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Asthma is an inflammatory disease where the balance between Th1/Th2 and Th17/Treg plays a crucial role in its pathogenesis. Shikonin is used to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases due to its good anti-inflammatory activity. However, the effect and mechanism of shikonin on asthma remain unknown.

BackgroundDue to the prominent particularity of medical work， nurses are prone to developing depression， which not only poses a considerable threat to the physical and mental health of nurses， but also affects the quality of nursing to some extent. Occupational stress is a known contributor to depression in nurses， whereas relatively little research has been done to investigate the underlying mediation path.ObjectiveTo explore the mediation effect of perceived organizational support and psychological capital on the relationship between occupational stress and depression among nurses， and to provide theoretical references for the prevention and treatment of occupational stress-induced depression in nurses.MethodsFrom March to August 2019， a stratified random sampling method was utilized to select a sample size of 720 nurses in each department of a grade A tertiary hospital in Shandong Province. All subjects were assessed using Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire （ERI）， Perceived Organization Support Questionnaire （POS）， Psychological Capital Questionnaire （PCQ） and Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale （CES-D）. Pearson correlation was adopted to examine the correlation among above scales， and multilevel mediation analyses were conducted with model 6 in Process macro （version 3.3） for SPSS 26.0 using Bootstrap re-sampling method.ResultsA total of 658 nurses （91.39%） completed the effective questionnaire survey. ERI score was positively correlated with CES-D score （r=0.499， P

Nanocellulose derived from plant cell wall, due to its unlimited sources, is regarded as a next-generation green material for the automotive industry because of its high tensile strength (≥3 GPa), high elasticity modulus (110–220 GPa), and low density (1.6 g/cm3). This study first introduces the structural characteristics, preparation techniques, and mechanical properties of nanocellulose. Then, three types of nanocellulose composites, including nanocellulose directly reinforced polymers, hybrid fiber-cellulose composites, and all cellulose composites (ACCs), are reviewed. The corresponding preparation techniques, material properties, reinforcement mechanisms of nanocellulose, and application limitations are discussed in detail. To overcome the insufficient mechanical properties of nanocellulose directly reinforced polymers and ACCs toward the manufacture of automobile structural components, self-assembly techniques prove to be effective to prepare macroscopic fibers by first aligning nanocellulose and then assembling them into continuous micro-size fibers. We reviewed different self-assembly techniques and multiscale modeling techniques of cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) assembled microfibers. Furthermore, we proposed a finite element or finite volume technique-based micromechanics framework to predict the homogenized responses of CNFs assembled microfibers, which serve as a fundamental layer to construct a multiscale modeling strategy toward CNFs assembled microfiber-based composite structures. The proposed multiscale modeling strategy is expected to greatly facilitate the development of CNFs assembled microfiber-based composite structures and significantly advance the application of nanocellulose in automotive structural applications.

Objective·To explore the association between gene-gene interaction of glutamate pathway and anhedonia.Methods·A total of 279 patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and 236 patients with major depression disorder (MDD) recruited in the outpatient department and ward of Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and 236 healthy controls (HC) recruited in the community from January 2017 to August 2020 were included in the study. General demographic data and clinical characteristics of the three groups were collected and compared. The Chinese version of Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) was used to evaluate the pleasure experience ability of the three groups. Generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction (GMDR) method was used to establish the interaction model of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in glutamate pathway genes (NOS1AP, GSK3β, DAOA, DISC1 and GRIN2A). According to the interaction model, SZ and MDD patients were divided into high-risk group and low-risk group, and the differences in pleasure experience ability were compared between the two groups, so as to analyze the effect of gene-gene interaction on anhedonia.Results·There were significant differences in age and years of education among the three groups, and in age of onset and duration of illness between SZ and MDD groups (all P=0.000). There were significant differences among the three groups of participants in terms of overall pleasure experience, anticipatory pleasure experience and consummatory pleasure experience (all P=0.000); the overall pleasure experience, anticipatory pleasure experience and consummatory pleasure experience in the SZ and MDD group were lower than those in the HC group (all Pcorr=0.000), and there was marginal statistical difference in anticipatory pleasure experience between the SZ and MDD groups (Pcorr=0.051). Through GMDR modeling, it was found that the 2-loci interaction model composed of DAOA-rs3916965 and DISC1-rs821577 had a predictive effect on the overall pleasure experience ability of SZ patients (P=0.003), and the 2-loci interaction model composed of NOS1AP-rs1858232 and GRIN2A-rs1014531 had a predictive effect on the anticipatory pleasure experience ability of MDD patients (P=0.037); moreover, the overall pleasure experience ability of patients in the SZ high-risk group and anticipatory pleasure experience ability of patients in MDD high-risk groups were lower than those in their low-risk groups (t=3.443, P=0.000; t=3.471, P=0.001).Conclusion·The interaction of glutamate pathway gene polymorphisms may be involved in the occurrence of anhedonia.

