Search

Abstract Aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) is a challenging task due to the presence of multiple aspect words with different sentiment polarities in a sentence. Recently, pre-trained language models like BERT have been widely used as context encoders in ABSA. Graph neural networks have also been employed to extract syntactic and semantic information from sentence parsing trees, resulting in superior results. However, dependency trees may establish irrelevant dependencies for sentences with irregular syntax and complex structures. Additionally, previous methods have not fully utilized recent developments in pre-trained language models. Therefore, we propose a Dual Syntax aware Graph attention networks with Prompt (DSGP) model to address these issues. Our model utilizes prompt templates to maximize the potential of pre-trained models and masked vector outputs of templates as supplementary aspect feature representations. We also leverage both dependency trees and constituent trees with graph attention networks to extract different types of syntactic information. The dependency tree captures syntactic correlation between words, while the constituent tree provides a high-level formation of the sentence. Finally, the output from the prompt and parsing trees is fused and fed into a standard classifier. Experimental results on four public datasets demonstrate the competitive performance of our model.

C14H14AsNO5, monoclinic, P21 (no. 4), a = 8.5830(5) Å, b = 7.0799(5) Å, c = 11.6011(7) Å, β = 100.059(2)∘, V = 694.13(8) Å3, Z = 2, R gt(F) = 0.0288, wR ref(F 2) = 0.0603, T = 150.0 K.

Safety monitoring of prefabricated subway stations is essential for early detection of potential damages to mitigate major accidents. This study developed an integrated multi-scale safety assessment and monitoring strategy for a prefabricated subway station by combining space-borne synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR), ground-based machine vision, and internal-distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) technologies. Compared to the traditional single-data-source-monitoring method, the proposed space-ground-internal integration strategy is designed to monitor the multi-scale damages of prefabricated subaway stations. This includes the mm level of ground subsidence, submm level of structural surface deformation, and microstrain level of structural internal strain field. Taking the prefabricated Shapu Station in Shenzhen as the research site, the spatiotemporal evolution of land subsidence, the underground structural settlement and convergence deformation, as well as the structural internal strain changes were monitored. Then, a multi-scale data fusion methodology combining the space-borne InSAR, the ground-based machine vision, and the internal DFOS measurements was presented for effective safety assessment of the subway station. The monitoring results indicated that deformation occurred during the backfill period, and the settlement of the dangerous assembly ring increased (the seventh ring was at the lowest safety level) when the backfill of the assembly section was completed.

Background Plant species diversity is of great significance to maintain the structure and function of the grassland ecosystem. Analyzing community niche and interspecific associations is crucial for understanding changes in plant species diversity. However, there are few studies on the response of plant species diversity, species niche characteristics, and interspecific relationships to nitrogen addition in alpine meadows on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Methods This study investigates the effects of different levels of nitrogen addition (0, 15, 30, 45, and 60 g N m−2) on plant species diversity, functional group importance values, niche width, niche overlap, and interspecific associations in an alpine meadow. Results 1) Compared with the control (CK), the Shannon-Weiner index and species richness index significantly increased by 11.36% and 30.77%, respectively, with nitrogen addition at 30 g N m−2, while both indices significantly decreased by 14.48% and 23.08%, respectively, at 60 g N m−2. As nitrogen addition increased, the importance value of grasses showed an upward trend, whereas the importance value of sedges showed a decline. 2) The niche width of Poa pratensis L., Elymus nutans Griseb., and Stipa purpurea Griseb. are increased with higher nitrogen addition. As nitrogen addition increases, the niche overlap values also show a rising trend. At 60 g N m−2, the overall community association in the alpine meadow exhibited a significant negative correlation. These findings suggest that grasses exhibit strong ecological adaptability under high nitrogen addition and gain a competitive advantage in spatial competition, increasing their niche width. Moreover, as nitrogen levels increase, the importance values of grasses rise significantly, and their ecological characteristics become more similar, resulting in reduced niche overlap among plant species. Furthermore, high nitrogen addition intensifies interspecific competition between grasses, sedges, and forbs, disrupting the original balance and reducing species diversity. These insights provide a valuable understanding of changes in species diversity and competitive dynamics in alpine meadow plant communities under high nitrogen addition.

