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In this paper, we study a buffer-aided TDMA uplink network, where multiple status-update devices and throughput-demand devices are supposed to upload their data to one information access point (AP), and all devices are assumed to be provisioned with a data buffer to temporarily store the randomly generated data from either the installed sensor or upper-layer applications. To fulfill the communication requirements using two types of devices, the average Age of Information (AoI) is utilized to characterize the data freshness of the status-update devices, while the average sum rate is employed to capture the average transmission performance of the throughput-demand devices. On this basis, a joint-optimization problem was formulated to minimize the average AoI for status-update devices and to maximize the average sum rate for the throughput-demand devices. Lyapunov optimization framework was used to solve the problem of obtaining an AoI-aware adaptive TDMA uplink scheme. Numerical results are presented to show that an AoI-aware adaptive TDMA uplink scheme can effectively fulfill the heterogeneous service requirements using status-update devices and throughput-demand devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of aerospace technology, the tribological performance of moving parts under extreme operating conditions has attracted a great deal of attention and interest. The application of solid lubricant coatings has become a major means of improved performance to ensure stable operation. Although molybdenum disulfide (MoS 2) and diamond-like carbon (DLC) films have excellent low coefficients of friction, they are prone to failure in vacuum because they cannot overcome the challenges of assembly in atmospheric environments. Surprisingly, unexpected results were obtained in this study using conventional nitride films. Specifically, the friction coefficient of TiN/SiC friction pair in vacuum is 0.21 and the wear rate is 8.8 × 10−7 mm3/mN. The relatively stable friction coefficient is mainly attributed to the formation of carbonaceous lubricating layer at the interface, which is the decisive factor in reducing wear. The friction coefficient of TiN/WC friction pair under N 2 atmosphere is 0.31 and the wear rate is 4.5 × 10−7 mm3/mN. It can be summarized as follows: first, the mechanochemical induced chemical reaction of the interface, and secondly, the thermally excited nitrogen atoms saturate the dangling bonds of the transfer film. The results further reveal the friction mechanism of TiN films with advanced ceramic materials under harsh conditions and suggest a guide for engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • (NbMoTaW)V 50 films with special nanochannel structures were prepared by magnetron sputtering. • Helium bubbles tend to be precipitated on the free surface of the nanochannels rather than dispersed within the grains. • Nanoindentation results show that He+ ion irradiation enhances the creep properties of the films. • After the creep test, the helium bubble number density at the nanochannel decreases but their size becomes larger. Material degradation due to precipitation of implanted helium (He) is a major concern in nuclear facilities. Conventional structural design strategies are only limit the nucleation and accumulation of He bubbles, by contrast, we have prepared (NbMoTaW)V 50 films with a unique nanochannel structure by taking advantage of the free surfaces exhibiting benefits in He management and release behavior. The films were irradiated with 50 keV high-energy He+ ion irradiation. The microstructure of the irradiated films revealed that the nanochannels are decorated with He bubbles, while the number of He bubbles within the grains is minimal. Nanoindentation tests revealed that He+ ion irradiation enhances the film's creep resistance. Furthermore, the He atoms accumulated on the free surface of the grain boundaries tends to migrate and coalesce into He clusters under the influence of stress, subsequently releasing to the surface through nanochannels, thus mitigating the irradiation-induced volume swelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High entropy oxides (HEO) are widely used as anode for lithium-ion batteries due to their exceptional chemical stability and mechanical strength. However, HEO encounters challenges such as low initial coulomb efficiency (ICE) and poor capacity. To address these issues, a simple mechanochemical method is employed to selectively amorphized and densely embed LiF within the HEO matrix. Taking advantage of the differing chemical properties of LiF and HEO, the transformation of LiF's crystal structure not only overcomes its poor ionic conductivity but also successfully constructs an amorphous LiF/crystalline HEO heterostructure, which also improves the transport capacity of lithium ions. Additionally, the presence of abundant defects (e.g., oxygen vacancies, dislocations, and stacking faults) boosts the material's lithium transport and storage capacity. Furthermore, LiF facilitates the formation of a stable solid electrolyte interface (SEI) film on the HEO surface, preventing the corrosion of active materials and minimizing side reactions, effectively improving the ICE. The as-prepared LiF/HEO-48 demonstrates a superior initial capacity of 1632.9/1158.5 mAh g−1, along with an ICE of 70.9%. It maintains a high reversible capacity of 552.2 mAh g−1 after 1000 cycles at 0.5 A g−1, and even after 400 cycles at 2 A g−1, it retains 99.4% of its capacity. This study may open up new ways to selectively construct amorphous/heterostructures to improve the ICE and capacity of lithium-ion anodes. [Display omitted] • Selective regulation achieves the amorphous LiF in the LiF/HEO mixture. • An amorphous LiF/crystalline HEO heterostructure was successfully constructed. • The optimized HEO delivers a superior initial capacity and significantly improved initial coulomb efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimizing and regulating the process parameters to form a uniform distribution of nanosized dispersoids remains a major challenge in additive manufacturing oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloys. This study introduces the influence of scanning speed and laser power on the microstructure evolution of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) ODS FeCrAl alloy. Low laser power and high scanning speed reduce the size of oxide particles and increase their number density. The energy density threshold is 83 J/m3, below which the powder fails to achieve complete melting, leading to the formation of defects during solidification. High density and large number of oxide particles were obtained for the printed samples under the parameters of 140 W laser power and 600 mm/s scanning speed. The average size and number density of oxide particles were ∼ 21.61 nm and ∼ 1.8 × 1020/m3, respectively. High scanning speed have a rapid cooling rate which affects the dislocation density and the average width of the columnar grains. Low laser power significantly weakens the 〈100〉 fiber texture, which is related to the degree of recrystallization in the remelted region. The core-shell oxides consisting of Y-Al-O and Y-Ti-O were distributed in the samples deposited at low and high laser powers, respectively. The formation of core-shell oxide particles in LPBF ODS FeCrAl alloys involves solid-state amorphization and recrystallization. This study can be a guideline to achieve materials with specific microstructure for ODS alloys. • High-density ODS FeCrAl alloys were built by selective laser melting (SLM) process. • Low laser power and high scanning speed result in obtaining small-sized and high-density nanoparticles. • The modification of the laser power affects the composition of core-shell structured oxide particles. • The formation of nanoparticles in SLM ODS FeCrAl alloys involves solid-state amorphization and recrystallization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional view holds that transition metal nitride films have high friction coefficient and difficult to regulate. It is very challenging to obtain low friction consumption, which limits their wide application. Here, the tribological behavior of TiN films prepared by multi-arc ion plating and GCr15 steel balls under nitrogen atmosphere have been systematically investigated. It is interesting that TiN film in an alternating atmosphere shows a good adaptability similar to that of H-DLC films in the atmosphere of nitrogen. Specifically, the friction coefficient is higher in vacuum, but lower in nitrogen atmosphere. The multi-cycle variation in the frictional environment confirms the adsorption of nitrogen molecules at the sliding interface. