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Summary: Although tremendous efforts have been devoted to investigating the analogy between the surface plasmon polariton and its spoof counterparts, it remains elusive that a single thin spoof plasmonic metalens realizes wide-angle focusing and wide field-of-view (FOV) imaging. Here, we propose a spoof plasmonic metasurface that can impart arbitrary phase with high transmittance, which comprises two-dimensional (2D) gradient spoof-insulator-spoof waveguides. With the developed catenary field and dispersion theory, their intrinsic physics is theoretically analyzed. As a proof of concept, a spoof plasmonic metalens with a thickness of 0.15λ has been elaborately designed and experimentally demonstrated for wide-angle (∼170°) focusing and wide FOV (∼40°) imaging. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first experimental demonstration of wide FOV imaging of a 2D object with single thin and planar metalens in the microwave regime. The proposed method offers a promising solution to compact cameras, integrated imaging, and detection systems. : Optical Imaging; Electromagnetic Waves; Surface Subject Areas: Optical Imaging, Electromagnetic Waves, Surface

Summary: Development of spinel oxides as low-cost and high-efficiency catalysts is highly desirable; however, rational synthesis of efficient and stable spinel systems with precisely controlled structure and components remains challenging. We demonstrate the design of complex nanostructured cobalt-based bimetallic spinel catalysts for low-temperature CO oxidation by a simple template-free method. The self-assembled multi-shelled mesoporous spinel nanostructures provide high surface area (203.5 m2/g) and favorable unique surface chemistry for producing abundant active sites and lead to the creation of robust microsphere configured by 16-nm spinel nanosheets, which achieve satisfactory water-resisting property and catalytic activity. Theoretical models show that O vacancies at exposed {110} facets in cubic spinel phase guarantee the strong adsorption of reactive oxygen species on the surface of catalysts and play a key role in the prevention of deactivation under moisture-rich conditions. The design concept with architecture and composition control can be extended to other mixed transition metal oxide compositions. : Chemistry; Catalysis; Environmental Nanotechnology Subject Areas: Chemistry, Catalysis, Environmental Nanotechnology

Abstract Background The deubiquitinase USP7 has been identified as an oncogene with key roles in tumorigenesis and therapeutic resistance for a series of cancer types. Recently small molecular inhibitors have been developed to target USP7. However, the anticancer mechanism of USP7 inhibitors is still elusive. Methods Cell viability or clonogenicity was tested by violet crystal assay. Cell apoptosis or cell cycle was analyzed by flow cytometry, and chromosome misalignment was observed by a fluorescent microscopy. The protein interaction of PLK1 and USP7 was detected by tandem affinity purification and high throughput proteomics, and further confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation, GST pull-down and protein co-localization. The correlation between USP7 level of tumor tissues and taxane-resistance was evaluated. Results Pharmacological USP7 inhibition by P5091 retarded cell proliferation and induced cell apoptosis. Further studies showed that P5091 induced cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase, and particularly induced chromosome misalignment, indicating the key roles of USP7 in mitosis. USP7 protein was detected in the PLK1-interacted protein complex. USP7 interacts with PLK1 protein through its PBD domain by catalytic activity. USP7 as a deubiquitinase sustained PLK1 protein stability via the C223 site, and inversely, USP7 inhibition by P5091 promoted the protein degradation of PLK1 through the ubiquitination-proteasome pathway. By overexpressing PLK1, USP7 that had been depleted by RNAi ceased to induce chromosome misalignment in mitosis and again supported cell proliferation and cell survival. Both USP7 and PLK1 were overexpressed in taxane-resistant cancer cells, and negatively correlated with the MP scores in tumor tissues. Either USP7 or PLK1 knockdown by RNAi significantly sensitized taxane-resistant cells to taxane cell killing. Conclusion This is the first report that PLK1 is a novel substrate of USP7 deubiquitinase, and that USP7 sustained the protein stability of PLK1. USP7 inhibition induces cell apoptosis and cell cycle G2/M arrest, and overcomes taxane resistance by inducing the protein degradation of PLK1, resulting in chromosome misalignment in mitosis.

Clarifying the mechanisms of heavy metal (HM) accumulation and translocation from soil-root-leaf is crucial to coping with soil HM pollution. In this study, we analysed copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) accumulation characteristics in Chinese turnips and the effect of soil physicochemical properties on both HM accumulation and translocation. Our results indicate that Chinese turnips absorb and translocate Mn, Zn, and Cd at much higher levels than they do Cu. When we measured bioconcentration factors in Chinese turnips for different HMs in the same soil, we found Chinese turnip capacities for HM accumulation decrease from Zn > Mn > Cd > Cu. In addition, the translocation factor for these HMs decreases from Mn > Cd > Zn > Cu. Correlation analysis indicates that soil pH and various soil components are either negatively or positively correlated with Mn, Zn, and Cd accumulation; also, soil properties are correlated with Mn translocation from root to leaf. These findings may help evaluate HM accumulation and translocation mechanisms as well as artificially regulate HM uptake levels from soils to turnips. Keywords: Turnip, Heavy metal, Bioconcentration, Phytoremediation, Soil composition

The heavy metal ATPase (HMA) subfamily is mainly involved in heavy metal (HM) tolerance and transport in plants, but an understanding of the definite roles and mechanisms of most HMA members are still limited. In the present study, we identified 14 candidate HMA genes named BrrHMA1–BrrHMA8 from the turnip genome and analyzed the phylogeny, gene structure, chromosome distribution, and conserved domains and motifs of HMAs in turnip (Brassica rapa var. rapa). According to our phylogenetic tree, the BrrHMAs are divided into a Zn/Cd/Co/Pb subclass and Cu/Ag subclass. The BrrHMA members show similar structural characteristics within subclasses. To explore the roles of BrrHMAs in turnip, we compared the gene sequences and expression patterns of the BrrHMA genes between a Cd-tolerant landrace and a Cd-sensitive landrace. Most BrrHMA genes showed similar spatial expression patterns in both Cd-tolerant and Cd-sensitive turnip landraces; some BrrHMA genes, however, were differentially expressed in specific tissue in Cd-tolerant and Cd-sensitive turnip. Specifically, BrrHMA genes in the Zn/Cd/Co/Pb subclass shared the same coding sequence but were differentially expressed in Cd-tolerant and Cd-sensitive turnip landraces under Cd stress. Our findings suggest that the stable expression and up-regulated expression of BrrHMA Zn/Cd/Co/Pb subclass genes under Cd stress may contribute to the higher Cd tolerance of turnip landraces. Keywords: Heavy metal ATPase, Cadmium, Turnip, Transmembrane helix, Differential gene expression