BACKGROUND: One-lung ventilation (OLV) is frequently applied during video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) airway management to collapse and isolate the nondependent lung (NL). OLV can give rise to hypoxemia as a result of the pulmonary shunting produced. Our study aimed to assess the influence of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) combined with small-tidal-volume ventilation on improving arterial oxygenation and decreasing pulmonary shunt rate (QS/QT) without compromising surgical field exposure during OLV. METHODS: Forty-eight patients undergoing scheduled VATS lobectomy were enrolled in this research and allocated into three groups at random: C group (conventional ventilation, no NL ventilation intervention was performed), LP group (NL was ventilated with lower CPAP [2 cmH2O] and a 40–60 mL tidal volume [TV]), and HP group (NL was ventilated with higher CPAP [5 cmH2O] and a 60–80 mL TV). Record the blood gas analysis data and calculate the QS/QT at the following time: at the beginning of the OLV (T0), 30 min after OLV (T1), and 60 min after OLV (T2). Surgeons blinded to ventilation techniques were invited to evaluate the surgical fields. RESULTS: The demography data of the three groups were consistent with the surgical data. At T1, PaO2 in the HP group was substantially higher compared to the C group (P < 0.05), while there was no significant difference in the LP group (P > 0.05). At T1-T2, PaCO2 in the LP and HP groups was significantly less than that in the C group (P < 0.05). At T1, the QS/QT values of groups C, LP, and HP were 29.54 ± 6.89%, 22.66 ± 2.08%, and 19.64 ± 5.76%, respectively, and the QS/QT values in the LP and HP groups markedly reduced (P < 0.01). The surgical field’s evaluation by the surgeon among the three groups was not notable (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: CPAP combined with small-tidal-volume ventilation effectively improved arterial oxygenation and reduced QS/QT and PaCO2 without compromising surgical field exposure during OLV. Among them, 5 cmH2O CPAP + 60–80 ml TV ventilation had a better effect on improving oxygenation.

Knowledge of the temperature response of load-bearing structures in suspension bridges under vehicle fires is a prerequisite for fire protection measures. In this study, a double-deck suspension bridge was adopted as the engineering background. The temperature response of the main cables and slings was examined in the case of a fire on the upper vehicle deck, and the temperature characteristics of load-bearing structures such as trusses and the roof plate were investigated on the lower vehicle deck. The simulation variables included heat release rate (HRR), fire location, and ambient wind speed. The results showed that: (1) The fire temperature rose as HRR increased, and the fire temperature was inversely proportional to the wind speed. (2) When a fire occurred on the upper bridge deck, the maximum width of the high-temperature area on the main cable was 15 m, and the maximum temperature was 1040 °C. (3) When a fire occurred on the lower bridge deck, the maximum temperature of the truss was 1209 °C, and the maximum height of the high-temperature area exceeding 300 °C was 7.6 m. The maximum temperature reached in a 200 MW oil tanker fire was 1344 °C, lasting 3650 s.

The pilot directional protection based on amplitude comparison of the traveling wave (TW) has good performance in flexible DC transmission systems. However, this type of protection may fail to detect internal line faults correctly, as the amplitude of the forward voltage TW may be greater than that of the backward voltage TW in some fault cases. To address this issue, a novel pilot protection method based on the difference of fault TWs has been proposed. The proposed method fully considers the polarity of backward voltage TW and current TW. By utilizing the electrical quantity relationship at the line boundary, the difference between the two TWs mentioned above is transformed into the difference between the forward and backward voltage TWs. In this way, a conclusion is drawn that the absolute value of the integral ratio of forward and backward voltage TWs is less than 1 in the case of forward faults, and much greater than 1 when reverse faults occur. Therefore, a reliable directional identification criterion based on the forward and backward voltage TWs has been developed. Hardware-in-the-loop experiments and test results showcase that the proposed protection method has higher sensitivity and reliability for line faults.

