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Sophora flavescens Aiton (SF), also known as Kushen (Chinese:), has been an important species in Chinese medicine since the Qin and Han dynasties. It is also recognized as a plant resource suitable for the globalization of Chinese medicine. Traditionally, it has been used in various ethnic medical systems in East Asia, especially in China, to kill insects and dispel dampness. Sophora flavescens is commonly used for clearing heat-clearing, killing worms, and diuretic. Nowdays, accumulating studies demonstrated its anticancer and cardioprotection.This paper aims to systematically review information on the genus, pharmacological and toxicological significance, chemical composition and biological activity of Sophora flavescens. To promoting its development and application. To summarize recent findings regarding to the metabolism, pharmacological/toxicological effects of Sophora flavescens.Online academic databases (including PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science and CNKI) were searched using search terms of "Sophora flavescens Aiton", "Ku shen", "Pharmacology", "Active ingredient", "Toxicology" and combinations to include published studies of Sophora flavescens Aiton primarily from 1970-2021. Several critical previous studies beyond this period were also included and other related terms.Sophora flavescens has a broad spectrum of biological activities associated with Sophora flavescens has been considered a valuable resource in both traditional and modern medicine. However, there is a lack of in-depth studies on the medicinal uses of Sophora flavescens. Moreover, further studies on single chemical components should be conducted based on the diversity of chemical structures, significant biological activities and clinical applications. The discovery of its bioactive molecules and multi-component interactions would be of great importance for the clinical application of Sophora flavescens spp. Detailed pharmacological and toxicological studies on the classic prescriptions of Sophora flavescens are also needed. It is more beneficial to the wide application of SF plant and facilitates the worldwide promotion of modern Chinese medicine. However, an increasing number of reports indicate that the administration of Sophora flavescens has serious adverse effects. Its main toxic effects are neurotoxicity and acute toxicity, which have caused widespread concern worldwide. In addition, the alkaloids of Sophora flavescens are distributed in the heart, liver, stomach and large intestine. They are excreted from the body through gluconeogenesis, which is the mode of action of certain therapeutic mechanisms of action such as anticancer. The detailed metabolic study of alkaloids and other components of Sophora flavescens in vivo needs to be further investigated. It is important to improve the pharmacological effects and reduce the toxicity of Sophora flavescens. For this purpose, structural modification of active components of Sophora flavescens or combination with other drugs is very essential.

Similar to traditional luxuries, affordable luxuries enjoy a high level of perceived product quality and perceived social status, but the effectiveness of price promotions of purchasing affordable luxury products is different from that of traditional luxuries. In order to further investigate the purchases of affordable luxuries, we used event-related potential (ERP) technology to reveal the formation of the purchase intention toward affordable luxuries at original prices (high or low) and current prices (discounted or non-discounted). Compared with the high-priced affordable luxury without a price promotion and the low-priced affordable luxury with a price promotion, consumers showed a stronger intention toward the high-priced affordable luxury with a price promotion, by weighing up three factors, perceived product quality, perceived social status, and perceived monetary saving at the behavioral level. A shorter reaction time emerged in the price promotion condition than in the absent price promotion condition when the original price was low. At the neural level, a decrease in N2 amplitude was found in the high original price and discounted current price condition than the high original price and non-discounted current price condition and the low original price and discounted current price condition, respectively, suggesting that the price information of the latter two conditions might not be the expectation information of subjects, and thus, the enhanced conflict is produced. The high-priced affordable luxury product without a price discount evoked a more positive LPP amplitude than the high-priced affordable luxury product with price promotions or than the low-priced affordable luxury item without price promotions, demonstrating that participants could regard the former as an evaluative inconsistent condition and the latter as evaluative consistent conditions. These results are helpful to better understand the effects of price promotions on purchasing affordable luxury products at different original prices.

Port-wine stains are congenital vascular malformations that affect the quality of life of children and their parents. This study used the Family Dermatology Life Quality Index and Children’s Dermatology Life Quality Index to examine the effects of port-wine stains on the quality of life of children and their parents, including an in-depth, systematic analysis of the moderating effects of the children’s sex and port-wine stain classification. The study included 43 children (25 girls and 18 boys) and their parents. The presence of a port-wine stain had a significantly greater impact on the quality of life of mothers than on that of fathers (p

Solubilities, refractive indices, densities, and pH for the ternary system (NaBO2 + Na2B4O7 + H2O) at 298.15 K were measured by the dissolution equilibrium method. The phase diagram of the ternary ...