Abstract Data collection is the basic functions of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which the sensed data are concentrations from sensor nodes to the sink, with a timely style, so the smart response can be done for emergency. The goal of multi-modal sensor data fusion is to obtain simple and accurate data to enhance system reliability and fault tolerance. Energy efficiency and small delay are the most important indicators which govern the performance of IoT. Convergecast is a low-latency data collection strategy based on effective time division multiple access (TDMA), in which each sensor node generates a packet, and m packets can aggregate to a packet. However, in most practical networks, sensor nodes do not necessarily generate packets during each data collection cycle, but instead generate packets from time to time. In the previous convergecast strategy, each node was fixedly allocated a slot, which increased the delay and wasted energy. A delay and energy-efficient data collection (DEEDC) scheme-based matrix filling theory is proposed to collect data in a randomly generated WSNs with minimum delay and energy consumption. The DEEDC scheme uses a clustering approach. For each cluster, the number of slots required for transmission is calculated by matrix filling theory, not the number of nodes that actually generate data. This ensures that data can be collected in a network with randomly generated data (number of slots ≤ number of nodes), thereby avoiding the allocation of slots for each node and the acquisition of redundant data to lead to the wastage of time and energy. Based on the above, a mixed slot scheduling strategy is proposed to construct energy and delay-efficient, collision-free schedule scheme. After extensive theoretical analysis, by using the DEEDC scheme, the delay is reduced by about 50~80%, and the energy consumed is reduced by about 40~57%.

In this paper, we propose and analyze a two-species Lotka-Volterra competition model with random perturbations that relate to the inter-specific competition rates and the coexistence equilibrium of the corresponding deterministic system. The stochasticity in inter-specific competition (between species) is more important than that in intra-specific competition (within species). We pose two assumptions and then obtain su cient conditions for coexistence and for competitive exclusion respectively, and find that small random perturbations will not destroy the dynamic behaviors of the corresponding deterministic system. Moreover, if one species goes extinct, the convergence rate to zero is obtained by investigating the Lyapunov exponent. Finally, we provide several numerical examples to illustrate our mathematical results.

The IL-17-producing CD4+ T cell and γδT cells play critical roles in the pathogenesis of psoriasis (PS). PSORI-CM02 is a representative herbal formula for the treatment for PS in South China. It was confirmed to improve PS without obvious side effects in the clinic. Here we sought to clarify whether and how PSORI-CM02 regulates T cell differentiation and functions in IMQ-induced psoriasis-like BALB/c mouse model. Mice pre-treated 3 days with PSORI-CM02 significantly alleviated skin inflammation, as reduced in PASI score and classic psoriatic characteristics in pathological sections. CD3 and CD4 positive T cells were also fewer in the skin lesions of PSORI-CM02 groups, comparing to control group. PSORI-CM02 also decreased pro-inflammatory IFNγ mRNA and IL-17 A mRNA, while increased IL-4 mRNA in mouse skin lesions. In skin draining lymph nodes (DLN), PSORI-CM02 reduced the ratio of γδT cells and inhibited their function of producing IL-17 A. Nevertheless PSORI-CM02 had no effects on the ratio of total TCRβ+T cells and CD4 + T cells. But it regulated CD4 + T helper cells differentiation, and resulted in the decreasing percentage of IFNγ producing Th1 cells and IL-17 A producing Th17 cells, while increasing the ratio of IL-4 producing Th2 cells in DLN. Further data showed that PSORI-CM02 promote expression of Th2 specific transcript factor GATA3, but had no effects on T-bet and RORγ. Thus, we tentatively interpret that PSORI-CM02 impairs IMQ-induced psoriasis by promoting Th2 cell response targeting of GATA3.

Spiradiclis karstana, a new species of Spiradiclis (Rubiaceae) collected from Yunnan, China, is described for the first time. It is morphologically close to S. jingxiensis, but differs from the latter mainly by its inflorescences with 5–9 flowers, its 1.5–2.4 mm long peduncles, its stipules shorter than 1 mm and the 5–12 pairs of secondary veins. The conservation status is assessed as “Vulnerable” (VU) according to the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria.

ABSTRACTReports on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) of Mycobacterium leprae, relationship with bacteriological index (BI), and transmission in China are limited. We investigated the emergence of AMR mutations, the relationship between BI and AMR in complete, moderate and lack of BI decline cases, and molecular epidemiological features of AMR cases by enrolling 290 leprosy cases from four endemic provinces. Seven (2.41%), one (0.34%), five (1.72%), one (0.34%), and one (0.34%) strains had single mutations in folP1, rpoC, gyrA, gyrB, and 23S rRNA, respectively. Double mutations in folP1 and gyrA, rpoB and gyrA, and gyrA and 23S rRNA were observed in one (0.34%) strain each. Mutated strains occurred in three out of 81 (95% CI−0.005-0.079, p = 0.083) cases with complete BI decline, in seven out of 103 (95% CI 0.018-0.117, p = 0.008) cases with moderate BI decline, and in four out of 34 (95% CI 0.003-0.231, p = 0.044) cases with lack of BI decline. Most of these mutated strains were geographically separated and diverged genotypically. AMR mutations may not be the main cause of the lack of BI decline. The low transmission of AMR strains at the county level indicates an ongoing transmission at close contact levels.