Objective To summarize and analyze the clinical phenotypes, hereditary features and treatment and follow-up strategies of different hereditary pheochromocytoma/paragangliomas (PCC/PGL) and related syndromes. Methods Forty-four clinically diagnosed PCC/PGL patients admitted in our hospital from January 2000 to August 2022 were enrolled, and the clinical data of them and their family members were collected.Second-generation sequencing was performed on 43 patients for genetic detection, and Sanger sequencing was applied to verify the mutation of the probands and family members. Results There were 15 patients diagnosed with hereditary PCC/PGL, including 7 cases of von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) syndrome, 3 cases of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2(MEN2), and 5 cases of familial paraganglioma syndrome.Seven VHL syndrome families were diagnosed as VHL2A (c.500G>A), VHL2B (c.239G>T and c.444_457del), and VHL2C (c.293A>G) according to their clinical manifestations.All probands received surgical treatment, and 2 cases of recurrent PCC and the patients with multiple renal cancer also received targeted therapy with sunitinib.Three MEN2 families carried c.1901G>C, c.1832G>A, and c.1901G>A missense mutations, respectively, and were diagnosed with MEN2A clinically.All of them underwent adrenalectomy and thyroidectomy, including one for preventive thyroidectomy.Among the 5 familial paraganglioma syndrome families, 4 patients carried SDHB mutations (SDHB: c.343C>T, c.541-2A>G, c.575G>A, c.268C>T) and 1 patient carried an SDHD mutation (SDHD: c.337_340del).Sporadic retroperitoneal PGL were most common. Conclusion More than 1/3 of PCC/PGL patients carry germline gene mutations, showing obvious genotype-phenotype correlation.Genetic diagnosis technology plays an important guidance role for clinical precision treatment and follow-up, and genetic counseling.

Topological edge state (TES) has emerged as a significant research focus in photonics due to its unique property of unidirectional transmission. This feature provides immunity to certain structural disorders or perturbations, greatly improving the robustness of photonic systems and enabling various applications such as optical isolation and topological lasers. Nevertheless, most of current researches focus on the fixed generated TES with no means to control, leaving untapped potential for manipulating the TES through specific methods. In this work, we propose a topological Su–Schriffer–Heeger (SSH) waveguides-lattice scheme that enables the controllable TES without changing the topological phase of the system. Light is selectively localized at the edges of the SSH waveguide lattice, which is determined by the special waveguide modes. Eventually, achieving an effective mode splitter. To validate our proposal, we further demonstrate such mode-controlled TES with a fabricated on-chip device in experiment. The experimentally tested results confirm a successful separation of the waveguide modes with the mode extinction ratio of approximately 10 dB in each channel near the wavelength of 1550 nm. This scheme presents a promising approach for manipulating the TES in photonic systems, thereby facilitating the design of optical controllable topological photonic devices.

The classical Child-Pugh classification and the model for end-stage liver disease are now widely used in clinics for postoperative assessment of liver failure and prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with radical hepatectomy. However, there are limitations in the application of both methods due to factors such as albumin, ascites, and blood creatinine. A review of the relevant literature at home and abroad revealed that preoperative albumin bilirubin score, platelet albumin bilirubin score, Glasgow prognostic score and new predictive models have good application prospects in evaluating liver failure and prognosis of HCC patients after hepatectomy. In this paper, we aim to introduce the commonly used prognostic models for HCC patients undergoing radical hepatectomy and review the value of their application.

Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) has recently been developed to push the spatial resolution down to single-chemical-bond scale. The morphology of the scanning tip, especially the atomistic protrusion at the tip apex, plays an essential role in obtaining both high spatial resolution and large field enhancement at the Ångström level. Although it is very difficult to directly characterize the atomistic structures of the tip, the Raman scattering from the apex’s own vibrations of the metal tip can provide valuable information about the stacking of atoms at the tip apex. However, conventional quantum chemistry packages can only simulate the Raman scattering of small metal clusters with few atoms due to huge computational cost, which is not enough since the shaft of the tip behind the apex also makes significant contributions to the polarizabilities of the whole tip. Here we propose an atomistic polarization model to simulate the Raman spectra of large metal tips at subwavelength scales based on the combination of the atomistic discrete dipole approximation model and the density functional theory. The atomistic tip with different sizes and stacking structures is considered in its entirety during the calculation of polarizabilities, and only the vibrational contributions from the tip apex are taken into account to simulate the Raman spectra of the tip. The Raman spectral features are found to be very sensitive to the local constituent element at the tip apex, atomic stacking modes, and shape of the tip apex, which can thus be used as a fingerprint to identify different atomistic structures of the tip apex. Moreover, our approaches can be extended to the metal tips with sub-wavelength sizes, making it possible to consider both the large scale and the atomistic detail of the tip simultaneously. The method presented here can be used as a basic tool to simulate the Raman scattering process of the metal tips and other nanostructures in an economic way, which is beneficial for understanding the roles of atomistic structures in tip- and surface-enhanced spectroscopies.

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of fumarate hydratase-deficient renal cell carcinoma (FH-RCC) in kidney transplant patients so as to improve the diagnosis and treatment of the disease clinically. Methods We retrospectively analyzed and summarized the clinical data of one kidney transplanted patient with FH-RCC who was treated in the urological department of our medical center in March 2022, including clinical characteristics, treatment and prognosis. A literature review was also performed to analyze and summarize its characteristics. Results A 52-year-old female patient who received a kidney transplant 20 years ago was diagnosed with right kidney cancer with multiple metastases. Cytoreductive nephrectomy was performed and pathological type was FH-RCC based on Revised Version of WHO 2022 Classification of Renal Tumors. She then received targeted therapy until discontinuation due to elevated serum creatinine and the disease progressed rapidly. Conclusion FH-RCC is characterized by rapid progress and poor prognosis. Its diagnosis relies on immunohistochemistry and genetic test. There are no currently standard-of-care treatment options for kidney transplant patients with renal cell carcinoma. Individualized treatment regimens should be suggested for these patients.

This study constructs a diversified system of physical education curriculum suitable for young children and explores the application of personalized service method in early childhood physical education curriculum. The study designed the structure of early childhood physical education curriculum based on the principles of science, relevance and playfulness. It used the K-means clustering method improved by Kruskal algorithm to recommend early childhood physical education resources. The influence of the curriculum resource system on early childhood physical exercise was investigated by regression analysis. The study results showed that the number of weekly workouts of young children was significantly influenced by the comprehensive developmental features of the curriculum and the diversity of workout programs, (P

Cable faults threaten the safe and stable operation of smart grids, and vibration signal diagnosis research on cables based on artificial intelligence technology can effectively enhance the reliability of smart grids. In order to improve the speed and accuracy of cable defect identification, this paper proposes a partial discharge identification method for cables based on a fully convolutional bidirectional long short-term memory neural network (BiLSTM-FCN). The time-domain characteristics of different working conditions under industrial frequency AC voltage are collected by building a vibration signal-based partial discharge test platform for cables. The Overlap strategy enhances the data set. The BiLSTM layer is introduced to process the one-dimensional time domain waveform signal, and combined with the local detail features extracted by the FCN layer, the data features are more abundant. Thus, a more accurate diagnosis of localized discharge in high voltage cables under different operating conditions. The results show that the diagnostic accuracy based on the BiLSTM-FCN model reaches 92.2%, which is 1.2% and 1.4% higher compared to the FCN model and the BiLSTM model. BiLSTM-FCN model possesses a better recognition effect and faster recognition speed in the identification of partial discharge defects type, which can effectively achieve the automatic detection of abnormal fault nodes of smart grid cables. It is significant for realizing online dynamic evaluation of small portable online monitoring equipment and provides a reference for future related research.