Objectives: With a longitudinal design, we aimed to investigate the relationship between poverty and the risk of incident cognitive impairment in China.Methods: We used three waves of the Chinese L...

Depression is the most commonly diagnosed disorder among patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Understanding the association between the depression and the cognitive and physical function has important clinical implications in promoting the quality of life. Although evidences existed that patients with TBI experienced depression, cognitive impairment, and reduction in physical function. However, the relationship among these three conditions was not well understood. In the current study, we used the Hamilton Depression Scale, Montreal Cognitive Assessment-Basic Scale, and Activity of Daily Living Scale to assess the conditions of depression, cognition, and activities of daily living (ADL) among 145 TBI patients. To better understand the relationship between depression, cognition, and ADL, the data was analyzed using binary logistic regression. The Odds Ratio (OR) was computed to explore the risk of cognitive impairment and low-activities of daily living with depression. A total of 62.9% (n = 90/145) of patients lived with depression. The risk of cognitive impairment was 2.30 times higher for patients with depression than patients without depression (OR = 2.30, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08, 4.90), and the risk of low-activities of daily living was 5.14 times higher for patients with depression than patients without depression (OR = 5.14, 95% CI 2.17, 12.14). Compared to patients without depression, patients with depression scored worse on tests of language and visual-spatial perception, and were slower on tests of executive functioning. In summary, this study provides initial evidence that depression significantly affects the cognition and ADL of TBI patients.

Stimulated Raman transitions are often used in an atom interferometer (AI) for wave packet manipulation. Normally, two lasers with different frequencies contained in a Raman beam are combined first and then amplified by a single tapered amplifier (TA). This configuration can simplify the laser system of the AI, however, additional sidebands will be generated by the TA because of the nonlinear effect in the TA. In this work, the impact of additional sidebands generated with a single TA on the AI is studied. We first observe the additional sidebands in a Raman laser by a Fabry–Pérot interferometer (FPI), and the additional sidebands will be greatly suppressed by reducing the injection laser power of the TA. This is also confirmed by observing the position-dependent Raman transitions induced by additional sidebands at different injection power in an AI. However, the phase shifts induced by additional sidebands are not reduced obviously when the injection power of the TA is reduced. Therefore, it is necessary to separately amplify two lasers contained in the Raman laser by two TAs for a high precision AI. The spectroscopy of Raman laser generated by two TAs is also measured by the FPI, and the impact of additional sidebands on the AI is eliminated. This work has guiding significance for the design of the laser system in a high-precision AI.

There is a connection between the frontal negative slow wave (FNSW) and the arousal inhibition in the hedonic purchase context. To calculate the FNSW (400–800 ms), event-related potentials (ERPs) method was applied to depict the neural substrates on prudent and impulsive consumers’ behaviors within various states of promotion. Promotion types include the pure price promotion and the mixed promotion (a mixture of a charitable donation and a discount). Behaviorally, consumers response more quickly in the pure price promotion condition and they express a preference for the mixed promotion. More importantly, a larger FNSW emerged in the impulsive consumers than the prudent, suggesting that the former might tend to control their eagerness to consume hedonic items. Compared with the price promotion as the worse option, the mixed promotion as the better option caused more perceptual conflict, leading to an increase in N2 amplitude. It suggests that consumers incline to reject the worse offers. These results also reveal that people primarily have to search negative promotion information by their insight and subsequently impulsive consumers inhibit the responses to the promotion information. The method of ERPs and FNSW should be helpful for marketing researchers and professionals on hedonic consumption and sales promotion.

Objectives A second outbreak of COVID-19 happened in China. We assessed the impact of quarantine duration on psychological outcomes and vaccination intention. Methods A cross-sectional online survey was employed. Participants were invited to complete the measurement of quarantine duration, social distancing, psychological distress, wellbeing (WHO-5), and vaccination intention. Multiple linear and logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between quarantine duration and social distancing, psychological distress, wellbeing, as well as vaccination intention. Results Of the 944 participants, 17.2% (7.8% quarantined for 1–7 days and 9.4% quarantined for > 7 days) of the sample have been quarantined. Quarantine for 1–7 days raised the social distancing(β = 2.61 95% CI 1.90–3.33) and vaccination intention (OR = 2.16 95% CI 1.22–3.82) .While quarantine for > 7 days was associated with the increases the social distancing(β = 3.00 95% CI 2.37–3.64) and psychological distress (β = 1.03 95% CI 0.22–1.86), and the decrease of wellbeing(β = 1.27 95% CI 0.29–2.26). Conclusions Longer quarantine duration reported a greater impact on social distancing and psychological distress, and a poorer wellbeing during the second COVID-19 pandemic. Quarantine for 1–7 days associated with the increase of vaccination intention. The duration of quarantine should be considered when preparing for immunization programs and preventing psychological disorders during COVID-19 pandemic.