Due to the ubiquitous utilization of GPS devices, traffic cameras, and sensing devices, data are collected more readily in a smart city. If all the cabs of this city are used as data carriers, data generated by sensing devices will be collected to data centers efficiently and economically. Therefore, vehicular networks joint sensing devices provide more perspectives for a variety of vehicle-based applications. In this paper, three data centers deployment optimization schemes are proposed to optimize data centers' deployment, which can considerably enhance the performance of data collection and code dissemination tasks. Each proposed scheme uses different criteria to optimize the deployment of data centers: 1) locations of sensing devices; 2) locations that have high traffic flow; and 3) locations that have high valid flow, and these schemes are called Scheme 1, Scheme 2, and Scheme 3, respectively. In addition, another scheme that produces the deployment of data centers randomly is called Scheme 4, and it is used as a contrast in experiments. After performing extensive experiments and simulations based on two real-world datasets of cabs' GPS coordinates, the experiment results demonstrate that Scheme 3 noticeably outperformed remaining schemes under various circumstances. The results of February 3 were taken (Dataset 1) for instance. In comparison with Scheme 4, Scheme 3 enhances the total number of collected data packets by 57.71% when the number of the data center is ten, the speed of code dissemination and the coverage of cabs are ameliorated by 23.92% and 12.93%, respectively. Compared with Scheme 1, the total number of Scheme 3's collected packets is 65.00% higher than that of Scheme 1 when there are ten data centers deployed. The figures for Scheme 3's code dissemination and the coverage of sensing devices exceed that of Scheme 1 by 18.98% and 10.21%, respectively.

The recent developments in the areas of the Internet of Things (IoTs) have provided a rapid growth in the epoch of the novel information-centric collections (IC-IoTs). In the IC-IoTs, expanding the ranges of information collections and reducing the costs are important issues for the information required platform. In the previous scenarios, the information is collected in a random manner, which leads to lower coverages and higher costs. Thus, a “optimizing the coverage via the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with lower costs for information-centric Internet of Things” (OCLC-IoTs) approach is established, which targets to improve the coverage ratio and to reduce the costs of the information-required platform via the cooperation of the information collectors and the UAVs. First, to improve the coverage ratio, an intensive strategy is proposed to inspire the information collectors to bid for the tasks published by the platform and an improved rolling horizon strategy (IRHS) strategy is designed to plan the flying routes of the UAVs to reach more coverage ranges. Then, to reduce the costs factor, the IRHS strategy is designed to shorten the flying routes of the UAVs under the prerequisite of guaranteeing coverage ratio to achieve fewers costs. Finally, a comprehensive theoretical analysis and experiments are provided, which indicates the advancements of the OCLC-IoTs scheme. Compared with the previous studies, the OCLC-IoTs scheme can improve the coverage ratio of information by 21.42% approximately and can reduce the cost ratio by 13.335% to 34.32%.

Due to the huge number of objects/things connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) which are embedded with electronics, software, and sensors, the IoT creates many exciting applications such as smart grids, smart homes, and smart cities. In the IoT, the sensing and control of objects/things can be abstracted as a task, in which many sensing devices sense and collect data. However, the substantial case studies show that by simply connecting them without further collaboration among the objects/things will lead to the bad performance of the system. With the number of sensing devices connected to the IoT increases, the collaboration for completing the task is becoming more and more urgent. In this paper, a Collaborative Multi-Tasks Data Collection Scheme (CMDCS) is proposed to solve the problem by constructing a collaborative platform for task publisher and data reporter. The main contribution of CMDCS includes the following two aspects: (1) a Task Unit Bid-based task selection strategy is proposed to select the task which can bring higher profits to the system, in which the Task Unit Bid is the ratio of task bid to the amount of data which are needed to collect sensing tasks; and (2) a greedy contributed density-based data collector set selection method is proposed to reduce the cost of data collection so as to maximize system profit, in which the contribution density is used to measure the contribution of a single data collector to a specific sensing task. A large number of experiments have been carried out to verify the effectiveness of our proposed strategy. The experiments show that compared to the traditional data collection strategy Random Task selection with Coverage First Reporter selection, in which the Task Unit Bid and Contribution Density are not used, the profit of the system is improved by 92.08%.

Fast and energy efficient transmission is an important and challenging issue for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Energy efficiency is also an important concern of green communication in WSNs. Optimizing the duty cycle (DC) of nodes and the size of forwarding node-set (SFNS) can effectively reduce the delay and improve energy efficiency. In this paper, we conclude that an optimal DC value can minimize the delay when the number of SFNS is constant. The reason why the delay is larger when the DC is smaller than the optimal value is that when the sender sends data, it needs to wait for the forwarding node to wake up which causes a large delay. When DC is larger than the optimal value, the delay is also larger because SFNS has more than one node in the awake state, which causes conflicts and increases the delay. For energy consumption, the sender with smaller DC has fewer collisions, so the energy consumption is less. Similarly, when DC is constant, SFNS also has an optimal value, which minimizes the delay. Based on the theoretical analysis, an Optimization Duty-Cycle and Size of Forwarding Node Set (ODC-SFNS) scheme is proposed to reduce delay and improve energy efficiency. The main optimization methods adopted are as follows: (a) For dense and high-DC networks, one hop delay and the number of hops needed for the packet to reach sink can be reduced by appropriately limiting the SFNS, thus the end-to-end delay can be effectively reduced. (b) For sparse and low-DC networks, increasing the DC in the far sink region can reduce delay while not reducing the network life, and improve energy efficiency. Compared with the traditional scheme, the ODC-SFNS scheme can reduce the end-to-end delay by 20.52%-79.96%, and it has dramatically increased energy efficiency. Moreover, its scope of application is broader than previous strategies.

