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Melatonin involves in improving tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses by regulating various biological processes. However, little is known about the underlying mechanism. Here, we investigated the effects of exogenous melatonin on seed germination in the halophyte Limonium bicolor under salt stress. Specifically, we examined the effect of salt stress on seed germination, melatonin concentration, and changes in the concentrations of nutrients, amylase activity, and hormones in L. bicolor seeds with and without pre-treatment with melatonin. Seed germination was significantly suppressed under a 200 mM NaCl treatment, but pre-treatment with melatonin significantly improved seed germination under salt stress. During seed germination, seeds pre-treated with melatonin contained high levels of melatonin and gibberellic acid (GA), low levels of abscisic acid (ABA), and high levels of amylase and alpha-amylase activity. Melatonin treatment upregulated the expression of key genes involved in GA biosynthesis (GA20ox and GA3ox), downregulated key genes involved in ABA biosynthesis (LbNCED1 and LbNCED3), and upregulated ABA 8ʹ-hydroxylase genes (LbCYP707A1 and LbCYP707A2), which mediate the changes in GA and ABA levels in seeds during germination. A high melatonin concentration in seeds promotes the utilization of nutrients and the synthesis of new proteins to enhance seed germination.

Background Aminolaevulinic acid-mediated photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) is used to treat condyloma acuminata (CA), yielding a high clearance rate and low recurrence rate. Consecutive human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA detection can be used to dynamically monitor the therapeutic efficiency of PDT. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of ALA-PDT in the context of different HPV infection states. Methods One hundred thirty-eight patients with HPV infection and visible anogenital warts were enrolled. Microwave or radiofrequency was used to remove visible lesions before PDT. HPV DNA detection was performed using real-time polymerase chain reaction before each PDT session and at follow-up. Treatment was halted after the patient showed two negative results for HPV DNA detection in a row. Results Of the 138 patients enrolled in the study, 72 completed treatment. Multisite HPV-infected patients required more sessions of PDT than did single-site infected patients to reach the endpoint of treatment. Compared with patients with only external CA, individuals with internal CA required more sessions to eliminate HPV infection. The total number of PDT sessions performed in the multitype HPV-infected group was significantly higher than that in the single-type infected group. Patients with non-high-risk (HR)-HPV infection required fewer PDT sessions than did those with HR-HPV infection by the end of treatment. Sixty-nine patients were followed-up for at least 6 months, only 2.9% of whom showed recurrence. Conclusions Combined ALA-PDT and HPV DNA detection was an effective strategy for the treatment of CA. Patients with multisite and multitype HPV infection required more PDT sessions to eliminate the virus.

HIFs (Hypoxia inducible factors) are the main regulators of the expression change of oxygen-dependent genes, in addition, they also play important roles in immune regulation. HIFs participate in infectious diseases and inflammatory responses, providing us a new therapeutic target for the treatment of diseases. In this study, 16 HIFs were identified in common carp genome database. Comparative genomics analysis showed large expansion of HIF gene family and approved the four round whole genome duplication (WGD) event in common carp. To further understand the function of HIFs, the domain architectures were predicted. All HIF proteins had the conserved HLH-PAS domain, which were essential for them to form dimer and bind to the downstream targets. The differences in domain of HIFα and HIFβ might result in their different functions. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that all HIFs were divided into two subfamilies and the HIFs in common carp were clustered with their teleost counterparts indicating they are highly conservative during evolution. In addition, the tissue distribution was examined by RT-PCR showed that most of HIF genes had a wide range of tissue distribution but exhibited tissue-specific expression patterns. The expression divergences were observed between the copy genes, for example, HIF1A-1, HIF2A-1, ARNT-2 had wide tissue distribution while their copies had limited tissue distribution, proving the function divergence of copies post the WGD event. In order to find an effective activation of HIFs and apply to treatment of aquatic diseases, we investigate the dietary supplementation effects of different strains of Lactococcus lactis on the expression of HIFα subfamily members in kidney of common carp infected with A. hydrophila. In addition, all of the HIF genes have a high expression in the early stages of infection, and decreased in the treatment time point of 48 h in common carp. This phenomenon confirms that as a switch, the main function of HIFs is to regulate the production of immune response factors in early infection. So activation of the switch may be an effective method for infectious disease treatment. As expected, the treatment groups improved the expression of HIFs compared with the control group, and the effects of the three strains are different. The strain1 of L. lactis had a stronger induction on HIF genes than strain2 and strain3, and it might be applied as a potential activation of HIF genes for disease treatment. So, adding befitting L. lactis maybe a well method to activate the HIF genes to protect them from mycobacterial infection.