The comprehension of earthquakes and natural hazards, including volcanic eruptions and landslides, as well as explosions, through observational data is a pivotal activity within the field of seismology [...]

Research on fault interaction and earthquake triggering, which is a hot issue in the field of source physics, can facilitate understanding of the underlying mechanisms of strong earthquakes and also has good application prospects in earthquake risk analysis and prediction research. Previous review articles provided detailed explanations from the perspectives of basic principles, methods, and applicability, as well as multiple earthquake case studies of stress triggering. However, the introduction to earthquake triggering from the perspective of seismicity analysis is not exhaustive, and the combination and complementarity of these two perspectives are not provided in detail. This paper summarizes the achievements and progress of research on fault interaction and earthquake triggering mechanism through the past few decades from the perspectives of physical and statistical models. The current challenges and possible future directions are reviewed and evaluated. From the perspective of the physical model, three important mechanisms of sources of fault interaction are analyzed: static stress triggering, dynamic stress triggering, and viscoelastic stress triggering, as well as the basic principles and methods of calculation. In the aspect of the statistical model, the basic principles and methods of seismicity analysis are introduced, and applications of the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model and b-value in fault interaction and earthquake triggering mechanism are analyzed. From the perspective of the combination of these two models, the unified connotation of mutual verification and the basic principle of the rate-and-state friction law are introduced. The analysis points out that the stress interaction between multiple faults or earthquakes can be comprehensively studied through the two different schools of Coulomb stress calculation and the ETAS model and that cross-validation can increase the reliability of the results. Retroactive application of rate-and-state friction law can provide a new perspective for understanding the earthquake triggering relationship and fault interaction.

Abstract The discovery of magnetic order in atomically-thin van der Waals materials has strengthened the alliance between spintronics and two-dimensional materials. An important use of magnetic two-dimensional materials in spintronic devices, which has not yet been demonstrated, would be for coherent spin injection via the spin-pumping effect. Here, we report spin pumping from Cr2Ge2Te6 into Pt or W and detection of the spin current by inverse spin Hall effect. The magnetization dynamics of the hybrid Cr2Ge2Te6/Pt system are measured, and a magnetic damping constant of ~ 4–10 × 10−4 is obtained for thick Cr2Ge2Te6 flakes, a record low for ferromagnetic van der Waals materials. Moreover, a high interface spin transmission efficiency (a spin mixing conductance of 2.4 × 1019/m2) is directly extracted, which is instrumental in delivering spin-related quantities such as spin angular momentum and spin-orbit torque across an interface of the van der Waals system. The low magnetic damping that promotes efficient spin current generation together with high interfacial spin transmission efficiency suggests promising applications for integrating Cr2Ge2Te6 into low-temperature two-dimensional spintronic devices as the source of coherent spin or magnon current.

Antiferromagnetic excitonic insulators are a distinct form of excitonic insulator, in which electrons and holes are bound by magnetic exchange rather than Coulomb attraction. Here, Mazzone et al. show, using X-ray scattering, that Sr3Ir2O7 realizes this particular state.

Based on the involutes and cycloid gear profile equation，3D parametric models of involute gear and cycloid gear are respectively established in Creo with considering modification，and the whole machine parametric model of RV-20E precision reducer is obtained. The model of the whole machine is introduced into Adams to establish a virtual prototype，and the kinematics simulation is carried out to obtain the angular velocity curves of involutes planetary gear，cycloid wheel and planetary frame. The correctness of the virtual prototype is verified by theoretical calculation results. The influence of two-stage modification on the transmission accuracy of the robot precision reducer is studied. Six virtual prototypes are respectively established when considering the first stage modification combined with modification variables. According to the simulation results，the running smoothness of the left and right involutes planetary gears with tooth profile modification is improved by 86.5% and 82.6% respectively. Compared with the cycloid gear modification only considered，the two-stage modification combined with cycloid gear modification is considered，the motion transmission of the precision reducer is more stable，the transmission accuracy is increased by 1.8%，and the operation smoothness is increased by 30.5%.

