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Abstract The joints are existing throughout the underground rock mass. It is of great significance to investigate the shear performance of the rock mass to maintain the stability of the underground structure. In this study, we conducted orthogonal tests to determine the proportion of rock-like materials, and used JRC curves to make specimen molds and then prepare the specimens. We conducted straight shear tests and uniaxial compression tests to determine the various mechanical parameters of the rock-like materials. Next, we carried out the compression and shear tests to investigate the shear characteristics of the specimens, and study the damage pattern and shear strength of the jointed rock mass under different confining pressures and roughness levels. The mesoscopic displacements in the shear process of joints were analyzed by using ABAQUS. The test results show that the effect of the confining pressure on the shear strength of the joint plane is relatively obvious, and a larger confining pressure indicates a larger shear strength. The effects of different joint plane roughness and shear rated on the shear characteristics of the joint plane are also significant. The mesoscopic displacement difference inside the joint plane with higher roughness is relatively large, and the stress concentration phenomenon is obvious and lasts longer, which leads to the faster destruction of the specimen with higher roughness and the higher destruction degree. Therefore, we suggest that the priority should be given to the reinforcement of jointed rock mass with high roughness during the construction to prevent sudden destabilization and failure.

Abstract To quickly determine the blasting block degree and conduct an accurate and objective analysis of the tunnel blasting effect, this study has enhanced and improved upon the traditional genetic algorithm and Otsu algorithm. It has combined it with the marking watershed method and utilized ground digital acquisition to capture images of blasting debris. These images are then used in our custom-developed blasting analysis software to calculate the blasting block degree distribution and provide a quantitative analysis of blasting block degree. The research results show that the optimized image segmentation algorithm effectively improves the traditional threshold segmentation method on the poor effect of segmentation of the edge of the adherent block or the direct application of the watershed segmentation of the over-segmentation problem, to improve the segmentation accuracy based on the new segmentation technology is close to the traditional technology in terms of time. Through the self-developed software, the construction personnel in the project site to quickly obtain the blasting block degree histogram, block degree cumulative curve and other important indicators of the evaluation of the effect of blasting block degree, to provide data support for on-site construction, to assist in the modification of the blasting program, and to improve the efficiency of construction. This study realizes the rapid detection and block identification of blasting blocks, provides data support for the optimization of blasting parameters, and has good application and promotion value.

Abstract Earth pressure shields are widely used in tunnel construction due to their low environmental impact and mechanized operations. However, ensuring the stability of the excavation surface during the construction process is crucial. Any instability in the excavation surface can lead to soil destruction, such as body collapse or surface uplift. Additionally, the tunneling process can cause deformation disturbances to nearby buildings. In the case of Beijing Metro Line 17, detailed survey data and construction monitoring data were collected through field surveys and tests. The study combined theoretical analysis and numerical simulations to investigate the impact of shield tunneling in clay layers on neighboring buildings. The focus was on analyzing the physical deformation and the response law of influencing factors, such as stratum parameters and engineering effects on surface settlement, building inclination, and distortion. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis of the deformation impact was conducted, and corresponding measures for deformation control were proposed.

Introduction Type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) often coexist and increase risk for developing liver fibrosis and diabetes complications if no effective measures are taken. Dietary intervention is known to be able to achieve diabetes remission, while evidence regarding the long-term effect on liver fat is limited for comorbidity management of type 2 diabetes and NAFLD. This study aims to investigate the long-term effect of a Chinese Medical Nutrition Therapy (CMNT) diet accompanied by intermittent energy restriction on reducing liver fat and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) in patients with type 2 diabetes and NAFLD.Methods and analysis This is a multicentre two-armed parallel randomised controlled trial study. 120 participants with type 2 diabetes and NAFLD will be recruited from the physical examination centres of multiple hospitals in China. Participants will be randomly allocated 1:1 to either the CMNT group or the usual care group. The CMNT group will be instructed to consume the provided specific meal replacement Chinese medicinal foods consisting of 6 cycles of 5 consecutive days followed by 10 days of regular food intake. The usual care group will be given standard dietary advice. Primary outcomes are changes in the controlled attenuation parameter value by transient elastography and HbA1c level. Secondary outcomes include differences in anthropometrics, clinical blood markers, questionnaires, gut microbiota and metabolomics. Further follow-up will be performed at 6 months, 1 year and 2 years.Ethics and dissemination The study protocol was approved by the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee of Hunan Agricultural University (BRECHAU20200235).The results will be disseminated via relevant peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations.Trial registration number NCT05439226.

The morphological analysis and volume measurement of the hippocampus are crucial to the study of many brain diseases. Therefore, an accurate hippocampal segmentation method is beneficial for the development of clinical research in brain diseases. U-Net and its variants have become prevalent in hippocampus segmentation of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) due to their effectiveness, and the architecture based on Transformer has also received some attention. However, some existing methods focus too much on the shape and volume of the hippocampus rather than its spatial information, and the extracted information is independent of each other, ignoring the correlation between local and global features. In addition, many methods cannot be effectively applied to practical medical image segmentation due to many parameters and high computational complexity. To this end, we combined the advantages of CNNs and ViTs (Vision Transformer) and proposed a simple and lightweight model: Light3DHS for the segmentation of the 3D hippocampus. In order to obtain richer local contextual features, the encoder first utilizes a multi-scale convolutional attention module (MCA) to learn the spatial information of the hippocampus. Considering the importance of local features and global semantics for 3D segmentation, we used a lightweight ViT to learn high-level features of scale invariance and further fuse local-to-global representation. To evaluate the effectiveness of encoder feature representation, we designed three decoders of different complexity to generate segmentation maps. Experiments on three common hippocampal datasets demonstrate that the network achieves more accurate hippocampus segmentation with fewer parameters. Light3DHS performs better than other state-of-the-art algorithms.

Early detection and diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can significantly improve the quality of life for affected individuals. Identifying ASD based on brain functional connectivity (FC) poses a challenge due to the high heterogeneity of subjects’ fMRI data in different sites. Meanwhile, deep learning algorithms show efficacy in ASD identification but lack interpretability. In this paper, a novel approach for ASD recognition is proposed based on graph attention networks. Specifically, we treat the region of interest (ROI) of the subjects as node, conduct wavelet decomposition of the BOLD signal in each ROI, extract wavelet features, and utilize them along with the mean and variance of the BOLD signal as node features, and the optimized FC matrix as the adjacency matrix, respectively. We then employ the self-attention mechanism to capture long-range dependencies among features. To enhance interpretability, the node-selection pooling layers are designed to determine the importance of ROI for prediction. The proposed framework are applied to fMRI data of children (younger than 12 years old) from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange datasets. Promising results demonstrate superior performance compared to recent similar studies. The obtained ROI detection results exhibit high correspondence with previous studies and offer good interpretability.