Melatonin, an indoleamine widely found in animals and plants, is considered as a candidate phytohormone that affects responses to a variety of biotic and abiotic stresses. In plants, melatonin has a similar action to that of the auxin indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), and IAA and melatonin have the same biosynthetic precursor, tryptophan. Salt stress results in the rapid accumulation of melatonin in plants. Melatonin enhances plant resistance to salt stress in two ways: one is via direct pathways, such as the direct clearance of reactive oxygen species; the other is via an indirect pathway by enhancing antioxidant enzyme activity, photosynthetic efficiency, and metabolite content, and by regulating transcription factors associated with stress. In addition, melatonin can affect the performance of plants by affecting the expression of genes. Interestingly, other precursors and metabolite molecules associated with melatonin can also increase the tolerance of plants to salt stress. This paper explores the mechanisms by which melatonin alleviates salt stress by its actions on antioxidants, photosynthesis, ion regulation, and stress signaling.

The crackdown on Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party demonstrates the unintended consequences of the deep penetration of politics into religious affairs in an authoritarian regime. Falun Gong emerged in China in the early 1990s as a state-sanctioned health practice, or qigong. Initially it focused on treating physical diseases and promoting general health, and therefore received recognition from the state, which has granted legal status to only the five institutional religions while relentlessly suppressing secret religious societies. Qigong, however, has contained spiritual elements since its inception. In the mid-1990s, Falun Gong began to reveal and highlight its spiritual teachings. While this differentiation strategy brought it a huge following, it sent alarming signals to the ruling Communist Party. As the state sought to curb its influences, Falun Gong responded with open defiance. In particular, its tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance encouraged the practitioners to launch a “truth clarification” campaign, targeting local political authorities and media outlets. The campaign achieved moderate initial success, but Falun Gong’s persistent and coordinated efforts to demonstrate its “apolitical” nature convinced the state that it was indeed a politically subversive force. Falun Gong’s political defiance culminated in a large, 13-hour sit-in protest near the central government compound in Beijing. Three months later, the state officially banned Falun Gong and mobilized its entire security and propaganda apparatus to eliminate Falun Gong in China.

Taking into account that the embedded track structure not only bears the load from tram, but also suffers from road traffic, this paper aims to establish the finite element analysis model of embedded track structure in the mixed traffic area with ABAQUS software, calculates the deformation and stress of asphalt surface course and filling material. Also, the paper puts forward the way to improve the structural stability of embedded track.

Melatonin involves in improving tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses by regulating various biological processes. However, little is known about the underlying mechanism. Here, we investigated the effects of exogenous melatonin on seed germination in the halophyte Limonium bicolor under salt stress. Specifically, we examined the effect of salt stress on seed germination, melatonin concentration, and changes in the concentrations of nutrients, amylase activity, and hormones in L. bicolor seeds with and without pre-treatment with melatonin. Seed germination was significantly suppressed under a 200 mM NaCl treatment, but pre-treatment with melatonin significantly improved seed germination under salt stress. During seed germination, seeds pre-treated with melatonin contained high levels of melatonin and gibberellic acid (GA), low levels of abscisic acid (ABA), and high levels of amylase and alpha-amylase activity. Melatonin treatment upregulated the expression of key genes involved in GA biosynthesis (GA20ox and GA3ox), downregulated key genes involved in ABA biosynthesis (LbNCED1 and LbNCED3), and upregulated ABA 8ʹ-hydroxylase genes (LbCYP707A1 and LbCYP707A2), which mediate the changes in GA and ABA levels in seeds during germination. A high melatonin concentration in seeds promotes the utilization of nutrients and the synthesis of new proteins to enhance seed germination.

