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Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) development has garnered significant attention, yet one of the major challenges in the field is how to rapidly iterate the overall design scheme of UAVs to meet actual needs, thereby shortening development cycles and reducing costs. This study integrates a “Decision Support System” and “Live Virtual Construct (LVC) environment” into the existing Model-Based Systems Engineering framework, proposing a Modified Model-Based Systems Engineering methodology for the full-process development of UAVs. By constructing a decision support system and a hybrid reality space—which includes pure digital modeling and simulation analysis software, semi-physical simulation platforms, real flight environments, and virtual UAVs—we demonstrate this method through the development of the electric vertical take-off and landing fixed-wing UAV DB1. This method allows for rapid, on-demand iteration in a fully digital environment, with feasibility validated by comparing actual flight test results with mission indicators. The study results show that this approach significantly accelerates UAV development while reducing costs, achieving rapid development from “demand side to design side” under the “0 loss” background. The DB1 platform can carry a 2.5 kg payload, achieve over 40 min of flight time, and cover a range of more than 70 km. This work provides valuable references for UAV enterprises aiming to reduce costs and increase efficiency in the rapid commercialization of UAV applications.

Carex is a type of herbaceous plant with high application value, playing an important role in the urban periphery. Due to its unique morphology and ecological characteristics, Carex is widely used in various fields, such as landscaping, ecological restoration and soil and water conservation, which help to maintain the balance of the ecosystem. In order to explore the potential molecular mechanisms of shade tolerance in Carex, transcriptome and metabolome sequencing were performed on the leaves of the shade = tolerant species Carex adrienii E. G. Camus. under 80% shade and no shade conditions. Compared to control group (CK), the total chlorophyll, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and total carotenoid content in the C. adrienii leaves of the shading treatment were significantly upregulated. The antioxidant enzyme activity of the leaves, including superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), and catalase (CAT), were also remarkably upregulated in the shading treatment groups. In addition, the net photosynthesis rate (Pn), stomatal conductance (Gs) and transpiration rate (Tr) of the leaves were reduced, and the intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci) of the leaves was increased under shade. The transcriptome identified 5056 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and the metabolome identified 889 differential accumulated metabolites (DAMs) in three treated samples. The integrated transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses results showed that the DEGs and DAMs were enriched in photosynthesis, plant hormone signal transduction and flavonoid biosynthesis synthesis pathways. The ABA content of the C. adrienii leaves was significantly increased under shade. Therefore, the shading conditions led to changes in chlorophyll and abscisic acid (ABA), as well as the accumulation of flavonoids in C. adrienii, both of which were achieved by regulating genes involved in photosynthesis, plant hormone signal transduction and flavonoid biosynthesis molecular networks. Our results provide new knowledge for the molecular response and metabolic regulatory mechanisms of C. adrienii to shade stress, and valuable genetic resources for C. adrienii shade tolerance molecular breeding.

Sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma (SRCC), a manifestation of sarcomatoid dedifferentiation in renal cell carcinoma, is characterized by elevated invasiveness and a grim prognosis. Typically, SRCC patients present with advanced or metastatic conditions and survival rates rarely extend beyond one year. In this study, we describe a case of SRCC characterized by the patient exhibiting right flank pain without hematuria. Initially, imaging interpretations led to a diagnosis of severe hydronephrosis. Subsequently, an open right nephrectomy post-surgery confirmed the pathology of sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma.

The Internet of things (IoT) has become a key infrastructure providing up-to-date and fresh information for policy analysis and decision-making of upper-layer applications. However, there are limited sensing and communication resources in IoT devices, which significantly affects the timeliness and freshness of the updated status. This work proposes two schemes, namely, the generation rate control and service rate reservation schemes, to improve the overall information freshness of multiple status update streams at the receiver. Specifically, using the recently proposed Age of Information (AoI) as the metric for evaluating information freshness, we characterized the overall information freshness, i.e., the overall average AoI at the receiver for both schemes, by considering the urgency difference of status update and streams. Both schemes for status updates and streams, respectively, were formulated as two optimization problems. We proved that both problems are convex and the optimal generation and service rates for different streams are found by the standard convex optimization algorithm. Moreover, we proposed both approximate optimal generation and approximate optimal service rate for fast deployment in heavy and light load cases. Numerical results verify the theoretical findings and accuracy of the proposed approximate solutions, guiding the design and deployment of IoT.

