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Calcific insertional Achilles tendinopathy(CIAT) with Haglund deformity is a type of recalcitrant tendinopathy. The necessity of concomitant removal of Haglund deformity during CIAT treatment is controversial. The present study aimed to evaluate the functional outcomes between Haglund resection and Haglund non-resection in the treatment of CIAT with Haglund deformity. A retrospective study included 29 patients who were underwent Achilles tendon debridement, bursal excision, and subsequent tendon reattachment.for CIAT with Haglund deformity. All patients were divided into 2 groups according to Haglund resection (resection group, n = 16) and Haglund non-resection (non-resection group, n = 13) using the parallel line method on lateral calcaneal X ray after surgery. Patients were evaluated in terms of the American Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS), Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment–Achilles (VISA-A) scores and the mean time of activities of daily living (ADL). Anatomy changes included the Fowler-Philip angle, calcaneal pitch angle and Achilles tendon force arm were measured with radiography preoperatively and postoperatively. Both groups exhibited a significant increase in AOFAS, VAS and VISA-A scores after surgery. There were no significant differences between the resection group and the non-resection group for the AOFAS (92.38 ± 5.7 vs. 93.15 ± 12.17; P = 0.82), VAS (0.5 ± 0.52 vs. 0.61 ± 0.87; P = 0.66) and VISA-A questionnaire (82.56 ± 13.46 vs. 74.92 ± 16.4; P = 0.18) at the latest follow-up. The mean time of ADL in the non-resection group was significantly faster compared to that of the resection group (8.15 ± 2.51 weeks vs. 11.31 ± 4.06 weeks, P = 0.02). The Fowler-Philip angle of the resection group decreased from 55.55° ± 12.34° preoperatively to 44.52° ± 10.24° at the latest follow-up (P = 0.001). The Fowler-Philip angle of the non-resection group decreased from 54.38° ± 8.41° preoperatively to 46.52° ± 8.02° at the latest follow-up (P = 0.016). The calcaneal pitch angle of the resection group increased from 22.76° ± 5.37° preoperatively to 25.98° ± 6. 4° at the latest follow-up (P = 0.018). The Achilles tendon force arm of the resection group decreased from 178.50 mm ± 5.37 mm preoperatively to 173.90 mm ± 8.07 mm at the latest follow-up (P = 0.018). Resection or non-resection of the posterosuperior calcaneal tuberosity for CIAT with Haglund deformity would both provide satisfactory functional outcomes. Haglund non-resection may expedite patients' return to their daily activities, suggesting a Haglund deformity resection may be unnecessary in the surgical treatment for CIAT with Haglund deformity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the synthesis and spectroscopic properties of 3-/3,5-styryl-substituted BODIPY dyes with N-bridged annulation. The study focuses on modifying the BODIPY structure to enhance its properties for interdisciplinary fields like biomedicine and materials science. The authors report the successful synthesis of the desired compounds and analyze their spectroscopic properties, including absorption and emission spectra, fluorescence quantum yield, and fluorescence lifetime. The compounds exhibited high fluorescence quantum yield and red fluorescence emission, making them potentially useful in organic biological materials. Supporting information, including spectra of the new compounds, is available online. [Extracted from the article]

The fatigue crack growth behavior in single‐crystal titanium with a prismatic crack was simulated using molecular dynamics (MD) considering the effects of applied temperature, strain ratio, and strain rate. The results indicate that the material exhibits transient cyclic hardening behavior and dominant cyclic softening behavior. The peak tensile stress decreases with increasing temperature or decreasing strain rate. The deformation mechanism for crack growth involves prismatic dislocation emission and the formation of vacancy defects at different loading conditions. Deformation twinning occurs at the highest temperature, and a secondary crack emerges at the highest strain rate. The Mises stress concentration at the twin boundary and the coalescence between the initial and secondary cracks may accelerate crack propagation. The ΔJ shows good linear relationships with fatigue crack growth rate (FCGR), indicating that ΔJ possesses the potential to assess fatigue crack growth behavior at the atomic scale for ductile metallic materials. Highlights: Peak tensile stress is increased by increasing temperature or decreasing strain rate.Prismatic dislocation emission and vacancy defects are the primary failure mechanisms.Twinning and crack coalescence accelerate fatigue crack propagation.The energy‐related ΔJ shows good linear relationships with fatigue crack growth rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization is a major trend in global population migration. There is growing debate about whether this urban-rural disparity exacerbate depression at the individual level. This study aims to investigate how urban living has a beneficial impact on individual mental health. Based on the data of 15,764 participants in the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we perform analysis of variance to identify the gap in depression levels between urban and rural areas. Extensive comparisons and detailed statistical analyses are carried out to demonstrate the differences in social participation between urban and rural residents. Finally, we conduct a series of mediation and moderation analyses to reveal the underlying mechanisms of depressive disorder benefits of cities. The results indicate that those who lived in urban areas were less likely to suffer from depression (β = −1.461, 95 % CI = [−1.691, −1.235], p < 0.001). Social engagement is found to mediate the relationship between residence type (β = 0.164, 95 % CI = [0.136, 0.193], p < 0.001) and individual depression (β = −0.462, 95 % CI = [−0.587, −0.337], p < 0.001). City size plays a moderating role in the association between urban living and social engagement. The mechanism is conducted through cross-sectional data. Self-reported depression status is accessed in this study, which could lead to measurement error. This study demonstrates the beneficial effects of urban living on individual depression, and reveals the mechanism by which urbanization at different scales affects the prevalence of depression. • This study fueled the debate about depressive disorder from growing cities with a nationwide empirical analysis. • We identified the underlying mechanism by which urban living could protect residents from the obnoxious depression. • Our observation also revealed the contingency of the protective effect of cities against depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the total synthesis of dysidavarones A-C, which are sesquiterpene quinones isolated from the sponge Dysidea avara. These compounds have a unique carbon skeleton and exhibit bioactivity against cancer cell lines and bacteria. Several synthetic routes have been developed to produce these compounds, but they have limitations in terms of yield and purification. The authors present a practical and scalable synthesis method that overcomes these challenges and provides sufficient quantities of dysidavarones for further research. [Extracted from the article]

Load managing and price optimizer are significant elements in triple models and combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) models. In this study, a new CCHP model utilizes a fuel cell as the main drive with a heat recovery system, a 5-kW PEMFC pile, a small immersion chiller, a humidifier, and a gas compressor is considered. The system has been assessed regards to environment, thermodynamics, and economics in terms of view. A developed type of Honey Badger Optimizer has been suggested to optimize the effectiveness of the model. The system productivity has been assessed by the exergy, energy, yearly price, and pollutant release decrease. According to model studies, low operating temperatures, high intake gas pressures, and high relative humidity all contribute to improved system efficiency and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Based on simulation data, the electricity efficiency at the final optimized point is found to be 69.77%, which is a significant improvement over the baseline efficiency of 63.3% before optimization. Furthermore, the optimized system resulted in a yearly reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 1.47e7 g, which represents a notable improvement over the 1.20e7 g reduction achieved by the standard system. • New CCHP model is proposed for a fuel cell as the main drive with heat recovery system. • System is analyzed based on environment, thermodynamics, and economics terms of view. • Developed version of Honey Badger Optimizer to improve the system efficiency. • Productivity is by the