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The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) in Japan in 2011 released a large amount of radionuclides, primarily radiocesium-137 (137Cs; half-life: 30 years), resulting in long-term contamination of soil and consequently crops. Tillage is a common agricultural management practice that alters the vertical distribution of nutrients in the soil. However, the effect of tillage on 137Cs contamination in soil and crops over time remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the temporal changes in the vertical distribution of 137Cs in the soil, concentration of 137Cs in soybean and cover crops, and the transfer factor (TF) of 137Cs from the soil to crops under three tillage systems (rotary cultivation [RC], moldboard plow [MP], and no tillage [NT]; main factors) using three cover crops (hairy vetch, winter rye, and fallow weeds; side factors). The amount of 137Cs in the soil decreased exponentially with soil depth under the NT and RC treatments. By contrast, 137Cs showed uniform distribution at each soil depth tested under the MP treatment since 2012. The exchangeable 137Cs demonstrated a similar tendency as 137Cs. The 137Cs concentration in soybean (including grain and residue) and cover crops decreased exponentially with time. Consistently higher 137Cs concentration was observed in soybean grains under the NT treatment, suggesting that tillage continuously reduced the concentration of 137Cs in soybean over 7 years since the FDNPP accident. The TF of 137Cs from soil to soybean and cover crops decreased continuously over time; however, 137Cs concentration of soybean grain showed a positive linear correlation with its annual variation rate. Additionally, TF showed a positive logarithmic correlation with 137Cs relaxation depth in the soil. These results enhance our understanding of the long-term behavior and radioecology of 137Cs in agroecosystems in Japan since the radionuclide accident.

This paper present a fault detection and isolation method for GNSS/SINS integrated navigation system based on MSS (Multiple Solution Separation) and PNN (Probability Neural Network). The method can also be well applied in the field of general aviation aircraft. Firstly the GNSS/SINS tightly integrated navigation system is designed. Based on the model, the principles and methods of MSS used for fault detection are deduced. Then the fault isolation method using PNN are analyzed too. Lastly, by establishing a simulation system, the analysis and availability for the method are verified.

Early and accurate diagnosis is the key to improving survival in cirrhotic patients with ascitic fluid infection.To investigate the usefulness of adjusted Intensive Care Infection Score (ICISCirrhotic patients with ascites (n = 125) were enrolled, and the efficacy of ICIS and ICISThe area under the curves (AUCs) of ICIS for the diagnosis of ascites infection were 0.90 (95% CI: 0.84-0.95), 0.85 (95% CI: 0.79-0.90), and 0.87 (95% CI: 0.81-0.93), for SBP, culture-negative SBP, and combined SBP/culture-negative SBP, respectively. ICIS was optimized and diagnostic accuracy was obviously improved. ICISICIS and ICIS

In this article we propose a Feature Guided Biased Gaussian Mixture Model (FGBG) for image matching. We formulate the matching task as a Maximum a Posteriori (MAP) problem by seeing one point set as the centroid of a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) and the other point set as the data. A Thin Plate Spline (TPS) transformation between the two point sets is learnt so that the GMM can best fit the data. Our main contribution is to assign each Gaussian mixture component a different weight. This is where our model differs from the traditional Self Governed Balanced Gaussian Mixture Model (SGBG), whose Gaussian mixture components have equal coefficients. The new weight is defined as a value related to feature similarity, which can be computed by simply decomposing a distance matrix in the feature space. In this way, both feature similarity and spatial arrangement are considered. The feature descriptor is introduced as a reasonable prior to guide the matching, and the spatial transformation offers a global constraint so that local ambiguity can be alleviated. We solve this MAP problem in a framework similar to 16, in which Deterministic Annealing and the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithms are used. We show that our FGBG algorithm is robust to outliers, deformation and rotation. Extensive experiments on self-collected and the latest open access data sets show that FGBG can boost the number of correct matches.