The evaluation of equipment support capability has strong interest, and its quality problem has important influence on the unit being evaluated. Meta-evaluation can examine and judge the quality of equipment support capability assessment and ensure the authority of assessment activities. This article based on meta-evaluation theory and equipment support ability evaluation practice, starts with the basic theory of introducing meta-evaluation based on the meta-evaluation subject, patterns, contents, standards and methods of analysis to meta-evaluation framework structure, combing the meta-evaluation process, explores the theoretical basis of equipment support ability evaluation of meta-evaluation and technical means.

Objective To explore the related risk factors of pancreatic portal hypertension(PPH) and then establish a risk prediction model. Methods The clinical data of 185 patients with pancreatic diseases treated in the First Affiliated Hospital of Army Medical University from January 2004 to January 2022 were collected and analyzed retrospectively. They were divided into study group(n=75) and control group(n=110) according to the occurrence of portal hypertension. The risk factors of PPH were screened by univariate, correlation and multivariate analysis. Based on these variables, a risk prediction model was established by Nomogram. Results In variable screening, the results showed that smoking, history of diabetes and causes were risk factors for PPH(OR=5.008, 3.913, 3.690), and red blood cell count was a protective factor(OR=0.362). A nomogram model of PPH was constructed based on the results of variable screening. The area under the prediction curve of the model was 0.789, and the calibration curve had a good degree of fit, indicating that the model has a good prediction effect. Decision curve analysis showed that a better net gain value was obtained when the risk threshold is between 15% and 80%, and the model had high clinical applicability. Conclusion Our nomogram risk prediction model can effectively identify the high risk factors of PPH and early intervention is of great significance for disease prevention.

During the driving of the fully mechanized driving face of the hydrogen sulfide coal roadway, due to the ventilation effect of the roadway, it is very easy to cause hydrogen sulfide gas accumulation and overrun in the front area of the driving face. In order to control the casualties and equipment damage caused by the accumulation and overrun of hydrogen sulfide gas in the fully mechanized mining face of coal mine, the research method of measuring the volume fraction of hydrogen sulfide gas with CD4 portable hydrogen sulfide instrument is used to test and analyze the distribution law of hydrogen sulfide gas emission and the change law of the volume fraction of hydrogen sulfide gas with time after the road-header stops cutting coal; It is revealed that the disturbance of coal cutting by the fully mechanized mining machine is the main cause of inducing the emission of hydrogen sulfide gas in the fully mechanized mining face, and the distribution law of the emission gradually decreases in the direction of the return air flow and the height of the roof and floor. By means of theoretical analysis, laboratory and field test, a new technical scheme for the integrated treatment of hydrogen sulfide extraction and purification in coal mine comprehensive mining face is proposed, the mechanism of the integrated treatment of hydrogen sulfide extraction and purification is studied, and the process technology and supporting device for the integrated treatment of hydrogen sulfide extraction and purification in coal mine comprehensive mining face are developed. The field application study shows that the volume fraction of hydrogen sulfide gas gushing at the position 1m after the suction tuyair and 1m after the outlet of the integrated treatment device of hydrogen sulfide extraction-purification on the excavation face decreases from 169.2×10−6 and 155.9×10−6 before extraction-purification to 13.9×10−6 and 10.2×10−6 after extraction-purification, respectively. The hydrogen sulfide extraction efficiency reached 91.8% and the hydrogen sulfide purification efficiency reached 93.5%, and the hydrogen sulfide hazard treatment effect is good, providing a new technical way for the treatment of the hydrogen sulfide hazard in the fully mechanized mining face.

In order to solve the problem of extraction accuracy of brightness supersaturated laser stripe centerline in three-dimensional scanning of coal flow, a centerline extraction algorithm is proposed. According to the principle of oblique laser triangulation measurement, a visual measurement system platform was built to obtain the digital image of laser stripes with oversaturated brightness on the surface of coal piles and preprocess it. The distribution law of laser light intensity is explored, and the reason for the supersaturation of laser stripe brightness is analyzed. It is found that the traditional structured light centerline extraction method is not suitable for this study. Therefore, a center point extraction algorithm based on Gaussian curve fitting method is used for partial supersaturation, and a center point extraction algorithm based on neighborhood block idea is applied for total supersaturation. The centerline extraction strategy based on the number of supersaturated sampling points on the laser stripe cross section is proposed to obtain the fringe centerline with sub-pixel coordinate accuracy. By setting the contrast simulation experiment with the gray center of gravity method and curve fitting method, it is found that the mean absolute deviation of the proposed algorithm is smaller, and the extraction accuracy is better than the traditional algorithm. Finally, the experimental verification is carried out on the laser stripe image of coal heap, and the experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm has stronger anti-noise interference ability in the actual working environment, which can reduce the influence of brightness supersaturation on the extraction of laser stripe centerline on the surface of coal heap.