Abstract Retraction: [Liping Cai, Qiaona Gong, Feng Jiang, Mingzhan Yuan, Zhiyong Xiao, Shuai Zhang, Chengcheng Zheng, Yue Wu, The use of the intelligent Bayesian network method combined with blockchain technology in the optimisation of tunnel construction quality control, IET Software 2023 (https://doi.org/10.1049/sfw2.12109)]. The above article from IET Software, published online on 2 February 2023 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the Editor‐in‐Chief, Hana Chockler, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (the IET) and John Wiley and Sons Ltd. This article was published as part of a Guest Edited special issue. Following an investigation, the IET and the journal have determined that the article was not reviewed in line with the journal’s peer review standards and there is evidence that the peer review process of the special issue underwent systematic manipulation. Accordingly, we cannot vouch for the integrity or reliability of the content. As such we have taken the decision to retract the article. The authors have been informed of the decision to retract.

Abstract The history of mare volcanism critically informs the thermal evolution of the Moon. However, young volcanic eruptions are poorly constrained by remote observations and limited samples, hindering an understanding of mare eruption flux over time. The Chang’e-5 mission returned the youngest lunar basalts thus far, offering a window into the Moon’s late-stage evolution. Here, we investigate the mineralogy and geochemistry of 42 olivine and pyroxene crystals from the Chang’e-5 basalts. We find that almost all of them are normally zoned, suggesting limited magma recharge or shallow-level assimilation. Most olivine grains record a short timescale of cooling. Thermal modeling used to estimate the thickness and volume of the volcanism sampled by Chang’e-5 reveals enhanced magmatic flux ~2 billion years ago, suggesting that while overall lunar volcanic activity may decrease over time, episodic eruptions at the final stage could exhibit above average eruptive fluxes, thus revising models of lunar thermal evolution.

The Chang’E-6 mission accomplished the first sample return from the lunar farside. Earlier crater population measurements estimated the model age of the landing mare to range from the Eratosthenian to Late Imbrian, both of which are underrepresented by earlier returned samples. Establishing a new calibration point for lunar impact flux based on isotopic ages of the samples is promising, but the representative crater density for the landing mare (i.e., spatial density of craters with D ≥ 1 km; N (1)) is equally important for this purpose, which lacks good constraints. After excluding the effects of background secondaries, crater equilibrium, and observational uncertainties on crater statistics, this work extracts production populations in different diameter ranges (∼200 m–2 km) from multiple subareas of the landing mare. Cross-validation of the production populations verifies that N (1) derived from direct measurements of craters with D ≥ 1 km in sketched areas are reliable, which is (2.01 ± 0.90) × 10 ^−3 and (6.05 ± 2.71) × 10 ^−3 km ^2 for the western and eastern mare, respectively.

The crust of the Moon records the complete history of collisions by different-sized projectiles from various sources since its early solidification. Planetary bodies in the inner Solar System experienced similar sources of impactors, and the Moon is an ideal witness plate for the impact history. Impact flux on the Moon connects planetary endogenic evolution with orbital dynamics of celestial bodies, and the resulting crater chronology enables remote age estimation for geological units on extraterrestrial bodies. Therefore, defining the lunar impact history has long been a core pursuit in planetary sciences. Ubiquitous impact structures on the Moon and their widespread impact melt deposits are the major agents used to untangle lunar crater chronology. Anchored by 10 successful sample return missions from the Moon, cumulative crater densities were derived for 15 geological units based on their interpreted exposure ages (~3.92 Ga to 25 Ma) and superposed crater densities. Afterword, crater production rates in the entire history of the Moon were constructed on the basis of hypothesized change patterns of impact flux. Following this commonly adapted strategy, it has been a consensus that impact flux in the first billion years of the lunar history was orders of magnitude larger than that afterward, and the latter was not only more or less stable but also punctuated by discrete spikes. However, different versions of lunar crater chronology exist because of insufficient constraints by available anchor points and widespread disagreements on both sample ages and crater densities of existing anchor points. Endeavors from various disciplines (e.g., sample analyses, remote observation, and modeling crater formation and accumulation) are making promising progresses, and future sample return missions with both optimized sampling strategy and analyzing techniques are appealed to fundamentally improve the understanding of lunar impact flux.

Accurate knowledge of gas flow within the reservoir and related controlling factors will be important for enhancing the production of coal bed methane. At present, most studies focused on the permeability evolution of dry coal under gas adsorption equilibrium, gas flow and gas diffusion within wet coal under the generally non-equilibrium state are often ignored in the process of gas recovery. In this study, an improved apparent permeability model is proposed which accommodates the water and gas adsorption, stress dependence, water film thickness and gas flow regimes. In the process of modeling, the water adsorption is only affected by water content while the gas adsorption is time and water content dependent; based on poroelastic mechanics, the effective fracture aperture and effective pore radius are derived; and then the variation in water film thickness for different pore types under the effect of water content, stress and adsorption swelling are modeled; the flow regimes are considered based on Beskok’s model. Further, after validation with experimental data, the proposed model was applied to numerical simulations to investigate the evolution of permeability-related factors under the effect of different water contents. The gas flow in wet coal under the non-equilibrium state is explicitly revealed.

Heterogeneous shock impedances of planetary materials cause abrupt changes of ejection angles, forming non-radial ejecta. Interpretations for provenances of surface deposits and ages derived from crater counts are affected by such untrackable ejecta.

Abstract South China belongs to the northern geographic branch of the Australasian strewn field (AASF) of tektites and microtektites, and this area is assumed to be part of the uprange region of the putative impactor trajectory that formed the yet undiscovered source crater. Ferromagnetic minerals in impact glass may record the magnetization process and thermal history of impact melt, but the possible identity of ferromagnetic minerals in AASF tektites from South China is elusive. Here, we perform a rock magnetism and crystallography study of iron‐sulfur spherules in Muong Nong‐type tektites from South China, revealing abundant single‐domain and pseudo single‐domain nano‐grains of magnetite within the spherules. This result is consistent with the detection of magnetic signals caused by single‐domain and pseudo single‐domain magnetite in these samples. Compared to the large value ranges of magnetic properties of tektites in the entire strewn field, individual specimens of both Muong Nong‐type and single splash‐form tektites have relatively homogeneous magnetic properties in terms of magnetic susceptibility, natural remanent magnetization (NRM), saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM) and NRM/SIRM ratio. The results indicate that the impact melt that formed each tektite specimen experienced similar thermal history, and most AASF tektites from South China were cooled in an ambient magnetic field that is the same order of magnitude as the Earth's magnetic field.

In today’s leaf disease detection, the accuracy of recognition has never been of such importance as it is now. In this aspect, leaf disease recognition method based on machine learning relies heavily on the size of the region of interest and the dispersion of lesions. Professional instrument for leaf disease detection remains a challenging task in accuracy and convenience. A new lightweight model based on advanced residual network and attention mechanism for extracting more accurate region of interest and the lesion, SE-VRNet, was proposed. The proposed SE-VRNet incorporated deep variant residual network (VRNet) and a squeeze-and-excitation (SE) module with attention mechanism, in order to solve the problem that the feature extraction was difficult due to the dispersed location of the leaf disease. The accuracy of top-1 and top-3 obtained by the model SE-VRNet on NewData is 99.73% and 99.98%, respectively, and the accuracy of top-1 and top-3 obtained by the model on SelfData is 95.71% and 99.89%, respectively. The experimental results on the datasets of PlantVillage, OriData, NewData and SelfData were better than other state-of-the-art methods, demonstrating the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed SE-VRNet in identifying leaf diseases with mobile devices.