In order to improve the accuracy and efficiency of structural impact monitoring, this paper proposes a beam focusing impact localization method based on array sensor scanning. The circular array sensor arrangement method is adopted. Perform software-level impact damage monitoring on large-scale structures through different linear arrays forming a circular array, The effectiveness and practicability of the method are verified through the experimental research.

The present work investigated Hastatella radians Erlanger, 1890 (type species), and H. aesculacantha JarockiJakubowska, 1927, isolated from Chongming Island, Shanghai, China, based on light microscopy observations of live individuals, silver staining and molecular phylogeny methods. Hastatella radians is characterized by its size (about 30-75 μm long, 25-70 μm wide), two girdles of ectoplasmic processes, infundibular polykinety 3 (P3) composed of two rows of unequal length and terminating beyond adstomal end of P2, 8-22 transverse silverlines between peristome and trochal band, and 5-9 between trochal band and scopula. The infraciliature of H. aesculacantha is described for the first time, and we improved its diagnosis: cell size about 25-52 × 20-41 μm in vivo; four girdles of ectoplasmic processes; P3 two-rowed, outer row much shorter than inner one; 5-7 silverlines between peristome and trochal band and four or five between trochal band and scopula. Phylogenetic analyses based on SSU rDNA sequences revealed that Hastatella is monophyletic and has a close relationship to Astylozoon enriquesi.

OBJECTIVE Although hearing difficulty is associated with cognitive impairment, little is known about the potential mechanisms involved. This study assessed the mediating effects of leisure activities and psychological resilience on the association between hearing difficulty and cognitive impairment. METHODS Two waves of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (2011-2014) were used in the current analysis. Hearing difficulty, leisure activities and psychological resilience were measured at baseline. Cognitive function was assessed using the Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination. The data were analyzed using generalized structural equation modeling with adjustment for confounding factors. RESULTS Of the 4267 participants at baseline, 33.5% (1430) reported hearing difficulty. The incidence of cognitive impairment was 15.3% (651) during the 3-year follow-up. Hearing difficulty increased the risk of cognitive impairment (odds ratio [OR] = 1.59, 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 1.26-1.92). Leisure activities and psychological resilience partly mediated the association between hearing difficulty and cognitive impairment. Hearing difficulty was negatively related to leisure activities (β = -0.23, 95% CI: -0.41 to -0.05) and psychological resilience (β = -0.34, 95% CI: -0.57 to -0.11). Furthermore, leisure activities (OR = 0.92, 95% CI: 0.89-0.96) and psychological resilience (OR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.93-0.98) would significantly decrease the risk of cognitive impairment. CONCLUSIONS Hearing difficulty was associated with the incidence of cognitive impairment in older adults. Leisure activities and psychological resilience mediated the relationship. Participation in leisure activity and promoting psychological resilience may be candidate interventions in preventing cognitive impairment among the individuals with hearing difficulty.

In this work, an innovative composite hydrogel composed of curdlan (CD)/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogels with a 3-d network structure was successfully prepared by freeze-thaw processing. The presence of interactions, changes in crystallinity, and thermal behaviour were investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetry (TGA and DTG), respectively. The morphology of the hydrogels was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). With the increase of PVA concentration, the composite hydrogel had a greater mechanical strength while remaining remarkably ductile as evinced by tensile test results. PVA content affects the swelling and water retention of CD/PVA hydrogels. The results of CCK-8 assay showed that CD/PVA hydrogels have no cytotoxic effect on the mouse fibroblast L929 cells. The AO/EB double-staining experiment further proved that the cells in the composite hydrogels had good cytocompatibility. The porous biohydrogels developed in the present work can provide an ideal cell growth environment as a scaffold. CD/PVA hydrogels highlight the value of this system for cell adhesion and proliferation, and further soft tissue engineering application.

