Search

Improving interfacial kinetics is the key to realizing extreme fast charging (XFC) of graphite‐based potassium ion batteries (PIBs). The electrolyte engineering is commonly used for solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) design. However, this strategy adjusts both ion solvation structure and (de)solvation kinetics simultaneously, thus making it difficult to explicitly reveal the linkage between SEI properties and interfacial kinetics. Herein, the content of inorganic species in preformed SEI on graphite surface is precisely regulated and uncovered its critical role in improving the interfacial kinetics. The charge transfer kinetics on graphite/electrolyte interphase is found to be the rate limitation step upon XFC. Meanwhile, the increased inorganic species in SEI plays a decisive role in optimizing the charge transfer rather than the kinetics of naked K+ crossing SEI. Through unlocking the anodic charge transfer limitation with ultra‐inorganic rich SEI, the graphite//Prussian blue analogs full cells achieve a superior XFC ability (13 min charge to 80%) with a specific capacity of 103 mAh g−1 at 5 C. This work provides a fundamental understanding of the relationship between SEI properties and interfacial kinetics during XFC, which enables the rational design of SEI chemistry for fast‐charging PIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic electrode materials are promising for next‐generation energy storage materials due to their environmental friendliness and sustainable renewability. However, problems such as their high solubility in electrolytes and low intrinsic conductivity have always plagued their further application. Polymerization to form conjugated organic polymers can not only inhibit the dissolution of organic electrodes in the electrolyte, but also enhance the intrinsic conductivity of organic molecules. Herein, we synthesized a new conjugated organic polymer (COPs) COP500‐CuT2TP (poly [5,10,15,20‐tetra(2,2′‐bithiophen‐5‐yl) porphyrinato] copper (II)) by electrochemical polymerization method. Due to the self‐exfoliation behavior, the porphyrin cathode exhibited a reversible discharge capacity of 420 mAh g−1, and a high specific energy of 900 Wh Kg−1 with a first coulombic efficiency of 96 % at 100 mA g−1. Excellent cycling stability up to 8000 cycles without capacity loss was achieved even at a high current density of 5 A g−1. This highly conjugated structure promotes COP500‐CuT2TP combined high energy density, high power density, and good cycling stability, which would open new opportunity for the designable and versatile organic electrodes for electrochemical energy storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic electrode materials are promising for next‐generation energy storage materials due to their environmental friendliness and sustainable renewability. However, problems such as their high solubility in electrolytes and low intrinsic conductivity have always plagued their further application. Polymerization to form conjugated organic polymers can not only inhibit the dissolution of organic electrodes in the electrolyte, but also enhance the intrinsic conductivity of organic molecules. Herein, we synthesized a new conjugated organic polymer (COPs) COP500‐CuT2TP (poly [5,10,15,20‐tetra(2,2′‐bithiophen‐5‐yl) porphyrinato] copper (II)) by electrochemical polymerization method. Due to the self‐exfoliation behavior, the porphyrin cathode exhibited a reversible discharge capacity of 420 mAh g−1, and a high specific energy of 900 Wh Kg−1 with a first coulombic efficiency of 96 % at 100 mA g−1. Excellent cycling stability up to 8000 cycles without capacity loss was achieved even at a high current density of 5 A g−1. This highly conjugated structure promotes COP500‐CuT2TP combined high energy density, high power density, and good cycling stability, which would open new opportunity for the designable and versatile organic electrodes for electrochemical energy storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work investigates commercial vehicle platoon predictive cruise control for highways. We propose a cloud-based platoon predictive cruise control method (CPPCC). A two-layered control architecture of the CPPCC is proposed as a platoon predictive cruise speed planning layer in the cloud and a platoon stabilization control layer. The CPPCC communication topology is proposed to achieve coupled control of the hierarchical architecture. The speed planning layer is a dynamic planning (DP) algorithm based on road slope in the rolling distance domain. The lower layer is a stability control algorithm to meet the stability requirements of vehicle platoon driving; the vehicle side is distributed model predictive control (DMPC). The CPPCC is validated by real road and vehicle data models, and comparative experiments with the traditional predecessor-leader following–cruise control (PLF-CC) platoon and predecessor following–cruise control (PF-CC) platoon. The speed error of the vehicle platoon was maintained at [−0.25, 0.30] (m=s) and the space error at [−0.13, 0.66] (m) in platoon stability. Against the comparison method, the CPPCC saved fuel by over 5.13% and achieved an overall operational efficiency improvement of 5.71%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The governance of China under Xi Jinping functions mainly through leading groups. Using the case of water governance, this article examines the interaction between these groups at three levels: the top-level design group, the riverine macroregion groups and the implementation groups. This governance model is designed to avoid nomenklatura failure, restrict fiscal federalism and reduce the agency problem between the centre and local leaders. For the purpose of water governance, China has been divided into five blocs based on river basins, which we call riverine macroregions. Using this approach, the Chinese Communist Party is combining water governance with regional development and enhancing local governments' collective implementation of central policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

d-dimer is a biomarker of coagulation and fibrinolytic system activation in response to the body's hypercoagulable state. The study aims to investigate the usefulness of d-dimer in diagnosing and assessing the risk of intracardiac thrombus in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Consecutively enrolled in this study were patients with DCM who were admitted to our center for the first time. The diagnostic value was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Additionally, we used univariate and multivariate logistic regression to investigate the association between d-dimer and intracardiac thrombus. We also performed smooth curve fitting, threshold saturation effect analysis, and subgroup analysis. In total, 534 patients were enrolled in the study, and among them, 65 patients had intracardiac thrombus. Mural thrombus was the predominant type of thrombus, which was mainly located in the left ventricular apex. The optimal cut-off value of d-dimer for the diagnosis of intracardiac thrombus was 484 ng/mL, with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.769 and 0.646, respectively. In both unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression models, a positive association was found between d-dimer and intracardiac thrombus. Curve fitting and threshold effect analysis revealed two inflection points in the relationship between d-dimer and intracardiac thrombus (non-linear test: P = 0.032). When d-dimer was equal to 362 ng/mL, the odds ratio (OR) was 1, and the risk of thrombus gradually increased until it reached 4096 ng/mL, after which the trend no longer increased. Within this range, a twofold increase in d-dimer was associated with a 103.2% increased risk (OR = 2.032; 95% CI 1.293–3.193; P < 0.01). In the subgroup analysis, there was a significant interaction between d-dimer and BMI on intracardiac thrombus (P value for interaction was 0.013), and the risk was higher in patients with a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2 (OR = 3.44; 95% CI 1.86–6.36; P < 0.01). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sluggish kinetics in traditional graphite anode greatly limits its fast‐charging capability, which is critically important for commercialization of potassium ion batteries (PIBs). Hard carbon possesses randomly oriented pseudo‐graphitic crystallites, enabling homogeneous reaction current and superior rate performance. Herein, a series of hybrid anodes with different hard carbon/graphite ratios are prepared by uniformly mixing graphite and hard carbon with ball‐milling. Comprehensive experimental results in combination phase‐field simulations reveal that the hybrid anode possesses a homogeneous reaction current and an intriguing potential difference between K+‐adsorbed hard carbon and non‐potassiated graphite. The homogeneous reaction current in the hybrid anode promotes sufficient utilization of electrode material, leading to an increase in the reversible capacity. The present potential difference between K+‐adsorbed hard carbon and non‐potassiated graphite provides an additional electric field force that facilitates the diffusion of K+ from hard carbon into the nearest neighbor graphite. All these together, emphasize the synergistic effects between hard carbon and graphite in hybrid anodes toward satisfactory rate and cycling performance. The hybrid strategy proposed here is compatible with the commercial battery manufacturing, offering a practical pathway for the development of high‐performance PIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

