Search

Abstract Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensors are based on photon-excited surface charge density oscillations confined at metal-dielectric interfaces, which makes them highly sensitive to biological or chemical molecular bindings to functional metallic surfaces. Metal nanostructures further concentrate surface plasmons into a smaller area than the diffraction limit, thus strengthening photon-sample interactions. However, plasmonic sensors based on intensity detection provide limited resolution with long acquisition time owing to their high vulnerability to environmental and instrumental noises. Here, we demonstrate fast and precise detection of noble gas dynamics at single molecular resolution via frequency-comb-referenced plasmonic phase spectroscopy. The photon-sample interaction was enhanced by a factor of 3,852 than the physical sample thickness owing to plasmon resonance and thermophoresis-assisted optical confinement effects. By utilizing a sharp plasmonic phase slope and a high heterodyne information carrier, a small atomic-density modulation was clearly resolved at 5 Hz with a resolution of 0.06 Ar atoms per nano-hole (in 10–11 RIU) in Allan deviation at 0.2 s; a faster motion up to 200 Hz was clearly resolved. This fast and precise sensing technique can enable the in-depth analysis of fast fluid dynamics with the utmost resolution for a better understanding of biomedical, chemical, and physical events and interactions.

Abstract The recent progress in the development of measurement systems for autonomous recognition had a substantial impact on emerging technology in numerous fields, especially robotics and automotive applications. In particular, time-of-flight (TOF) based light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems enable to map the surrounding environmental information over long distances and with high accuracy. The combination of advanced LiDAR with an artificial intelligence platform allows enhanced object recognition and classification, which however still suffers from limitations of inaccuracy and misidentification. Recently, multi-spectral LiDAR systems have been employed to increase the object recognition performance by additionally providing material information in the short-wave infrared (SWIR) range where the reflection spectrum characteristics are typically very sensitive to material properties. However, previous multi-spectral LiDAR systems utilized band-pass filters or complex dispersive optical systems and even required multiple photodetectors, adding complexity and cost. In this work, we propose a time-division-multiplexing (TDM) based multi-spectral LiDAR system for semantic object inference by the simultaneous acquisition of spatial and spectral information. By utilizing the TDM method, we enable the simultaneous acquisition of spatial and spectral information as well as a TOF based distance map with minimized optical loss using only a single photodetector. Our LiDAR system utilizes nanosecond pulses of five different wavelengths in the SWIR range to acquire sufficient material information in addition to 3D spatial information. To demonstrate the recognition performance, we map the multi-spectral image from a human hand, a mannequin hand, a fabric gloved hand, a nitrile gloved hand, and a printed human hand onto an RGB-color encoded image, which clearly visualizes spectral differences as RGB color depending on the material while having a similar shape. Additionally, the classification performance of the multi-spectral image is demonstrated with a convolution neural network (CNN) model using the full multi-spectral data set. Our work presents a compact novel spectroscopic LiDAR system, which provides increased recognition performance and thus a great potential to improve safety and reliability in autonomous driving.

Abstract Curcuma longa L. extract (CLE) exerts various biological functions including antioxidant, anti-inflammation, anticancer, and antiallergenic effects. However, its immune-enhancing capacity remains unclear. Therefore, the immune-enhancing effect of CLE was investigated in RAW 264.7 cells and cyclophosphamide (CPP)-induced immunosuppression model. CLE upregulated nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species production and increased inducible nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase-2 expression without affecting the RAW 264.7 cells viability. The results of quantitative real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay showed that CLE increased the gene expression and protein levels of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, and interleukin-1β in RAW 264.7 cells. Moreover, CLE upregulated p65, I kappa B kinase α/β, and I kappa B α (IκBα) phosphorylation and downregulated IκBα expression in RAW 264.7 cells. CLE also increased p65 translocation from the cytoplasmic to the nucleus in RAW 264.7 cells. The oral administration of CLE increased organ indexes (including the spleen and thymus) and NO production in peritoneal macrophages and improved natural killer cell activity in CPP-induced immunosuppression BALB/c mice. Overall, CLE could be a useful health functional food material that can improve innate immunity via macrophage activation.

