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To develop high activity Auricularia auricula polysaccharide yogurt, Auricularia cornea var. Li. polysaccharides was used as the material to determine its basic components and rheological properties, and the production process of ACP yogurt was optimized by one-way comparative experiments and orthogonal experiments. Moreover, the effect of ACP on the quality of yogurt was investigated in order to develop high-activity Auricularia cornea polysaccharides yogurt. The results showed that: The total sugar, glucuronic acid and protein contents of ACP were 82.21%±2.40%, 11.95%±1.28% and 2.36%±0.10%, respectively. The rheological properties showed that the polysaccharides solution exhibited both liquid and solid characteristics, with good viscoelasticity and potential application as a thickener and gelling agent. What's more, ACP could promote the fermentation of yogurt, increase the number of viable lactic acid bacteria, increase the acidity, and reduce the pH. Low-concentration ACP (0.02%~0.08%) could increase the water-holding capacity of yogurt, improve the tissue condition and stability of yogurt, and reduce whey precipitation. With the amount of ACP added was 0.04%, the yogurt showed the greatest water-holding capacity, hardness, consistency, cohesiveness and viscosity, and the best sensory quality. With the ACP addition amount was 0.06%, the number of viable lactic acid bacteria in yogurt was the largest and the acidity was the highest. The optimal production process of ACP yogurt was to add 0.04% ACP, 6% sucrose, and 0.1% starter culture of fresh milk, ferment at 42 ℃ for 7 hours, and refrigerate at 4 ℃ for 24 hours. The yogurt produced had higher viable bacterial count, better sensory quality and textural properties than ordinary yogurt. This research explored the effect of ACP on lactic acid bacteria fermentation and yogurt quality, in order to provide a scientific theoretical basis for improving the health care performance and quality of yogurt and broadening the application scope of Auricularia cornea var. Li..

Aim To develop and validate a model for predicting diabetic retinopathy (DR) in patients with type 2 diabetes.Methods All risk factors with statistical significance in the DR prediction model were scored by their weights. Model performance was evaluated by the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, Kaplan–Meier curve, calibration curve and decision curve analysis. The prediction model was externally validated using a validation cohort from a Chinese hospital.Results In this meta-analysis, 21 cohorts involving 184,737 patients with type 2 diabetes were examined. Sex, smoking, diabetes mellitus (DM) duration, albuminuria, glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and TG were identified to be statistically significant. Thus, they were all included in the model and scored according to their weights (maximum score: 35.0). The model was validated using an external cohort with median follow-up time of 32 months. At a critical value of 16.0, the AUC value, sensitivity and specificity of the validation cohort are 0.772 ((95% confidence interval (95%CI): 0.740–0.803), p

IntroductionWhen a gastric tube cannot be used as a substitute for the esophagus, the colon offers several advantageous features for esophageal replacement. However, this procedure remains complex and necessitates patients to have a favorable nutritional status. In this study, we investigated the viability of intrathoracic colonic interposition anastomosis through a single thoracic incision, with the goal of mitigating surgical challenges and nutritional requirements.Case descriptionWe conducted a colectomy and reconstructed the esophageal-colonic-gastric tract via the esophageal bed into the left thoracic cavity for a 68-year-old male patient with compromised nutritional status following 30 years post-Billroth II (BII) gastrectomy. Under normal circumstances, this patient would not have been deemed an appropriate candidate for a conventional colonic interposition procedure. The patient resumed a soft diet through the normal digestive tract two weeks after the surgery and was discharged 20 days later.ConclusionPatients who have previously received a Billroth II Gastrectomy and subsequently developed early-stage esophageal cancer, characterized by the absence of lymph node metastasis, are suitable candidates for Colon Interposition Radical Surgery via left thoracotomy.

Abstract The Heuchera genus, a member of the Saxifragaceae family, encompasses a wide array of varieties and hybrids, serving both traditional medicinal and ornamental purposes. However, a significant knowledge gap persists in achieving efficient mass propagation of diverse Heuchera cultivars creating a substantial market void. To address this, our study focuses on expedited seedling regeneration by investigating leaf cutting and tissue culture techniques to offer novel insights to cultivators. Herein, we successfully rooted thirteen distinct cultivars from the Heuchera and Heucherella (Heuchera × Tiarella) genera through cutting. Moreover, in vitro culture experiments led to the successful induction of calli and shoots from petiole samples. Notably, variations in measured parameters were observed across cultivars in both cutting and tissue culture methodologies. When petiole explants were exposed to cytokinin 6-benzylaminopurine (BA) at concentrations of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mg/L along with auxin α-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) at 0.5 mg/L, shoots were produced either directly or indirectly during the primary culture. Exposure to darkness and the application of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) did not promote shoot formation but were beneficial for callus stimulation. Interestingly, a negative correlation was observed between the ease of initiating cutting recovery and inducting tissue culture regeneration, suggesting that cultivars that easily regenerate through cutting might encounter difficulties during induction by tissue culture. In light of these findings, we devised a streamlined and effective protocol for rapid Heuchera propagation. This protocol involves micropropagation, directly acquiring adventitious shoots from primary cultures supplemented by cutting-based propagation methods.

BackgroundNon-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasingly observed in non-obese individuals. The ZJU (Zhejiang University) index has been established as a new and efficient tool for detecting NAFLD, but the relationship between the ZJU index and NAFLD within non-obese individuals still remains unclear.MethodsA post-hoc evaluation was undertaken using data from a health assessment database by the Wenzhou Medical Center. The participants were divided into four groups based on the quartile of the ZJU Index. Cox proportional hazards regression, Kaplan-Meier analysis and tests for linear trends were used to evaluate the relationship between the ZJU index and NAFLD incidence. Subgroup analysis was conducted to test the consistency of the correlation between ZJU and NAFLD in subsgroups. Receiver operative characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the predictive performance of the ZJU index, compared with the Atherogenic index of plasma (AIP) and Remnant lipoprotein cholesterol (RLP-C) index.ResultsA total of 12,127 were included in this study, and 2,147 participants (17.7%) developed NAFLD in 5 years follow-up. Participants in higher ZJU quartiles tended to be female and have higher liver enzymes (including ALP, GGT, ALT, AST), GLU, TC, TG, LDL and higher NAFLD risk. Hazard Ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for new-onset NAFLD in Q2, Q3, and Q4 were 3.67(2.43 to 5.55), 9.82(6.67 to 14.45), and 21.67(14.82 to 31.69) respectively in the fully adjusted model 3. With increased ZJU index, the cumulative new-onset NAFLD gradually increased. Significant linear associations were observed between the ZJU index and new-onset NAFLD (p for trend all

