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BackgroundMobile health (mHealth) interventions have been shown to effectively improve the quality of life (QOL) among people living with HIV. However, little is known about the long-term effects of mHealth interventions. ObjectiveThis study aims to explore the intervention mechanisms of a social media–based intervention, Run4Love, on the QOL of people with HIV over across a 9-month follow-up period. MethodsWe recruited people living with HIV who were concurrently experiencing elevated depressive symptoms from an HIV outpatient clinic in South China. A total of 300 eligible participants were randomized either to the intervention group or the control group in a 1:1 ratio after they provided informed consent and completed a baseline survey. The intervention group received a 3-month WeChat-based intervention, comprising cognitive-behavioral stress management (CBSM) courses and physical activity promotion. The control group received a printed brochure on nutrition guidelines in addition to the usual care for HIV treatment. Neither participants nor the research staff were blinded to group assignment. All patients were followed at 3, 6, and 9 months. The primary outcome was depressive symptoms. Structural equation model (SEM) with longitudinal data was conducted to examine the sequential mediating effects of HIV-related stigma and depressive symptoms on the long-term intervention effects on participants’ QOL. ResultsAbout 91.3% (274/300), 88.3% (265/300), and 86.7% (260/300) of all participants completed follow-up surveys at 3, 6, and 9 months, respectively. Results showed that the intervention had significantly improved participants' QOL at 9 months, via complete mediating effects of reduced HIV-related stigma at 3 months and decreased depressive symptoms at 6 months. No adverse events were reported. ConclusionsThese findings underscore the critical roles of HIV-related stigma and depressive symptoms in an mHealth intervention with long-term effects on QOL improvements. We call for targeted mHealth interventions to improve QOL among people living with HIV, especially social media–based interventions that can address HIV-related stigma and alleviate depressive symptoms. Trial RegistrationChinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR-IPR-17012606; https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=21019

Imaging diagnosis is crucial for early detection and monitoring of brain tumors. Radiomics enable the extraction of a large mass of quantitative features from complex clinical imaging arrays, and then transform them into high-dimensional data which can subsequently be mined to find their relevance with the tumor’s histological features, which reflect underlying genetic mutations and malignancy, along with grade, progression, therapeutic effect, or even overall survival (OS). Compared to traditional brain imaging, radiomics provides quantitative information linked to meaningful biologic characteristics and application of deep learning which sheds light on the full automation of imaging diagnosis. Recent studies have shown that radiomics’ application is broad in identifying primary tumor, differential diagnosis, grading, evaluation of mutation status and aggression, prediction of treatment response and recurrence in pituitary tumors, gliomas, and brain metastases. In this descriptive review, besides establishing a general understanding among protocols, results, and clinical significance of these studies, we further discuss the current limitations along with future development of radiomics.

ObjectiveComplete resection of jugular foramen tumors with minimal cranial nerve complications remains challenging even for skilled neurosurgeons. Here, we introduce a modified paracondylar approach, named the suboccipital paracondylar-lateral cervical (SPCLC) approach for this purpose. We also share the follow-up data of our series and discuss the advantages and limitations of this modified paracondylar approach.MethodsWe included 64 patients with jugular foramen tumors who underwent surgery by the same senior neurosurgeon between November 2011 and August 2020. All patients were treated with the SPCLC approach, which aimed for gross total tumor removal in a single-stage operation. The clinical characteristics, including preoperative and postoperative neurological status, the extent of surgical resection, and follow-up data were retrospectively acquired and evaluated.ResultsThere were 48 schwannomas, nine meningiomas, three paragangliomas, one hemangiopericytoma, one chordoma, one endolymphatic sac tumor, and one Langerhans’ cell histiocytosis. The median age of our patients was 43 years (range: 21–77 years). Dysphagia, hoarseness, and tongue deviation were observed in 36, 26, and 28 patients, respectively. Thirty-two patients had hearing function impairments, including hearing loss or tinnitus. Gross total resection was achieved in 59 patients (59/64, 92.2%). Gamma Knife treatment was used to manage residual tumors in five patients. Postoperatively, new-onset or aggravative dysphagia and hoarseness occurred in 26 and 18 cases, respectively. Nine patients developed new-onset facial palsy, and one patient developed new-onset hearing loss. There were no cases of intracranial hematoma, re-operation, tracheostomy, or death. At the latest follow-up, hearing loss and tinnitus had improved in 20 cases (20/32, 62.5%), dysphagia alleviated in 20 cases (20/36, 55.6%), and hoarseness improved in 14 cases (14/26, 53.8%). Over a mean follow-up period of 27.8 ± 19.5 months (range: 3–68 months), tumor recurrence was observed in one patient.ConclusionThe SPCLC approach, modified from the paracondylar approach, and was less invasive, safe, and efficient for certain jugular foramen tumors. Taking advantage of the anatomic understanding, clear operational vision, and appropriate surgical skills, it is possible to achieve gross total tumor removal and the preservation of neurological function.

This article proposes a new differential-cascading-based dual-stator brushless doubly-fed induction machine with a staggered dual cage rotor. Conventional differential mode of the brushless doubly-fed machine with cage rotor suffers from the low number of rotor bars because of the low equivalent synchronous pole pairs of |p1-p2|, and thus, severe rotor flux leakage, low capacity of magnetic field conversion of the rotor and low efficiency. To overcome the obstacle of the excessive harmonics of the rotor, a design method based on the differential cascading is proposed which enables the cage rotor with a high number of conductor bars even in the case of low pole pairs of |p1-p2|, hence the greatly reduced rotor leakage inductance and enhanced performance of the machine. The rotating magneto-motive force theory is applied to derive the interconnection rule of the staggered dual cage rotor, and meanwhile, the corresponding examples are illustrated. The performance comparisons between the differential cascading and the sum cascading based on the proposed machine are carried out. The results show that the proposed machine based on the differential cascading obtains higher power densities comparing to the sum cascading at the region of sub-natural synchronous speed, while its drawback is the increment of the loss due to the high rotor frequency, gaining lower efficiencies at the region of super-natural synchronous speed.