Interfaces between implantable bioelectrodes and tissues provide critical insights into the biological and pathological conditions of targeted organs, aiding diagnosis and treatment. While conventional bioelectronics, made from rigid materials like metals and silicon, have been essential for recording signals and delivering electric stimulation, they face limitations due to the mechanical mismatch between rigid devices and soft tissues. Recently, focus has shifted toward soft conductive materials, such as conductive hydrogels and hydrogel nanocomposites, known for their tissue-like softness, biocompatibility, and potential for functionalization. This review introduces these materials and provides an overview of recent advances in soft hydrogel nanocomposites for implantable electronics. It covers material strategies for conductive hydrogels, including both intrinsically conductive hydrogels and hydrogel nanocomposites, and explores key functionalization techniques like biodegradation, bioadhesiveness, injectability, and self-healing. Practical applications of these materials in implantable electronics are also highlighted, showcasing their effectiveness in real-world scenarios. Finally, we discuss emerging technologies and future needs for chronically implantable bioelectronics, offering insights into the evolving landscape of this field.

There are a variety of microorganisms in the animal intestine, and it has been known that they play important roles in the host such as suppression of potentially pathogenic microorganisms, modulation of the gut immunity. In addition, the gut microbiota and the livestock growth performance have long been known to be related. Therefore, we evaluated the interrelation between the growth performance and the gut microbiome of the pigs from 3 different farms, with pigs of varied ages ready to be supplied to the market. When pigs reached average market weight of 118 kg, the average age of pigs in three different farms were < 180 days, about 190 days, and > 200 days, respectively. Fecal samples were collected from pigs of age of 70 days, 100 days, 130 days, and 160 days. The output data of the 16S rRNA gene sequencing by the Illumina Miseq platform was filtered and analyzed using Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology (QIIME)2, and the statistical analysis was performed using Statistical Analysis of Metagenomic Profiles (STAMP). The results of this study showed that the gut microbial communities shifted as pigs aged along with significant difference in the relative abundance of different phyla and genera in different age groups of pigs from each farm. Even though, there was no statistical differences among groups in terms of Chao1, the number of observed operational taxonomic units (OTUs), and the Shannon index, our results showed higher abundances of Bifidobacterium, Clostridium and Lactobacillus in the feces of pigs with rapid growth rate. These results will help us to elucidate important gut microbiota that can affect the growth performance of pigs.

Objective To assess the impact of HRQoL in patients hospitalised with COVID-19-related SARI at 1 year post discharge, focusing on the potential impact of age, frailty, and disease severity.Method Routinely collected outcome data on 1207 patients admitted with confirmed COVID-19 related SARI across all three secondary care sites in our NHS trust over 3 months were assessed in this retrospective cohort study. Of those surviving 1 year, we prospectively collected 36-item short form (SF-36) HRQoL questionnaires, comparing three age groups (

As offline control photovoltaic (PV) plants are not equipped with online communication and remote control systems, they cannot adjust their power in real-time. Therefore, in a distribution network saturated with offline control PVs, the distribution system operator (DSO) should schedule the distributed energy resources (DERs) considering the uncertainty of renewable energy to prevent curtailment due to overvoltage. This paper presents a day-ahead network operation strategy using a mobile energy storage system (MESS) and offline control PVs to minimize power curtailment. The MESS model efficiently considers the transportation time and power loss of the MESS, and models various operating modes, such as the charging, discharging, idle, and moving modes. The optimization problem is formulated based on mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) considering the spatial and temporal operation constraints of MESSs and is performed using chanced constrained optimal power flow (CC-OPF). The upper limits for offline control PVs are set based on the probabilistic approach, thus mitigating overvoltage due to forecasting errors. The proposed operation strategy was tested in the IEEE 33-node distribution system coupled with a 15-node transportation system. The test results show the effectiveness of the proposed method for minimizing curtailment in offline control PVs.

To ensure system reliability against unexpected and sudden disturbances, system operators must secure a portion of the transmission capacity of the power system as transmission reserve, which is not used under normal conditions. However, with the recent increase in renewable energy penetration, a transmission reliability margin has been employed under both conditions of system failures and normal operation conditions due to renewable energy uncertainty. Therefore, in the process of transmission pricing, the degree of use of the transmission facilities due to renewable energy uncertainty and system failures should be examined. This paper proposes transmission pricing using usage and reliability contribution factors, which are computed using the degree of use of the transmission lines over all periods. The probabilistic power flow is applied to consider changes in line flows through the forecasting error of renewable energy sources (RES). The proposed method is tested with an IEEE-5 bus system and an IEEE-24 bus system. The test results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in reasonably allocating transmission costs to network users, taking into account the reliability contribution due to system failures and renewable energy uncertainty.