Dengue fever is caused by the dengue virus (DENV), and DENV1 is the prevalent epidemic serotype in south China. A new lateral flow assay (LFA) based on a near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent dye was developed to detect anti-DENV1 IgG antibodies. DyLight-800 was used as the marker conjugated to goat anti-human IgG antibodies, and recombinant dengue type 1 envelope protein was used as the capture protein on the test line. Twenty samples from patients infected with DENV1 and 160 negative controls were analyzed using this new NIR-LFA. The results of the NIR-LFA were compared with the results of Panbio Dengue IgG ELISA and the Dengue Duo IgM/IgG Cassette. Nineteen confirmed DENV1-positive samples were identified by NIR-LFA, giving 95% (19/20) sensitivity. No significant differences existed in the results when the 20 primary clinical samples were analyzed using NIR-LFA, Panbio ELISA, and the Dengue Duo Cassette. However, NIR-LFA had a lower limit of detection than IgG ELISA and Duo IgM/IgG Cassette did when analyzing a 2-fold dilution series of the 19 samples positively identified by NIR-LFA. When incorporated with an NIR POCT device, the new NIR-LFA was rapid, easy to use, and highly sensitive in detecting DENV1, and has potential for application to clinical diagnosis.

The pre-S domain of large surface proteins (LHBs) is thought to be associated with the infectious and sub-infectious particles of hepatitis B virus (HBV), and the quantitative measurement of the LHBs has become the critical serological assay for management of chronic HBV hepatitis. Here, we generated a monoclonal antibody with improved specificity and efficacy for both the native form and the glycosylated, full-length recombinant pre-S large protein, and tested it in clinical applications. We recruited 573 HBV patients and detect HBV large envelope proteins and the circulating viral load. We then studied the relationship between LHBs and HBV DNA in follow-up studies of 78 patients who received Adefovir antiviral treatment. We found that there was no significant difference between the rate of positive HBV DNA and the rate of positive LHBs. The levels of both HBV DNA and LHBs declined during the antiviral treatment, although the levels of LHBS decline later than the level of viremia.do. Furthermore, patients with 18 consecutive months of positive LHBs were able to obtain HBV DNA conversion, even if they continued to receive the antiviral treatment. Our study demonstrates that the level of LHBs can efficiently reflect the replication status of the virus in patients with HBeAg-negative diseases, and the LHB assay support the HBV test. Furthermore, examining the combination of LHBs and HBV DNA has important clinical implications for monitoring the effectiveness of the antiviral treatments. Keywords: LHBs, Antibody, Antiviral treatment, HBeAg-negative hepatitis

To clarify the effects of long-term exposure to ammonium sulfate (AS) particles on growth and physiological functions of forest tree species, seedlings of Fagus crenata, Castanopsis sieboldii, Larix kaempferi and Cryptomeria japonica were exposed to submicron-size AS particles during two growing seasons from 3 June 2011 to 8 October 2012. The mean sulfate concentration in PM2.5 increased during the exposure inside the chamber in 2011 and 2012 by 2.73 and 4.32 μg SO42− m−3, respectively. No significant effects of exposure to AS particles were detected on the whole-plant dry mass of the seedlings. These results indicate that the exposure to submicrometer AS particles at the ambient level for two growing seasons did not significantly affect the growth of the seedlings. No significant effects of exposure to AS particles were found on the net photosynthetic rate in the leaves or needles of F. crenata, C. sieboldii and L. kaempferi seedlings. Also, in the previous-year needles of C. japonica seedlings, exposure to AS particles significantly reduced the net photosynthetic rate, which may be caused by the reduction in the concentration of ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco). On the contrary, in current-year needles of C. japonica seedlings, net photosynthetic rate significantly increased with exposure to AS particles, which may be the result of increases in stomatal conductance and concentrations of Rubisco and chlorophyll. Furthermore, exposure to AS particles correlated with an increase in concentrations of NH4+, free amino acid and total soluble protein, suggesting that AS particles may be deliquesced, absorbed into the leaves and metabolized into amino acid and protein. These results suggest that net photosynthesis in the needles of C. japonica is relatively sensitive to submicron-size AS particles as compared with the other three tree species.

