pb fractions, residing mainly in Fe-oxide and silicate minerals. Pb isotopes in sediments was characterized by radiogenic Pb produced from the decay of uranium and thorium with

Buffalo is an important livestock in Asia. Like other ruminants, its digestive tract (DT) is the key to the quality and wellbeing of buffalo and heavily interact with microbes. Here, we present a comprehensive survey on the microbial ecology along buffalo’s DT, including eight sites in three sections (i.e., stomach, intestine and rectum). We collected 695 samples, performed metagenomic sequencing and obtained 4,960 high-quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), to which ~ 85% of the raw reads could be mapped. 90.7% of the MAGs are previously unidentified at species level. Overall, Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes are the most abundant phyla; their ratios showed an increasing trend along the DT, consistent with their functions in the DT sections. We identified known interactions between microbes and DT sites including the enrichment of fiber-digesting and methane-producing microbes in the stomach. Strikingly, archaea were highly abundant in both stomach and intestine and showed positive-correlations with Fibrobacter, indicating their roles in methane-production and fiber-degradation at both sections. We annotated 5,862,748 non-redundant proteins from the MAGs, many of which also showed different abundances and were related to site-specific functions. By comparing with the rumen microbiota of cattle, we found higher abundances of microbes in fiber degradation and but lower in methane production. Our catalog of microbial genomes and encoded-proteins provides insight to their functions and interactions with distinct DT sites, and pave the way to microbial interventions for better buffalo quality.

The total concentrations of Cd in bulk sediments and those of the BCR sequential extraction fractions of sediments from inlets of the Four Rivers that feed Dongting Lake were determined using ICP-MS techniques. The results suggested that Cd was heterogeneously distributed in the inlet sediments of the rivers, with the highest degree of enrichment in sediments from the Xiangjiang River. The Cd anomaly was defined as Cd enrichment in sediments with an EF (enrichment factor)10.0, and it was identified in the inlet sediments of the Xiangjiang River. Cd in the sediments was dominated by acid-soluble Cd at a proportion of 23.9-69.8 (%) compared to its total concentrations in the sediments. The inlet sediments of the Four Rivers were contaminated with Cd, with the highest degree of contamination in the inlet sediments of the Xiangjiang River. The Cd contamination as well as the Cd anomaly in the sediments were closely related to the industrial activities (e.g. smelting and refining for ore minerals) in the areas, and Cd contamination at high levels may represent an ecological risk for the lake watershed. Cd contamination of the inlet sediments may also impact the lake basin sediments and is harmful to the lake ecological system, particularly for sediments of the Xiangjiang River. Therefore, it is essential to control and treat Cd contamination in the inlet sediments for ecological environmental protection of lake watersheds.

Many of the gut-microbiome-derived signatures for liver cirrhosis, especially the important ones, were likely under the influence of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). Wu et al. suggest that drug usage is a confounding factor in metagenomics analysis that should be controlled for.

Micro-nanobubbles can spontaneously generate hydroxyl free radicals (*OH). Urea is a cheap reductant and can react with NOx species, and their products are nontoxic and harmless N2, CO2 and H2O. In this study, a Wet Direct Recycling Micro-nanobubble Flue Gas Multi-pollutants Removal System (WDRMRS) was developed for the simultaneous removal of NO, SO2 and Hg0. In this system, a micro-nanobubble generator (MNBG) was used to produce a micro-nanobubble gas-liquid dispersion system (MNBGLS) through recycling the urea solution from the reactor and the simulated flue gas composed of N2, NO, SO2 and Hg0. The MNBGLS, which has a large gas-liquid dispersion interface, was recycled continuously from the MNBG to the reactor, thus achieving cyclic absorption of various pollutants. All of the investigated parameters, including the initial pH and temperature of the absorbent as well as the concentrations of urea, NO and SO2 had significant effects on the NO removal efficiency but did not significantly affect the SO2 removal efficiency, whereas only the initial solution pH and NO concentration affected the Hg0 removal efficiency. The analysis results of the reaction mechanism showed that played a critical role in the removal of various pollutants. After the treatment by this system, the main removal products were HgO sediment, and which could be easily recycled.