Objectives . We used longitudinal cohort data to examine the effect of leisure activities and psychological wellbeing on the risk of cognitive impairment among Chinese older adults with hearing difficulty (HD). Study design . This prospective cohort study included 10,341 cognitively normal individuals aged 65 years or more at baseline from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity survey (from 2002 to 2011). Main outcome measures . Hearing difficulty, leisure activities and psychological wellbeing were measured at baseline. Cognitive function was assessed using the Chinese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Cognitive impairment was defined as an MMSE score of less than 18 points. Results . During a median follow-up of 5.6 years (59,869 person-years), 2,614 participants developed cognitive impairment. Cox proportional hazards models showed that the multi-adjusted hazard ratio (HR, 95% confidence interval) of cognitive impairment was 1.42 (1.28–1.58) for HD. Participants with a healthy lifestyle had a lower risk of cognitive impairment (HR = 0.77, 95% CI 0.69–0.85). Furthermore, participants with HD and a healthy lifestyle (HR = 1.67, 95% CI 1.27–2.18) had a lower HR of cognitive impairment than those with HD and an unhealthy lifestyle (HR = 1.86, 95% CI 1.61–2.14). A healthy lifestyle also delayed the onset of cognitive impairment by 0.50 years in people with HD. Conclusions . HD was associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment, but a healthy lifestyle may decrease the risk of cognitive impairment related to HD and delay the onset of cognitive impairment.

Hydroformylation of olefins is one of the most important industrial processes for aldehyde production. Therein, the leaching of active metals for heterogeneous catalysts is an important issue in the hydroformylation reaction, particularly for higher olefins to produce higher alcohols. Here, different Rh/ZnO catalysts with diverse ZnO as a support were investigated and a home-made ZnO50 support was selected to prepare the Rh/ZnO50@ZIF-8 core–shell structure catalyst, which was synthesized by the growth of ZIF-8 with ZnO50 as the sacrificed template to afford Zn source. Compared with the Rh/ZnO50 catalyst, the Rh/ZnO50@ZIF-8 catalyst demonstrated a better cyclic stability in the hydroformylation of 1-dodecene. Combining the experiment and characterization results, it was concluded that the ZIF-8 shell on the Rh/ZnO50 catalyst effectively prevented the leaching of metal Rh into the reaction solution. Moreover, the Rh/ZnO50@ZIF-8 catalyst exhibited good universality for other higher olefins. This work provides a useful guideline for immobilizing the active species in heterogeneous catalysts for the hydroformylation reaction.

Attribute editing has become an important and emerging topic of computer vision. In this paper, we consider a task: given a reference garment image A and another image B with target attribute (collar/sleeve), generate a photo-realistic image which combines the texture from reference A and the new attribute from reference B. The highly convoluted attributes and the lack of paired data are the main challenges to the task. To overcome those limitations, we propose a novel self-supervised model to synthesize garment images with disentangled attributes (e.g., collar and sleeves) without paired data. Our method consists of a reconstruction learning step and an adversarial learning step. The model learns texture and location information through reconstruction learning. And, the model's capability is generalized to achieve single-attribute manipulation by adversarial learning. Meanwhile, we compose a new dataset, named GarmentSet, with annotation of landmarks of collars and sleeves on clean garment images. Extensive experiments on this dataset and real-world samples demonstrate that our method can synthesize much better results than the state-of-the-art methods in both quantitative and qualitative comparisons., fashion

Objectives We used longitudinal cohort data to explore the association between self-reported hearing difficulty (SHD) and cognitive as well as physical functioning, and whether the association is mediated by social isolation. Study design 16,786 observations from participants aged 65 and older in two waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, a community‐based cohort study, were analyzed. Main outcome measures Cognitive impairment was assessed using the Chinese version of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) were used as indicators of physical functioning. Results Generalized structural equation modelling (GSEM) analysis showed that SHD increased the risk cognitive impairment (odds ratio [OR] = 2.93, 95 % confidence intervals [CI] 2.61–3.30), ADL disability (OR = 2.10, 95 % CI 1.86–2.38), and IADL disability (OR = 2.39, 95 % CI 2.12–2.68). Social isolation mediated the association of SHD with cognitive functioning, but not with physical functioning. SHD was positively associated with social isolation (OR = 1.23, 95 % CI 1.07–1.42), and social isolation was significantly associated with cognitive impairment (OR = 2.09, 95 % CI 1.74–2.50). Indirect effects of SHD explained 12.3 % of the variance in cognitive impairment via social isolation. Conclusions SHD was associated with adverse cognitive and physical functioning in older adults. Cognitive but not physical functioning was indirectly influenced by SHD via social isolation.