s High-k metal oxide films are vital for the future development of microelectronics technology. In this work, ZrO2 films were grown on silicon by atomic layer deposition (ALD) using tetrakis(dimethylamido)zirconium and ozone as precursors. The relatively constant deposition rate of 0.125 nm/cycle is obtained within the ALD temperature window of 200–250 °C. The film thickness can be precisely controlled by regulating the number of ALD cycle. The ZrO2 films formed at 200–250 °C have an O/Zr atomic ratio of 1.85–1.9 and a low content of carbon impurity. ZrO2 film begins to crystallize in ALD process above 210 °C, and the crystal structure is changed from cubic and orthorhombic phases to monoclinic and orthorhombic phases with increasing the deposition temperature to 350 °C. Moreover, the effect of annealing temperature on dielectric properties of ZrO2 film was studied utilizing ZrO2-based MIS device. The growth of the interface layer between ZrO2 and Si substrate leads to the decrease in the capacitance and the leakage current of dielectric layer in the MIS device after 1000 °C annealing. ZrO2 film exhibits the relatively high dielectric constant of 32.57 at 100 kHz and the low leakage current density of 3.3 × 10−6 A cm−2 at 1 MV/cm.

The molten iron quality (MIQ) in the blast furnace (BF) needs on-site sampling and laboratory tests, which is very unfavorable to the control. To estimate multiple molten iron quality indicators (MIQIs) such as molten iron temperature (MIT), silicon content ([Si]), phosphorus content ([P]) and sulfur content ([S]) in real-time, some data-driven multi-input multi-output (MIMO) modeling methods have lately been developed. However, those modeling methods ignore the inter-indicator correlation. Moreover, the above modeling methods do not consider the processing strategy for the samples with missing indicators. To conquer the above two problems in the process of modeling, this paper proposed an output space transfer based MIMO Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy modeling method for the four MIQIs. Through sparse learning of the correlation matrix, the inter-indicator correlation is specifically modeled. Due to the full use of inter-indicator correlation, the impact of missing indicators on modeling accuracy is greatly reduced. An effective alternative optimization algorithm is also provided for the corresponding intractable optimization problem. The actual data test shows that the proposed method can greatly improve the accuracy of multiple MIQIs estimations.

Using electrospinning process, the Z-scheme CuBi2O4/Bi2O3 nanocomposite photocatalysts were prepared. The microstructure, composition, and photoelectrochemical performance were studied. The results show that the morphology of nanofibers consisted in α-Bi2O3 and CuBi2O4 changes with the variation of Cu(NO3)2 content and the photoelectrochemical performance of the nanocomposites are better than that of pure α-Bi2O3 and CuBi2O4. The photocatalytic activity of the samples were evaluated. Compared with pure α-Bi2O3 and CuBi2O4, the photocatalytic degradation rate of methyl orange over BCO/BO-2 (Cu:Bi = 1:8) is greatly enhanced, which mainly caused by the formation of Z-scheme heterojunction that can improve the separation rate of photoexcited carries. Apart from this, the introduction of CuBi2O4 that can expand the light absorption range, and the rough surface of composite that can increase the number of active site promote the photocatalytic activity of BCO/BO-2. In addition, the main active species in the photocatalytic process are h+ and ·OH.

