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Potholes are bowl-shaped distresses that negatively influence driving safety. Using 3D line laser technology, a high-resolution pavement profile can be acquired to derive pothole properties. This paper presents a novel method to measure pothole properties comprehensively and precisely by using 3D line laser data. A laboratory test was performed on a simulated pothole to validate the reliability of proposed method. The test results indicate that the relative error of pothole properties measurement ranges from 3.66% to 4.78%. And the small standard deviation shows good repeatability. In addition, this paper proposes that the longitudinal spacing between two adjacent transverse profiles is sensitive to pothole property measurements, and the optimum spacing should be less than 2 mm to accurately measure pothole properties. Using the optimum spacing, 2 field potholes data were collected on interstate way 107, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province. The field test results have shown that the relative error of pothole properties measurement can be less than 8%, which is sufficiently accurate for practical applications. This paper demonstrated that 3D line laser is very promising to provide a reliable measurement results for pothole properties.

Abstract Background Succinate dehydrogenase deficient gastrointestinal stromal tumors (SDH-deficient GISTs), which lack KIT or PDGFRA mutations demonstrate unique clinical and pathological features, and they respond poorly to standard targeted therapy. We herein present a novel case of SDH-deficient GIST in a three-month-old infant’s colon mesentery, and he is the youngest patientto date. Case presentation The infantpresented with complaints of blood in the stool. CT showed a 6.3 × 4.6 cm mass in the left lower retroperitoneal. Complete resection of tumor and segmental bowel resection was performed without regional lymphadenectomy. Histologically, tumor cells were distinctive in their multinodular colon wall involvement with interspersed tracts of colon wall smooth muscle. The tumor was composed mainly of epithelioid cells. Immunohistochemically, the tumor cells were positive for Vim, CD117, PDGFR, while negative for SDHB. Mutational analysis showed a synonymous mutation for SDHB and wild-type for KIT and PDGFRA. Two months after surgery, metastases were found and Imatinib was administered. Unfortunately, the disease continued to progress, and the infant died 5 months after surgery. Conclusions SDH-deficient GISTs comprise a subgroup of a relatively rare tumor type and show a number of clinically and biologically unique features, especially for infants. It is of great importance to developing new therapeutic targets and novel specific drugs.

Highlights Non-magnetic bimetallic MOF-derived porous carbon-wrapped TiO2/ZrTiO4 composites are firstly used for efficient electromagnetic wave absorption. The electromagnetic wave absorption mechanisms including enhanced interfacial polarization and essential conductivity are intensively discussed. Abstract Modern communication technologies put forward higher requirements for electromagnetic wave (EMW) absorption materials. Metal–organic framework (MOF) derivatives have been widely concerned with its diverse advantages. To break the mindset of magnetic-derivative design, and make up the shortage of monometallic non-magnetic derivatives, we first try non-magnetic bimetallic MOFs derivatives to achieve efficient EMW absorption. The porous carbon-wrapped TiO2/ZrTiO4 composites derived from PCN-415 (TiZr-MOFs) are qualified with a minimum reflection loss of − 67.8 dB (2.16 mm, 13.0 GHz), and a maximum effective absorption bandwidth of 5.9 GHz (2.70 mm). Through in-depth discussions, the synergy of enhanced interfacial polarization and other attenuation mechanisms in the composites is revealed. Therefore, this work confirms the huge potentials of non-magnetic bimetallic MOFs derivatives in EMW absorption applications.

Due to the increase of network equipments and the uncertainty of the transmission environment, the message delay is also uncertain, and the asynchronous consensus protocol possesses more advantages. Miller et al proposed the first asynchronous consensus protocol HoneyBadgerBFT in 2016, but its transmission efficiency can be optimized furthermore while achieving high throughput. The broadcast protocol in HoneyBadgerBFT was improved by reducing the message complexity in the broadcast process, and adding optional message request process to achieve rapid response and efficient transmission.

Climate warming and subsequent drought are predicted to alter local forest production and carbon budgets, the sensitivity of which may be site- and species-specific. Although a warmer and drier climate often constrains tree growth, whether trees grown in cool, wet regions across the Siberian forest can in turn be promoted remains unknown. Here, we aimed to investigate the historical growth tendency of Siberian forests in the Sayan Mountain areas and to explore how climate interacts to regulate their growth. We used ring-width data from Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica Du Tour) sampled from three sites in this area to establish a regional chronology and calculate percentage growth change (%GC) over the past 250 years. Bootstrapped correlation analysis between the regional ring-width chronology and climatic factors indicates the mean air temperature, though not precipitation, is more often positively linked to the radial growth of Siberian pines. The %GC series shows that, from 1966 to 2006, the rising temperatures in May resulted in a significant increase in the radial-growth rate of Siberian pines (r = 0.47, p < 0.05). Our study suggests that the positive growth rate anomaly is more likely to occur as temperatures rise in Southern Siberia.