With the development and strengthening of interception measures, the traditional penetration methods of high-speed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are no longer able to meet the penetration requirements in diversified and complex combat scenarios. Due to the advancement of Artificial Intelligence technology in recent years, intelligent penetration methods have gradually become promising solutions. In this paper, a penetration strategy for high-speed UAVs based on improved Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is proposed, in which Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks are incorporated into a classical Soft Actor–Critic (SAC) algorithm. A three-dimensional (3D) planar engagement scenario of a high-speed UAV facing two interceptors with strong maneuverability is constructed. According to the proposed LSTM-SAC approach, the reward function is designed based on the criteria for successful penetration, taking into account energy and flight range constraints. Then, an intelligent penetration strategy is obtained by extensive training, which utilizes the motion states of both sides to make decisions and generate the penetration overload commands for the high-speed UAV. The simulation results show that compared with the classical SAC algorithm, the proposed algorithm has a training efficiency improvement of 75.56% training episode reduction. Meanwhile, the LSTM-SAC approach achieves a successful penetration rate of more than 90% in hypothetical complex scenarios, with a 40% average increase compared with the conventional programmed penetration methods.

Abstract To improve the accuracy of the Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) based quadrotor aircraft localization, a Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter aided with an integration of the predictive model and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is proposed in this work. The FIR filter estimates the quad-rotor aircraft ’s position by fusing the positions measured with the UWB and Inertial Navigation System respectively. When the UWB dada are unavailable, both the ELM and the predictive model are used to provide the measurements, replacing those unavailable UWB data, for the FIR filter. The ELM estimates the measurement via the mapping between the one step prediction of state vector and the measurement built when the UWB data are available. For the predictive model, we mathematically describe the missing UWB data. Then, both the measurements estimated with the ELM and predictive model are employed to estimate the observations via Mahalanobis distance. The test results show that the FIR filter aided by the predictive model/ELM integrated can reduce the Cumulative Distribution Function and position Root Mean Square Error effectively when the UWB is unavailable. Compared with the ELM assisted FIR filter, the proposed FIR filter can reduce the localization error by about 48.59 %, meanwhile, the integrated method is close to the method with a better solution. Graphical Abstract

This study explored the use of phraseological frames (p-frames), a type of lexical bundle, by simultaneous interpreters as a strategy for managing cognitive loads. Specifically, using a comparable corpus of United Nations Security Council conferences, the study employed kfNgram to automatically identify the p-frames, and investigated their variations, regarding frequency, fixedness, structures, and functions among L1, L1–L2, and L2–L1 texts, which differ in cognitive loads due to task complexity and directionality of interpreting. The findings indicated that interpreters used more p-frames as cognitive loads increased; No significant difference was identified in fixedness as all texts tended to employ heavily formulaic and relatively fixed p-frames. Directionality correlated with grammatical preferences, with retour interpreting relying more on content-word-based p-frames. Additionally, task complexity correlated with functional preferences, with self-expression characterized by more stance expressions in the simple task. This study innovatively addressed the interaction of two factors that generate cognitive loads in interpreting and filled a research gap by providing empirical evidence on how directionality affects the use of formulaic language.

BackgroundPrevious studies hardly evaluated the association of variability of body mass index (BMI) or waist circumference with clinical adverse events and investigated whether weight cycling had an effect on the prognosis of patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF).MethodsThis study was a post-hoc analysis of TOPCAT. Three outcomes were evaluated: the primary endpoint, cardiovascular disease (CVD) death, and heart failure hospitalization. Among them, CVD death and hospitalization were outcomes of heart failure. Kaplan–Meier curves were used to describe the cumulative risk of outcome and were tested using the log-rank test. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95%CIs for outcomes. We also performed a subgroup analysis, and several subgroups were compared.ResultsA total of 3,146 patients were included. In the Kaplan–Meier curves, the coefficients of variation of both BMI and waist circumference were grouped according to quartiles, with the Q4 group having the highest cumulative risk (log-rank P < 0.001). In the coefficient of BMI variation and the outcomes, the HRs for group Q4 of coefficient of variation of BMI were 2.35 (95%CI: 1.82, 3.03) for the primary endpoint, 2.40 (95%CI: 1.69, 3.40) for death, and 2.33 (95%CI: 1.68, 3.22) for HF hospitalization in model 3 (fully adjusted model) compared with group Q1. In the coefficient of waist circumference variation and the outcomes, group Q4 had increased hazard of the primary endpoint [HR: 2.39 (95%CI: 1.84, 3.12)], CVD death [HR: 3.29 (95%CI: 2.28, 4.77)], and HF hospitalization [HR: 1.98 (95%CI 1.43, 2.75)] in model 3 (fully adjusted model) compared with group Q1. In the subgroup analysis, there was a significant interaction in the diabetes mellitus subgroup (P for interaction = 0.0234).ConclusionWeight cycling had a negative effect on the prognosis of patients with HFpEF. The presence of comorbid diabetes weakened the relationship between waist circumference variability and clinical adverse events.

BackgroundHigh visit-to-visit blood pressure variability (BPV) and hypertension are risk factors for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and probable dementia (PD). Few articles assessed the effect of BPV on the MCI and PD in intensive blood pressure treatment and the different functions of three types of visit-to-visit BPV: systolic blood pressure variability (SBPV), diastolic blood pressure variability (DBPV) and pulse pressure variability (PPV).MethodsWe performed a post hoc analysis of the SPRINT MIND trial. The primary outcomes were MCI and PD. BPV was measured by average real variability (ARV). The Kaplan-Meier curves were used to clarify the difference in tertiles of BPV. We fit Cox proportional hazards models to our outcome. We also did an interaction analysis between the intensive and standard groups.ResultsWe enrolled 8,346 patients in the SPRINT MIND trial. The incidence of MCI and PD in the intensive group was lower than that in the standard group. 353 patients had MCI and 101 patients had PD in the standard group while 285 patients had MCI and 75 patients had PD in the intensive group. Tertiles with higher SBPV, DBPV and PPV in the standard group had a higher risk of MCI and PD (all p 0.05).ConclusionIn this post hoc analysis of the SPRINT MIND trial, we found that higher SBPV and PPV were associated with an increased risk of PD in the intensive group, and higher SBPV was associated with an increased risk of MCI in the intensive group. The effect of higher BPV on the risk of MCI and PD was not significantly different in intensive and standard blood pressure treatment. These findings emphasized the need for clinical work to monitor BPV in intensive blood pressure treatment.