This study proposed a novel electrolytic cell–assisted redox system based on lacunary-type polyoxometalate, which can simultaneously remove hydrogen sulphide (H2S), recover elemental sulphur, and produce hydrogen. In this redox system, H2S is oxidised into elemental sulphur by using polyoxometalate ([Sm(PMo(VI)11O39)2]−11), which is reduced to corresponding heteropoly blue (reduced polyoxometalates [Sm(PMo(IV)11O39)2]−55). Furthermore, heteropoly blue is electrochemically oxidised back into polyoxometalate on the anode surface, and hydrogen is produced on the surface of the cathode in an electrolytic cell. The experimental results indicated that a 94.8% H2S removal efficiency, and 77.9% sulphur recovery efficiency were achieved under optimum conditions. H2S was effectively converted to elemental sulphur in the proposed system. Moreover, Optical and electrochemical characterisations demonstrated that the structures of the lacunary-type polyoxometalate could be well-maintained at pH 5, which was most favourable for H2S removal. Notably, clean energy hydrogen could be produced in polyoxometalate regeneration process. This innovative system—combining H2S waste conversion to elemental sulphur, electrochemical regeneration of redox mediators, and hydrogen production and thus providing environmental benefits and significant economic value—may have future applications in commercial technology.

Silicon content prediction is quite significant for supervising the state of blast furnace and is usually selected as the indicator to represent the thermal state. In practical industry, the fluctuation exists in the operation of blast furnace all the time. What's worse, it is inaccurate to build the predictive model with many outliers. To solve these problems, this paper has developed a model to predict the silicon content using support vector regression (SVR) combined with clustering algorithms, including hard C-means (HCM) clustering and fuzzy C-means (FCM) clustering. Through data processing, the data points are clustered based on the similarity, and then different SVR models are established. In order to make full use of FCM, a new method using multiple SVRs and FCM based on membership degree (MFCM-SVRs) is proposed where the membership degree is applied to eliminate the outliers. Simulation results verify that the multiple SVRs based on HCM (HCM-SVRs) and MFCM-SVRs possess superiority in terms of accuracy and speed, which makes the method serve better for practical production.

Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), a competitive machine learning technique for single-hidden-layer feedforward neural networks (SLFNNs), has proven to be efficient and effective algorithm for regression and classification problems. However, traditional ELM involves a large number of hidden nodes for complex real world regression and classification problems which increasing the computation burden. In this paper, a decomposition based fast ELM (DFELM) algorithm is proposed to effectively reduce the computational burden for large number of hidden nodes condition. Compared with ELM algorithm, DFELM algorithm has faster training time with a large number of hidden nodes maintaining the same accuracy performance. Experiment on three regression problems, six classification problems and a complex blast furnace modeling problem are carried out to verify the performance of DFELM algorithm. Moreover, the decomposition method can be extended to other modified ELM algorithms to further reduce the training time.

By modifying copper ferrite on the surface of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2/CuFe2O4), an excellent catalyst that can be used for interaction with peroxymonosulfate was successfully synthesized. Owing to the large number of active sites (unsaturated sulfur) on the surface of the composite material, the electron transfer and decomposition rate of the oxidant in the reaction system were significantly enhanced. The removal ability was the strongest when the molar ratio of MoS2/CuFe2O4 was 1.5. The removal efficiency of fluoxetine reached 97.7% within 20 min, which was higher than those obtained by pure MoS2 (38.6%) and CuFe2O4 (22.1%). The free radical test and electron paramagnetic resonance analysis indicated that sulfate radicals and hydroxyl radicals were the dominant reactive oxygen species in the reaction system. In addition, in situ Raman spectroscopy revealed that peroxymonosulfate was rapidly decomposed in the composite material system. Meanwhile, the degradation products of fluoxetine were explored by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, and a transformation pathway based on nine intermediates was proposed, mainly involving the breaking of the carbon-oxygen bond around oxygen atom, hydroxylation, and ring-opening reactions of fluoxetine and its intermediates.

