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The Arctic region is experiencing more rapid climate changes than the other parts of the world and serves as a sink for semi‐volatile persistent organic pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which can be utilized as molecular markers for pyrogenic carbon, such as black carbon (BC). As the sea ice retreats and increased terrestrial inputs with widespread wildfires, the PAH concentrations in the Arctic Ocean are rising. In this study, the sources and fates of PAHs together with BC in surface sediments from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) were analyzed. Positive matrix factorization (PMF) elucidated a mixed petrogenic and pyrogenic sources and distinct PAH fates associated with diverse input pathways including coastal permafrost erosion contribution (∼30%), petrogenic‐related emission (∼34%), fossil fuel combustion (∼26%), and biomass burning (∼10%). Correlation analysis indicated that BC plays a key role in affecting the behavior and fates of PAHs. In the Chukchi Sea, PAHs are closely associated with soot‐BC, whereas in the Laptev Sea (LS) and west East Siberian Sea (W‐ESS), they exhibit a coupling process with char‐BC. The presence of these carbonaceous materials in the sediments of CS is likely influenced by atmospheric deposition and biological activity, whereas the LS and W‐ESS regions are mainly affected by long‐distance river transport and direct deposition from coastal permafrost. As global warming continues, permafrost thawing induces the remobilization and retranslocation of PAHs, thereby becoming a significant PAH contributor and input pathway in the rapidly changing Arctic coastal margin. Plain Language Summary: The Arctic region is experiencing rapid climate changes, such as reducing sea ice, thawing permafrost, and increasing wildfires. These changes are raising the levels of semi‐volatile pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the Arctic coastal margins, with the potential for the region to become a significant reservoir of sedimentary PAHs. In our study, we examined the large‐scale distribution and fates of PAHs and black carbon (BC) across the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), the world's largest shelf system. We discovered that PAHs have mixed sources, including both petrogenic and pyrogenic origins. We also observed differences in how PAHs were transported and sequestrated in coastal versus open sea areas. In the western ESAS, PAHs and BC are mainly influenced by terrestrial inputs such as river discharge and coastal permafrost erosion. In contrast, in the eastern open‐sea regions, they are primarily constrained by atmospheric transport and biological activity are the primary influencing factors. The significant emissions from thawing permafrost along the coasts highlight the growing importance of permafrost‐related erosion as a significant contributor of PAHs in the Arctic Ocean, particularly in the context of future warming. Key Points: Sedimentary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS) have a mixture of petrogenic and pyrogenic sources with distinct input pathwaysPermafrost erosion serves as a significant input pathway and PAHs contributor in the rapidly changing Arctic coastsBlack carbon plays a key role in the behavior and sequestration of pyrogenic PAHs in the Arctic coastal margins [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ion-adsorption-type rare earth element (iREE) deposits dominantly supply global resources of the heavy rare earth elements (HREEs), which have a critical role in a variety of advanced technological applications. The initial enrichment of REEs in the parent granites controls the formation of iREE deposits. Many Mesozoic and Cenozoic granites are associated with iREE mineralization in the Tengchong block, Southwest China. However, it is unclear how vital the mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of these granites are to the formation of iREE mineralization. We conducted geochronology, geochemistry, and Hf isotope analyses of the Yingpanshan–Damanbie granitoids associated with the iREE deposit in the Tengchong block with the aims to discuss their petrogenesis and illustrate the process of the initial REE enrichment in the granites. The results showed that the Yingpanshan–Damanbie pluton consists of syenogranite and monzogranite, containing REE-bearing accessory minerals such as monazite, xenotime, apatite, zircon, allanite, and titanite, with a high REE concentration (210–626 ppm, mean value is 402 ppm). The parent granites have Zr + Nb + Ce + Y (333–747 ppm) contents and a high FeOT/MgO ratio (5.89–11.4), and are enriched in Th (mean value of 43.6 ppm), U (mean value of 4.57 ppm), Zr (mean value of 305 ppm), Hf (mean value of 7.94 ppm), Rb (mean value of 198 ppm), K (mean value of 48,902 ppm), and have depletions of Sr (mean value of 188 ppm), Ba (mean value of 699 ppm), P (mean value of 586 ppm), Ti (mean value of 2757 ppm). The granites plot in the A-type area in FeOT/MgO vs. Zr + Nb + Ce + Y and Zr vs. 10,000 Ga/Al diagrams, suggesting that they are A2-type granites. These granites are believed to have formed through the partial melting of amphibolites at a post-collisional extension setting when the Tethys Ocean closed. REE-bearing minerals (e.g., apatite, titanite, allanite, and fluorite) and rock-forming minerals (e.g., potassium feldspar, plagioclase, biotite, muscovite) supply rare earth elements in weathering regolith for the Yingpanshan–Damanbie iREE deposit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processing ultrasonic echo signals to obtain high-precision residual thickness information of the pipeline wall is the key to nondestructive testing of corrosion of a long-distance pipeline. The traditional power spectrum estimation method assumes that an analyzed echo signal is Gaussian, and the useful information is insufficiently extracted, which leads to errors in the processing results. In this paper, to solve this problem, the