Earthquake prediction is a long-standing problem in seismology that has garnered attention from the scientific community and the public. Despite ongoing efforts to understand the physical mechanisms of earthquake occurrence, there is no convincing physical or statistical model for predicting large earthquakes. Machine learning methods, such as random forest and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks, excel at identifying patterns in large-scale databases and offer a potential means to improve earthquake prediction performance. Differing from physical and statistical approaches to earthquake prediction, we explore whether small earthquakes can be used to predict large earthquakes within the framework of machine learning. Specifically, we attempt to answer two questions for a given region: (1) Is there a likelihood of a large earthquake (e.g., M ≥ 6.0) occurring within the next year? (2) What is the maximum magnitude of an earthquake expected to occur within the next year? Our results show that the random forest method performs best in classifying large earthquake occurrences, while the LSTM method provides a rough estimation of earthquake magnitude. We conclude that small earthquakes contain information relevant to predicting future large earthquakes and that machine learning provides a promising avenue for improving the prediction of earthquake occurrences.

Transmission accuracy and dynamic stability of industrial robots precision reducer depend on the meshing performance of cycloid pin gear to a great extent. Therefore， 3D parametric modeling and transient dynamics analysis are carried out on the meshing transmission part of cycloid pin gear in the second stage of the precision reducer through the digital design and dynamics analysis platform combined with Creo and ANSYS Workbench， the model of precise reducer parameter and the stress and strain nephogram of cycloid pin gear tooth surface during dynamic meshing of cycloid needle wheel can be obtained quickly and accurately， thus the contact stress distribution law of cycloid and pin wheel in meshing process is obtained. The theoretical calculation results of Hertz contact theory are compared with the above simulation results， the correctness of the model is verified， which provides the necessary theoretical basis for the cycloid gear tooth profile optimization and modification.

Abstract Background Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) serve as an attractive vehicle for cell-directed enzyme prodrug therapy (CDEPT) due to their unique tumour-nesting ability. Such approach holds high therapeutic potential for treating solid tumours including glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a devastating disease with limited effective treatment options. Currently, it is a common practice in research and clinical manufacturing to use viruses to deliver therapeutic genes into MSCs. However, this is limited by the inherent issues of safety, high cost and demanding manufacturing processes. The aim of this study is to identify a facile, scalable in production and highly efficient non-viral method to transiently engineer MSCs for prolonged and exceptionally high expression of a fused transgene: yeast cytosine deaminase::uracil phosphoribosyl-transferase::green fluorescent protein (CD::UPRT::GFP). Methods MSCs were transfected with linear polyethylenimine using a cpg-free plasmid encoding the transgene in the presence of a combination of fusogenic lipids and β tubulin deacetylase inhibitor (Enhancer). Process scalability was evaluated in various planar vessels and microcarrier-based bioreactor. The transfection efficiency was determined with flow cytometry, and the therapeutic efficacy of CD::UPRT::GFP expressing MSCs was evaluated in cocultures with temozolomide (TMZ)-sensitive or TMZ-resistant human glioblastoma cell lines. In the presence of 5-fluorocytosine (5FC), the 5-fluorouracil-mediated cytotoxicity was determined by performing colometric MTS assay. In vivo antitumor effects were examined by local injection into subcutaneous TMZ-resistant tumors implanted in the athymic nude mice. Results At > 90% transfection efficiency, the phenotype, differentiation potential and tumour tropism of MSCs were unaltered. High reproducibility was observed in all scales of transfection. The therapeutically modified MSCs displayed strong cytotoxicity towards both TMZ-sensitive and TMZ-resistant U251-MG and U87-MG cell lines only in the presence of 5FC. The effectiveness of this approach was further validated with other well-characterized and clinically annotated patient-derived GBM cells. Additionally, a long-term suppression (> 30 days) of the growth of a subcutaneous TMZ-resistant U-251MG tumour was demonstrated. Conclusions Collectively, this highly efficient non-viral workflow could potentially enable the scalable translation of therapeutically engineered MSC for the treatment of TMZ-resistant GBM and other applications beyond the scope of this study.

