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The multi-period dynamics of energy storage (ES), intermittent renewable generation and uncontrollable power loads, make the optimization of power system operation (PSO) challenging. A multi-period optimal PSO under uncertainty is formulated using the chance-constrained optimization (CCO) modeling paradigm, where the constraints include the nonlinear energy storage and AC power flow models. Based on the emerging scenario optimization method which does not rely on pre-known probability distribution functions, this paper develops a novel solution method for this challenging CCO problem. The proposed meth-od is computationally effective for mainly two reasons. First, the original AC power flow constraints are approximated by a set of learning-assisted quadratic convex inequalities based on a generalized least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. Second, considering the physical patterns of data and motived by learning-based sampling, the strategic sampling method is developed to significantly reduce the required number of scenarios through different sampling strategies. The simulation results on IEEE standard systems indicate that 1) the proposed strategic sampling significantly improves the computational efficiency of the scenario-based approach for solving the chance-constrained optimal PSO problem, 2) the data-driven convex approximation of power flow can be promising alternatives of nonlinear and nonconvex AC power flow.

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool to investigate cellular heterogeneity. However, Raman spectra for single-cell analysis are hindered by a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Here, we demonstrate a simple and reliable spectral recovery conditional generative adversarial network (SRGAN). SRGAN reduced the data acquisition time by 1 order of magnitude (i.e., 30 vs 3 s) by improving the SNR by a factor of ∼6. We classified five major foodborne bacteria based on single-cell Raman spectra to further evaluate the performance of SRGAN. Spectra processed using SRGAN achieved an identification accuracy of 94.9%, compared to 60.5% using unprocessed Raman spectra. SRGAN can accelerate spectral collection to improve the throughput of Raman spectroscopy and enable real-time monitoring of single living cells.

This study examined the effects of the PI3K/AKT pathway and mitochondrial autophagy in macrophages and the leukocyte count after pulmonary infection. Sprague‒Dawley rats were subjected to tracheal injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to establish animal models of pulmonary infection. By inhibiting the PI3K/AKT pathway or inhibiting/inducing mitochondrial autophagy in macrophages, the severity of the pulmonary infection and the leukocyte count were altered. The PI3K/AKT inhibition group did not show a significant difference in leukocyte counts compared with the infection model group. Mitochondrial autophagy induction alleviated the pulmonary inflammatory response. The infection model group had significantly higher levels of LC3B, Beclin1, and p-mTOR than the control group. The AKT2 inhibitor group exhibited significantly increased levels of LC3B and Beclin1 compared with the control group (P < 0.05), and the Beclin1 level was significantly higher than that in the infection model group (P < 0.05). Compared with the infection model group, the mitochondrial autophagy inhibitor group exhibited significantly decreased levels of p-AKT2 and p-mTOR, whereas the levels of these proteins were significantly increased in the mitochondrial autophagy inducer group (P < 0.05). PI3K/AKT inhibition promoted mitochondrial autophagy in macrophages. Mitochondrial autophagy induction activated the downstream gene mTOR of the PI3K/AKT pathway, alleviated pulmonary inflammatory reactions, and decreased leukocyte counts.

This study investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying the involvement of the Notch signaling pathway and autophagy in the development of pulmonary fibrosis in pigeon breeder’s lung (PBL). Rats were divided into control (Ctrl), PBL model (M), M + D (Notch signaling inhibition), M + W (autophagy inhibition), and M + R (autophagy induction) groups. Lyophilized protein powder from pigeon shedding materials was used as an allergen to construct a fibrotic PBL rat model. The mechanism by which Notch signaling regulated autophagy in the pulmonary fibrosis of PBL was investigated by inhibiting the Notch pathway and interfering with autophagy. Pulmonary interstitial fibrosis was significantly greater in the M group and the M + W group than in the M + D and M + R groups. The expression of α-smooth muscle actin was significantly higher in the M, M + D, and M + W groups than in the Ctrl group (P < 0.05). The expression of the cell autophagy markers Beclin1 and LC3 was lower in the M, M + D, and M + W groups than in the Ctrl group (P < 0.05), whereas Beclin1 and LC3 expressions were higher in the M + D and M + R groups than in the M group. The levels of reactive oxygen species in serum and lung tissues were higher in the M, M + D, M + W, and M + R groups than in the Ctrl group (P < 0.05). The Notch signaling pathway is involved in the pathological process of pulmonary fibrosis in the rat model of PBL by regulating autophagy.