Habitat specific patterns reflected by microbial communities, as well as complex interactions between the community and their environments or hosts9 characteristics, have created obstacles for microbial source tracking: diverse and context-dependent applications are asking for quantification of the contributions of different niches (biomes), which have already overwhelmed existing methods. Moreover, existing source tracking methods could not extend well for source tracking samples from understudied biomes, as well as samples from longitudinal studies. Here, we introduce EXPERT (https://github.com/HUST-NingKang-Lab/EXPERT), an exact and pervasive expert model for source tracking microbial communities based on transfer learning. Built upon the biome ontology information and transfer learning techniques, EXPERT has acquired the context-aware flexibility and could easily expand the supervised model9s search scope to include the context-dependent community samples and understudied biomes. While at the same time, it is superior to current approaches in source tracking accuracy and speed. EXPERT9s superiority has been demonstrated on multiple source tracking tasks, including source tracking samples collected at different disease stages and longitudinal samples. For example, when dealing with 650 samples from a recent study of colorectal cancer, EXPERT could achieve an AUROC of 0.95 when predicting the host9s phenotypical status. In summary, EXPERT has unleashed the potential of model-based source tracking approaches, enabling source tracking in versatile context-dependent settings, accomplishing pervasive and in-depth knowledge discovery from microbiome.

In this study, Pb isotopic composition of bulk sediments and 1 M HCl leachates/residues of samples from the Four Rivers’ inlets to Dongting Lake (China) was determined to identify and differentiate the source of Pb inputs. Results highlighted that Xiangjiang river (XY-QS) sediments were highly enriched in Pb with less radiogenic Pb isotopes (e.g., 206Pb/207Pb ratios of 1.1830 ± 0.003), indicating the predominance of anthropogenic Pb inputs. In contrast, sediments of the Zijiang, Yuanjiang and Lishui rivers (ZD-LH) were moderately enriched in Pb and exhibited more radiogenic Pb (e.g., 206Pb/207Pb ratios of 1.1880 ± 0.008). Results from 1 M HCl extraction of XY-QS sediments illustrated that anthropogenic Pb was removed, which resulted in differentiation of 206Pb/207Pb isotope ratios between leachates (1.1740 ± 0.005) and residues (1.1846 ± 0.008), however, this difference was not observed in ZD-LH sediments (leachates: 1.1887 ± 0.009; residues: 1.1887 ± 0.008). Residual Pb isotope ratios suggested that Pb isotopic composition of lithologically inherited Pb in inlet sediments was similar, which was attributed to mixing, hydrological sorting, and averaging of different Pb sources from diverse geological settings. Pb isotopic tracing showed that Pb in XY-QS sediments resulted from the mixing of two end member sources, an anthropogenic source (less radiogenic Pb) from downstream ore smelting and upstream ore mining activities (53%) and a lithological source (37%) from granite through weathering. In contrast, Pb in ZD-LH sediments resulted from the mixing of multiple sources including Pb from upstream mining activities (20%), coal combustion (20%), and lithologically inherited Pb (60%) while surface sediments from the Yuanjiang river contained Pb from diesel oil usage (50%). Results from this study highlight the utility of a Pb isotope approach for identifying and differentiating Pb source inputs in diverse sediments from the Four River inlets to Dongting Lake (China). Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Background Current guidelines recommend that patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who have successfully undergone percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) should continue to use dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) for 12 months. The long-term use of standard-dose dual antiplatelet therapy will increase the risk of bleeding. An optimized antiplatelet strategy that can prevent ischemic events and reduce the risk of bleeding remains to be explored. Methods The study is a prospective, multicenter, randomized, open-label, controlled study involving 2090 patients from six clinical centers in China. Through the interactive web response system (IWRS), ACS patients undergoing successful PCI will be randomly divided into the low-dose ticagrelor group or the normal-dose ticagrelor group, after taking 100 mg aspirin and 90 mg ticagrelor bid for 1 week. The primary endpoint is a composite of cardiovascular death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, stent thrombosis, repeat revascularization, and stroke. The secondary endpoints are bleeding events of grade 2 or higher according to Bleeding Academic Research Consortium [BARC] criteria, cardiovascular death, acute myocardium infarction, and coronary revascularization at 1 year. Discussion Recent studies have confirmed that 90 mg ticagrelor alone can safely and effectively reduce bleeding without increasing ischemic events of patients with ACS after PCI. Compared with standard-dose DAPT, whether low-dose ticagrelor combined with aspirin can ensure the anti-ischemic effect while reducing the bleeding risk remains unclear in Chinese patients. The TIGER study will be the first large-scale, multicenter study to compare the efficacy and safety of low-dose and standard-dose ticagrelor combined with aspirin in ACS patients 1 week after successful PCI. Trial registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04255602. Registered on 5 February 2020.