Three carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP; strains KP-426, KP-C76, and KP-CT77) were isolated from a patient with severe burns during the treatment of colistin and tigecycline. Single-nucleotide polymorphism typing showed that three ST11 CRKP were clonally related. Three isolates harbored the same set of antimicrobial resistance genes. blaKPC-2, blaSHV-12, blaTEM-1, and rmtB genes were located on the same 128,928-bp IncFII/IncR plasmid. Tet(A), catA2, sul2, and dfrA14 genes were located on a plasmid with an unknown Inc-type. blaSHV-11, fosA, and aadA2 were chromosomal genes. An IS1 and an ISKpn14 were found in the promoter region of the mgrB gene of two colistin-resistant CRKP, K. pneumoniae KP-C76, and KP-CT77, respectively. A novel amino acid substitution, G300E, was identified in the type 1 Tet(A) variant of K. pneumoniae KP-CT77 which exhibited high-level tigecycline resistance compared to strains KP-426 and KP-C76 (MIC of 32, 4, and 4mg/l, respectively). Conjugation and cloning experiments confirmed that the mutated Tet(A) resulted in a 4-fold increase in tigecycline minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of Escherichia coli. Three CRKP belonged to the K64 serotype and possessed a similar IncHI1B/repB virulence plasmid carrying rmpA, rmpA2, and iucABCDiutA. The survival rates of Galleria Mellonella injected with K. pneumoniae KP-426, KP-C76, and KP-CT77 were 4.2, 20.8, and 8.3%, respectively. The emergence of colistin and tigecycline resistance in carbapenem-resistant hypervirulent K. pneumoniae posed a serious threat to clinical anti-infective therapy. The type 1 Tet(A) variant carrying G300E mutation, which conferred significantly elevated tigecycline MIC and was located on a conjugative plasmid, needs attention.

In this study, the static response of the preliminary pilot tunnels excavation to the ground, and the dynamic response of the group cavern system under seismic excitation under the use of the construction of a metro station based on the Pile-Beam-Arch approach are investigated through numerical calculation. The results suggest that the excavation sequences of “top first and then bottom” and “middle first and then both sides” can generate the minimum ground settlement. When the pilot tunnels were excavated, the horizontal PGA (peak ground acceleration) amplification coefficient tends to increase with significant nonlinear characteristics under the excitation of EI Centro wave with a horizontal acceleration of 0.15 g, and the horizontal PGA amplification coefficient reaches the maximum at the ground surface. The effect of horizontal acceleration around the upper pilot tunnels increases. Under the static load, the maximum principal stress of the lining structure after the completion of the pilot tunnels is largely concentrated at the foot of the arch of the pilot tunnel, and the maximum principal stress value is 1.124 MPa. The maximum principal stress is primarily concentrated at the foot of the arch and the foot of the upper and lower guide tunnel under seismic excitation, and the maximum principal stress value is 1.424 MPa. This study reveals that a reasonable excavation sequence can be employed when the pilot tunnels are being excavated to control the settlement. Furthermore, the support of the arch and footing of the pilot tunnels should be enhanced during the seismic design.

Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) is a common cause of bloody diarrhea. The pathology of STEC infection derives from two exotoxins—Shiga toxin 1 (Stx1) and Shiga toxin 2 (Stx2)—that are secreted by STEC in the gut, from where they are systemically absorbed, causing severe kidney damage leading to hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). Currently, there is no effective treatment for HUS, and only supportive care is recommended. We report the engineering of a panel of designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPin) with potent neutralization activity against Stx2a, the major subtype associated with HUS. The best dimeric DARPin, SD5, created via a combination of directed evolution and rational design, neutralizes Stx2a with a half maximal effective concentration (EC50) of 0.61 nM in vitro. The two monomeric DARPin constituents of SD5 exhibit complementary functions—SHT targets the enzymatic A subunit of Stx2a and inhibits the toxin’s catalytic activity, while DARPin #3 binds the B subunit, based on the cryo-EM study, and induces a novel conformational change in the B subunit that distorts its five-fold symmetry and presumably interferes with toxin attachment to target cells. SD5 was fused to an albumin-binding DARPin, and the resulting trimeric DARPin DA1-SD5 efficiently protects mice in a toxin challenge model, pointing to a high potential of this DARPin as a therapeutic for STEC infection. Finally, the unprecedented toxin conformational change induced by DARPin #3 represents a novel mode of action for neutralizing Stx2 toxicity and reveals new targets for future drug development.

A battery management system (BMS) is an important link between on-board power battery and electric vehicles. The BMS is used to collect, process, and store important information during the operation of a battery pack in real time. Due to the wide application of lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles, the correct estimation of the state of charge (SOC) of lithium-ion batteries (LIBS) is of great importance in the battery management system. The SOC is used to reflect the remaining capacity of the battery, which is directly related to the efficiency of the power output and management of energy. In this paper, a new long short-term memory network with attention mechanism combined with Kalman filter is proposed to estimate the SOC of the Li-ion battery in the BMS. Several different dynamic driving plans are used for training and testing under different temperatures and initial errors, and the results show that the method is highly reliable for estimating the SOC of the Li-ion battery. The average root mean square error (RMSE) reaches 0.01492 for the US06 condition, 0.01205 for the federal urban driving scheme (FUDS) condition, and 0.00806 for the dynamic stress test (DST) condition. It is demonstrated that the proposed method is more reliable and robust, in terms of SOC estimation accuracy, compared with the traditional long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network, LSTM combined with attention mechanism, or LSTM combined with the Kalman filtering method.

The excellent thermophysical properties of supercritical CO2 (sCO2) close to the pseudocritical point make it possible to replace water as the coolant of microchannels in application of a high heat flux radiator. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method verified by experimental data is used to make a comparison of the thermal hydraulic behavior in CO2-cooled and of water-cooled microchannels. The operation conditions of the CO2-based cooling cases cover the pseudocritical point (with the inlet temperature range of 306~320 K and the working pressure of 8 MPa), and the water-based cooling case has an inlet temperature of 308 K at the working pressure of 0.1 MPa. The channel types include the straight and zigzag microchannels with 90°, 120°, and 150° bending angles, respectively. The analysis result shows that, only when the state of CO2 is close to the pseudocritical point, the sCO2-cooled microchannel is of a higher average heat convection coefficient and a lower average temperature of the heated surface compared to the water-cooled microchannel. The entropy generation rate of the sCO2-cooled microchannel can reach 0.58~0.69 times that of the entropy generation rate for the water-cooled microchannel. Adopting the zigzag structure can enhance the heat transfer, but it does not improve the comprehensive performance represented by the entropy generation rate in the sCO2-cooled microchannel.