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results from the wear tracks show the formation of oxide and the adsorption of nitrogen at the sliding interface. In addition, the synergistic mechanism of N 2 molecule as electron donor and electrostatic repulsion and nitrogen atoms and tribo-transfer film was established. It provides a general strategy for the regulation of hard films in nitrogen atmosphere. Image 1 • The controllable friction coefficient of TiN films under alternating atmosphere is reported. • The first time to explain the friction mechanism in nitrogen by using oxide ion potential and electrostatic repulsion. • TiN films have broad application prospects in nitrogen atmospheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transmission against a smart attacker has recently been formulated as a non-collaborative game, in which the reinforcement learning-based transmitter is devised to suppress the attack motivation of the malicious attacker for more secure transmission. Basically, large enough transmission power is needed to obtain the Nash equilibrium in favour of the MIMO transmitter. When energy efficiency is required, a secure MIMO transmission design with reasonable energy efficiency will become highly desirable. This study focuses on how to make the MIMO transmitter not only resist malicious attacker but also realise reasonable energy efficiency. To this end, a new game between the MIMO transmitter and the malicious attacker is formulated to take into account the energy efficiency of the MIMO transmitter. Since the energy efficiency requirement tends to reduce the transmission power by the MIMO transmitter, which may degrade the realised security performance in an adverse environment, the probabilistic transmission strategy was employed to further enhance the secure transmission. The analysis results unveil that the proposed energy-efficient secure MIMO transmission design can not only ensure reasonable security performance but also noticeably improve energy efficiency performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coded caching is an effective technique to reduce peak network traffic load by exploiting coded multicasting opportunities among users with all possible requests. However, most existing works on coded caching design assume identical file sizes. In this paper, to fully exploit the coded multicasting opportunities in decentralized coded caching system with heterogenous file sizes, a file partitioning and grouping (FPG) scheme is proposed. In the FPG scheme, every file is divided into multiple subfiles, so that the subfiles of the same size from different files can be grouped into subfile groups. Based on the proposed FPG scheme, we formulate a placement optimized design problem to minimize the worst-case transmission load, in which we address how to allocate the limited cache sizes at users to different subfile groups. The optimal placement is found to be dependent on all file sizes and the cache size, as well as the number of subfile groups. The numerical results show that, the FPG scheme outperforms the existing decentralized coded caching schemes in the literature. Moreover, it can even approach the performance of the optimized centralized coded caching scheme when the number of files is smaller than the number of users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Titanium nitride (TiN) film as a hard material is omnipresent, and plays a crucial role in extensive engineering and functional applications. The friction coefficient of TiN film is generally high (0.5–0.8) in atmospheric environment, and the coefficient of friction in vacuum is predicted to be higher based on adsorption theory and lack of heat transfer media. At present, we investigate the tribological behavior of TiN film in atmosphere and vacuum environments. Counterintuitively, the average friction coefficient is 0.58 at ambient air, while that in vacuum is 0.31. One reason is that the reduction of oxygen content can effectively inhibit oxidation and form low friction at the sliding interface. Meanwhile, the electrostatic repulsion generated by the nitrogen atoms on the surface of TiN film is another reason for the low friction. The results indicate that TiN film has a potential feasibility application in vacuum environment. • Preparation of TiN films with excellent properties by multi-arc ion plating technology. • The friction coefficient of TiN films in vacuum is smaller than that in atmosphere environment. • TiN films have potential applications in space field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the buffer-aided two-way wireless energy harvesting (EH) relay network comprising two users and one relay, where two users exchange information with the help of the relay via three phases ofEH, multiple-access, and broadcast. By transforming the opportunistic scheduling design problem into an equivalent convex problem, we present the adaptive design for the buffer-aided two-way EH relay network to maximize the long-term achievable rate region. To fulfill the delay sensitive transmission requirements, a delay-aware adaptive transmission (DAAT) scheduling scheme is proposed to guarantee the average end-to-end delivery delay by employing the Lyapunov optimization framework. Our analysis discloses that the average achievable rate region of the two-way wireless EH relay network can be improved when fully considering the potentials by deploying data buffer and energy storage at the relay. There exists an inherent tradeoff among the achievable sum rate, the delivery delay, and the power consumption. It is shown that, when a certain time delay is tolerable, the DAAT scheduling scheme is able to realize a rate region arbitrarily close to the achievable rate region of the buffer-aided two-way wireless EH relay network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective transportation status surveillance imposes critical challenges for the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) design. In this paper, the microscopic congestion detection protocol (MCDP) is proposed to make the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication capable of monitoring vehicle density and identifying traffic jam. By introducing transportation control domain in the existing network protocol header, each vehicle can count its neighbors and estimate the time spacing among vehicles. MCDP provides an infrastructure-less solution to the estimate of vehicle density, flow, and average velocity in a microscopically manner. Moreover, the safety speed limit is introduced to make each vehicle calculate its time to cover the intervehicle distance, such that every vehicle is able to assess the transportation congestion by comparing with some predefined safety time threshold. Monte Carlo simulations of the MCDP over four typical Chinese highways are presented to compare the MCDP scheme with the existing Green-Shield congestion detection scheme. In addition, real road traces generated by SUMO over NS2 are utilized to show the achieved performance in terms of throughput, end-to-end delay, and packet delivery rate (PDR) in comparison to DSR and AOMDV in IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 802.11ac scenarios. On the basis of all the results, we conclude that MCDP is an inexpensive transport congestion detection technique for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast cancer1 (BRCA1) and E2F transcription factor 1 (E2F1) are related tometabolism and cell cycle regulation. However, the corresponding mechanism is not clear in HCC. High BRCA1 direct pathway was constructed with 11 molecules from E2F1 feedbackinteractive network in HCC by GRNInfer based on 39 Pearson mutual positive corelation CC ≥0.25 molecules with E2F1. Integration of GRNInfer with GO, KEGG, BioCarta, GNF_U133A, UNIGENE_EST, Disease, GenMAPP databases by DAVID and MAS 3.0, E2F1 feedback-interactive BRCA1 indirect mitochondrion to cytosol pathway was identified as upstream LAPTM4B activation, feedback UNG, downstream BCAT1-HIST1H2AD-TK1reflecting protein, andDNAbinding with enrichment ofsmall molecule metabolism; The corresponding BRCA1 indirect membrane to cytosol pathway as upstream CCNB2-NUSAP1 activation, feedback TTK-HIST1H2BJ-CENPF, downstream MCM4-TK1 reflecting ATP, and microtubule binding with enrichment ofCD4+T-related cell cycle regulation in HCC. Therefore, we propose that E2F1 interactive with BRCA1 pathway induces HCC two different small molecule metabolism or cell cycle regulation via mitochondrion or CD4+T