energy, exergy, yearly price, and pollutant release decrease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wound care is a major clinical and social concern. However, effective wound repair remains challenging where conventional dressings yield detrimental healing outcomes. An emerging technique, named mechanically active dressing (MAD), uses self-contractile hydrogels to mechanically contract the wound bed. MAD has shown improved healing rates with limited side effects. These promising developments in wound care call for a timely review on the development of such technology. Herein, we shed light on the mechanism underlying mechanically modulated wound healing, carry out a systematic discussion on the status quo of designing hydrogels for MAD fabrication, and conclude with perspectives on design, use and clinical translation for realizing the future goal of personalized wound care. Wound care is a major clinical concern and constitutes a large economic and social burden nowadays. However, since conventional dressings are associated with detrimental healing outcomes, effective wound repairing remains an unresolved conundrum. Based on the role mechanics plays in wound healing, devices (e.g., dressings) that apply mechanical loading to actively modulate wound microenvironment can bring promising opportunities to yield structural and functional regeneration of the injured skin. Emerging hydrogels featuring tough skin-adhesion and controllable self-contraction can be ideal candidates for realizing mechanically active dressings that can drag the wound edge inward toward closure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the background of the post-epidemic era, the consumption demand and market scale of cold chain logistics in China are expanding, but there is still an obvious gap with developed countries. To complete the balance between the supply and demand for aquatic products and the rational allocation of logistics resources and promote the rapid development trend of aquatic product cold chain logistics, it is particularly important to forecast and analyze the demand for aquatic product cold chain logistics. This article selects six main factors that affect the demand for aquatic products in cold chain logistics, uses the traditional grey model and the grey-BP neural network model to simulate and predict the demand for aquatic products in cold chain logistics in China from 2012 to 2021, and compares and analyzes the simulation results. Generally speaking, the demand for aquatic products from Chinese residents is on the rise. In the simulation prediction process, the prediction error of the grey-BP neural network is reduced compared to the traditional grey model, and the processing ability of the nonlinear system is ideal. The results show that the grey-BP neural network model is an effective method to predict the demand for cold chain logistics of aquatic products. Finally, suggestions are made on the future development of aquatic cold chain logistics in the post-epidemic era from the economic, social, and environmental aspects, which provide valuable decision-making reference for the development of marine aquaculture enterprises and cold chain logistics industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid increase in the artificial syntheses of organic pollutants has raised widespread concern. However, the mechanisms by which fungi degrade these new organic pollutants in the environment and adapt to environmental stressors remain unclear. In this study, Phanerochaete chrysosporium, a model white rot fungus, was used to explore the interfacial processes and mechanisms for synergistic degradation of 4,4′-dichlorobiphenyl (PCB15) with magnetite nanoparticles. The results showed that after 3 and 5 days of cultivation with Phanerochaete chrysosporium alone, the rates for PCB15 degradation were 32% and 65%, respectively, indicating that the white rot fungus itself was able to degrade the organic pollutant. Moreover, the addition of magnetite nanoparticles significantly enhanced the degradation of PCB15 by Phanerochaete chrysosporium. After cocultivation for 3 and 5 days, the rates for PCB15 degradation increased to 42% and 84%, respectively. Synchrotron radiation-based Fourier transform infrared spectromicroscopy (SR-FTIR) showed that the magnetite particles were tightly adhered to the fungal hyphae and were unevenly distributed on the hyphal surfaces. Furthermore, cocultivation of the fungus and magnetite nanoparticles significantly enhanced the nanozymatic activity of magnetite. A linear regression model provided a significantly negative correlation (r=−0.96, p<0.001) between the nanozymatic activity of the magnetite and the concentration ratio of the PCB15, supporting the hypothesis that white rot fungi degraded the PCB15 by enhancing the nanozyme activity of magnetite. High-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that the nanozymatic activity of magnetite was mainly governed by oxygen vacancies on the mineral surfaces rather than the iron valence. Together, these findings increase our understanding of the powerful capabilities of fungi in terms of stress resistance and adaptation to extreme environments and provide new insights into fungal-mediated degradation of organic pollutants for soil remediation in contaminated sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of biomass-fueled cogeneration plants can be fruitful to achieve the sustainable development goals, due to the crises of fossil energy-fueled ones. Additionally, biomass fuels can offer higher reliability and more sustainable energy compared to the two more well-known renewables (i.e., solar and wind energies) due to the no dependence on environmental and weather conditions. The present article provides a comprehensive assessment (thermodynamic-design, exergoeconomic and environmental) and optimization of a new biomass-driven cogeneration plant cascaded with a heat recovery unit. The planned plant is based on a biomass gasification process, some thermodynamic power generation cycles based on steam and gas turbines (i.e., Rankine cycle, Brayton cycle, and organic Rankine cycle (ORC)), and flue gas condensation process. Besides, a compressed air energy storage system (CAESS) as an energy storage process is integrated with the considered plant to establish a balance between production and demand and reduce electricity costs. To achieve optimal performance, a multi-objective optimization (based on a genetic algorithm) is applied. The findings showed that by considering the multi-objective optimization techniques, the plant's exergy efficiency could improve by about 15%. At the same time, the exergy cost rate is reduced by almost 17.3%. Avoiding the payment of carbon tax and the high electricity production level in the on-peak consumption period are unique and competitive features of the proposed biomass-driven power plant. It was also found that the LCOE and the payback period were 13.27 USD/GJ and 2.03 years, respectively, therefore, the proposed power plant exhibits reasonable economic feasibility. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multivariate regression with covariance estimation (MRCE) is a method that performs sparse estimation of multivariate regression coefficients, while taking account the covariance structure of the response variables. MRCE uses a penalized likelihood approach to simultaneously estimate the regression coefficients and the inverse covariance matrix so that prediction accuracy can be significantly improved. However, traditional likelihood-based methods such as MRCE can produce very misleading results in the presence of outliers. In this work, we propose an extension of MRCE, namely, a robust multivariate lasso regression with covariance estimation (RMLC) to handle potential outliers within the data. By using Huber's loss or Tukey's biweight loss, RMLC can be resistant to outliers in the responses or in both the responses and the covariates. A novel optimization algorithm that incorporates a 2-fold accelerated proximal gradient (APG) algorithm is developed to solve RMLC efficiently. We also demonstrate that our proposed RMLC enjoys the oracle property. Our simulation study shows that RMLC produces very reliable results for both the regression coefficients and the correlation structure of the responses, even if the data are contaminated. A real analysis on hyperspectral data further demonstrates the utility of RMLC. for this article are available online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute liver failure (ALF) is a serious liver disease that is difficult to treat owing to its unclear pathogenesis. This study aimed to investigate the roles and molecular mechanisms of calycosin (CA) in ALF. Methods: In this study, the roles and mechanism of CA in ALF were explored using an in vitro lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐induced ALF cell model. Additionally, 3‐(4,5‐dimethyl‐2‐thiazolyl)−2,5‐diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay