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With the fast growth of IoT and AI techniques, AIoT’s potential in creating and capturing business value is being increasingly acknowledged. AIoT is the practice of combining AI with IoT-based hardware to proactively predict what might happen and what action needs to be taken. However, research on this issue has been limited and what the key mechanisms for designing AIoT based context-aware services are in the real field is still underexplored. In this article, we bridge this gap by studying a case study of AIoT based context-aware system in law enforcement in terms of information system artifacts to extend our understating of the AIoT based system’s mechanisms for business applications. Our case study reveals a conceptual model that can ensure AIoT empowered context-aware services in a police field unit. The implications, limitations, and future applications of the development of AIoT empowered context-aware services are discussed.

In December 2019, the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV, which has caused the latest public health emergency of international concern, began to spread with exponential speed around the whole world. To fu...

The Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) is the main procedure for Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) to accomplish fair and friendly coexistence with other operators or technologies operating over unlicensed spectrum. However, in LBT, the lack of coordination with other existing systems brings challenges in sustaining performance in the coexistence of LAA and WiFi networks. Specifically, the hidden node problem (HNP) and exposed node problem (ENP) cannot be effectively handled when both LAA and WiFi nodes attempt to access the unlicensed spectrum at the same time. Thus, transmission failure might occur and the network performance would be degraded. In order to mitigate the influences caused by HNP and ENP, based on LBT, we firstly analyze HNP and ENP by means of mathematical approach. The analytical results surprisingly reveal that the hidden node and exposed node probabilities are as high as 41% and 39.33%, respectively. Then, a Give And p-persistent Take (GAT) mechanism with the Listen-Before-Receive (LBR) procedure, namely LBR-GAT, is proposed to cope with LBT to reduce the collision caused by HNP as well as to retrieve the bandwidth sacrificed by the ENP. With LBR-GAT, the LAA sender conditionally gives up or takes back transmission opportunities, and thus the unlicensed spectrum could be efficiently shared between LAA and WiFi. Evaluation results show that the proposed LBR-GAT could conditionally obtain better network performance comparing to legacy LBT.

Fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) 21 and 23 are recently identified hormones regulating metabolism of glucose, lipid, phosphate and vitamin D. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for circulating FGF21 and FGF23 concentrations to identify their genetic determinants. We enrolled 5,000 participants from Taiwan Biobank for this GWAS. After excluding participants with diabetes mellitus and quality control, association of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with log-transformed FGF21 and FGF23 serum concentrations adjusted for age, sex and principal components of ancestry were analyzed. A second model additionally adjusted for body mass index (BMI) and a third model additionally adjusted for BMI and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were used. A total of 4,201 participants underwent GWAS analysis. rs67327215, located within RGS6 (a gene involved in fatty acid synthesis), and two other SNPs (rs12565114 and rs9520257, located between PHC2-ZSCAN20 and ARGLU1-FAM155A respectively) showed suggestive associations with serum FGF21 level (P = 6.66 × 10–7, 6.00 × 10–7 and 6.11 × 10–7 respectively). The SNPs rs17111495 and rs17843626 were significantly associated with FGF23 level, with the former near PCSK9 gene and the latter near HLA-DQA1 gene (P = 1.04 × 10–10 and 1.80 × 10–8 respectively). SNP rs2798631, located within the TGFB2 gene, was suggestively associated with serum FGF23 level (P = 4.97 × 10–7). Additional adjustment for BMI yielded similar results. For FGF23, further adjustment for eGFR had similar results. We conducted the first GWAS of circulating FGF21 levels to date. Novel candidate genetic loci associated with circulating FGF21 or FGF23 levels were found. Further replication and functional studies are needed to support our findings.

Although scholars have widely recognised the importance of managing organisational change, few studies have focused on dominant business logic transformation. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to...

In this study, a thin silver (Ag) layer was evaporated onto the anatase-titanium oxide (TiOx) film. This structure was then annealed at various temperatures under nitrogen ambient to realize the Ag nanoparticles formed on the TiOx surface. The photocatalytic activities of these TiOx/Ag structures to decompose pollutants were determined from the rate constant while they were applied to decolorize the methylene blue (MB) solution in the presence of the UV light irradiation. According to the investigations on their surface bond configurations, the Ag nanoparticles were favorable for the transformation of the Ti4+ into the Ti3+ state in the TiOx film, which functioned to prohibit the recombination of the photogenerated electron-hole-pairs on the TiOx surface. The exposed TiOx surface distributed over the 500 °C-annealed TiOx/Ag structure performed an increase of about 40% in the rate constant compared to the individual TiOx film. Moreover, this surface morphology composed of the anatase-TiOx structures and Ag nanoparticles which was abundant in the oxide-related radical and Ag+ chemical state also showed a perfect antibacterial efficiency against Escherichia coli.