to cytosol. Knowledge analysis demonstrates our E2F1 feedback-interactive BRCA1 pathway wide disease distribution and reflects a novel common one of tumor and cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneous localization and tracking (SLAT) in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) involves tracking the mobile target while calibrating the nearby sensor node locations. In practice, localization error propagation (EP) phenomenon will arise, due to the existence of the latest tracking error, target mobility, measurement error, and reference node location errors. In this case, the SLAT performance limits are crucial for the SLAT algorithm design and WSN deployment, and the study of localization EP principle is desirable. In this paper, we focus on the EP issues for the received signal strength-based SLAT scheme, where the measurement accuracy is assumed to be spatial-temporal-domain doubly random due to the target mobility, environment dynamics, and different surroundings at different reference nodes. First, the Cramer–Rao lower bound (CRLB) is derived to unveil both the target tracking EP and the node location calibration EP. In both cases, the EP principles turn out to be in a consistent form of the Ohm’s Law in circuit theory. Second, the asymptotic CRLB analysis is then presented to reveal that both EP principles scale with the inverse of sensor node density. Meanwhile, it is shown that, the tracking and calibration accuracy only depends on the expectation of the measurement precision. Third, the convergence conditions, the convergence properties, and the balance state of the target tracking EP and the location calibration EP are examined to shed light on the EP characteristics of the SLAT scheme Finally, numerical simulations are presented to corroborate the EP analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperative localization is an important technique in wireless networks. However, there are always errors in network node localization, which will spatially propagate among network nodes when performing network localization. In this paper, we study the spatial error propagation (EP) characteristics of network localization in terms of Fisher information. First, the spatial propagation function is proposed to reveal the spatial cooperation principle of network localization. Second, the convergence property of spatial localization information propagation (SLIP) is analyzed to shed light on the performance limits of network localization through spatial information propagation. It is shown that 1) the network localization error propagates in the way of Ohm's law in electric circuit theory, where the measurement accuracy, node location accuracy, and geometric-resolution information behave like the resistances connected in parallel or series; 2) the network location error gradually diminishes with spatial localization cooperation procedures, due to the cooperative localization information propagation; and 3) the essence of spatial localization cooperation among network nodes is the spatial propagation of localization information. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A novel sparse domain-based information hiding framework is proposed in this paper to attach the watermarking signal to the most significant sparse components of the host signal over the pre-defined overcomplete dictionary. The adaptive sparse domain can be utilized to embed watermarking logo with better security and robustness. This can be realized owing to the fact that, not only the sparse domain can be customized from the given samples, but also the sparse transform coefficients of the original watermarking signal can be embedded, which provides inherent privacy. This paper provides two kinds of methods that embed watermark directly and embed the sparse representation coefficients of watermarking logo, and analyzes the condition of uniqueness of the sparse solution. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed sparse domain digital watermarking technique over the traditional frequency domain or spatial domain schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many problems in signal processing and statistical inference involve finding sparse solution to some underdetermined linear system of equations. This is also the application condition of compressive sensing (CS) which can find the sparse solution from the measurements far less than the original signal. In this paper, we propose l1- and l2-norm joint regularization based reconstruction framework to approach the original l0-norm based sparseness-inducing constrained sparse signal reconstruction problem. Firstly, it is shown that, by employing the simple conjugate gradient algorithm, the new formulation provides an effective framework to deduce the solution as the original sparse signal reconstruction problem with l0-norm regularization item. Secondly, the upper reconstruction error limit is presented for the proposed sparse signal reconstruction framework, and it is unveiled that a smaller reconstruction error than l1-norm relaxation approaches can be realized by using the proposed scheme in most cases. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate the proposed sparse signal reconstruction approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive or radioactive I- and IO3- in industrial wastewater may cause thyroid lesions and even carci-nogenesis. It does harm to the ecological environment. Therefore, it is imperative to remove I- and IO3- from wastewater. Adsorption, membrane separation and chemical precipitation are the conventional methods. In recent years, in order to improve the removal efficiency and reduce the secondary pollution caused by the regeneration process of adsorbent, electrochemical and photochemical assisted adsorption have attracted attention of most researchers. In this paper, the basic principles of the above methods are introduced, and the progress of materials for treating iodine-containing wastewater such as ion-exchange resins, layered doublehydroxides,metal organic frame compounds, natural mineral materials, biomass materials and membrane materials are emphasized. Finally, the future research directions are prospected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the complexity of soil and straw properties and the interactions among soil, straw and tillage tools, specific straw incorporating implements were designed and developed for particular working conditions. Different types of rotary tillers that adapted to different field states were produced in the last decades for straw burial. However, past efforts of assessment on rotary tillers were focused mainly on their soil working performances. Seldom has been done to assess the performance of rotary tillers and their effect on both soil disturbance and straw distribution in the tilled soil layer. A field experiment was thus conducted to compare the performances of rotary tillers on mediating soil and straw after rice harvesting. A mini-power rotor tiller was run on a platform developed for in-situ tillage test. Soil surface and micro-relief was measured with profilometer. Straw distribution was measured with a three-dimension coordinate tester. The measured results were transferred to Pro-E software, in which the measured data of straw distribution in soil were modeled and assessed. It was found that down-cut rotary tillage resulted into a gently humped soil surface over the tilled region, whereas the up-cut treatment led to a sink of soil surface in the mid region and the ridges along two sides of the tilled plot. Severe humping of fragmented soil was also observed in the up-cut tillage. It was therefore concluded that, for min-power rotor tillers in paddy field, the down-cut tillage provided better surface micro-relief than the up-cut. A higher percentage of buried straw, 88.91%, was acquired with the down-cut tilling. But it was low for the up-cut, which was 83.26%. The heaping-up of straw was also severe in the up-cut treatment, which was 33.02%, 8.19% higher than that from the down-cut. This indicated that the down-cut was more preferable for mini-power rotor tiller design compared with the up-cut. Analysis on the sectioned regions with the Pro-E revealed more straw concentration in the 5-10 cm soil layer for the down-cut tillage, while the up-cut treatment provided a more evenly distribution of straw in the soil volume. The modeled straw distribution in soil volume was sectioned into the grids at 3 different scales, and the total length of straw under the down-cut tillage revealed the smaller coefficient of variations (P<0.05). The up-cut tilling did prove