In this paper, the synchronization problem is addressed in the context of Lur'e type complex switched network (CSN) with coupling time-varying delay in which every node is a Lur'e system. Based on the Lyapunov–Krasovskii theory and linear matrix inequality (LMI) technique, a delay-dependent synchronization criterion and a decentralized state feedback dynamic controller for synchronization of CSNs have been proposed. By choosing a common Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional and using the combined reciprocal convex technique, some previously ignored terms can be reconsidered and less conservative conditions can be obtained. In addition, by using an eigenvalue-decoupling method and convex optimization theory, high-dimension LMIs are decoupled into a set of low-dimension ones and the computation complexity of the criterion can be significantly reduced. The effectiveness and applicability of the suggested control solution is verified and assessed through the analysis for two numerical examples.

An ethanolamine-assisted route has been designed for one-step synthesis of uniform CuO/Cu 2 O composite hollow microspheres with controllable composition in an aqueous solution system. The influences of reaction time and temperature on the morphologies and composition of the resulting products were investigated. The content of Cu 2 O in the composite hollow microspheres ranged from 10 to 84 wt % could be controlled by changing the reaction time and temperature. The formation process for such CuO/Cu 2 O composite hollow microspheres was studied. The mesoporous CuO/Cu 2 O composite hollow microspheres exhibited a higher photocatalytic activity for degradation of Rhodamine B under UV-light illumination than the single phase CuO samples.

This paper investigates the H ∞ control synthesis problem for Lurie networked control systems (NCSs) with multiple time-varying delays. With the consideration of both network-induced delays and data packet dropout, Lurie NCSs discussed in this work can effectively be transformed into Lurie control systems with multiple time-varying delays. In addition, with the non-uniform distribution characteristics of network delays, based on the delay probability distribution, the stable controller design, and H ∞ synthesis, approaches are derived in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Finally, a set of numerical examples are studied, and the results demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the suggested approaches.

This paper is concerned with the synchronization problem for Lur’e-type dynamical complex networks with time-varying delay. The problem of non-linear time-varying delayed Lur’e-type dynamical networks are changed into the corresponding stabilization situation of dynamical error systems. Based on the improved Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, which utilizes the information of time-varying delay adequately, some new synchronization criteria are derived via a linear matrix inequality with different sector conditions. Furthermore, by using an eigenvalue-decoupling method, high-dimension criteria are decoupled into low-dimension ones and the complexity of the criterion computation is reduced. Then the numerical examples are carried out to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed work through simulations.

Rutile SnO2 nanowires were fabricated by a simple chemical vapor method using as-synthesized SnO2 nanoparticles as starting material. These nanowires with unusual [12-1] growth direction are very straight and uniform in diameter and length. Self-catalytic vapor–liquid–solid (VLS) mechanism should be responsible for the growth of the nanowires. The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum exhibits a wide yellow emission centered at 576 nm with a relatively small orange emission at 629 nm. The Raman spectrum exhibits four additional modes that are not allowed by rutile-type structure in first-order Raman-scattering at the zone center. The possible reasons for the unusual PL and Raman spectrum are proposed.