How does the Chinese Communist Party ensure that its officials remain loyal to the top leader, and what mechanisms does the leader use to get cadres to comply with his policies and intentions? We argue that Party regulations play a very important role in ensuring loyalty. These regulations, both written and unwritten, constitute a system of authoritarian legality through which Xi Jinping ensures that cadres practice the "two safeguards," thus enhancing his personal power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to develop a distributed channel estimation (CE) algorithm for spatially non-stationary (SNS) channels in extremely large aperture array systems, addressing the issues of high communication cost and computational complexity associated with traditional centralized algorithms. However, SNS channels differ from conventional spatially stationary channels, presenting new challenges such as varying sparsity patterns for different antennas. To overcome these challenges, we propose a novel distributed CE algorithm accompanied by a simple-yet-effective hard thresholding scheme. The proposed algorithm is not only suitable for uniform antenna arrays but also for irregularly deployed antennas. Simulation results demonstrate the advantages of the the proposed algorithm in terms of estimation accuracy, communication cost and computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With increasing detection of small renal masses and accumulating evidence that nephron sparing surgery (NSS) could achieve oncological equivalence and functional superiority compared with radical nephrectomy (RN), NSS has become first‐line therapy for some patients with localized renal masses. Objective: This study aims to review the publications in the kidney neoplasm and NSS field, exploring the research hotspots. Method: Kidney neoplasm and NSS related publications before July 3th 2023 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection database. We then used bibliometric analysis to conduct performance analysis, citation analysis and co‐citation network of publications, together with keyword co‐occurrence analysis. Results: Seven thousand five hundred and sixty‐four documents were finally retrieved, and the annual publications increased exponentially. The most productive authors were "KAOUK JH" and "GILL IS", while USA, and 12 American affiliations such as CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION and MAYO CLINIC were far leading in this field. Journal of Urology and European Urology were journals with the highest citations and h‐index. Discussion: Through literature reviewing plus co‐occurrence and clustering analysis, the therapeutic effects of partial nephrectomy (PN) versus RN on patients with localized renal cell carcinoma, different operative approaches of PN, and conservative NSS methods were deemed as the most focused topics. Conclusion: Three aspects were the most important hotspots in this field. Firstly, how to provide the optimal management choices for different patients. Secondly, therapeutic effects of different management options and surgical techniques needed more prospective and randomized studies. Finally, more novel technologies and surgical techniques were required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To explore the diagnostic value of intralesional and perilesional radiomics based on multimodal ultrasound (US) images in predicting the malignant ACR TIRADS 4 thyroid nodules (TNs). Methods: A total of 297 cases of TNs in patients who underwent preoperative thyroid grayscale US and shear wave elastography (STE) were enrolled (training cohort: n = 150, internal validation cohort: n = 77, external validation cohort: n = 70). Regions of interests (ROIs) were delineated on grayscale US images and STE images, and then an isotropic expansion of 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 mm was applied. Predictive models were established using recursive feature elimination‐support vector machines (RFE‐SVM) based on radiomics features calculated by random forest. Results: The perilesional ROI1.5mm expansion achieved the highest area under curve (AUC) (AUC: 0.753 for grayscale US, 0.728 for STE; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.664–0.743, 0.684–0.739, respectively). The joint model had the highest AUC values of 0.936 in the training dataset, 0.926 in internal dataset, and 0.893 in external dataset. The calibration curve showed good consistency and the decision curve indicated a greater clinical net benefit of the joint model. Conclusion: Joint model containing perilesional radiomics (1.5 mm) had significant value in predicting the malignant ACR TIRADS 4 TNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is to investigate the spectral properties of separable covariance matrices under elliptical populations. The separable covariance matrix model can handle both cross-row and cross-column correlations thus gain more popularity recently. Under the high-dimensional setting where the dimension p and the sample size n tend to infinity proportionally, we find the limit of the empirical spectral distribution and establish the central limit theorems (CLT) for linear spectral statistics of such kinds of sample covariance matrices. Some applications of our established CLT are also given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new test to investigate the conditional mean dependence between a response variable and the corresponding covariates in the high‐dimensional regimes. The test statistic