Wind power resources are remotely distributed in China. The fixed series compensation (FSC) is one of the traditional methods to solve the problem of long-distance power transmission of the doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs) based wind farm. The introduction of FSC will bring potential sub-synchronous oscillation (SSO) risks to the power system. With the development of flexible AC transmission system (FACTS), thyristor-controlled series compensation (TCSC) has become an effective substitute for FSC due to its suppression effect on sub-synchronous oscillation. This paper mainly studied the natural and active suppression effect of TCSC on sub-synchronous oscillation of grid integrated DFIG. Based on the frequency scanning method, the impedance characteristics of TCSC and DFIG were obtained to study the natural suppression effect of TCSC, and some key parameters were discussed. However, when the system was particularly weak, the natural suppression might not keep the system stable. Thus, an additional sub-synchronous oscillation damping control (SSDC) was proposed as active suppression of TCSC, which could further enhance the stability of system. The frequency scanning results showed that the SSDC could effectively improve system stability. Finally, the electromagnetic transient simulation results in PSCAD/EMTDC verified the above conclusions.

The concentrations of major and trace elements in the sediments from the Four River inlets of Dongting Lake were analysed. The results show that the element compositions of the Four River inlet sediments are different, among which higher amounts of Al2O3, Fe2O3, MnO, Cs, Rb, Th, U, Y, and REE are found, while MgO, CaO, Na2O, and Sr are more depleted in the sediments from the Xiangjiang and Zijiang inlets than in the sediments from the Yuanjiang and Lishui inlets. The Xiangjiang inlet sediments are distinctly higher enriched (EF > 5.0) in heavy metals Bi, Cd, Mn, Cu, Pb, and Zn, while the other river sediments are moderately enriched (EF > 2.0) in these heavy metals. These geochemical differences are resulted from the source lithology, chemical weathering, hydrological sorting, and anthropogenic processes taking place in the watersheds. The principal component analysis and the geochemical vertical profiles suggest that the trace metals Ba, Mo, V, Cr, Co, Ni, Cs, Rb, Sc, Th, U, Ga, Ge, Zr, Hf, Ta, Nb, and REE are of terrigenous sources. The heavy metals including Bi, Cd, Mn, Cu, Pb, and Zn in the sediments can include those contributed by anthropogenic processes, such as mining and smelting of Pb-Zn ores. Therefore, presenting a scheme for the geochemical backgrounds of the watershed is recommended here for future assessment of the heavy metal contamination in sediments of the watershed.