In view of the problem that path planning and trajectory tracking are rarely solved simultaneously in the current research, which hinders their practical implementation, this paper focuses on enhancing the autonomous flight planning capability of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by investigating integrated path planning and trajectory tracking technologies. The autonomous flight process is divided into two sub-problems: waypoint designing/optimizing and waypoint tracking. Firstly, an improved DB-RRT* algorithm is proposed for waypoint planning to make the algorithm have higher planning efficiency, better optimization results, and overcome the defects of accidental and low reliability of single RRT* planning results. Secondly, the scheme of “offline design + online flight” is adopted to lead the UAV to fly online according to the waypoints’ instructions by using the sliding mode guidance based on angle constraint with finite-time convergence so that it can fly to the destination autonomously. In order to check the performance of the proposed algorithm, a variety of simulations are conducted to verify the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.

PurposeTo explore the predictive value of computed tomography (CT) imaging features and CT-based texture analysis in assessing inflammatory infiltration in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).MethodsA total of 43 patients with PDAC confirmed by surgical pathology were included in the study. The clinical, radiological, surgical, and pathological features of the patients were analyzed retrospectively using the chi-square test or Spearman’s correlation. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were utilized to assess the overall predictive ability of the tumor enhancement degree on triphasic contrast-enhanced CT images for the inflammatory infiltration degree in PDAC. Furthermore, all CT data were uploaded to the RadCloud platform for region of interest (ROI) delineation and feature extraction. Then, the Variance Threshold and SelectKBest algorithms were used to find the optimal CT features. Binary logistic regression was employed to analyze the selected features in all three contrast-enhanced CT phases, and regression equations were formulated. ROC analysis was performed to evaluate the predictive effectiveness of each equation.ResultsThe analysis revealed a statistically significant correlation between the degree of differentiation and radiological findings such as necrosis and cystic degeneration, vascular invasion, and the presence of ascites (P < 0.05). The enhancement degree of the tumor in both the arterial and venous phases was significantly correlated with the inflammatory infiltration degree (P < 0.05); however, the areas under the ROC curve (AUCs) of arterial and venous enhancement were 0.570 and 0.542, respectively. Regression equations based on the texture features of triphasic contrast-enhanced tumors were formulated, and their AUCs were 0.982, 0.643, and 0.849.ConclusionConventional radiological features are not significantly correlated with the degree of inflammatory infiltration in PDAC. The enhancement degrees in both the arterial phase and venous phase were statistically correlated with the inflammatory infiltration level but had poor predictive value. The texture features of PDAC on contrast-enhanced CT may show a better assessment value, especially in the arterial phase.

Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) are recognized as promising detection biomarkers and attractive delivery vehicles, showing great potential in diagnosis and treatment of diseases. However, the applications of sEVs are usually restricted by their poor secretion amount from donor cells under routine cell culture conditions, which is especially true for mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) due to their limited expansion and early senescence. Here, a microfluidic device is proposed for boosting sEV secretion from MSCs derived from human fetal bone marrow (BM-MSCs). As the cells rapidly pass through a microfluidic channel with a series of narrow squeezing ridges, mechanical stimulation permeabilizes the cell membrane, thus promoting them to secrete more sEVs into extracellular space. In this study, the microfluidic device demonstrates that mechanical-squeezing effect could increase the secretion amount of sEVs from the BM-MSCs by approximately 4-fold, while maintaining cellular growth state of the stem cells. Further, the secreted sEVs are efficiently taken up by immortalized human corneal epithelial cells and accelerate corneal epithelial wound healing in vitro, indicating that this technique wound not affect the functionality of sEVs and demonstrating the application potentials of this technique.

Based on the actor-partner interdependence model, this paper studied the relationship between marital commitment, sacrifice behavior and marital quality of military couples. A convenience sample of 171 Chinese military couples from Guangdong, Jiangsu and Sichuan province was used. All participants completed the self-report questionnaires independently including the Dimension of Commitment Inventory (DCI), the Couples Sacrifice Behavior Scale (CSBS) and the Evaluation and Nurturing Relationship Issues, Communication and Happiness (ENRICH). Results showed that the scores of marital commitment and marital quality of male soldiers were significantly higher than that of their spouses. Compared to their spouses, male soldiers reported higher frequency of sacrifice behaviors and perceiving sacrifice behaviors of spouses. Furthermore, the marital commitment of military couples had significant influence on their own marital quality and frequency of perceiving each other’s sacrifice behavior Military couples’ perception of the frequency of each other’s sacrifice behavior partially mediated the effect of marital commitment on their marital quality. Male soldiers’ perception of spouse’s sacrifice behavior frequency significantly predicted the marital quality of their spouses.

It is of great importance to have sensitive and accurate detection of cis-diol-containing biologically related substances because of their important functions in the research fields of metabolomics, glycomics, and proteomics. Boronic acids can specifically and reversibly interact with 1,2- or 1,3-diols to form five or six cyclic esters. Based on this unique property, boronic acid-based materials have been used as synthetic receptors for the specific recognition and detection of cis-diol-containing species. This review critically summarizes the recent advances with boronic acid-based materials as recognition elements and signal labels for the detection of cis-diol-containing biological species, including ribonucleic acids, glycans, glycoproteins, bacteria, exosomes, and tumor cells. We also address the challenges and future perspectives for developing versatile boronic acid-based materials with various promising applications.