The colloid of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) was of great importance for practical application. Herein we introduced an alkali treatment route to efficiently colloidize g-C3N4 under mild conditions by destroying the hydrogen bonds between linearly polymeric melon chains and hydrolyzing partial C−NH−C bonds linked two tri-s-triazine units. The obtained colloidal suspension was extremely stable due to its negative charges on surface, and the particle size of several hundred nanometers and the nanobelt-like morphology were revealed by electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering technologies. The structural, optical and functional group analysis demonstrated that the structure of CN heterocycles was preserved after the alkali treatment, and the produced colloidal g-C3N4 can be re-assembled by an electrostatic interaction. Moreover, contributing to the reduced electron-hole recombination, the photocatalytic performance of restacked carbon nitride colloids had more enhanced photocatalytic performance than bulk g-C3N4.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) elicits a dense stromal response that blocks vascular access because of pericyte coverage of vascular fenestrations. In this way, the PDAC stroma contributes to chemotherapy resistance, and the small-sized nanocarrier loaded with platinum has been adopted to address this problem which is not suitable for loading docetaxel (DTX). In the present study, we used the poly(d,l-lactide)-b-polyethylene glycol-methoxy (mPEG-b-PDLLA) to encapsulate DTX and got a small-sized polymeric micelle (SPM), meanwhile we functionalized the SPM’s surface with TAT peptide (TAT-PM) for a higher permeability. The diameters of both SPM and TAT-PM were in the range of 15–26 nm. In vitro experiments demonstrated that TAT-PM inhibited Capan-2 Luc PDAC cells growth more efficiently and induced more apoptosis compared to SPM and Duopafei. The in vivo therapeutic efficiencies of SPM and TAT-PM compared to free DTX was investigated on the orthotopic transplantation model of Capan-2 Luc. SPM exerted better therapeutic efficiency than free DTX, however, TAT-PM didn’t outperformed SPM. Overall, these results disclosed that SPM could represent a new therapeutic approach against pancreatic cancer, but its permeability to PDAC was not the only decisive factor.

Perovskite-type polycrystalline TbFeO 3 ceramic was synthesized by a conventional solid state reaction method. Crystal structure, optical properties and electrical properties were investigated. The temperature dependent X-ray diffraction results show that the sample crystallized in an orthorhombic perovskite structure with space group Pbnm and the crystal structure had no obvious change with the decrease of temperature down to 200 K. The electrical characterization result show an interesting electrical transition in the temperature range of 200–300 K, such abnormal electrical transition is considered to be related to the spin-reorientation behavior happened in the temperature range mentioned above. The magneto-electric coupling phenomenon in TbFeO 3 is mainly due to superexchange interaction, which can be significantly affected by spin direction.

Highly ordered α-Al 2 O 3 microcones were readily generated by a facile thermal oxidation method. The α-Al 2 O 3 superstructured microcones are composed of a large amount of nanocones, indicating a complex form and remarkable repetitive growth patterns of the superstructure microcones. Raman spectrum displays that the Al 2 O 3 microcones match better with single crystal than bulk Al 2 O 3 , revealing a good crystalline nature. The photoluminescence (PL) spectrum reveals a strong red luminescence at 693 nm and three small-shoulder emission bands at 677, 706 and 712 nm, respectively. We deduce that variation in inhomogeneous tensile stress of the microcones that results in differences in local symmetry of the crystal should be responsible for the three unusual emission bands.

This paper is concerned with the problem of stability for recurrent neural networks with time-delay. By choosing a new class of Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, some new delay-dependent stability criteria are derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities. The obtained results are less conservative than the existing ones because of the introducing of the triple integral term and reciprocally convex approach. Then, a numerical example is carried out to demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed work through simulations.

The design of obstacle avoidance system for automated guided vehicles (AGVs) is widely known as a challenging task. This paper addresses this issue by exploiting a novel approach to combine the fuzzy logic control and conventional PID control into the controller design. Such dual-mode design can significantly promote the real-time performance of the obstacle avoidance system and effectively eliminate the blind spots and enables the system to reach the equilibrium points faster. The moving velocity and rotation angle of AGVs are proactively controlled via the fuzzy-PID dual-mode controller to avoid obstacles with graceful path and velocity changes.