Background Compromised intestinal barrier (CIB) has been associated with many enteropathies, including colorectal cancer (CRC) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We hypothesized that CIB could lead to increased host-derived contents including epithelial cells into the gut, change its physio-metabolic properties, and globally alter microbial community and metabolic capacities. Results Consistently, we found host DNA contents (HDCs), calculated as the percentage of metagenomic sequencing reads mapped to the host genome, were significantly elevated in patients of CRC and Crohn’s disease (CD). Consistent with our hypothesis, we found that HDC correlated with microbial- and metabolic-biomarkers of these diseases, contributed significantly to machine-learning models for patient stratification and was consequently ranked as a top contributor. CD patients with treatment could partially reverse the changes of many CD-signature species over time, with reduced HDC and fecal calprotectin (FCP) levels. Strikingly, HDC showed stronger correlations with the reversing changes of the CD-related species than FCP, and contributed greatly in classifying treatment responses, suggesting that it was also a biomarker for effective treatment. Conclusions Together, we revealed that association between HDCs and gut dysbiosis, and identified HDC as a novel biomarker from fecal metagenomics for diagnosis and effective treatment of intestinal diseases; our results also suggested that host-derived contents may have greater impact on gut microbiota than previously anticipated.

Additional file 13: Figure S3. Distributions of consistently HDC-correlated species in controls and patients with complete longitudinal treatment of CD dataset (SRP057027). Y-axis is log10 transformed relative abundances.

Correction for ‘Chemical structure modulation in conductive MOFs by adjusting the oxidation state of the ligand and introducing alkali metal ions’ by Xiaoyu Wu et al., Chem. Commun., 2022, 58, 2702–2705, DOI: 10.1039/D1CC06407J.

Choosing an appropriate wake loss model (WLM) is a critical task in predicting power production of a wind farm and performing a wind farm layout optimization. Due to their efficient computational performance, analytical WLMs, also called kinematic models, are the most likely candidates for such applications. This paper examines the performance of six well-known analytical WLMs, i.e., Jensen, Larsen, Frandsen, Bastankah and Porte-Agel (BPA), Xie and Archer (XA), and Geometric Model (GM), by comparing their absolute error, bias, correlation coefficient, and ability to predict power production within one standard deviation of the mean observed values at three major commercial wind farms: Lillgrund (offshore, in Sweden), Anholt (offshore, in Denmark) and Norrekaer (inland, in Denmark). The three wind farms are chosen to cover many aspects of wind farms, such as offshore and inland conditions, regular and irregular layouts, and closely- to widely-spaced turbines. The conclusions of this review and the recommendations that are put forward provide practical guidelines for using analytical WLMs effectively in future wind energy applications. Overall, the Jensen and XA models stand out for their consistently strong performance and for rarely (Jensen) or never (XA) ranking last for all wind directions at all farms and are therefore the recommended models in general.

Transition metal oxynitrides are important materials in electronic devices, electrocatalysis, machinery industry and other fields, according to their excellent properties, such as high sensitivity to temperature and high electron transport characteristics. Especially in sensor and MOS applications, transition metal oxynitrides with semiconductor properties play an important role in the sensitivity and frequency response of sensors. Here, we study the effects of different concentrations of zirconium vacancy (VZr) and oxygen doping on the ZrN structure, and calculate the formation energies and density of states of ZrOxNy in different element ratios by density functional theory. The results show that the introduction of VZr and oxygen doping promote the Fermi level of ZrOxNy to move towards the valence band and conduction band, respectively. The structure of the non-degenerate semiconductor ZrOxNy can be constructed at Zr0.425N0.569O0.006. Taking ZrOxNy as an example, this work investigates the transition of the electrical properties of transition metal oxynitrides by introducing zirconium vacancy/oxygen doping, which greatly promotes the rapid discovery of novel transition metal oxynitrides semiconductor materials.

