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In the past several years, rechargeable zinc batteries, featuring the merits of low cost, environmental friendliness, easy manufacturing, and enhanced safety, have, attracted much attention. Zinc (Zn) anodes for zinc metal batteries play an important role. In this review, the fundamental understanding of these batteries and modification strategies to deal with the problematic issues for Zn anodes, including dendrite growth, corrosion, and the hydrogen evolution phenomenon will be summarized. The practical application of Zn anodes can still lead to Zn dendrites, various side reactions, and serious safety risks. Therefore, metal-free anodes for "rocking chair" zinc ion batteries to replace Zn anodes are systemically reviewed. The performance and the zinc storage mechanism of metal-free anodes will be discussed. Subsequently, a "rocking chair" zinc ion battery prototype selected as a recent example is assessed to explore the merits and demerits of Zn anodes and metal-free anodes. To conclude, a perspective on the future of zinc metal batteries and "rocking chair" zinc ion batteries is presented. It is hoped that this review may provide for further improvement of commercial rechargeable zinc batteries.

With the continuous growth of vehicle per capita in recent years, tire wear particles (TWP) produced by tire wear on roads have been widely found in various environmental media, whose environmental behavior and effects have attracted extensive attention. After being produced, these microsized and nanosized TWP will drift into the atmosphere or enter the surrounding soil, rivers, and even into the ocean with rain and runoff. The existence of TWP significantly affects the composition of organic materials in the environment. Meanwhile, the release of heavy metals and organic additives from TWP will be harmful to organisms and human health. We summarized the sources and characteristics of TWP, their migration and diffusion in water, atmosphere, and soil environment. By analyzing the environmental impacts and ecological risks of TWP pollution, we proposed the key questions urgently to be solved and prevention measures.近年来,随着汽车人均保有量的持续增长,轮胎在道路上磨损产生的轮胎磨损颗粒也在各种环境介质中被广泛发现,其环境行为和效应已引起广泛关注。这些微、纳米级轮胎磨损颗粒在道路上产生后,会飘散到大气或随雨水、径流进入周边土壤、河流,部分甚至流入海洋。轮胎磨损颗粒的存在会显著影响环境中有机物的构成,同时其载带的重金属和有机添加剂的释放也会对环境生物及人体健康产生潜在危害。本文总结了近年来有关轮胎磨损颗粒的来源、特征,在水体、大气和土壤环境中的迁移扩散,分析了其环境影响和生态风险,探讨了轮胎磨损颗粒污染研究中亟待解决的关键问题和防治措施。.

Modern civilisation depends on many different sectors functioning well and concurrently to run smoothly. This includes the energy sector, the transport sector, and the information technology sector. As such, the consequences can be catastrophic if these sectors were to fail due to some form of power outage or disaster. Possible causes include a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear bomb or a solar storm, a pandemic worse than COVID-19 causing people to be too fearful to work in critical industries, a cyber-attack, or an extreme natural disaster. Some work has been done on what could happen if such sectors are disabled, but virtually none on how to cope or to prepare for the loss. First, estimates of how long such a power outage will last were calculated. Next, scenarios where there is a power loss in industry for at least 5 to 25 years was explored. The consequences of such a scenario with regards to corrosion were considered. Possible strategies for what can be done to prepare for such scenarios were also explored. It was found that considering the design, removing corrosive components, and using coatings and packaging were the cheapest ways to reduce corrosion risks.

As a common abiotic stress, drought severely impairs the growth, development, and even survival of plants. Here we report a transcription factor

As a common abiotic stress, drought severely impairs the growth, development and even sur-vival of plants. Here we report a transcription factor, Caragana korshinskii REVOLUTA(CkREV), which can bidirectionally regulate the expression of the critical enzyme gene CkYUC5 in auxin synthesis according to external environment changes, so as to control the biosynthesis of auxin and further enhance drought resistance of plants. Quantitative analysis reveals that the expression level of CkYUC5 and AtYUC5 is both down-regulated after C. korshinskii and Arabidopsis thaliana are exposed to drought. Functional verification of CkREV reveals that CkREV up-regulates the expression of AtYUC5 in transgenic A. thaliana under common conditions, while down-regulates it under drought conditions. Meanwhile, the expression of CkYUC5 is also down-regulated in C. korshinskii leaves instantaneously overexpressing CkREV. We apply dual-luciferase reporter system to discover that CkREV can bind to the promoter of CkYUC5 to regulate its expression, which is further proved by EMSA and Y1H experiments. Functional verification of CkREV in C. korshinskii and transgenic A. thaliana shows that CkREV can regulate the expression of CkYUC5 and AtYUC5 in a contrary way, maintaining the equilibrium of plants between growth and drought resisting. CkREV can positively regulate the expression of CkYUC5 to promote auxin synthesis in favor of growth under normal development. However, CkREV can also respond to external signals and negatively regulate the expression of CkYUC5, which inhibits auxin synthesis in order to reduce growth rate and lower water demands and eventually improves drought resistance of plants.