its benefits, such as enhancing soil fragmentation and a highly leveled soil surface within the treated area. But the soil and straw heaping ahead of the machine was a main constraint for its adaptation to the paddy soil. Designing and developing of mini-rotor tillers for improving the performance of proper handling the soil and straw requires further investigation on the system optimization of soil structure, straw, tool geometry and working parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid, but not hollow or porous, carbon microspheres decorated with silver nanoparticles (AgNP-CMSs) were prepared from silver nitrate and CMSs by a redox reaction at room temperature. The CMSs and AgNP-CMSs were characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and UV–vis spectrophotometry. Though with non-high specific surface area, the AgNP-CMSs exhibited a high adsorption capacity toward methylene blue (MB) in an aqueous solution. The AgNP-CMSs were able to remove all the MB from a solution of 30 mg/L MB in water within 1 min when the adsorbent concentration was 0.12 g/L. The AgNP-CMSs also exhibited good adsorption and photocatalytic activity in the decomposition of aqueous Rhodamine B as well as MB under visible light. FTIR was used to examine the interaction between AgNP-CMSs and MB, and the spectrum and more extra experiments suggest ionic interactions between cationic dyes and the negatively charged groups can be formed but not the presence of abundant π–π conjugations between dye molecules and the aromatic rings. The origin of the photocatalytic activity of AgNP-CMSs was attributed to a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of the silver nanoparticles on the CMSs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Monodisperse carbon microspheres (CMSs) are easily prepared by hydrothermal synthesis. • There are abundant carbonaceous and carbonate species in CMSs as electron acceptor. • Irradiation can enhance the adsorption of Rhodamine B and methylene blue on CMSs. • Adsorption kinetics obeys pseudo-first-order kinetics following Freundlich isotherm. • Photosensitivity of dye and electrostatics are the key factors of enhanced adsorption. Monodisperse carbon microspheres (CMSs) with various diameters were prepared from glucose under controllable hydrothermal conditions at mild temperature. The as-synthesized CMSs were mainly characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectrometer. Their adsorption capacity was evaluated by the measurements of relative concentrations of methyl orange (MO), Rhodamine B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB) in the solution under UV and/or visible light irradiation, respectively. By UV and/or visible light irradiation after the saturation of adsorption in the dark, a marked decrease in concentration of RhB and MB was observed, which recovered a heightened adsorption capacity of CMSs. With the decrease of dye concentration, the relative removal of dye increased. Moreover, the diameter of CMSs affected the irradiation-heightened adsorption, which the smaller ones improved the enhancement. The adsorption capacities of the studied CMSs for MB and RhB are estimated to be from 12.08 mg g−1 in the dark to 24.28 mg g−1 after irradiation and from 6.83 mg g−1 in the dark to 21.47 mg g−1 after irradiation, respectively. The adsorption kinetics obeys pseudo-first-order kinetics following the Freundlich isotherm. A possible mechanism for the irradiation-heightened adsorption property of CMSs was discussed. The cationic dyes Rhodamine B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB) can be adsorbed on the surfaces of hydrothermal carbon microspheres (CMSs) under the UV and/or visible light irradiation after the saturation of adsorption in the dark. The photosensitivity of RhB and MB, electrostatics, π-π interactions and functional groups of CMSs are thought to be the main reasons for the heightened adsorptivity of the as-prepared product. (a) Changes in relative concentration of dyes in the solution in which pristine CMSs were dispersed with irradiation of visible light after the saturation of adsorption in the dark. Experimental conditions: [dye] = 10 mg/L, [CMSs] = 0.4 g/L. (Inset: TEM image of CMSs), (b) Proposed mechanism for the irradiation-heightened adsorption of RhB and MB by hydrothermal CMSs after the saturation adsorption reached in the dark. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: PbMoO4-coated carbon microspheres (CMSs@PbMoO4) were synthesized by a multistep method using CMSs as a support. In this synthesis dispersed CMSs were prepared by a hydrothermal method using glucose as a carbon source and used as an absorbent and support coated by PbMoO4 at room temperature. The as-prepared CMSs@PbMoO4 was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared sample was evaluated by degradation of Rhodamine B in aqueous solution under visible light irradiation. The CMSs@PbMoO4 show effective photocatalytic activity. In addition, the photocatalytic mechanism of CMSs@PbMoO4 was proposed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Objective. Clear cell sarcoma of the kidney (CCSK) is a lethal pediatric renal malignancy with poor prognosis. A prognostic nomogram needs to be established for overall survival (OS) prediction of patients with CCSK. Methods. Eligible 2588 CCSK patients (age 0–19) diagnosed between 2000 and 2017 were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Patients were randomized into training and validation cohorts (7 : 3). Independent prognostic factors were identified by univariate and multifactorial Cox regression analyses and used to construct a nomogram. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis (DCA) were used to validate the nomogram. Moreover, a risk classification system was established based on the risk scores of the nomogram. Results. Cox analyses revealed that age, combined stage, and origin were most significant prognostic factors. Based on these prognostic factors, a nomogram was established for predicting 3- and 5-year OS of patients with CCSK. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 3- and 5-year OS was 0.733 and 0.728 in the training cohort, corresponding to 0.69 and 0.674 in the validation cohort. The C-index of calibration curves in the training and validation cohorts was 0.724 and 0.686. DCAs indicated the clinical utility of this nomogram. A risk classification system stratified CCSK patients into three different risk cohorts. The OS time of low-, intermediate-, and high-risk patients was 76, 68, and 65 months in the training cohort, corresponding to 69.5, 66, and 72 months in the validation cohort. Conclusion. A nomogram-based risk classification system has high accuracy for the prognostic prediction of CCSK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• By controlling the concentration of Li-ions, the phase composition of high entropy oxide (HEO) can be regulated. • A high concentration of point defects (i.e., oxygen vacancies) and extended defects (such as dislocations and stacking faults) can be introduced into the spinel phase. • Successful control over defect engineering in spinel-rocksalt dual-phase HEO has been achieved through phase-selective regulation. • The incorporation of an intergrown interface improves the conductivity and structural stability of electrode materials. This paper presents the effectiveness of phase-selective regulation in the Mg-Co-Ni-Mn-Zn-O-based spinel-rocksalt dual-phase high entropy oxide (HEO) for achieving novel electrochemical properties. The key factor distinguishing spinel from rocksalt in response to Li-ion incorporation is the separation of ions at tetrahedral sites, which offers greater structural adjustability and enables incoordinate defect regulation of individual phases. The optimized Li incorporation facilitates a high concentration of point defects (specifically oxygen vacancies) and appropriately extended defects (such as dislocations and stacking fault) in the spinel phase, accompanied by a spinel-rocksalt intergrown interface. These exquisite adjustments improve the conductivity, structural stability, and specific capacity of the HEO electrode material. Nevertheless, the ever-increasing Li content triggers the transformation from a spinel-rocksalt dual-phase HEO to a single-phase rocksalt HEO, resulting in serious lattice distortion and excessive defects that hinder the efficient transport of Li-ion, ultimately leading to unsatisfactory electrochemical performance. Thus, phase-selective engineering facilitates the determination of appropriate defects that synergistically interact with the intergrown interface