Evaluating the mission efficiency of various drone configurations under complex, multi-source, and multi-dimensional requirements remains a significant challenge. This study aimed to develop a comprehensive decision support system (DSS) that employs mission efficiency evaluation, probabilistic hesitant fuzzy sets (PHFs), and multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) methods to assess and optimize drone design. In the proposed method, mission efficiency is defined as a composite measure of the flight performance, adaptability, and economic viability required to complete a mission. By designing a “demand–capability–design” mapping approach, this system effectively resolves multi-attribute conflicts in the decision-making process. To demonstrate the proposed approach, a set of small electric vertical takeoff and landing fixed-wing (e-VTOLFW) drones are compared and ranked based on their mission efficiency. The impacts of different mission requirements on drone evaluation are also discussed. The results demonstrate that this model resolves the traditional issue of unclear information flow in drone design. By improving the evaluation criteria, it enhances informed decision making and the robustness of evaluation results in drone design assessments. Additionally, the model is generalizable and can be widely applied to similar fields such as “demand–product design”, improving the understanding and optimization of product performance.

In this paper, we take the images of Miao costumes as the research object, construct the color system of Miao costumes based on the aesthetics perspective, and take the color migration as the research content to realize the visualization and innovative design of Miao costumes. Firstly, typical Miao dress images are obtained by digital acquisition. Then, RGB and HSL color modes are used to extract the colors and mine the color association rules of Miao dresses to construct the color system of Miao dresses. Then, an image segmentation method based on the color system of Miao costumes is proposed to achieve color migration between the color regions of decorative patterns. Finally, the patterns in the dataset of Miao costumes in Qiandongnan are extracted. Based on the classification study, a systematic and in-depth analysis of the color performance of the pattern patterns is conducted to clarify their artistic and aesthetic forms. It is found that the colors of Qiandongnan Miao costume patterns are mostly high-purity and high-brightness colors, of which high-purity colors (7-10) account for the highest proportion, including 16 colors such as earth red, grape purple, pink, and big red, accounting for about 56.5% of the total. The proportion of high brightness colors (7-10) in the colors is the highest, including 13 colors such as beige, goose yellow, grape purple, peach red, etc., accounting for 68.1%. It can be seen from the use of hues in the dress patterns of the Miao people in Qiandongnan that they will match the colors of the patterns according to the “five colors” and highlight a certain color as the dominant color according to the theme. The whole is complete, full of variegated and strong ethnic flavor.

Fully coordinated Cell-Free (CF) networks can alleviate the Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) for the cell-edge users in cellular networks. Due to the complex topology of the association between the Access Points (APs) and the users in CF networks, it is challenging to deploy CF networks in practical scenarios. In order to make CF networks feasible, we introduce User-Centric (UC) networks enabling each user served by a limited number of APs. As a low-cost and energy-efficient technology, Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS) can be embedded in UC networks to further improve the system performance. First, we provide a brief survey on the prior works in UC networks for clear comprehension. Then, we formulate a Spectral Efficiency (SE) maximization problem for RIS-enhanced UC networks. For solving the non-convex problem, we divide it into three subproblems and propose a joint optimization framework for optimizing AP-user association, active beamforming of multiple antennas at the APs, and the passive beamforming of the RIS. Besides, a channel gain based association method coupled with the design of RIS is proposed to construct a dynamic and efficient association. The subproblems about optimizing active and passive beamforming are solved with the fractional programming. Simulation results show that the proposed joint optimization framework for RIS-enhanced UC networks can obtain good SE compared with other benchmark schemes.