We study unbendable rational curves, i.e., nonsingular rational curves in a complex manifold of dimension $n$ with normal bundles isomorphic to $\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^1}(1)^{\oplus p} \oplus \mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{P}^1}^{\oplus (n-1-p)}$ for some nonnegative integer $p$. Well-known examples arise from algebraic geometry as general minimal rational curves of uniruled projective manifolds. After describing the relations between the differential geometric properties of the natural distributions on the deformation spaces of unbendable rational curves and the projective geometric properties of their varieties of minimal rational tangents, we concentrate on the case of $p=1$ and $n \leq 5$, which is the simplest nontrivial situation. In this case, the families of unbendable rational curves fall essentially into two classes: Goursat type or Cartan type. Those of Goursat type arise from ordinary differential equations and those of Cartan type have special features related to contact geometry. We show that the family of lines on any nonsingular cubic 4-fold is of Goursat type, whereas the family of lines on a general quartic 5-fold is of Cartan type, in the proof of which the projective geometry of varieties of minimal rational tangents plays a key role., Comment: To appear in Journal de Math\'ematiques Pures et Appliqu\'ees

Zaozigou gold mine is located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and it is one of the largest gold (Au) mines in China. Agricultural soil pollution of toxic trace elements (TTEs) in Au mining area has become an increasingly common issue and potentially harms the environment and human health. In this paper, 78 samples were collected from a typical Au mining area to evaluate pollution degree of TTEs in the soils and assess related human health risk. In this study, a total of 78 samples including 36 agricultural soil, 21 sediment, and 21 river samples were collected from the Au mining area. The soil chemical properties of soil samples were analysed. The geo-accumulation (Igeo), contamination factor (CF), and pollution loading index (PLI) were used to analyse the degree of contamination by TTEs. In addition, potential ecological and health risks to local residents via different three exposure routes were revealed using potential ecological risk index and US-EPA health risk assessment models. Pearson correlations between soil chemical properties and toxic elements concentration were calculated. Results showed that the mean concentrations of As, Cd, Zn, Pb, Cr, and Hg in soils were 27.02, 4.22, 1.57, 1.46, 1.17, and 4.88 times higher than the background values, respectively. The Igeo index and CF values indicated that As pollution was the most severe and Hg and Cd pollution was moderate. Additionally, PLI indicated that soil As and Hg posed extremely high risks. The average potential ecological risk value of all TTEs was 602.34, and As had a higher contribution rate than the other elements, suggesting that the study area was under very high risk, mainly posed by soil As. The hazard index values for Pb, Cr, Cd, Hg, and Zn were below safe value of 1. However, the hazard index values of As for local adults and children were 1.66 and 10.25, respectively. Meanwhile, As presented the unacceptable carcinogenic risks for local residents. The presence of As was related to mining activities, based on the Pearson correlation (between soil chemical properties and TTE contents) and As levels in rivers and sediments near the mining area. As pollution from Au mining activities has posed potential ecological risks to the ecosystem and caused human health risk in the Au mining area. Therefore, more efficient policies to control As contamination in the soils should be implemented as soon as possible.

Pigeon milk is a curdlike substance separated from the mature crop epithelium of breeders, associated with the rapid growth and development of squabs. The aim of this study was to investigate in detail the variations in the content of several important ingredients in crop milk. In this study, we utilized proteomic techniques to investigate the composition and changing pattern of crop milk protein of squabs on days 1 (D1), 3 (D3), and 7 (D7). Our results indicated that the crude protein contents in crop milk decreased with age, and they were up to 50% during the first 3 days. The proteomic data showed that a total of 2558 proteins were identified in all samples from three stages, and the top 15% crop milk proteins were ribosomal protein, keratin, peroxiredoxin, annexin, heat shock protein, and eukaryotic translation protein based on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis and normalized spectral abundance factors (NSAFs) calculation. Furthermore, the compositions of crop milk protein between D1 and D3 were quite similar [51 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs)], while great proteomic differences were observed between D1/D3 and D7 (more than 240 DEPs). Additionally, gene ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis showed that up-regulated DEPs mainly participate in immune response, while down-regulated DEPs were involved in cell differentiation and development as well as tRNA aminoacylation biosynthesis. In conclusion, DEPs were mainly related to protein synthesis, immunity, and antioxidation, which provided effective information for the development of artificial squab milk products in the future.