Example-guided image synthesis has recently been attempted to synthesize an image from a semantic label map and an exemplary image. In the task, the additional exemplar image provides the style guidance that controls the appearance of the synthesized output. Despite the controllability advantage, the existing models are designed on datasets with specific and roughly aligned objects. In this paper, we tackle a more challenging and general task, where the exemplar is a scene image that is semantically different from the given label map. To this end, we first propose a Masked Spatial-Channel Attention (MSCA) module which models the correspondence between two scenes via efficient decoupled attention. Next, we propose an end-to-end network for joint global and local feature alignment and synthesis. Finally, we propose a novel self-supervision task to enable training. Experiments on the large-scale and more diverse COCO-stuff dataset show significant improvements over the existing methods. Moreover, our approach provides interpretability and can be readily extended to other content manipulation tasks including style and spatial interpolation or extrapolation.

When people deliver a speech, they naturally move heads, and this rhythmic head motion conveys prosodic information. However, generating a lip-synced video while moving head naturally is challenging. While remarkably successful, existing works either generate still talking-face videos or rely on landmark/video frames as sparse/dense mapping guidance to generate head movements, which leads to unrealistic or uncontrollable video synthesis. To overcome the limitations, we propose a 3D-aware generative network along with a hybrid embedding module and a non-linear composition module. Through modeling the head motion and facial expressions (In our setting, facial expression means facial movement (e.g., blinks, and lip & chin movements).) explicitly, manipulating 3D animation carefully, and embedding reference images dynamically, our approach achieves controllable, photo-realistic, and temporally coherent talking-head videos with natural head movements. Thoughtful experiments on several standard benchmarks demonstrate that our method achieves significantly better results than the state-of-the-art methods in both quantitative and qualitative comparisons. The code is available on https://github.com/lelechen63/Talking-head-Generation-with-Rhythmic-Head-Motion.

The solubilities; concentration of four boron species B(OH)3, B(OH)4−, B3O3(OH)4−, and B4O5(OH)42−; and H+ (OH–) in the system Na2O–B2O3–H2O were calculated with the Pitzer model. The boron species B5O6(OH)4− was not considered in the model calculation. The calculated solubility and pH data are in accordance with the experimental results. The Pitzer model can be used to describe the experimental values. The distributions of the four boron species in the solution were obtained. The mole fractions of the four boron species are mainly affected by the ratio of B2O3 and Na2O in the solution. The dominant boron species in the solution saturated with different salts vary greatly. The results can supply a theoretical reference for sodium borate separation from brine.

BACKGROUND This study examined the combined effects of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) and educational attainment on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was performed among community residents with T2DM. Good glycemic control was defined as HbA1c

In this paper, we propose a new simulator for nonstationary Rice fading channels under nonisotropic scattering scenarios, as well as the improved computation method of simulation parameters. The new simulator can also be applied on generating Rayleigh fading channels by adjusting parameters. The proposed simulator takes into account the smooth transition of fading phases between the adjacent channel states. The time-variant statistical properties of the proposed simulator, that is, the probability density functions (PDFs) of envelope and phase, autocorrelation function (ACF), and Doppler power spectrum density (DPSD), are also analyzed and derived. Simulation results have demonstrated that our proposed simulator provides good approximation on the statistical properties with the corresponding theoretical ones, which indicates its usefulness for the performance evaluation and validation of the wireless communication systems under nonstationary and nonisotropic scenarios.

High-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) is a life-threatening disease occurs in hypobaric hypoxia (HH) environment, which could be treated by Dexamethasone, but might cause side-effects. Potentilla anserina L polysaccharide (PAP) holds promising physiological and pharmacological properties which could be beneficial for HAPE treatment. In our study, the anti-hypoxia effect of PAP was firstly investigated through anti-normobaric hypoxia test and anti-acute hypoxia test. Then we established a model of HAPE and measured the lung water content, pathological changes and MDA, NO, SOD, GSH concentrations in lung tissues. We also evaluated the protein and mRNA levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, VEGF, NF-κB and HIF-1α) by ELISA kits, RT-PCR and Western blotting. As expected, PAP could dramatically reduce the lung water content, alleviate lung tissue injury, and inhibit MDA and NO production, it also promote SOD activity and GSH expression. In addition, it has been found that PAP blocked the NF-κB and HIF-1α signaling pathway activation, inhibited the generation of downstream pro-inflammatory cytokines. Therefore, PAP provides great potential in HAPE treatment mainly through suppression of oxidative stress and inflammatory suppression.