is an extreme‐type one built on the nonparametric method. The limiting null distribution of the proposed extreme type statistic under a mild mixing condition is established. Moreover, to make the test more powerful in general structures we propose a more general test statistic and develop its asymptotic properties. The power analysis of both methods is also considered. In real data analysis, we also propose a new way to conduct the feature screening based on our results. To evaluate the performance of our estimators and other methods, extensive simulations are conducted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new unsupervised learning method for clustering a large number of time series based on a latent factor structure. Each cluster is characterized by its own cluster-specific factors in addition to some common factors which impact on all the time series concerned. Our setting also offers the flexibility that some time series may not belong to any clusters. The consistency with explicit convergence rates is established for the estimation of the common factors, the cluster-specific factors, and the latent clusters. Numerical illustration with both simulated data as well as a real data example is also reported. As a spin-off, the proposed new approach also advances significantly the statistical inference for the factor model of Lam and Yao. for this article are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving interfacial kinetics is the key to realizing extreme fast charging (XFC) of graphite‐based potassium ion batteries (PIBs). The electrolyte engineering is commonly used for solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) design. However, this strategy adjusts both ion solvation structure and (de)solvation kinetics simultaneously, thus making it difficult to explicitly reveal the linkage between SEI properties and interfacial kinetics. Herein, the content of inorganic species in preformed SEI on graphite surface is precisely regulated and uncovered its critical role in improving the interfacial kinetics. The charge transfer kinetics on graphite/electrolyte interphase is found to be the rate limitation step upon XFC. Meanwhile, the increased inorganic species in SEI plays a decisive role in optimizing the charge transfer rather than the kinetics of naked K+ crossing SEI. Through unlocking the anodic charge transfer limitation with ultra‐inorganic rich SEI, the graphite//Prussian blue analogs full cells achieve a superior XFC ability (13 min charge to 80%) with a specific capacity of 103 mAh g−1 at 5 C. This work provides a fundamental understanding of the relationship between SEI properties and interfacial kinetics during XFC, which enables the rational design of SEI chemistry for fast‐charging PIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Surface water from precipitation or irrigation is the sole contributor to groundwater replenishment in the Loess Plateau of China. The occurrence of landslides in the Loess Plateau is closely related to the infiltration process of surface water, and the frequent occurrence of landslides in the Loess Plateau in recent years has seriously affected the economic development and security of the Loess Plateau. Methods: To investigate the loess infiltration in deeper soil, the process of moisture infiltration in unsaturated loess is studied by field observation, theoretical analysis, and numerical simulation. Results and discussion: The research results indicated that the interstitial flow in loess could be divided into three different zones: the active zone, the stable zone (2-94 m), and the saturated zone (below 97 m); based on the matric suction and water content calculations, the L1 soil stable water content is 24.4%, which corresponds to the moisture sensor measurement of L1 loess 4 m and 7 m of stable zone data; the numerical simulation results show that whether the infiltration is continuous or intermittent, the infiltration law is the same. After 20 years, there will be a stable water content zone in the 1-8 m soil layer with a water content of 31%. The numerical results well confirm the theoretical calculation results. The research results explain the process of surface water infiltration into groundwater through thick loess and can provide an important reference for the prevention and control of geological disasters caused by water infiltration in loess areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma (KIRP) is the second most prevalent malignant cancer originating from the renal epithelium. Nowadays, cancer stem cells and stemness-related genes (SRGs) are revealed to play important roles in the carcinogenesis and metastasis of various tumors. Consequently, we aim to investigate the underlying mechanisms of SRGs in KIRP. Methods: RNA-seq profiles of 141 KIRP samples were downloaded from the TCGA database, based on which we calculated the mRNA expression-based stemness index (mRNAsi). Next, we selected the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between low- and high-mRNAsi groups. Then, we utilized weighted gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) and univariate Cox analysis to identify prognostic SRGs. Afterwards, SRGs were included in the multivariate Cox regression analysis to establish a prognostic model. In addition, a regulatory network was constructed by Pearson correlation analysis, incorporating key genes, upstream transcription factors (TFs), and downstream signaling pathways. Finally, we used Connectivity map analysis to identify the