In services-oriented computing networks, packets in the process of routing to a data center must wait for a sufficient amount of data before service aggregation to reduce the network transmission load. However, packets must be uploaded to the data center as soon as possible to reduce delay. With the exponential growth in the number of IoT connected devices, the wait time for packets is longer at routers due to massive amounts of data, which causes a large queuing delay. If this queuing time can be utilized for service aggregation in a service-oriented computing network, the network performance will be substantially improved. Therefore, a queuing delay utilization scheme for on-path service aggregation (SAQD) is proposed in this paper. This scheme has the following innovations: 1) SAQD fully utilizes the queuing delay of packets for service aggregation, which can effectively reduce the transmission volume and communication overhead. Based on the proposed service aggregation algorithm, packets are divided into forwarding packets and aggregating packets, and the service aggregation of aggregating packets is completed by utilizing the transmission time of forwarding packets to ensure that the transmission volume and communication overhead are effectively reduced without additional latency. 2) SAQD can effectively alleviate the traffic pressure of the data center and balance the workload of routers. By the service aggregation and intranet cache of routers, some requests for the data center can be handled by routers, which reduces the traffic pressure of the data center, especially in the peak period. Compared with conventional schemes, the experimental results demonstrate that SAQD reduces the workload of the data center by 55.8%-66.26% and provides users with a better quality of experience by reducing the request response delay by 31.33%~51.41%.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an important part of the new generation of information technology. It utilizes many sensor nodes to collect data and monitor the environment and can be applied in various fields. However, because the energy of sensor nodes is limited and the batteries cannot be replaced, the lifetimes of the sensor nodes are limited by the energy of their batteries. Only a reasonable method for saving energy can reduce the energy loss of the nodes in the communication process. Many studies have found that batteries have the property of battery-friendliness; that is, if they continue working, their energy drops rapidly. However, if they rest after working for a period of time, the batteries' energy can be partially restored. In this paper, an effective relay selection scheme for prolonging the lifetimes of nodes is designed based on the battery-friendly nature of the battery. In the proposed battery-friendly relay selection (BFRS) scheme, the relay node is selected based on the weighted synthesis value of the recovered energy, its distance to the sink and the residual energy. A forwarding node that has recovered more energy and is closer to the sink is more likely to be selected as the relay node because of its larger weight. Hence, the BFRS-based routing scheme can improve the lifetime by recovering more energy. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate that our BFRS scheme outperforms previously proposed schemes. In a network with 500 nodes, compared with the shortest routing algorithm, the network lifetime is increased by 51.26%, and the amount of transferred data is increased by 42.93%.

This paper pays close attention to the adaptive neural network tracking control. Aiming at a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with completely unknown output disturbance and unknown time delay, a corresponding robust control method is proposed based on the backstepping design technology. Neural network approximation is introduced as a very effective estimation technique for modeling uncertain partitions in the design process of virtual controller. The suitable Lyapunov–Krasovskii function is constructed, and by using the organic combination of Young’s inequality, unknown time delays are compensated. Nussbaum function is used to handle unknown virtual control directions. A practical robust control method is proposed to deal with the controller singularity problems. A priori knowledge is not required for this method. In this method, all signals achieve semi-global uniform ultimate boundedness, and it is demonstrated that the tracking error eventually converges the region around the origin. The simulation results verify this method’s feasibility and effectiveness.

Polarization light has been used as a key navigation cue by many animals under a stable celestial polarization pattern. Inspired by animals' unrivaled navigation skill, a bionic polarization sensor is designed previously to obtain the angle of polarization and degree of polarization. However, the accuracy and stability of the sensor are restricted by multi-source errors. In order to improve the accuracy of the sensor, in this paper, the multi-source errors are analyzed and modeled. A coarse calibration is presented to reduce the effect of inconsistency and interference. In addition, the extended Kalman filter and the unscented Kalman filter are designed to estimate the multi-source error or interference and compensate for the bionic polarization sensor. Finally, simulation and indoor experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed calibration method.

Fast and energy efficient data collection is the most important function of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) which governs the performance of WSNs. Time division multiple access (TDMA) is an effective data collection strategy in which node only schedules the active slot to save energy when transmitting data. However, many previous studies are designed for static traffic pattern such that each node to generate one data packet in a data collection cycle. Moreover, all nodes in the network use the same transmission radius r, so that the network data collection has a larger delay, a lower lifetime, and energy utilization rate. In view of the shortcomings of previous research, this paper proposes a reducing delay and maximizing lifetime (RDML) data collection strategy for WSNs with dynamic traffic patterns. The main innovation point of our work is the data transmission radius is no longer unified as r, while some nodes with energy surplus use a data transmission radius of mr(m > 1). The following network performance can be achieved by adopting the RDML scheme. First, because the nodes in the near sink mr radius area can send data directly to sink, the amount of data carried by hotspots nodes in the original strategy is greatly reduced, and the lifetime is improved. Second, since some nodes can go mr distance to the sink in data transmission, thus accelerating the data routing and reducing the time needed for data collection. Finally, since the remaining energy of nodes is fully utilized to increase the radius of data transmission, the energy utilization rate can be effectively improved. Through the theoretical analysis and experimental results, the RDML scheme can reduce the maximum delay of data collection by 22.32% and improve lifetime as well as the energy utilization rate by 0.86%-84.40%, and 23.33%-88.00%, respectively, compared with previous strategies.

The technology of software-defined devices has great prospect in updating the programs of the sensing devices to enable the devices to adapt to the new environments and applications. However, to effectively spread the code to each node in the software-defined-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is still a challenging task. In this paper, a proportion to duty cycle length-based broadcast (PDLB) scheme is proposed to disseminate code in duty cycle-based WSNs in a fast and energy-efficient style. In PDLB scheme, the sink first initiates a code broadcast. Then, the nodes that have received code start counting and calculate the priority of broadcasting based on an improved counter-based priority broadcasting approach proposed in this paper. Next, the nodes with the highest priority select k slots to broadcast according to the length of duty cycle so that the code can be spread from the sink to the network periphery. Finally, the nodes that have not obtained the code wait for a period of timeout to broadcast to actively send code request; after receiving code request, the node that obtained the code initiates a code broadcast to cause the code requester to obtain the code. The PDLB scheme has been validated by comprehensive experiments that show the following regularities. The smaller the count threshold value Ch, the larger the number of slots selected for broadcasting that can guarantee a certain coverage ratio, while the code dissemination speed slows down at the same time. The longer the duty cycle is, the more the broadcast time is required, and the larger the transmission delay is. For each slot added in a working cycle, the number of broadcasts is increased by 1.54%-33.33% and the transmission delay is augmented by 2.27%-70.04%. The higher the node density is, the shorter the code spread speed is. As the network density increases, the transmission delay is reduced by 0.83%-65.87%. When the number of broadcasting slots is half of the total number of slots in a work cycle, the energy consumption reaches the lowest value.