BackgroundActive-empathic listening (AEL) is the active and emotional involvement of a listener that can take place in at least three key stages of the listening process. Bodie has developed and validated a self-reported, 11-item, three-factor active-empathic listening scale (AELS) in English with good reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.86) to assess AEL abilities. Nevertheless, a Chinese version of the AELS had not been established and validated yet.ObjectiveThe objective of the present study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the AELS.MethodsAfter translating the scale into the Chinese version, 834 college students completed the test. After 4 weeks, 206 participants were tested again on the Chinese AELS to examine retest reliability. The critical ratio method and the item-total correlations were used for the item analysis. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed to examine the construct validity. The internal consistency of the scale was analyzed with Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s Omega. Interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to examine the scale’s retest reliability. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was used to examine the convergent validity. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted.ResultsEach item of the Chinese AELS had a good discrimination, and the item-total correlation of each item ranged from 0.51 to 0.73. EFA extracted three factors with characteristic root values greater than 1, which could explain 70.72% of the total variance. CFA indicated an adequate fit of the three-factor model (χ2/df = 2.250, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.055, the comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.971, the Tucker-Lewis index [TLI] = 0.959, and the goodness of fit index [GFI] = 0.959). The internal consistency reliability was acceptable (sensing: α = 0.79/ω = 0.78, processing: α = 0.83/ω = 0.83, responding: α = 0.79/ω = 0.79, and AELS: α = 0.87/ω = 0.87). Retest reliability of the scale at 4-week intervals by an ICC was 0.563. The Chinese AELS was significantly correlated with each dimension of IRI.ConclusionThe reliability and validity of the Chinese AELS met the basic psychometrics requirements. Therefore, the scale can be potentially used to assess the active empathic listening abilities of people in China.

Abstract Objective To investigate the effects of intermittently scanned continuous glucose monitoring (isCGM) on blood glucose control, clinical value of blood glucose monitoring and production of urinary ketone bodies in pregestational diabetes mellitus. Method A total of 124 patients with pregestational diabetes mellitus at 12–14 weeks of gestation admitted to the gestational diabetes clinic of our hospital from December 2016 to December 2018 were selected and randomly divided into two groups. Sixty patients adopted self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) were taken as the control group, and the other 64 patients adopted isCGM system by wearing the device for 14 days. Blood sugar control, glycosylated albumin level, ketone production in urine, the maximum and minimum of blood sugar value measured by different monitoring methods and their occurrence time were observed in the two groups. Result (1) No statistically significant differences were found between the groups in terms of maternal age, gestational age at first visit, family history, duration of diabetes, education level, total insulin dose, chronic hypertension, abortion history, nulliparity, assisted reproductive technology, history of macrosomia childbirth, pre-pregnancy BMI, and overweight (%) at the first visit and hypoglycemia, (2) the value of Glycated Albumin was lower in the CGM group compared to the control group at 2ed weeks (14.6 ± 2.2 vs. 16.8 ± 2.7, p

The global tropospheric zenith delay grid products of VMF1 and VMF3 (Vienna mapping functions) with different resolutions are used to calculate the tropospheric zenith delay of eight IGS (International GNSS Service) stations in China, and the accuracy of the two products under different interpolation methods is analyzed. As a result, the accuracy of utilizing different interpolation methods shows no obvious differences. The interpolation accuracy of the VMF3 grid model is slightly higher than that of the VMF1, and the interpolation accuracy of tropospheric delay is related to the elevation difference of grid points. In addition, according to ERA5 (the fifth generation of the Global Climate Information Analysis data set), the atmospheric stratification tropospheric delay is obtained, and a ZTD (the zenith tropospheric delay) height change grid model is constructed using the least squares exponential fitting method. The accuracy of the model is verified using the tropospheric delay product provided by the IGS. Finally, the constructed ZTD height change grid model is used as ZTD height reduction to solve the problem of large tropospheric delay errors in the VMF interpolation when the height change is large. The model accuracy of URUM station improve from 96.47 mm.to 32.97 mm (65.82%).

The propeller wake can cause vibrations on the rudder surface, which worsen the noise and reliability. The vibration monitoring of the rudder operating in the propeller wake with fluid-structure interaction (FSI) method is still challenging. In the present study, the structural response during propeller-rudder interaction is investigated using detached eddy simulation. Three-dimensional distributions of loads, stresses, and deformations are discussed. The leading and trailing edges exhibit the strongest deformations in opposite directions, which are S-shaped. The strongest lateral deformation occurs between the tip vortex and hub vortex regions. In the tip vortex region, the dominant lateral vibrations fluctuate at the blade passing frequency (BPF) and shaft frequency (SF). However, the 75 Hz-fluctuation becomes significant at the trailing edge of the rudder. In the hub vortex region, the lateral deformation fluctuates mainly at 75 Hz except the area near the leading edge. There are weak vibrations occurring at the natural frequencies of the rudder when the natural frequencies of the rudder are much higher than the SF and BPF. However, the plate in the propeller suffers intense vibrations at the frequencies near the natural frequencies, where the natural frequencies of the plate are close to SF and BPF.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a heterogeneous group of diseases associated with chronic inflammation of the intestinal tract, and is highly prevalent worldwide. Although its origin is not yet fully understood, new evidence emphasizes that environmental factors, especially dietary factors and intestinal microbiota disorders are key triggers of IBD. Probiotics, such as Lactobacillaceae spp., play an essential role in human health as they exert beneficial effects on the composition of the human gastrointestinal microbial community and immune system. Probiotic-based therapies have been shown to be effective in alleviating IBD. Among these, Lactobacillaceae rhamnosus is one of the most widely used strains. L. rhamnosus is widely present in the intestines of healthy individuals; it regulates the intestinal immune system and reduces inflammation through a variety of mechanisms. The purpose of this study was to identify scientific evidence related to L. rhamnosus and IBD, review and summarize the results, and discuss the possible mechanisms of action as a starting point for future research on IBD treatment.