The Huicheng Basin straddling the west and east Qinling belt in central China is a key feature linking the NE Tibetan Plateau and the rifted basins in East China, and its sedimentary sequences provide important archives to elucidate tectonic evolution of the Qinling belt and possibly the eastward expansion of the Tibetan Plateau. The age of upper red fluvial-lacustrine facies sequence, known as the Chengxian Group, has been previously assigned to Neogene in spite of the lack of age-definitive fossils, which seems problematic. In order to better constrain the age of this Group and to establish a chronostratigraphic framework, we conducted a magnetostratigraphic study of about 420 m thick composite section and collected 738 paleomagnetic samples. Progressive thermal demagnetization of these samples reveals both single- and two-component magnetizations. Characteristic remanent magnetizations (ChRMs) are mostly isolated at or above 350 ℃ and show northeasterly downward directions, indicating unanimously normal polarities through the composite section. Positive fold and tilting tests suggest that the ChRMs are likely primary and that this sequence was possibly deposited during the Cretaceous Normal Superchron, instead of the previously assigned Neogene. By correlating with other Cretaceous basins developed in west and east Qinling and taking into account the polyphase tectonic overprints from structural analysis, we conclude that the Huicheng Basin was formed during the post-orogenic tectonic regime in response to far-field effects caused by the northward subduction of the Neo-Tethys Ocean and the subsequent India-Eurasia collision.

Infections with human papillomavirus in the anogenital area result in warty, papillary, and condylomatous lesions. The giant anogenital wart is relatively uncommon. Treatment of giant wart is challenging, especially in the immunosuppressive population. Here, a patient with systemic lupus erythematosis had extensive, fast-growing, recurrent anogenital condylomatosis shaped as giant cauliflowers. We reported this case and the successful treatment of photodynamic therapy combined with surgical management. It provided the feasibility for surgical ablation combined with ALA-PDT performed for these kinds of challenging cases.

Background This study aimed to evaluate the effects of 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) on the improvement of symptoms and recurrence rate in patients with vulvar lichen sclerosus (VLS) and observe its side effects. Methods The symptom scores before and after photodynamic therapy (PDT) in 13 enrolled patients with VLS were analyzed retrospectively. All patients were followed-up for at least 6 months to evaluate the recurrence rate after PDT. The patients were treated with PDT only during the study period. During the PDT treatment, a 20 % 5-aminolevulinic acid solution was applied to the lesions and marginal areas for 3 h, and the entire area was then irradiated with 635 nm red light of 80 J/cm2 at 80 mW/cm2 for 30 min. Results In this study, the effective rate of PDT was 92.31 %. Lesions recurred in two patients at 6 months after PDT. Post-treatment, the total subjective, total objective, and the Dermatological Life Quality Index scores changed from 11.4, 4.3, and 13.4 at baseline to 4.9, 2, and 5.9, respectively. The difference was statistically significant (p Conclusions ALA-PDT is a safe and effective method for the treatment of VLS, and the therapeutic effects can be maintained for at least 3 months. The therapeutic effects may decrease during the 3–6-month period after PDT.

Potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) have caused great concern owing to their low cost and the reserve-abundance of potassium, but a critical limitation in PIBs anodes is the low capacity for efficient intercalation/de-intercalation of K ions with a larger size. Herein, we successfully synthesize a nitrogen-doped carbon with a honeycomb architecture (cellular N-C) via directed growth of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) on the surfaces of LDHs nanosheets followed by the pyrolysis and acid-etching processes. The resulting cellular N-C material exhibits promising PIBs anode activity, which is superior to the N-doped carbon (N-C) derived directly from MOFs. Through the structure design, compared with the N-C, the cellular N-C has the characteristics of finely controlled honeycomb-like morphology with higher specific surface area, well-distributed hierarchical micro/meso/macro-pores, and expanded interlayer distance. These features can greatly facilitate the K+ diffusion kinetics and make the electrode materials accommodate more K ions. Therefore, the cellular N-C electrode can deliver outstanding rate capability up to 10 A g−1 and great cycling performance at 1 A g−1 over 2000 cycles (143 mAh g−1).

5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA) mediated photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a highly effective, safe, and promising treatment for human papillomavirus (HPV)-induced anogenital condyloma acuminata (CA). Specific HPV subtypes are responsible for the pathogenesis of CA and dynamic changes in viral loads may reflect the efficiency of PDT. Here we present two cases of anogenital CA successfully treated by ALA-PDT under the guidance of HPV DNA detection including genotype identification and viral load measurement, which provided clues for unexpected intra-anal infection. Both of these male patients were free of detectable HPV at the end of the treatment and no recurrence was observed after 1 year. We conclude that the HPV DNA detection can accurately guide ALA-PDT, indicate unnoticed lesions, as well as improve and evaluate the efficiency.