A linear vehicle model is commonly employed in the controller design for an active front steering (AFS). However, this simplified model has a considerable influence on the accuracy of the controller. In this article, an AFS controller using an active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) technique is proposed to prevent this problem. The AFS controller was established in MATLAB/Simulink to control the CarSim vehicle model for verification of the simulation. Under the straight-line driving disturbance condition, proportion-integration-differentiation (PID) control and ARDC substantially decreased with respect to the uncontrolled lateral offset and ADRC performed better than PID control. Under the double lane change (DLC) test working condition, the tracking error of the path, yaw rate, roll angle, and lateral acceleration, and error of the driving direction were used to evaluate the vehicle’s controllability and stability. These evaluation indexes were substantially improved by PID control and ADRC; similarly, ADRC was better than PID control. The tracking error of the ADRC in the presence of parameter variance and external disturbance was significantly smaller than that of PID control. The results have verified that the AFS controller based on ADRC can significantly improve vehicle controllability and stability.

In this paper, we study the joint resource allocation and the corresponding performance of non- orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) systems with imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC), wherein we consider the precoding, user clustering and power allocation design in a single cell with one base station and multiple users. Specifically, we propose a precoding scheme based on zero-forcing beamforming, and a user clustering algorithm based on channel correlation to reduce inter-cluster interference. In order to maximize the sum capacity, the power allocation optimization problem is formulated and solved via interior point methods. Numerical and simulation results demonstrate that our proposed design has better sum capacity performance when SIC is imperfect.

With the development of AR/VR technologies, a reliable and straightforward way to digitize three-dimensional human body is in high demand. Most existing methods use complex equipment and sophisticated algorithms. This is impractical for everyday users. In this paper, we propose a pipeline that reconstructs 3D human shape avatar at a glance. Our approach simultaneously reconstructs the three-dimensional human geometry and whole body texture map with only a single RGB image as input. We first segment the human body part from the image and then obtain an initial body geometry by fitting the segment to a parametric model. Next, we warp the initial geometry to the final shape by applying a silhouette-based dense correspondence. Finally, to infer invisible backside texture from a frontal image, we propose a network we call InferGAN. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that our solution is robust and effective on both public and our own captured data. Our human avatars can be easily rigged and animated using MoCap data. We developed a mobile application that demonstrates this capability in AR/VR settings.

The rectangle attack is the extension of the traditional differential attack and is evolved from the boomerange attack. It has been widely used to attack several existing ciphers. In this article, we study the security of lightweight block ciphers GIFT, Khudra and MIBS against related-key rectangle attack. We use Mixed-Integer Linear Programming-aided cryptanalysis to search rectangle distinguishers by taking into account the effect of the ladder switch technique. For GIFT, we build a 19-round related-key rectangle distinguisher and attack on 23-round GIFT-64, which requires 260 chosen plaintexts and 2107 encryptions. For Khudra, a 14-round related-key rectangle distinguisher can be built, which leads us to a 17-round rectangle attack. Our attack on 17-round Khudra requires a data complexity of 262.9 chosen plaintexts and a time complexity of 273.9 encryptions. For MIBS, we construct a 13-round related-key rectangle distinguisher and propose an attack on 15-round MIBS-64 with time complexity of 259 and data complexity of 245. Compared to the previous best related-key rectangle attack, we can attack one more round on Khudra and MIBS-64 than before.

As a vehicle for recording and tracking defects, bug report provides basis for solving software quality problems. However, moving fake or duplication bug report in multi-person and parallel software testing project is a labor-intensive job. Therefore, this paper proposes a method based on vector space model for automatic dealing with this problem. We built a matching library according to the test requirements and confirmed bug reports and used vector space model to calculate the similarity between the bug report and the matching library. Then the correctness of the bug report is detected based on this similarity.

With widely applied in various fields, deep learning (DL) is becoming the key driving force in industry. Although it has achieved great success in artificial intelligence tasks, similar to traditional software, it has defects that, once it failed, unpredictable accidents and losses would be caused. In this paper, we propose a test cases generation technique based on an adversarial samples generation algorithm for image classification deep neural networks (DNNs), which can generate a large number of good test cases for the testing of DNNs, especially in case that test cases are insufficient. We briefly introduce our method, and implement the framework. We conduct experiments on some classic DNN models and datasets. We further evaluate the test set by using a coverage metric based on states of the DNN.