Although the slippage effect has been extensively studied, most of the previous studies focused on the impact of the slippage effect on apparent permeability within a low pore pressure range, resulting in the inability of matching the evolution of permeability in the remaining pressure range. In this paper, a new apparent permeability model that reveals the evolution of permeability under the combined action of effective stress and slippage in the full pore pressure range was proposed. In this model, both intrinsic permeability and slippage coefficient are stress dependent. Three experimental tests with pore pressure lower than 2 MPa and a test with pore pressure at about 10 MPa using cores from the same origin under constant confining stress and constant effective stress are conducted. By comparing experimental data and another apparent permeability model, we proved the fidelity of our newly developed model. Furthermore, the contribution factor of the slippage effect Rslip is used to determine the low pore pressure limit with significant slippage effect. Our results show that both narrow initial pore size and high effective stress increase the critical pore pressure. Finally, the evolutions of the slippage coefficient and the intrinsic permeability under different boundary conditions were analyzed.

Space weathering of graphite yields unnoticeable reflectance changes over 40 Earth years on the surface of Mercury, according to the time-series remote-sensing images acquired during the MESSENGER mission.

Abstract The device concept of ferroelectric-based negative capacitance (NC) transistors offers a promising route for achieving energy-efficient logic applications that can outperform the conventional semiconductor technology, while viable operation mechanisms remain a central topic of debate. In this work, we report steep slope switching in MoS2 transistors back-gated by single-layer polycrystalline PbZr0.35Ti0.65O3. The devices exhibit current switching ratios up to 8 × 106 within an ultra-low gate voltage window of $$V_{{{\mathrm{g}}}} = \pm \! 0.5$$ V g = ± 0.5 V and subthreshold swing (SS) as low as 9.7 mV decade−1 at room temperature, transcending the 60 mV decade−1 Boltzmann limit without involving additional dielectric layers. Theoretical modeling reveals the dominant role of the metastable polar states within domain walls in enabling the NC mode, which is corroborated by the relation between SS and domain wall density. Our findings shed light on a hysteresis-free mechanism for NC operation, providing a simple yet effective material strategy for developing low-power 2D nanoelectronics.

A substantial body of evidence has indicated that intracerebral O-linked N-acetyl-β-D-glucosamine (O-GlcNAc), a generalized post-translational modification, was emerging as an effective regulator of stress-induced emotional and cognitive impairments. Our previous studies showed that the Liuwei Dihuang formula (LW) significantly improved the emotional and cognitive dysfunctions in various types of stress mouse models. In the current study, we sought to determine the effects of LW on intracerebral O-GlcNAc levels in chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) mice. The dynamic behavioral tests showed that anxiety- and depression-like behaviors and object recognition memory of CUMS mice were improved in a dose-dependent manner after LW treatment. Moreover, linear discriminate analysis (LEfSe) of genera abundance revealed a significant difference in microbiome among the study groups. LW showed a great impact on the relative abundance of these gut microbiota in CUMS mice and reinstated them to control mouse levels. We found that LW potentially altered the Uridine diphosphate-N-acetylglucosamine (UDP-GlcNAc) biosynthesis process, and the abundance of O-GlcNAcase (OGA) and O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) in CUMS mice, which was inferred using PICRUSt analysis. We further verified advantageous changes in hippocampal O-GlcNAc modification of CUMS mice following LW administration, as well as changes in the levels of OGA and OGT. In summary, LW intervention increased the levels of hippocampal O-GlcNAc modification and ameliorated the emotional and cognitive impairments induced by chronic stress in CUMS mice. LW therefore could be considered a potential prophylactic and therapeutic agent for chronic stress.

Direct discharge of waste heat from internal combustion engines (ICEs) is unfavorable for the efficient and clean fuel utilization. Here, a novel combined absorption-compression cascade refrigeration cycle is proposed to efficiently capture low-grade waste heat and supply cooling capacity for food freezing in vessels or refrigerated trucks. The intention of this work lies in: i) Comprehensively evaluating the performances of the proposed system; ii) Gaining the optimal operating conditions of the system. Aimed that, analysis models of energy, exergy, economy, and environment are set up to evaluate the sweeping performances. Further, multi-objective optimization is introduced to obtain the optimal operating parameters including evaporation and condensation temperature of the low-temperature stage, generation temperature and condensation temperature of the high-temperature stage, and cascade temperature differences. By applying multi-objective optimization, the coefficient of performance and exergy efficiency of the system are elevated from 1.283 to 1.547, and 0.222 to 0.246, respectively, the discharge amount of carbon dioxide are reduced from 71.40 to 59.57 tons year−1, and annual total cost are decreased from 16,028 to 15,055 $ year−1 compared to initial operating conditions.

Background: Some adverse events following immunization (AEFI) were observed in potential corelation with COVID-19 vaccination but without prevention or ongoing trial for it. We aimed to investigate efficacy of auricular acupressure (AuriAc) therapy in preventing AEFI after first dosage of the vaccine. Methods: We performed a multicentre randomized controlled trial with three arms, including AuriAc, SAuriAc (sham auricular acupressure), and TrAsU (treatment as usual) group, carried out in four medical institutions in Chengdu, China, from March 17th to April 23rd, 2021. We enrolled participants based on eligibility criteria and randomized them into three groups: AuriAc (AEFI-specific auricular points applied, n = 52), SAuriAc (n = 51) or TrAsU (n = 44) group. Primary outcomes were percentages of any AEFI and local pain, and secondary outcomes were percentages who reported other AEFI. They were followed at 1, 3, 5, 7, and 14 days, by phone or online, with severity evaluated. Results: 147 participants (73.47% females) were included with median age as 31 years (25–45, IQR). One day after the injection, participants in AuriAc group reported significant reduction on percentages of any AEFI [intention-to-treat, difference of percentage (DP) = −20.13, 95%CI: − 0.39, − 0.02, p = 0.01; per-protocol, DP = −22.21, 95%CI: − 0.40, − 0.03, P = 0.02] and local pain (per-protocol, DP = −18.40, 95%CI: −0.36, −0.01, P = 0.04), compared with TrAsU group. The effects were slight at other follow-up days and for other outcomes, and with a low percentage of mild local allergic reactions. Conclusions: We firstly explored potential of AuriAc for preventing AEFI related to COVID-19 vaccine injection, which is beneficial for the vaccine recipients, but evidence is limited. Trial registration: chictr.org.cn no. ChiCTR2100043210 (http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=121519)

Abstract Background Some pain, fatigue, and gastrointestinal adverse events were observed in potential association with injection of COVID-19 vaccines, while there was no preventive intervention for it. We aim to investigate the efficacy of auricular acupressure (AA) therapy in preventing and relieving AEFI after injection of COVID-19 vaccine. Methods The study design is a randomized, multicentre, three-arm controlled, single-blind trial. Participants meeting the inclusion criteria will be advertised and enrolled and assigned in the medical institutions randomly for post-injection observation. No less than 360 participants will be randomized into one of three groups: auricular acupressure group, sham auricular acupressure group, and wait-list group. Interventions will be performed immediately and will happen 4 to 5 times per day for 5 days. The primary clinical outcomes will be quality and quantity evaluation among participants who reported any AEFI and who reported local pain at injection site. Secondary outcomes will concern headache, muscle and (or) joint pain, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and other potential events. All the outcomes will be assessed at baseline and 1, 3, 5, 7, and 14 days after the injection. Both intention-to-treat and per-protocol analyses will be performed, with significance level determined as 5%. Discussion Results of this trial will help to clarify the value of auricular acupressure therapy in preventing and relieving overall and certain adverse events following immunization after injection of COVID-19 vaccine. Trial registration China Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) ( ChiCTR2100043210 ). Registered on 8 February, 2021.