Despite extensive studies, the development of solid-state batteries (SSBs) has not yet met expectations, owing mainly to the lack of suitable solid electrolytes (SEs) that exhibit low electronic conductivity ( σ e ), high ionic conductivity ( σ i ), and good stability. Here, we propose an effective target-driven framework for holistic identifying promising garnet-type SEs. Using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, we accurately predict the σ e with a mean absolute error of 0.25 eV, achieving a computed speed that is ~109 faster than ab initio calculations. Successfully, from 29,008 garnets, we discovered 12 promising super Li-ion conductors for SEs with σ e σ i > 10−4 S cm−1 (up to 3.24 S cm−1), and good thermal stability at room temperature and high temperature based on rigorous ab initio validation. These emerging SEs are expected to be used in Li-ion SSBs, thus improving the safety, performance, and lifetime of state-of-the-art energy storage technology. This approach directly cuts across at least 95 years of computational cycles to screen SEs, resulting in significant cost savings and helping us enter an electrified future that relies less on fossil fuels. Data availability The data that support the machine learning model of this study are available at: https://www.materialsproject.org .

Large-eddy simulation (LES) has been used previously to study the effect of either configuration or atmospheric stability on the power generated by large wind farms. This is the first study to consider both stability and wind farm configuration simultaneously and methodically with LES. Two prevailing wind directions, two layouts (turbines aligned versus staggered with respect to the wind) and three stabilities (neutral and moderately unstable and stable) were evaluated. Compared with neutral conditions, unstable conditions led to reduced wake losses in one configuration, to enhanced wake losses in two and to unchanged wake losses in one configuration. Conversely, stable conditions led to increased wake losses in one, decreased wake losses in two and unchanged wake losses in one configuration. Three competing effects, namely, rates of wake recovery due to vertical mixing, horizontal spread of wakes and localized regions of acceleration caused by multiple upstream wakes, were identified as being responsible for the observed trends in wake losses. The detailed flow features responsible for these non-linear interactions could only be resolved by the LES. Existing analytical models ignore stability and non-linear configuration effects, which therefore need to be incorporated. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Common intestinal diseases such as Crohn’s disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC) and colorectal cancer (CRC), share clinical symptoms and altered gut microbes, necessitating cross-disease comparisons and the use of multi-disease models. Here, we performed meta-analyses on thirteen fecal metagenome datasets of the three diseases. We identified 87 species and 65 pathway markers that were consistently changed in multiple datasets of the same diseases. According to their overall trends, we grouped the disease-enriched marker species into disease-specific and -common clusters, and revealed their distinct phylogenetic relationships: species in CD-specific cluster are phylogenetically related, while those in CRC-specific cluster are more distant; strikingly, UC-specific species are phylogenetically closer to CRC, likely because UC-patients have higher risk of CRC. Consistent to their phylogenetic relationships, marker species had similar within-cluster and different between-cluster metabolic preferences. There were part of marker species and pathways correlated with an indicator of leaky gut, suggesting a link between gut dysbiosis and human derived contents. Marker species showed more coordinated changes and tighter inner-connections in cases than the controls, suggesting that the diseased gut may represent a stressed environment and pose stronger selection to gut microbes. With the marker species and pathways, we constructed four high-performance (including multi-disease) models with AUROC of 0.87 and true positive rates up to 90%, and explained their putative clinical applications. We identified consistent microbial alterations in common intestinal diseases, revealed metabolic capacities and the relationships among marker bacteria in distinct states, and supported the feasibility of metagenome-derived multi-disease diagnosis.ImportanceGut microbes have been identified as potential markers in distinguishing patients from controls in colorectal cancer, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease individually, whereas there lacks a systematic analysis to investigate the exclusive microbial shifts of these enteropathies with similar clinical symptoms. Our meta-analysis and cross-disease comparisons identified consistent microbial alterations in each enteropathy, revealed microbial ecosystems among marker bacteria in distinct states, and demonstrated the necessity and feasibility of metagenome-based multi-disease classifications. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that constructed multi-class models in these common intestinal diseases.