Objective To investigate the short- and long-term efficacy of membrane anatomy-guided laparoscopic spleen-preserving circumferential splenic hilar lymph node dissection for the treatment of advanced proximal gastric cancer. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted in 186 patients with advanced proximal gastric cancer who underwent mesenteric anatomy-guided laparoscopic spleen-preserving splenic hilar lymph node dissection for advanced proximal gastric cancer in our center from March 2013 to March 2018. The patients were divided into two groups: one group was the laparoscopic anterior splenic hilar lymph node dissection group which we named L-ASHD, n = 103), while the other group was the laparoscopic circumferential splenic hilar lymph node dissection group which we named L-CSHD, n = 83). Results There was no significant difference in total operative time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative length of hospital stay, and incidence of postoperative complications, etc. (P > 0.05). The number of harvested splenic hilar lymph nodes and the number of patients with harvested positive splenic hilar lymph nodes were both higher in the L-CSHD than in the L-ASHD (3.90 ± 2.52 vs. 3.02 ± 3.07, P < 0.05; 19 vs. 9 patients, P < 0.05). The positive rate of lymph nodes behind the splenic hilar was 8.4%. Kaplan–Meier survival curves showed that patients in the L-CSHD had similar OS and DFS compared with those of patients in the L-ASHD. Conclusion Membrane anatomy-guided laparoscopic spleen-preserving circumferential splenic hilar lymph node dissection for advanced proximal gastric cancer is safe and feasible and can help avoid the incomplete dissection of positive lymph nodes. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12957-019-1610-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Objectives: Condyloma acuminatum are the most common sexually transmitted diseases worldwide, and they are closely associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. Urethral meatus is one of the places that warts occur. Many treatments for uretheral warts have limitations. In this study, we performed 5-aminolevulinic acid-photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) on patients and investigated the effectiveness of reducing HPV viral loads. Materials and Methods: In our study, 21 patients diagnosed with urethral condyloma acuminatum were included. After 4 h treatment of ALA, patients received PDT. Each patient received HPV test before every PDT cycle. The frequency of PDT was dependent on viral load changes. Results: All patients achieved complete clinical remission after the last session of ALA-PDT. There were significant differences in HPV viral loads between pretherapy and after one or three rounds of PDT treatment. Conclusions: ALA-PDT is a safe and effective method for treatment of condyloma acuminatum in urethra meatus. Dynamic monitoring of HPV viral loads can more objectively demonstrate the effectiveness and guide the treatment of PDT.

Peptidoglycan (PGN), as the major components of the bacterial cell wall, is known to cause excessive proinflammatory cytokine production. Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) is abundantly expressed on immune cells and has been shown to be involved in PGN-induced signaling. Although more and more evidences have indicated that PGN is recognized by TLR2, the role of TLR2 PGN recognition is controversial. Mannan-binding lectin (MBL), a plasma C-type lectin, plays a key role in innate immunity. More and more evidences show that MBL could suppress the amplification of inflammatory signals. Whether MBL can alter PGN-elicited cellular responses through TLR2 in macrophages is still unknown, and possible mechanism underlying it should be investigated. In this study, we found that MBL significantly attenuated PGN-induced inflammatory cytokine production, including TNF-α and IL-6, in PMA-stimulated THP-1 cells at both mRNA and protein levels. The expression of TLR2 was strongly induced by PGN stimulation. Furthermore, the administration of TLR2-neutralized antibody effectively suppressed PGN-induced TNF-α and IL-6 expression. These results supplied the evidence that PGN from Saccharomyces cerevisiae could be recognized by TLR2. In addition, we also found that MBL decreased PGN-induced TLR2 expression and suppressed TLR2-mediated downstream signaling, including the phosphorylation of IκBα, nuclear translocation of NF-κBp65, and phosphorylation of MAPK p38 and ERK1/2. Administration of MBL alone did not have an effect on the expression of TLR2. Finally, our data showed that PGN-mediated immune responses were more severely suppressed by preincubation with MBL and indicated that MBL can combine with both TLR2 and PGN to block the inflammation cytokine expression induced by PGN. All these data suggest that MBL could downregulate inflammation by modulating PGN/TLR2 signaling pathways. This study supports an important role for MBL in immune regulation and signaling pathways involved in inflammatory responses.