Background: The frequency coupling characteristics in electroencephalogram (EEG) induced by anesthetics have been well studied in adults, but the investigation of the age-dependent cross frequency coupling features from children to adults is still lacking. Methods: We analyzed EEG signals recorded from pediatric to adult patients (n = 131), separated into six age groups:

Background Stroke is a sexually dimorphic disease and a leading cause of death and disability. Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) confers beneficial neuroprotective effects if administered within a widely accepted time window called the “critical period.” However, very few studies have explored the idea of modulating the critical period to enable long‐term post‐menopausal women to regain more benefits from estrogen therapy. Here, motivated by previous findings that electroacupuncture could both alter estrogen metabolism and induce significant tolerance against stroke, it was explored whether EA could restore estrogen's neuroprotection against cerebral ischemia in long‐term ovariectomized (OVX) rats. Methods We implemented 1 week(w)‐EA pretreatment on OVX‐10w or OVX‐20w rats, and tested the expression of estrogen receptors, and detected the ERT's neuroprotection against stroke induced by middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Results We found that the expression levels of phospho‐ERα‐S118 and estrogen receptor β (ERβ) in the striatum of OVX‐10w rats were significantly decreased and ERT's neuroprotection was abolished in the OVX‐10w rats. However, EA‐1w pretreatment could significantly recover the expression levels of phospho‐ERα‐S118 and ERβ, and also restored the neuroprotective effects of ERT in OVX‐10w rats. However, EA‐1w pretreatment could not restore the expression of estrogen receptors and ERT's neuroprotection in OVX‐20w rats. Conclusion Taken together, our study indicates that EA may be an easy intervention that can restore the efficacy of estrogen therapy during the “critical period,” which has the potential to improve the stroke outcomes of an enormous number of long‐term post‐menopausal women. However, the time‐sensitive influences for how EA and estrogen metabolism interact with each other should be considered.

The characterization of the mechanical response of semi-crystalline high-density polyethylene (HDPE) materials submitted to mixed mode oligo-cyclic tensile loading condition is attempted. More precisely, HDPE materials of varying microstructures triggered via thermal treatments, are cycled to a prescribed strain in the vicinity yet beyond the elastic limit and then retracted to zero stress. Macroscopically, a Mullins-like effect can be observed. At the meso- and micro-scales, in-situ SAXS measurements have been carried out so that the local deformation of the equatorial region of the spherulites can be estimated along with the broad evolutions of the crystalline spherulitic structures and the cavitation. Upon loading, the local strain is found proportional to the macroscopic one in the equatorial region of the spherulites. The shearing of the crystallites initiates during the first cycle and slightly accumulates with increasing cycles. Moreover, nano-sized cavities are only observed in the isothermal samples exhibiting higher crystallinity and a lower density of stress transmitters. These micro-voids are nucleated during the first loading step. Assuming that the cavities do not merge, it is found that the accumulation-saturation of the cavity volume fraction is essentially resulting from their dimension increase, especially along the direction perpendicular to the macroscopic elongation.

This paper presents an indoor floor positioning method with the smartphone’s barometer for the purpose of solving the problem of low availability and high environmental dependence of the traditional floor positioning technology. First, an initial floor position algorithm with the “entering” detection algorithm has been obtained. Second, the user’s going upstairs or downstairs activities are identified by the characteristics of the air pressure fluctuation. Third, the moving distance in the vertical direction and the floor change during going upstairs or downstairs are estimated to obtain the accurate floor position. In order to solve the problem of the floor misjudgment from different mobile phone’s barometers, this paper calculates the pressure data from the different cell phones, and effectively reduce the errors of the air pressure estimating the elevation which is caused by the heterogeneity of the mobile phones. The experiment results show that the average correct rate of the floor identification is more than 85% for three types of the cell phones while reducing environmental dependence and improving availability. Further, this paper compares and analyzes the three common floor location methods – the WLAN Floor Location (WFL) method based on the fingerprint, the Neural Network Floor Location (NFL) methods, and the Magnetic Floor Location (MFL) method with our method. The experiment results achieve 94.2% correct rate of the floor identification with Huawei mate10 Pro mobile phone.

In this paper, an indoor inertial navigation system (INS) integrated with light detection and ranging (LiDAR) robot localization system is proposed to provide accurate information about the robot location. To achieve high accuracy and robustness, a cascaded finite-impulse response (FIR) filter is designed and incorporated into the proposed INS/LiDAR localization scheme. The cascaded scheme employs two FIR filters. An unbiased FIR filter is used to estimate the LiDAR-derived position by fusing distances between a robot and detected corner points. An extended FIR filter is used to fuse the LiDAR- and INS-based measurements. An experimental study indicates that the proposed scheme demonstrates higher robustness than the traditional methods of localization employing Kalman filtering.

Diabetic wounds exhibit retarded and partial healing processes. Therefore, patients are exposed to an elevated risk of infection. It has been verified that Angelica dahurica (Hoffm.) Benth. and Hook. f. ex Franch. and Sav (A. dahurica) is conducive for wound healing. However, the pharmacological mechanisms of A. dahurica are yet to be established. The present study uses network pharmacology and in vivo experimental validation to investigate the underlying process that makes A. dahurica conducive for faster wound healing in diabetes patients. 54 potential targets in A. dahurica that act on wound healing were identified through network pharmacology assays, such as signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), JUN, interleukin-1β (IL-1β), tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and prostaglandin G/H synthase 2 (PTGS2). Furthermore, in vivo validation showed that A. dahurica accelerated wound healing through anti-inflammatory effects. More specifically, it regulates the polarization of M1 and M2 subtypes of macrophages. A. dahurica exerted a curative effect on diabetic wound healing by regulating the inflammation. Hence, pharmacologic network analysis combined with in vivo validation elucidated the probable effects and underlying mechanisms of A. dahurica’s therapeutic effect on diabetic wound healing.

Intense vibrations excited by a propeller worsen the structural reliability of a ship. In this study, a ship hull is modeled as a simple rectangular plate to study propeller excitation vibrations. The interaction between a rectangular plate and propeller is studied, considering the fluid–structure interaction. The turbulence in the flow field is modeled by detached eddy simulations. The results show that in the propeller wake, the pressure fluctuations corresponding to the blade passing frequency (BPF) of the propeller are dominant. In the flow field near the plate, the pressure fluctuations corresponding to the natural frequencies of the plate are dominant. The plate vibrations under a propeller exciting force contain vibrations corresponding to the BPF of the propeller and natural frequencies of the plate. The vibrations of the plate can be divided into vibrations caused by propeller rotation and natural vibrations. The excitation force from the propeller changes the mode shapes of the plate. The vibrations excited by the propeller wake decrease as the distance between the propeller and the plate increases.