d-dimer is a biomarker of coagulation and fibrinolytic system activation in response to the body's hypercoagulable state. The study aims to investigate the usefulness of d-dimer in diagnosing and assessing the risk of intracardiac thrombus in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Consecutively enrolled in this study were patients with DCM who were admitted to our center for the first time. The diagnostic value was evaluated using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Additionally, we used univariate and multivariate logistic regression to investigate the association between d-dimer and intracardiac thrombus. We also performed smooth curve fitting, threshold saturation effect analysis, and subgroup analysis. In total, 534 patients were enrolled in the study, and among them, 65 patients had intracardiac thrombus. Mural thrombus was the predominant type of thrombus, which was mainly located in the left ventricular apex. The optimal cut-off value of d-dimer for the diagnosis of intracardiac thrombus was 484 ng/mL, with a sensitivity and specificity of 0.769 and 0.646, respectively. In both unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression models, a positive association was found between d-dimer and intracardiac thrombus. Curve fitting and threshold effect analysis revealed two inflection points in the relationship between d-dimer and intracardiac thrombus (non-linear test: P = 0.032). When d-dimer was equal to 362 ng/mL, the odds ratio (OR) was 1, and the risk of thrombus gradually increased until it reached 4096 ng/mL, after which the trend no longer increased. Within this range, a twofold increase in d-dimer was associated with a 103.2% increased risk (OR = 2.032; 95% CI 1.293–3.193; P < 0.01). In the subgroup analysis, there was a significant interaction between d-dimer and BMI on intracardiac thrombus (P value for interaction was 0.013), and the risk was higher in patients with a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m2 (OR = 3.44; 95% CI 1.86–6.36; P < 0.01). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controlling electrode/electrolyte interfacial chemistry is critically important for improved K+ storage, but the influences of binder chemistry on electrolyte decomposition and interfacial properties are still poorly understood. Herein, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)‐based, and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)‐based graphite electrodes are introduced as model systems to quantify the electrolyte decomposition, solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation, and the corresponding kinetic evolution transition. A noncatalytic electrolyte reduction path on the CMC‐based electrode and a catalytic reduction path on the PVDF‐based electrode are identified, in terms of the reduction overpotential and product selectivity. The electrolyte reduction and/or SEI formation are found to occur in a successive, two‐step manner, starting with the electrochemical reduction at a potential above 0.35 V where no potassiation has happened (step I), and followed by the thermodynamically accelerated electrolyte reduction at a potential below 0.35 V (step II). Kinetics analysis reveals the former is charge transfer‐controlled for both CMC and PVDF‐based electrodes, and the latter involves a kinetic transition to SEI resistance controlled for the PVDF system, while it is charge transfer‐controlled for the CMC system. All these examples, highlight that binder chemistry plays a dominant role in the electrolyte decomposition and electrode/electrolyte interfacial properties, and promote a better fundamental understanding of electrolyte reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set-valued classification, a new classification paradigm that aims to identify all the plausible classes that an observation belongs to, improves over the traditional classification paradigms in multiple aspects. Existing set-valued classification methods do not consider the possibility that the test set may contain out-of-distribution data, that is, the emergence of a new class that never appeared in the training data. Moreover, they are computationally expensive when the number of classes is large. We propose a Generalized Prediction Set (GPS) approach to set-valued classification while considering the possibility of a new class in the test data. The proposed classifier uses kernel learning and empirical risk minimization to encourage a small expected size of the prediction set while guaranteeing that the class-specific accuracy is at least some value specified by the user. For high-dimensional data, further improvement is obtained through kernel feature selection. Unlike previous methods, the proposed method achieves a good balance between accuracy, efficiency, and out-of-distribution detection rate. Moreover, our method can be applied in parallel to all the classes to alleviate the computational burden. Both theoretical analysis and numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have found that oxygen-rich-containing functional groups in carbon-based materials can be used as active sites for the storage performance of K+, but the basic storage mechanism is still unclear. Herein, we construct and optimize 3D honeycomb-like carbon grafted with plentiful COOH/C = O functional groups (OFGC) as anodes for potassium ion batteries. The OFGC electrode with steady structure and rich functional groups can effectively contribute to the capacity enhancement and the formation of stable solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) film, achieving a high reversible capacity of 230 mAh g−1 at 3000 mA g−1 after 10,000 cycles (almost no capacity decay) and an ultra-long cycle time over 18 months at 100 mA g−1. The study results revealed the reversible storage mechanism between K+ and COOH/C = O functional groups by forming C-O-K compounds. Meanwhile, the in situ electrochemical impedance spectroscopy proved the highly reversible and rapid de/intercalation kinetics of K+ in the OFGC electrode, and the growth process of SEI films. In particular, the full cells assembled by Prussian blue cathode exhibit a high energy density of 113 Wh kg−1 after 800 cycles (calculated by the total mass of anode and cathode), and get the light-emitting diodes lamp and ear thermometer running. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dexamethasone is widely used in the prevention of postoperative complications in oral surgery and strengthening the analgesic effect after anesthesia, but the efficacy is controversial, and the relationship between postoperative complications and pain is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the analgesic effect of dexamethasone in the treatment of jaw cyst and to explore the relationship between postoperative complications and pain. Methods: We conducted a prospective, randomized, double-blind clinical trial. 