Angioplasty often fails due to the abnormal proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). Success rates of angioplasty may increase following the administration of an agent that effectively ameliorates aberrant vascular remodeling. Icariside II (ICS-II) is a natural flavonol glycoside extract from the Chinese herbal medicine Epimedii that possesses several medicinal qualities that are beneficial in humans. Nevertheless, the role of ICS-II in addressing aberrant vascular remodeling have yet to be clarified. The current investigation studies the molecular effects of ICS-Ⅱ on balloon-inflicted neointimal hyperplasia in rats in vivo and on platelet-derived growth factor-induced vascular proliferation in primary rat aortic smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in vitro. ICS-II was found to be as effective as rapamycin, the positive control used in this study. ICS-II inhibited neointimal formation in injured rat carotid arteries and notably reduced the expression of Wnt7b. ICS-Ⅱ significantly counteracted platelet-derived growth factor-induced VSMCs proliferation. Cell cycle analysis showed that ICS-II triggered cell cycle arrest during the G1/S transition. Western blot analysis further indicated that this cell cycle arrest was likely through Wnt7b suppression that led to CCND1 inhibition. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that ICS-II possesses significant antiproliferative qualities that counteracts aberrant vascular neointimal hyperplasia. This phenomenon most likely occurs due to the suppression of the Wnt7b/CCND1 axis.

This study was aimed to investigate differences in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of propofol at two commonly used dosing schedules on morbidly obese patients. Twenty-two morbidly obese patients were randomly divided into two groups, namely, TBW (dosing based on total body weight) and LBW (dosing based on lean body weight) groups. Three biomarkers, i.e. superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitric oxide (NO) were measured as indicators of the level of oxidation stress reaction. Pro-inflammatory cytokines including Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and Interleukin-8 (IL-8) were used to describe the degree of inflammation. Plasma levels of SOD, MDA and NO were increased and reached a peak value 0.5h after anesthesia induction, but the increase was smaller in the LBW group compared with the TBW group. Besides, plasma concentrations of IL-6 and IL-8 were also increased and attained a peak level 0.5h after anesthesia induction, but the increase was higher in the TBW group compared with the LBW group. The LBW-based dosing of propofol had more potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects than the TBW-based dosing during anesthesia induction period on morbidly obese patients. This study provided a dosing recommendation of propofol for morbidly obese patients.

It is still very urgent and challenging to simultaneously develop high-rate and long-cycle oxide cathodes for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) because of the sluggish kinetics and complex multiphase evolution during cycling. Here, the concept of accurately manipulating structural evolution and formulating high-performance heterostructured biphasic layered oxide cathodes by local chemistry and orbital hybridization modulation is reported. The P2-structure stoichiometric composition of the cathode material shows a layered P2- and O3-type heterostructure that is explicitly evidenced by various macroscale and atomic-scale techniques. Surprisingly, the heterostructured cathode displays excellent rate performance, remarkable cycling stability (capacity retention of 82.16% after 600 cycles at 2 C), and outstanding compatibility with hard carbon anode because of the integrated advantages of intergrowth structure and local environment regulation. Meanwhile, the formation process from precursors during calcination and the highly reversible dynamic structural evolution during the Na

To investigate the effect of vitexin (VTX) on the expression of inflammatory cytokines in human dental pulp stem cells(hDPSCs) induced by lipopolysaccharide(LPS), and to explore the underlying mechanism.hDPSCs were isolated and cultured, and CCK-8 method was used to detect the effect of VTX on proliferation of hDPSCs. hDPSCs were randomly divided into 4 groups: blank group (without LPS and VTX)，LPS group (2 μg/mL LPS)，2 μg/mL LPS + 25 μmol/L VTX，2 μg/mL LPS + 50 μmol/L VTX. The cells of all groups were cultured for 48 h. The gene levels of IL-1β， IL-6 and IL-8 in hDPSCs were detected by real time qPCR(RT-qPCR). The change of COX-2 and MAPKs signaling pathways were detected by Western blot. SPSS 16.0 software package was used for statistical analysis.When the VTX concentration was less than 200 μmol/L, the cell viability was not affected(P0.05). VTX at 25 and 50 μmol/L significantly reduced LPS-induced expression of IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-8 at gene levels and COX-2 at protein level (P0.05).VTX significantly inhibited the activation of ERK and p38 signaling pathway. VTX can reduce LPS-induced inflammatory cytokine expression in hDPSCs via restraining the activation of ERK and p38 signaling pathway.