P16 plays a role in the negative regulation of cell proliferation, regulating cell apoptosis to control the growth of tumor cells. P21 is a nuclear protein that suppresses DNA synthesis and inhibits cell division. This study aimed to examine the expression and roles of P16 and P21 in endometrial thinning. Thirty cases of endometrial biopsy diagnosed as endometrial thinning were assessed by p16 and p21 immunohistochemistry from March 2014 to August 2020 in Huazhong University of Science and Technology Union Shenzhen Hospital. Another thirty cases of normal endometrium in the same period were assessed as controls. The specimens underwent histological analysis, and P16 and P21 were assessed by immunohistochemistry. There were no statistically significant differences in age, menstrual cycle, BMI, sex hormone levels, gravidity and parity between the two groups (all P .05). In the endometrial thinning group, P16 was expressed in the endometrial adenoid nucleus, cytolymph and interstitial cell nucleus. In the normal group, P16 was mainly expressed in the endometrial adenoid nucleus, with some P16 signals detected in the endometrial interstitial nucleus. P21 expression was mainly detected in the endometrial adenoid nucleus. P16 and P21 amounts in endometrial thinning cases were significantly lower than those of the normal endometrial group. There was no correlation between p16 and p21 amounts. This study revealed aberrant expression of P16 and P21 in the endometrium might be due to a compensatory effect of the thin endometrium to increase cell proliferation and suppress cell apoptosis. However, the pathological roles of P16 and P21 in endometrial thinning and the contribution of cell senescence deserve further investigation.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread around the world rapidly, which seriously threatens to human health and safety. The rapid detection of the virus in the early stage is very important to prevent the cross infection and transmission. It is also a key link in the post-treatment examination. This paper has explored the infrared (IR) spectra of spike protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) for SARS-CoV-2 using molecular dynamics simulations, and the absorption bands are assigned. The calculated IR spectra of water and insulin are compared with that measured in the related literatures. The results showed that O-H stretching vibration generated a strong absorption band located around 3591 cm

The snapshot hyperspectral imaging is an emerging technique with numerous applications. However, the hyperspectral imaging reconstruction is often time-consuming, which is placing a limit on the de...

Ubiquitous surface wrinkling has been well-studied theoretically and experimentally. How to modulate the stress state of a liquid-supported system for the unexploited wrinkling capabilities remains a challenge. Here we report a simple linearly-polarized-light illumination to spatiotemporally trigger ultrasensitive in situ dynamic wrinkling on a floating azo-film. The smart combination of the liquid substrate with photoresponsive azo-moieties leads to the light-induced ultrafast wrinkling evolution, accompanied by unprecedented sequential wrinkling orientation conversion (from polarization-parallel to polarization-perpendicular). The involved different polarization-dependent sequential photo-orientation for azo side chains and azo-grafted main chains of azopolymers is disclosed experimentally for the first time. Meanwhile, programmable dynamic wrinkling with all-optical switchable surface topographies is available, which has wide application potentials in photoresponsive soft photonics.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) impairs cerebrovascular autoregulation and reduces cerebral blood flow (CBF), leading to ischemic secondary injuries. We have shown that injured brains release brain-derived extracellular vesicles (BDEVs) into circulation, where they cause a systemic hypercoagulable state that rapidly turns into consumptive coagulopathy. The BDEVs induce endothelial injury and permeability, leading to the hypothesis that they contribute to TBI-induced cerebrovascular dysregulation. In a study designed to test this hypothesis, we detected circulating BDEVs in C57BL/6J mice subjected to severe TBI, reaching peak levels of 3 × 10(4)/μL at 3 h post-injury (71.2 ± 21.5% of total annexin V-binding EVs). We further showed in an adaptive transfer model that 41.7 ± 5.8% of non-injured mice died within 6 h after being infused with 3 × 10(4)/μL of BDEVs. The BDEVs transmigrated through the vessel walls, induced rapid vasoconstriction by inducing calcium influx in vascular smooth muscle cells, and reduced CBF by 93.8 ± 5.6% within 30 min after infusion. The CBF suppression was persistent in mice that eventually died, but it recovered quickly in surviving mice. It was prevented by the calcium channel blocker nimodipine. When being separated, neither protein nor phospholipid components from the lethal number of BDEVs induced vasoconstriction, reduced CBF, and caused death. These results demonstrate a novel vasoconstrictive activity of BDEVs that depends on the structure of BDEVs and contributes to TBI-induced disseminated cerebral ischemia and sudden death.