Relationship between intestinal flora content and hypertension was investigated. Ninety-four patients with hypertension who were admitted and treated in No. 215 Hospital of Shaanxi Nuclear Industry from May 2016 to April 2017 were selected as the observation group; and 94 healthy people from the physical examination center of No. 215 Hospital of Shaanxi Nuclear Industry in the same time period were selected as the control group. The systolic (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of all the participants were measured. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) was used to detect the quantities of Eubacterium rectale, Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and Bifidobacterium in the intestines, and correlation analyses were performed. The SBP, DBP and content of Eubacterium rectale in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group, while the contents of Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron and Bifidobacterium were obviously lower than those in the control group (P

The distribution state of the blast furnace (BF) gas flow is an important reference for the analysis of BF operation states. Bosh gas volume and wind pressure are two main indexes which reflect the distribution state of the BF gas flow. Therefor, predictions of these two indexes are important guidance for the field operation of BF. In recent years, the T-S fuzzy model plays an important role in nonlinear systems modeling and forecasting. As a method of information extraction, fuzzy clustering is crucial to the modeling quality of the T-S fuzzy model. However, the information extraction of datasets is incomplete based on one cluster prototype. Furthermore, hyper-shape of high-dimensional datasets is unknown. It is also unsuitable to cluster high-dimensional datasets based on one cluster prototype in previous researches. To improve the modeling accuracy, we consider the hyper-spherical-shaped cluster prototype and the hyper-plane-shaped cluster prototype in this paper. Then the T-S fuzzy model of weighting rule firing level is proposed to predict indexes of the BF gas flow. Simulation results verify that our model process superiority of accuracy, which makes the method serve better for practical production.

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The knowledge base (KB) completion problem is usually formulated as a link prediction problem. Such formulation is incapable of capturing certain application scenarios when the KB contains multi-fold relations. In this paper, we present a new formulation of KB completion, called instance reconstruction. Unlike its link-prediction counterpart, which has linear complexity in the size of the KB, this problem has its complexity behave as a high-degree polynomial. This presents a significant challenge in developing scalable instance reconstruction algorithms. In this paper, we present a novel knowledge embedding model (RAE) and build on it an instance reconstruction algorithm (SIR). The SIR algorithm utilizes schema-based filtering as well as "relatedness" filtering for complexity reduction. Here relatedness refers to the likelihood that two entities co-participate in a common instance, and the relatedness metric is learned from the RAE model. We show experimentally that SIR significantly reduces computation complexity without sacrificing reconstruction performance. The complexity reduction corresponds to reducing the KB size by 100 to 1000 folds.

Competency research is one of the hot topics in the study of contemporary management science, psychology, human resources and other disciplines. But the competency, a scenario concept, is the personal characteristics that is so closely linked with task background, job performance and so on. This paper explores the competency characteristics of the construction project manager and the application of the construction project manager competency by reviewing and summarizing the researches on construction project manager competency in recent years. The future researches on construction project manager competency will be discussed finally.

Surface plasma resonance (SPR) effect has been demonstrated to improve solar cell performance. This work reports on the SPR effect from Au nanorod@SiO 2 on p-type dye-sensitized solar cells. Au nanorod@SiO 2 works as an antenna to transform photons with long wavelength into electric field followed by an enhanced excitation of dye. The devices using the NiO electrode containing Au nanorod@SiO 2 shows overall power conversion efficiencies of about 0.2% in combination with I − /I 3 − electrolyte, and 0.29% with T − /T 2 electrolyte, which are superior to those without adding Au nanorods. Detailed investigation including spectroscopy and transient photovoltage decay measurements reveals that plasma effect of Au nanorod@SiO 2 contribute to charge injection efficiency, and thus on the photocurrent. The effect of Au NRs can be further extended to the inverted planar perovskite solar cells, showing obviously improvement in photocurrent.