As an important research field of mobile robot, simultaneous localization and mapping technology is the core technology to realize intelligent autonomous mobile robot. Aiming at the problems of low positioning accuracy of Lidar (light detection and ranging) simultaneous localization and mapping with nonlinear and non-Gaussian noise characteristics, this article presents a mobile robot simultaneous localization and mapping method that combines Lidar and inertial measurement unit to set up a multi-sensor integrated system and uses a rank Kalman filtering to estimate the robot motion trajectory through inertial measurement unit and Lidar observations. Rank Kalman filtering is similar to the Gaussian deterministic point sampling filtering algorithm in structure, but it does not need to meet the assumptions of Gaussian distribution. It completely calculates the sampling points and the sampling points weights based on the correlation principle of rank statistics. It is suitable for nonlinear and non-Gaussian systems. With multiple experimental tests of small-scale arc trajectories, we can see that compared with the alone Lidar simultaneous localization and mapping algorithm, the new algorithm reduces the mean error of the indoor mobile robot in the X direction from 0.0928 m to 0.0451 m, with an improved accuracy rate of 46.39%, and the mean error in the Y direction from 0.0772 m to 0.0405 m, which improves the accuracy rate of 48.40%. Compared with the extended Kalman filter fusion algorithm, the new algorithm reduces the mean error of the indoor mobile robot in the X direction from 0.0597 m to 0.0451 m, with an improved accuracy rate of 24.46%, and the mean error in the Y direction from 0.0537 m to 0.0405 m, which improves the accuracy rate of 24.58%. Finally, we also tested on a large-scale rectangular trajectory, compared with the extended Kalman filter algorithm, rank Kalman filtering improves the accuracy of 23.84% and 25.26% in the X and Y directions, respectively, it is verified that the accuracy of the algorithm proposed in this article has been improved.

Handwritten signatures widely exist in our daily lives. The main challenge of signal recognition on handwriting is in the development of approaches to obtain information effectively. External mechanical signals can be easily detected by triboelectric nanogenerators which can provide immediate opportunities for building new types of active sensors capable of recording handwritten signals. In this work, we report an intelligent human-machine interaction interface based on a triboelectric nanogenerator. Using the horizontal-vertical symmetrical electrode array, the handwritten triboelectric signal can be recorded without external energy supply. Combined with supervised machine learning methods, it can successfully recognize handwritten English letters, Chinese characters, and Arabic numerals. The principal component analysis algorithm preprocesses the triboelectric signal data to reduce the complexity of the neural network in the machine learning process. Further, it can realize the anticounterfeiting recognition of writing habits by controlling the samples input to the neural network. The results show that the intelligent human-computer interaction interface has broad application prospects in signature security and human-computer interaction.

Objective. To investigate the functional status of pancreatic α and β cells in Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients with different plasma triglyceride (TG) levels. TG levels can be prognostic markers for T2DM. Methods. A total of 328 patients with T2DM were divided into three groups according to different TG levels: the TGL group: TG

Using the navigation signal transmitted by GNSS (global navigation satellite system), satellites for tide level monitoring comprise one of the important research fields of GNSS marine remote sensing. Regarding the problem that GNSS-MR (multipath reflectometry) technology only uses carrier SNR (signal noise ratio) data, resulting in the lack of SNR data for early CORS (continuously operating reference stations) stations, it is impossible to carry out tide level inversion. In this paper, a method of tide level inversion based on triple-frequency geometric ionospheric free combined-phase observations instead of SNR is proposed. The simultaneous interpretation of GNSS satellite observations from the sc02 station in Friday Harbor in the US is carried out and compared with the traditional GNSS-IR (interference and reflectometry) tide-inversion method. The experimental results show that the tide level inversion method proposed in this paper has the same tide level trend as the measured tide level trend. The accuracy evaluation shows that the RMSE value of tide level inversion is 15 cm and the correlation coefficient r is 0.984, which verifies the effectiveness of this method for tide level monitoring and expands the method of GNSS tide-level monitoring.

To overcome the problem of the low accuracy and large accumulated errors of indoor mobile navigation and positioning, a method to integrate the light detection and ranging- and inertial measurement unit-based measurement is proposed. Firstly, the voxel-scale-invariant feature transform feature extraction algorithm for light detection and ranging is studied. Then, the errors of light detection and ranging measurement due to the change of the scan plane compensated based on aiding information from inertial measurement unit. The relative position parameters and the differences of measurements of light detection and ranging at adjacent times are used to estimate the error of inertial measurement unit sensors by a Kalman filter. Several experiments are carried out in the indoor corridor and the results demonstrate that precision of the light detection and ranging/inertial measurement unit-integrated indoor mobile robot localization is higher than that of single light detection and ranging sensor.

Heat pipes transfer heat via phase transformation of the working fluid, where the working fluid will keep the temperature constant and absorb or release a large amount of latent heat during phase transformation. With the development of heat pipe technology, the isothermal performance of heat pipes has been gradually emphasized in many application fields. Most studies focused on the average temperature characteristics of one heat pipe or several heat pipes with the same type, and lacked a comprehensive analysis on the isothermal performance of different heat pipes. In this paper, previous studies on the application fields of the isothermal performance of heat pipes, the isothermal level of heat pipes used in different fields, and the methods to improve the isothermal performance of heat pipes are summarized. The parameters of the wick have little effect on the temperature uniformity of the heat pipe, while the arrangement of the wick has more influence on the uniformity of the heat pipe. The most suitable charge rate is 15% to 30% of the total inner volume, and the best start-up performance and isothermal performance is at approximately 45°.

For high-precision thermocouple calibration, the uniformity of the temperature field provided by the metal temperature equalizing block is low, and the structure of the gas-controlled heat pipe is complex. In order to improve the thermocouple calibration equipment, heat pipe technology can be used to provide the stability and uniformity of the temperature field of the equipment. The concentric annular heat pipe (CAHP) is completely placed in the heating furnace to provide a uniform temperature field, and limited studies consider this heating mode for alkali metal CAHPs. Specifically, no information is available on the effect of heating temperatures on the temperature distribution of the internal pipe of potassium CAHP. In this study, a temperature comparison based on potassium CAHP for high-precision thermocouple calibration was manufactured. The temperature stability and temperature uniformity of CAHP were measured, and the effects of heating temperature and heating mode on the isothermal performance in the metering wells of CAHP were studied. The CAHP can provide a very stable and uniform temperature field. Under uniform heating at 400 °C, the maximum temperature difference within 16 cm was 0.174 °C. After adjusting the heating mode, the maximum temperature difference was within 16 cm 0.095 °C. The CAHP can effectively reduce the influence of heating temperature fluctuation on the temperature in the metering well; the maximum temperature change rate of the metering wells affected by the heating furnace temperature was 0.0942 °C/°C.