This paper presents a novel optimization framework of formulating the three-phase optimal power flow that involves uncertainty. The proposed uncertainty-aware optimization (UaO) framework is: 1) a deterministic framework that is less complex than the existing optimization frameworks involving uncertainty, and 2) convex such that it admits polynomial-time algorithms and mature distributed optimization methods. To construct this UaO framework, a methodology of learning-aided uncertainty-aware modeling, with prediction errors of stochastic variables as the measurement of uncertainty, and a theory of data-driven convexification are proposed. Theoretically, the UaO framework is applicable for modeling general optimization problems under uncertainty., Accepted for pubication in the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a sudden injury to the brain, accompanied by the production of large amounts of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) and acute neuroinflammation responses. Although traditional pharmacotherapy can effectively decrease the immune response of neuron cells via scavenging free radicals, it always involves in short reaction time as well as rigorous clinical trial. Therefore, a noninvasive topical treatment method that effectively eliminates free radicals still needs further investigation. Methods: In this study, a type of catalytic patch based on nanozymes with the excellent multienzyme-like activity is designed for noninvasive treatment of TBI. The enzyme-like activity, free radical scavenging ability and therapeutic efficacy of the designed catalytic patch were assessed in vitro and in vivo. The structural composition was characterized by the X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy technology. Results: Herein, the prepared Cr-doped CeO2 (Cr/CeO2) nanozyme increases the reduced Ce3+ states, resulting in its enzyme-like activity 3-5 times higher than undoped CeO2. Furthermore, Cr/CeO2 nanozyme can improve the survival rate of LPS induced neuron cells via decreasing excessive RONS. The in vivo experiments show the Cr/CeO2 nanozyme can promote wound healing and reduce neuroinflammation of mice following brain trauma. The catalytic patch based on nanozyme provides a noninvasive topical treatment route for TBI as well as other traumas diseases. Conclusions: The catalytic patch based on nanozyme provides a noninvasive topical treatment route for TBI as well as other traumas diseases.

HighlightsA pig face recognition model that cascades the pig face detection network and pig face recognition network is proposed.The pig face detection network can automatically extract pig face images to reduce the influence of the background.The proposed cascaded model reaches accuracies of 99.38%, 98.96% and 97.66% on the three datasets.An application is developed to automatically recognize individual pigs.Abstract. The identification and tracking of livestock using artificial intelligence technology have been a research hotspot in recent years. Automatic individual recognition is the key to realizing intelligent feeding. Although RFID can achieve identification tasks, it is expensive and easily fails. In this article, a pig face recognition model that cascades a pig face detection network and a pig face recognition network is proposed. First, the pig face detection network is utilized to crop the pig face images from videos and eliminate the complex background of the pig shed. Second, batch normalization, dropout, skip connection, and residual modules are exploited to design a pig face recognition network for individual identification. Finally, the cascaded network model based on the pig face detection and recognition network is deployed on a GPU server, and an application is developed to automatically recognize individual pigs. Additionally, class activation maps generated by grad-CAM are used to analyze the performance of features of pig faces learned by the model. Under free and unconstrained conditions, 46 pigs are selected to make a positive pig face dataset, original multiangle pig face dataset and enhanced multiangle pig face dataset to verify the pig face recognition cascaded model. The proposed cascaded model reaches accuracies of 99.38%, 98.96%, and 97.66% on the three datasets, which are higher than those of other pig face recognition models. The results of this study improved the recognition performance of pig faces under multiangle and multi-environment conditions. Keywords: CNN, Deep learning, Pig face detection, Pig face recognition.