and the dual-phase structure. The optimized HEO20 exhibits outstanding electrochemical performance, with a high initial discharge capacity of 2049.8 mAh g−1 at 0.1C and a high-rate capability of 502.9 mAh g−1 at 2C. Moreover, it demonstrates remarkable battery capacity retention of 99.5% after 1300 cycles at 0.5C and a stable cycle performance of 717.3 mAh g−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multilayered Si-DLC coatings with different modulation period were fabricated by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Friction and wear properties were determined using a reciprocating ball-on disk tester in water and air environments. The multilayered Si-DLC coating exhibits very low friction (~0.05) after running-in period in air. Under water lubrication, the coating maintains low friction (0.07–0.08) at the beginning of the friction. However, when the reciprocating sliding cycle in water reaches a certain value, the friction coefficient starts to rise and finally shows high friction (~0.13). Meanwhile, the wear rate of the coating in water is much lower than that in air. Moreover, we found that the low friction in air is attributed to the deep groove capture of the wear debris and the formation of Si rich transfer layer on the counter ball. The high friction in the water is caused by corrosion on the surface of the counter ball. Unlabelled Image • The multilayer Si-DLC coating exhibits very low friction (~0.05) after running-in period in air. • Under water lubrication, the coating does not always maintain low friction. • Probing the lubrication mechanism of multilayer Si-DLC coating with different modulation period in water and air environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precision hill-drop direct seeding using mechanical drilling is a unique direct seeding technique employed in south China that offers advantages such as excellent grain yield and high lodging resistance. Improving yield and lodging-related traits is essential for efforts to improve mechanically direct-seeded rice (MDSR) production. Seeding rates (SR) and nitrogen (N) fertilization rate are two of the main factors affecting grain yield and lodging resistance under MDSR production. However, little information about double-season MDSR production in south China is available. Here, we evaluated yield and lodging risk for two rice cultivars Huanghuazhan, HHZ, lodging-resistant; Xiangyaxiangzhan, XYXZ, lodging-susceptible across two consecutive growing seasons under two under two seeding rates (LSR, 30 cm × 18 cm; HSR, 30 cm × 12 cm) and three N fertilization rates (N1 = 100 kg ha−1, reduced N; N2 = 150 kg ha−1, normal N; and N3 = 200 kg ha−1, enhanced N). We found that increased SR and N fertilization rate improved grain yield and increased lodging risk. SR and N were consistently and positively related to plant height (PH), gravity center height (GCH), the length from the broken basal internode to the panicle tip (SL), the fresh plant weight of the plant part above the broken point (FW), and the length of the two basal internodes. SR and N decreased breaking force (F) and breaking strength (BM), driving increased lodging risk as reflected by increases in lodging index (LI) values. Culm diameter (CD) and culm wall thickness (CWT) did not respond consistently to SR and N treatments. Correlation analysis revealed that PH, GCH, the length of first and second basal internodes, FW, and bending moment for the whole plant (WP) were positively correlated with LI, while F and BM were negatively associated with LI. These findings suggest that the increased lodging risk resulting from high SR could be mitigated by applying appropriate rates of N; that is, this work suggests that grain yield can be maximized and lodging risk minimized by increasing SR while decreasing N fertilization rate. Seasonal differences in the effects of SR and N fertilization should be considered to achieve a high grain yield and maintain high lodging resistance. Our study suggests that increasing SR and decreasing N fertilization can enhance rice grain yield while improving lodging resistance for both varieties. Optimizing grain yield by increasing SR while reducing lodging risk by lowering N application rates may maintain lodging resistance and improve grain yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: With the increasing number of vehicles, traffic jam becomes one of the major problems of the fast‐growing world. Intelligent transportation system (ITS) communicates perilous warnings and information on forthcoming traffic jams to all vehicles within its coverage region. Real‐time traffic information is the prerequisite for ITS applications development. In this paper, on the basis of the vehicle‐to‐infrastructure (V2I) communication, a novel infrastructure‐based vehicular congestion detection (IVCD) scheme is proposed to support vehicular congestion detection and speed estimation. The proposed IVCD derives the safety time (time headway) between vehicles by using iterative content‐oriented communication (COC) contents. Meanwhile, the roadside sensor (RSS) provides an infrastructure framework to integrate macroscopic traffic properties into the estimation of both the traffic congestion and vehicle safety speed. The main responsibilities of RSS in IVCD are to preserve privacy, aggregate data, store information, broadcast routing table, estimate safety speed, detect traffic jam, and generate session ID (S‐ID) for vehicles. Monte Carlo simulations in four typical Chinese highway settings are presented to show the advantage of the proposed IVCD scheme over the existing Greenshield's and Greenberg's macroscopic congestion detection schemes in terms of the realized congestion detection performance. Real road traces generated by Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) over NS‐3.29 are utilized to demonstrate that the proposed IVCD scheme is capable of effectively controlling congestion in both single and multilane roads in terms of density and speed health with previous schemes in this field. The proposed infrastructure‐based vehicular congestion detection (IVCD) scheme derives the safety time (time headway) between vehicles by using iterative content‐oriented communication (COC) contents. Meanwhile, the roadside sensor (RSS) provides an infrastructure framework to integrate macroscopic traffic properties into the estimation of both the traffic congestion and vehicle safety speed. The main responsibilities of RSS in IVCD are to preserve privacy, aggregate data, store information, broadcast routing table, estimate safety speed, detect traffic jam, and generate session ID (S‐ID) for vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider a wireless powered cooperative non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) relay network, in which one source is supposed to send independent messages to two users with the assistance of one energy-constrained relay that harvests energy from the source. Firstly, we study the minimum power consumption at the source node to fulfill the least required transmission rates by two users in both time switching relaying (TSR) strategy and power splitting relaying (PSR) one. Secondly, when the relay is provisioned with data buffer and energy storage, the long-term average power consumption minimization problem is formulated to take into account of the data and energy queue causality, peak transmit power constraint, and transmission mode selection. By using Lyapunov optimization framework, a novel buffer-aided transmission scheme (BATS) is proposed to asymptotically approach the optimal solution. Our analysis shows that, the PSR outperforms the TSR in terms of the realized energy efficiency, and BATS can be utilized to further improve the energy efficiency. It is disclosed that, there is an inherent trade-off between the long-term power consumption and the average queuing delay. In addition, larger user rates or less power consumption can be realized if a larger delay can be tolerated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive network coded cooperation (ANCC) provides a general coded cooperation framework to map the communication connections of a wireless network into the coding constraint. However, random selection policy is assumed at each node to select its retrieval subset, which cannot avoid illness in code graph at the sink. In this paper, the concept of indicator matrix is proposed to regulate the retrieval subset selection to derive the enhanced ANCC (EANCC) scheme. It is unveiled that the indicator matrix based retrieval subset selection policy can effectively tailor the girth and degree