Due to soil disturbance during the construction of metro stations, the initial stress of the stratum is modified, leading to ground settlement within a particular range, fracturing the surrounding buildings and even causing significant ground deformation and building collapse. This paper employed the Pile-Beam-Arch method to assemble the Daguanying Station of Beijing Metro Line 7 as the engineering background. The numerical calculation method was used to study the regulations of ground settlement and structural deformation throughout the construction stage. Meanwhile, the effect of surface loading was taken into account and surface settlement control strategies were suggested. Finally, the Stochastic medium theory was used to predict surface settlement. It was evident from the study’s findings that the pilot tunnels excavation and the arches installation accounted for 67% and 23.1% of the total surface settlement, respectively, and produced the most surface settlement. Surface settlement can be significantly reduced by utilizing grouting reinforcement technology and the pilot tunnels excavation approach of “upper first, then lower and side first, then middle”. The structure was much less stressed during the pre-construction stage, with the maximum principal stress ranging from 1 to 5 MPa; after construction was finalized, the maximum principal stress reached 14.203 MPa, concentrating mostly in the middle column part, which was the consequence of the combined action of the upper load and the lower soil uplift. Additionally, there was a linear relationship between the surface load and ground settlement. The bottom slab and the middle column were situated where the structure’s most unfavorable components were concentrated. The conclusions of the surface settlement prediction demonstrated that there were discrepancies between the theoretical calculation and the simulated; thus, the prediction results were more conservative. The study results can serve as a reference for construction sites.

Mercury (Hg), as the most potentially hazardous heavy metal, has accumulated in the aquatic environment and has caused concern about its safety. To test the toxic effects of mercury chloride (Hg2+) on rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus), the acute toxicity of Hg2+ to embryos, newly hatched larvae, juvenile fish, and the short-term developmental toxicity of Hg2+ to the embryo and sac-fry stages, were investigated. The 96-h LC50 values of Hg2+ to embryos, newly hatched larvae, and juvenile fish were 0.56, 0.07, and 0.10 mg/L, respectively, suggesting newly hatched larvae were the most sensitive, followed by juvenile fish, while embryos were the most resistant in response to an Hg2+ challenge. The research data revealed that the safe level of Hg2+ exposure for rare minnow was 0.7 μg/L. In addition, the LOEC (lowest observed effect concentration) and NOEC (no observed effect concentration) values of Hg2+ to heartbeat, mortality, malformation rate, and body length of survived larvae were identically, 0.05 and 0.01 mg/L, respectively. These findings indicated that Hg2+ had lethal effects on rare minnow at different life stages, and that newly hatched larvae were the most sensitive stage. The above findings have important implications for better understanding the environmental risk assessment of Hg2+ on aquatic organisms.

The objective of the study was to investigate the immunomodulatory activity of the low molecular weight peptides (

Background Neuroblastoma (NBL) is the most common extracranial solid tumor in childhood, and patients with high-risk neuroblastoma had a relatively poor prognosis despite multimodal treatment. To improve immunotherapy efficacy in neuroblastoma, systematic profiling of the immune landscape in neuroblastoma is an urgent need. Methods RNA-seq and according clinical information of neuroblastoma were downloaded from the TARGET database and GEO database (GSE62564). With an immune-related-gene set obtained from the ImmPort database, Immune-related Prognostic Gene Pairs for Neuroblastoma (IPGPN) for overall survival (OS) were established with the TARGET-NBL cohort and then verified with the GEO-NBL cohort. Immune cell infiltration analysis was subsequently performed. The integrated model was established with IPGPN and clinicopathological parameters. Immune cell infiltration was analyzed with the XCELL algorithm. Functional enrichment analysis was performed with clusterProfiler package in R. Results Immune-related Prognostic Gene Pairs for Neuroblastoma was successfully established with seven immune-related gene pairs (IGPs) involving 13 unique genes in the training cohort. In the training cohort, IPGPN successfully stratified neuroblastoma patients into a high and low immune-risk groups with different OS (HR=3.92, P = 2 × 10 −8 ) and event-free survival (HR=3.66, P =2 × 10 −8 ). ROC curve analysis confirmed its predictive power. Consistently, high IPGPN also predicted worse OS (HR=1.84, P = .002) and EFS in validation cohort (HR=1.38, P = .06) Moreover, higher activated dendritic cells, M1 macrophage, Th1 CD4 + , and Th2 CD4 + T cell enrichment were evident in low immune-risk group. Further integrating IPGPN with age and stage demonstrated improved predictive performance than IPGPN alone. Conclusion Herein, we presented an immune landscape with IPGPN for prognosis prediction in neuroblastoma, which complements the present understanding of the immune signature in neuroblastoma.

Background: Detection of SHOX2 methylation has been used to assist in the early diagnosis of lung cancer in many hospitals as SHOX2 may be important in the tumorigenesis of lung cancer. However, there are few studies on the mRNA expression, methylation, and molecular mechanism of SHOX2 in lung cancer. We aimed to explore the role of SHOX2 in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD).Methods: First, we examined the differential expression of SHOX2 mRNA and methylation in cancerous and normal tissues using databases. Second, we analyzed the relationship between SHOX2 expression and common clinical parameters in LUAD patients. Third, we further explored the methylated level and its specific location of SHOX2 and the mainly factors of SHOX2 gene expression. Finally, we screened the correlatively expressed genes to analyze the pathways from the Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes using DAVID.Results: We found that the mRNA expression of SHOX2 was higher in multiple cancers, including LUAD and lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC), than in normal tissues. Among LUAD patients, SHOX2 expression was higher in patients of middle–young age, with smoking history, in advanced stages, and with nodal distant metastasis. In addition, our results showed that patients with high expression of SHOX2 are prone to recurrence, poor differentiation, and poor prognosis. Thus, we identified that SHOX2 might be an oncogene for LUAD progression. The main factor influencing the high expression of SHOX2 mRNA may be DNA methylation, followed by copy number variation (CNV), but not by gene mutations in LUAD. Unexpectedly, we found that SHOX2 undergoes hypomethylation in the gene body instead of hypermethylation in the promoter. Additionally, SHOX2 has cross talk in the PI3K–Akt signaling pathway and ECM–receptor interaction.Conclusion:SHOX2 is highly expressed in most cancers. SHOX2 gene expression might be mainly regulated by methylation of its gene body in LUAD, and its high expression or hypomethylation indicates poor differentiation and poor prognosis. SHOX2 could be involved in PI3K–Akt and other important cancer-related signaling pathways to promote tumorigenesis.