Abstract Background The steroid hormone estrogen (17-β-estradiol, E2) provides neuroprotection against cerebral ischemic injury by activating estrogen receptors. The novel estrogen receptor G protein-coupled receptor 30 (GPR30) is highly expressed in the brain and provides acute neuroprotection against stroke. However, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Methods In this study, ovariectomized female mice were subjected to middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO), and E2, G1, and ICI182780 were administered immediately upon reperfusion. The infarction volume, neurological scores, and neuronal injuries were examined. Primary microglial cells were subjected to oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD), and the drugs were administered immediately upon reintroduction. The pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 in penumbra and microglia were assessed by ELISA. The cell viability and lactose dehydrogenase (LDH) release of neurons co-cultured with microglia were analyzed using cell counting kit-8 (CCK8) and LDH release assays. Microglial activation as well as GPR30, Iba1, and Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) protein expression and TLR4 mRNA expression were detected. Additionally, NF-κB activity was detected in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated microglia after the activation of GPR30. Results GPR30 was highly expressed in microglia and significantly increased after ischemic injury. The activation of GPR30 significantly reduced the infarction volume, improved the neurological deficit, and alleviated neuronal injuries. Moreover, GPR30 activation significantly reduced the release of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 from ischemic penumbra and microglia subjected to OGD and alleviated neuronal injury as assessed using the CCK8 and LDH assays. Finally, the activation of GPR30 relieved microglial activation, reduced Iba1 and TLR4 protein expression and TLR4 mRNA levels, and inhibited NF-κB activity. Conclusions Microglial GPR30 exerts acute neuroprotective effects by inhibiting TLR4-mediated microglial inflammation, which indicates that GPR30 may be a potential target for the treatment of ischemic stroke.

Antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) is a self-limiting disease mediated by antibiotic therapy. In clinical practice, several types of probiotics are used in treating AAD, but minimal research has been done on Bacteroides-based microecologics. Our aim was to evaluate the therapeutic effects of Bacteroidetes uniformis FGDLZ48B1, B. intestinalis FJSWX61K18, Bifidobacterium adolescentis FHNFQ48M5, and B. bifidum FGZ30MM3 and their mixture on AAD in mice. The lincomycin hydrochloride-induced AAD models were gavaged with a single strain or a probiotic mixture for a short period to assess the changes in colonic histopathology and cytokine concentrations, intestinal epithelial permeability and integrity, short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), and the diversity of intestinal microbiota. Our data indicated that both the sole use of Bacteroides and the combination of Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium beneficially weakened systemic inflammation, increased the recovery rate of tissue structures, increased the concentrations of SCFAs, and restored the gut microbiota. Moreover, the probiotic mixture was more effective than the single strain. Specifically, B. uniformis FGDLZ48B1 combined with the B. adolescentis FHNFQ48M5 group was more effective in alleviating the pathological features of the colon, downregulating the concentrations of interleukin (IL)-6, and upregulating the expression of occludin. In summary, our research suggests that administration of a mixture of B. uniformis FGDLZ48B1 and B. adolescentis FHNFQ48M5 is an effective approach for treating AAD.

In the geyser boiling mode, the working fluid state is divided into a boiling process and a quiet process, and the sodium-potassium (Na-K) alloy heat pipe can discontinuously transfer heat at each boiling. The overheating of the liquid working fluid at the bottom causes short-term boiling and forms slug bubble, the strong condensing ability quickly conducts heat from the evaporator section. And geyser boiling can occur before the working fluid forms continuous flow, so it transfers more heat at lower temperatures than natural convection cooling. In this study, the heat transfer process of a Na-K alloy heat pipe with forced convection cooling under different heating power was experimental studied. The geyser boiling mode can make the Na-K alloy heat pipe work below 650 °C and reduce the start-up time. In the process of geyser boiling, the heat transfer quantity was increased by the boiling frequency and the amount of vapor produced in a single boiling. The boiling temperature had no obvious change with the increased of heating power, and the condenser section temperature increased with the heating power.

Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed type of cancer and the leading cause of cancer-associated death worldwide. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are non-coding single-stranded RNA molecules of ∼20–25 nucleotides in length. Single nucleotide polymorphisms are a class of genetic variation in the human genome, which when present in miRNA genes are associated with the risk of developing cancer. This study aimed to identify whether the miRNA (miR)-608 polymorphism rs4919510 influenced the incidence of lung cancer, and to explore the underlying mechanisms of miR-608 in the pathogenesis of the disease. A total of 37 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were selected to determine the expression levels of miR-608; 96 NSCLC patients and 136 cancer-free healthy controls were recruited to determine the incidence of miR-608 rs4919510 in lung cancer patients. Additionally, the impact of miR-608 on the expression of predicted target genes, cell migration, viability, proliferation, and apoptosis was also assessed. We found that the presence of miR-608 rs4919510 did not affect the susceptibility of patients to NSCLC or the maturation of miR-608. miR-608 expression levels were found to be downregulated in NSCLC tissues. Furthermore, overexpression of miR-608 promoted doxorubicin-induced apoptosis in NSCLC cell lines A549 and HCC4006 by inhibiting the expression of transcription factor activating enhancer-binding protein 4 (TFAP4), and high expression levels of TFAP4 were observed in NSCLC tissues. Therefore, our results may provide valuable insights for the chemotherapeutical treatment of NSCLC.

