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Alkali-activated copper and nickel slag cementitious materials (ACNCMs) are composite cementitious materials with CNS (copper and nickel slag) as the main materials and GGBFS (ground-granulated blast-furnace slag) as a mineral admixture. In this paper, the activity indexes of CNS with different grinding times were studied using CNS to replace a portion of cement. NaOH, Na2SO4, and Na2SiO3 activators were used to study the alkaline solution of the CNS glass phase. The effects of the fineness of CNS and the type of activator on the hydration of ACNCMs were investigated via physical/mechanical grinding and chemical activation. The hydration products of ACNCMs were analyzed via XRD, SEM, FT-IR, TG, and MIP. The results of the study revealed that the activity indexes of CNS ground with different grinding times (10, 30 and 50 min) were 0.662, 0.689, and 0.703, respectively. When Na2SiO3 was used as the activator, the glass phase dissolved the most Si4+, Al3+, and Ca2+, and the respective concentrations in the solution were found to be 2419, 39.55, and 3.38 mg/L. Additionally, the hydration products of ACNCMs were found to have a 28-day compressive strength of up to 84 MPa.

With the rapid development of cloud computing, cloud-based wireless body area networks (WBANs) provide powerful storage services, and process massive medical data efficiently. As the medical data are exploited to perform the clinical diagnosis and other special medical treatments, the integrity of the medical data stored in the cloud server is increasingly important. In this paper, based on the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA), we propose an efficient light-weight cloud storage private auditing scheme for medical data in WBANs. Our scheme enables a data owner to check the medical data integrity effectively personally, and does not need to retrieve the entire medical dataset, thereby dramatically reducing the communication overhead. Moreover, we further extend our private auditing scheme to private batch auditing. Thus, the data owner can perform auditing task for multiple different medical data files simultaneously. The performance comparison demonstrates that our scheme is much more light-weight, and more practical in cloud-based wireless body area networks.

Material education is becoming a crucial element in the process of change that is involving the teaching in the field of design. The affirmation of fab labs in design education is increasingly manifested both in traditional classroom didactics and prototyping practices in studio. The growth number of fab labs in universities, have a high potential to change the original material didactics into participatory activities. Based on this situation, this paper aims to analysis how existing fab lab systems can be reframed to maximize benefits in the material education in design domain. As a result, we elaborate the concept of Materials Club as an enabling system to support design students developing their design projects with materials and being highly involvement inside the co-creative study community. In conclusion, Materials Club as an optimize of the fab lab system, can increase the effectiveness in material education. This scenario also promotes us to think about a universal method, which is valorizing the resources which already exist in university and integrate them in a virtuous system for reinforcing the design and material education.

Degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS) and lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) are the most common degenerative spinal diseases. The evaluating of spinopelvic sagittal alignment of the two diseases using pelvic radius (PR) technique have not been reported. The purpose of this study was to use PR measurement technique to compare the differences in spinopelvic sagittal alignment between DS and LSS.A total of 145 patients with DS or LSS were retrospectively reviewed. Seventy patients with DS (DS group) and 75 age-matched patients with LSS (LSS group) were enrolled. Spinopelvic parameters including pelvic angle (PA), regional lumbopelvic lordosis (PR-L1, PR-L2, PR-L3, PR-L4 and PR-L5), total lumbopelvic lordosis (PR-T12), pelvic morphology (PR-S1), sagittal vertical axis from the C7 plumb line (SVA), lumbar lordosis (LL), thoracic kyphosis (TK), L4 slope and L5 slope were assessed in the two groups. Several parameters of DS and LSS group were compared with the normal population (NP).The PR-L4, PR-L5 and PR-S1 in the DS group were significantly smaller than those in the LSS group. There was no difference in PR-T12 between the DS group and NP (p 0.05), while PR-T12 of the LSS group were significantly lower (p 0.01). Degree of correlations among spinopelvic parameters differed between the two groups. PR-T12 of the DS group was more strongly correlated with PA (r = -0.829, p 0.001) than with LL (r = 0.664, p 0.001), TK (r = 0.582, p 0.001). PR-T12 of the LSS group was more strongly correlated with LL (r = 0.854, p 0.001), TK (r = 0.616, p 0.001) than with PA (r = -0.582, p 0.001).PR-L4 and PR-L5 may be the predisposing factors for DS development. Spinopelvic morphology differed in patients with DS and LSS compared to NP. The compensatory mechanisms to maintain spinopelvic sagittal alignment in DS and LSS patients may be different.