High-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission is playing an increasingly important role in modern power systems, and the resulted power/voltage stability issue has raised widespread concern. This paper presents an on-line power/voltage stability index (PVSI) for multi-in-feed HVDC (MIDC) systems. Different from the existing indices which are developed mainly for off-line and static analysis, the proposed PVSI can be applied in real time. Effects of system changes on stability assessment such as change of system states and control strategies are considered. Thus, helpful guidance can be provided for on-line HVDC stability and controls. The PVSI is originally deduced for single-infeed HVDC systems in an “AC way” by analyzing the power and voltage stability of both pure AC systems and HVDC systems. Moreover, its on-line application in practical MIDC systems is realized by building an equivalent single-infeed model, and utilizing nowadays measurement and communication infrastructures such as wide-area measurement system (WAMS). The effectiveness of the PVSI is verified through simulations in real-time digital simulator (RTDS).

Objective To evaluate the prevalence of depression and quality of life and their correlation in non-dialysis patients with chronic renal failure and analyze the factors affecting the occurrence of depression in these patients. Methods This study was conducted among 356 non-dialysis patients with chronic renal failure (including both inpatients and outpatients) from 4 general hospitals in Chongqing during the period from May, 2017 to March, 2018. Beck Depression Inventory-Ⅱ (BDI-Ⅱ) was used to assess the patient's depression, and the quality of life the patients was assessed using Quality of Life Instrument for Chronic Disease-Chronic Renal Failure (QLICD-CRF2.0). Results The incidence of depression was 45.22% in the 356 patients with chronic renal failure without dialysis. The patients with depression had significantly lower quality of life scores (including the physiological function, psychological function, social function and total scores), but had significantly higher scores in the specific modules of response symptoms than those without depression (P < 0.05). Binary logistic regression analysis of depression and quality of life showed that occupation (OR=1.753, 95%CI: 1.352-2.273), hospitalization frequency (OR=1.221, 95%CI: 1.007-1.480), specific modules (OR=1.034, 95%CI: 1.011-1.058), psychological function (OR=0.922, 95%CI: 0.902-0.942), education level (OR=0.597, 95%CI: 0.394-0.906), and annual income of the family (OR=0.514, 95%CI: 0.346-0.765) were all independent risk factors for the occurrence of depression in these patients. Conclusion The incidence of depression is high in non-dialysis patients with chronic renal failure. The patients with depression have lower quality of life scores than those without depression. Occupation, hospitalization frequency, specific modules, psychological function, education level and annual income of the family may affect the quality of life among the non-dialysis patients.

The pretreatment serum albumin/globulin ratio (AGR) has been used as a prognostic biomarker for various cancer types. However, the prognostic value of the AGR for prostate cancer, especially for metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) after maximal androgen blockade (MAB), remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of the pretreatment serum AGR for mPCa treated with MAB. This retrospective study included 214 mPCa patients receiving MAB from October 2007 to March 2017. The correlation of the AGR with survival was estimated using Kaplan–Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards models. The cutoff value of the AGR was 1.45 according to the receiver operating characteristic curve. Kaplan–Meier analysis demonstrated that patients with a low AGR (

As smart devices and mobile positioning technologies improve, location-based services (LBS) have grown in popularity. The LBS environment provides considerable convenience to users, but it also poses a significant threat to their privacy. A large number of research works have emerged to protect users’ privacy. Dummy-based location privacy protection solutions have been widely adopted for their simplicity and enhanced privacy protection results, but there are few reviews on dummy-based location privacy protection. Or, for existing works, some focus on aspects of cryptography, anonymity, or other comprehensive reviews that do not provide enough reviews on dummy-based privacy protection. In this paper, the authors provide a review of dummy-based location privacy protection techniques for location-based services. More specifically, the connection between the level of privacy protection, the quality of service, and the system overhead is summarized. The difference and connection between various location privacy protection techniques are also described. The dummy-based attack models are presented. Then, the algorithms for dummy location selection are analyzed and evaluated. Finally, we thoroughly evaluate different dummy location selection methods and arrive at a highly useful evaluation result. This result is valuable both to users and researchers who are studying this field.

Energy conservation and emission reduction have drawn more and more attention in the world. Loaders are widely used in various earthworks. However, traditional loaders with high energy consumption and poor emission cannot meet the needs of sustainable development. Electric loaders can achieve zero emission by replacing the engine with the electric motor, which is considered to be one of the main trends in future development. However, the existing electric loader only uses the electric motor to simulate the operation of the engine without fully considering the characteristics of the hydraulic system, resulting in the inability to optimize the energy efficiency and control performance of the system. In this paper, an electric motor with excellent speed regulation was employed. A positive flow system based on variable speed for constant displacement pump was studied. The efficiency of the power train system was analyzed. The relationships of the opening area of the main valve core, the system demand flow, and the pilot pressure were studied. A variable speed control strategy based on the pilot pressure control was put forward. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed system and control strategy, simulation and experiments were carried out. The results showed that the proposed system has better energy saving and maneuverability than the traditional constant flow system.

Protein post-translational modification (PTM) is an efficient biological mechanism to regulate protein structure and function, but its role in plant responses to heavy metal stress is poorly understood. The present study performed quantitative succinyl-proteome profiling using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis to explore the potential roles of lysine succinylation modification in turnip seedlings in response to cadmium (Cd) stress (20 μM) under hydroponic conditions over a short time period (0–8 h). A total of 547 succinylated sites on 256 proteins were identified in the shoots of turnip seedlings. These succinylated proteins participated in various biological processes (e.g., photosynthesis, tricarboxylic acid cycle, amino acid metabolism, and response to stimulation) that occurred in diverse cellular compartments according to the functional classification, subcellular localization, and protein interaction network analysis. Quantitative analysis showed that the intensities of nine succinylation sites on eight proteins were significantly altered (p < 0.05) in turnip shoots after 8 h of Cd stress. These differentially succinylated sites were highly conserved in Brassicaceae species and mostly located in the conserved domains of the proteins. Among them, a downregulated succinylation site (K150) in the glycolate oxidase protein (Gene0282600.1), an upregulated succinylation site (K396) in the catalase 3 protein (Gene0163880.1), and a downregulated succinylation site (K197) in the glutathione S-transferase protein (Gene0315380.1) may have contributed to the altered activity of the corresponding enzymes, which suggests that lysine succinylation affects the Cd detoxification process in turnip by regulating the H2O2 accumulation and glutathione metabolism. These results provide novel insights into understanding Cd response mechanisms in plants and important protein modification information for the molecular-assisted breeding of Brassica varieties with distinct Cd tolerance and accumulation capacities.