This study summarized the literature regarding the application of pre-bent titanium miniplates in orthognathic surgery and evaluated the extra deformation of the manually pre-bent titanium miniplates via finite element analysis for acquiring higher surgical accuracy. The literature was reviewed with a chart. Three models of titanium miniplates with different thicknesses (1.0 mm, 0.8 mm, 0.6 mm) were created using COMSOL Multiphysics software for biomechanical behavior analysis. The 3 models were virtually bent into 5 angles (15 degree, 30 degree, 45 degree, 60 degree, 80 degree). respectively to simulate the preoperative virtual bending, then to simulate the practical manual bending via finite element analysis. The stresses and displacements of these models were recorded. The models from virtual bending simulation and manual bending simulation were registered to analyze the deviations. The results showed that the maximum stress and the displacement deviations between the virtual bending models and the manual bending models increased with the thickness and bending angle of the pre-bent miniplate models. To improve the surgical accuracy, measures should be applied to the manually pre-bent titanium miniplates to reduce the extra deformation when the plate being thicker and the bending angle being larger.

A series of V2O3, V2O3/C and V2O3/G composite powders are prepared by simply annealing the reaction mixture containing ammonium metavanadate (0.1 M), reduced graphene oxide (rGO, 0.1 M) and citric acid (CA, 0.0, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 M) at 500 °C for 8 h under Ar flow. A variety of characterization techniques are used to investigate the structural, physiochemical features and electrochemical performance of the powders. The reaction mixture without rGO led to the formation of V2O3 at 0.1 M of CA and V2O3/C at 0.3 and 0.5 M of CA. As anodes of lithium‐ion coin cell batteries, V2O3, V2O3/C and V2O3/G composite electrodes exhibit an increase in capacity with increasing concentrations of CA. The increase in capacity is mainly attributed to the carbonization of CA and the declining crystallinity of V2O3. V2O3/C and V2O3/G prepared at 0.5 M of CA outperformed all other control compounds. The V2O3/C and V2O3/G delivered reversible capacities of 585 and 420 mAh g−1 respectively, during the first cycle with a current density of 50 mA g−1. The respective capacities after few initial cycles continuously increased to 608 and 463 mAh g−1 at the end of the 100th cycle. MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore)

This study aims to determine the pharmacodynamics (PD) effect (measured by cardiovascular depression) of propofol during anesthesia induction period on morbidly obese (MO) patients. Four hemodynamics indexes [i.e., three indexes about blood pressure and cardiac output (CO)] representing cardiovascular function were measured. Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) modeling was performed by population analysis to obtain PD parameters. Two propofol dosing scalars, namely, dosing based on total body weight (TBW) or lean body weight (LBW), were used for MO subjects. The PD data were well described by a PK/PD model. Blood pressure and CO were rapidly decreased within one minute after intravenous injection of propofol (2 mg/kg). TBW group showed significantly lower blood pressure and CO values at and 1 min after propofol administration compared with the control group, whereas the control and LBW groups had similar PD profiles. In addition, the propofol EC50 value was significantly decreased in MO patients, whereas all other PD parameters were similar between control and MO subjects. This change indicated that propofol potency and/or sensitivity was increased in MO subjects. For MO patients, dosing of propofol based on LBW rather than TBW would be a safer choice due to a less cardiovascular depression effect.

In order to investigate the ultimate load capacity of K-type tube-gusset plate connections with stiffened plate, the static tests of five full-scale specimens were conducted in this study. The results indicate that the end stiffened plate is critical for improving the load capacity of the connections. In addition, the parametric nonlinear finite element analysis of the K-type tube-gusset plate specimens was performed with account of such non-dimensional parameters as chord diameter-to-thickness ratio (γ), plate width-to-chord diameter ratio (α), plate thickness-to-chord thickness ratio ( $$\tau_{1}$$ ), stiffened plate thickness (td), and nominal-to-yield stress ratio (η). The above analysis implies that the ultimate load capacity decreases with the increment of γ and increases with the increment of α and $$\tau_{1}$$ , while it is only slightly affected by the stiffened plate thickness. Compare the results of the finite element analysis with assessment by design guides existing. Based on the former results, an equation for estimating the load capacity of K-type tube-stiffened gusset plate is proposed.