Health care-associated infections, also known as nosocomial infections, are the most frequent adverse events in health care delivery worldwide, causing high rates of morbidity and mortality and high health care costs. Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) covers not only the well-regulated processes of specific applications in different areas but also includes ubiquitous connectivity of more generic objects (or things and devices) in the physical world and the related information in the virtual world. For example, a typical IoT application, such as a smart city, includes smarter urban transport networks, upgraded water supply, and waste-disposal facilities, along with more efficient ways to light and heat buildings. For smart city applications and others, we require unique naming of every object and a secure, scalable, and efficient name resolution which can provide access to any object's inherent attributes with its name. Based on different motivations, many naming principles and name resolution schemes have been proposed. Some of them are based on the well-known domain name system (DNS), which is the most important infrastructure in the current Internet, while others are based on novel designing principles to evolve the Internet. Although the DNS is evolving in its functionality and performance, it was not originally designed for the IoT applications. Then, a fundamental question that arises is: can current DNS adequately provide the name service support for IoT in the future? To address this question, we analyze the strengths and challenges of DNS when it is used to support ubiquitous IoT. First, we analyze the requirements of the IoT name service by using five characteristics, namely security, mobility, infrastructure independence, localization, and efficiency, which we collectively refer to as SMILE. Then, we discuss the pros and cons of the DNS in satisfying SMILE in the context of the future evolution of the IoT environment.

Chest X-ray film is the most widely used and common method of clinical examination for pulmonary nodules. However, the number of radiologists obviously cannot keep up with this outburst due to the sharp increase in the number of pulmonary diseases, which increases the rate of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis. The method based on deep learning is the most appropriate way to deal with such problems so far. The main research in this paper was using inception-v3 transfer learning model to classify pulmonary images, and finally to get a practical and feasible computer-aided diagnostic model. The computer-aided diagnostic model could improve the accuracy and rapidity of doctors in the diagnosis of thoracic diseases. In this experiment, we augmented the data of pulmonary images, then used the fine-tuned Inception-v3 model based on transfer learning to extract features automatically, and used different classifiers (Softmax, Logistic, SVM) to classify the pulmonary images. Finally, it was compared with various models based on the original Deep Convolution Neural Network (DCNN) model. The experiment proved that the experiment based on transfer learning was meaningful for pulmonary image classification. The highest sensitivity and specificity are 95.41% and 80.09% respectively in the experiment, and the better pulmonary image classification performance was obtained than other methods.

Abstract Background Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most common cancers in male worldwide. Oxidative stress has been recognized as one of the driving signals pathologically linked to PCa progression. Nevertheless, the association of oxidative stress with PCa progression remains unclear. Methods Western blot, q-RT-PCR and bioinformatics analyses were used to examine PAGE4 expression. Comet assay and Annexin V/ PI dual staining assay were performed to investigate DNA damage and cell death under oxidative stress. Mouse xenograft model of PCa cells was established to verify the role of PAGE4 in vivo. Transcriptomic analysis was performed to investigate the underlying mechanism for the function of PAGE4 under oxidative stress. Western blot assay was conducted to determine the status of MAPK pathway. Immunohistochemistry was used to identify protein expression of PAGE4 in tumor tissues. Results In this study, we found that PAGE4 expression was increased in PCa cells under oxidative stress condition. PAGE4 overexpression protected PCa cells from oxidative stress-inducing cell death by reducing DNA damage. PAGE4 overexpression promoted PCa cells growth in vivo. Mechanistically, PAGE4 promoted the survival of prostate cancer cells through regulating MAPK pathway which reflected in decreasing the phosphorylation of MAP2K4, JNK and c-JUN but increasing phosphorylation of ERK1/2. Conclusion Our findings indicate that PAGE4 protects PCa cells from DNA damage and apoptosis under oxidative stress by modulating MAPK signalling pathway. PAGE4 expression may serve as a prognostic biomarker for clinical applications.

In the context of smart electricity consumption, demand response is an important way to solve the problem of power supply and demand balance. Users participate in grid dispatching to obtain additional benefits, which realises a win-win situation between the grid and users. However, in actual dispatching, community users’ strong willingness to use energy leads to low enthusiasm of users to participate in demand response. Psychological research shows a direct connection between users’ herd mentality (HM) and their decision-making behavior. An optimal dispatching strategy based on user herd mentality is proposed to give full play to the active response-ability of community flexible load to participate in power grid dispatching. Considering that herd mentality is generated by the information interaction between users, by calling on some users to share the experience of successfully participating in demand response in the community information center and using the Nash social welfare function to model herd mentality to explore the impact of the user. The analysis of an example shows that the proposed strategy gives full play to the potential of community flexible loads to participate in demand response. When users have similar electricity consumption behavior, the herd mentality can effectively improve users’ enthusiasm to participate in demand response, and the user response effect meets managers’ expectations.

The combined effect of adding Sn and natural aging (NA) time on the precipitation and age-hardening rate of the Al-0.4Mg-1.0Si alloy was investigated by a hardness test, electrical resistivity test, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis, 3-D atom probe (3DAP) analysis, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results showed that the NA of the Al-0.4 Mg-1.0Si alloy was suppressed by adding Sn. This suppression was ascribed to the suppression of the formation of clusters. The short NA time (less than 5 days) had a positive effect on the subsequent artificial aging (AA) in the Sn-added alloys, i.e., a fast AA-hardening rate was achieved. The positive effect of the NA on the AA in the Sn-added alloys increased as the amount of Sn increased, but decreased as the NA time increased. The AA was negatively affected by the NA when the NA time was increased to 14 days. The accelerated AA precipitation of the Sn-added alloys after a short NA time was responsible for the fast AA-hardening rate. This accelerated precipitation was related to the increased amount of retained quenched-in vacancies according to their NA resistivity curves and similarity of the chemical composition between the Sn-containing clusters and β'' phases.

The influence of the cross section shape of microchannels on the thermos-hydraulic performance of the supercritical CO2 fluid is an important issue in the design of industrial compact heat exchangers, but few studies have been conducted about this issue. In this paper, comparative studies of the flow and heat transfer performance of SCO2 fluid in horizontal microchannels with circular, semicircular, rectangle, and trapezoidal cross sections were conducted numerically. The comparison is based on the same hydraulic diameter and length for all channel types and is carried out under the same mass flux, outlet pressure, and wall heat flux. The fluid bulk temperature in this analysis ranges from 285 K to 375 K, which covers the pseudocritical point of SCO2. The results show that the circular channel has the highest average heat convection coefficient, while the trapezoidal channel has the worst convective heat transfer performance under the same hydraulic diameter and boundary conditions. The results also indicate that the effect of cross section shape on the heat convection coefficient is significantly greater than that on the channel pressure drop, and the existence of the corner region in the cross section, especially the acute angle, will weaken the heat transfer performance.