Abstract Background Cuproptosis, a new form of programmed cell death, has been recently reported to be closely related to tumor progression. However, the significance of cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is still unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the role of the CRG signature in prognosis prediction and immunotherapeutic effect estimation in patients with PTC. Methods RNA-seq data and the corresponding clinical information of patients with PTC were obtained from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases. Comprehensive analyses, namely, consensus clustering, immune analyses, functional enrichment, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator-multivariate Cox regression, and nomogram analysis, were performed to identify new molecular subgroups, determine the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) status of the identified subgroups, and construct a clinical model. Independent verification cohort data and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) was performed to validate the expression of specific prognosis-related and differentially expressed CRGs (P-DECRGs). Results In the TCGA database, 476 patients with PTC who had complete clinical and follow-up information were included. Among 135 CRGs, 21 were identified as P-DECRGs. Two molecular subgroups with significantly different disease-free survival and TIME statuses were identified based on these 21 P-DECRGs. The differentially expressed genes between the two subgroups were mainly associated with immune regulation. The risk model and nomogram were constructed based on four specific P-DECRGs and validated as accurate prognostic predictions and TIME status estimation for PTC by TCGA and GEO verification cohorts. Finally, the qPCR results of 20 PTC and paracancerous thyroid tissues validated those in the TCGA database. Conclusions Four specific P-DECRGs in PTC were identified, and a clinical model based on them was established, which may be helpful for individualized immunotherapeutic strategies and prognostic prediction in patients with PTC.

In order to manage the construction schedule risk of power supply and distribution engineering, a construction schedule risk evaluation model, namely the Monte Carlo simulation method - Analytic Hierarchy Process (MCS-AHP) model, is proposed. In this model, the Monte Carlo simulation method is adopted to improve the analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and the normal distribution interval is used to replace the specific value when constructing the fuzzy complementary judgment matrix, to reduce the risk of fuzzy thinking and incomplete information or scattered data in the process of investigation and judgment and improve the scientific evaluation. This paper takes a power supply and distribution project in Guangdong Province as an example uses the MCS-AHP model to measure the key factors limiting the project progress, and uses the AHP method for comparative analysis, to verify the feasibility of the MCS-AHP model. The analysis shows that the key influencing factors are material and equipment procurement, production and arrival, installation of 10 kv high voltage switchboard, electrical acceptance and single machine commissioning, installation of low-voltage switchboard and DC switchboard, and foundation construction of power station equipment, etc., which are consistent with the actual situation. Therefore, it is feasible to construct the MCS-AHP model, which can provide a new way of thinking for schedule risk management analysis.

Rare-earth dopants are arguably one of the most studied optical centers in solids, with applications spanning from laser optoelectronics, biosensing, lighting to displays. Nevertheless, harnessing rare-earth dopants’ extraordinary coherence properties for quantum information technologies is a relatively new endeavor, and has been rapidly advancing in recent years. Leveraging the state-of-the-art photonic technologies, on-chip rare-earth quantum devices functioning as quantum memories, single photon sources and transducers have emerged, often with potential performances unrivaled by other solid-state quantum technologies. These existing quantum devices, however, nearly exclusively rely on macroscopic bulk materials as substrates, which may limit future scalability and functionalities of such quantum systems. Thus, the development of new platforms beyond single crystal bulk materials has become an interesting approach. In this review article, we summarize the latest progress towards nanoscale, low-dimensional rare-earth doped materials for enabling next generation rare-earth quantum devices. Different platforms with a variety of synthesis methods are surveyed. Their key metrics measured to date are presented and compared. Special attention is placed on the connection between the topology of each platform to its target device applications. Lastly, an outlook for near term prospects of these platforms are given, with a hope to spur broader interests in rare-earth doped materials as a promising candidate for quantum information technologies.