Four conjugated polymers are synthesized through indacenodithiohene (IDT) unit copolymerized with thiophene and thiophene derivatives. Indacenodithiohene-co-thieno[3,2-b]thiophene (IDT-TT) and indacenodithiohene-co-trans-1,2-di(2-thienyl)ethylene (IDT-TVT) exhibit better charge transport mobilities than indacenodithiohene-co-thiophene (IDT-T) and indacenodithiohene-co-3,4-ethoxylene dioxythiophene (IDT-EDOT), and also display superior thermoelectric properties after doping. Theoretical calculations suggest that IDT-EDOT and IDT-TVT have better coplanarities; the inferior performance for IDT-EDOT might be due to its low molecular weight. Meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that via the synergistic effect of two dopants (CN6CP, CuTFSI), the electrical conductivities of the polymers are further improved. The XPS data shows that the coordination interaction between copper ion and the cyano groups of CN6CP introduces cupric ions into the polymer films, which leads to the increase of the doping ratio.

Recently, wearable devices have become increasingly popular in our lives because of their neat features and stylish appearance. However, their tiny sizes bring about new challenges to human-device interaction such as texts input. Although some novel methods have been put forward, they possess different defects and are not applicable to deal with the problem. As a result, we propose an acoustic-based texts-entry system, i.e., EchoWrite, by which texts can be entered with a finger writing in the air without wearing any additional device. More importantly, different from many previous works, EchoWrite runs in a training-free style which reduces the training overhead and improves system scalability. We implement EchoWrite with commercial devices and conduct comprehensive experiments to evaluate its texts-entry performance. Experimental results show that EchoWrite enables users to enter texts at a speed of 7.5 WPM without practice, and 16.6 WPM after about 30- minute practice. This speed is better than touch screen-based method on smartwatches, and comparable with previous related works.

Demagnetization fault causes the performance degradation of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive system. Therefore, it is of great importance to reconstruct demagnetization fault in real-time. This paper firstly presents a demagnetization fault reconstruction method for a six-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor (SP-PMSM). A super-twisting algorithm-based sliding-mode Luenberger observer (STA-SMLO) is designed. It can eliminate the chattering of the sliding mode observer (SMO) and effectively isolate the influence of motor speed on the observer. The mathematical model of the demagnetized SP-PMSM is constructed by the vector space decomposition (VSD). Then, an STA-SMLO, which combines a super-twisting algorithm-based sliding-mode observer (STA-SMO) with a Luenberger-observer (LO), is designed to reconstruct the demagnetization fault of the SP-PMSM precisely. Moreover, a strong Lyapunov function is designed to ensure the stability of STA-SMLO. Experiment results of hardware-in-the-loop simulation (HILS) demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of the method.

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to prospectively compare individualized dietary counseling with or without oral nutritional supplements (ONSs) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients undergoing concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in a Phase II, randomized trial. Materials and Methods: Between June 2014 and August 2016, Stage II–IVb NPC patients were randomly enrolled. The primary endpoint was change in body weight between during CCRT, and the secondary endpoints were change in body mass index (BMI) and fat-free mass index (FFMI). Results: Fifty-two patients were randomized; 19 patients in the control group and 23 in the ONS group were eligible for analysis. Weight, BMI, and body composition parameters significantly decreased from baseline to week 6. FFMI was significantly better in patients with ONS intake >2/3 planed than the control group (P = 0.028). Weight and BMI maintenance was slightly better in patients with total intake >2/3 planed (P = 0.170 and P= 0.229, respectively). The mean Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment score was also better in the ONS group at the end of CCRT (P = 0.053). Conclusions: ONSs with individualized dietary counseling may be beneficial in patients with enough intake, and further prospective studies with large groups of patients are warranted.