We demonstrate that multipartite entanglement, witnessed by the quantum Fisher information, can characterize topological quantum phase transitions in the spin-1/2 toric code model (TCM) on a square lattice with external fields. We show that the quantum Fisher information density of the ground state can be written in terms of the expectation values of gauge-invariant Wilson loops for different sizes of square regions and identify Z_{2} topological order by its scaling behavior. Furthermore, we use this multipartite entanglement witness to investigate thermalization and disorder-assisted stabilization of topological order after a quantum quench. Moreover, with an upper bound of the quantum Fisher information, we demonstrate the absence of finite-temperature topological order in the two-dimensional TCM in the thermodynamic limit. Our results provide insights to topological phases, which are robust against external disturbances and are candidates for topologically protected quantum computation.

Ceftazidime-avibactam (CAV) is a new treatment option against carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) infections. However, the rapid emergence of CAV resistance mediated by KPC variants has posed a severe threat to healthcare after its clinical application. The characteristics of CAV resistance in CRKP strains needs to be determined in China. A total of 477 CRKP isolates were collected from 46 hospitals in Zhejiang Province from 2018 to 2021. The results demonstrated that CAV had a potent activity against 94.5% of all CRKP (451/477, 95% CI: 93.0–96.1%) and 86.0% of CRKP strains carrying blaKPC genes (410/477, 95% CI: 83.5–88.4%). A total of 26 CAV-resistant strains were found. Among these strains, sixteen harbored metallo-β lactamases, and two carried KPC-2 carbapenemase and mutated ompK35 and ompK36. Eight CRKP strains encoded KPC-33 or KPC-93, belonging to ST11, among which seven strains were detected in patients hospitalized in 2021 after exposure to CAV and one strain was associated with intra-hospital spread. CAV is a potent agent in vitro against CRKP strains. The rapid development of CAV resistance mediated by various KPC variants after a short period of CAV treatment has increased and brought difficulties in treating infections caused by CRKP strains, especially those belonging to ST11. The surveillance of bacterial resistance against CAV is highly recommended due to the steep development of CAV resistance and rapid evolution of KPC enzymes.

Raft is a fast, scalable, understandable consensus algorithm widely used in distributed systems. The Leader handles client requests and interacts with other servers to reach a consensus, so a stable, reliable, and powerful Leader is crucial for the cluster. We designed a policy-based voting mechanism to make the elected Leader as reliable as possible. In order to improve the asymmetric relationship between the Followers and Leader, we designed a mechanism to trigger a new round of the election actively so that the Leader node can actively transform into a Follower under certain conditions and enhance the symmetry between servers. Our proposed Raft-PLUS algorithm makes the elected Leader as reliable as possible through four election policies and designed three opposition policies to trigger a new round of the election. To verify the effectiveness of the Raft-PLUS algorithm, we configure different election and opposition policies on 12 servers to simulate the election and opposition process of the Leader and explain the process. To demonstrate the advantages of the Raft-PLUS algorithm, we built key-value stores based on Raft and Raft-PLUS, and we tested the performance of Raft-PLUS and the Raft algorithm in normal and abnormal states. Experimental results show that the Raft-PLUS algorithm has similar write throughput to the Raft algorithm under normal conditions. Regarding the quality of the Leader network changes, the average write throughput of the Raft-PLUS algorithm is 40% higher than that of the Raft algorithm. The Leader’s CPU usage fluctuated; the average write throughput of Raft-PLUS was 38% higher than Raft.

To study stress field distributions during the construction of a group of tunnels using the pile–beam–arch method, the excavation for an underground station of Beijing subway line 7 was taken as an engineering problem, and a numerical structural model of a tunnel group was built with the aid of software. In this model, four stress-monitoring planes were set up to extract the data obtained from monitoring stress. The construction of the pilot tunnels was simulated according to six established construction schemes, and images were generated for the stress field distribution on each monitoring plane using different schemes. Finally, a verification of physical model tests was carried out. The results show that the effect of excavation on vertical stress in pilot tunnels has a range that is essentially equal to twice the width of the station. After the excavation of pilot tunnels, peaks appeared both at the tops of the pilot tunnels and between the bottoms of the tunnels; moreover, valleys appeared both at the bottoms of the pilot tunnels and between the tops of the tunnels. Pilot tunnels located at the top of the group were less affected during excavation than the tunnels located at the bottom of the group both in stress concentration factor and in the point of extreme stress. Finally, the model verified the numerical simulation results of the stress variation law.

The zigzag channel is the uppermost channel type of an industrial printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE). The effect of geometric properties on the flow and heat transfer performance of the channel is significant to the PCHE design and optimization. Numerical investigations were conducted on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of supercritical CO2 (sCO2) in semicircular zigzag channels by computational fluid dynamics method. The shear stress transfer (SST) k–ω model was used as turbulence model and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) real gas model with REFPROP database was used to evaluate the thermophysical parameters of sCO2 in this numerical method. The effectiveness of the simulation method is verified by experimental data. Thermal hydraulic performance for zigzag channels with different pitch lengths, bending angles, and hydraulic diameters are studied comparatively based on this numerical method, with the boundary conditions which cover the pseudocritical point. The comparison results show that reducing the bending angle and pitch length will strengthen the effect of boundary layer separation on the leeward side of the wall and enhance the heat transfer performance, but the pressure drop of the channel will also increase, and the decrease of channel hydraulic diameter is beneficial to the heat transfer enhancement, but it is not as significant as that of the straight channel.