120 patients were divided into two groups, dexamethasone group (group D) and control group (Group C). All patients were given 0.02 mg·kg−1 of hydromorphone to relieve pain in advance at 10 min before the beginning of operation. Meanwhile, dexamethasone was injected 0.2 mg·kg−1 intravenously in group D and normal saline was injected in group C. The primary endpoint was pain intensity at 2 h, 6 h, 12 h, 24 h and 48 h after surgery. The secondary endpoints were the incidence and extent of complications after surgery, including facial swelling and trismus. Results: Compared with group C, the visual analogue scale (VAS) scores and occurrence of painful event postoperatively in group D were significantly lower both at rest (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.0014) and during mobilization (P < 0.0001 both). The degree of facial swelling and trismus in group D were significantly lower than that in group C at 24 h (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.00022) and 48 h (P < 0.0001 and P = 0.00015) after surgery, but there was no difference at 6 h and 12 h (P = 0.137 and P = 0.083) after surgery. The C-reactive protein (CRP) level at 24 h after operation in group D was lower than group C (P = 0.012), but there was no significant difference in blood glucose concentration between the two groups (P = 0.608). Conclusion: Dexamethasone can reduce the degree of facial swelling and trismus after jaw cyst surgery by inhibiting the production of inflammation, which alleviated the postoperative pain of patients significantly. In addition, it did not increase the risk of hyperglycemia. Trial registration: This study was registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry on May 07, 2020 (URL: http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=53344. Registry number: ChiCTR2000032693). Registered on 07/05/2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid localization of hazardous gas leak sources is a vital task regarding the security of human society. Over the past few decades, autonomous search using mobile sensing devices equipped with gas sensors has become a promising field. Cognitive search strategies, such as Infotaxis and Entrotaxis, have been successfully used to search an unknown source autonomously in turbulence. However, they are time-consuming and may not be efficient because all source parameters (locations and strength) are estimated via particle filtering, especially when the prior information of source strength is rarely known. To address this inefficiency, this paper proposes a hybrid autonomous source searching approach, named as regression-enhanced Entrotaxis, which incorporates the Entrotaxis algorithm with the regression methods. Only the position of leak source is inferred by particle filtering, while the strength is estimated by the least squares based on the historical measurements. Through this way, the searching space in particle filtering is converted from 3-dimensions (source position in x – y plane and source strength) to 2-dimensions (source position in x – y plane), speeding up the computation significantly. Then, the reward function according to maximum entropy sampling principles is utilized to guide the robot's next move. The performance of the proposed method is compared to that of the Entrotaxis algorithm. The results of Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that fewer particles will be used to reach a specific success rate, saving time in the search process. Besides, the proposed strategy relies on less prior information regarding source strength, which is more in line with the actual scenario. In addition, the proposed approach is adaptable to a broader search region. • Regression-enhanced Entrotaxis is proposed as an autonomous source searching method. • The posterior distribution of source location is updated using particle filter (PF). • The source emission rate is estimated using the regression method. • The number of estimated terms in PF is reduced from 3 to 2, speeding up computation. • Less prior information about source emission rate is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is already certificated that collaborative filtering algorithms could alleviate such data sparsity and long tail distribution problems and provide high performance in item recommendation. However, high computational complexity and insufficient samples may lead to low convergence and inaccuracy in traditional recommender approaches. In this article, a novel deep neural network-based collaborative filtering recommender engine referred to as NtCF is proposed, which resorts to a neural architecture for preference learning and user representation. With the powerful capability of neural network, NtCF is able to deep exploit interactions within social network for each user. More specifically, the trust-aware attention layer is designed to indicate the social influence to each user; furthermore, NtCF performs item clustering via k-means++ and conducts item recommendation within each generated item cluster, and accordingly, NtCF can achieve significant improvement in recommendation performance and provide hierarchical recommendation services. In practice, experimental comparison over three real-world datasets also demonstrates the superiority of NtCF in contrast to state-of-the-art recommender approaches, which can achieve high performance in top-N recommendation and provide much better user experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon material has emerged as a highly promising anode for sodium‐ion batteries (SIBs) due to its abundance of resources, cost‐effectiveness, and high carbon yield. This work elaborately designs the precursor structure for the self‐assembly of melamine‐cyanuric acid on the anthracite surface through hydrogen bonding, and successfully constructs N‐doped carbon with tailored microstructure and expanded interlayer spacing. Serving as anode for SIBs, the optimized sample delivers high specific capacity (371.3 mAh g−1 at 0.05 A g−1), superior rate capability (295.8 mAh g−1 at 10.0 A g−1), and excellent ultra‐long cycling performance (the retention of 91.5% after 3000 cycles at 0.5 A g−1). The systematic investigations reveal the enhancement of sodium‐ion storage in the low‐voltage plateau region involving the interlayer intercalation coupled with nanopores filling. It is discovered that the microporous structure formed by the appropriate graphite sheet angle influences the migration and storage of sodium ions. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the adsorption capacity for sodium ion is enhanced and the migration energy barrier perpendicular to the graphite layer is reduced at the appropriate angle of 8°. This study provides novel insights into the sodium‐ion storage mechanism, offering guidance for the better design of anthracite‐based carbon anode with superior performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently Recommender Systems (RS) have become crucial tools to deal with information retrieval and filtering in various applications, such as online business, social network and so on. However, with the ever-increasing scale of social network and information overload, RS still suffer from data sparsity and heavy computational complexity, and even confront a serious challenge to further improve the recommender performance and user experience. To this end, this article propose a novel multi-view social recommendation scenario referred to as MsRec, which takes account of available information for item recommendation from multiple perspectives. More specifically, MsRec tries to exploit intricate inner relationship within social network, and perform user-level preference learning for each user without overlapping, moreover, MsRec leverages available side information, such as contextual information, demographic characteristics and item attributes, to perform representation vector learning for items, which will be further utilized for item similarity calculation via Cosine method. With the learned social influence and item similarity coefficient, MsRec could perform representation vector learning for users and items, and further provide rating prediction and item recommendation. In addition, theoretical analysis indicates that MsRec could achieve convergence with sub-linear convergence rate during model training phase, and yield high performance in social recommendation, without heavy computational cost. Experimental analysis over Yelp, Epinions and DoubanMovie also demonstrate the superiority of the proposed MsRec, which can achieve significant improvements while compared to other benchmark recommender algorithms, and provide much better user experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: S-propargyl-cysteine (SPRC), an excellent endogenous hydrogen sulfide (H2S) donor, could elevate H2S levels via the cystathionine c-lyase (CSE)/H2S pathway both in vitro and in vivo. However, the immediate release of H2S in vivo and daily administration of SPRC potentially limited its clinical use. Methods: To solve the fore-mentioned problem, in this study, the dendritic mesoporous silica nanoparticles (DMSN) was firstly prepared, and a sustained H2S delivery system consisted of SPRC and DMSN (SPRC@DMSN) was then constructed. Their release profiles, both in vitro and in vivo, were investigated, and their therapeutical effect toward adjuvant-induced arthritis (AIA) rats was also studied. Results: The spherical morphology of DMSN could be observed under scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), and the transmission electron microscope (TEM) images showed a central-radiational pore channel structure of DMSN. DMSN showed excellent SPRC loading capacity and attaining a sustained releasing ability than SPRC both in vitro and in vivo, and the prolonged SPRC releasing could further promote the release of H2S in a sustained manner through CSE/H2S pathway both in vitro and in vivo. Importantly, the SPRC@DMSN showed promising anti-inflammation effect against AIA in rats was also observed. Conclusions: A sustained H2S releasing donor consisting of SPRC and DMSN was