characteristics of the resultant code graph. Since the most harmful short cycles in the network coded cooperation can be completely eliminated, the proposed EANCC approach promises better error performance than the existing ANCC scheme. Numerical results show that it performs 13 dB better than the ANCC scheme at the bit error rate performance of $10^{-5}$ in seven-user network over the Rayleigh block fading channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visible light communication (VLC) based simultaneous positioning and orientating (SPAO), using received signal strength (RSS) measurements, is studied in this paper. RSS-based SPAO for VLCs of great challenge as it is essentially a non-convex optimization problem due to the nonlinear RSS model. To address this non-convexity challenge, a novel particle-assisted stochastic search (PASS) algorithm is proposed. The proposed PASS-based SPAO scheme does not require the knowledge of the height of receiver, the perfect alignment of transceiver orientations or inertial measurements. This is a huge technical improvement over the existing VLC localization solutions. The algorithmic convergence is established to justify the proposed PASS algorithm. In addition, a closed-form Cramer–Rao lower bound (CRLB) on localization error is derived and analyzed to gain insights into how the VLC-based SPAO performance is related to system configurations. It is shown that the receiver's position and orientation accuracy is linear with signal-to-noise ratio and direction information. In addition, the position accuracy decays with six powers of the transceiver distance, while the orientation accuracy decays with four powers of the transceiver distance. Finally, simulation results verify the performance gain of the proposed PASS algorithm for VLC-based SPAO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Waxy corn has a short growth cycle and high multiple cropping index. However, after being planted in early spring, late autumn and winter, it is susceptible to low temperature (LT), which reduces the emergence rate and yield. Therefore, it is important to analyze the response mechanism of waxy corn under LT stress. Results: All phenotype indexes of waxy corn inbred lines N28 were significantly higher than waxy corn inbred lines N67 under LT. With the increase of LT stress time, all physiological indexes showed an upward trend in N28 and N67. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) 16,017 and 14,435 were identified in N28 and N67 compared with nongerminated control under LT germination, respectively, and differential metabolites 127 and 93 were detected in N28 and N67, respectively. In addition, the expression level of some genes involved in plant hormones and mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways was significantly up-regulated in N28. Compared with N67, flavonoid metabolites were also significantly enriched in N28 under LT germination. Conclusion: Under LT stress, the inbred lines N28 was significantly higher than the inbred lines N67 in the phenotypic and physiological indices of cold resistance. Compared with N67, the expression levels of some genes involved in the plant hormones and MAPK pathways were significantly up-regulated in N28, and flavonoid metabolites were also significantly enriched in N28 under LT stress. These genes and metabolites may help N28 to improve cold resistance and may be as potential target genes for cold resistance breeding in waxy corn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of different annealing temperatures on the electrochemical performance of potassium ammonium vanadate (KNVO) was investigated, and the annealed KNVO regained H2O from the aqueous electrolyte to achieve an optimal structural water content during activation. In addition, the accompanying oxygen vacancies further promoted Zn2+ diffusion kinetics of the KNVO cathode in AZIBs and achieved excellent rate performance (344 mA h g−1 at 10 A g−1). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A ResNet based automated bio-acoustics presence detection frame-work was proposed. • SpecAugment and label smoothing are effective in bio-acoustics presence detection task. • An automatic post-processing method was proposed by employing the persistence characteristics. As the most precious primate with only about 30 left, it is highly desirable to monitor the population of Hainan gibbon for the sake of effective protection. The traditional monitoring technique is facing the challenges of statistical hysteresis and a large number of labor costs, which makes it unsustainable. Deep learning based passive acoustic monitoring has shown its great potential in automatic detection of Hainan gibbon calls in Dufourq et al. (2021). Motivated by this progress, a bioacoustics presence detection network (BPDnet) was proposed for Hainan gibbon calls by tailoring acoustic signal pre-processing, feature extraction, label smoothing loss function, as well as data augmentation in the ResNet-based passive acoustic detection framework. In addition, a post-processing procedure was proposed to further improve the passive acoustic presence detection. Numerical results are presented to show that, the proposed BPDnet outperforms the baseline scheme of Dufourq et al. (2021) in terms of bio-acoustics presence detection accuracy, callback rate, F 1 -score by at least 12.9% when using the same 72-h test recording and test method without manual intervention. When manual post-processing is allowed, the proposed BPDnet provides us an almost perfect Hainan gibbon call presence detection scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-entropy alloys (HEAs) have great potential as accident-tolerant fuel (ATF) cladding. Aluminum-forming duplex (BCC and FCC) stainless-steel (ADSS) is a candidate for ATF cladding, but the multiphase composition is detrimental to its corrosion resistance. In this paper, two single-phase HEAs were prepared by adjusting the content of each element in the ADSS alloy. The two HEAs were designed as Al0.05(CrFeNi)0.95(FCC) and Al0.25(FeCrNi)0.75(BCC). Their corrosion behavior under simulated pressurized water reactor (PWR) primary water was investigated. The corrosion products and corrosion mechanisms of these two HEAs were explored. The results show that the corrosion resistance of HEA alloys containing FCC is better than that of BCC and ADSS alloys. At the same time, the reason why the BCC structure composed of these four elements is not resistant to corrosion is revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to construct nanofiltration membrane with anti-"trade-off" effect, polyamide nanofiltration membranes are modified by metal-organic framework UiO-66-NH2 and UiO-66-(COOH)2, respectively. The results indicate that the introduction of UiO-66-X can enhance the hydrophicity and anti-protein adsorption performance of the membrane. Different from the expectation, compared with polyamide nanofiltration membrane without MOFs, the MgCl2 removal rate of the membrane with UiO-66-(COOH)2 can nearly remain sta¬ble when the content of UiO-66-(COOH)2 changes from 0.01 g to 0.03 g, but that of Na2SO4 decreases obviously. However, salts rejection rate of the polyamide nanofiltration membrane for MgCl2 and MgSO4 can both keep nearly stable by introduction of UiO-66-NH2 when the loading ranged from 0.01g to 0.04 g. Meanwhile, the flux improves with increasing the dosage of UiO-66-NH2. Moreover, the flux of the membrane with UiO-66-NH2 is higher than that of the membrane containing UiO-66-COOH) 2. When the dosage of UiO-66-NH2 is 0.03 g (NF-NH2-3), the removal rates of MgCl2 and MgSO2 are 83% and 95% respectively, and the flux is a¬bout 40.7 L/(m² • h), which is 2.6 times of the membrane without MOFs. When NF-NH2-3 is used to remove bssphenol A from water, the removal rate is about 93%. It shows potential applications in water softening and treatment of wastewater containing endocrine disrupting chemicals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To achieve high water flux, the majority of positively charged NF membranes consist of a thin active skin deposited on a thick, permeable support, while the connection force between the active layer and the support is a physical force which may cause the membrane unstable in the long running. In general, chemical bond connection may show superior stability. Based on this consideration, a series of positively charged nanofiltration (NF) membranes were prepared by UV-initiated graft polymerization of methacrylatoethyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (DMC) onto polysulfone ultrafiltration membranes in this work. The salts rejection order of these membranes is MgCl2 >NaCl>MgSO4 ≥Na2SO4. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in attenuated total reflection mode (FTIR-ATR), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and water contact angle were employed to characterize the resulting membranes. The results indicated that the grafting degree (DG) increased with increasing the monomer concentration, prolonging the irradiation time and reducing the irradiation distance. However, the filtration performance was not well correlated with the increasing DG. The NF membrane prepared by photografting in a 1.5M DMC solution for 5min demonstrated high MgCl2 rejection (94.8%) accompanied with high flux (20.3L/m2 h) at 0.2MPa. When operation pressure increased to 0.8MPa, the solution flux increased to 60L/m2 h, while MgCl2 rejection nearly maintained stable about 92.4%. An interesting phenomenon was also observed in this experiment that the flux of pure water was less than that of salt solution for some NF membranes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Linnan subsag is the main oil producer of the Linpan oil zone. Based on the oil group composition, gas chromatography data and biomarker analysis, it was indicated that crude oils from different oilfields varied greatly in group composition and showed obvious heterogeneities in the aspects of precursor type, crude oil maturity and hydrocarbon depositional environment. According to the characteristics of source rocks, three oil populations can be distinguished, i.e., the southern, northern and transitional oil populations. Furthermore, on the basis of post-reservoir reworking processes, the medium conditions of hydrocarbon-generating environment and differences in maturity, six oil families and twelve sub-families were distinquished. An integrated study suggested that the factors leading to such heterogeneities in crude oil composition mainly include different source rocks, multi-stage oil/gas charging, geo-chromatographic effects during oil/gas migration, reservoir heterogeneities and various post-reservoir secondary alterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advantages of each phase can be utilized to prepare a dual-phase intergrown anode consisting of spinel (Fd-3m) and rocksalt (Fm-3m) phases through the solid-state method. This approach leverages the high redox activity and lithium storage capacity of the rocksalt phase, as well as the good kinetics and stability of the spinel structure. By adjusting the sintering temperature, the ratio of the spinel phase (S-HEO) to the rocksalt phase (R-HEO) in the novel intergrown high entropy oxide structure (d-HEO) can be modulated, allowing for control over its electrochemical properties. Through this, an optimized S-HEO/R-HEO ratio can be achieved, resulting in high capacity coupled with desired cyclic stability and rate performance. This work demonstrates an effective strategy for constructing spinel-rocksalt intergrown structures. Furthermore, optimizing the structural properties of the dual-phase may shed light on material design for electrochemical energy storage and new applications of advanced HEOs. • High entropy oxides with the spinel-rocksalt intergrown structure are successfully synthesized and explored as anode materials for Li-ion batteries. • The formation mechanism of the intergrown structure is explored. • A synergistic effect of desired kinetics from spinel and high capacity from the rocksalt phase is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coded caching scheme provides us an effective framework to realize additional coded multicasting gain by exploiting coding into multiple transmitted signals. The goal of coded caching design is to jointly optimize the placement and delivery scheme so as to minimize the amount of transmitted coded signals. However, few research efforts consider multiple-round coded caching design problem, in which fixed and mobile users may coexist in one network, namely different number of active users present in successive rounds. Obviously, such dynamic network configurations may lead to undesired frequent placement caching content updating at user sides, if we assume coded caching scheme for all users in each round separately. Thus how to tailor the coded caching design, such that the frequent caching content updating in the placement phase can be avoided, and simultaneously retaining full caching gain in delivery phase in multiple rounds will become highly desirable. In this paper, by carefully examining the bipartite graph representation of the coded caching scheme, a dynamic centralized coded caching design is proposed on the basis of the concatenating-based placement and the saturating matching based delivery scheme. Our analysis unveils that, the proposed dynamic coded caching scheme can realize the flexible coded multicast, and is order optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at reducing the heating and cooling loads for built environments, the thermal resistance and capacitance (R C) model has widely been acknowledged as an effective method for predicting the heat flux through building walls by simplifying wall structures and their properties into R and C allocations. This paper demonstrates an inverse optimization method based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) for determining the optimal R C allocation that minimizes the heat flux through building walls. A thermal R C model with three resistances and two capacitances was used as an example to search for the optimal building R C allocation in the hot summer and warm winter zone of China. The inverse optimization could be efficiently accomplished in 2.5 h with an ordinary computer, approximately 0.12% of the time consumed by using the exhaustive search method. The optimized R C allocation was composed of three resistances of 0.43, 0.18 and 0.39 and two capacitances of 0.50 and 0.50. Compared to the three typical thermal insulation (e.g., internal, external, and internal/external), the optimal R C allocation could reduce the heat flux into/from buildings by 17.3%–44.3%. The proposed inverse PSO method shows an effective and efficient capacity in searching for the optimal R C allocation of thermal R C models. • An inverse PSO method for the optimal RC allocation is proposed. • Optimization shows fewer steps and less time cost. • An optimal RC allocation is obtained. • Heat flux is reduced by 17.3%, 34.9% and 44.3% than three traditional RC allocations. • The effect mechanism of RC allocation on heat flux is explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel framework for analyzing and optimizing the outage performance of a multiple amplify-and-forward relay network, where $N$ relays, each with finite cache capacity, are deployed to assist the transmission from a base station equipped with $L$ antennas to the destination. In this network, if the requested file is cached at the relays and the associated relay channels are in good condition, then the data are directly transmitted from the relays to the destination; otherwise, traditional two-hop transmission is performed. Based on this concept, we propose a relay-selection criterion to choose the best relay, which maximizes the received signal-to-noise ratio at the destination. For this criterion, we derive exact and asymptotic analytical expressions for the system outage probability in Nakagami- $m$ fading. To further improve the network outage performance, we optimize the cache placement, which minimizes the outage probability. Numerical and simulation experiments are performed to validate the analysis and demonstrate the conditions where the proposed cache placement strategy outperforms the existing ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caching is a promising solution to satisfy the ever-increasing demands for the multi-media traffics. In caching networks, coded caching is a recently proposed technique that achieves significant performance gains over the uncoded caching schemes. However, to implement the coded caching schemes, each file has to be split into F packets, which usually increases exponentially with the number of users K . Thus, designing caching schemes that decrease the order of F is meaningful for practical implementations. In this paper, by reviewing the Ali-Niesen caching scheme, the placement delivery array (PDA) design problem is first formulated to characterize the placement issue and the delivery issue with a single array. Moreover, we show that, through designing appropriate PDA, new centralized coded caching schemes can be discovered. Second, it is shown that the Ali-Niesen scheme corresponds to a special class of PDA, which realizes the best coding gain with the least F . Third, we present a new construction of PDA for the centralized coded caching system, wherein the cache size M at each user (identical cache size is assumed at all users) and the number of files N ( q is an integer, such that q\geq 2 ). The new construction can decrease the required F of Ali-Niesen scheme to O(e^{K\cdot ({M}/{N})\ln \!