Summary: Background: Psychiatric morbidities have been associated with a risk of severe infections through compromised immunity, health behaviours, or both. However, data are scarce on the association between multiple types of pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders and COVID-19. We aimed to assess the association between pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders and the subsequent risk of COVID-19 using UK Biobank. Methods: For this cohort analysis, we included participants from UK Biobank who were registered in England and excluded individuals who died before Jan 31, 2020, (the start of the COVID-19 outbreak in the UK) or had withdrawn from UK Biobank. Participants diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder before Jan 31 were included in the group of individuals with pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders, whereas participants without a diagnosis before the outbreak were included in the group of individuals without pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders. We used the Public Health England dataset, UK Biobank hospital data, and death registers to collect data on COVID-19 cases. To examine the relationship between pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders and susceptibility to COVID-19, we used logistic regression models to estimate odds ratios (ORs), controlling for multiple confounders and somatic comorbidities. Key outcomes were all COVID-19, COVID-19 specifically diagnosed in inpatient care, and COVID-19-related deaths. ORs were also estimated separately for each psychiatric disorder and on the basis of the number of pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders. As a positive disease control, we repeated analyses for hospitalisation for other infections. Findings: We included 421 014 UK Biobank participants in our study and assessed their COVID-19 status between Jan 31 and July 26, 2020. 50 809 participants were diagnosed with psychiatric disorders before the outbreak, while 370 205 participants had no psychiatric disorders. The mean age at outbreak was 67·80 years (SD 8·12). We observed an elevated risk of COVID-19 among individuals with pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders compared with that of individuals without such conditions. The fully adjusted ORs were 1·44 (95% CI 1·28–1·62) for All COVID-19 cases, 1·55 (1·34–1·78) for Inpatient COVID-19 cases, and 2·03 (1·59–2·59) for COVID-19-related deaths. We observed excess risk, defined as risk that increased with the number of pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders, across all diagnostic categories of pre-pandemic psychiatric disorders. We also observed an association between psychiatric disorders and elevated risk of hospitalisation due to other infections (OR 1·74, 95% CI 1·58–1·93). Interpretation: Our findings suggest that pre-existing psychiatric disorders are associated with an increased risk of COVID-19. These findings underscore the need for surveillance of and care for populations with pre-existing psychiatric disorders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Funding: National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Macrophages are key innate immune cells in the tumor microenvironment that regulate primary tumor growth, vascularization, metastatic spread and response to therapies. Macrophages can polarize into two different states (M1 and M2) with distinct phenotypes and functions. To investigate the known tumoricidal effects of M1 macrophages, we obtained RNA expression profiles and clinical data from The Cancer Genome Atlas Thyroid Cancer (TCGA-THCA). The proportions of immune cells in tumor samples were assessed using CIBERSORT, and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to identify M1 macrophage-related modules. Univariate Cox analysis and LASSO-Cox regression analysis were performed, and four genes (SPP1, DHRS3, SLC11A1, and CFB) with significant differential expression were selected through GEPIA. These four genes can be considered hub genes. The four-gene risk-scoring model may be an independent prognostic factor for THCA patients. The validation cohort and the entire cohort confirmed the results. Univariate and multivariate Cox analysis was performed to identify independent prognostic factors for THCA. Finally, a prognostic nomogram was built based on the entire cohort, and the nomogram combining the risk score and clinical prognostic factors was superior to the nomogram with individual clinical prognostic factors in predicting overall survival. Time-dependent ROC curves and DCA confirmed that the combined nomogram is useful. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to elucidate the potential molecular functions of the high-risk group. Our study identified four genes associated with M1 macrophages and established a prognostic nomogram that predicts overall survival for patients with THCA, which may help determine clinical treatment options for different patients.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that is mainly caused by excessive accumulation of autoantibodies that target autoantibodies such as nucleic acids. T helper (Th) cell have been associated with the development of SLE. Typically, different subsets of Th cells secrete various cytokines to regulate the disease progression. IL-12 and IL-23 participate in the differentiation and activation of multiple Th cell subsets, including Th1, Th2, Th9, Th17, regulatory T (Treg) and follicular helper T (Tfh) cells. Because of the signature p40 subunit shared by IL-12 and IL-23, blocking IL-12/IL-23 signaling may interfere the differentiation of Th cell and directly inhibit the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines. In this study, we examined the effects of anti−IL-12/23 p40 antibody on chronic graft-versus-host disease with lupus nephritis, and found that the therapeutic effectiveness was mediated through the inhibition of Tfh cell in mice. Moreover, anti−IL-12/23 p40 antibody inhibited human Tfh cell differentiation in vitro. These results strongly suggest that Tfh cell contribute to the pathogenesis of SLE, and the neutralization of IL-12/IL-23 signaling during Tfh cell differentiation may be critical for the treatment of SLE.

The evolutionary transition between winglessness and a full-winged morphology requires selective advantage for intermediate forms. Conversely, repeated secondary wing reductions among the pterygotes indicates relaxation of such selection. However, evolutionary trajectories of such transitions are not well-characterized. The stick insects (Phasmatodea) exhibit diverse wing sizes at both interspecific and intersexual levels, and thus provide a system for examining how selection on flight capability, along with other selective forces, drives the evolution of flight-related morphology. Here, we examine variation in relevant morphology for stick insects using data from 1,100+ individuals representing 765 species. Although wing size varies along a continuous spectrum, taxa with either long or miniaturized wings are the most common, whereas those with intermediate-sized wings are relatively rare. In a morphological space defined by wing and body size, the aerodynamically relevant parameter termed wing loading (the average pressure exerted on the air by the wings) varies according to sex-specific scaling laws; volant but also flightless forms are the most common outcomes in both sexes. Using phylogenetically-informed analyses, we show that relative wing size and body size are inversely correlated in long-winged insects regardless of sexual differences in morphology and ecology. These results demonstrate the diversity of flight-related morphology in stick insects, and also provide a general framework for addressing evolutionary coupling between wing and body dimensions. We also find indirect evidence for a “fitness valley” associated with intermediate-sized wings, suggesting relatively rapid evolutionary transitions between wingless and volant forms.

Malignant gliomas are the most prevalent and deadly primary brain tumors. The life expectancy of people with gliomas only slightly increases through surgical procedures, radiation, and chemotherapy. Magnetic nanocarriers must be developed to enable drug delivery using a magnetic field. A utilized to fabricate holmium ferrite nanoparticles is described herein. β -Cyclodextrin-polyethylene glycol (PEG) conjugate is used as a coat for the holmium ferrite nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are all used to study the nanoparticles. This size range of nanoparticles is optimal for efficient drug delivery. The in vitro cytotoxicity of the fabricated nanoparticles was examined using U87MG and LN229 glioma cancer cells. The acridine orange/ethidium bromide and nuclear staining methods examined the morphological changes in the U87MG and LN229 glioma cells. The mode of cell death mechanism was investigated by Annexin V-FITC/PI flow cytometry methods. The possibility for successful SN38 delivery for the treatment of glioma cancer exists with the SN38@HF- β -CD-PEG.

In this paper, TiO2 nanotube arrays were prepared by anodic oxidation method. The effects of water content, anodizing time and sample post-treatment on the morphology and crystal structure of TiO2 nanotube arrays were systematically investigated. We explored the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on dye N-719. The TiO2 nanotube arrays prepared under different water content and different anodizing time conditions were used as photoanodes. The results show that DSSC has best photovoltaic performance when the water content is 2 vol%. With the increase of oxidation time, Jsc increases continuously, open voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) increase first and then decrease. The best optoelectronic properties obtained that the short circuit current, open circuit voltage, fill factor and photoelectric conversion efficiency as following, Jsc = 5.2 mA/cm2, Voc = 0.7 V, FF = 0.54, η = 1.96% respectively. Keywords: TiO2 nanotube arrays, Anodic oxidation method, Water content, Anodizing time, Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC)