Background: Previous studies presumed that the disturbed neurovascular coupling to be a critical risk factor of cognitive impairments in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but distinct clinical manifestations were lacked. Consequently, we decided to investigate the neurovascular coupling in T2DM patients by exploring the MRI relationship between neuronal activity and the corresponding cerebral blood perfusion. Methods: Degree centrality (DC) map and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) map were used to represent neuronal activity. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) map was used to represent cerebral blood perfusion. Correlation coefficients were calculated to reflect the relationship between neuronal activity and cerebral blood perfusion. Results: At the whole gray matter level, the manifestation of neurovascular coupling was investigated by using 4 neurovascular biomarkers. We compared these biomarkers and found no significant changes. However, at the brain region level, neurovascular biomarkers in T2DM patients were significantly decreased in 10 brain regions. ALFF-CBF in left hippocampus and fractional ALFF-CBF in left amygdala were positively associated with the executive function, while ALFF-CBF in right fusiform gyrus was negatively related to the executive function. The disease severity was negatively related to the memory and executive function. The longer duration of T2DM was related to the milder depression, which suggests T2DM-related depression may not be a physiological condition but be a psychological condition. Conclusion: Correlations between neuronal activity and cerebral perfusion maps may be a method for detecting neurovascular coupling abnormalities, which could be used for diagnosis in the future.Trial registry number: This study has been registered in ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02420470) on April 2, 2015 and published on July 29, 2015. Keywords: Type 2 diabetes mellites (T2DM), Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Neurovascular coupling, Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD), Arterial spin-labeling (ASL), Cognitive impairment

In marine environments, ships are bound to be disturbed by several external factors, which can cause stochastic fluctuations and strong nonlinearity in the ship motion. Predicting ship motion is pivotal to ensuring ship safety and providing early warning of risks. This report proposes a real-time ship vertical acceleration prediction algorithm based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) and gated recurrent units (GRU) models of a recurrent neural network. The vertical acceleration time history data at the bow, middle, and stern of a large-scale ship model were obtained by performing a self-propulsion test at sea, and the original data were pre-processed by resampling and normalisation via Python. The prediction results revealed that the proposed algorithm could accurately predict the acceleration time history data of the large-scale ship model, and the root mean square error between the predicted and real values was no greater than 0.1. The optimised multivariate time series prediction program could reduce the calculation time by approximately 55% compared to that of a univariate time series prediction program, and the run time of the GRU model was better than that of the LSTM model.

The circulation pump in an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) increases the pressure of the liquid working fluid from low condensing pressure to high evaporating pressure, and the expander utilizes the pressure difference to generate work. A portion of the expander output power is used to offset the consumed pumping work, and the rest of the expander power is exactly the net work produced by the ORC system. Because of the relatively great theoretical pumping work and very low efficiency of the circulation pump reported in previous papers, the characteristics of the expander power used for offsetting the pumping work need serious consideration. In particular, the present work examines those characteristics. It is found that the characteristics of the expander power used for offsetting the pumping work are satisfactory only under the condition that the working fluid absorbs sufficient heat in the evaporator and its specific volume at the evaporator outlet is larger than or equal to a threshold value.

The deformation of the cylinder has been proved to greatly reduce the fluctuation of lift and the vortex-induced vibration. In this article, a new form of deformation mode for the smooth cylinder is proposed in order to reduce the vortex-induced vibrations, which can be applied to marine risers and submarine pipelines to ensure the working performance and safety of offshore platforms. Large eddy simulation (LES) is adopted to simulate the turbulent flow over wavy cylinders with three different twisted angles at a subcritical Reynolds number Re = 28,712. Comparing with the results of smooth cylinder, the maximum drag and lift reduction of wavy cylinder A3 with α = 40° can reach 17% and 84%, respectively, and the corresponding vortex formation length increases significantly, while the turbulence intensity decreases relatively. Meanwhile, the circumferential minimum pressure coefficient is greater than that of the smooth cylinder, which also provides a greater drag reduction for the cylinder. The surface separation line, turbulent kinetic energy distribution, and wake vortex structure indicate that the elongation of separated shear layer and wake shedding position is larger than that of the smooth cylinder, and the vorticity value in the near wake region decreases. A periodic vortex structure is generated along the spanwise direction, and a weaker and more stable Karman vortex street is reformed at a further downstream position, which ultimately leads to the reduction of drag and fluctuating lift of the wavy cylinder.

Multi-sensor integrated navigation technology has been applied to the indoor navigation and positioning of robots. For the problems of a low navigation accuracy and error accumulation, for mobile robots with a single sensor, an indoor mobile robot positioning method based on a visual and inertial sensor combination is presented in this paper. First, the visual sensor (Kinect) is used to obtain the color image and the depth image, and feature matching is performed by the improved scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm. Then, the absolute orientation algorithm is used to calculate the rotation matrix and translation vector of a robot in two consecutive frames of images. An inertial measurement unit (IMU) has the advantages of high frequency updating and rapid, accurate positioning, and can compensate for the Kinect speed and lack of precision. Three-dimensional data, such as acceleration, angular velocity, magnetic field strength, and temperature data, can be obtained in real-time with an IMU. The data obtained by the visual sensor is loosely combined with that obtained by the IMU, that is, the differences in the positions and attitudes of the two sensor outputs are optimally combined by the adaptive fade-out extended Kalman filter to estimate the errors. Finally, several experiments show that this method can significantly improve the accuracy of the indoor positioning of the mobile robots based on the visual and inertial sensors.

The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is a popular technology used in waste heat recovery and low-grade heat utilization, which are two important measures to solve the problems brought by the energy crisis. The economic performance of ORC system is an important factor affecting its application and development. Therefore, the economic analysis of ORC is of great significance. In this study, R123 and R245fa, two frequently-used working fluids during the transition period, were selected for calculating and analyzing the economic performance of an ORC used for recovery of waste heat with a low flow rate and medium-low temperature. Five traditional economic indicators, namely total cost, net earnings, payback period, return on investment, levelized energy cost, and present value of total profit in system service life, which is a relatively new indicator, were used to establish the economic analysis model of ORC. The variation effects of evaporation temperature, condensation temperature of working fluid, flue gas inlet temperature, and mass flow rate of flue gas on the above six economic indicators were analyzed. The results show that the optimal evaporation temperature of R123 is 125 °C, the optimal condensation temperature is 33 °C, and the optimal heat source temperature is 217 °C. For R245fa, the optimal evaporation temperature is 122 °C, the optimal condensation temperature is 27 °C, and the optimal heat source temperature is 177 °C. The economic performance of an ORC demonstration project was reported and used for comparison with the estimation and analysis. It was found that the single screw expander has an excellent economy performance, which greatly reduces the proportion of expander cost in the ORC system.