In the process of synthetic brigade equipment support capability evaluation, data mining technology is an important means of evaluation data processing, which can quickly and efficiently obtain valuable evaluation information. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of synthetic brigade equipment support capability assessment data, this paper constructes the data mining architecture of synthetic brigade equipment support capability assessment, analyzes and studies the key technologies involved in the application of data mining in synthetic brigade equipment support capability assessment, such as Bayesian classification method, hierarchical cluster analysis and Apriori algorithm. The research results can provide methods and technical support for data processing of synthetic brigade equipment support capability assessment.

Objective To preliminarily investigate the safety and effectiveness of robot-assisted kidney transplantation (RAKT) in the perioperative period. Methods Clinical data of 14 patients undergoing renal transplantation in our department from June 2018 to March 2022 were collected and retrospectively analyzed. They were 8 males and 6 females, and at an age of 22 to 45 years. There were 4 patients receiving robotic-assisted laparoscopic living-donor kidney transplantation (RAKT group), and 10 cases receiving open kidney transplantation (OKT group) with deceased donor kidney. Arterio-venous anastomoses (AVAs) time, length of post-operative stay, pre- and post-operative serum creatinine levels, intraoperative blood loss, and incidence of post-operative complications were retrospectively analyzed between the patients of the 2 groups. Results The surgeries went well in the 14 patients. The amount of intraoperative blood loss was 162.5±47.8 mL in the RAKT group and 245.1±68.5 mL in the OKT group(P < 0.05). The arterial anastomosis time was 32.5±6.5 min in the RAKT group and 24.3±5.3 min in the OKT group. The venous anastomosis time was 16.5±3.8 min in the RAKT group and 14.6±1.5 min in the OKT group. The blood creatinine level was 98.1±33.2 μmol/L in the RAKT group and 142.8±42.1 μmol/L in the OKT group in 7 d after surgery. The retention time of drainage tube was 10.0±1.2 d in the OKT group and 6.5±0.5 d in the RAKT group(P < 0.01). The length of stay after surgery was 13.0±2.5 d in the RAKT group and 16.3±2.1 d in the OKT group(P=0.01). Conclusion RAKT is safer than OKT in the perioperative period and causes fewer postoperative complications.

Glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) plays an important role in the metabolism of organisms. Its high abundance in mitochondria in particular highlights its core role in cellular physiological processes. GDH catalyzes the mutual conversion between L-glutamic acid and α-ketoglutaric acids. At the same time, this transformation is accompanied by the oxidation-reduction of NAD(H) or NADP(H). This process not only helps to link amino acid metabolism with sugar metabolism, but also helps maintain the balance of intracellular pH and nitrogen homeostasis. In this study, a novel Trichinella spiralis glutamate dehydrogenase (TsGDH) was cloned, expressed and identified. The results revealed that TsGDH was expressed at various stages of development of the nematode T. spiralis, with higher expression levels in the adult worm stage, and was mainly localized in the cuticle, muscular layer, stichosome and female intrauterine embryos. After RNAi treatment, larval natural TsGDH enzyme activity was obviously reduced, and metabolism, molting, growth and reproduction were also significantly inhibited. The results indicate that TsGDH plays an important role in the development and survival of T. spiralis, and it may be a potential molecular target of anti-Trichinella vaccines and drugs.