Background To study the feasibility of kilovoltage cone-beam computed tomography (KV-CBCT) dose calculation following scatter correction. Methods CIRS 062 and Catphan 504 phantoms were used in this study, and 40 randomly selected subjects representing a variety of cases (ten head cancer cases, ten chest cancer cases, ten abdominal cancer cases and ten pelvic cavity cancer cases) were enrolled. We developed in-house software called the cone-beam CT imaging toolkit (CITK) to improve the quality of CBCT images. We first aligned each planning computed tomography (pCT) image with the corresponding CBCT image using rigid registration after scatter correction. Hounsfield unit-relative electron density (HU-RED) calibration was applied to the CBCT images. The pCT plan was then recalculated on CBCT images. Finally, the dosimetric differences between the two plans were evaluated. The dosimetric parameters included the D98, D2, Dmean, conformity index (CI), homogeneity index (HI) and other organ at risk (OAR) dose parameters of the planning target volume (PTV). The dose distribution index (DDI) and the gamma index were also assessed. Paired Student’s t-tests or Wilcoxon rank tests were used to evaluate differences. P

Desde 2011, el mercado global del transporte marítimo se encuentra en una fase descendente. El desequilibrio entre la oferta y la demanda de la capacidad del mercado y el aumento rígido de los costos operativos han creado una doble presión para las empresas. Sin embargo, a medida que empieza a construir el Canal de Nicaragua el 22 de diciembre de 2014 y la finalización de ensanchar el Canal de Panamá en 2016, está a punto de salir una "era Postpanamax". Este artículo se enfocará en la orientación actual del transporte marítimo de cargar con los graneles y las principales rutas al mundo, y combinando la situación actual de la capacidad de transporte marítimo de los dos principales canales de América Central con la comparación de datos relevantes para realizar un estudio del panorama del transporte marítimo de América Central. Pretende planificar y ampliar una ruta marítima óptima y opciones de cooperar en el camino de globalización para los inversores chinos, activar y promover aún más la vitalidad económica a lo largo de "una Franja y una Ruta".

A SPPO/IL composite membrane was obtained by self-assembly using the SPPO with the highest degree of sulfonation and the prepared ionic liquid (1-methyl-3-methylimidazolium). SPPO/IL composite memb...

With a 10% reversible compressive strain in more than 10 deformation cycles, the shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs) could be used for deployable structure and releasing mechanism. In this paper, without traditional electro-explosive devices or motors/controllers, the deployable SMPC flexible solar array system (SMPC-FSAS) is studied, developed, ground-based tested, and finally on-orbit validated. The epoxy-based SMPC is used for the rolling-out variable-stiffness beams as a structural frame as well as an actuator for the flexible blanket solar array. The releasing mechanism is primarily made of the cyanate-based SMPC, which has a high locking stiffness to withstand 50 g gravitational acceleration and a large unlocking displacement of 10 mm. The systematical mechanical and thermal qualification tests of the SMPC-FSAS flight hardware were performed, including sinusoidal sweeping vibration, shocking, acceleration, thermal equilibrium, thermal vacuum cycling, and thermal cycling test. The locking function of the SMPC releasing mechanisms was in normal when launching aboard the SJ20 Geostationary Satellite on 27 Dec., 2019. The SMPC-FSAS flight hardware successfully unlocked and deployed on 5 Jan., 2020 on geostationary orbit. The triggering signal of limit switches returned to ground at the 139 s upon heating, which indicated the successful unlocking function of SMPC releasing mechanisms. A pair of epoxy-based SMPC rolled variable-stiffness tubes, which clapped the flexible blanket solar array, slowly deployed and finally approached an approximate 100% shape recovery ratio within 60 s upon heating. The study and on-orbit successful validation of the SMPC-FSAS flight hardware could accelerate the related study and associated productions to be used for the next-generation releasing mechanisms as well as space deployable structures, such as new releasing mechanisms with low-shocking, testability and reusability, and ultra-large space deployable solar arrays.

Designed and synthesized a series of imidazolium-functionalized Poly (2, 6-dimethyl-1, 4-phenylene oxide) (Im-PPO) containing pendant imidazole groups, which were used to supply functional sites fo...