was used to assess the effect of CA on the activity of LPS‐induced L02 human liver epithelial cells, and flow cytometry was used to detect apoptosis in L02 cells. Expression levels of apoptosis‐related genes, Bax and Bcl‐2, were measured using reverse transcription‐quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western blot analysis. Expression levels of inflammatory factors in LPS‐induced L02 cells were measured using an enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay. Additionally, the effect of CA on ALF was inhibited via transfection of a toll‐like receptor 4 (TLR4)‐plasmid to elucidate the relationship between CA and TLR4/nuclear factor (NF)‐κB signaling pathway in ALF. Results: CA had no toxic effects on L02 cells, but enhanced the activity of LPS‐induced L02 cells in a dose‐dependent manner. Apoptosis and inflammatory factor release was increased in ALF, activating the TLR4/NF‐κB signaling pathway. However, CA treatment inhibited the apoptosis and release of inflammatory factors. Further mechanistic studies revealed that the upregulation of TLR4 expression reversed the alleviating effects of CA on inflammation and apoptosis in LPS‐induced L02 cells. Conclusion: CA alleviates inflammatory damage in LPS‐induced L02 cells by inhibiting the TLR4/NF‐κB pathway and may be a promising therapeutic agent for ALF treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, chitosan (CS), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), polydopamine (PDA), and tungsten trioxide are compounded via melt blending to prepare a CS/PVP/PDA/WO3 composite mulch. The morphological characteristics, thermogravimetric analysis, transmission performance, photothermal performance, and degradation performance of the mulch film and the effect of the CS/PVP/PDA/WO3 composite mulch film on the growth of Dianthus chinensis L. and cucumber seeds are studied. The results show that the CS/PVP/PDA/WO3 film exhibits a good thermal stability, biodegradability, UV resistance, photothermal conversion ability, and transmittance. Evaluation of the effect of this mulch film on the growth of crops shows that the film can promote the germination of seeds and increase the seedling growth rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Portunus trituberculatus is a very important marine economic species, and its aquaculture industry has been developing rapidly. However, the phenomenon of marine wild capture of P. trituberculatus and germplasm degradation has become increasingly serious. It is necessary to develop the artificial farming industry and carry out germplasm resource protection, for which sperm cryopreservation technology is an effective method. This research compared three methods (mesh-rubbing, trypsin digestion, and mechanical grinding) for acquiring free sperm, and the best method was mesh-rubbing. Then, the optimal cryopreservation conditions were selected, and the optimal formulation was sterile calcium-free artificial seawater, the optimal cryoprotectant was 20% glycerol, and the best equilibrium time was 15 min at 4 °C. The optimal cooling program was suspending the straws at 3.5 cm on the liquid nitrogen surface for 5 min and then storing them in liquid nitrogen. Finally, the sperm were thawed at 42 °C. However, the expression of sperm-related genes and the total enzymatic activities of frozen sperm were significantly decreased (p < 0.05), which showed that sperm cryopreservation damaged the sperm. Our study improves the sperm cryopreservation technology and the yield of aquaculture in P. trituberculatus. Additionally, the study provides a certain technical basis for the establishment of a sperm cryopreservation library of crustaceans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to design a low gain feedback controller for a class of discrete‐time feedforward nonlinear systems (DFNSs) with unknown input saturation. Although the design of the low gain feedback control can be converted into the choosing of a parameter, it is difficult to design the control due to the inherent nonlinear dynamics and the unknown input constants. To solve this problem, we first show that the low gain feedback control can be found to stabilize the DFNSs when the saturation is known. Then, by analyzing the dynamics of DFNSs under the saturating input, the relation is built between the parameter and the system state. Finally, we introduce a technology to update the parameter based on different performance, whose effectiveness is illustrated through considering a numerical example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The HTLV-1 prevalence in China varies geographically, while HTLV-2 infection has rarely been found so far. Proviral load is one of the determining factors of pathogenesis and progression of HTLV-1 related diseases. However, neither molecular assays nor commercial kits are available for HTLV-1 diagnosis in China. The objective of the present study was to develop and validate a TaqMan qPCR assay for HTLV-1 proviral load quantification. Results: A plasmid containing both the HTLV-1 of interest and a fragment of the RNase P (RPPH1) gene was constructed and used to establish the standard curves. The assay has a wide dynamic range (2.5 × 108 copies/reaction ~ 25 copies/reaction) and sensitive to 1 copy for HTLV-1 and RPPH1. The limit of detection for Hut102 cell concentration was 0.0218% (95% confidence interval 0.0179–0.0298%). The assay gave coefficient of variation (CV) for both the HTLV-1 and RPPH1 Ct values. All of the HTLV-1 sero-negative samples and MOT cell line (infected with HTLV-2) amplified only the RPPH1 gene by our method, presenting 100% specificity. 85 Samples confirmed positive or indeterminate by LIA were performed by established qPCR assay and WB. 90.0% (27/30) of LIA-HTLV-1-positive, 33% (2/6) of LIA-untypeable and 2% (1/49) of LIA-indeterminate samples were defined as qPCR-positive. The median PVL of LIA-positive samples (n = 27, 1.780 copies/100 cells) was much higher than that of LIA-untypeable and (n = 2, 0.271 copies/100 cells) indeterminate samples (n = 1, 0.017 copies/ 100 cells). Additionally, compared to WB, the duplex qPCR verified more positive samples, demonstrating a better sensitivity. Conclusion: The duplex qPCR developed here with high sensitivity, good specificity and reproducibility could accurately and quantitatively detect the HTLV-1 PVLs, which can be used to confirm the initial reactive samples for an improved cost/benefit ratio as well as to monitor the clinical progression and efficacy of therapy in patients with HTLV-1 related disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The HTLV-1 prevalence in China varies geographically, while HTLV-2 infection has rarely been found so far. Proviral load is one of the determining factors of pathogenesis and progression of HTLV-1 related diseases. However, neither molecular assays nor commercial kits are available for HTLV-1 diagnosis in China. The objective of the present study was to develop and validate a TaqMan qPCR assay for HTLV-1 proviral load quantification. Results: A plasmid containing both the HTLV-1 of interest and a fragment of the RNase P (RPPH1) gene was constructed and used to establish the standard curves. The assay has a wide dynamic range (2.5 × 108 copies/reaction ~ 25 copies/reaction) and sensitive to 1 copy for HTLV-1 and RPPH1. The limit of detection for Hut102 cell concentration was 0.0218% (95% confidence interval 0.0179–0.0298%). The assay gave coefficient of variation (CV) for both the HTLV-1 and RPPH1 Ct values. All of the HTLV-1 sero-negative samples and MOT cell line (infected with HTLV-2) amplified only the RPPH1 gene by our method, presenting 100% specificity. 