Introduction: Although sinapic acid is found in various edible plants and has been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties including colitis, its underlying mechanism and effects on the composition of the gut microbiota are largely unknown. We aimed to identify an early response kinase that regulates the localization of tight junction proteins, act at the onset of the inflammatory response, and is regulated by sinapic acid. Additionally, we analyzed the effects of sinapic acid on the homeostasis of the intestinal microbiome.Methods: We examined the aberrant alterations of early response genes such as nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) and activating transcription factor (ATF)-2 within 2 h of sinapic acid treatment in fully differentiated Caco-2 cells with or without lipopolysaccharide and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α stimulation. To confirm the effect of sinapic acid on stimulus-induced delocalization of tight junction proteins, including zonula occludens (ZO)-1, occludin, and claudin-2, all tight junction proteins were investigated by analyzing a fraction of membrane and cytosol proteins extracted from Caco-2 cells and mice intestines. Colitis was induced in C57BL/6 mice using 2% dextran sulfate sodium and sinapic acid (2 or 10 mg/kg/day) was administrated for 15 days. Furthermore, the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical activities of sinapic acid for treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) evaluated.Results: We confirmed that sinapic acid significantly suppressed the stimulus-induced delocalization of tight junction proteins from the intestinal cell membrane and abnormal intestinal permeability as well as the expression of inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1β and TNF-α in vitro and in vivo. Sinapic acid was found to bind directly to transforming growth factor beta-activated kinase 1 (TAK1) and inhibit the stimulus-induced activation of NF-κB as well as MAPK/ATF-2 pathways, which in turn regulated the expression of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MLCK). Dietary sinapic acid also alleviated the imbalanced of gut microbiota and symptoms of IBD, evidenced by improvements in the length and morphology of the intestine in mice with colitis.Discussion: These findings indicate that sinapic acid may be an effective nutraceutical and pharmaceutical agent for IBD treatment as it targets TAK1 and inhibits subsequent NF-κB and ATF-2 signaling.

IntroductionThis study was conducted to evaluate the effects of Lacticaseibacillus casei (Lactobacillus casei) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae mixture on growth performance, hematological parameters, immunological responses, and gut microbiome in weaned pigs.MethodsA total of 300 crossbred pigs [(Landrace × Yorkshire] × Duroc; 8.87 ± 0.34 kg of average initial body weight [BW]; 4 weeks of age) were divided into two dietary treatments (15 pigs/pen, 10 replicates/treatment) using a randomized complete block design (block = BW): control (CON) and the effective microorganism (MEM). The CON was not treated, while the MEM was treated with the mixture of L. casei (1 × 107 CFU/mL) and S. cerevisiae (1 × 107 CFU/mL) at 3 mL/pig/day for 4 weeks via the drinking water supply. Two feces and one blood sample from the randomly selected pigs in each pen were collected on D1 and D28 after weaning. Pigs were individually weighed, and pen feed intakes were recorded to evaluate pig growth performance. For the gut microbiome analysis, 16S rRNA gene hypervariable regions (V5 to V6) were sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform, and Quantitative Insight into Microbial Ecology (QIIME) and Microbiome Helper pipeline were used for 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis.Results and DiscussionThe daily weight gain and feed efficiency of MEM were significantly higher than those of CON (p

ABSTRACTAs the improvement of ship energy efficiency is emphasized internationally, researches for this are being conducted in various ways. Accordingly, research is being conducted on the application of ORC power generation systems for ships using waste heat from the main engine exhaust gas generated during operation. The WHRU constituting the ORC system must be designed so that stable-phase change heat transfer occurs. In this study, a design study was conducted using the ANSYS CFX program for the production of a WHRU capable of generating ORC power generation output for a 30-kW ship using R134a refrigerant. A WHRU capable of achieving 30 kW generation output performance was designed while changing various design elements (shape, tube diameter, number of tubes, number of stages, etc.) of the WHRU. As a result, it was confirmed that the refrigerant (R134a) in a liquid state at a temperature of 14.8°C entered at a flow rate of 1.06 kg/s, evaporated by the exhaust gas, and was discharged from the outlet in a state of vapor fraction 1 at a temperature of 56.4°C. The heat transfer rate of the WHRU was 219.2 kW, the pressure during the evaporation process was constant at 13.9 bar in absolute pressure, and the enthalpy was 220 kJ/kg at the inlet and 426 kJ/kg at the outlet, respectively.

This paper presents a novel and efficient solution procedure to improve 3D solid finite element analysis with an enrichment scheme. To this end, we employ finite elements enriched by polynomial cover functions, which can expand their solution space without requiring mesh refinement or additional nodes. To facilitate this solution procedure, an error estimation method and cover function selection scheme for 3D solid finite element analysis are developed. This enables the identification of nodes with suboptimal solution accuracy, allowing for the adaptive application of cover functions in a systematic and efficient manner. Furthermore, a significant advantage of this procedure is its consistency, achieved by excluding arbitrary coefficients from the formulations employed. The effectiveness of the proposed procedure is demonstrated through several numerical examples. In the majority of the examples, it is observed that the stress prediction error is reduced by more than half after applying the proposed procedure.