The power conversion of salinity gradient energy (SGE) between concentrated brine from seawater desalination and seawater by reverse electrodialysis (RED) benefits energy conservation and also dilutes the discharge concentration to relieve the damage to coastal ecosystems. However, two key performance indexes of the maximum net power density and energy conversion efficiency for a RED stack harvesting the energy usually cannot reach the optimal simultaneously. Here, an optimization study on the two indexes was implemented to improve the performance of RED in harvesting the energy. A RED model for capturing the SGE between concentrated brine and seawater was constructed, and the correlation coefficients in the model were experimentally determined. Based on the model, the effects of a single variable (concentration, flow rate, temperature, thickness of the compartment, length of the electrode) on the performance of a RED stack are analyzed. The multi-objective optimization method based on the genetic algorithm was further introduced to obtain the optimal solution set, which could achieve the larger net power density and energy conversion efficiency with coordination. The ranges of optimal feed parameters and stack size were also obtained. The optimal flow velocity of the dilute solution and the concentration of the dilute solution are approximately 7.3 mm/s and 0.4 mol/kg, respectively.

Analysis of drug-induced expression profiles facilitated comprehensive understanding of drug properties. However, many compounds exhibit weak transcription responses though they mostly possess definite pharmacological effects. Actually, as a representative example, over 66.4% of 312,438 molecular signatures in the Library of Integrated Cellular Signatures (LINCS) database exhibit low-transcriptional activities (i.e. TAS-low signatures). When computing the association between TAS-low signatures with shared mechanism of actions (MOAs), commonly used algorithms showed inadequate performance with an average area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.55, but the computation accuracy of the same task can be improved by our developed tool Genetic profile activity relationship (GPAR) with an average AUROC of 0.68. Up to 36 out of 74 TAS-low MOAs were well trained with AUROC ≥ 0.7 by GPAR, higher than those by other approaches. Further studies showed that GPAR benefited from the size of training samples more significantly than other approaches. Lastly, in biological validation of the MOA prediction for a TAS-low drug Tropisetron, we found an unreported mechanism that Tropisetron can bind to the glucocorticoid receptor. This study indicated that GPAR can serve as an effective approach for the accurate identification of low-transcriptional activity drugs and their MOAs, thus providing a good tool for drug repurposing with both TAS-low and TAS-high signatures.

Impact craters with layered ejecta deposits are widespread on Mars. Prevailing views suggest that such ejecta were formed due to the involvement of target water and/or water ice in the impact excavation and/or the post-deposition movement of the impact ejecta. The long-runout landslides and lobate debris aprons that are likely formed due to the involvement of water ice are used as analogs to compare roughness at multiple scales, considering that these three landforms share some similarities in their geomorphology. Analog studies of the morphological similarities and differences of layered ejecta deposits with different emplacement mechanisms are an important approach to untangling how layered ejecta deposits might form on Mars and beyond. Earlier morphological comparisons were usually based on qualitative descriptions or one-dimensional topographic roughness characteristics at given azimuths; however, the emplacement processes of layered deposits are recorded in two-dimensional topography and at multiple scales. In this study, we designed a multiwavelet algorithm to characterize the multi-scale topographic roughness of different forms of Martian layered deposits. Our comparisons show that the inner facies of the layered ejecta deposits and long-runout landslides exhibited similar roughness characteristics, and the outer facies of the layered ejecta deposits were more similar in roughness to lobate debris aprons. This study highlights the importance of the spatial resolution of digital terrain models in characterizing fine topographic fluctuations on layered ejecta deposits, providing additional insights into the possible emplacement mechanisms of different parts of layered ejecta deposits.

Abstract In the radargram obtained by the high-frequency lunar penetrating radar onboard the Chang’E-3 mission, we notice a potential subsurface cavity that has a smaller permittivity compared to the surrounding materials. The two-way travel time between the top and bottom boundaries of the potential cavity is ~ 21 ns, and the entire zone is located within the continuous ejecta deposits of the Ziwei crater, which generally have similar physical properties to typical lunar regolith. We carried out numerical simulations for electromagnetic wave propagation to investigate the nature of this low-permittivity zone. Assuming different shapes for this zone, a comprehensive comparison between our model results and the observed radargram suggests that the roof of this zone is convex and slightly inclined to the south. Modeling subsurface materials with different relative permittivities suggests that the low-permittivity zone is most likely formed due to a subsurface cavity. The maximum vertical dimension of this potential cavity is ~ 3.1 m. While the continuous ejecta deposits of Ziwei crater are largely composed of pre-impact regolith, competent mare basalts were also excavated, which is evident by the abundant meter-scale boulders on the wall and rim of Ziwei crater. We infer that the subsurface cavity is supported by excavated large boulders, which were stacked during the energetic emplacement of the continuous ejecta deposits. However, the exact geometry of this cavity (e.g., the width) cannot be constrained using the single two-dimensional radar profile. This discovery indicates that large voids formed during the emplacement of impact ejecta should be abundant on the Moon, which contributes to the high bulk porosity of the lunar shallow crust, as discovered by the GRAIL mission. Our results further suggest that ground penetrating radar is capable of detecting and deciphering subsurface cavities such as lava tubes, which can be applied in future lunar and deep space explorations. Subsurface cavities of the Moon are the ideal natural shelter for future lunar explorations since they provide ideal insulation from cosmic radiation, meteoroid impacts, temperature fluctuations, etc. In this paper, we first report that a potential subsurface cavity with a height of ~3.1 m is revealed by the lunar penetrating radar onboard Chang’E-3 Yutu Rover

The Chang’E-4 mission has been exploring the lunar farside. Two scientific targets of the rover onboard are (1) resolving the possible mineralogy related to the South Pole-Aitken basin and (2) understanding the subsurface processes at the lunar farside. Publications to date that are based on the reflectance spectra and radar data obtained by the rover have shown a persistent inconsistency about the local stratigraphy. To explain both the abnormal surface topography at the landing site and the unexpected radargram observed by the rover, the Alder crater has been frequently reported to be older than the mare basalts at that landing site. However, this argument is not supported by earlier geological mapping nor recent crater statistics. Resolving this controversy is critical for a full understanding of the geological history of the landing area and for correct interpretations of the scientific data returned. Employing detailed crater statistics, rigorous statistical analyses, and an updated crater chronology function, this study is determined to resolve the relative ages of the Alder crater, Finsen crater, and the mare basalts on the floor of Von Kármán. Our results reveal that while background secondaries and local resurfacing have widely occurred in the study area, affecting age determinations, the statistics are significant enough to conclude that the Alder crater is the oldest among the three targets. This independent constraint is consistent with both the crosscutting relationships of different terrains in this area and global stratigraphic mapping. Our results exclude Alder as a possible contributor of the post-mare deposits at the landing site, appealing for a more systematic stratigraphy study to resolve the provenances of these deposits.