85 Samples confirmed positive or indeterminate by LIA were performed by established qPCR assay and WB. 90.0% (27/30) of LIA-HTLV-1-positive, 33% (2/6) of LIA-untypeable and 2% (1/49) of LIA-indeterminate samples were defined as qPCR-positive. The median PVL of LIA-positive samples (n = 27, 1.780 copies/100 cells) was much higher than that of LIA-untypeable and (n = 2, 0.271 copies/100 cells) indeterminate samples (n = 1, 0.017 copies/ 100 cells). Additionally, compared to WB, the duplex qPCR verified more positive samples, demonstrating a better sensitivity. Conclusion: The duplex qPCR developed here with high sensitivity, good specificity and reproducibility could accurately and quantitatively detect the HTLV-1 PVLs, which can be used to confirm the initial reactive samples for an improved cost/benefit ratio as well as to monitor the clinical progression and efficacy of therapy in patients with HTLV-1 related disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional stereoscopic displays suffer from vergence-accommodation conflict and cause visual fatigue. Integral-imaging-based displays resolve the problem by directly projecting the sub-aperture views of a light field into the eyes using a microlens array or a similar structure. However, such displays have an inherent trade-off between angular and spatial resolutions. In this paper, we propose a novel coded time-division multiplexing technique that projects encoded sub-aperture views to the eyes of a viewer with correct cues for vergence-accommodation reflex. Given sparse light field sub-aperture views, our pipeline can provide a perception of high-resolution refocused images with minimal aliasing by jointly optimizing the sub-aperture views for display and the coded aperture pattern. This is achieved via deep learning in an end-to-end fashion by simulating light transport and image formation with Fourier optics. To our knowledge, this work is among the first that optimize the light field display pipeline with deep learning. We verify our idea with objective image quality metrics (PSNR, SSIM, and LPIPS) and perform an extensive study on various customizable design variables in our display pipeline. Experimental results show that light fields displayed using the proposed technique indeed have higher quality than that of baseline display designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Senile thymus atrophy is an important factor leading to decreased immune function. Repairing the atrophic thymus tissue structure, rebuilding immune function, and replenishing the number of exogenous stem cells may be ideal methods. In this study, bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells were intravenously infused into elderly macaques. We found that thymus volume was substantially increased, some thymus tissue regeneration was observed, the degree of thymus tissue fibrosis decreased, collagen fiber deposition decreased, cortical and medulla structures emerged gradually, the number of apoptotic cells decreased significantly, and the expression of apoptosis-related proteins decreased. For the effects of stem cell therapy on aging-related genes, we performed transcriptomic analysis of thymus tissue. The results show the expression pattern of the tissue transcriptome tended to be similar to the thymus expression pattern in young macaques compared with the elderly group, reverse aging-related proteins. Based on the results, it is suggested that stem cell therapy is an ideal method to prevent or reverse the aging of the thymus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyspora Sweet (Theaceae) are winter ornamental landscape plants native to southern and southeastern Asia, some of which have medicinal value. The chloroplast (cp) genome data of Polyspora are scarce, and the gene evolution and interspecific relationship are still unclear. In this study, we sequenced and annotated Polyspora chrysandra cp genome and combined it with previously published genomes for other Chinese Polyspora species. The results showed that cp genomes of six Chinese Polyspora varied in length between 156,452 bp (P. chrysandra) and 157,066 bp (P. speciosa), but all contained 132 genes, with GC content of 37.3%, and highly similar genes distribution and codon usage. A total of eleven intergenic spacer regions were found having the highest levels of divergence, and eight divergence hotspots were identified as molecular markers for Phylogeography and genetic diversity studies in Polyspora. Gene selection pressure suggested that five genes were subjected to positive selection. Phylogenetic relationships among Polyspora species based on the complete cp genomes were supported strongly, indicating that the cp genomes have the potential to be used as super barcodes for further analysis of the phylogeny of the entire genus. The cp genomes of Chinese Polyspora species will provide valuable information for species identification, molecular breeding and evolutionary analysis of genus Polyspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the total PWM-induced power losses in interior permanent magnet (IPM) machines excited by wide bandgap (WBG)-based voltage-source inverters with different pulsewidth modulation (PWM) schemes and a wide range of switching frequencies. The PWM current ripple characteristics are predicted and compared using an accurate analytical model. Three enhanced power loss estimation models are utilized to estimate the PWM-induced power losses in each of three major machine materials: the stator form-wound windings, the stator and rotor iron cores, and the permanent magnets in the rotor cavities. The variation trend of each loss component versus PWM frequency and modulation scheme is provided. Experiments have validated the model accuracy in two IPM machines designed for traction applications. Both measured and predicted results suggest that increasing the PWM frequency is beneficial for suppressing the PWM-induced power losses in IPM machines. In conjunction with the reduction in machine-related power losses, it has also been demonstrated that a higher PWM frequency in IPM drives with WBG-based inverter exhibits the appealing potential for improving the system-level efficiency in traction applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) are commonly stabilized by a large amount of surfactants that should be removed after the polymerization of the continuous phase, and the resulting polyHIPEs from W/O HIPEs are usually brittle and chalky. Herein we report on an amphiphilic polymerizable polyurethane (PPU) macromolecular surfactant synthesized by polyaddition reaction of diisocyanates and polyols, which can well stabilize up to 88% internal phase volume of W/O HIPE with a content of only 5 wt% based the oil phase. Compared with the HIPEs stabilized by traditional surfactant Span 80, HIPEs stabilized by PPU at either room temperature or 70 °C are much more stable owing to the increased viscosity which can inhibit droplet coalescence. Moreover, the resulting polyHIPEs not only have several times higher mechanical properties than those stabilized by Span 80 but also have higher elasticity. The effects of concentration of PPU on the morphology and mechanical properties of the resulting polyHIPEs were investigated. It was found that with the increase of PPU content, the average void and window sizes decreased, while the compression strength increased. Cyclic compression tests were performed to examine reversible compressibility and durability of these polyHIPEs.The polymerizable polyurethane macromolecular surfactant (PPU) synthesized through the polyaddition reaction of diisocyanates and polyols can solely stabilize high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs), and highly interconnected macroporous polymer produced by the polymerization of HIPE stabilized with PPU, known as polyHIPE, can withstand large deformation compression with no visible cracks.Graphical abstract: High internal phase emulsions (HIPEs) are commonly stabilized by a large amount of surfactants that should be removed after the polymerization of the continuous phase, and the resulting polyHIPEs from W/O HIPEs are usually brittle and chalky. Herein we report on an amphiphilic polymerizable polyurethane (PPU) macromolecular surfactant synthesized by polyaddition reaction of diisocyanates and polyols, which can well stabilize up to 88% internal phase volume of W/O HIPE with a content of only 5 wt% based the oil phase. Compared with the HIPEs stabilized by traditional surfactant Span 80, HIPEs stabilized by PPU at either room temperature or 70 °C are much more stable owing to the increased viscosity which can inhibit droplet coalescence. Moreover, the resulting polyHIPEs not only have several times higher mechanical properties than those stabilized by Span 80 but also have higher elasticity. The effects of concentration of PPU on the morphology and mechanical properties of the resulting polyHIPEs were investigated. It was found that with the increase of PPU content, the average void and window sizes decreased, while the compression strength increased. Cyclic compression tests were performed to examine reversible compressibility and durability of these polyHIPEs.The polymerizable polyurethane macromolecular surfactant (PPU) synthesized through the polyaddition reaction of diisocyanates and polyols can solely stabilize high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs), and highly interconnected macroporous polymer produced by the polymerization of HIPE stabilized with PPU, known as polyHIPE, can withstand large deformation compression with no visible cracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stochastic reserving models used in the insurance industry are usually based on an assumed distribution of claim amounts. Despite their popularity, such models may unavoidably be affected by the misspecification issue given that it is likely that the underlying distribution will be different from that assumed. In this paper, we incorporate monotone splines to ensure the expected monotonically increasing pattern of cumulative development factors (CDFs) to develop a new semi-parametric reserving model that does not require a density assumption. To allow the maximum utilization of available information, we also propose an enhanced sampling approach