Fault diagnosis of power transmission systems (PTSs) is crucial for ensuring the reliability of power grids because most grids are exposed to harsh environments. For integrity diagnosis of PTSs, this article proposes a nondestructive patrol inspection method that employs a smart inspection system (SIS) mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). This system overcomes the geographical limitations faced in accessing PTSs. The SIS includes an ultraviolet camera system that can detect partial discharges on the damaged surfaces of PTSs. The SIS is characterized by three main features. First, it employs an automatic line-tracking method based on image-processing methods. Second, defect locations are automatically estimated on the basis of the consistency of partial discharges, where consistency indicates the steadiness of corona discharges in one-dimensional global coordinates. Third, an alarm is triggered on the basis of the combination of the result from a statistical outlier detection method and the estimated partial discharge locations on a two-dimensional partial discharge map. Finally, a UAV equipped with the proposed system is field-tested for PTS inspection in the autopilot mode. Field tests conducted on ultrahigh-voltage PTSs confirmed the damage detection capabilities of the proposed method and demonstrated its effectiveness and convenience.

Diagnostic methods for power transmission facilities are important for energy security because the growth of defects in power facilities increases the risk of blackouts in an entire power grid. However, damage in power transmission facilities is difficult to detect because cracks or defects are minuscule and are challenging to determine. One interesting phenomenon caused by damage in power transmission facilities is ultrasound emissions on a damaged surface. However, measuring ultrasound emissions to detect defects is limited by the severity of the surrounding noise. To overcome this limitation, this study proposes a new method for damage detection by fusing ultrasound measurements with recorded optical images. The proposed method consists of two phases. The first phase preprocesses ultrasound measurements for ultrasound feature extraction. This phase aims to detect the location of ultrasound emissions by analyzing ultrasound characteristics including the intensity and density. The second phase detects and classifies a damaged object with optical images recorded using a deep convolutional neural network. This phase not only discards the noise from the ultrasound measurements but also classifies a damaged system among many components in power transmission facilities. The experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed method using ultrasound measurements and recorded images and finally suggest scenarios for potential applications.

Abstract Background The global burden of seasonal influenza on medical care has been one of the greatest in the pediatric population. The attention drawn to influenza B was relatively low compared to influenza A, probably because the influenza B virus was thought to be less virulent and have a lower pandemic potential. This study aimed to compare the clinical features of influenza A and B in children. Methods This retrospective study included children diagnosed and treated for influenza as inpatients or outpatients during the 2017/18 influenza season at a tertiary referral hospital. Data regarding clinical characteristics, diagnoses, laboratory results, and vaccination histories were collected and reviewed. Results Over the study period, 128 patients with influenza A and 109 patients with influenza B were identified. The mean age of patients with influenza B was significantly higher than that of patients with influenza A (5.6 ± 4.4 vs 4.1 ± 4.4 years, p = 0.010). Fever was the most common manifestation of influenza followed by respiratory symptoms. No single symptom was specifically associated with either type of influenza. The total duration of fever (4.3 ± 2.3 vs 3.7 ± 2.6 days), ‘time from fever onset to initiation of antivirals’, and ‘time from initiation of antivirals to defervescence’ were similar between the two influenza types, even though all three time periods tended to be longer for influenza B. The platelet counts and proportions of neutrophils were higher for influenza A than for influenza B infections, although the values were within normal limits for both influenza types. Conclusions We found overall clinical similarities between influenza A and B with no less clinical significance or severity of influenza B compared to those of influenza A. Equal levels of awareness and attention should be paid to both influenza types.

Conditional generative adversarial networks (cGANs) are used in various transformation applications, such as super-resolution, colorization, image denoising, and image inpainting. So far, cGANs have been applied to the transformation of still images, but their use could be extended to the transformation of video contents, which has a much larger market. This paper considers problems with the cGAN-based transformation of video contents. The major problem is flickering caused by the discontinuity between adjacent image frames. Several postprocessing algorithms have been proposed to reduce that effect after transformation. We propose a recursive cGAN in which the previous output frame is used as an input in addition to the current input frame to reduce the flickering effect without losing the objective quality of each image. Compared with previous postprocessing algorithms, our approach performed better in terms of various evaluation metrics for video contents.