Abstract Statistics shows that transients produced by lightning or momentary links with external objects, have produced more than 80% of faults in overhead lines. Reclosing of circuit breaker (CB) after a pre-defined dead time is very common however reclosing onto permanent faults may damage the power system stability and aggravate severe damage to the system. Thus, adaptive single-phase auto-reclosing (ASPAR) based on investigating existing electrical signals has fascinated engineers and researchers. An ASPAR blocks CB reclosing onto permanent faults and allows reclosing permission once secondary arc is quenched. To address the subject, there have been many ASPARs techniques proposed based on the features trapped in a faulty phase. This paper presents a critical survey of adaptive auto-reclosing schemes that have hitherto been applied to EHV transmission lines.

Summary: Ultra-high field (UHF) neuroimaging affords the sub-millimeter resolution that allows researchers to interrogate brain computations at a finer scale than that afforded by standard fMRI techniques. Here, we present a step-by-step protocol for using UHF imaging (Siemens Terra 7T scanner) to measure activity in the human brain. We outline how to preprocess the data using a pipeline that combines tools from SPM, FreeSurfer, ITK-SNAP, and BrainVoyager and correct for vasculature-related confounders to improve the spatial accuracy of the fMRI signal.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Jia et al. (2020) and Zamboni et al. (2020).

Adapting to the environment statistics by reducing brain responses to repetitive sensory information is key for efficient information processing. Yet, the fine-scale computations that support this adaptive processing in the human brain remain largely unknown. Here, we capitalise on the sub-millimetre resolution of ultra-high field imaging to examine functional magnetic resonance imaging signals across cortical depth and discern competing hypotheses about the brain mechanisms (feedforward vs. feedback) that mediate adaptive processing. We demonstrate layer-specific suppressive processing within visual cortex, as indicated by stronger BOLD decrease in superficial and middle than deeper layers for gratings that were repeatedly presented at the same orientation. Further, we show altered functional connectivity for adaptation: enhanced feedforward connectivity from V1 to higher visual areas, short-range feedback connectivity between V1 and V2, and long-range feedback occipito-parietal connectivity. Our findings provide evidence for a circuit of local recurrent and feedback interactions that mediate rapid brain plasticity for adaptive information processing.