potential inhibitors. Results: In total, 1124 genes were characterized as DEGs between low- and high-RNAsi groups. Based on six prognostic SRGs (CCKBR, GPR50, GDNF, SPOCK3, KC877982.1, and MYO15A), a prediction model was established with an area under curve of 0.861. Furthermore, among the TFs, genes, and signaling pathways that had significant correlations, the CBX2-ASPH-Notch signaling pathway was the most significantly correlated. Finally, resveratrol might be a potential inhibitor for KIRP. Conclusions: We suggested that CBX2 could regulate ASPH through activation of the Notch signaling pathway, which might be correlated with the carcinogenesis, development, and unfavorable prognosis of KIRP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the widespread application of Mg alloy casting and Mg alloy products has generated a large amount of Mg alloy waste. This experiment used a single factor experimental analysis method to study the optimal process for removing Fe from Mg alloy AM50A waste, and developed an efficient Fe removal and regeneration process for Mg alloy AM50A. It was found that the optimal refining temperature for removing Fe ions was 670 °C, the optimal refining (RJ-2) agent mass ratio was 1.5%, and the optimal refining time was 40 min. Regenerated J40-1.5-AM50A Mg alloy was prepared using the best refining process, and its composition and mechanical properties were tested and analyzed. The experimental results show that the composition of the regenerated J40-1.5-AM50A Mg alloy prepared by this method is consistent with AM50A, with an Fe removal rate of 96.2%. The mechanical properties were improved compared to the original AM50A sample, with a maximum tensile strength increase of 1.611 KN and a tensile strength increase of 26.333 MPa. The elongation after fracture is 2.25 times that of the original sample. Research has shown that the RJ-2 refining agent can provide mechanical properties of magnesium alloys during the refining process. By analyzing the composition, XRD, SEM, and EDS of AM50A (Fe) and J40-1.5-AM50A, it was found that the refining process accelerates the removal of Fe in the form of Fe deposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose S-propargyl-cysteine (SPRC), an excellent endogenous hydrogen sulfide (H2S) donor, could elevate H2S levels via the cystathionine γ-lyase (CSE)/H2S pathway both in vitro and in vivo. However, the immediate release of H2S in vivo and daily administration of SPRC potentially limited its clinical use. Methods To solve the fore-mentioned problem, in this study, the dendritic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (DMSN) was firstly prepared, and a sustained H2S delivery system consisted of SPRC and DMSN (SPRC@DMSN) was then constructed. Their release profiles, both in vitro and in vivo, were investigated, and their therapeutical effect toward adjuvant-induced arthritis (AIA) rats was also studied. Results The spherical morphology of DMSN could be observed under scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and the transmission electron microscope (TEM) images showed a central-radiational pore channel structure of DMSN. DMSN showed excellent SPRC loading capacity and attaining a sustained releasing ability than SPRC both in vitro and in vivo, and the prolonged SPRC releasing could further promote the release of H2S in a sustained manner through CSE/H2S pathway both in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, the SPRC@DMSN showed promising anti-inflammation effect against AIA in rats was also observed. Conclusions A sustained H2S releasing donor consisting of SPRC and DMSN was constructed in this study, and this sustained H2S releasing donor might be of good use for the treatment of AIA.

Many blood biomarkers are reportedly helpful for predicting post-stroke cognitive impairment (PSCI), but no biomarkers are widely used in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between the plasma immunoproteasome and patients’ 90-day prognosis after first-ever acute ischemic stroke. In our prospective, single-center study, 259 patients with first-ever acute ischemic stroke were enrolled from the Department of Neurology, Fujian Provincial Hospital, China, from March to September 2014. Of these, 27 patients (10.4%) had unfavorable outcomes as assessed by the Modified Rankin Scale (scores of 3–6). The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score on admission, plasma N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-pro-BNP) levels, and immunopro-teasome subunit (low molecular mass peptide [LMP]2, LMP5, and LMP7) levels were significantly higher in the unfavorable outcome group than in the favorable outcome group. To predict unfavorable outcomes, the optimal cutoff points were National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score > 12, NT-pro-BNP level > 1883.5 pg/mL, and LMP2 level > 841.4 pg/mL. Of the 193 patients that were able to complete the Mini-Mental State Examination at 90 days post-stroke, 66 patients (34.2%) had PSCI. Plasma levels of NT-pro-BNP and LMP2 were higher in patients with PSCI than in those without PSCI. To predict PSCI, the optimal cutoff values were age > 70.5 years and LMP2 level > 630.5 pg/mL. These findings indicate that plasma LMP2 may serve as a new prognostic biomarker of poor outcome and PSCI at 90 days after stroke. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Fujian Provincial Hospital, Provincial Clinical Medical College of Fujian Medical University (approval No. K2014-01-003) on January 15, 2014.