Experimental and numerical analysis of the drop-on-demand inkjet was conducted to determine the jetting characteristics and meniscus motion under the control of the ink supply pressure. A single transparent nozzle inkjet head driven by a piezoelectric actuator was used to eject droplets. To control ink supply pressure, the pressure of the air in the reservoir was regulated by a dual valve pressure controller. The inkjet performance and the motion of the meniscus were evaluated by visualization and numerical simulation. A two-dimensional axisymmetric numerical simulation with the dynamic mesh method was performed to simulate the inkjet dynamics, including the actual deformation of the piezoelectric actuator. Numerical simulation showed good agreement with the experimental results of droplet velocity and volume with an accuracy of 87.1%. Both the experimental and simulation results showed that the drop volume and velocity were linearly proportional to the voltage change. For the specific voltages, an analysis of the effect of the ink supply pressure control was conducted. At the maximum negative pressure, −3 kPa, the average velocity reductions were 0.558 and 0.392 m/s in the experiment and simulation, respectively, which were 18.7 and 11.6% less than those of the uncontrolled case of 0 kPa. Therefore, the simulation environment capable of simulating the entire inkjet dynamics, including meniscus movement regarded to be successfully established. The average volume reductions were 18.7 and 6.97 pL for the experiment and simulation, respectively, which were 21.7 and 9.17% less than those of the uncontrolled case. In the results of the meniscus motion simulation, the damping of the residual vibration agreed well with the experimental results according to the ink supply pressure change. Reducing the ink supply pressure reduced the speed and volume, improved the damping of residual vibrations, and suppressed satellite drops. Decreasing ink supply pressure can be expected to improve the stability and productivity of inkjet printing.

In this paper, we present an automatic procedure that enhances the solution accuracy of edge-based smoothed 2D solid finite elements (three-node triangular and four-node quadrilateral elements). To obtain an enhanced solution, an adaptive enrichment scheme that uses enriched 2D solid finite elements and can effectively improve solution accuracy by applying cover functions adaptively without mesh-refinement is adopted in this procedure. First, the error of the edge-based finite element solution is estimated using a devised error estimation method, and appropriate cover functions are assigned for each node. While the edge-based smoothed finite elements provide piecewise constant strain fields, the proposed enrichment scheme uses the enriched finite elements to obtain a higher order strain field within the finite elements. Through various numerical examples, we demonstrate the accuracy improvement and efficiency achieved.

Improving the performance of power systems has become a challenging task for system operators in an open access environment. This paper presents an optimization approach for solving the multi-objective scheduling problem using a modified non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm in a hybrid network of meshed alternating current (AC)/wind farm grids. This approach considers voltage and power control modes based on multi-terminal voltage source converter high-voltage direct current (MTDC) and battery energy storage systems (BESS). To enhance the hybrid network station performance, we implement an optimal process based on the battery energy storage system operational strategy for multi-objective scheduling over a 24 h demand profile. Furthermore, the proposed approach is formulated as a master problem and a set of sub-problems associated with the hybrid network station to improve the overall computational efficiency using Benders’ decomposition. Based on the results of the simulations conducted on modified institute of electrical and electronics engineers (IEEE-14) bus and IEEE-118 bus test systems, we demonstrate and confirm the applicability, effectiveness and validity of the proposed approach.

The n-th Fubini number counts the number of ordered partitions of a set with n elements and is the number of possible ways to write the Fubini formula for a summation of integration of order n. Further, Fubini polynomials are natural extensions of the Fubini numbers. Recently, the generalized Fubini polynomials were introduced by Sebaoui-Laissaoui-Guettai-Rahmani, as one of the variants of the Fubini polynomials. The aim of this paper is to study the degenerate generalized Fubini polynomials, which are a degenerate version of those polynomials, and to find an application of them to probability theory in connection with geometric random variable.

n recent years, some applications of Lah numbers were discovered in the real world problem of telecommunications and optics. The aim of this paper is to study the λ-analogues of Lah numbers and Lah-Bell polynomials which are λ-analogues of the Lah numbers and and LahBell polynomials. Here we note that λ-analogues appear when we replace the falling factorials by the generalized falling factorials in the defining equations. By using generating function method, we study some properties, explicit expressions, generating functions and Dobinski-like formulas for those numbers and polynomials. We also treat the more general λ-analogues of r-Lah numbers and r-extended λ-Lah-Bell polynomials. In addition, we show that the expectations of two random variables, both associated with the Poisson random variable with parameter α/λ, are equal to the λ-analogue of the Lah-Bell polynomial evaluated at α for one and the r-extended λ-Lah-Bell polynomial evaluated at α for the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]