that greatly increases the size of unbiased CDFs, particularly in later development periods. Based on the enhanced samples, a bootstrap technique is employed in the estimation of monotone splines, from which incurred-but-not-reported (IBNR) reserves and prediction errors can be obtained. Associated technical features, such as the consistency of estimator, are discussed and demonstrated. Our simulation studies suggest that the new model improves the accuracy of IBNR reserving, compared with a range of classic competing models. A real data analysis produces many consistent findings, thus supporting the usefulness of the monotone spline model in actuarial and insurance practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our aging society, dysphagia and malnutrition are growing concerns, necessitating intervention. Liquid nutrition support offers a practical solution for traditional dietary issues, but it raises a key issue: the potential for post-meal glucose spikes impacting efficacy. This study examined the effects of supplementation of Polygonatum cyrtonema Hua polysaccharide (PCP), konjac glucomannan (KGM) and their combination on acute phase postprandial glycemic response and long-term glucose metabolism in T2DM mice on a complete nutritional liquid diet. KGM was more effective in reducing postprandial glucose response, while PCP was more prominent in ameliorating long-term glucose metabolism. The KGM-PCP combination demonstrated superior outcomes in fasting blood glucose, insulin, and glucose homeostasis. PCP and KGM also influenced the composition and abundance of the gut microbiome, with the H-PCP group showing optimal performance. Moreover, the KGM-PCP combination improved body weight, lipid homeostasis, and liver health the most. PCP potentially regulates glycemia through metabolic pathways, while KGM improves glycemic metabolism by reducing postprandial glucose levels in response to viscous intestinal contents. This research identifies the structure, viscosity properties, and hypoglycemic effects of KGM and PCP in complete nutritional liquid diet fed T2DM mice, enabling their strategic utilization as hypoglycemic components in nutritional administration and glycemic regulation. [Display omitted] • PCP and KGM liquid diet could provide full-day nutritional support. • The KGM intervention was more effective in reducing the postprandial glycemic response. • The PCP intervention was more prominent in ameliorating long-term glucose metabolism. • The blended PCP-KGM group performed best in improving diabetes-related symptoms. • The H-PCP groups demonstrated the most optimal intestinal flora improved performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Modifiable risk factor is associated with imaging-based brain age gap (BAG). • BAG measures can reflect cognitive changes in normal cognitive aging. • Multimodal BAG mediates between modifiable risk factor and cognition. • Multimodal BAG is related to greater cognitive changes under higher risk exposure. Neuroimaging-based brain age gap (BAG) is presumably a mediator linking modifiable risk factors to cognitive changes, but this has not been verified yet. To address this hypothesis, modality-specific brain age models were constructed and applied to a population-based cohort (N = 326) to estimate their BAG. Structural equation modeling was employed to investigate the mediation effect of BAG between modifiable risk factors (assessed by 2 cardiovascular risk scores) and cognitive functioning (examined by 4 cognitive assessments). The association between higher burden of modifiable risk factors and poorer cognitive functioning can be significantly mediated by a larger BAG (multimodal: p = 0.014, 40.8% mediation proportion; white matter-based: p = 0.023, 15.7% mediation proportion), which indicated an older brain. Subgroup analysis further revealed a steeper slope (p = 0.019) of association between cognitive functioning and multimodal BAG in the group of higher modifiable risks. The results confirm that BAG can serve as a mediating indicator linking risk loadings to cognitive functioning, implicating its potential in the management of cognitive aging and dementia. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finally, a Zeiss laser scanning confocal microscope (LSM880, Carl Zeiss, Oberkochen, Germany) was used to observe the distribution of Mr-KIFC1 and Mr-Acrosin and the colocalization status of Mr-KIFC1 and AFS. At the same time, during the entire process of spermatogenesis in I M. rosenbergii i , Mr-KIFC1 localization was closely linked to nucleus reshaping (Figure 10a3-f3), which may explain the function of Mr-KIFC1 as a motor protein involved in sperm nucleus deformation. The above results indicate that Mr-Acrosin and Mr-KIFC1 are both involved in spermatogenesis and that Mr-Acrosin is transported by Mr-KIFC1, which leads us to speculate that Mr-KIFC1 may transport Mr-Acrosin along the AFS structure to the acrosome to exert protease-like effects and participate in the sperm-egg union in I M. rosenbergii i . 5. We also discovered that microtubules formed an umbrella-shaped AFS structure, and Mr-KIFC1 signals overlapped with tubulin, which may suggest that AFS act as scaffolds for Mr-KIFC1 to transport cargoes that are later organized into functional acrosomes. Multiple Sequence Alignment, Phylogenetic Evolutionary Tree Analysis and Protein Structu... The putative protein sequences of Mr-KIFC1 and Mr-Acrosin were obtained by the online sequence processing toolkit SMS (http://www.bio-soft.net/sms/, accessed on 10 March 2021). [Extracted from the article]

The focus of this study was to explore the association between the non-HDL-cholesterol to HDL-cholesterol (non-HDLc/HDLc) ratio and mortality in septic patients. This was a retrospective cohort study of patients with sepsis in the eICU Collaborative Research Database (eICU-CRD) from 208 distinct ICUs across the United States between 2014 and 2015 that explored. All-cause mortality within 28 days after ICU admission. A multivariable logistic regression model was used to estimate the risk of death. Of the 724 patients with a median age of 68 years, 43 (5.94%) died within 28 days after ICU admission. When the non-HDLc/HDLc ratio was < 3.3, the mortality rate decreased with an adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 0.60 (95% CI 0.37–0.99, P = 0.043) for every 1 increment in the non-HDLc/HDLc ratio. When the non-HDLc/HDLc ratio was ≥ 3.3, the mortality rate increased with an adjusted OR of 1.28 (95% CI 1.01–1.62, P = 0.039) for every one increment in the non-HDLc/HDLc ratio. For patients with sepsis, the association between the non-HDLc/HDLc ratio and the 28-day mortality risk was a U-shaped curve. A higher or lower non-HDLc/HDLc ratio was associated with an increased risk of 28-day mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better understand dynamic characteristic of rock in mud and water environment, quasi-static and dynamic uniaxial compressive tests were performed on cylindrical thick-walled granite specimen with various clay infillings. The results from quasi-static compressive tests show the existences of a central hole and clay infilling in cylindrical thick-walled specimen have no obvious effect on static mechanical behavior of specimens. Dynamic compressive tests indicate that the dynamic compressive strength (DCS) of cylindrical thick-walled granite specimen with clay infilling, which linearly increases with the strain rate, is the sum of DCS of hollow thick-walled granite specimen and the hydrodynamic pressure of clay fillings in the central hole space. The DCS of specimen increases with the increasing moisture content of clay infilling and the decreasing hole diameter at the same strain rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This communication proposes a novel method to design low-profile and miniaturized dual-band microstrip patch antenna for 5G mobile terminals. Magnetic coupling is introduced to excite the parasitic patch that aims to improve the impedance and efficiency bandwidths simultaneously. Magnetic coupling is applied to the first two modes of the half-mode patch, i.e., TM0.5,0 and TM0.5,1 modes, and the effects of the parasitic patch on both modes obey the same physical regulation. As a result, dual-band operation with enhanced bandwidths under a low profile is acquired. Slots are etched off for size reduction. The proposed dual-band patch antenna constructed by a pair of back-to-back slotted half-mode patches operating at partial 5G band N78 (3.4–3.6 GHz) and partial N79 (4.8–5.0 GHz) is with a profile of 1 mm ($0.012\lambda _{\mathrm {L}}$) and footprint of $31.35\times18$ mm2($0.36\lambda _{\mathrm {L}} \times 0.21\lambda _{\mathrm {L}}$). Measured results show that the −6 dB impedance bandwidths are 9.1% (3.46–3.79 GHz) at lower band and 4.3% (4.97–5.19 GHz) at higher, and the average efficiencies are −1.3 dB (74.1%) and −3.2 dB (47.9%). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the proposed dual-band patch antenna is with superior performance to most of the reported planar dual-band antennas considering bandwidth and volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing infrared and visible image fusion techniques based on generative adversarial networks (GAN) generally disregard local and texture detail features, which tend to limit the fusion performance. Therefore, we propose a GAN model based on dual fusion paths and a U-type discriminator, denoted as DUGAN. Specifically, the image and gradient paths are integrated into the generator to fully extract the content and texture detail features from the source images and their corresponding gradient images. This incorporation aids the generator in generating fusion results with rich information by integrating output features of dual fusion paths. In addition, we construct a U-type discriminator to focus on input images' global and local information, which drives the network to generate fusion results visually consistent with the source images. Furthermore, we integrate attention blocks in the discriminator to improve the representation of salient information. Experimental results demonstrate that DUGAN has better performance in qualitative and quantitative evaluation compared with other state-of-the-art methods. The source code has been released at https://github.com/chang-le-11/DUGAN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colorectal cancer was one of the major malignant tumors threatening human health and β-Gal was recognized as a principal biomarker for primary colorectal cancer. Thus, designing specific and efficient quantitative detection methods for measuring β-Gal enzyme activity was of great clinical test significance. Herein, an ultrasensitive detection method based on Turn-on fluorescence probe (CS-βGal) was reported for visualizing the detection of exogenous and endogenous β-galactosidase enzyme activity. The test method possessed a series of excellent performances, such as a significant fluorescence enhancement (about 11.3-fold), high selectivity as well as superior sensitivity. Furthermore, under the optimal experimental conditions, a relatively low limit of detection down to 0.024 U/mL was achieved for fluorescence titration experiment. It was thanks to the better biocompatibility and low cytotoxicity, CS-βGal had been triumphantly employed to visual detect endogenous and exogenous β-Gal concentration variations in living cells with noteworthy anti-interference performance. More biologically significant was the fact that the application of CS-βGal in BALB/c nude mice was also achieved successfully for monitoring endogenous β-Gal enzyme activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To meet the demands of the new frequency bands and the $4\times 4$ multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) specification brought by fifth generation (5G), a triple-band microstrip patch antenna and its four-antenna module are proposed. Based on the half-mode microstrip patch, the first three modes of TM1/2,0, TM1/2,1, and TM3/2,0 that can be independently tuned are engineered to cover the three Chinese 5G bands (N41/N78/N79). The proposed triple-band microstrip patch antenna with the volume of $33.5\times 32.5\times 4$ mm3 shows the −6 dB frequency bands of 2.47–2.75 GHz, 3.39–3.60 GHz, and 4.69–5.10 GHz, which makes a nice compromise between antenna volume and impedance bandwidths. Four such patches are arranged in a sequentially rotated style to constitute the triple-band four-antenna module, which is with the volume of $71\times 71\times 4$ mm3. Measured results of the module show high performance. The reflection coefficients of the four elements are almost identical: the bandwidths are 2.50–2.75 GHz, 3.41–3.62 GHz, and 4.68–5.01 GHz; all the isolations are better than −13.3 dB; the average total efficiencies of the four elements are between −1.41 and −1.11 dB, −2.45 and −2.10 dB, and −1.81 and −1.53 dB for N41, N78, and N79, respectively; and all the envelope correlation coefficients (ECCs) are lower than 0.07. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The huge proliferation of the antenna number brought by 5G greatly increases the pressure of the bezels of the 5G terminals. To release the pressure, planar four-antenna module with miniaturization and wideband performance that can be implemented on the back cover is proposed in this article. Four identical dual-mode PIFAs are arranged in a sequentially rotated style and the whole antenna appears in a circular shape. Each antenna element is a slotted quasi-quarter circle with one inner edge shorted and the other two edges left open, and it is coupled fed by an L-shaped microstrip line. A cross line that connects all the four elements together is used to improve the isolation of the neighboring elements. The four-antenna module covering N77 is with the diameter of 30.6 mm and height of 2 mm. The measured results show that for all the four antenna elements, the −6 dB impedance bandwidths cover 3.3–4.2 GHz, all the isolations are better than 9.7 dB, the average total efficiencies are between 36% and 40%, and envelope correlation coefficients (ECCs) are lower than 0.5. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the smallest four-antenna module covering 3.3–4.2 GHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a novel design of the dual-band antenna pair. Starting from the single-band antenna pair composed of T-shaped monopole and T-shaped slot that are intersected with each other, orthogonal T-monopole and odd-symmetrical slot modes are excited. By adding symmetrical low-pass high-stop filters into the horizontal stub of the T-monopole and high-pass low-stop filters into the gap of the T-slot, an extra mode is introduced for each antenna, producing dual-band operation. Impedance bandwidths and radiation efficiencies of both bands can be adjusted flexibly using the filters. A detailed design guideline is given. The dual-band antenna pair operating at partial N78 (p-N78, 3.4~3.6 GHz) and partial N79 (p-N79, 4.8~4.9 GHz) is with a footprint of $15\times 6$ mm2. The measured results show that the average efficiencies are both −3.4 dB at p-N78/p-N79 for the odd-symmetrical slot and −2.8 dB/−3.7 dB at p-N78/p-N79 for the T-monopole, isolations are better than −16.8 dB at p-N78 and −11.8 dB at p-N79, and ECCs are lower than 0.1 at p-N78 and 0.2 at p-N79. The proposed dual-band antenna pair exhibits great potential to be applied in the fifth-generation (5G) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) terminal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present experiment containing two dietary cadmium (Cd) levels (0 and 5 mg/kg) and two lipoic acid (LA) levels (0 and 600 mg/kg) was carried out to investigate the effects of dietary Cd on the growth, antioxidant capacity, immunity and intestine morphology of Macrobrachium nipponense and the alleviation effects of LA. We found that dietary Cd and LA had no significant effects on the growth of prawns. Dietary Cd significantly decreased the activity of antioxidant enzymes, resulting in a higher MDA level in the hepatopancreas. LA was added to diets that increased these antioxidant enzyme activities. Similarly, dietary Cd decreased the activity of lysozyme and content of NO in the serum, whereas dietary LA ameliorated these negative effects. Dietary Cd significantly increased the activities of GOT and GPT in the serum, and LA supplementation decreased the activities of these enzymes in the serum. The intestinal villus of prawns fed the diet containing Cd was partly detached from the basement membrane, and LA protected the integrity of the gut. In conclusion, dietary Cd depressed the antioxidant capacity and immunity, destroyed the intestine morphology of prawns and LA supplementation alleviated these negative effects caused by Cd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: All commercial Hepatitis C virus antibody (anti-HCV) assays use a combination of recombinant antigens to detect antibody response. Antibody responses to individual antigenic regions (core, NS3/4 and NS5) used in assays have not been investigated. Methods: In this study, we quantified HCV viral load, tested anti-HCV with four commercial assays (Ortho-ELISA, Murex-ELISA, Architect-CMIA and Elecsys-ECLIA) in 682 plasma specimens. In antigenic region ELISA platform, microwells were coated with three antigens: core (c22-3), NS3/4 (c200) and NS5 individually. The signal-to-cutoff (S/Co) values of different assays, and antibody responses to individual antigens were compared. The specimens were divided into HCV RNA positive group, anti-HCV consistent group, and anti-HCV discrepant group. Results: Anti-core and anti-NS3/4 were simultaneously detected in 99.2% of HCV RNA positive specimens and showed great consistency with total anti-HCV signals. Responses to the core region were more robust than those to the NS3/4 region in anti-HCV consistent group (p < 0.001). Anti-NS5 only occurred in companying with responses