One of the key problems in app testing is to improve the test coverage of apps. However, current testing techniques, whether in code coverage or activity coverage, are not satisfactory. To address this limitation, we present an algorithm for generating test runtime-environment-set to exercise mobile apps. Our approach is based on code analysis to systematically test the targeted code of the Android apps. It analyzes the decompiled code that identifies the code related to Android SDK version, generating the corresponding test cases with the runtime-environment set. We also implement our approach on Android, and validate the method with the existing widely used strategies. An empirical study of the practical usefulness of the technique has been presented on 6 widely-used industrial apps. 18 unique crashes have been found, and the method coverage has been increased by far 9.8% to 130.4% on those apps.

Lappaconitine (LA), a potent analgesic drug extracted from the root of natural aconitum species, has been clinically used for years because of its effectiveness and non-addictive properties. However, it is mainly limited in oral and intravenous administration in the form of Lappaconitine Hydrobromide (LAH). In this work, Lappaconitine trifluoroacetate (LAF), a new derivative of LA, was successfully obtained by introducing organofluorine group to LA. This new compound had a lower toxicity (LD50 of 21.14 mg·kg−1), improved analgesic effect and longer half-life (T1/2 of 2.24 h) when compared with LAH. Moreover, in vitro transdermal permeation (Jss of 206.82 μg·cm−2·h−1) of LAF was 30.54% higher than that of LAH, means that LAF can be conveniently used for transdermal drug delivery (TDD). Therefore, drug membranes with PVA solution (10 wt%) containing LAF in various amounts were fabricated by electrospinning. The in vitro release tests confirmed that up to 81.43% of LAF in the PVA/LAF nanofibrous membranes could be released in 72 h, accompanied by significant analgesic effect when compared with the blank control group. In conclusion, the prepared LAF-loaded membrane is a novel formulation for the treatment of chronic and long-term pain.

We devise a cascade GAN approach to generate talking face video, which is robust to different face shapes, view angles, facial characteristics, and noisy audio conditions. Instead of learning a direct mapping from audio to video frames, we propose first to transfer audio to high-level structure, i.e., the facial landmarks, and then to generate video frames conditioned on the landmarks. Compared to a direct audio-to-image approach, our cascade approach avoids fitting spurious correlations between audiovisual signals that are irrelevant to the speech content. We, humans, are sensitive to temporal discontinuities and subtle artifacts in video. To avoid those pixel jittering problems and to enforce the network to focus on audiovisual-correlated regions, we propose a novel dynamically adjustable pixel-wise loss with an attention mechanism. Furthermore, to generate a sharper image with well-synchronized facial movements, we propose a novel regression-based discriminator structure, which considers sequence-level information along with frame-level information. Thoughtful experiments on several datasets and real-world samples demonstrate significantly better results obtained by our method than the state-of-the-art methods in both quantitative and qualitative comparisons.

Background The primary care reform developed in Xiamen City stood out among the dozens of pilot reforms conducted in China. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the reform. Methods The data were collected from the Annual Statistical Report on Xiamen's Hospitals and face-to-face questionnaire interviews among physicians (n = 107) and community members (n = 399). Binary logistic regression was performed to analyze the factors influencing the community members' preference for treatment in community health centers (CHCs). Results The drug cost declined nearly 3.0% in hospitals, and outpatient visits increased more quickly (27.1%) in CHCs. A total of 86.2% of community members preferred to receive treatment for slight illness or chronic diseases in CHCs, and 77.9% of them were willing to be referred to CHCs during the recovery period. Patients who were managed by the general practice (GP) team showed higher percentages in examining and controlling blood pressure and blood glucose. Conclusion The reform in Xiamen was easily accepted by physicians and community members. The reform had rendered initial achievements in reducing drug income in hospitals, increasing outpatient visits in CHCs, seeking health care in CHCs, and controlling blood pressure and glucose for patients with chronic diseases.

Isopyrazam is a new broad-spectrum, foliar-absorbed and -translocated succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor fungicide. In this study, 159 Botrytis cinerea isolates collected from different geographical regions of Shandong Province of China were characterized for baseline sensitivity to isopyrazam. Furthermore, the protective and curative activity of isopyrazam on strawberry fruit and the control efficacy in the field were also determined. In contrast to its mycelial growth, the spore germination of B. cinerea was inhibited completely by lower concentrations of isopyrazam, about 1 μg ml−1 on yeast-peptone-acetate medium. Frequency distributions of isopyrazam 50% effective concentration (EC50) values were unimodal curves, with mean EC50 values of 0.07 ± 0.04 (standard deviation) and 0.68 ± 0.36 μg ml−1 for the inhibition of spore germination and mycelial growth, respectively. In addition, there was no positive multiple resistance between isopyrazam and other classes of botryticides such as diethofencarb, iprodione, pyrimethanil, or SYP-Z048. In field trials conducted during 2014 and 2015, isopyrazam used at a concentration of active ingredient at 150 and 200 g ha−1 provided a control efficacy ranging from 76.7 to 87.8% on leaves and from 81.5 to 90.7% on fruit. These results suggest that isopyrazam has the potential to play an important role in the management of gray mold.

For activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) into reactive oxygen species (ROS), the catalysts with highly exposed active sites and improved mass transfer efficiency is desirable. Herein, cobalt incorporated fibrous silica nanospheres (Co-X/KCC-1) were fabricated by a one-step hydrothermal procedure and used for the first time for PMS activation to degrade phenol and other organic pollutants. In 9.0 minutes, Phenol degradation in the Co-30/KCC-1/PMS process, adsorption, sole PMS, and KCC-1/PMS processes reached almost 100%, 3.91%, 15% and 17% respectively. Moreover, 0.01 mg L−1 of Co was leached from Co-30/KCC-1 during reaction. Morphology, structure, texture, and catalytic activity of Co-30/KCC-1 were well-retained after recycling. The use of EPR and scavengers indicated that SO4 −, OH, 1O2, and O2 − were produced during catalysis with contribution in the order of 1O2 > O2 − > SO4 − > OH. In-situ ATR-FTIR, EIS, and XPS showed that the surface complex, and redox couple (Co(II)/Co(III) were responsible for the efficient ROS generation. The high catalytic activity was attributed to highly exposed active sites, radially oriented fibrous morphology, improved textural properties, and the generation of ROS. This research may provide an insight into the use of other metal/metal oxides (Fe, Mn, Cu) incorporated KCC-1 for PMS activation.

The solubility corresponding solution physicochemical properties (densities, refractive indices and pH) in the quaternary system (NaCl + NaBO2 + Na2B4O7 + H2O) were investigated at 298.15 K by the isothermal dissolution equilibrium method. The dry-salt phase diagram, water content diagram, refractive index diagram and pH diagram were drawn. There are four crystallization fields corresponding to NaCl, NaBO2·4H2O, Na2B4O7·10H2O, NaCl·NaBO2·2H2O, five univariant curves and two invariant points in the phase diagram of the quaternary system. The solubility, concentrations of boron species B(OH)3, B(OH)4−, B3O3(OH)4−, B4O5(OH)42− and OH− in the system were calculated using the Pitzer model. The variation trends for calculated solubility curves and pH curves are consistent with the experimental results. The distributions of different boron species were obtained in the mixed borate solution. The distributions of four boron species were obtained in the mixed borate solution. The main boron species in the mixed borate solution are B(OH)4− and B4O5(OH)42−. The mole fractions of the four boron species are mainly affected by m(B) in the solution but less by m(Cl−).

Gray mold is a common disease of many crops worldwide. Tetramycin is a broad-spectrum biopesticide that may control gray mold disease. In the present study, in vitro biological activity of tetramycin was measured in three development stages of Botrytis cinerea, and the baseline sensitivity of B. cinerea to tetramycin was characterized with a set of 165 isolates that were obtained from different geographical regions in Shandong Province, China. Tetramycin’s protective and curative activity against the fungal pathogen was determined on strawberry fruit in laboratory trials, and the efficacy of tetramycin was also determined in field conditions. Spore germination was found to be the most sensitive growth stage that was inhibited by tetramycin, whereas the mycelial growth was the least sensitive growth stage. The baseline sensitivities showed that the frequency distributions of tetramycin were unimodal curves, with mean EC50 values of 0.35 ± 0.20 and 0.020 ± 0.009 μg mL−1 for the inhibition of mycelial growth and spore germination, respectively. Tetramycin had no cross-resistance with other fungicides tested, including carbendazim, iprodione, diethofencarb, pyrimethanil, pyrisoxazole and boscalid. In field trials performed in Tai’an city, Shandong province in 2014 and 2015, tetramycin was used at a concentration of 60 g a.i. ha−1, provided gray mold with an efficacy ranging from 70.73 % to 78.44 %, with no significant difference with other fungicide treatments. These results showed that tetramycin may serve as an alternative fungicide for the control of gray mold in strawberry fruits and cucumber.