Aerobic granular sludge (AGS) was imbedded in agar and stored at 4 °C for 30 days, and then the stored granules were recovered in a sequencing batch reactor fed real wastewater within 11 days. Variations in microbial community compositions were investigated during dry storage and recovery of AGS, aiming to elucidate the mechanism of granular stability loss and recovery. The storage and recovery of AGS involved microbial community evolution. The dominant bacterial genera of the mature AGS were Zoogloea (relative abundance of 22.39%), Thauera (16.03%) and Clostridium_sensu_stricto (11.17%), and those of the stored granules were Acidovorax (26.79%), Macellibacteroides (12.83%) and Pseudoxanthomonas (5.69%), respectively. However, the dominant genera were Streptococcus (43.64%), Clostridium_sensu_stricto (12.3.6%) and Lactococcus (11.47%) in the recovered AGS. Methanogens were always the dominant archaeal species in mature AGS (93.01%), stored granules (99.99%) and the recovered AGS (94.84%). Facultative anaerobes and anaerobes proliferated and dominated in the stored granules, and their metabolic activities gradually led to granular structure destruction and property deterioration. However, the stored granules served as carriers for the microbes originated from the real septic tank wastewater during recovery. They proliferated rapidly and secreted a large number of extracellular polymeric substances which helped to recover the granular structure in 11 days.

Abstract Background Saccharomyces cerevisiae is widely studied for production of biofuels and biochemicals. To improve production efficiency under industrially relevant conditions, coordinated expression of multiple genes by manipulating promoter strengths is an efficient approach. It is known that gene expression is highly dependent on the practically used environmental conditions and is subject to dynamic changes. Therefore, investigating promoter activities of S. cerevisiae under different culture conditions in different time points, especially under stressful conditions is of great importance. Results In this study, the activities of various promoters in S. cerevisiae under stressful conditions and in the presence of xylose were characterized using yeast enhanced green fluorescent protein (yEGFP) as a reporter. The stresses include toxic levels of acetic acid and furfural, and high temperature, which are related to fermentation of lignocellulosic hydrolysates. In addition to investigating eight native promoters, the synthetic hybrid promoter P 3xC-TEF1 was also evaluated. The results revealed that P TDH3 and the synthetic promoter P 3xC-TEF1 showed the highest strengths under almost all the conditions. Importantly, these two promoters also exhibited high stabilities throughout the cultivation. However, the strengths of P ADH1 and P PGK1 , which are generally regarded as ‘constitutive’ promoters, decreased significantly under certain conditions, suggesting that cautions should be taken to use such constitutive promoters to drive gene expression under stressful conditions. Interestingly, P HSP12 and P HSP26 were able to response to both high temperature and acetic acid stress. Moreover, P HSP12 also led to moderate yEGFP expression when xylose was used as the sole carbon source, indicating that this promoter could be used for inducing proper gene expression for xylose utilization. Conclusion The results here revealed dynamic changes of promoter activities in S. cerevisiae throughout batch fermentation in the presence of inhibitors as well as using xylose. These results provide insights in selection of promoters to construct S. cerevisiae strains for efficient bioproduction under practical conditions. Our results also encouraged applications of synthetic promoters with high stability for yeast strain development.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) participate in the pathogenesis of various diseases by sponging microRNAs (miRs). However, the roles of circRNAs remain unreported in glomerular diseases. We previously reported that miR-150 positively correlated with renal chronicity index in patients with lupus nephritis (LN). We aimed to investigate renal circRNA profiling and the interaction between circRNAs and miR-150 in LN patients. Six renal biopsies from untreated female patients with LN class IV and five normal kidney tissues from urology patients were used for circRNA sequencing. 171 circRNAs with 2-fold differential expression were identified in LN compared with normal control. Ten selected circRNAs were validated by real-time qPCR, and seven circRNAs showed the same significant increases as the sequencing results. circHLA-C positively correlated with proteinuria (R = 0.92, p

The electronic oxygen regulator (EOR) is a new type of aviation oxygen equipment which uses electronic servo control technology to control breathing gas pressure. In this paper, the control method of EOR was studied, and the dynamic model of the aviation oxygen system was established. A disturbance-observer-based controller (DOBC) was designed by the backstepping method to achieve the goal of stable and fast breath pressure control. The sensitivity function was proposed to describe the effect of inspiratory flow on breath pressure. Combined with the frequency domain analysis of the input sensitivity function, the parameters of the DOBC were analyzed and designed. Simulation and experiment studies were carried out to examine the control performance of DOBC in respiratory resistance and positive pressurization process under the influence of noise and time delay in the discrete electronic control system, which could meet the aviation physiology requirements. The research results not only verified the rationality of the application of DOBC in the breath control of EOR, but also proved the effectiveness of the control parameters design method according to the frequency domain analysis, which provided an important design basis for the subsequent study of EOR.

Irrigation systems increase fruit yield of water shortage orchards in semiarid and arid lands, but their environmental impacts remain unclear. This study carries out a comparative cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) of the furrow and drip irrigated pear production systems in the Loess Plateau of China based on 2009–2018 inventory data from integrated experimental stations. The water depletion (WD), water footprint (WF), global warming (GWP), acidification (AP), and eutrophication (EP) potentials of the furrow and drip irrigated pear production systems were calculated and compared, including the orchard installation phase (phase I), primary growing phase (phase II), low production phase (phase III), and full production phase (phase IV). Results indicated that the cumulative WD, GWP, AP, and EP of the drip irrigated system were 148.3 m3, 130.1 kg CO2-eq, 0.9 kg SO2-eq, and 0.6 kg PO4-eq per ton of pear fruit harvest, respectively, which were 37.3–73.5% lower than those of the furrow irrigated system. The GWP, AP, EP, and WD of phase I to III contributed 39.3–46.1% in the drip irrigated system vs. 27.8–38.6% in the furrow irrigated system of the total amount, which should not be neglected in perennial orchard systems. The annual WFs were 0.9, 0.2, and 0.2 m3 kg−1 year−1 in phases II, III, and IV of the drip system, respectively, which were 50–71.4% lower than that of the furrow system. Green WF of furrow and drip irrigated systems were approximately the same, but the blue WF and grey WF of drip irrigation systems were 35.7–62.1% and 66.0–73.2% lower than those of the furrow irrigated system. The drip irrigated pear production system significantly mitigated environmental impacts and WFs, mainly due to reduced fertilizer application, water consumption, electricity, and diesel demand. Irrigation that changed from a furrow to a drip system was responsible for most environmental reductions, but 8% decreases of yields in phase IV. The outcomes from assessing the furrow and drip irrigated pear production systems could provide useful information for decision-making by the pear orchardists in the Loess Plateau.