Track reconstruction is one of the most important and challenging tasks in the offline data processing of collider experiments. For the BESIII detector working in the tau-charm energy region, plenty of efforts were made previously to improve the tracking performance with traditional methods, such as template matching and Hough transform etc. However, for difficult tracking tasks, such as the tracking of low momentum tracks, tracks from secondary vertices and tracks with high noise level, there is still large room for improvement. In this contribution, we demonstrate a novel tracking algorithm based on machine learning method. In this method, a hit pattern map representing the connectivity between drift cells is established using an enormous MC sample, based on which we design an optimal method of graph construction, then an edgeclassifying Graph Neural Network is trained to distinguish the hit-on-track from noise hits. Finally, a clustering method based on DBSCAN and RANSAC is developed to cluster hits from multiple tracks. Track fitting algorithm based on GENFIT2 is also studied to obtain the track parameters, where deterministic annealing filter are implemented to deal with ambiguities and potential noises. The preliminary results on BESIII MC sample presents promising performance, showing potential to apply this method to other trackers based on drift chamber as well, such as the CEPC and STCF detectors under pre-study.

The Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) is a future experiment aimed at studying the properties of the Higgs boson with high precision. This requires excellent track reconstruction and particle identification (PID) performance, which is achieved in the 4th conceptual detector design of the CEPC experiments by combining a silicon tracker and a drift chamber. The drift chamber not only improves track reconstruction but also provides excellent PID with the cluster counting method. To evaluate the performance of this design accurately, a detailed simulation is necessary. In this paper, we present a refined drift chamber simulation by combining Geant4 and Garfield++. However, traditional waveform simulation using Garfield++ is extremely time-consuming, which motivates us to develop a fast waveform simulation method using a neural network. We validate the method using real data from the BESIII experiment. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach and provide valuable insights for future experiments.

Previous studies have shown that recombinant Trichinella spiralis galectin (rTsgal) is characterized by a carbohydrate recognition domain sequence motif binding to beta-galactoside, and that rTsgal promotes larval invasion of intestinal epithelial cells. Galactomannan is an immunostimulatory polysaccharide composed of a mannan backbone with galactose residues. The aim of this study was to investigate whether galactomannan inhibits larval intrusion of intestinal epithelial cells and enhances antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC), killing newborn larvae by polarizing macrophages to the M1 phenotype. The results showed that galactomannan specially binds to rTsgal, and abrogated rTsgal facilitation of larval invasion of intestinal epithelial cells. The results of qPCR, Western blotting, and flow cytometry showed that galactomannan and rTsgal activated macrophage M1 polarization, as demonstrated by high expression of iNOS (M1 marker) and M1 related genes (IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α), and increased CD86+ macrophages. Galactomannan and rTsgal also increased NO production. The killing ability of macrophage-mediated ADCC on larvae was also significantly enhanced in galactomannan- and rTsgal-treated macrophages. The results demonstrated that Tsgal may be considered a potential vaccine target molecule against T. spiralis invasion, and galactomannan may be a novel adjuvant therapeutic agent and potential vaccine adjuvant against T. spiralis infection.

Amorphous materials such as glass, polymer and amorphous alloy have broad applications ranging from daily life to extreme conditions due to their unique properties in elasticity, strength and electrical resistivity. A better understanding of atomic structure of amorphous materials will provide invaluable information for their further engineering and applications. However, experimentally determining the three-dimensional (3D) atomic structure of amorphous materials has been a long-standing problem. Due to the disordered atomic arrangement, amorphous materials do not have any translational and rotational symmetry at long-range scale. Conventional characterization methods, such as the scattering and the microscopy imaging, can only provide the statistic structural information which is averaged over the macroscopic region. The knowledge of the 3D atomic structure of amorphous materials is limited. Recently atomic resolution electron tomography (AET) has proven an increasingly powerful tool for atomic scale structural characterization without any crystalline assumptions, which opens a door to determine the 3D structure of various amorphous materials. In this review, we summarize the state-of-art characterization methods for the exploration of atomic structures of amorphous materials in the past few decades, including X-ray/neutron diffraction, nano-beam and angstrom-beam electron diffraction, fluctuation electron microscopy, high-resolution scanning/transmission electron microscopy, and atom probe tomography. From experimental data and theoretical descriptions, 3D structures of various amorphous materials have been built up. Particularly, we introduce the principles and recent progress of AET, and highlight the most recent groundbreaking feat accomplished by AET, i.e., the first experimental determination of all 3D atomic positions in a multi-component glass-forming alloy and the 3D atomic packing in amorphous solids. We also discuss the new opportunities and challenges for characterizing the chemical and structural defects in amorphous materials.