Dam-breaking accidents in tailings ponds may result in loss of tailings, damage to the downstream bridges and houses, flooding of farmland and roads, hazards to the local environment, and even loss of property and lives. Therefore, research on dam breaks in tailings reservoirs and prediction of subsequent impacts are of great significance. This paper describes theoretical and numerical analyses of the retrogressive erosion model and calculations of the sand bed surface profile and sediment transport rate following tailings dam break events. The calculation results show that the degrading rate of the bed surface in the reservoir area reaches a maximum when the breach is formed and then rapidly decreases to a stable value. Farther away from the breach, the peak degrading rate of the bed surface is lower. The time of the peak tailings outflow rate is related to the formation of the breach. A larger breach has a shorter formation time and a greater peak flow.

The discovery of circular RNA (circRNA) enormously complimented the repertoire of traditional gene expression theory. As a type of endogenous noncoding RNA, circRNA participates in the occurrence of many kinds of tumors in addition to regulating their development. The Warburg effect (aerobic glycolysis is taken with priority for cancer cells instead of oxidative phosphorylation) is one of the most important factors involved in the excessive proliferation of gastric cancer cells. Our data showed that circRNA circATP2B1 (also called hsa_circ_000826) was overexpressed in gastric cancer tissues instead of linear ATP2B1 mRNA, and it promoted aerobic glycolysis in gastric cancer cells. Bioinformatic Gene Ontology analysis showed that the potential downstream targets of circATP2B1 include the microRNA miR-326 gene cluster (miR-326-3p/miR-330-5p), which is functionally focused on cell growth and metabolic processes. The expressions of miR-326-3p/miR-330-5p were downregulated in gastric cancer, and circATP2B1 functionally targeted miR-326-3p/miR-330-5p in an RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) dependent manner. Dual-luciferase reporter assays demonstrated that pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) was one of the targets of miR-326-3p/miR-330-5p. As a rate-limiting enzyme in the aerobic glycolytic pathway, PKM2 accelerated gastric cancer cells’ glucose uptake and increased cell viability. Taken together, circATP2B1 captured miR-326-3p/miR-330-5p and decreased the suppression of PKM2 by miR-326-3p/miR-330-5p, thus aiding the aerobic glycolysis and proliferation of gastric cancer cells. This study identified a novel molecular pathway in gastric cancer that may provide more targets for reversing cancer metabolic reprogramming, as well as a potential strategy for targeted therapy of gastric cancer.

In this study, we use a lattice Boltzmann method with a multi-relaxation-time model to simulate dam-break flooding in confluence channels with four confluence angles. Compared with physical experiment, the simulation proves reliable. We analyze the influence of the confluence angle on the propagation of dam-break flood. The stage hydrograph at the confluence area can be divided into four stages: before the wavefront reaches—rising rapidly—falling gradually—planarization with periodic fluctuation. The water depth of the measuring points in the confluence area is influenced by two factors: the confluence angle and the distance from the measuring point to the first impact point. The results demonstrate that the backwater effect of the confluence is enhanced at higher confluence angles. As the confluence angle increases, the first impact point moves upstream. Moreover, there is a strong backwater effect close to the first impact point, resulting in superelevation mainly occurring in the confluence area.