to the core and NS3/4 antigens, and failed to affect the final anti-HCV positive signals. In anti-HCV discrepant group, 39.0% of positive signals could not be traced back to any single antigenic region. Conclusion: Antibody responses to the core and NS3/4 antigens were stronger, whereas responses to the NS5 antigen were the weakest, indicating that individual antigenic regions played different roles in total anti-HCV signals. This study provides an impetus for optimizing commercial anti-HCV assays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The availability of wide-bandgap (WBG) power switches makes it possible to excite electric machines with much higher pulsewidth modulation (PWM) switching frequencies. This article experimentally characterizes the magnetic and iron loss properties of lamination steels over a wide range of PWM frequencies and magnetization states excited by a voltage-source inverter using GaN-based WBG switches. With the collected hysteresis loop and iron loss data, a new frequency-interconnected dynamic Jiles–Atherton (J–A) model has been developed explicitly for PWM-induced iron loss analysis. Experiments have been conducted to verify the model prediction accuracy over a broad range of operating conditions. The proposed model has been subsequently integrated with a dynamic hysteresis model devoted to fundamental field iron loss estimation, providing an accurate and efficient tool for total iron loss estimation during PWM voltage excitation using high-frequency WBG devices. This article includes an investigation of the impact of elevated fundamental frequencies and field amplitudes on the total iron loss including comparisons between analytical predictions and experimental test results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under global warming, surface air temperature has risen rapidly and sea ice has decreased markedly in the Arctic. These drastic climate changes have brought about various severe impacts on the vulnerable environment and ecosystem there. Thus, accurate prediction of Arctic climate becomes more important than before. Here we examine the seasonal to interannual predictive skills of 2-m air temperature (2-m T) and sea ice cover (SIC) over the Arctic region (70°–90°N) during 1980–2014 with a high-resolution global coupled model called the Met Office Decadal Prediction System, version 3 (DePreSys3). The model captures well both the climatology and interannual variability of the Arctic 2-m T and SIC. Moreover, the anomaly correlation coefficient of Arctic-averaged 2-m T and SIC shows statistically significant skills at lead times up to 16 months. This is mainly due to the contribution of strong decadal trends. In addition, it is found that the peak warming trend of Arctic 2-m T lags the maximum decrease trend of SIC by 1 month, in association with the heat flux forcing from the ocean surface to lower atmosphere. While the predictive skill is generally much lower for the detrended variations, we find a close relationship between the tropical Pacific El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Arctic detrended 2-m T anomalies. This indicates potential seasonal to interannual predictability of the Arctic natural variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of an effective Co3O4 material as an advanced non-noble metal catalyst for methane combustion has great economic and environmental significance. Herein, a facile acid etching procedure is adapted to engineer a defective Co3O4 possessing both highly exposed surface defects and lattice defects such as abundant oxygen vacancies. The defective structures facilitate an elevated exposure of active surface oxygen and enhanced redox properties. Meanwhile, the acid treatment endows a more acidic surface, which will promote the desorption of the CO2 product. Consequently, an improved activity for methane combustion with a half methane conversion temperature (T50) of 311 °C (33 000 mL g−1 h−1) is obtained for the defective Co3O4, corresponding to the methane conversion rate of 4.1 μmol g−1 s−1, 5.2 times that of the pristine Co3O4. The universality of this strategy is further verified towards a MnO2 catalyst. This study will provide positive guidance for non-noble metal catalyst design in the application of methane combustion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Edge computing has been proved an efficient approach to provisioning computation offloading service to vehicles on road through Road‐Side Units (RSUs). However, the traffic volume on road is highly dynamic, while RSU‐based edge servers are static in terms of geographical location and computation capacity. To address this problem, this paper proposes a mobile edge server placement strategy using cruising UAVs along the roads based on the genetic algorithm. A mathematical model is first built to characterize the deployment cost of these UAV‐mounted servers and their routes. Next, a heuristic UAV‐mounted edge server deployment scheme based on K‐medoid clustering and genetic algorithms is designed. Experimental results verify that the proposed UAV deployment scheme satisfies the offloading demand of IoV nodes while reducing the total deployment cost by 17.05–48.94% compared with existing popular approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In plants, the genome structure of hybrids changes compared with their parents, but the effects of these changes in hybrids remain elusive. Comparing reciprocal crosses between Col × C24 and C24 × Col in Arabidopsis using high‐throughput chromosome conformation capture assay (Hi‐C) analysis, we found that hybrid three‐dimensional (3D) chromatin organization had more long‐distance interactions relative to parents, and this was mainly located in promoter regions and enriched in genes with heterosis‐related pathways. The interactions between euchromatin and heterochromatin were increased, and the compartment strength decreased in hybrids. In compartment domain (CD) boundaries, the distal interactions were more in hybrids than their parents. In the hybrids of CURLY LEAF (clf) mutants clfCol × clfC24 and clfC24 × clfCol, the heterosis phenotype was damaged, and the long‐distance interactions in hybrids were fewer than in their parents with lower H3K27me3. ChIP‐seq data revealed higher levels of H3K27me3 in the region adjacent to the CD boundary and the same interactional homo‐trans sites in the wild‐type (WT) hybrids, which may have led to more long‐distance interactions. In addition, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) located in the boundaries of CDs and loop regions changed obviously in WT, and the functional enrichment for DEGs was different between WT and clf in the long‐distance interactions and loop regions. Our findings may therefore propose a new epigenetic explanation of heterosis in the Arabidopsis hybrids and provide new insights into crop breeding and yield increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: So far, the prevalence of human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) type 1 and 2 in some highly populated countries such as China is still unknown. In this study, a multi-center nationwide serological survey was designed and performed, to reveal the seroprevalence of HTLV infection among Chinese blood donors. Results: Among 8,411,469 blood donors from 155 blood establishments, 435 were finally confirmed as HTLV carriers. The prevalence of HTLV infection in China varied in different provinces: Fujian had the highest prevalence of 36.240/100,000 (95% CI 31.990–41.050) and eleven provinces did not find HTLV-seropositive donors in the three years. no HTLV-2 infection was found. The overall prevalence of HTLV-1 in China decreased from 2016 to 2018. Female was identified as an independent risk factor of HTLV infection in China. Besides, seroconversion was observed in two of seven seroindeterminate donors 85 and 250 days after their last donation, respectively. Conclusions: The seroprevalence of HTLV infection in most areas of China among blood donors is quite low, but it varies significantly in different geographic areas. Screening anti-HTLV-1/2 antibody and follow-up of serointederminate donors are essential to ensure blood safety especially in areas where we have found HTLV infected donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of the fifth generation (5G) communication networks, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems demand even lower computation complexity and power consumption while catching up with good detection performance. In this paper, a low-complexity nonlinear detection algorithm is proposed for massive MIMO systems, which is based on partial tree search and successive interference cancellation (SIC). The proposed scheme allows us to expedite the detection process by coping with the transmit symbols group by group. As compared to vertical-Bell laboratories layered space time (V-BLAST), the major breakthrough of computation reduction lies in the fact that the partial tree search