constructed in this study, and this sustained H2S releasing donor might be of good use for the treatment of AIA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution monitoring for chemical industrial parks suffers from sensor deficiency. To address this problem, this work focuses on mobile monitoring station solutions to complement the fixed measurement deficiency. Flexibility in measurement location makes the mobile solution advantageous over fixed stations not only in providing sufficient number of measurements to satisfy the traceability condition, but also in the possibility to design monitoring route optimally according to real-time wind directions. By taking these advantages, this work proposes a new method for optimal mobile route design so that the inference of uncertainties on the accuracy of source rate estimation is minimized. Based on the linear relationship between the concentration measurements and source emission rates, the effect of measurement noises on the estimation error is derived as an amplification factor through numerical analysis, then, the optimal monitoring route can be determined by minimizing the amplification. Numerical and real case studies are presented to test the performance of the method. The results suggest that the approach proposed can effectively improve the performance of source rate estimation by optimally choosing the monitoring route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the intima‐media thickness (IMT) of the cavernous artery was used for diagnosis for vascular erectile dysfunction (ED) with more accuracy than the peak systolic velocity, the role of the IMT in predicting treatment responses remained unexamined. A total of 136 patients with ED were enrolled. The baseline clinical and laboratory characteristics were collected. Penile Doppler ultrasonography (PDU) was performed on all patients by a blinded sonographer. Sildenafil was administrated to all patients with an adjusted dose of 50 or 100 mg on demand over a period of 3 months. A follow‐up was conducted on all patients using the Erectile Hardness Score (EHS) questionnaire along with the visual and tactile version of the standardised EHS tool. The peak systolic velocity (PSV) and IMT were compared between sildenafil responders and sildenafil nonresponders, while receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves were used to calculate the cut‐off values and compare the test power respectively. There was no statistical difference from the baseline characteristics. The IMT of cavernous artery was more accurate than PSV to predict the sildenafil response (AUC = 0.809, 0.626 respectively). IMT could predict sildenafil responders more accurately than PSV, and the cut‐off value of the IMT of the cavernous artery was less than 0.22 mm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we identified leader mindfulness as a characteristic relevant to facilitating employee voice behavior, and examined leader-member exchange (LMX) as amediator of this relationship. Via a field study of supervisor-subordinate dyads (197 subordinates and 62 supervisors) in a large retailing company in East China, we revealed a partial mediation model in which leader mindfulness was positively related to employee voice behavior both directly and indirectly through LMX. Our findings suggest that attention should be paid to mindfulness in organizations, and leaders should aim to develop highquality LMX relationships with their subordinates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent researches indicate that pairwise learning to rank methods could achieve high performance in dealing with data sparsity and long tail distribution in item recommendation, although suffering from problems such as high computational complexity and insufficient samples, which may cause low convergence and inaccuracy. To further improve the performance in computational capability and recommendation accuracy, in this article, a novel deep neural network based recommender architecture referred to as PDLR is proposed, in which the item corpus will be partitioned into two collections of positive instances and negative items respectively, and pairwise comparison will be performed between the positive instances and negative samples to learn the preference degree for each user. With the powerful capability of neural network, PDLR could capture rich interactions between each user and items as well as the intricate relations between items. As a result, PDLR could minimize the ranking loss, and achieve significant improvement in ranking accuracy. In practice, experimental results over four real world datasets also demonstrate the superiority of PDLR in contrast to state-of-the-art recommender approaches, in terms of Rec@N, Prec@N, AUC and NDCG@N. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gold‐standard method for diagnosing arteriogenic erectile dysfunction (AED) is the penile Doppler ultrasonography. We proposed a novel method for predicting AED using ultrasonic shear wave elastography (SWE) considering that the former was invasive and variable. A total of 98 male patients were enrolled in our study, referred for ED between December 2018 and October 2020. For comparison, we also included 42 volunteers from the Healthy Physical Examination Center of our hospital. The Penile Doppler Ultrasonography (PDU) and SWE were performed for all patients with the intracavernosal injection (ICI). We named three groups as AED group, nonvascular ED group and healthy controls group. No statistically significant differences were found among the three groups in terms of demographic and clinical characteristics. There were no significant differences in IIEF‐5 between AED and nonvascular ED. A significant (r = 0.642, p < 0.0001) positive correlation between flaccid and erectile SWE was observed. With a cut‐off value of 13.45 KPa, the area under curve, specificity, and sensitivity of the SWE values under the flaccid state in distinguishing AED from healthy subjects were 0.867, 0.786 and 0.896 respectively. The SWE value in the flaccid state can distinguish the AED from healthy subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article studies the impact of bootstrap procedure on the eigenvalue distributions of the sample covariance matrix under a high-dimensional factor structure. We provide asymptotic distributions for the top eigenvalues of bootstrapped sample covariance matrix under mild conditions. After bootstrap, the spiked eigenvalues which are driven by common factors will converge weakly to Gaussian limits after proper scaling and centralization. However, the largest non-spiked eigenvalue is mainly determined by the order statistics of the bootstrap resampling weights, and follows extreme value distribution. Based on the disparate behavior of the spiked and non-spiked eigenvalues, we propose innovative methods to test the number of common factors. Indicated by extensive numerical and empirical studies, the proposed methods perform reliably and convincingly under the existence of both weak factors and cross-sectionally correlated errors. Our technical details contribute to random matrix theory on spiked covariance model with convexly decaying density and unbounded support, or with general elliptical distributions. Supplementary materials for this article are available online, including a standardized description of the materials available for reproducing the work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The realization of fast-charging lithium-ion batteries with long cycle life using graphite anode is typically hindered by the uncontrollable lithium plating on graphite surface. Herein we have systematically investigated the effects of soft carbon coating on SEI properties and Li+ storage capability. A variety of analytical studies combined with three-electrode impedance measurement and interface analysis demonstrate that the carbon coating effectively mitigates the formation of resistive films on the graphite surface, leading to facilitated charge transfer and low energy barrier. The depth-profiling XPS analysis clearly shows that the formation of a uniform, robust and LiF-rich SEI plays a dominant role in enhancing the interfacial kinetics, whereas the Li+ diffusion in bulk electrode is merely affected. As a result, the graphite anode with carbon coating exhibits enhanced fast-charging performance and cycle life, including a capacity retention ratio of 98.3 % after 100 cycles at 2C-CV. In general, this work reveals the critical role of coating layer chemistry in regulating the SEI properties and Li+ storage performance, which provides a valuable guidance for the rational design of practical graphite anode for fast-charging. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lung cancer is a malignant tumour type with the highest morbidity and mortality, and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common pathological type. GINS complex subunit 2 (GINS2) is a member of the GINS family and is closely related to DNA replication and damage, participates in cell cycle regulation and plays a key role in cell proliferation and apoptosis. In the present study, we aimed to explore the role and underlying molecular mechanism of GINS2 in the development of NSCLC. The results showed that GINS2 is significantly increased in NSCLC tissues and cell lines. Knockdown of GINS2 significantly decreases cell proliferation, causing G2/M phase cell cycle arrest. Knockdown of GINS2 reverses the effect of nocodazole on the levels of cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1) and cyclin-B1. Meanwhile, knockdown of GINS2 significantly elevates the apoptosis rate and apoptosis-related protein Bax and decreases Bcl-2. In addition, GINS2 knockdown induces an increase in the levels of p53 and growth arrest and DNA damage 45A (GADD45A). Co-transfection with GINS2-siRNA and siRNA against p53 (p53-siRNA) or co-transfection with GINS2-siRNA and siRNA against GADD45A (GADD45A-siRNA) partially reverses the effects of GINS2 knockdown on cell proliferation and apoptosis. Taken together, these results indicate that GINS2 knockdown down-regulates cell proliferation, induces G2/M phase cell cycle arrest and increases apoptosis, possibly through the p53/GADD45A pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the ever-growing scale of social websites and online transactions, in past decade, Recommender System (RS) has become a crucial tool to overcome information overload, due to its powerful capability in information filtering and retrieval. Traditional rating prediction based RS could learn user's preference according to the explicit feedback, however, such numerical user-item ratings are always unavailable in real life. By contrast, pairwise learning algorithms could directly optimize for ranking and provide personalized recommendation from implicit feedback, although suffering from such data sparsity and slow convergence problems. Motivated by these, in this article, a novel collaborative pairwise learning to rank method referred to as BPLR is proposed, which aims to improve the performance of personalized ranking from implicit feedback. To this end, BPLR tries to partition items into positive feedback, potential feedback and negative feedback, and takes account of the neighborhood relationship between users as well as the item similarity while deriving the potential candidates, moreover, a dynamic sampling strategy is designed to reduce the computational complexity and speed up model training. Empirical experiments over four real world datasets certificate the effectiveness and efficiency of BPLR, which could speed up convergence, and outperform state-of-the-art algorithms significantly in personalized top-N recommendation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Li-doped (Ba0.85Ca0.15) (Ti0.9Zr0.1) O3 (BCTZL-x) lead-free piezoceramics have been prepared by the conventional ceramic process. The influence of a Li+-containing additive on the crystal phase, microstructure and electric properties of (Ba0.85Ca0.15) (Ti0.9Zr0.1) O3 ceramics were systematically investigated through all kinds of measurement, such as X-ray diffraction(XRD) and SEM. The X-ray results show that the BCTZL-x ceramics sintered at 1 400 °C/2 h had pure ABO3 perovskite structure. The BCTZL-x ceramics went through the phase transition from O phase to T phase with Li+ doping increasing. The ceramics became dense when x≥0.3. Additionally, BCTZL-0.3 ceramics showed an excellent performance: d33 = 456 pC/N, kp = 0.49, εr = 4 864, tanδ = 0.018, Qm = 130. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are bureaucrats controlled by their superiors in the Chinese political system? "Leading small groups" (领导小组) are among the most important mechanisms for integrating the interests and opinions of various government and Party departments so that superiors can ensure that their policies are implemented. This article analyzes the roles of the three main actors in the leading small groups: group leaders, the heads of the lead departments, and the office directors. We discuss how these individuals operate through formal institutional approaches and informal political channels. Group politics of this kind is moving China's decision-making process toward "integrated fragmentation." We conclude that compared with previous Chinese regimes, Xi Jinping is making greater use of leading small groups to promote further reforms and to practice individualized centralization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommender systems have been comprehensively applied in many industries, such as social Web sites, e-commerce, tourism service and so on, although suffering from the data sparsity and cold start problems. Currently, due to the advantage of online social networking, many social network-based recommendation scenarios have been developed to improve the recommendation accuracy, via exploring hidden social relations between users from the social network. In this article, focusing on addressing these problems, a novel social network and preference-based recommendation method—SRMP, is proposed, which incorporates the social network information and user’s preference in matrix factorization for recommendation. In contrast to previous approaches, to improve the recommendation accuracy, SRMP performs recommendation in each independent sub-community, which is derived from the initial social community according to different category tags. The experimental analysis on large real-world datasets demonstrates that the proposed method SRMP outperforms state-of-the-art approaches, especially in recommendation accuracy and solving the cold start problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanocomposite fibers of carboxylated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs‐COOH)‐reinforced polyamide 6 (PA6), which have good mechanical properties, were fabricated by a ball‐milling and melt spinning process. The ball‐milling method was used to prepare PA6/MWNTs‐COOH nanocomposite powders to address the key issue of dispersing MWNTs‐COOH into the PA6 matrix uniformly. The effects of both the milling time and MWNTs‐COOH loading on the mechanical properties of PA6/MWNTs‐COOH nanocomposite fibers were investigated. Transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X‐ray diffraction were used to study the morphology and microstructure of MWNTs‐COOH in compound powders after ball‐milling. Scanning electron microscopy micrographs indicated that secondary agglomeration of MWNTs‐COOH occurred after ball‐milling for 5 h, and the best dispersing time was 3 h. The mechanical properties of the nanocomposite fibers fabricated by ball‐milling were much higher than those of the control and composites fabricated by conventional melt mixing. The results of the differential scanning calorimetry revealed the close relationship between the dispersibility and crystallinity. This method, which does not require the use of solvent, has great potential for industrial application. POLYM. COMPOS., 39:4298–4309, 2018. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphical abstract The linear and branched demulsifiers act well for diluted crude oils with higher and lower viscosities respectively. Abstract The dilational rheology of two different types of polyether demulsifiers solutions, linear propylene glycol polyether and branched glycerol polyether, at the water-crude oil interface have been investigated by dilational rheological measurements. This paper research that except the concentration of 10 ppm, linear propylene glycol polyether appears higher moduli than those of branched polyether because branched one has shorter chain at the same molecular weight, which will result in the faster diffusion. However, at optimized concentration, the modulus of branched one is higher than that of linear one, which can be attributed to the stronger interactions between branched chains at interface. The linear demulsifier propylene glycol polyether shows stronger ability of reducing modulus for diluted crude oil with higher viscosity. On the contrary, branched demulsifier glycerol polyether acts well when concentrations of diluted crude oils are lower. The reason is that linear demulsifier has the stronger ability of adsorption and branched one shows the stronger ability of replacement of natural active fractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural alkaline lavas have diverse compositions--varying widely from nephelinite through basanite to alkali olivine basalt--the origin of which is controversial. In particular, identifying the roles of recycling carbonates in the source and evolution of natural alkaline lavas is commonly difficult. Zinc isotope ratios (δ66Zn) have great potential due to the strong δ66Zn contrast between