Entry inhibitors against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are urgently needed to control the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study developed a robust and straightforward assay that detected the molecular interaction between the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of viral spike protein and the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor in just 10 min. A drug library of 1068 approved compounds was used to screen for SARS-CoV2 entry inhibition, and 9 active drugs were identified as specific pseudovirus entry inhibitors. A plaque reduction neutralization test using authentic SARS-CoV-2 virus in Vero E6 cells confirmed that 2 of these drugs (Etravirine and Dolutegravir) significantly inhibited the infection of SARS-CoV-2. With molecular docking, we showed that both Etravirine and Dolutegravir are preferentially bound to primary ACE2-interacting residues on the RBD domain, implying that these two drug blocks may prohibit the viral attachment of SARS-CoV-2. We compared the neutralizing activities of these entry inhibitors against different pseudoviruses carrying spike proteins from alpha, beta, gamma, and delta variants. Both Etravirine and Dolutegravir showed similar neutralizing activities against different variants, with EC50 values between 4.5 to 5.8 nM for Etravirine and 10.2 to 22.9 nM for Dolutegravir. These data implied that Etravirine and Dolutegravir may serve as general spike inhibitors against dominant viral variants of SARS-CoV-2.

Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) not only provides a supplement to primary grain crops in China but also has high medicinal value, by virtue of its rich content of flavonoids possessing antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anticancer properties. Light is an important environmental factor that can regulate the synthesis of plant secondary metabolites. In this study, we treated tartary buckwheat seedlings with different wavelengths of light and found that red and blue light could increase the content of flavonoids and the expression of genes involved in flavonoid synthesis pathways. Through coexpression analysis, we identified a new MYB transcription factor (FtMYB116) that can be induced by red and blue light. Yeast one-hybrid assays and an electrophoretic mobility shift assay showed that FtMYB116 binds directly to the promoter region of flavonoid-3'-hydroxylase (F3'H), and a transient luciferase activity assay indicated that FtMYB116 can induce F3'H expression. After transforming FtMYB116 into the hairy roots of tartary buckwheat, we observed significant increases in the content of rutin and quercetin. Collectively, our results indicate that red and blue light promote an increase in flavonoid content in tartary buckwheat seedlings; we also identified a new MYB transcription factor, FtMYB116, that promotes the accumulation of rutin via direct activation of F3'H expression.

The Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) is the main procedure for Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) to accomplish fair and friendly coexistence with other operators or technologies operating over unlicensed spectrum. However, in LBT, the lack of coordination with the other existing systems brings challenges in sustaining performance in the coexistence of LAA and WiFi networks. Specifically, the hidden node situation (HNS) and exposed node situation (ENS) cannot be effectively handled when both LAA and WiFi attempt to access the unlicensed spectrum at the same time. Thus, transmission failure might occur and the network performance would be degraded. In order to mitigate the influences caused by HNS and ENS, based on LBT, a Give-And-Take (GAT) mechanism with the Listen-Before-Receive (LBR) procedure is proposed in this paper. With GAT, the LAA sender conditionally gives up or takes back transmission opportunities, and thus the unlicensed spectrum could be efficiently shared between LAA and WiFi in terms of energy usage and throughput. Evaluation results show that the proposed GAT could conditionally obtain better network performance comparing to legacy LBT.

SnS, Ge- and Sb-doped SnS films with single orthorhombic SnS phase were fabricated via solvothermal routes and subsequent spin-coating, respectively. The substitution solubilities of Ge and Sb in SnS are about 6 and 5 at.%, respectively. The bandgaps of Ge- and Sb-doped SnS films can be tuned in the ranges of 1.25–1.35 and 1.30–1.39 eV, respectively. The possible mechanisms for the tunable bandgaps of Ge- and Sb-doped SnS films are discussed. For the Ge- and Sb-doped SnS films subjected to annealing at 200–350 °C in N2, the bandgaps of 200 °C-annealed films remain unchanged, while those of 300 °C- and 350 °C-annealed films decrease with the annealing temperature because of the evaporation of Ge and Sb respectively.