\,({N}/\!{M})}) or O(e^{K\cdot (1-({M}/\!{N}))\ln \!\,(N/(N-M))})$ , respectively, while the coding gain loss is only 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eutectic high entropy alloys (EHEAs) with excellent mechanical properties are considered as potential nuclear structural materials due to their unique atomic-level microstructure and abundant heterogeneous interfaces. However, an understanding of EHEAs irradiation tolerance from the perspective of heterogeneous interface structure is still lacking. In this work, to explore the intrinsic mechanism of interface structure-irradiation tolerance in EHEAs, we constructed FCC/BCC high-entropy alloys (HEAs) multilayers with different interfacial structures by a radiofrequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The prepared multilayers were irradiated at room temperature using 50 keV He+ in an ion irradiation and implantation facility. The irradiation-induced structural damage and irradiation-hardening behavior of the multilayers were systematically analyzed using X-ray diffractometer (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and nanoindentation instrument, respectively. It is found that the coherent and semicoherent interfaces mainly affect helium (He) behavior in the multilayers. We demonstrate that the coherent interfaces enable HEAs to have lower bubble swelling and irradiation hardening capability by promoting the migration ability of He bubbles. These results provide insight into the role of interfacial structures in the irradiation tolerance of nanostructured EHEAs, which should lead us to reconsider some design rules for advanced radiation-tolerant materials. [Display omitted] • The irradiation tolerance of EHEAs is closely related to the interfacial structure. • The interfacial structure mainly affects the diffusion behavior of He in EHEAs. • The long-range diffusion of He enhances the irradiation tolerance of coherent EHEAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The plastic deformation mechanisms of EHEAs are interfacial structure-dependent. • Coherent interfaces facilitate continuous slipping of dislocations and co-deformation. • Semicoherent interfaces activate amorphization by dislocation pileup during deformation. • Engineering semicoherent interfaces are desirable for designing high strength-ductile nanostructured EHEAs. Eutectic high entropy alloys (EHEAs) are widely advocated materials for overcoming the strength-ductility trade-off due to their abundant heterogeneous interfaces. However, the lack of a full understanding of the plastic carrier-interface interaction mechanism obscures the essential role of the interface in the simultaneous enhancement of strength and ductility. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms from an interface perspective, FCC/BCC multilayers with semicoherent and coherent interfaces were prepared by a magnetron sputtering system. The mechanical properties and microstructure evolution of multilayers were investigated by using nanoindentation, X-ray diffractometer and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. Moreover, the dislocation motion behavior and stress distribution during plastic deformation were analyzed by MD simulation. It is found that the plastic deformation behavior and mechanical properties of EHEAs are sensitive to the heterogeneous interfacial structure. During plastic deformation, the coherent interface facilitates the continuous slip of dislocations, whereas the semicoherent interface promotes amorphization by dislocations pileup. The results are important for understanding the plastic carrier-interface interaction mechanism, and the findings provide new insights for the development of high strength-ductility HEA materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An explicit expression is derived for the symbol error rate (SER) of the star MQAM system considered by Ioannis and Aris [Closed-form SER expressions for star MQAM in frequency non-selective Rician and Nakagami-m channels. Int J Electron Commun AEU 2005;59:417–20]. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

7 anterior gradient homolog 2 (AGR2)-inhibited different molecular mutual positive correlation network was constructed in lung adenocarcinoma compared with human normal adjacent tissues by 17 overlapping molecules of 358 GRNInfer and 19 Pearson (AGR2 CC⩽−0.25). Based on GO, KEGG, GenMAPP, BioCarta and disease databases, we determined AGR2-mediated lung adenocarcinoma metastasis through repression with cytoskeleton of MAST1; steroid metabolism of SOAT2; humoral immune response of POU2AF1; interferon alpha-inducible of IFI6; immunoglobulin of IGKC_3, CTA_246H3.1. Thus we proposed AGR2-mediated lung adenocarcinoma metastasis novel mechanism network through repression with interferon coupling cytoskeleton to steroid metabolism-dependent humoral immune response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: To understand cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) mechanism network from human normal adjacent tissues to lung adenocarcinoma. METHODS: COMP complete different activated (all no positive correlation, Pearson CC < 0.25) and uncomplete (partly no positive correlation except COMP, Pearson CC < 0.25) network were identified in higher lung adenocarcinoma compared with lower human normal adjacent tissues from the corresponding COMP-stimulated (&nvge;0.25) or inhibited (Pearson CC ≤ -0.25) overlapping molecules of Pearson correlation coefficient (CC) and GRNInfer, respectively. COMP complete different activated and inhibited (all no positive correlation, Pearson CC < 0.25) mechanisms networks of higher lung adenocarcinoma and lower human normal adjacent tissues were constructed by integration of Pearson CC, GRNInfer and GO. As visualized by integration of GO, KEGG, GenMAPP, BioCarta and Disease, we deduced COMP complete different activated and inhibited network in higher lung adenocarcinoma and lower human normal adjacent tissues. RESULTS: As visualized by GO, KEGG, GenMAPP, BioCarta and disease database integration, we proposed mainly that the mechanism and function of COMP complete different activated network in higher lung adenocarcinoma was involved in COMP activation with matrix-localized insulin-like factor coupling carboxypeptidase to metallopeptidase-induced proteolysis, whereas the corresponding inhibited network in lower human normal adjacent tissues participated in COMP inhibition with nucleus-localized vasculogenesis, B and T cell differentiation and neural endocrine factors coupling pyrophosphatase-mediated proteolysis. However, COMP complete different inhibited network in higher lung adenocarcinoma included COMP inhibition with nucleus-localized chromatin maintenance, licensing and assembly factors coupling phosphatase-inhibitor to cytokinesis regulators-mediated cell differentiation, whereas the corresponding activated network in lower human normal adjacent tissues contained COMP activation with cytolplasm-localized translation elongation factor coupling fucosyltransferase to ubiquitin-protein ligase-induced cell differentiation. CONCLUSION: COMP different networks were verified not only by complete and uncomplete COMP activated or inhibited networks within human normal adjacent tissues or lung adenocarcinoma, but also by COMP activated and inhibited network between human normal adjacent tissues and lung adenocarcinoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, a novel simplified iterative decoding scheme based on the so-called joint early detection-early stopping (JEDES) technique, is investigated for short-frame turbo coding applications. The proposed scheme attains a lower complexity than existing schemes by carefully integrating two known techniques: early detection and associated built-in cyclic redundancy check. Our analysis and simulation results show that for a frame size of 49bits, the proposed JEDES scheme can achieve a complexity saving of over 30% with little performance loss at practical bit and frame error rates compared with previous results. For a longer frame size 169, the proposed JEDES scheme can approach the GENIE scheme with nearly the same complexity reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]