marine carbonates and the mantle. Here we present a systematic variation of Zn isotopes with Sr-Nd isotopes and incompatible elements (e.g., Nb, Th, and Zn) in nephelinites, basanites, and alkali olivine basalts from eastern China. The elevated δ66Zn of nephelinites and high-alkali basanites relative to the mantle demonstrates that the silicaundersaturated melts were derived from a carbonated mantle. Alkali olivine basalts and lowalkali basanites show a gradual decline of δ66Zn with SiO2 and have Zn-Sr-Nd isotopic and chemical compositions shifted toward that of an enriched lithospheric mantle. Infiltration of silica-undersaturated basanitic melts and reaction with the lithospheric mantle account for the transition of strongly alkaline melts into weakly alkaline melts via consumption of orthopyroxene and mixing with silica-rich melt derived from lithospheric mantle. High-δ66Zn wehrlite xenoliths found in these alkaline lavas record metasomatism of the lithospheric mantle by basanitic melts. Thus, silica-undersaturated melt--lithosphere interaction could be one of the most common causes of compositional diversity in natural alkaline lavas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kronecker product covariance structure provides an efficient way to model the inter-correlations of matrix-variate data. In this paper, we propose test statistics for the Kronecker product covariance matrix based on linear spectral statistics of renormalized sample covariance matrices. A central limit theorem is proved for the linear spectral statistics, with explicit formulas for the mean and covariance functions, thereby filling a gap in the literature. We then show theoretically that the proposed test statistics have well-controlled size and high power. We further propose a bootstrap resampling algorithm to approximate the limiting distributions of the associated linear spectral statistics. Consistency of the bootstrap procedure is guaranteed under mild conditions. The proposed test procedure is also applicable to the Kronecker product covariance model with additional random noise. In our simulations, the empirical sizes of the proposed test procedure and its bootstrapped version are close to the corresponding theoretical values, while the power converges to |$1$| quickly as the dimension and sample size increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aphotocatalyzed reaction of pyridine N-oxides with alkenes gives ortho-alkylated pyridines with cleavage of the carbon–carbon double bond. Benzyl and secondary alkyl groups are incorporated at the ortho position of pyridines in one pot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A photocatalyzed reaction of pyridine N‐oxides with alkenes gives ortho‐alkylated pyridines with cleavage of the carbon–carbon double bond. Benzyl and secondary alkyl groups are incorporated at the ortho position of pyridines in one pot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the classic kinetic theory of crystallization, we have developed a mathematical model to describe the crystallization behavior of crystals in complex vanadium–chromium slag systems. The results show that the crystallization rates of spinels, olivines and augites are dominated by the component with the highest melting point. The sequence of the crystallization ability of crystals in vanadium–chromium slag is as follows: FeCr2O4 ＞ Mg2SiO4 ＞ FeV2O4 ＞ MgSiO3 ＞ Fe2TiO4 ＞ Mn2SiO4 ＞ MnSiO3 ＞ Fe2SiO4. The optimum temperature ranges for the crystallization of these crystals are 1497–1547 K, 1380–1430 K, 1301–1351 K, 1192–1242 K, 1098–1148 K, 1069–1119 K, 1038–1088 K and 985–1035 K, respectively. We also find that with the increase in Cr2O3/V2O3 and decrease in SiO2/FeO, the total crystallization rate of spinels increases remarkably, while the TiO2 content has little effect on the crystallization of spinels in vanadium–chromium slag. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1,4-Reduction of , -Unsaturated Ketones through Rhodium(III)-Catalyzed Transfer Hydrogenation 1,4-reduction, unsaturated ketone, transfer hydrogenation, isopropanol, rhodium(III) catalysis Keywords: 1,4-reduction; unsaturated ketone; rhodium(III) catalysis; transfer hydrogenation; isopropanol EN 1,4-reduction unsaturated ketone rhodium(III) catalysis transfer hydrogenation isopropanol 1399 1402 4 07/11/23 20230725 NES 230725 Graph Selective hydrogenation of , -unsaturated ketones, giving rise to allylic alcohols or saturated ketones, respectively, attracted a long-lasting research interest mainly because of their wide applications in the synthesis of perfumes, drugs, and other fine chemicals. [Extracted from the article]

Cover crops have been reported as one of the most effective practices to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) for agroecosystems. Impacts of cover crops on SOC change vary depending on soil properties, climate, and management practices, but it remains unclear how these control factors affect SOC benefits from cover crops, as well as which management practices can maximize SOC benefits. To address these questions, we used an advanced process‐based agroecosystem model, ecosys, to assess the impacts of winter cover cropping on SOC accumulation under different environmental and management conditions. We aimed to answer the following questions: (1) To what extent do cover crops benefit SOC accumulation, and how do SOC benefits from cover crops vary with different factors (i.e., initial soil properties, cover crop types, climate during the cover crop growth period, and cover crop planting and terminating time)? (2) How can we enhance SOC benefits from cover crops under different cover crop management options? Specifically, we first calibrated and validated the ecosys model at two long‐term field experiment sites with SOC measurements in Illinois. We then applied the ecosys model to six cover crop field experiment sites spanning across Illinois to assess the impacts of different factors on SOC accumulation. Our modeling results revealed the following findings: (1) Growing cover crops can bring SOC benefits by 0.33 ± 0.06 MgC ha−1 year−1 in six cover crop field experiment sites across Illinois, and the SOC benefits are species specific to legume and non‐legume cover crops. (2) Initial SOC stocks and clay contents had overall small influences on SOC benefits from cover crops. During the cover crop growth period (i.e., winter and spring in the US Midwest), high temperature increased SOC benefits from cover crops, while the impacts from larger precipitation on SOC benefits varied field by field. (3) The SOC benefits from cover crops can be maximized by optimizing cover crop management practices (e.g., selecting cover crop types and controlling cover crop growth period) for the US Midwestern maize–soybean rotation system. Finally, we discussed the economic and policy implications of adopting cover crops in the US Midwest, including that current economic incentives to grow cover crops may not be sufficient to cover costs. This study systematically assessed cover crop impacts for SOC change in the US Midwest context, while also demonstrating that the ecosys model, with rigorous validation using field experiment data, can be an effective tool to guide the adaptive management of cover crops and quantify SOC benefits from cover crops. The study thus provides practical tools and insights for practitioners and policy‐makers to design cover crop related government agricultural policies and incentive programs for farmers and agri‐food related industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a refined nonlinear finite-element (FE) model of steel-concrete composite beam (SCCB) capable of accommodating various effects such as the initial geometric imperfection, residual stress, interface slip, geometric nonlinearity, and material nonlinearity is developed to study the distortional instability of SCCBs under negative bending moment. The accuracy of the model is validated by publicly available results previously observed by experiments. On the basis of the refined nonlinear FE model, the ultimate bending moment of 54 groups of SCCBs with varying cross-section parameters is calculated. Also, the effects of the force ratio of the SCCB, width–thickness ratio of the compression flange, shear connection degree, and height–thickness ratio of the web on the ultimate bending moment stability coefficient of SCCB in negative bending moment area are investigated in detail. Results show that the effect of the degree of shear connection on the stability coefficient of the SCCB is insignificant, while the stability coefficient decreases with the increase of the remaining parameters, among which the effect of the height–thickness ratio of the web is proven to be the most significant. Finally, considering various effects aforementioned properly, practical formulas are proposed to compute slenderness ratio