As local traffic congestion and uncertainty factors existing on roads may lead to cascading failures or even large area traffic network congestion, a pinning control method is proposed to divert the traffic and then restore the smooth flow of traffic. To eliminate the impacts of uncertainties and negative weights for the traffic network performance, the adaptive pinning control and coupling adjustment strategies are designed to estimate controller parameters and adjust coupling strength to compensate for the impacts on the pinned nodes and unpinned nodes. Based on Lyapunov stability theory, adaptive pinning controllers and network adjusters are developed to guarantee the achievement of network synchronization even in the presence of the uncertainties and negative weights. In addition, we investigate the effects of the type of nodes on pinning synchronization performance. Numerical simulations show that if the network’s degree and the single node energy index are considered, better synchronization performance can be obtained by comparing with the pervious pinning schemes.

In order to improve the magnetic properties and corrosion resistance of sintered Nd-Fe-B magnets, the (PrNd)29.9Dy0.1B1Co1Cu0.15Febal (wt%) powders were mixed with Mg nanopowders, as grain boundary modifiers. For Nd-Fe-B magnets with 0.1–0.4 wt% Mg addition, the result showed that addition amount of 0.1 wt% Mg, Hcj reaches the maximum value of 999.1 kA/m, Br reaches 1.436T, (BH)max reaches 396.9 kJ/m3 and magnet density is 7.42 g/cm3, which are related to the microstructural modification of grain boundaries and the magnet density. Effects of Mg addition on corrosion behavior in sulphuric acid and sodium chloride solution were researched by electrochemical workstation. With increase of Mg addition level, the magnet turns to have a higher corrosion potential and lower corrosion current density, the corrosion poverty is improved. However, temperature coefficient remained nearly unchanged with Mg addition.

In Internet era, e-commerce marketing of luxury products is increasingly significant. This paper illustrates the status quo of luxury’s e-commerce market, the characters and problems displayed in different e-commerce platforms’ marketing, regarding of Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Besides, some challenges that these platforms might face in the future and corresponding measures are suggested in the last part of this research.

Traffic sign recognition system is a great important part of intelligent transportation system and advanced auxiliary driving system, and it is a key problem to improve the accuracy and real-time performance of traffic sign detection in reality.Considering to the perspective of accuracy and real-time of traffic sign detection and recognition, this article built the traffic sign detection and recognition method based on MATLAB. Finally, the paper proved the conclusion, and future traffic sign detection and recognition need to be further research topics and practical application prospect.

Because driver decision-making is a complicated process, static factors and dynamic factors should be considered in research on driving model in Intelligent Transportation microscopic study. In this paper, Grey relation entropy analysis method is used to judge the degree of importance in the whole factors.Experiment in this paper provides Grey relation entropy analysis is very effective to calculate the rank of these impact factors of driver decision-making.

In order to control and dispatch the traffic efficiently, predicting the traffic-flow has become more and more important. The artificial neural network technology has a great mapping ability on non-linear, it can deal with the complex problems through modeling analysis. This paper apply wavelet neural network to predict traffic-flow based on fuzzy clustering. From experience result, this approach predicted traffic-flow with high accuracy.

The causes of atmospheric fine particles PM2.5 are complicated and are influenced by multiple factors conditions. Considering the analysis of the diffusion problem under the direction of the wind change, this paper proposes a gray theory and a new way of combining Gaussian plume model, namely the MGM - Gaussian plume diffusion model. Draw the diffusion area of PM2.5 under the influence of the wind.

In Intelligent Transportation microscopic study, driver's physical and psychological factors play an important role for driving decisions . Considered by static factors and dynamic factors, this paper establishes 22 the driver's car-following decision factors in hierarchy.We use principal component analysis gain that nine indicators play a crucial role in driving the decision-making.Conclusion in this article provides theoretical support for the establishment of the next drive decision-making model .

Short-term traffic flow forecasting is a core problem in Intelligent Transportation System .Considering linear and nonlinear, this paper proposes a short-term traffic flow intelligent combination approach. The weight of four forecasting model is given by the correlation coefficient and standard deviation method. The experimental results show that the new approach of real-time traffic flow prediction is higher precision than single method.