Abstract Background Querying drug-induced gene expression profiles with machine learning method is an effective way for revealing drug mechanism of actions (MOAs), which is strongly supported by the growth of large scale and high-throughput gene expression databases. However, due to the lack of code-free and user friendly applications, it is not easy for biologists and pharmacologists to model MOAs with state-of-art deep learning approach. Results In this work, a newly developed online collaborative tool, Genetic profile-activity relationship (GPAR) was built to help modeling and predicting MOAs easily via deep learning. The users can use GPAR to customize their training sets to train self-defined MOA prediction models, to evaluate the model performances and to make further predictions automatically. Cross-validation tests show GPAR outperforms Gene set enrichment analysis in predicting MOAs. Conclusion GPAR can serve as a better approach in MOAs prediction, which may facilitate researchers to generate more reliable MOA hypothesis.

Abstract Using the high-frequency lunar penetrating radar data obtained by the Chang’e-3 mission, we apply the frequency-shift method to calculate the decay rate of the electromagnetic wave in the regolith-like ejecta deposits of the Ziwei crater. The radar data are divided into segments according to the navigation points along the traverse route of the Yutu rover. For each segment, we calculate the bulk loss tangent of materials within the top ~ 50 ns of the radar data based on the frequency decreasing rate of the electromagnetic wave. The loss tangent varies from ~ 0.011–0.017 along the route of Yutu, and it is within the range of the measured loss tangent of Apollo regolith samples. Using the empirical relationship between loss tangent and TiO2 + FeO content derived from the Apollo lunar samples, we estimate the TiO2 + FeO content for the bulk regolith along the route of Yutu, which is ~ 23–30 wt.%. This value is comparable with that estimated using both orbital reflectance spectral data and in situ observation made by the Yutu rover. The loss tangent derived along the route of Yutu is larger than the average value of returned lunar samples, which is mainly caused by the larger content of TiO2 + FeO at the landing site compared to the global average. Variations of the TiO2 + FeO content along the route of Yutu are mainly due to the excavation of the Ziwei crater. The TiO2 + FeO content map derived by the radar has a much higher spatial resolution compared to orbital observation, testifying the feasibility of this technique for regional geology study.

The prototype for investigations of formation mechanisms and related geological effects of large impact basins on planetary bodies has been the Orientale basin on the Moon. Its widespread secondaries, light plains, and near-rim melt flows have been well mapped in previous studies. Flow features are also widely associated with secondaries on planetary bodies, but their physical properties are not well constrained. The nature of flow features associated with large impact basins are critically important to understand the emplacement process of basin ejecta, which is one of the most fundamental processes in shaping the shallow crusts of planetary bodies. Here we use multisource remote sensing data to constrain the physical properties of flow features formed by the secondaries of the Orientale basin. The results suggest that such flows are dominated by centimeter-scale fine debris fines; larger boulders are not abundant. The shattering of target materials during the excavation of the Orientale basin, landing impact of ejecta that formed the secondaries, and grain comminution within the flows have substantially reduced particle sizes, forming the fine flows. The discovery of global-wide fine debris flows formed by large impact basins has profound implications to the interpretation of both previously-returned samples and remote sensing data.

The heterointerface between complex oxides and van der Waals materials presents a versatile platform for exploring new functionalities. Here, the authors report an unconventional nonlinear optical filtering effect resulting from the interfacial polar alignment between monolayer MoS2 and a ferroelectric oxide thin film.

The Chinese Chang'e-3 mission landed close to the eastern rim of the ~450 m diameter Ziwei crater. Regional stratigraphy of the landing site and impact excavation model suggest that the bulk continuous ejecta deposits of the Ziwei crater are composed by Erathothenian-aged mare basalts. Along the traverse of the Yutu rover, the western segment features a gentle topographic uplift (~0.5 m high over ~4 m), which is spatially connected with the structurally-uplifted crater rim. Assuming that this broad topographic uplift has physical properties discontinuous with materials below, we use data returned by the high-frequency lunar penetrating radar onboard the Yutu rover to estimate the possible range of relative permittivity for this topographic uplift. Only when the relative permittivity is ~9 is the observed radar reflection consistent with the observed topography, suggesting that the topographic uplift is composed of basaltic blocks that were excavated by the Ziwei crater. This result is consistent both with the impact excavation model that predicts deeper basaltic materials being deposited closer to the crater rim, and with observation of numerous half-buried boulders on the surface of this hill. We note that this study is the first to use topography and radargram data to estimate the relative permittivity of lunar surface uplifts, an approach that has had many successful applications on Mars. Similar approaches can apply other ground penetrating radar data for the Moon, such as will be available from the ongoing Chang'e-4 mission.

Deep learning-based methods based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have demonstrated remarkable performance in hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. Most of these approaches are only based on 2-D CNN or 3-D CNN. It is dramatic from the literature that using just 2-D CNN may result in missing channel relationship information, and using just 3-D CNN may make the model very complex. Moreover, the existing network models do not pay enough attention to extracting spectral-spatial correlation information. To address these issues, we propose a deep collaborative attention network for HSI classification by combining 2-D CNN, and 3-D CNN (CACNN). Specifically, we first extract spectral-spatial features by using 2-D CNN, and 3-D CNN, respectively, and then use a “NonLocalBlock” to combine these two kinds of features. This block serves as a typical spatial attention mechanism, and makes salient features be emphasized. Then, we propose a “Conv_Block” that is similar to the lightweight dense block to extract correlation information contained in the feature maps. Finally, we consider a deep multilayer feature fusion strategy, and thereby combine the features of different hierarchical layers to extract the strong correlated spectral-spatial information among them. To test the performance of CACNN approach, several experiments are performed on four well-known HSIs. The results are compared with the state-of-the-art approaches, and satisfactory performance is obtained by our proposed method. The code of CACNN method is available on Dr. J. Liu's GitHub.

Fusing a low-resolution hyperspectral (LRHS) image and a high-resolution multispectral (HRMS) image to generate a high-resolution hyperspectral (HRHS) image has grown a significant and attractive application in remote sensing fields. Recently, the popularization of deep learning has injected more possibilities into the fusion work. However, there still exists a difficulty that is how to make the best of the acquired LRHS and HRMS images. In this article, we present a twice optimizing net with matrix decomposition to fulfill the fusion task, which can be roughly divided into three stages: pre-optimization, deep prior learning, post-optimization. Specifically, we first transform this fusion problem into a spectral optimization problem and a spatial optimization problem with the help of matrix decomposition. These two optimization problems can be handled sequentially by solving a linear equation, respectively, and then we can obtain the initial HRHS image by multiplying the two solutions. Next, we establish the mapping between the initial image and the reference image through an end-to-end deep residual network based on local and nonlocal connectivity. In order to get better performance, we have customized a loss function specifically for the fusion task as well. Finally, we return the predicted result again to the optimization procedure to get the final fusion image. After the evaluation on three simulated datasets and one real dataset, it illustrates that the proposed method outperforms many state-of-the-art ones.