Surface relief gratings (SRGs) with hierarchical microstructures are highly needed owing to their diverse applications in various fields. Here, we introduce surface-wrinkling templates as novel nonlithographic phase masks to direct the generation of hierarchical well-prescribed SRGs on nonconformally contacted azo-films by a simple single-beam illumination. The light-induced SRGs have controlled microstructures including single/double/triple wavelengths and single/double orientations as well as their organizations. These microstructures can be well tailored by the wavelength of the surface-wrinkling phase masks and the polarization direction of incident light relative to the wrinkling patterns in the phase masks. Interestingly, we find that the larger wavelength is induced prior to the smaller ones, offering another new strategy to tailor the microstructures of SRGs through simple manipulation of the illumination duration. In particular, path-guided SRGs with unprecedented well-organized hierarchical microstructures have been available in the case of controlled moving of the light illumination through the surface-wrinkling phase mask. As demonstrated, the obtained hierarchical SRGs with the capability of multiple optical inscription/erasure have great application potentials in fields such as confidential information (or pattern) records and encryption/decryption.

Highlights: • Field investigations of major pollutants along the coast of China were carried out. • The distributions of pollutants are correlated with specific industry sectors. • The distribution characteristics of pollutants varied in different climatic zones. • The ecological risks are affected by both climate and physicochemical properties. Abstract Coastal ecosystem health is of vital importance to human well-being. Field investigations of major pollutants along the whole coast of China were carried out to explore associations between coastal development activities and pollutant inputs. Measurements of target pollutants such as PFAAs and PAHs uncovered notable levels in small estuary rivers. The Yangtze River was identified to deliver the highest loads of these pollutants to the seas as a divide for the spatial distribution of pollutant compositions. Soil concentrations of the volatile and semi-volatile pollutants showed a cold-trapping effect in pace with increasing latitudinal gradient. The coastal ecosystem is facing high ecological risks from metal pollution, especially copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), while priority pollutants of high risks vary for different kinds of protected species, and the ecological risks were influenced by both climate and physicochemical properties of environmental matrices, which should be emphasized to protect and restore coastal ecosystem functioning.

With the development of modern agricultural facilities, crop diseases recognition, nutritional status and morphology achieved rapid growth. To avoid yield loss caused by the delay of disease detection, digital images that contain information with respect to crop growth, disease type and nutrition deficiency have been studied by some researchers. However, traditional image processing methods fail to extract typical disease features of crop images with ambiguous disease information. In this paper, a crop disease image recognition technique based on the salient region and hierarchical indexing was proposed. Improved Harris algorithm and maximum radius were used to calculate the widest salient region. In order to eliminate the effect of different salience distribution ranges between different features, a group of images in the cucumber disease image library were normalized. Experiment results indicate that the time complexity of each algorithm will go up as the size of the dataset increase. Especially when testing large datasets, nonhierarchical and nonclustering, hierarchical and nonclustering and hierarchical based on points all tend to raise the algorithm’s time complexity. Plant Village dataset and AI Challenger 2018 dataset were utilized to compare the recognition performances among the models based on machine learning, neural network, deep learning and our methods. The experiment results show that the method proposed in this paper is capable of recognizing local similar images effectively rather than global similar images, therefore, it has better recognition performance than the model learning methods in the early detection stage of crop disease.

Background and Purpose: Stroke can cause memory dysfunction. Long-term memory dysfunction of mice with tibia fracture (BF)+stroke is associated with accumulation of CD68 + cells in the hippocampus, which can be alleviated by activation of alpha-7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α-7 nAchR). Microglia maintain normal memory via removing excessive synapses. We hypothesize that aged mice would develop long-lasting memory dysfunction after stroke, which is associated with increased CD68 + cells and synapses removing in the hippocampi. Methods: Permanent distal middle cerebral artery occlusion (pMCAO) was performed in young (2-month-old) and aging (15-18-month-old) mice, or 6 hours before pMCAO in young mice. The memory functions were analyzed weekly for 8 weeks by Y-maze and at 8 weeks post pMCAO by NOR tests. Atrophic volumes, CD68 + cells and microglial phagocytosis of synapses were quantified at 8 weeks after pMCAO. Results: Aged mice had larger atrophic volumes, more CD68 + cells in the hippocampi ipsilateral to stroke side than young mice, and also had more CD68 + cells in the ipsilateral hippocampus than the contralateral. In Y-maze test, the aged stroke mice made fewer spontaneous alternations from 3 to 8 weeks after pMCAO than the young stroke mice and sham aged mice. In NOR test, aged stroke mice spent less time on the novel object than young stroke mice and sham aged mice. α-7 nAchR agonist treatment reduced the number of CD68 + cells in the hippocampi in the BF+stroke mice. Almost all CD68 + cells were synaptophysin positive. Therefore, increased CD68 + cells in the ipsilateral hippocampus will increase synaptic removal. Reduction of neuroinflammation could reduce synaptic loss and improve post-stroke memory function. Conclusions: Increased CD68 + cells in the hippocampus is associated with long-lasting post-stroke memory dysfunction in aged mice, and reduced neuroinflammation could improve post-stroke memory function.