The phase modulator is a key component in optical communications for its phase modulation functions. In this paper, we numerically demonstrate a variety of ultra-compact high-efficiency graphene phase modulators (GPMs) based on metal–nanoribbon integrated hybrid plasmonic waveguides in the near-infrared region. Benefiting from the good in-plane mode polarization matching and strong hybrid surface plasmon polariton and graphene interaction, the 20 μm-length GPM can achieve excellent phase modulation performance with a good phase and amplitude decoupling effect, a low insertion loss around 0.3 dB/μm, a high modulation efficiency with VπLπ of 118.67 V μm at 1.55 μm, which is 1–3 orders improvement compared to the state-of-the-art graphene modulators. Furthermore, it has a wide modulation bandwidth of 67.96 GHz, a low energy consumption of 157.49 fJ/bit, and a wide operating wavelength ranging from 1.3 to 1.8 μm. By reducing the overlap width of the graphene–Al2O3–graphene capacitor, the modulation bandwidth and energy consumption of the modulator can be further improved to 370.36 GHz and 30.22 fJ/bit, respectively. These compact and energy-efficient GPMs may hold a key to various high-speed telecommunications, interconnects, and other graphene-based integrated photonics applications.

Objective To explore the effects of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs)-derived exosomes on the proliferation, invasion and migration and lipid metabolism of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells, and investigate the possible mechanism. Methods Firstly, the exosomes derived from mouse BMSCs were identified by transmission electron microscopy and Western blotting. The exosomes uptake experiment of BMSCs was subsequently used to verify whether the derived exosomes could be absorbed by renal cancer cells. RCC Renca cells were divided into control (PBS) and experiment group (20 μg/mL derived exosomes). The proliferation, invasion and migration were measured by CCK-8 assay and Transwell assay, respectively. Metabolite levels were measured with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry for the differences between the 2 groups of cells. Finally, Western blotting and real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) were utilized to detect the expression of key enzymes of cholesterol metabolism. Results Exosomes were successfully derived from the supernatant of mouse BMSCs. Transmission electron microscopy displayed that the mBMSC-derived exosomes showed typical cup-shaped vesicles. Western blotting showed that the levels of exosome-specific proteins CD63 and CD9 were highly expressed after exosome treatment. And the obtained exosomes could be uptaken by RCC cells. The derived exosome treatment significantly promoted proliferation (P < 0.05) and invasion and migration (P < 0.01) in RCC cells. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry indicated that the treatment also resulted in decreased level of tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA) (P < 0.05) and elevated level of cholesterol (P < 0.05) in RCC cells. Moreover, the treatment could affect the cholesterol metabolism of RCC cells via regulating the expression levels of HMGCR, CYP7A1 and CYP7B1, and thus promote the cell proliferation and invasion and migration. Conclusion BMSCs-derived exosomes can affect the cholesterol metabolism by regulating the key enzymes, and thus promote the proliferation, invasion and migration of RCC cells.

Objective To investigate the effects of preoperative use of metformin on the biochemical recurrence (BR) in the patients with localized prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy (RP) and on the occurrence of castration resistance in patients with bone metastasis after RP. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on 192 patients diagnosed with localized prostate cancer and undergoing RP in our hospital from January 2008 to April 2020, including 31 cases of postoperative BR and 161 cases of bone metastatic prostate cancer. The patients were further divided into observation group (metformin with/without androgen deprivation therapy) and control group (no treatment/androgen deprivation therapy alone), based on whether they were preoperatively treated with metformin or not. The baseline characteristics of the 2 groups were collected and compared, including age, initial prostate specific antigen (PSA) level, PSA level at BR, pathological T stage, and Gleason score. The time to BR or to progression to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), PSA doubling time (PSADT), and PSA minimum were calculated and analyzed between the 2 groups. Results For the postoperative BR patients, the median time to BR (22.73 vs 10.73 months, P < 0.05) and mean PSADT (4.69 vs 4.30 months, P < 0.05) were significantly longer in the observation group than the control group. For the patients with bone metastatic prostate cancer, the observation group had obviously longer median time to CRPC (22.35 vs 16.05 months, P < 0.05) and median PSADT (4.50 vs 2.60 months, P < 0.05) when compared with the control group. But no such difference was seen in PSA minimum after treatment between them. Conclusion Metformin can effectively delay the progression of localized prostate cancer to BR after RP, and the progression of bone metastatic prostate cancer to CRPC.