Abstract Objectives To investigate if traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) auricular point acupressure (APA) can alleviate and (or) reduce the pain (including injection site pain, headache, other muscle and joint pain), fatigue, and gastrointestinal adverse reactions (including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), after the injection of novel coronavirus-19 vaccines (NCVs). Trial design The study is designed as a multicentre, parallel-group, three-arm, single-blind, prospective, randomized (1:1:1 ratio) study. Participants More than 360 participants will be recruited from healthy people who vaccinate NCVs in 5 community healthcare centres in the Sichuan province of China and 1 university hospital (Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine). Inclusion criteria: ①Vaccinators meets the conditions of NCVs injection and have no contraindications to it. The details shall be subject to the instructions of the NCVs used and the statement of medical institutions. The first dose of NCVs injection shall be completed within 24 hours from the time of injection to the time of enrolment; ②No redness, swelling, injury or infection of the skin or soft tissue of both ears, which is not suitable for APA; ③No history of alcohol and adhesive tape contact allergy; ④18-59 years old, regardless of gender; ⑤Those who were able to complete the questionnaire independently at the time of the first and second dose of NCVs and on the 3rd, 7th and 15th day after the first and second dose of NCVs respectively; ⑥Those who agree to participate in the trial and sign the informed consent, and can seriously abide by the precautions after the injection of NCVs and the requirements of traditional Chinese medicine auricular point plasters sticking and acupressure. Exclusion criteria: ①Those who are not suitable to be vaccinated because they belong to the contraindication or cautious population; ②Those who have participated in other clinical trials within 4 weeks before the start of this study; ③No chronic/habitual/persistent headache, Muscle or joint pain, fatigue, diarrhea, nausea, retching or vomiting before the injection of NCVs, and no related diseases present (details of this item is listed in full protocol); ④Those who are in use or have received TCMAPA within 2 weeks before the trial; ⑤Pregnant or lactating women; ⑥Participants with other serious primary diseases and psychosis. Intervention and comparator ①Auricular point acupressure group: participants receive bilateral, symptom-specific TCMAPA in 5 auricular points (per side, 10 points bilateral) for 5 days, 3-4 times (about 1 min each time) of self-acupressure per day, after each NCVs injection (10 days in total). ②Sham auricular point acupressure group: participants receive bilateral, none symptom-specific, sham APA in 5 auricular points (per side, 10 points bilateral) for 5 days, 3-4 times (about 1 min each time) of self-acupressure per day, after each NCVs injection (10 days in total). ③Blank control group: Non-intervention blank control. The Hebei medical device Co. Ltd, Hebei, China manufactured the auricular point sticking plasters. Main outcomes Primary outcomes are all scores of visual analogue scale (VAS) based on subjective judgment of the participants included, including VAS score of pain at injection site, headache, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, nausea, retching, vomiting and diarrhea. Time points for outcomes above are the same: ①Immediately after first and second injection of the vaccine (Baseline assessment); ②Three days after first and second injection of the vaccine; ③Seven days after first and second injection of the vaccine; ④Fifteen days after first and second injection of the vaccine. Randomisation Participants will be randomized in 1:1:1 ratio to each group by computerized random number generator, and independently in each sub-centre. Blinding (masking) Participants, information collectors and statistical evaluators will be blinded between APA group and sham APA group. No blinding in the control group. Numbers to be randomised (sample size) No less than 360 participants will be randomized in 1:1:1 ratio to each group. Trial Status Protocol version 2.0 of February 3rd, 2021. Recruitment is expected to start on February 18th, 2021, and to finish on March 12th, 2021. Trial registration This trial was registered in the China Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR) ( ChiCTR2100043210 ) on 8th February, 2021. Full protocol The full protocol is attached as an additional file, accessible from the Trials website (Additional file 1). In the interest in expediting dissemination of this material, the familiar formatting has been eliminated; this Letter serves as a summary of the key elements of the full protocol.

Malathion, phoxim, and thiram are organophosphates and organosulfur pesticides widely used in agricultural products. The residues of these pesticides present a direct threat to human health. Rapid and on-site detection is critical for minimizing such risks. In this work, a simple approach was introduced using a flexible surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate. The prepared Ag nanoparticles-polydimethylsiloxane (AgNPs-PDMS) substrate showed high SERS activity, good precision (relative standard deviation = 5.33%), and stability (30 days) after optimization. For target pesticides, the linear relationship between characteristic SERS bands and concentrations were achieved in the range of 10~1000, 100~5000, and 50~5000 μg L−1 with LODs down to 3.62, 41.46, and 15.69 μg L−1 for thiram, malathion, and phoxim, respectively. Moreover, SERS spectra of mixed samples indicated that three pesticides can be identified simultaneously, with recovery rates between 96.5 ± 3.3% and 118.9 ± 2.4%, thus providing an ideal platform for detecting more than one target. Pesticide residues on orange surfaces can be simply determined through swabbing with the flexible substrate before acquiring the SERS signal. This study demonstrated that the prepared substrate can be used for the rapid detection of pesticides on real samples. Overall, this method greatly simplified the pre-treatment procedure, thus serving as a promising analytical tool for rapid and nondestructive screening of malathion, phoxim, and thiram on various agricultural products.

Lunar cryptomare records both early-stage mare volcanisms and large-scale impact cratering, which can provide important information about the thermal evolution of the Moon. We built a mixing dielectric constant model to represent the cryptomare deposits mixed by highland debris and mare deposits, and the proper radiative transfer simulation was constructed to evaluate the thermal emission features of surface deposits in the cryptomare region. The microwave radiometer (MRM) data in the Balmer-Kapteyn region were extracted, and the linear interpolation method was used to generate brightness temperature (TB) maps at noon and at night. To enhance the correlation between cryptomare deposits and TB performances, normalized TB (nTB) and TB difference (dTB) maps were also generated. Combined with the datasets, including Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Wide Angle Camera, Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, and Diviner and Clementine UV–VIS, the main findings are as follows: (1) The mare-like cryptomare deposits were discovered and identified according to the nTB and dTB performances. Combined with the surface compositions, at least two kinds of buried mare deposits were identified in the B-K region, which erupted during different episodes. (2) A construct-like volcanic feature was suggested by the nTB and dTB performances. (3) The results of our analysis indicated the presence of materials with low dTB anomalies in the northern and southwestern parts of the cryptomare region and in the mare unit within the Vendelinus crater, which illustrates the heterogeneity of the lunar crust in the vertical direction.

The Lidang circular structure in the center of the Guangxi Province is about 8 km in diameter. This structure appears as an abnormal shallow depression that has disturbed the rather harmonic regional joint systems. Its unique occurrence in the whole region, the circular morphology, negative topography, and the spatial distribution of interior and exterior strata are all consistent with those of impact craters that are formed by asteroidal or cometary collision. To test the impact hypothesis, we carried out both field investigation and remote sensing study of this structure. Regional geological history suggests that if the impact hypothesis were correct, the impact event should have occurred at or after the Early Permian. Field investigation found that the strata inside and outside the crater are dominated by parallel stacks of Lower and Upper Permian limestone that have various thicknesses and different mud contents. The layers of limestone within and outside the circular structure have identical attitudes; no structural disturbances were visible in the outcrops. Field investigations provide conclusive evidence against the impact cratering hypothesis. A high-resolution digital elevation model shows that the spatial distribution of rounded mountains within the structure is controlled by faint but continual extension of joints, suggesting that the crater interior has gone through a much higher degree of erosion. Therefore, regional joints that had once existed within the crater are preserved less well than exterior terrains, forming the abruptly disrupted circular depression. Differential erosion, as the possible formation mechanism of the Lidang structure, is consistent with the different mud contents found between the interior and exterior limestone. The circular outline of this structure may correspond to the shape of the original deposition basin. In conclusion, the Lidang circular structure is a polje formed by karstification, not an astrobleme.