Background and Objective: One-third of ischemic strokes have no identifiable cause following standard evaluation. In 2014, researchers have proposed the concept of Embolic Stroke of Undetermined Source (ESUS). The purpose of this study was to report the clinical characteristics of ESUS and its difference from cardiogenic embolism (CE), large-artery atherosclerosis (LA), and small-artery occlusion lacunar (SA).Methods: Acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients admitted to the department of Beijing Haidian Hospital from January 2017 to December 2017 were prospectively and consecutively enrolled. Base-line characteristics were collected. Stroke etiologies were presented and compared. We compared the clinical features and infarct sites of patients with acute cerebral infarction of different etiologies.Results: A total of 119 AIS patients were analyzed in the study. There were 33 (27.73%) cases in ESUS group, 11 (9.24%) cases in CE group, 45 (37.82%) cases in LAA group and 30 (25.21%) cases in SA group. There were significant differences between the ESUS group and the CE group in the NIHSS score [3 (1.5–5) vs. 6 (2–20), p = 0.007], Modified Rankin Score [19, (57.58) vs. 9, (81.82), p = 0.008], hemorrhagic transformation [0, (0) vs. 5, (45.45), p < 0.001], and left atrial diameter [37.09 ± 3.16 vs. 41.73 ± 5.00, p = 0.001]. ESUS group and LA group have different mRS scores [19, (57.58) vs. 42, (93.33), p < 0.001]. ESUS group and SA group have different mRS scores [19, (57.58) vs. 28, (93.33), p = 0.001]. During 1 year follow-up, there were 5 cases (15.15%) in ESUS group, 3 cases (27.27%) in CE group, 3 cases (6.67%) in LA group, and 1 case (3.33%) in SA group with ischemic stroke (cerebral infarction or transient ischemic attack).Conclusion: ESUS is more similar to atherosclerotic cerebral infarction in clinical features, but the distribution of lesions is more similar to cardiogenic embolism, suggesting that the pathogenesis of ESUS needs to be further explored.

Abstract Background Comparing and classifying functions of gene products are important in today’s biomedical research. The semantic similarity derived from the Gene Ontology (GO) annotation has been regarded as one of the most widely used indicators for protein interaction. Among the various approaches proposed, those based on the vector space model are relatively simple, but their effectiveness is far from satisfying. Results We propose a Hierarchical Vector Space Model (HVSM) for computing semantic similarity between different genes or their products, which enhances the basic vector space model by introducing the relation between GO terms. Besides the directly annotated terms, HVSM also takes their ancestors and descendants related by “is_a” and “part_of” relations into account. Moreover, HVSM introduces the concept of a Certainty Factor to calibrate the semantic similarity based on the number of terms annotated to genes. To assess the performance of our method, we applied HVSM to Homo sapiens and Saccharomyces cerevisiae protein-protein interaction datasets. Compared with TCSS, Resnik, and other classic similarity measures, HVSM achieved significant improvement for distinguishing positive from negative protein interactions. We also tested its correlation with sequence, EC, and Pfam similarity using online tool CESSM. Conclusions HVSM showed an improvement of up to 4% compared to TCSS, 8% compared to IntelliGO, 12% compared to basic VSM, 6% compared to Resnik, 8% compared to Lin, 11% compared to Jiang, 8% compared to Schlicker, and 11% compared to SimGIC using AUC scores. CESSM test showed HVSM was comparable to SimGIC, and superior to all other similarity measures in CESSM as well as TCSS. Supplementary information and the software are available at https://github.com/kejia1215/HVSM.

Single crystals of Eu_{3}InAs_{3} have been successfully synthesized by indium flux reactions. Eu_{3}InAs_{3} crystallizes in the Ca_{3}AlAs_{3}-type structure with an orthorhombic space-group Pnma. Theoretical calculations indicate that Eu_{3}InAs_{3} is a semiconductor with a direct band gap of 0.3 eV. Eu_{3}InAs_{3} has large negative Seebeck coefficients in the range of 300–450 μV/K at room temperature. Eu_{3}InAs_{3} displays two antiferromagnetic transitions (T_{N1}=13 and T_{N2}=10 K) for both H∥b and H⊥b which can be suppressed by magnetic fields. At 2 K, field-induced ferromagnetic states are reached for both H∥b and H⊥b. Particularly, the H∥b magnetization curves show a plateau at 1/3 of the saturated magnetization and an anomaly at 2/3 of the saturated magnetization. Eu_{3}InAs_{3} is a Zintl phase material showing a 1/3 magnetization plateau here.