To explore the impact of artificial shelterbelt construction with saline irrigation on the soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) of shifting sandy soil in extreme arid desert areas, three treatments including under the shelterbelt (US), bare land in the shelterbelt (BL) and shifting sandy land (CK) in the hinterland of the Taklimakan Desert were selected. The age of the shelterbelt is 16, and the vegetation cover is mainly Calligonum mongolicum. The soils from different depths of 0–30 cm were taken keeping in view the objective of the study. The SWCCs were determined by the centrifugal method and fitting was performed using various models such as the Gardner (G) model, Brooks–Corey (BC) model and Van Genuchten (VG) model. Then, the most suitable SWCC model was selected. The results showed that electrical conductivity (EC) and organic matter content of BL and US decreased with the increasing soil depth, while the EC and organic matter content of CK increased with the soil depth. The changes in soil bulk density, EC and organic matter of 0–5 cm soil were mostly significant (p < 0.05) for different treatments, and the differences in SWCCs were also significant among different treatments. Moreover, the construction of an artificial shelterbelt improved soil water-holding capacity and had the most significant impacts on the surface soil. The increase in soil water-holding capacity decreased with increasing soil depth, and the available soil water existed in the form of readily available water. The BC model and VG model were found to be better than the G model in fitting results, and the BC model had the best fitting result on CK, while the VG Model had the best fitting result on BL with higher organic matter and salt contents. Comparing the fitting results of the three models, we concluded that although the fitting accuracy of the VG model tended to decrease with increasing organic matter and salinity, the VG model had the highest fitting accuracy when comparing with BC and G models for the BL treatment with high organic matter and salinity. Therefore, the influence of organic matter and salinity should be considered when establishing soil water transfer function.

Since the 21st century, large cities around the world have experienced the transition from economically destructive development to a harmonious eco-environment. Understanding the dynamic relationships between human activities and urban eco-environment in this transition is a challenging and essential topic. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) can reflect the urban vegetation cover status well. Socio-economic indexes can present the intensity and spatiality of human activities quantitatively. This work aims to use traditional regression models and machine learning algorithms to analyze the impact of socio-economic factors on NDVI accurately. Random forest regression (RFR) was performed to initially assess the contributions of all factors on NDVI, which was the numerical basis for feature selection. Subsequently, detailed dynamic relationship simulations were implemented using geographically weighted regression. In the case of Wuhan in China, the results showed that the goodness-of-fit of NDVI with socio-economic factors generally exceeded 50%. The influence coefficients changed from negative to positive, and 2010 was the turning point, indicating that human activities gradually played a favorable role in protecting vegetation during this transition period. The urban–rural interface, which was located between urban centers and marginal urban suburbs, was the area where human activities contributed most to vegetation. Thus, policy makers should focus on planning and managing housing construction and vegetation planting in urban–rural interface to relieve the population burden of the central area and improve the environmental conditions of the urban eco-environment subconsciously.

Summary: Recently, metasurface-based multichannel optical vortex arrays have attracted considerable interests due to its promising applications in high-dimensional information storage and high-secure information encryption. In addition to the well-known wavelength and polarization multiplexing technologies, the diffraction angle of light is an alternative typical physical dimension for multichannel optical vortex arrays. In this paper, based on angular multiplexing, we propose and demonstrate multichannel optical vortex arrays by using ultrathin geometric metasurface. For a circularly polarized incident light, the desired optical vortex arrays are successfully constructed in different diffraction regions. Moreover, the diffraction angle of the optical vortex array can be regulated by changing the illumination angle of incident light. Capitalizing on this advantage, the angular-multiplexed recombination of optical vortex array is further investigated. The combination of the diffraction angle of light and optical vortex array may have significant potential in applications of optical display, free-space optical communication, and optical manipulation.

Caffeoylquinic acids, coumarins and dicaffeoyl derivatives are considered to be three kinds of the most abundant bioactive components in Sarcandra glabra, an anti-inflammatory herb mainly found in Southern Asia. The combined anti-inflammatory effect of three typical constituents C + R + I (chlorogenic acid + rosmarinic acid + isofraxidin) from this plant has been investigated. The result implies that targeting the MAPK-NF-κB pathway would be one of the major mechanisms involved, using LPS stimulated RAW 264.7 cells as in vitro model and LPS-induced acute lung injury in mice as in vivo model. C + R + I can significantly suppress the levels of nitric oxide (NO), pro-inflammatory cytokines, and inhibit iNOS and COX-2 expression in LPS-treated RAW264.7 macrophage cells. Western blot analysis showed that C + R + I suppressed phosphorylation of NF-κB and MAPK, including phosphorylation of p65-NF-κB, IKB, ERK, JNK and P38. Besides, C + R + I suppressed MPO protein expression, but promoted SOD and HO-1 expression, and the related targets for C, R, and I were also predicted by molecular docking. This indicated that C + R + I could alleviate oxidative stress induced by LPS, which were further verified in the in vivo model of mice with acute lung injury through the measurement of corresponding inflammatory mediators and the analysis of immunehistochemistry.

Radiation-induced intestinal injury is one of the major side effects in patients receiving radiation therapy. There is no specific treatment for radiation-induced enteritis in the clinic. We synthesized a compound, named JAC4, which is an agonist and can increase JWA protein expression. JWA has been shown to reduce oxidative stress, DNA damage, anti-apoptosis, and anti-inflammatory; in addition, the small intestine epithelium showed dysplasia in JWA knockout mice. We hypothesized that JAC4 might exert a protective effect against radiation-induced intestinal damage. Herein, X-ray radiation models were built both in mice and in intestinal crypt epithelial cells (IEC-6). C57BL/6J mice were treated with JAC4 by gavage before abdominal irradiation (ABI); the data showed that JAC4 significantly reduced radiation-induced intestinal mucosal damage and increased the survival rate. In addition, radiation-induced oxidative stress damage and systemic inflammatory response were also mitigated by JAC4 treatment. Moreover, JAC4 treatment alleviated DNA damage, decreased cell apoptosis, and maintained intestinal epithelial cell proliferation in mice. In vitro data showed that JAC4 treatment significantly inhibited ROS formation and cell apoptosis. Importantly, all the above protective effects of JAC4 on X-ray radiation-triggered intestinal injury were no longer determined in the intestinal epithelium of JWA knockout mice. Therefore, our results provide the first evidence that JAC4 protects the intestine from radiation-induced enteritis through JWA-mediated anti-oxidation/inflammation signaling.