An unprecedented microwave-based strategy is developed to facilitate solid-phase, instantaneous delamination and decomposition of graphite fluoride (GF) into few-layer, partially fluorinated graphene. The shock reaction occurs (and completes in few seconds) under microwave irradiation upon exposing GF to either "microwave-induced plasma" generated in vacuum or "catalyst effect" caused by intense sparking of graphite at ambient conditions. A detailed analysis of the structural and compositional transformations in these processes indicates that the GF experiences considerable exfoliation and defluorination, during which sp2 -bonded carbon is partially recovered despite significant structural defects being introduced. The exfoliated fluorinated graphene shows excellent electrochemical performance as anode materials in potassium ion batteries and as catalysts for the conversion of O2 to H2 O2 . This simple and scalable method requires minimal energy input and does not involve the use of other chemicals, which is attractive for extensive research in fluorine-containing graphene and its derivatives in laboratories and industrial applications.

Oil-impregnated paper is a major type of insulation used in oil-filled converter transformers for both traditional and new energy systems. This paper presents and analyzes the results of the experiment conducted on the electrical aging of oil-impregnated paper under AC-DC combined voltages using the pulsed electro-acoustic (PEA) technique. The formation and dynamics of space charge affected the performance of insulation material. The electrical aged oil-paper insulation was obtained through electrical aged experiments under the voltages. Based on the PEA technique, measurements were carried out when the oil-paper insulation system was subjected to different stressing and aging times. The space charge dynamics in the bulk of the oil-paper insulation system with different aging times were measured and analyzed. Characteristic parameters such as the total charge injection amount, the total charges of fast moving and slow moving, and the distortion factor of electric field were calculated and discussed. Results show that the longer electrical aging time, the more charges trapped in the bulk of aging sample. It leads to larger distortion factor of electric field in the bulk of aging samples and accelerate degradation of oil-paper insulation under AC-DC combined voltages.

Valve side windings of the converter transformer withstand pulsating DC voltage. Space charges accumulate in oil-paper during HVDC converter transformers operation, which is often responsible of insulation failure. To clarify the dynamic properties of space charge, this paper processed the oil-paper with the electrical-thermal aging test at 90 °C and7.6 kV pulsating DC and AC voltage respectively. The behaviors of space charges in aged oil-paper samples were investigated by pulsed electro-acoustic (PEA) technique. It is concluded that the DC component of pulsating DC voltage facilitates the negative charges injection from the cathode, which leads to the accumulation of hetero-charges near anode. Moreover, deep traps excited by the DC component of the pulsating DC aging voltage slightly outnumber by the AC aging voltage, and also the probability of space charges falling into deep traps is bigger when the oil-paper suffers the pulsating DC voltage.

The valence bands and the Pb 5d, Cu 3p core levels of Pb films evaporated on Cu(111) were measured by synchrotron radiation photoemission and characterized by low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) and Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). The variation of the surface state at the center of the surface Brillouin zone (SBZ) of Cu(111) with Pb coverage shows that the submonolayer Pb grows on Cu(111) at room temperature (RT) as two-dimensional (2D) islands. With the Pb coverage increasing, the Pb 5d(5/2) core level shifts to higher binding energy monotonically. While the Cu 3p(3/2) core level is shifted toward higher binding energy by about 120 meV due to the deposition of 1.0 ML Pb. At low Pb coverage, subsequent annealing at 200 degreesC gives rise to Pb-Cu surface alloy formation in the first layer of Cu(111). The Pb 5d core level is shifted toward Fermi level by 20 similar to 30 meV due to the surface alloying. An assumption about electron charge transfer from Cu to Pb was adopted to interpret the observed core level shifts. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

In this paper the change of intensity and binding energy (BE) of O Is in the Pr1-xSrxMnO3 system along with the doping amount x is discussed. The X-ray photoelectron spectra of O Is peak show the clear splitting features and change of both intensity and BE with doping level x. Although the oxygen contribution in an ultrahigh vacuum chamber is always unavoidable, it is possible to distinguish them from intrinsic peak shape. A preliminary interpretation is proposed for a possible second order phase transition near x = 0.3. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.