and ultimate bending moment stability coefficient of SCCB in a concise form, which are shown to be consistent with the FE modelling and experimental results, and thus are suitable for engineering design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the transport property and the phase transition for a triple quantum dot system in a triangular geometry with one centered dot and two side dots by adopting the Wilson's numerical renormalization group method. When three dots are decoupled with no coupling, the Kondo peak turns to reach the unitary limit, and the spin-1/2 Kondo effect is found. When the hopping between the centered dot and two side dots increases, two side dots form a local spin triplet due to the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction mediated by the centered dot, and the Kondo peak is suppressed. As the hopping between two side dots increases, a first order quantum phase transition occurs. In this case, two side dots form a spin singlet and the Kondo peak is recovered. When the inter-dot Coulomb repulsion between two side dots is taken into account and the hopping between two side dots is small, the charge on each side dot drops to 0.5 through a first-order quantum phase transition. As a result, one of the side dots is singly occupied, while the other one is empty. The linear conductance is suppressed due to the strong coupling between the centered dot and the singly occupied side dot. When the hopping between two side dots is large enough, the charge on each side dot decreases to 0.5 continuously and a crossover is found, for in this case the symmetry of spin configurations within two side dots is broken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ediacaran Period is punctuated by the ca. 580 Ma Gaskiers glaciation in Newfoundland. However, paleoclimatic data are scarce in Ediacaran successions in South China, where abundant geochemical and paleobiological data are shaping current understanding of Ediacaran evolutionary and environmental history. Here, we report the occurrence of silicified glendonites in the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation deposited in an inner-shelf environment on the South China block. Petrographic evidence suggests that these silicified glendonites are pseudomorphs after syndepositional or early authigenic ikaites formed at near-freezing temperatures. The glendonite-bearing stratigraphic interval is characterized by positive δ13C values. It predates both the negative δ13C excursion EN3 (widely believed to be an equivalent of the Shuram negative excursion) and excursion EN2. Although alternative interpretations may be possible, these glendonites may be related to and correlated with the Gaskiers glaciation. If confirmed, this correlation suggests that the Shuram event postdates the Gaskiers glaciation, thus having important implications for Ediacaran climate changes, carbon cycles, and biological evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) involves alterations in multiple genes with corresponding proteins. Recent studies have demonstrated that centrosomal protein 55 (CEP55) shares certain features with oncogenes, and CEP55 overexpression is associated with the development and progression of malignant tumors. The present study aimed to analyze, for the first time, whether CEP55 expression is related to clinicopothalogic features in the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), as well as patient survival. A total of 110 patients with mid-thoracic ESCC who suffered from Ivor-Lewis were enrolled. The CEP55 expression profile of these patients in tumour tissues and corresponding healthy esophageal mucosa (CHEM) was detected by immunohistochemistry and semi-quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analyses. Correlations between CEP55 expression and clinicopathological factors were analyzed using X² test. The log-rank test was employed to calculate survival rate. A Cox regression multivariate analysis was performed to determine independent prognostic factors. The results demonstrated that CEP55 expression in ESCC was significantly higher than that of CHEM (P<0.001). Overexpression of CEP55 was significantly associated with differentiation degree (P=0.022), T stage (P=0.019), lymph node metastasis (P=0.033), clinicopathological staging (P=0.002) and tumor recurrence (P=0.021) in locally advanced ESCC patients. In addition, CEP55 overexpression was significantly associated with reduced overall survival of patients after surgery (P=0.012). The 5-year survival rate of patients without CEP55 overexpression was significantly higher than that of patients with CEP55 overexpression (P=0.012). Therefore, these findings suggest that CEP55 overexpression correlates with poor prognosis in locally advanced ESCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Sizable discrepancy exist in modeled carbon budgets using gSSURGO and RaCA datasets. • The simulated carbon budget was more sensitive to SOC% than to bulk density. • Modeled ΔSOC uncertainty correlates with SOC% negatively and temperature positively. • SOC stock uncertainty has small impacts on simulated carbon credit. Cropland carbon budget depicts the amount of carbon flowing in and out of agroecosystems and the changes in carbon stocks of soil and living biomass during the same period. Soil carbon credit is the additional change in soil carbon stock under certain farming practices compared with the business-as-usual practices. Accurately calculating cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit is critical to assessing climate change mitigation potential in agroecosystems. The calculation of cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit is sensitive to local soil and climatic conditions, especially initial soil organic carbon (SOC) stock, which is determined by both SOC concentration (SOC%) and bulk density (Bulk_Density). SOC stock data are either from soil sampling or gridded public survey data. In agroecosystem models, SOC stock data are a key model input for quantifying cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit. However, various types and degrees of uncertainties exist in SOC stock datasets, which propagate to the quantification of SOC stock change. In particular, a large discrepancy is found in two widely used SOC stock datasets — Rapid Carbon Assessment dataset (RaCA) and Gridded Soil Survey Geographic Database (gSSURGO) — in the U.S. Midwest, with a relative difference (quantified using Normalized Root Mean Square Error, NRMSE) of 48.0% for 0–30 cm SOC stock between the two datasets. It remains largely unclear how uncertainty in SOC stocks affects the calculation of cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit. To address this question, we used a well-validated process-based agroecosystem model, ecosys , to assess the impacts of SOC stock uncertainty on carbon budget and soil carbon credit calculation in the U.S. Midwestern corn-soybean rotation systems. Our results reveal the following findings: (1) A sizable discrepancy exists in simulated cropland carbon budget between using gSSURGO and using RaCA for their SOC% and Bulk_Density as model inputs, with a Pearson correlation coefficient (r) of only 0.4 for simulated change of SOC stock (ΔSOC) using these two different soil datasets. (2) Simulated cropland carbon budget components were more sensitive to initial SOC% than to Bulk_Density. For example, the upper and lower quartiles of multi-year averaged ΔSOC were −29.8 and 4.8 gC/m2/year for the selected counties respectively, with an uncertainty of 13.7 and 0.7 gC/m2/year induced by uncertainties in initial SOC% and Bulk_Density, respectively. (3) Both simulated ΔSOC and its uncertainty were negatively correlated with initial SOC%, whereas ΔSOC was negatively correlated with air temperature, and ΔSOC uncertainty was positively correlated with air temperature. (4) The uncertainty of calculated soil carbon credits was much smaller compared with the uncertainty of calculated absolute carbon budgets assuming the same SOC stock uncertainty level in the inputs. Specifically, in our assessment comparing planting cover crops vs no cover crop, the uncertainty of calculated soil carbon credits induced by initial SOC% uncertainty was less than 4% (relative to the quantified value of the soil carbon credits) for 90% of the cases. Our analysis highlights that high accuracy measurement of SOC% as inputs is needed for the calculation of cropland carbon budgets; however, soil carbon credit quantification is much less sensitive to the initial SOC% inputs, and the current publicly available soil datasets (e.g., gSSURGO) are largely suitable for the calculation of soil carbon credits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Sizable discrepancy exist in modeled carbon budgets using gSSURGO and RaCA datasets. • The simulated carbon budget was more sensitive to SOC% than to