The performance of ski jumping is underpinned by multi-disciplinary principles, in which the aerodynamics of the ski dominates the flying distance and affects the biomechanics of the athletes’ ankle during the flight period. Conventional research on this topic was supported by wind tunnel experiments. Here, the aerodynamics of a full-scale ski jumping ski was calculated via Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods and good agreement with experimental data was achieved. The impacts of the angle of attack, yaw angle, and roll angle on the aerodynamic performance are explained. The inclusion of yaw angle can enhance the lift generation, which originates from the formation of a tilted multi-vortex system and the induced low-pressure footprints on the upper surface of the ski. Our results thus establish a database for the aerodynamic forces and moments of the ski and the associations between our findings and the skills in ankle control are discussed.

We demonstrate the generation of a space-variant vector beam with catenary-shaped polarization states based on the polarization interferometry. With a spatial light modulator and a common path interferometric configuration, two orthogonally circularly polarized beams with different phase modulation overlap each other, yielding the vector beams. In addition, the polarization states of this vector beam are scalable to the arbitrary spatial distribution because of its great flexibility and universal applicability. It is expected that this vector beam may have many potential and intriguing applications in the micro/nano material processing, liquid crystal elements fabrication and optical micro-manipulation, and so on.

It is very important to calculate the interference of high voltage direct current (HVDC) grounding current with pipelines accurately and take proper protective measures to ensure energy transmission safety. There is still a lack of systematic research into related prediction methods that consider the nonlinear polarization on the interface between the soil and pipelines. In this paper, a methodology is proposed for calculating the coupling voltage and current on buried pipelines induced by grounding currents that accounts for nonlinear polarization based on the method of moments (MoM) and the finite element method (FEM). The validity of the proposed mathematical model is verified by a scale experiment. The interference distribution characteristics under different parameters are analyzed using the proposed method. The results show that the relationship between the maximum leakage current density and the electrode grounding current satisfy the linear function. The corrosion area becomes more concentrated as the grounding current increases. The corrosion area range increases substantially as the distance increases, whereas the influence degree decreases substantially. Both the maximum leakage current density and corrosion risk area are positively correlated with the soil resistivity.

Calotropis gigantea is often found in mining areas with heavy metal pollution. However, little is known about the physiological and molecular response mechanism of C. gigantea to Cd stress. In the present study, Cd tolerance characteristic of C. gigantea and the potential mechanisms were explored. Seed germination test results showed that C. gigantea had a certain Cd tolerance capacity. Biochemical and transcriptomic analysis indicated that the roots and leaves of C. gigantea had different responses to early Cd stress. A total of 176 and 1618 DEGs were identified in the roots and leaves of C. gigantea treated with Cd compared to the control samples, respectively. Results indicated that oxidative stress was mainly initiated in the roots of C. gigantea, whereas the leaves activated several Cd detoxification processes to cope with Cd, including the upregulation of genes involved in Cd transport (i.e., absorption, efflux, or compartmentalization), cell wall remodeling, antioxidant system, and chelation. This study provides preliminary information to understand how C. gigantea respond to Cd stress, which is useful for evaluating the potential of C. gigantea in the remediation of Cd-contaminated soils.

Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) affect cancer progression and therapy. Ovarian carcinoma often metastasizes to the peritoneal cavity. Here, we found 2 peritoneal macrophage subsets in mice bearing ID8 ovarian cancer based on T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain containing 4 (Tim-4) expression. Tim-4+ TAMs were embryonically originated and locally sustained while Tim-4– TAMs were replenished from circulating monocytes. Tim-4+ TAMs, but not Tim-4– TAMs, promoted tumor growth in vivo. Relative to Tim-4– TAMs, Tim-4+ TAMs manifested high oxidative phosphorylation and adapted mitophagy to alleviate oxidative stress. High levels of arginase-1 in Tim-4+ TAMs contributed to potent mitophagy activities via weakened mTORC1 activation due to low arginine resultant from arginase-1–mediated metabolism. Furthermore, genetic deficiency of autophagy element FAK family-interacting protein of 200 kDa resulted in Tim-4+ TAM loss via ROS-mediated apoptosis and elevated T cell immunity and ID8 tumor inhibition in vivo. Moreover, human ovarian cancer–associated macrophages positive for complement receptor of the immunoglobulin superfamily (CRIg) were transcriptionally, metabolically, and functionally similar to murine Tim-4+ TAMs. Thus, targeting CRIg+ (Tim-4+) TAMs may potentially treat patients with ovarian cancer with peritoneal metastasis.

The long-term stability of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) remains an issue impeding their commercialization. Generally, polycrystalline perovskite thin films have many defects on the grain boundaries, which affect the optoelectronic performance and stability of the devices under moisture, heat, illumination, and the presence of an electric field condition. The O-donor Lewis base is often employed to regulate the performance of PSCs such as carbonyl and carboxyl compounds. Herein, we have developed a concept of radical molecular modulation using the O-donor group for high-performance perovskite photovoltaic devices. The judiciously designed radical modulators 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy (TEMPO), which located at the perovskite grain boundary through interaction with the perovskite surface sites, effectively passivated the surface defects while templating the formation of large grain crystal and high-quality perovskite thin films. Accordingly, the optimized TEMPO-modulated PSCs achieved a power conversion efficiency of 20.73% with superior stability. This work makes an important contribution for exploring the effect of radical in perovskites to improve the performance of PSCs and other optoelectronic devices.