The development of nanotechnology is of crucial importance in advanced polymer nanocomposites with enhanced properties. Here, multilayer graphene nanosheets/epoxy composites with various filler contents were fabricated by solution blended processes. It was found that the incorporation of graphene nanosheets increased the real part of permittivity and dielectric loss tangent. The thermal conductivity had a certain effect by the incorporation of 0.1 wt.% and 0.5 wt.% graphene nanosheets, which increased by 3.87% and 31.95% at 100 °C. Moreover, the polarization current of neat epoxy composite and graphene nanosheets/epoxy composites were measured under different applied electric field and at 50 °C, 80 °C and 100 °C. The conductive mechanism of the composites transformed from Ohmic conduction to Space Charge Limited Current (SCLC) conduction at a threshold of conductive current electric field (E thi ), Ethi decreased with increasing temperature and graphene filler content. The conductive mechanisms of graphene nanosheets/epoxy composites under high electric field are influenced by both SCLC and tunneling effect.

The development of advanced dielectric materials with high thermal conductivity is of crucial importance in modern electronic and power equipment systems. Herein, multilayer graphene nanosheets/epoxy nanocomposites with enhanced thermal conductivity were fabricated by solution blended processes. It was found that the incorporation of graphene nanosheets had little impact on thermogravimetric properties of epoxy composite but had a certain effect on glass transition temperature (Tg), which increased by 4.63 °C with the incorporation of 0.1 wt.% graphene nanosheets. The incorporation of graphene nanosheets also increased dielectric constant and loss as well as DC conductivity in different ranges. At 25 C and 50 Hz, in contrast with the neat epoxy composite, dielectric constant increased by 36.87 % with incorporation of 0.5 wt.% graphene nanosheets. The thermal conductivity and diffusivity increased by 34.59 % and 24.37 % respectively with the incorporation of 0.5 wt.% graphene nanosheets. The incorporation of uniformly dispersed graphene nanosheets into polymer matrix as thermal conductive fillers paves a way to expand the application of polymer materials in electronic packaging fields.

Previous studies have made many exciting achievements on pushing the functional reversal of beta-oxidation cycle (r-BOX) to more widespread adoption for synthesis of a wide variety of fuels and chemicals. However, the redox cofactor requirement for the efficient operation of r-BOX remains unclear. In this work, the metabolic efficiency of r-BOX for medium-chain fatty acid (C6-C10, MCFA) production was optimized by redox cofactor engineering. Stoichiometric analysis of the r-BOX pathway and further experimental examination identified NADH as a crucial determinant of r-BOX process yield. Furthermore, the introduction of formate dehydrogenase from Candida boidinii using fermentative inhibitor byproduct formate as a redox NADH sink improved MCFA titer from initial 1.2g/L to 3.1g/L. Moreover, coupling of increasing the supply of acetyl-CoA with NADH to achieve fermentative redox balance enabled product synthesis at maximum titers. To this end, the acetate re-assimilation pathway was further optimized to increase acetyl-CoA availability associated with the new supply of NADH. It was found that the acetyl-CoA synthetase activity and intracellular ATP levels constrained the activity of acetate re-assimilation pathway, and 4.7g/L of MCFA titer was finally achieved after alleviating these two limiting factors. To the best of our knowledge, this represented the highest titer reported to date. These results demonstrated that the key constraint of r-BOX was redox imbalance and redox engineering could further unleash the lipogenic potential of this cycle. The redox engineering strategies could be applied to acetyl-CoA-derived products or other bio-products requiring multiple redox cofactors for biosynthesis.

This paper presents a control scheme for a three-phase grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system operating in a grid connection and isolated grid mode. Control techniques include voltage and current control of grid-connected PV inverters. In the grid-connected mode, the grid controls the amplitude and frequency of the output voltage of the PV inverter. The inverter operates in the current control mode. During the operation of the isolated power grid, the PV inverter is operated in the voltage control mode to maintain both ends of the load Constant amplitude and frequency of voltage.

Material could elicit meaningful user experiences in and beyond its utilitarian assessment. For designers, they are required to qualify the material not only for what it is, but also for what it expresses to, what it elicits from, and what it guide people to do. To find out the answer, designers need to guide the development of materials by experiential goals. In this paper, we will first introduce material experience as our theory foundation and explain the importance of meaning contribution for materials. In the design phase, we are following an innovative design practice with natural materials to create experience. The method we apply is Material Driven Design (MDD) which could facilitate designing for material experiences. In the end, we will analyze how materials experience be generated through innovative design practices.

A new variant of the blaOXA-546 gene, namely blaOXA-894, was identified on the chromosome of Shewanella xiamenensis isolated from pig wastewater in rural China. OXA-894 differs from OXA-546 (A46V, I219del) and OXA-48 (T167I, I219del) with two amino acid substitutions, respectively. The isolate was resistant to ampicillin, aztreonam, imipenem, meropenem and fosfomycin. Carba NP test confirmed S. xiamenensis strain sx20 as a carbapenemase-producer. The blaOXA-894 gene was located between the gene encoding a LysR family transcriptional regulator and the C15 gene. Its gene environment was similar to other S. xiamenensis with chromosome-located blaOXA-48-like genes. The T24H and T94V amino acid substitutions of LuxS protein were predicted to be deleterious, which may affect the virulence phenotype. The occurrence and potential health risk of carbapenem-resistant S. xiamenensis in a water environment is of concern.