The VSC-HVDC system can damp the inter-area low-frequency oscillation effectively. To enhance the ability of the VSC-HVDC supplementary control, this article proposes a unified low-frequency oscillation controller design using the robustness theory. The unified control strategy uses both the active power control and reactive power control loop of the VSC to expand the supplementary control dimensions. To design the controller, the TLS-ESPRIT identification method is used to obtain the system small signal model and the oscillation characteristic. Based on the model identified out, the linear matrix inequality method based robust control theory is applied for the controller design, and the robust controllers for active power control and reactive power control loop are both designed to improve the control effect. Finally, the simulation results show that the controller can reach better control effect and the robustness can also be guaranteed.

An analytical method was developed for the rapid determination of 226Ra in water through liquid scintillation counting. The separation and purification of 226Ra from water were performed by co-precipitation using barium sulfate as the carrier; the direct measurement of 226Ra was realized by using a liquid scintillation spectrometer. Through sample analysis, a mathematical model for uncertainty evaluation was established and the sources of uncertainty were analyzed. The results showed that the overall counting efficiency of 226Ra is 91.3%-98.5%, the detection limit is 0.01 Bq/L, and the relative extended uncertainty is 7% (k=2), indicating that the proposed method is suitable for the rapid analysis of 226Ra in drinking water. The uncertainty of the method for the determination of 226Ra in water is mainly caused by the errors of sample counting rate and overall counting efficiency.

In order to explore the impact of moisture on the mechanical properties of coal, the triaxial compression tests of raw coal with different moisture contents are carried out by using the triaxial servo-controlled seepage equipment for thermal-hydro- mechanical coupling in coal containing methane. Based on elastic damage mechanics, the damage variables of coal with different moisture contents are deduced, and the damage constitutive model of coal under hydro-mechanical coupling is established, the deformation characteristics of coal with different moisture contents are obtained. The results show that: (1) the deformation and failure process of coal under different moisture contents are similar, which can be divided into pre-peak stress stage, post-peak stress stage and residual stress stage; (2) as the moisture content increases, the peak stress, elastic modulus and brittleness of coal decrease, but the Poisson's ratio increases; (3) the damage constitutive model of coal can better represent the deformation characteristics of coal in the complete stress-strain process under different moisture contents, which is suitable for the analysis of the triaxial compressive stress-strain of coal under different moisture contents; (4) both the damage correction coefficient q and the damage constitutive coefficient n determine the curve shape of the damage constitutive model. The damage correction coefficient reflects the characteristics of residual deformation of coal, and the damage constitutive coefficient reflects different degrees of post-peak strain softening of the stress-strain curve.

As a fundamental component of heatmap-based human pose estimation methods, heatmap decoding is to transform heatmaps into joint coordinates. We found that previous heatmap decoding methods generally ignored the effect of systematic errors introduced by the resolution increaseing operations in the network decoder. This work fills the gap by taking the systematic errors in heatmap decoding into consideration. We proposed a fast method to reduces the systematic and random errors in one shot by error compensation. The proposed method outperforms the previous best method on the COCO and the MPII datasets while being over 2 times faster. Extensive experiments with different networks, resolutions, metrics and datasets have proved the rationality of the proposed idea.

Numerical wave simulation is a significant research topic. In this paper, the open source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) platform, OpenFOAM, is utilized to simulate Stokes fifth-order waves. Since geometrical volume-of-fluid (VOF) could better capture free surface due to its geometrical reconstruction step, the free surface simulations are accomplished by applying OpenFOAM built-in geometrical VOF method-isoAdvector, and the relaxation zone scheme is introduced through secondary development for wave absorption. The mesh density and Courant number convergence analyses with geometrical VOF are conducted. The simulation shows that satisfactory results could be obtained with a large Courant number. The algebraic and geometrical VOF simulated data with respect to wave elevation and phase at varied wave steepnesses and frequencies are recorded and compared with the theoretical value of Stokes fifth-order waves, which demonstrates that geometrical VOF is better than algebraic VOF in the prediction of wave elevation. Finally, the lengths and weights of the wave absorption zone are discussed, and the results imply that the best practice for the wave absorption is assigning the wave absorption zone length at least two times of the wave length along with applying exponential weight distribution.