Diapause, a programmed developmental arrest primarily induced by seasonal environmental changes, is very common in the animal kingdom, and found in vertebrates and invertebrates alike. Diapause provides an adaptive advantage to animals, as it increases the odds of surviving adverse conditions. In insects, individuals perceive photoperiodic cues and modify endocrine signaling to direct reproductive diapause traits, such as ovary arrest and increased fat accumulation. However, it remains unclear as to which endocrine factors are involved in this process and how they regulate the onset of reproductive diapause. Here, we found that the long day-mediated drop in the concentration of the steroid hormone ecdysone is essential for the preparation of photoperiodic reproductive diapause in Colaphellus bowringi, an economically important cabbage beetle. The diapause-inducing long-day condition reduced the expression of ecdysone biosynthetic genes, explaining the drop in the titer of 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E, the active form of ecdysone) in female adults. Application of exogenous 20E induced vitellogenesis and ovarian development but reduced fat accumulation in the diapause-destined females. Knocking down the ecdysone receptor (EcR) in females destined for reproduction blocked reproductive development and induced diapause traits. RNA-seq and hormone measurements indicated that 20E stimulates the production of juvenile hormone (JH), a key endocrine factor in reproductive diapause. To verify this, we depleted three ecdysone biosynthetic enzymes via RNAi, which confirmed that 20E is critical for JH biosynthesis and reproductive diapause. Importantly, impairing Met function, a component of the JH intracellular receptor, partially blocked the 20E-regulated reproductive diapause preparation, indicating that 20E regulates reproductive diapause in both JH-dependent and -independent manners. Finally, we found that 20E deficiency decreased ecdysis-triggering hormone signaling and reduced JH production, thereby inducing diapause. Together, these results suggest that 20E signaling is a pivotal regulator that coordinates reproductive plasticity in response to environmental inputs.

The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway is a well-conserved intracellular signal transduction pathway, and has important roles in mammalian reproduction. However, it is unknown whether MAPK also regulates insect reproductive mechanisms. Therefore, we investigated the role of the MAPK signaling pathway in ovarian growth and oviposition in the cabbage beetle Colaphellus bowringi, an economically important pest of Cruciferous vegetables. As an initial step, 14 genes from the extracellular regulated protein kinase (ERK), c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and p38 MAPK (P38) cascades were knocked down using RNA interference (RNAi). The results revealed that RNAi knockdown of MAPK-ERK kinase (MEK), ERK, Kinase suppressor of RAS 2 (KSR2), and P38 induced ovarian development stagnation, low fecundity, and decreased longevity, which indicate that ERK and P38 signaling pathways are important for female C. bowringi survival and reproduction. The potential regulatory role of ERK and P38 pathways in the female reproductive process was investigated using quantitative real-time PCR. We found that ERK pathway possibly regulated ecdysone biosynthesis and P38 pathway possibly involved in the germline stem cell (GSC) development and differentiation. Our findings demonstrated the importance of the MAPK signaling pathway in the female reproduction of insects, and further enhanced the molecular mechanism of female reproductive regulation in insects.

Abstract With the continuous development of satellite navigation, how to make full use of the compatibility and interoperability among the four constellations deserves our deep thinking. Signal acquisition is a critical technology that affects the performance of GNSS receivers. However, its implementation has high requirements on both resource consumption and processing time. In recent years, graphics processing unit (GPU) technology with a large number of parallel processing units is gradually applied to the navigation field. In this paper, a multi-constellation-compatible capture strategy based on GPU is proposed. Compared with the traditional GNSS signal processing, the design has better flexibility and portability, and the acquisition parameters of the system can be configured flexibly through the interface. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme makes full use of the powerful parallel processing capability of GPU, which greatly reduces the acquisition time and improves the efficiency of signal processing, with the increase of data processing. In addition, as the amount of signal processing data increases, the advantages of the CPU high-performance computing platform will be more obvious.

Ultra-thin and continuous metallic silver films are attracting growing interest due to the applications in flexible transparent conducting electrodes. The surface morphology and structure of silver film are very important for its electrical resistivity and optical loss. Therefore, roughness control is essential for the production of ultra-thin metallic electrode film. We have investigated the effect of aluminum doping on the improvement of surface morphology of ultra-thin silver films using molecular dynamics simulations. Al-doped silver films showed smaller surface roughness than pure silver films at various substrate temperatures. When the temperature of the substrate was 600 K, the roughness of Al-doped silver film first decreased, and then increased with the increase of the incident velocity of silver atoms. Silver atoms were more likely to agglomerate on the surface of the substrate after adding aluminum atoms, as aluminum dopants promoted the immobilization of silver atoms on SiO2 substrate due to the anchoring effect. The smoother surface could be attributable to the reduced mean free path of silver due to the cage effect by the aluminum dopant.

Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) activates the transcription of genes involved in cancer progression. Recently, HIF was reported to regulate the transcription of non-coding RNAs. Here, we show that the transcription of a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), Gastric Adenocarcinoma Associated, Positive CD44 Regulator, Long Intergenic Non-Coding RNA (GAPLINC), is directly activated by HIF-1α in gastric cancer (GC). GAPLINC was overexpressed in GC tissues and promoted tumor migration and invasive behavior. GAPLINC overexpression was associated with poor prognosis in GC patients. Luciferase reporter assays and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays confirmed that HIF-1α binds to the promoter region of GAPLINC and activates its transcription. GAPLINC knockdown inhibited hypoxia-induced tumor proliferation in vivo. Taken together, our results identified a novel role for HIF transcriptional pathways in GC tumorigenesis mediated by the regulation of the lncRNA GAPLINC, and suggest GAPLINC as a novel therapeutic target for reversing chemoradioresistance and prolonging survival.

The study selected the topic of translation of quadratic functions. In order to explore some effective instructional strategies to help students understand this topic, an experienced teacher was chosen for a case study. Based on lesson observation and semi-structure interviews, this study found that the teacher employed various strategies to facilitate students understanding of translations of quadratic functions.

A novel functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes(f-MWNTs)-anticancer drug carriers were prepared by modifying carbon nanotubes with polyethylenimine (PEI), folic acid and quantum dots for targeting and imaging cancer cells. The functionalized MWNTs exhibited good aqueous solubility, biocompatibility and high targeting ability. Water-insoluble anticancer drug Paclitaxel (PTX) were further loaded onto the f-MWNTs mainly through noncovalent π–π stacking interaction. In vitro cytotoxicity studies of f-MWNTs–PTX complexes using MTT assay exhibited a significant enhancement in the cytotoxic capability, suggesting these targeting drug carriers could facilitate intracellular delivery of anticancer drug and improve drug antitumor activity. Therefore, the highly versatile multifunctional carbon nanotubes could potentially be used for advanced drug delivery in biomedical fields.

Business process (BP) management systems facilitate the understanding and execution of business processes, which tend to change frequently due to both internal and external change in an enterprise. Therefore, the needs for analysis methods to verify the correctness of business process model is becoming more prominent. One key element of such business process is its control flow. We show how a flow specification may contain certain structural conflicts that could compromise its correct execution. In general, identification of such conflicts is a computationally complex problem and requires development of effective algorithms specific for target system language. We present a verification approach and algorithm that employs condition reachable matrix to identify structural conflicts in inter-enterprise business process models. The main contribution of the paper is a new technology for identifying structural conflicts and satisfying well-defined correctness criteria in inter-enterprise business process models.

Although the relationship between dietary monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), and saturated fatty acids (SFAs) intake and pancreatic cancer risk has been reported by several studies, the evidence is controversial. We firstly conducted this comprehensive meta-analysis to summarize the aforementioned evidence from observational studies.The MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, and ISI Web of Science databases were used to search for epidemiological studies of dietary SFA, MUFA, and PUFA and pancreatic cancer risk that were published until the end of June 2014. Random- or fixed-effects models were used to estimate the relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). We also carried out subgroup, sensitivity, and publication bias analyses.We identified 13 case-control studies and 7 prospective studies which including 6270 pancreatic cancer cases in the meta-analysis of SFA, MUFA, and PUFA and risk of pancreatic cancer. The summary RR was 1.13 (95%CI = 0.94-1.35, I2 = 70.7%) for SFA, 1.00 (95%CI = 0.87-1.14, I2 = 43.4%) for MUFA, and 0.87 (95%CI = 0.75-1.00, I2 = 55.3%) for PUFA for high versus low intake categories. We found no evidence of publication bias.In summary, findings of this study supports an inverse association between diets high in PUFA and pancreatic cancer risk. Further large prospective studies are warranted to report the results stratified by the subtypes of MUFA and PUFA and adjust for other potential risk factors to eliminate residual confounding.