can assist the detection process to avoid the inversion of the detection matrix required in each recursion of the SIC process. Both computational complexity analysis and simulation results show that our proposed algorithm not only significantly reduces computational complexity, but also has better bit error rate (BER) performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing literature argues that the mortality rate of a specific age is affected not only by its own lags but by the lags of neighbouring ages, known as cohort effects. Although these effects are assumed constant in most studies, they can be dynamic over a long timespan. Consequently, popular mortality models with time-invariant age-dependent coefficients, including the Lee-Carter (LC) and vector autoregression (VAR) models, are incapable of modelling these dynamic cohort effects. To capture such dynamic patterns, we propose a time-varying coefficient spatial-temporal autoregressive (TVSTAR) model that allows for flexible time-dependent parameters. The proposed TVSTAR model is compatible with multi-population modelling and enjoys sound statistical properties. Using empirical results of mortality data from the United Kingdom (UK) and France over the period 1950–2016, we show that the TVSTAR model consistently outperforms the LC (Li-Lee, or LL) and the original STAR model under the single-population (multi-population) modelling framework. Finally, our empirical results suggest that cohort effects strengthen over time for very old ages in both the UK and France. Using simulation evidence, we argue that this observed upward trend can be caused by the overall advancement in the mortality evolution of the same cohort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA could be detected in the blood of infected cases. From February 9, all blood establishments in Hubei province, China, implemented nucleic acid testing (NAT) for SARS-CoV-2 RNA among blood donors to ensure blood safety.Study Design and Methods: Nucleic acid test screening individually (ID) or by minipool (MP) testing was performed according to the manufacturer's instructions. Inactivated culture supernatant of SARS-CoV-2-infected Vero cells was quantified by droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) and series diluted with negative plasma to evaluate the assay's performance.Results: The limit of detection of the kit for MP testing was 62.94 and 33.14 copies/mL for N and ORF1ab region, respectively. ID testing could achieve 3.87 and 4.85 copies/mL for two regions using 1600 μL of plasma. Coefficients of variations of two different concentrations of reference samples were all less than 5% in MP testing. As of April 30, 2020, a total of 98,342 blood donations including 87,095 whole blood donations and 11,247 platelet donations were tested by ID or MP testing, and no RNAemia was found. In addition, Hubei province suffered precipitously decreased blood supply, especially in February: 86% reduction compared with the same period of 2019.Conclusion: Nucleic acid test screening of SARS-CoV-2 on blood donations is suitable in blood establishments using the commercial real-time PCR detection kit based on available instruments. The negative result indicated that SARS-CoV-2 appears to be no direct threat to blood safety but raises some serious issues for general blood supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is the only serological method approved for blood screening in China. Automated chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA) and electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA) had been used in clinical laboratories but not applied to screen HIV among blood donors. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of ELISA, CLIA, and ECLIA, focusing on the feasibility of CLIA/ECLIA for blood screening. Method. 1029 blood donations from 14 blood centers screened by ELISA were enrolled in the study. All plasma samples were tested by eight ELISA assays in 16 blood centers, followed by the detection of CLIA and ECLIA methods in the National Center for Clinical Laboratories (NCCL), further confirmed by nucleic acid testing (NAT) and Western blot (WB). Results. Of 1029 samples, 136 were confirmed as HIV positive. CLIA and ECLIA assay had similar sensitivities with ELISAs but showed higher specificity (CLIA: 99.1%, 885/893; ECLIA: 99.0%, 884/893), concordance rate (CLIA: 99.2%, 1021/1029; ECLIA: 99.1%, 1020/1029), and positive predictive value (PPV) (CLIA: 94.4%, 136/144; ECLIA: 93.8%, 136/145) than most of ELISA kits (>5 ELISAs) (P < 0.05). Kappa values of CLIA (0.967) and ECLIA (0.963) were the highest among all the serologic assays. Among 451 samples with initial ELISA reactivity, 315 were negatives, of which 307 (97.5%) and 306 (97.1%) were detected as nonreactive by CLIA (8 nonspecific reactions) and ECLIA (9 nonspecific reactions), respectively. Conclusion. Compared with ELISA, CLIA and ECLIA are more specific and accurate in detecting HIV antibody/antigen and can keep more nonspecifically reactive donors detected by ELISA. CLIA and ECLIA can be used for the improvement of serological blood screening strategy to avoid the unnecessary loss of blood donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Light field imaging, which captures spatial-angular information of light incident on image sensors, enables many interesting applications such as image refocusing and augmented reality. However, due to the limited sensor resolution, a trade-off exists between the spatial and angular resolutions. To increase the angular resolution, view synthesis techniques have been adopted to generate new views from existing views. However, traditional learning-based view synthesis mainly considers the image quality of each view of the light field and neglects the quality of the refocused images. In this paper, we propose a new loss function called refocused image error (RIE) to address the issue. The main idea is that the image quality of the synthesized light field should be optimized in the refocused image domain because it is where the light field is viewed. We analyze the behavior of RIE in the spectral domain and test the performance of our approach against previous approaches on both real (INRIA) and software-rendered (HCI) light field datasets using objective assessment metrics such as MSE, MAE, PSNR, SSIM, and GMSD. Experimental results show that the light field generated by our method results in better refocused images than previous methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the first time, zero-ground-clearance dual antenna pair with high isolation and balanced high performance is proposed. A T-shaped monopole intersects with a T-shaped slot that is etched on a large ground edge, constituting the CPW-fed dual antenna pair. By exploiting the odd and even modes of the CPW structure, two orthogonal characteristic modes including the in-phase current and monopole modes can be excited, generating high port isolation. Both modes are unbalanced mode, which means that the ground currents can be fully excited, so the two antennas are with balanced high performance. A sub-6 GHz antenna pair that occupies a footprint of $15\times 7$ mm2 ($0.18\,\,\lambda \,\times 0.08\,\,\lambda$) is analyzed and the simulated results show an isolation of better than −24 dB and an envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of lower than 0.0016, −6 dB bandwidths of 230 and 240 MHz, and average efficiencies of 57.9% and 57.4%. A four-antenna multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) array is fabricated and measured to verify the feasibility. The measured isolations and ECCs of the two modes are, respectively, better than −20.0 dB and 0.04, −6 dB bandwidths are 230 MHz/240 MHz and 220 MHz/230 MHz, and average efficiencies are 54.5%/50.2% and 49.9%/48.6%. The proposed dual antenna pair exhibits a great potential for 5G MIMO smartphone application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• CuxAg 2−x SnS 3 (CATS) thin-films were designed and fabricated for photovoltaic applications. • Proper Ag doping can lead to both higher J SC and FF of the solar cells. • A efficiency of 3.99% was achieved for 0.16-CATS solar cells. For the promising next-generation thin-film solar cells, Cu 2 SnS 3 (CTS) solar cells still suffer from low open circuit voltage (V OC) and so resulting an unsatisfactory power conversion efficiency. Herein, Ag was introduced in solution-processed CTS thin films via adding AgNO 3 into precursor solution for photovoltaic devices. Compared with CTS, the V OC deficit for CuxAg 2−x SnS 3 (CATS) based cells could be effectively reduced for about 10 mV, together with the increased short circuit current density (J SC) and fill factor (FF), a power conversion efficiency of 3.99% was achieved. Such improved performance of CATS cells could be attributed to the improved crystallization, reduced shunting channels and the decreased band-gap of CATS films. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]