Unlike the synchronous generators, the short-circuit current provided by the photovoltaic (PV) sources is limited by the grid-connected inverters and closely related to the normal conditions, which impacts the protection of the power systems. This study deals with the protection of the power lines (distribution feeders) that connect the PV power plants (PVPP) to the grid; the first part of this study analyses the impact of the grid-connected PV (GCPV) system on the conventional distance protection. A specific coordination between the over-current protection of the grid side and the distance protection of the PVPP side was used to eliminate this impact. This coordination requires delaying the distance protection and keeping the inverter connected to the grid, which was achieved by fault ride-through (FRT) feature accompanied with the inverter control during the fault condition. The second part studies the possibility of using the double-end-impedance-based fault location on the PVPP power lines, and some FRT strategies were suggested to reduce the effect of the inverter control loops on obtaining the accurate fault location. The proposed work was verified by GCPV system model using MATLAB/Simulink software.

While meaning variation in common words across language and culture is well established, only a few studies have explicitly quantified how general such differences are and whether differences reflect slight variations in meaning or could be considered to map onto entirely distinct concepts for different groups. The present study aims to investigate the extent to which common words can be interpreted differently between groups of English-proficient native Chinese speakers and native English speakers. This was done through a free judgment of associative strength (JAS) task using 42 cue English nouns. Our findings revealed language-specific meanings across all 42 cue words, with strong evidence for language-specific meaning in nearly 95\% of nouns. To determine whether these words map onto entirely distinct language-specific concepts, we measured conceptual diversity using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA). The results of the LPA showed that nearly 69% of the cue words could be mapped onto more than one concept across all participants. Importantly, language differences were related to conceptual diversity in nearly 64% of words featuring multiple concepts. In sum, we found robust evidence of word meanings and conceptual variations among individuals across distinct linguistic and cultural backgrounds, even for common English words.

Graphene is a promising THz magneto-optical material. However, high Faraday rotation is only achievable at a low THz frequency range in single layer graphene. In this paper, we report simultaneous Faraday rotation and optical transmission enhancement in Au grating/graphene/silicon hybrid plasmonic structures across a wide frequency range from 0.43 to 24 THz using extraordinary transmission of THz spoof surface plasmons. In a broad frequency range up to 13.1 THz, the Faraday rotation and magneto-optical figure of merit in this hybrid structure can exceed the maximum value of single layer graphene at the low THz frequency range. Numerical analysis on the device dispersion relation indicates that the mechanism of simultaneous Faraday rotation and transmission enhancement is due to coupling of the TE waveguide mode with the TM hybrid waveguide-plasmon mode. Our work demonstrates the hybrid plasmonic structure as a promising candidate for THz nonreciprocal photonic device applications.

Bacillus subtilis B006 strain effectively suppresses the cucumber fusarium wilt caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cucumerinum (Foc). The population dynamics of Foc, strain B006 and its surfactin over-producing mutant B841 and surfactin-deficient mutant B1020, in the rhizosphere were determined under greenhouse conditions to elucidate the importance of the lipopeptides excreted by these strains in suppressing Foc. Results showed that B. subtilis strain B006 effectively suppressed the disease in natural soil by 42.9%, five weeks after transplanting, whereas B841 and B1020 suppressed the disease by only 22.6% and 7.1%, respectively. Quantitative PCR assays showed that effective colonization of strain B006 in the rhizosphere suppressed Foc propagation by more than 10 times both in nursery substrate and in field-infected soil. Reduction of Foc population at the cucumber stems in a range of 0.96 log₁₀ ng/g to 2.39 log₁₀ ng/g was attained at the third and the fifth weeks of B006 treatment in nursery substrate. In field-infected soil, all three treatments with B. subtilis suppressed Foc infection, indicated by the reduction of Foc population at a range of 2.91 log₁₀ ng/g to 3.36 log₁₀ ng/g at the stem base, one week after transplanting. This study reveals that the suppression of fusarium wilt disease is affected by the effective colonization of the surfactin-producing B. subtilis strain in the rhizosphere. These results improved our understanding of the biocontrol mechanism of the B. subtilis strain B006 in the natural soil and facilitate its application as biocontrol agent in the field.