Angle-resolved photoemission near the (K) over bar point in the surface Brillouin zone (SBZ) reveals the existence of a state 2.8 eV below the Fermi level which has the properties of an interface state. For Fe coverage Theta 0.5 mi, the feature gets stronger again and saturates at Theta = 1.0-1.3 ml. After subtracting the contribution from the surface state of clean Cu{1 1 1}, the feature grows in intensity with Theta increasing. For larger coverage (Theta > 3-4 ml), the intensity of the feature remains nearly constant relative to that of the bulk Cu features. Its binding energy is independent of the photoelectrom momentum perpendicular to the surface. The energy dispersion curve of the interface state lies in the gap of the projected bulk Cu band structure near the (K) over bar point. We conclude that the -2.8 eV feature comes from the interface between Fe overlayer and Cu{1 1 1} substrate. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Electronic structure of Cu{111} surface along - line of surface Brillouin zone (SBZ) was studied using synchrotron radiation angle-resolved photoemission. A surface state located at 3.0 eV below Fermi level, near point of SBZ was observed for the first time. It is described by localized d-electron Tamm surface state.

We report the transport properties and the MR behavior for epitaxial Pr1−xSrxMnO3 films with x = 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4. A linear part of the log ϱ versus 1 T plot indicated that these films have a similar thermal activation energy of about 0.1 eV. A discussion based on the electronic structure in the doped manganese oxides has been presented for understanding the insulator-metal transition and the negative magnetronresistance phenomena.

Valve windings of converter transformer withstand pulsating voltages. In order to reveal the relationship between the properties of space charge and electrical-thermal aging of oil-paper insulation in converter transformer, this paper did the electrical-thermal aging test at 70 °C under 7.6kV pulsating DC voltage and obtained the samples of different aging time. The internal space charge injection and accumulation properties of aged samples under 20kV/mm and 30kV/mm DC electric field was measured and analyzed by the Pulsed Electro-Acoustic (PEA) method. The results showed that homo-charges injection still occurs at both electrodes in the electrical-thermal aging samples. Aged oil-paper insulation was dominated by negative charge injection as the stressing time increases, which directly cause hetero-charge accumulation in the vicinity of the anode, and homo-charge accumulation near the cathode. It could help explain the reason of the electrical-thermal aging lifetime of oil-paper in sulation is obviously shorter than the electrical or thermal aging. In addition, the longer the aging time, the more the total charge accumulated in the samples.

The insulation of windings connected with converter valves have to withstand AC, DC and repetitive impulse combined voltages in converter transformers. This paper presented the failure evaluation model by experimental research on electrical breakdown characteristics of oil-paper insulation under AC, DC and AC-DC combined voltages. Both short-time tests and constant-stress tests were carried out when the insulation system was subjected to different applied voltages. The breakdown strength and times-to-breakdown of oil-paper specimens have been investigated by tests. The inverse power model was presented by the weibull parameters which were estimated by the times-to-breakdown of specimens. Using the parameters of weibull model and inverse power model, the functions of failure evaluation model were calculated. It could establish the relationship between times, voltages and failure probability of insulation. And final evaluation results showed it was more effective than tradition failure model and weibull model. The DC component behavior in the insulation system has been analyzed and the influence of AC-DC combined voltages on insulation system was discussed.

The electronic structure of C 60 films deposited on Sn substrates has been studied by UV and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. In contrast with the tight-binding approximation, for submonolayer amounts of C 60 films the peaks derived from the top two occupied molecular orbitals are not narrowed but broadened by 0.3 eV in comparison with solid C 60 . This indicates that the delocalization of electrons in the top two π bands is weak, and the peak widths do not reflect the true band dispersion. For approximately one monolayer (ML) of C 60 film, x-ray photoemission studies of C 1s core levels reveal a feature centered at 22 eV below the main peak