Residue of Mori Cortex was studied to optimize its enzymatic hydrolysis process, and explore its potential as a carbon source for biochemistry and biofuel production. The cellulose content of diluted acid pretreated (DAP) and non-pretreated from Mori Cortex were measured in this study, and the results showed that the cellulose content of DAP and non-pretreated from Mori Cortex were 52.5% and 47%, respectively. This higher cellulose content indicated that residue of Mori Cortex had the potential to act as a carbon source for biochemistry and biofuel production. Enzymatic hydrolysis of pretreated and non-pretreated from Mori Cortex was conducted under different enzyme loading amount. 40 FPU·(g DW）⁻¹ enzyme loading was determined as the optimal amount by comparing the yield of sugar and the rate of enzymolysis. Under this condition, the concentrations of glucose, xylose, arabinose sugar were 23.82, 4.84, 3.6 g·L⁻¹, and the corresponding enzymatic hydrolysis rate was 45.33% which was 2.3 times higher than that of non-pretreated from Morus alba residues. Fed-batch enzymatic hydrolysis was conducted finally to get higher sugar yield, and the final glucose concentration reached up to 38 g·L⁻¹ with the enzymatic hydrolysis rate of 36.19%. The results indicated that Mori Cortex residue had higher cellulose and hemicellulose contents, so it had the potential to become a carbon source to produce the bio-chemicals and biofuels. Through enzymatic hydrolysis, it can be converted into microbial available monosaccharides; and through fermentation, it can be converted into high value-added chemicals, biofuels, etc., to solve the problem of residue pollution, and achieve the sustainable development and greening of Chinese pharmaceutical production process.

Hospitality industry in China has undergone a breath-taking development in recent years. However, it is burdened both by tremendous energy consumption and the responsibility of environmental protection. The paper is trying to find out the potential in the energy saving and emission reduction. Energy consumption data, in the recent five years, are collected from more than 20 hotels in Shanghai and other eastern China regions. Through the energy conversion factor matrix, these energy consumption factors can be converted into Tce value. Though the analysis of the Tce value, the paper provides a key solution to the problem at hand and possible ways of realizing the goal of establishing basis of carbon emission assessment modeling and cumulative comprehensive energy consumption database suitable for this industry, in the hope of establishing a foundation for future study of carbon footprint of the hospitality industry and its technical proposal for energy saving.

This paper investigates the new programming scheme to reduce the program disturb in the NAND Flash memory. Program disturb characteristics are determined by the unwilling electron injections in the floating gate of the unselected cells during programming. Thus, the key point to improve the program disturb characteristics is how to suppress the electron injection in the unselected cells. This requirement can be implemented by reducing the number of electrons in the unselected NAND strings prior to programming. By applying negative bias to all the word lines in the selected block, excess electrons can be removed from the channel and source/drain regions into the bit line or the source line using drift and diffusion mechanisms, and also electrons in the surface states can be recombined with accumulated holes before programming. After the pretreatment of electron reduction in the NAND string, a normal NAND program sequence follows. The advantage of the pretreatment before programming has been verified by measuring the 8-Gb NAND Flash memory with a 50-nm technology node. Significant reduction of the threshold voltage shift was observed even after the severe program disturb stress, which corresponds to around 30 times of the programming of the 2 bit/cell operation.

In this paper, a novel erase method is proposed to modulate the electron tunneling region of 40 nm NAND flash memory device. The erasing electron can move to gate center from gate edge under back bias at 0.3V/-0.8V. The Fowler-Nordheim (FN) current of erase stress distributes on the whole channel region, not located at the gate edge region. Results show that the proposed method can improve cell reliability about 33%. TCAD analysis is employed to explain and prove the mechanism. This novel erase method is promising for scaled NAND flash memory.

New programming scheme is proposed to improve the program disturb characteristics in NAND Flash memory named Program Disturb Free Scheme (PDFS), which is executed by removing excess electrons from the channel and source/drain into bit line or source line using drift-diffusion mechanism, and also by recombining electrons in the surface states with accumulated holes before programming. Thus, no excess electron exists in the program inhibit cell string during programming, thereby program disturb can be suppressed drastically. By measuring 8Gbit NAND Flash memory with 50nm technology node, almost no Vt shift was observed even applying 30 times over programming (partial programming) in 2bit/cell operation. This universally applicable innovation is independent from generation of design rule. Therefore, new operation has broken new ground for the cell device engineering, especially for sub-30nm NAND which has seriously narrowed program operation margin.