Motivation: At present, a number of correlation analysis methods between SNPs and ROIs have been devised to explore the pathogenic mechanism of Alzheimer's disease. However, some of the deficiencies inherent in these methods, including lack of statistical efficacy and biological meaning. This study aims at addressing issues: insufficient correlation by previous methods (relative high regression error) and the lack of biological meaning in association analysis.Results: In this paper, a novel three-stage SNPs and ROIs correlation analysis framework is proposed. Firstly, clustering algorithm is applied to remove the potential linkage unbalanced structure of two SNPs. Then, the group sparse model is used to introduce prior information such as gene structure and linkage unbalanced structure to select feature SNPs. After the above steps, each SNP has a weight vector corresponding to each ROI, and the importance of SNPs can be judged according to the weights in the feature vector, and then the feature SNPs can be selected. Finally, for the selected feature SNPS, a support vector machine regression model is used to implement the prediction of the ROIs phenotype values. The experimental results under multiple performance measures show that the proposed method has better accuracy than other methods.

Cancer of unknown primary site (CUPS) is a type of metastatic tumor for which the sites of tumor origin cannot be determined. Precise diagnosis of the tissue origin for metastatic CUPS is crucial for developing treatment schemes to improve patient prognosis. Recently, there have been many studies using various cancer biomarkers to predict the tissue-of-origin (TOO) of CUPS. However, only a very few of them use copy number alteration (CNA) to trance TOO. In this paper, a two-step computational framework called CNA_origin is introduced to predict the tissue-of-origin of a tumor from its gene CNA levels. CNA_origin set up an intellectual deep-learning network mainly composed of an autoencoder and a convolution neural network (CNN). Based on real datasets released from the public database, CNA_origin had an overall accuracy of 83.81% on 10-fold cross-validation and 79% on independent datasets for predicting tumor origin, which improved the accuracy by 7.75 and 9.72% compared with the method published in a previous paper. Our results suggested that the autoencoder model can extract key characteristics of CNA and that the CNN classifier model developed in this study can predict the origin of tumors robustly and effectively. CNA_origin was written in Python and can be downloaded from https://github.com/YingLianghnu/CNA_origin.

Bladder cancer is one of the most malignant tumors closely associated with macrophage immune dysfunction. The Chinese medicine polyporus has shown excellent efficacy in treating bladder cancer, with minimal side effects. However, its material basis and mechanism of action remain unclear. A new water-soluble polysaccharide (HPP) with strong immunomodulatory activity was isolated from the fungus Polyporus umbellatus (Pers.) Fries. HPP had an average molecular weight of 6.88 kDa and was composed mainly of an

Abstract Optical metasurfaces enable novel ways to locally manipulate light's amplitude, phase, and polarization, underpinning a newly viable technology for applications, such as high‐density optical storage, holography, and displays. Here, a high‐security‐level platform enabled by centimeter‐scale plasmonic metasurfaces with full‐color, high‐purity, and enhanced‐information‐capacity properties is proposed. Multiple types of independent information can be embedded into a single metamark using full parameters of light, including amplitude, phase, and polarization. Under incoherent white light, the metamark appears as a polarization‐ and angle‐encoded full‐color image with flexibly controlled hue, saturation, and brightness, while switching to multiwavelength holograms under coherent laser illumination. More importantly, for actual applications, the extremely shallow functional layer makes such centimeter‐scale plasmonic metamarks suitable for cost‐effective mass production processes. Considering these superior performances of the presented multifunctional plasmonic metasurfaces, this work may find wide applications in anticounterfeiting, information security, high‐density optical storage, and so forth.

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) provides a reliable and ecologically valid model for the assessment of individual risk-taking propensity and is frequently used in neuroimaging and developmental research. Although the test-retest reliability of risk-taking behavior during the BART is well established, the reliability of brain activation patterns in response to risk-taking during the BART remains elusive. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and evaluated the test-retest reliability of brain responses in 34 healthy adults during a modified BART by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and Dice’s similarity coefficients (DSC). Analyses revealed that risk-induced brain activation patterns showed good test-retest reliability (median ICC ​= ​0.62) and moderate to high spatial consistency, while brain activation patterns associated with win or loss outcomes only had poor to fair reliability (median ICC ​= ​0.33 for win and 0.42 for loss). These findings have important implications for future utility of the BART in fMRI to examine brain responses to risk-taking and decision-making.

Abstract Phosphoinositide 3‐kinases, delta (PI3Kδ) and gamma (PI3Kγ) are enriched in immune cells and regulate the development and function of innate and adaptive immunity. Dual PI3Kδγ inhibitors are considered high value targets for their potential to treat a variety of immune‐mediated diseases, but their discovery has been challenging. Here we describe the preclinical pharmacology of HM5023507, an orally active dual inhibitor of δγ isoforms in immune signaling. HM5023507 inhibited PI3Kδ and PI3Kγ isoforms with greater than 100‐fold selectivity against PI3Kα and PI3Kβ in recombinant enzymatic assays and in primary human immune cells with an exquisite selectivity against other targets. HM5023507 attenuated the PI3Kδ/γ signaling in human basophils (IC50: 42/340 nmol/L; selectivity ratio ~1:8). HM5023507 attenuated the activation and function of human B and T cells, Th17 differentiation of CD4 T cells in the blood of healthy donors and rheumatoid arthritis patients, and cytokine and IgG production in human T and B cell cocultures, in vitro. Orally dosed HM5023507 attenuated PI3K δ/γ‐mediated immune signaling in the rat in a dose‐related manner. In addition, HM5023507 inhibited semiestablished collagen‐induced arthritic inflammation in the rats (ED50 of 0.25mg/kg, p.o. BID or 0.5 mg/kg, QD, AUC: 1422 ng/mL*h), improved histopathology‐ and micro‐computed tomography (µCT)‐based indices of joint damage, bone destruction, and attenuated the levels of anti‐collagen antibody, with an overall anti‐inflammatory profile matching that of a TNFα neutralizing antibody. The PI3K δγ inhibitory profile of HM5023507 and its selectivity make it a useful tool to further delineate immunobiology of dual PI3K δγ targeting.

The existing motor frame is made of metal materials. In this paper, a carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) motor frame, which uses material damping to reduce vibration amplitude, which is proposed to design and manufacture low-vibration motors. The damp ratio of the CFRP motor frame is calculated by the damp prediction model based on strain energy, which is verified by the combination of the finite element method and experiment. The vibration characteristics of the CFRP frame motor are studied experimentally and compared with that of the metal frame motor. The results show that the CFRP frame motor has good vibration reduction. The amplitude reduction is up to 5 times higher than that of the metal motor frame, which proves that the damping vibration reduction of the CFRP motor frame has a good application value.