ZnO as an important nanomaterial have been widely used in biomedical fields, however, ZnO has noticeable damage to the organs such as lung and liver, from the long run, its biosafety still needs improvements. In this work, we proposed a simple method to modify the surface of ZnO with l-cysteine. The basic characterizations showed that the surface modification can greatly affect its self-assembly and optical properties. Furthermore, the surface modification can greatly improve its biocompatibility and without change of its bulk antibacterial properties. Moreover, compared with ZnO, the l-cysteine modified ZnO showed much better biosafety in the in vivo test, demonstrating that the modified ZnO may have perspective applications in biomedical fields.

Polymer membranes have been widely used in guided tissue regeneration (GTR) and guided bone regeneration (GBR). In this review, various commercially available membranes are described. Much attention is paid to the recent development of biodegradable polymers applied in GTR and GBR, and the important issues of biodegradable polymeric membranes, including their classification, latest experimental research and clinical applications, as well as their main challenges are addressed. Herein, natural polymers, synthetic polymers and their blends are all introduced. Pure polymer membranes are biodegradable and biocompatible, but they lack special properties such as antibacterial properties, osteoconductivity, and thus polymer membranes loaded with functional materials such as antibacterial agents and growth factors show many more advantages and have also been introduced in this review. Despite there still being complaints about polymer membranes, such as their low mechanical properties, uncontrollable degradation speed and some other drawbacks, these problems will undoubtedly be conquered and biodegradable polymers will have more applications in GTR and GBR.

Taste receptor cells are the taste sensation elements for sour, salty, sweet, bitter and umami sensations. It was demonstrated that there are cell-to-cell communications between type II (sour) and type III (sweet, bitter and umami) taste cells. Serotonin (5-HT) is released from type III cells, which is the only type of taste cells that has synaptic process with sensory afferent fibers. Then, taste information is transmitted via fibers to the brain. During this process, 5-HT plays important roles in taste information transmission. In order to explore a sensor to detect 5-HT released from taste cell or taste cell networks, we develop a 5-HT sensitive sensor based on LAPS chip. This sensor performs with a detection limit of 3.3 × 10(-13)M and a sensitivity of 19.1 mV per concentration decade. Upon the stimuli of sour and mix (bitter, sweet and umami) tastants, 5-HT released from taste cells could be detected flexibly, benefit from the addressability of LAPS chip. The experimental results show that the local concentration of 5-HT is around several nM, which is consistent with those from other methods. In addition, immunofluorescent imaging technique is utilized to confirm the functional existence of both type II and III cells in a cluster of isolated taste cells. Different types of taste cells are labeled with corresponding specific antibody. This 5-HT sensitive LAPS chip provides a potential and promising way to detect 5-HT and to investigate the taste coding and information communication mechanisms.

We demonstrate that frontside scattering structures combining a metal nanomesh transparent electrode with dielectric nanosphere (NS) arrays may improve the performance of ultrathin crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. The increased light scattering as characterized by increased haze from these structures leads to longer path lengths within the c-Si and thus, higher short-circuit current densities and improved power conversion efficiencies. We demonstrate a 69% improvement in power conversion efficiency with metal nanomesh/NS coatings compared to indium tin oxide. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ultrathin film c-Si solar cells are robust under repeated bending.

Film-making is a high-investment, high-risk industry. We aim to define a framework to bring about a new socio-cultural phenomenon which we call Social Film-Making, bringing part of the film-making process into the digital home community. A wider group of people can be involved via their digital homes to participate in the various stages of film-making to contribute their creative ideas much like the practice of Wikipedia. By connecting people, we want to transform the film industry into a low-investment, low-risk industry and thus bringing film-making accessible to everyone. In this paper, we present only our work on Social Net Coloring, which is a apart of our Social Film-Making project, to enable project managers and artists to color large amount of digital frames in a web-mediated platform that provides excitement, efficiency and flexibility in the film-making process.

OBJECTIVE To study the collection the development pattern for genuineness of Aconitum carmichalii, which lays a good basis for the sustainable utilization of A. carmichalii resources. METHOD We adopted the combined methods of investigation of herbal literatures, researching of origins in A. carmichalii and consultation with the experts, identified the development pattern of A. carmichalii. From genuine producing areas and its genuineness. RESULT The genuine producing area of A. carmichali is Jiangyou district of Sichuan province, genuine medicinal materials of A. carmichalii is mainly oriented by production techniques. It has cultivation techniques, unique and exquisite processing, which have trim root delicately and remove top complexly. CONCLUSION A. carmichalii from Jiangyou is famous genuine medicinal materials in Sichuan Province. It should strengthen the inheritance and creative research for cultivation techniques, unique and exquisite processing, ensure the safety and effect in medication.