In order to improve the classification accuracy of patients with autism based on the full Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange dataset, a total of 501 subjects with autism and 553 subjects with typical control across 17 sites were involved in the study. Firstly, we applied the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data to calculate the functional connectivity (FC) based on the automated anatomical labeling atlas with 116 brain regions. Secondly, we adopted the support vector machine-recursive feature elimination algorithm to select top 1000 features from the primitive FC features. Thirdly, we trained a stacked sparse auto-encoder with two hidden layers to extract the high-level latent and complicated features from the 1000 features. Finally, the optimal features obtained were fed into the softmax classifier. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed classification algorithm is able to identify the autism with a state-of-the-art accuracy of 93.59% (sensitivity 92.52%, specificity 94.56%).

Since the product of complex numbers and rectangular fuzzy complex numbers (RFCN) is not necessarily a RFCN in the former fuzzy complex linear system (FCLS), the scalar multiplication and addition operations of complex numbers and fuzzy complex numbers (FCN) based on a new representation of FCN are proposed. We also introduce a new method for solving FCLS, which can convert FCLS into two distinct linear systems. One is an n×n complex linear system, and the other is an (mn)×(mn) real linear system, where n is the number of unknown variables, and m is the number of substitutional cyclic sets composed of coefficients of FCLS. In particular, using this method to solve one-dimensional fuzzy linear systems, a (2n)×(2n) RLS is obtained, which is consistent with Friedman’s method. Finally, FCLS based on the RFCN as a special case are also investigated.

On the planet Mercury, pyroclastic deposits formed by explosive volcanism are developed around rimless volcanic pits that are up to dozens of kilometers in diameters. Some pyroclastic deposits on Mercury, however, host no discernable main eruption centers but feature pitted-ground terrains that each consists of many similar sized and irregularly shaped pits. Individual pits are usually much smaller and shallower than typical volcanoes on Mercury. The origin of these landforms is unknown, but it is indicative of styles of volcanism on Mercury and/or post-volcanic modifications. Here, we investigate the possible origin of these peculiar landforms based on their geological context, morphology, geometry, reflectance spectra, and geophysical background. Reflectance spectra of pyroclastic deposits around such volcanoes are comparable with those erupted from typical volcanic pits on Mercury, suggesting a genetic relation between these pitted-ground terrains with explosive volcanism, and the source magma might have similar compositions. Pitted-ground volcanoes are mainly observed in impact structures, and two cases were formed in high-reflectance smooth plains and channeled lava flows. Most pitted-ground volcanoes are relatively degraded compared with typical volcanoes on Mercury, and some might have been formed in geological recent times judged by both their pristine preservation and crosscutting relationship with impact rays. All pitted-ground volcanoes have unconfined morphology boundaries, and each case is composed by dozens of rimless pits that have similar preservation states and interconnected edges. Such morphological characteristics are unique among volcanic landforms on terrestrial bodies, and they cannot be explained by multiple post-eruption collapses of a main explosive volcano. Pitted-ground volcanoes that are developed in lava flows with the same age have different preservation states, suggesting that the pits were not formed by escape of thermally destabilized volatiles from substrate and subsequent roof collapses. The largest pitted-ground volcano (~3700 km2) is located on the Borealis Planitia, and Bouguer gravity data reveal no larger mass concentration in the subsurface than surrounding terrains, consistent with a paucity of shallow intrusions in the crust of Mercury. Short-term and spatially-clustered explosive eruptions could explain the peculiar morphology and geometry of the pits, suggesting that pits in a given pitted-ground volcano are akin to swarms of monogenetic volcanoes. However, possible magma dynamics for the formation of pitted-ground volcanoes cannot be confirmed until future high-resolution gravity mapping could reveal detailed interior structures beneath these volcanoes. Based on comparative studies with spatially-clustered and similarly aged volcanoes on Earth, we interpret that a combination of pervasive crustal fractures and regional thermal anomaly in the thin mantle of Mercury might have caused such short-term and spatially-clustered explosive eruptions. If this interpretation was true, the heavy degradation state of most pitted-ground volcanoes and the few well-preserved cases are consistent with an overall cooling trend of the mantle, indicating the existence of longstanding heterogeneous thermal structures in the mantle.

Abstract The lunar penetrating radar (LPR) onboard the Chinese Chang'e‐3 (CE‐3) mission obtained high‐resolution profile data for the continuous ejecta deposits of the Ziwei crater. Geological background suggests that the continuous ejecta deposits contain few large boulders, and the ejecta deposits were largely originated from the pre‐impact regolith. Using the top ~50 ns of radar data, we estimate the bulk density and porosity for the ejecta deposits based on hyperbolic echo patterns in the radargram that are caused by subsurface boulders. The physical properties are close to those of typical lunar regolith. Numerous subparallel and discontinuous short layers are visible in the radargram of the continuous ejecta deposits. The dielectric coefficients of the layering structures are estimated, and their permittivity is slightly larger than that of typical lunar regolith and less than that of basaltic rocks. Cratering physics together with the geological context of this area suggest that the layering structures are most likely ground gravels and/or melt‐welded breccias that were sheared due to the horizontal momentum of the impact ejecta. This interpretation is indicative of the origin of the enigmatic layering structures in regolith core samples returned by the Apollo and Luna missions. The results also highlight the importance of ejecta emplacement in shaping the structure of lunar regolith.

Taxol has been clinically approved as an antitumor drug, and it exerts its antitumor effect through the excessive stabilization of microtubules in cancer cells. Recently, moderate microtubule stabilization by Taxol has been shown to efficiently promote neurite regeneration and functional recovery after spinal cord injury (SCI). However, the potential for the clinical translation of Taxol in treating SCI is limited by its side effects and low ability to cross the blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB). Self-assembled peptide hydrogels have shown potential as drug carriers for the local delivery of therapeutic agents. We therefore hypothesized that the localized delivery of Taxol by a self-assembled peptide scaffold would promote axonal regeneration by stabilizing microtubules during the treatment of SCI. In the present study, the mechanistic functions of the Taxol-releasing system were clarified in vitro and in vivo using immunofluorescence labeling, histology and neurobehavioral analyses. Based on the findings from the in vitro study, Taxol released from a biological functionalized SAP nanofiber scaffold (FGLmx/Taxol) remained active and promoted neurite extension. In this study, we used a weight-drop contusion model to induce SCI at T9. The local delivery of Taxol from FGLmx/Taxol significantly decreased glial scarring and increased the number of nerve fibers compared with the use of FGLmx and 5% glucose. Furthermore, animals administered FGLmx/Taxol exhibited neurite preservation, smaller cavity dimensions, and decreased inflammation and demyelination. Thus, the local delivery of Taxol from FGLmx/Taxol was effective at promoting recovery after SCI and has potential as a new therapeutic strategy for SCI.