Dielectric elastomers have been widely investigated for muscle-like soft actuators and capacitive sensors. Mechanical properties play a central role in the performances of the active material. Most elastomers have specific moduli pre-determined by the polymers' molecular structures, which are not suitable for applications in changing working conditions as natural muscles are capable of. Here new dielectric elastomers are described exhibiting variable moduli controlled via thermal treatment. The elastomers contain furan-maleimide Diels–Alder adduct moieties to administer the crosslinking densities of the elastomeric networks via reversible Diels–Alder/retro-Diels–Alder cycloaddition reaction, resulting in changes in the elastomers' moduli. One of the synthesized elastomers has moduli that can be controlled between 0.17 and 0.52 MPa incrementally and reversibly. Capacitive strain sensors based on this elastomer can be operated in both rigid and soft modes to achieve variable sensing response up to 30% linear strain. Actuators were fabricated and operated in both high strain mode (35% actuation area strain at 65 MV m−1) and high force output mode (0.55 MPa at 104 MV m−1). The elastomers can exhibit a range of stress–strain outputs in similar fashion as muscle.

We report the first demonstration of a healable stretchable transparent electrode comprising a silver nanowire (AgNW) network and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT) hybrid layer in the surface of a Diels-Alder elastomer substrate. The thin PEDOT layer solders the silver nanowires and confines the nanowire network in the substrate surface. The bonding between the nanowires and PEDOT is tuned via ethanol-water wetting, which allows for large-strain prestretching of the AgNW network. The composite electrode prepared via such a wetting and prestretching treatment has a figure-of-merit sheet resistance of 15 ohm/sq with 78% transmittance at 550 nm and can be stretched by 100% strain. Damages caused by razor blade cutting on the conductive surface could be healed, and the damaging-healing could be repeated for three times at the same location. The healed electrode exhibits similar resistance-strain response as the fresh electrode because of the PEDOT layer being capable of circumventing broken nanowire sites. Fatigue-induced damages after 100 cycles of 60% strain can also be healed by simple heating.

Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted HighlightsA new cooperative learning strategy is hybridized with DMS-PSO.Information can be exchanged among sub-swarms before the regrouping process.Experimental results show that DMS-PSO-CLS has a superior performance. In this article, the dynamic multi-swarm particle swarm optimizer (DMS-PSO) and a new cooperative learning strategy (CLS) are hybridized to obtain DMS-PSO-CLS. DMS-PSO is a recently developed multi-swarm optimization algorithm and has strong exploration ability for the use of a novel randomly regrouping schedule. However, the frequently regrouping operation of DMS-PSO results in the deficiency of the exploitation ability. In order to achieve a good balance between the exploration and exploitation abilities, the cooperative learning strategy is hybridized to DMS-PSO, which makes information be used more effectively to generate better quality solutions. In the proposed strategy, for each sub-swarm, each dimension of the two worst particles learns from the better particle of two randomly selected sub-swarms using tournament selection strategy, so that particles can have more excellent exemplars to learn and can find the global optimum more easily. Experiments are conducted on some well-known benchmarks and the results show that DMS-PSO-CLS has a superior performance in comparison with DMS-PSO and several other popular PSO variants.

Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) is a powerful technique for quantitative and qualitative investigation of interfacial charge transfer processes. This work presents an SECM investigation on the regeneration kinetics of an organo-metal halide perovskite (CH3NH3PbI3) sensitized onto various semiconductor oxide nanocrystals, including n-type titanium dioxide and p-type nickel oxide. We found for the first time that the regeneration rate constant, and absorption cross section of CH3NH3PbI3 are significantly higher than the conventional sensitizers.