bulk density. • Modeled ΔSOC uncertainty correlates with SOC% negatively and temperature positively. • SOC stock uncertainty has small impacts on simulated carbon credit. Cropland carbon budget depicts the amount of carbon flowing in and out of agroecosystems and the changes in carbon stocks of soil and living biomass during the same period. Soil carbon credit is the additional change in soil carbon stock under certain farming practices compared with the business-as-usual practices. Accurately calculating cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit is critical to assessing climate change mitigation potential in agroecosystems. The calculation of cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit is sensitive to local soil and climatic conditions, especially initial soil organic carbon (SOC) stock, which is determined by both SOC concentration (SOC%) and bulk density (Bulk_Density). SOC stock data are either from soil sampling or gridded public survey data. In agroecosystem models, SOC stock data are a key model input for quantifying cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit. However, various types and degrees of uncertainties exist in SOC stock datasets, which propagate to the quantification of SOC stock change. In particular, a large discrepancy is found in two widely used SOC stock datasets — Rapid Carbon Assessment dataset (RaCA) and Gridded Soil Survey Geographic Database (gSSURGO) — in the U.S. Midwest, with a relative difference (quantified using Normalized Root Mean Square Error, NRMSE) of 48.0% for 0–30 cm SOC stock between the two datasets. It remains largely unclear how uncertainty in SOC stocks affects the calculation of cropland carbon budget and soil carbon credit. To address this question, we used a well-validated process-based agroecosystem model, ecosys , to assess the impacts of SOC stock uncertainty on carbon budget and soil carbon credit calculation in the U.S. Midwestern corn-soybean rotation systems. Our results reveal the following findings: (1) A sizable discrepancy exists in simulated cropland carbon budget between using gSSURGO and using RaCA for their SOC% and Bulk_Density as model inputs, with a Pearson correlation coefficient (r) of only 0.4 for simulated change of SOC stock (ΔSOC) using these two different soil datasets. (2) Simulated cropland carbon budget components were more sensitive to initial SOC% than to Bulk_Density. For example, the upper and lower quartiles of multi-year averaged ΔSOC were −29.8 and 4.8 gC/m2/year for the selected counties respectively, with an uncertainty of 13.7 and 0.7 gC/m2/year induced by uncertainties in initial SOC% and Bulk_Density, respectively. (3) Both simulated ΔSOC and its uncertainty were negatively correlated with initial SOC%, whereas ΔSOC was negatively correlated with air temperature, and ΔSOC uncertainty was positively correlated with air temperature. (4) The uncertainty of calculated soil carbon credits was much smaller compared with the uncertainty of calculated absolute carbon budgets assuming the same SOC stock uncertainty level in the inputs. Specifically, in our assessment comparing planting cover crops vs no cover crop, the uncertainty of calculated soil carbon credits induced by initial SOC% uncertainty was less than 4% (relative to the quantified value of the soil carbon credits) for 90% of the cases. Our analysis highlights that high accuracy measurement of SOC% as inputs is needed for the calculation of cropland carbon budgets; however, soil carbon credit quantification is much less sensitive to the initial SOC% inputs, and the current publicly available soil datasets (e.g., gSSURGO) are largely suitable for the calculation of soil carbon credits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elastic distortional buckling is one of the essential buckling modes of the I-steel concrete composite beam (ISCCB); such buckling often occurs under the gradient of negative moment. The key factors affecting the kind of buckling are the 'torsional' and 'lateral' restraint stiffnesses of the bottom flange of the beam. This paper investigates the equivalent lateral and torsional restraint stiffnesses of the bottom flange of the ISCCB under the gradient of negative moment. The relations for estimating the lateral and torsional restraint stiffnesses are used to determine the critical distortional buckling stress and associated buckling moment of the beam under the gradient of negative moment. A new method is proposed for assessing the buckling of the elastic-foundation beam, by which the related factors are considered: (1) The coupling effect between the applied forces and lateral/torsional restraint stiffness of the bottom flange of the beam, (2) the effect of gradient of a moment and (3) the effect of shear deformation of the web. The proposed method has been compared with those available by using the data of 15 cases under different loading conditions; the results show that the present method is much more accurate and reliable than the existing ones. The method as proposed herein is recommended for further research in relation to the buckling of the ISCCB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the classic kinetic theory of crystallization, we have developed a mathematical model to describe the crystallization behavior of crystals in complex vanadium–chromium slag systems. The results show that the crystallization rates of spinels, olivines and augites are dominated by the component with the highest melting point. The sequence of the crystallization ability of crystals in vanadium–chromium slag is as follows: FeCr2O4 ＞ Mg2SiO4 ＞ FeV2O4 ＞ MgSiO3 ＞ Fe2TiO4 ＞ Mn2SiO4 ＞ MnSiO3 ＞ Fe2SiO4. The optimum temperature ranges for the crystallization of these crystals are 1497–1547 K, 1380–1430 K, 1301–1351 K, 1192–1242 K, 1098–1148 K, 1069–1119 K, 1038–1088 K and 985–1035 K, respectively. We also find that with the increase in Cr2O3/V2O3 and decrease in SiO2/FeO, the total crystallization rate of spinels increases remarkably, while the TiO2 content has little effect on the crystallization of spinels in vanadium–chromium slag. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of children with CHD has been the focus of research attention. Hainan is the southernmost underdeveloped province in China, where the technology of screening, diagnosis, and treatment for children with CHD has not been fully developed. Objectives: This study aimed to introduce and promote an appropriate technology system for screening, diagnosis, and evaluation of neonatal CHD. Methods: Two indicators, namely cardiac auscultation plus pulse oximetry (POX), were used by screening staff to screen live newborns within six to 72 hours afterbirth at all screening institutions in Hainan province from January 1, 2019, to December 31,2021. Diagnosis procedure for the screened-positive newborns was performed in 31 certified medical institutions, and evaluation procedure for the newborns confirmed with CHD was performed in six certified medical institutions. Data about screening, diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment were obtained, uploaded, and managed online through a neonatal CHD screening information management net. Results: A total of 321447 live births were included in the CHD screening project, and an overall screening rate of 97.59% (321447/329387) was determined. According to our results, 8032 cases were screened-positive. A total of 1099 cases of CHD were confirmed, suggesting a CHD prevalence of 3.419 per 1000 live births. Atrial septal defect (ASD) was the most common CHD lesion, with a prevalence of 1.313 per 1000 live births. The sensitivity of cardiac auscultation, POX, and two indicators' combination (i.e., cardiac auscultation plus POX) for CHD detection were 69.15%, 33.49%, and 91.90%, respectively; and the specificity of them were 98.36%, 99.43%, and 97.81%, respectively. The ratio of both positive in two indicators among the children with major (serious and critical) CHD at the initial screening was significantly higher than that of single positive in any indicator (χ² = 59.455, P < 0.001). All children with CHD were evaluated, out of who 154 children with major CHD were treated promptly. Only 15 cases of children with major CHD died, and the standardized mortality of children aged 0-1 years with CHD was 4.67/100,000. Conclusions: It was concluded that the combination of two indicators (i.e., cardiac auscultation plus POX) for CHD screening was reliable as well as non-invasive, simple, and easy to operate so that it was conducive for promotion. It was also found that introducing and promoting an appropriate technology for screening, diagnosis, and evaluation of neonatal CHD were extremely significant since they may have contributed to the timely diagnosing and treating children with CHD, especially those with major CHD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]