Subway is usually one of the largest infrastructure in the city, is also the arteries of urban passenger transportation, and urban lifeline. The subway operation safety problem has become the primary problem in metro operation. This paper presents a new method for decision support operational risk evaluation of subway. This new method not only can evaluate the subway operation safety, but also can be safety in subway operation management in weak links, to ensure the subway operation safety.

The problem of atmospheric pollution has become the primary issue all over the world. The atmospheric pollution of the subtle particles PM2.5 has already cause a serious threat to people’s health. This passage is on the side of the causes and the characteristics of this problem. Structuring multivariate grey to prove that the model is accurately through the experiment with great applied on the part of atmospheric pollution.

The main cause of haze is atmospheric fine particles PM2.5. This is very important to research the evolution characteristics of physical chemistry about PM2.5, especially the persistent observation for PM2.5. This paper used the Grey Relational Method to analyze the correlation between PM2.5 and other air quality index in this paper. The study concludes the influence of between PM2.5 and other indicators.

Urban logistics is a kind of regional logistics depending on the cities . Nowadays, there is not the standard of the improvements of urban logistics . This paper aims to apply fuzzy logic and AHP method to evaluate the competitiveness of urban logistics. We present illustrative example which is carried out by using four main cities in China to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed menthod.

Subway has already become an important tool of public transportation. Subway security operation is to achieve a serious guarantee of safety and convenience. In this article, subway safety operation evaluation index system is constructed. Based on hierarchy process, triangular fuzzy number was used to describe the evaluation value obtained by experts. In order to be more objective and more precise, the correlation coefficient and standard deviation integrated approach will be used to calculate the weights of criteria in the fuzzy hierarchy process.

Knowledge management is an important measure to the development of High-tech enterprises and is the core competitive advantage of small and Medium High-tech Enterprise. This paper constructs a new fuzzy approach for evaluation to knowledge management with rationality, objectivity and operability. Finally, We present illustrative example to demonstrate the approach.

Urban logistics is an important component of local economy. Vigorous development of urban logistics has profound effect on the economic performance, the urban modernization and the urban integrated competitive power. In order to evaluate the urban logistics performance as a complete system, it must be divided into different gradations firstly, based on which the characteristics and influences of each gradation are analyzed, and appropriate qualitative and quantitative indicators are defined. The grey relational analysis method was proposed to compare the competitiveness of urban logistics. Experiment results prove it has certain practical significance and maneuverability.

To compare the pharmacokinetics of cisatracurium between normal weight patients and morbidly obese patients.Twelve obese ASA I-II patients (BMI≥35 kg/mCompared with those measured at TCisatracurium doses according to fat-free mass is clinically reasonable for inducing anesthesia in morbidly obese patients, but due to a prolonged muscle relax onset time, the timing of tracheal intubation should be delayed by 1-2 min.

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The corresponding author’s name “De-Hong Wang” was incorrectly spelled as “De-Dong Wang”.

Rice is the world’s most important staple grown by millions of small-holder farmers. Sustaining rice production relies on the intelligent use of rice diversity. The 3,000 Rice Genomes Project is a giga-dataset of publically available genome sequences (averaging 14× depth of coverage) derived from 3,000 accessions of rice with global representation of genetic and functional diversity. The seed of these accessions is available from the International Rice Genebank Collection. Together, they are an unprecedented resource for advancing rice science and breeding technology. Our immediate challenge now is to comprehensively and systematically mine this dataset to link genotypic variation to functional variation with the ultimate goal of creating new and sustainable rice varieties that can support a future world population that will approach 9.6 billion by 2050.

Using an estrogen-inducible expression XVE (LexA-VP16-Estragon Receptor) system, we have generated approximately 40 000 independent T-DNA insertion lines of Arabidopsis thaliana. Segregation analyses of about 18000 lines indicated that 51.6% of them contain single T-DNA insertions and that the average insertion number is 1.38 copies per line. Mutants displaying a variety of morphological alterations were identified, including those that affect development of roots,hypocotyls, leaves, floral organs and seeds as well as the flowering time.

The height of rice is one of the important agricultural traits, which affects on the rice architecture and production directly. The investigation of the length of the uppermost internode showed that the elongation mutation of the first internode is controlled by a recessive nuclear locus. The gene is localized between the STS marker of E30531 and the CAPS marker of C903 on the long arm of chromosome 5, apart from 6.7 cM and 2.8 cM respectively. The fine localization maps the gene between 0.3 cM flanks, which will help clone this gene and study the mechanism of the gene function.