This paper deals with the absolute stability analysis for Lur'e system with interval time-delay and norm bounded parameter uncertainties. By constructing the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, which is utilized the full lower and upper bound information of time-delay, some new delay-dependent robust stability criteria are obtained in terms of linear matrix inequalities(LMIs) with convex combination technique. The resulting criterion has advantages over some previous ones in that it involves less decision variables than free weighting matrix method and doesn't introduce the additional dynamics which leads to conservative results. The numerical examples of maximum allowable delay bound problem illustrate that the obtained absolute stability criteria are less conservative than previous ones.

Propeller-shaped and flower-shaped ZnO nanostructures on Si substrates were prepared by a one-step chemical vapor deposition technique. The propeller-shaped ZnO nanostructure consists of a set of axial nanorod (50 nm in tip, 80 nm in root and 1 μm in length), surrounded by radial-oriented nanoribbons (20–30 nm in thickness and 1.5 μm in length). The morphology of flower-shaped ZnO nanostructure is similar to that of propeller-shaped ZnO, except the shape of leaves. These nanorods leaves (30 nm in diameter and 1–1.5 μm in length) are aligned in a radial way and pointed toward a common center. The flower-shaped ZnO nanostructures show sharper and stronger UV emission at 378 nm than the propeller-shaped ZnO, indicating a better crystal quality and fewer structural defects in flower-shaped ZnO. In comparison with flower-shaped ZnO nanostructures, the propeller-shaped ZnO nanostructures exhibited a higher photocatalytic property for the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B under UV-light illumination.

This paper presents a CFD model of reverse-flow extended-tube muffler which is analyzed by a set of experimental tests, in order to acquire the relations between the structure and its corresponding pressure loss; a lot of research have been done through the numeric simulation. For the specific model, the distance from inlet pipe's rear to the end cap has a large impact on the pressure loss, furthermore, a critical value about the distance has been found: If the distance is less than the critical value, the pressure loss will sharply rise; If the distance is larger than it, the pressure loss will change little. In the end, to calculate the critical value about the distance, evaluation formulary is displayed, which possesses great importance to the design of muffler and its pressure loss prediction.

Any single one of the Auto-Regressive (AR) model, Moving Average (MA) model and Auto-Regressive and Moving Average (ARMA) model can not match the complex time-series data of electricity price, consequently the traditional Box-Jenkins method can not solve the forecasting of electricity price well. In this paper, fuzzy Box-Jenkins approach for modeling and short-term forecasting of the electricity price is proposed. A fuzzy strategy is introduced to determine the fuzzy factors corresponding to the AR, MA and ARMA models of Box-Jenkins method and further integrate the three models into a unified one through the fuzzy factors. The prediction of electricity price of Zhejiang power market shows that the fuzzy Box-Jenkins method can achieve better performance.

A current sensor array which consists of tunable fiber laser, Giant Magnetostrictive Material (GMM) and fiber grating is presented. The long-haul experiment is operated on the basis of current sensor unit about 21km. In general, the results of the design of the system is credible and qualified for the designing demand. And then a current sensor array is composed of four current sensor units in 21km long-haul. The sensing properties of the wavelength divided multiplex (WDM) and time divided multiplex (TDM) is demonstrated. The wavelength resolution of the measurements is 0.002 nm and current resolution is 6.55mA, due to the high sensitivity photo detection system. While the work current go up from 1200mA to2300mA, Sensitivity of the wavelength will be maximum.

A single-mode Er/Yb-codoped short cavity fiber laser was experimented on the basis of previous short cavity fiber laser. The single-mode operation is realized by using the FBG and a 10cm section of Er/Yb co-doped fiber as a short cavity. The output power exceeds 1.5mW for pump power of 80mW. The linewidth of output laser was measured as 2MHz at 1532.64nm, and the side mode suppression ratio was 55dB. The single-mode was observed by an interferometer with free spectrum range (FSR) of 7.5GHz, and the longitudinal-mode fabric is analyzed. Relative intensity noise was less than -100dB/Hz.