Compact and low‐cost spectropolarimeters are desirable in many fields for probing the wavelength‐dependent polarization state of light. Conventional spectropolarimetry systems use bulky, free‐space optical components or require at least four spectrometers. Herein, a chip‐scale spectropolarimeter capable of reconstructing input Stokes spectrum with a single spectrometer is demonstrated. All the components, including a surface polarization splitter, a channeled spectrum generator, and a Vernier spectrometer, are monolithically integrated on a footprint of 0.3 mm × 1.5 mm. The device is implemented using a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)‐compatible fabrication process and achieves a resolution of 0.1 nm across a wavelength range of 56 nm near 1550 nm. This work provides a path toward on‐chip, low‐cost Stokes spectroscopy.

In this paper, we propose a novel gait recognition method based on a bag-of-words feature representation method. The algorithm is trained, tested and evaluated on a unique human gait data consisting of 93 individuals who walked with comfortable pace between two end-points during two different sessions. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed model, the results are compared with the outputs of the classification using extracted features. As it is presented, the proposed method results in significant improvement accuracy compared to using common statistical features, in all the used classifiers.

1-flat irreducible G-structures, equivalently, irreducible G-structures admitting torsion-free affine connections, have been studied extensively in differential geometry, especially in connection with the theory of affine holonomy groups. We propose to study them in a setting in algebraic geometry, where they arise from varieties of minimal rational tangents (VMRT) associated to families of minimal rational curves on uniruled projective manifolds. We prove that such a structure is locally symmetric when the dimension of the uniruled projective manifold is at least 5. By the classification result of Merkulov and Schwachh\"ofer on irreducible affine holonomy, the problem is reduced to the case when the VMRT at a general point of the uniruled projective manifold is isomorphic to a subadjoint variety. In the latter situation, we prove a stronger result that, without the assumption of 1-flatness, the structure arising from VMRT is always locally flat. The proof employs the method of Cartan connections. An interesting feature is that Cartan connections are considered not for the G-structures themselves, but for certain geometric structures on the spaces of minimal rational curves., Comment: 36 pages, to appear in Journal of Geometric Analysis in the collection in memory of Nessim Sibony

Herein, we report a geometrically well-defined prism assembled by two floxuridine(F) integrated RNA strands as a precise nanomedicine for chemodrug delivery. Owing to the similarity between chemotherapeutic F and uridine(U), all uridines in the component RNA strands are replaced by F during their in vitro transcription syntheses. By specifically designing their sequences, F-containing S-shape tiles with the single-stranded loops are constructed and then further assemble into the RNA prism through T-junction interactions and sticky-end cohesions. The present study demonstrates that the F-integrated RNA prism can serve as an efficient platform for chemodrug delivery and anticancer treatment. We believe that the study would help the future development of RNA-based nanomedicine in various applications.

In some countries and regions, water distribution and treatment consume a considerable amount of electric energy. This paper investigates the water network's potential ability to provide demand response services to the power grid for the management of renewable resources under the framework of a distribution-level water–energy nexus (micro WEN). In particular, the hidden controllable water loads, such as irrigation systems, were closely studied as virtual energy storage to improve the flexibility of electrical grids. An optimization model is developed for the demand-side management (DSM) of micro WEN, and the simulation results assert that grid flexibility indeed benefits from taking controllable water loads into account. Although the proposed optimal DSM model is a computationally intractable mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, quasi-convex hull techniques were developed to relax the MINLP into a mixed-integer convex programming (MICP) problem. The numerical study shows that the quasi-convex hull relaxation is tight and that the resulting MICP problem is computationally efficient.