Abstract Self-secondaries are secondary craters that are formed on both the continuous ejecta deposits and interior of the parent crater. The possible existence of self-secondaries was proposed in the late 1960s, but their identity, formation mechanism, and importance were not revisited until the new generation of high-resolution images for the Moon have recently became available. Possible self-secondary crater populations have now been recognized not only on the Moon, but also on Mercury, Mars, 1Ceres, 4Vesta, and satellites of the ice giants. On the Moon and terrestrial planets, fragments that form self-secondaries are launched with high ejection angles via spallation during the early cratering process, so that self-secondaries can be formed both within the crater and on the continuous ejecta deposits at the end of the cratering process. Self-secondaries potentially possess profound effects on the widely used age-determination technique using crater statistics in planetary geology, because (1) self-secondaries cause nonuniform crater density across the continuous ejecta deposits, which cannot be solely explained by the effect of different target properties on crater size-frequency distributions; (2) crater chronologies for both the Moon and the other terrestrial bodies are largely based on crater counts on the continuous ejecta deposits of several young lunar craters. The effect of self-secondaries on crater chronology can be well addressed after the spatial distribution, size-frequency distribution, and density evolution of self-secondaries are resolved.

Neuroinflammation is often accompanied by central nervous system (CNS) injury seen in various CNS diseases, with no specific treatment. Drug repurposing is a strategy of finding new uses for approved or investigational drugs, and can be enabled by the Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS), a large drug perturbation database. In this study, the signatures of Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) were compared with the signatures of compounds contained in the LINCS dataset. To the top 100 compounds obtained, the Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR)-based tool admetSAR was used to identify the top 10 candidate compounds with relatively high blood–brain barrier (BBB) penetration. Furthermore, the seventh-ranked compound, dutasteride, a 5-α-reductase inhibitor, was selected for in vitro and in vivo validation of its anti-neuroinflammation activity. The results showed that dutasteride significantly reduced the levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in the supernatants of LPS-stimulated BV2 cells, and decreased the levels of IL-6 in the hippocampus and plasma, and the number of activated microglia in the brain of LPS administration mice. Furthermore, dutasteride also attenuated the cognitive impairment caused by LPS stimulation in mice. Taken together, this study demonstrates that the LINCS dataset-based drug repurposing strategy is an effective approach, and the predicted candidate, dutasteride, has the potential to ameliorate LPS-induced neuroinflammation and cognitive impairment.

In this paper, the upper and lower solution method is proposed in order to solve the second order interval boundary value problem. We study first a class of linear interval boundary value problems and then investigate a class of nonlinear interval boundary value problems by the upper and lower solution method under the gH-derivative, and we prove that there exist at least two solutions.

This paper presents a region-based relaxed multiple kernel collaborative representation method for the spatial-spectral classification of hyperspectral images. The proposed method consists of three steps. In the first step, a multiscale method achieved by extending a superpixel segmentation algorithm is designed to capture the spatial-spectral information of hyperspectral images. For each scale, a hyperspectral image can be segmented into several nonoverlapping spectrally similar regions that consist of some spatially adjacent pixels. In the second step, two criteria (i.e., the first two moments) are computed within the regions of each scale to generate the corresponding spatial features. In the final step, a relaxed multiple kernel technique is proposed to fuse the obtained spatial multiscale features and original spectral features in the framework of column generation kernel collaborative representation classification. Experimental results obtained from two real hyperspectral images demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method as compared with some popular spatial-spectral techniques.

Self-secondaries are a population of background secondaries, and they have been observed on top of impact melt and ballistically emplaced ejecta deposits on various planetary bodies. Self-secondaries are formed by impacts of sub-vertically launched ejecta, but the launch mechanism is not confirmed. The potential threat of self-secondaries to the theoretical and applicable reliability of crater chronology has been noted, but not constrained. Hitherto discovered self-secondaries were located around complex impact craters, but their potential existence around simple craters has not been discovered. Here we report the first discovery of self-secondaries around lunar cold spot craters, which are an extremely young population of simple craters formed within the past ~1 million years on the Moon. Self-secondaries are widespread on layers of cascading flow-like ejecta deposits around cold spot craters. The spatial density of self-secondaries dwarfs that of potential primary craters. The spatial distribution of self-secondaries is highly heterogeneous across the ejecta deposits. With respect to the impactor trajectory that formed cold spot craters, self-secondaries formed at the downrange of the ejecta deposits have the largest spatial density, while those at the uprange have the smallest density. This density pattern holds for all cold spot craters that were formed by non-vertical impacts, but self-secondaries do not exhibit other systematic density variations at different radial distances or at other azimuths with respect to the impactor trajectory. Among known mechanics of ejecting materials to the exterior of impact craters, impact spallation is the most likely scenario to account for the required large ejection velocities and angles to form self-secondaries. The production population of self-secondaries is estimated based on the highly diverse crater size-frequency distributions across the ejecta deposits of cold spot craters. For a better understanding of the impact history on the Moon, a systematic investigation for the effect of self-secondaries on lunar crater chronology is required.

Chang’E-5 will be China’s first sample−return mission. The proposed landing site is at the late-Eratosthenian-aged Rümker region of the lunar nearside. During this mission, a driller will be sunk into the lunar regolith to collect samples from depths up to two meters. This mission provides an ideal opportunity to investigate the lunar regolith temperature variation, which is important to the drilling program. This study focuses on the temperature variation of lunar regolith, especially the subsurface temperature. Such temperature information is crucial to both the engineering needs of the drilling program and interpretation of future heat-flow measurements at the lunar landing site. Based on the real-time illumination, and particularly the terrain obscuration, a one-dimensional heat equation was applied to estimate the temperature variation over the whole landing region. Our results confirm that while solar illumination strongly affects the surface temperature, such effect becomes weak at increasing depths. The skin depth of diurnal temperature variations is restricted to the uppermost ~5 cm, and the temperature of regolith deeper than ~0.6 m is controlled by the interior heat flow. At such a depth, China’s future lunar exploration is adequate to measure the inner heat flow, considering the drilling depth will be close to 2 m.

In order to investigate the internal flow field of an axial blood pump, two-dimensional (2D) particle image velocimetry (PIV) was applied to test the blood pump under three different conditions. Acquiring the images of inlet, front guide vane, impeller, back guide vane and outlet area, the distribution of internal flow field was then analysed. The rotation speed of the blood pump was set to 6000, 7000 and 8000 r/min, respectively. The results show that the flow field of blood pump is stable relatively at the inlet area. Some vortices and reflux existed due to the block of guide vane in the import and impeller area. With the increase of rotating speed, the overall disturbance degree of flow field increases. Under the condition of low rotation speed, the flow field acceleration is insufficient. Under the medium rotation speed condition, the flow field is stable and the velocity distribution is even. Under the condition of high rotating speed, the number of vortices in the flow field increased significantly, the flow separation phenomenon at the impeller was obvious and more unstable flow appeared at the back guide vanes and outlet area.