Background: To explore blood–brain barrier disruption in hypertensive posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome.Methods: The hypertension rat models were successfully established and scanned on 7T micro-MRI. MRI parameter maps including apparent diffusion coefficient, T1 value, and perfusion metrics such as cerebral blood volume, cerebral blood flow, mean transit time and time to peak maps, were calculated.Results: The ADC values of the experimental group were higher than those of the control group both in cortical (P < 0.01) and subcortical (P < 0.05) regions. Voxel-wise analysis of ADC maps localized vasogenic edema primarily to the posterior portion of the brain. The increase in cerebral blood volume and cerebral blood flow values were found in the cortical and subcortical regions of rats with acute hypertension. No correlation was found between perfusion metrics and mean arterial pressure. The Evans blue dye content was higher in the posterior brain region than the anterior one (P < 0.05).Conclusions: Cerebral vasogenic edema resulting from acute hypertension supports the hypothesis of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome as the result of blood–brain barrier disruption, which maybe the potential therapeutic target for intervention.

When a tamping machine is tamping track ballasts under railway, it is necessary to determine the tamping positions in advance. This study proposes a peak detection algorithm to locate rail spikes with magnetic sensor signals, and then determine the tamping positions. In this algorithm, we have performed the downsampling, sliding window, threshold classification, and secondary peak search to complete peak detection. Especially, we discuss how a sliding window length, a downsampling frequency, a secondary-search-window length, and other parameters affect the performance of the algorithm. In experiments, we use a group of real magnetic sensor signals to evaluate the algorithm. Compared with traditional methods, the proposed algorithm can reduce the false positives and misses of peak detection to 0, while the maximum location error will not more than 1 cm.

As an important secretory organ, skeletal muscle has drawn attention as a potential target tissue for type 2 diabetic mellitus (T2DM). Recent peptidomics approaches have been applied to identify secreted peptides with potential bioactive. However, comprehensive analysis of the secreted peptides from skeletal muscle tissues of db/db mice and elucidation of their possible roles in insulin resistance remains poorly characterized. Here, we adopted a label-free discovery using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) technology and identified 63 peptides (42 up-regulated peptides and 21 down-regulated peptides) differentially secreted from cultured skeletal muscle tissues of db/db mice. Analysis of relative molecular mass (Mr), isoelectric point (pI) and distribution of Mr vs pI of differentially secreted peptides presented the general feature. Furthermore, Gene ontology (GO) and pathway analyses for the parent proteins made a comprehensive functional assessment of these differential peptides, indicating the enrichment in glycolysis/gluconeogenesis and striated muscle contraction processes. Intercellular location analysis pointed out most precursor proteins of peptides were cytoplasmic or cytoskeletal. Additionally, cleavage site analysis revealed that Lysine (N-terminal)-Alanine (C-terminal) and Lysine (N-terminal)-Leucine (C-terminal) represents the preferred cleavage sites for identified peptides and proceeding peptides respectively. Mapped to the precursors' sequences, most identified peptides were observed cleaved from creatine kinase m-type (KCRM) and fructose-bisphosphate aldolase A (Aldo A). Based on UniProt and Pfam database for specific domain structure or motif, 44 peptides out of total were positioned in the functional motif or domain from their parent proteins. Using C2C12 myotubes as cell model in vitro, we found several candidate peptides displayed promotive or inhibitory effects on insulin and mitochondrial-related pathways by an autocrine manner. Taken together, this study will encourage us to investigate the biologic functions and the potential regulatory mechanism of these secreted peptides from skeletal muscle tissues, thus representing a promising strategy to treat insulin resistance as well as the associated metabolic disorders.

The large shunt capacitances on both sides of VSC-HVDC transmission line will block and reflect the travelling waves when a fault occurs on DC cable lines. When a forward fault occurs, the protection will detect the arrival of forward and backward travelling wave simultaneously. While for a backward fault, the arrival time difference of the forward and backward travelling wave head is obvious. According to this characteristic, this paper proposed a novel VSC-HVDC directional pilot protection based on the propagation time difference of directional travelling wave and the stationary wavelet transform (SWT) is used to identify the initial travelling wave head. A two-terminal VSC-HVDC system is modelled in PSCAD/EMTDC, and various faults scenarios are simulated to verify the proposed method. The simulation results show that the proposed protection can identify internal faults from external faults quickly and reliably, and it is basically immune to fault resistance and fault distance, which has certain practical value.

Due to the labyrinthine topology of the MMC-MVDC system, identification of the faulty feeder especially for a single-pole-to-ground (SPTG) fault is a challenging task. Based on the characteristics analysis of capacitance charge–discharge, this article obtains the typical characteristics of the faulty feeder. To improve the sensitivity, the characteristic frequency band of capacitance current is extracted by S-transform which has excellent time–frequency resolution. According to the analysis, S-transform characteristic frequency band (STCFB) of positive and negative differential current of faulty feeder is negatively correlated while the healthy feeders are positively correlated. To distinguish the faulty feeder, an identification method based on Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC) is constructed. In terms of the energy difference between the positive and negative differential current, the faulty pole can be verified. Finally, a typical radial flexible DC distribution grid model is constructed in PSCAD, and the simulation results confirm the reliability and sensitivity of the identification method.

Chloride-induced corrosion is widely accepted as one of the primary causes of premature deterioration for concrete structures in marine or deicing salt environment. For precast concrete (PC) structures, such durability problems may even be severer because defects in joint areas, e.g., cracks caused by grout shrinkage and improper construction, can accelerate chloride ion transportation process and may cause the interface shear failure when subjected to seismic load. By applying the path probability model (PPM) and reliability theory, a probabilistic framework was proposed to predict three limit states of PC structures, including corrosion initiation, serviceability limit state, and ultimate limit state. Using Monte Carlo simulation, a beam-to-column joint was further analyzed to illustrate the differences between PC structures and those cast in situ. The analysis indicates that corrosion initiation and serviceability limit state are sensitive to chloride diffusivity at connection area, and the higher pitting factor can significantly influence the bearing capacities of PC structures.

Small object detection is one of the fundamental problems in computer vision applications. Existing small object detection techniques usually focus on detecting small objects with multiple scale of features with low efficiency due to high computational cost. In this paper, we investigate small object detection problem based on generative adversarial architecture that utilizes features of small objects. We propose an Optimized Perceptual Generative Adversarial Network (OPGAN) to present more features of small objects. Specifically, the generator of OPGAN learns to present the low-resolution features of the small objects to highly resolved features similar to large objects as input image of the discriminator model. After then, the discriminator of OPGAN computes the generated feature and generates a new perceptual requirement parameter into the model to train the model iteratively. Extensive experiments on the challenging benchmark data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of OPGAN in detecting small objects.