bispectrum, which requires the least amount of computation in higher-order spectral estimation, is proposed to process an echo signal with a non-minimum phase and non-Gaussian characteristics. The bispectrum is projected onto a one-dimensional frequency space using the dimensionality reduction method, and one-dimensional diagonal slices of the bispectrum are extracted to analyze the characteristics of the echo signal, which significantly improves the intuitiveness of data processing. The experimental results show that the bispectrum dimensionality reduction method has high accuracy in processing ultrasonic echo signals, and the relative error of the residua wall thickness is below 2%. A C-scan image displaying the shape, size, depth, and other characteristics of pipeline corrosion obtained by the proposed method is much better than that using the traditional power spectrum estimation method. Therefore, the proposed method is suitable for nondestructive testing of corrosion of long-distance pipelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce ToonCrafter, a novel approach that transcends traditional correspondence-based cartoon video interpolation, paving the way for generative interpolation. Traditional methods, that implicitly assume linear motion and the absence of complicated phenomena like dis-occlusion, often struggle with the exaggerated non-linear and large motions with occlusion commonly found in cartoons, resulting in implausible or even failed interpolation results. To overcome these limitations, we explore the potential of adapting live-action video priors to better suit cartoon interpolation within a generative framework. ToonCrafter effectively addresses the challenges faced when applying live-action video motion priors to generative cartoon interpolation. First, we design a toon rectification learning strategy that seamlessly adapts live-action video priors to the cartoon domain, resolving the domain gap and content leakage issues. Next, we introduce a dual-reference-based 3D decoder to compensate for lost details due to the highly compressed latent prior spaces, ensuring the preservation of fine details in interpolation results. Finally, we design a flexible sketch encoder that empowers users with interactive control over the interpolation results. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method not only produces visually convincing and more natural dynamics, but also effectively handles dis-occlusion. The comparative evaluation demonstrates the notable superiority of our approach over existing competitors. Code and model weights are available at https://doubiiu.github.io/projects/ToonCrafter [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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To alleviate human labor in redrawing keyframes with ordered vector strokes for automatic inbetweening, we for the first time propose a joint stroke tracing and correspondence approach. Given consecutive raster keyframes along with a single vector image of the starting frame as a guidance, the approach generates vector drawings for the remaining keyframes while ensuring one-to-one stroke correspondence. Our framework trained on clean line drawings generalizes to rough sketches, and the generated results can be imported into inbetweening systems to produce inbetween sequences. Hence, the method is compatible with standard 2D animation workflow. An adaptive spatial transformation module (ASTM) is introduced to handle non-rigid motions and stroke distortion. We collect a dataset for training with 10k+ pairs of raster frames and their vector drawings with stroke correspondence. Comprehensive validations on real clean and rough animated frames manifest the effectiveness of our method and superiority to existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Geology & Exploration is the property of Geology & Exploration Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Anime is an abstract art form that is substantially different from the human portrait, leading to a challenging misaligned image translation problem that is beyond the capability of existing methods. This can be boiled down to a highly ambiguous unconstrained translation between two domains. To this end, we design a new anime translation framework by deriving the prior knowledge of a pre-trained StyleGAN model. We introduce disentangled encoders to separately embed structure and appearance information into the same latent code, governed by four tailored losses. Moreover, we develop a FaceBank aggregation method that leverages the generated data of the StyleGAN, anchoring the prediction to produce in-domain animes. To empower our model and promote the research of anime translation, we propose the first anime portrait parsing dataset, Danbooru-Parsing, containing 4,921 densely labeled images across 17 classes. This dataset connects the face semantics with appearances, enabling our new constrained translation setting. We further show the editability of our results, and extend our method to manga images, by generating the first manga parsing pseudo data. Extensive experiments demonstrate the values of our new dataset and method, resulting in the first feasible solution on anime translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video Frame Interpolation (VFI) is a fascinating and challenging problem in the computer vision (CV) field, aiming to generate non-existing frames between two consecutive video frames. In recent years, many algorithms based on optical flow, kernel, or phase information have been proposed. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of recent developments in the VFI technique. We first introduce the history of VFI algorithms’ development, the evaluation metrics, and publicly available datasets. We then compare each algorithm in detail, point out their advantages and disadvantages, and compare their interpolation performance and speed on different remarkable datasets. VFI technology has drawn continuous attention in the CV community, some video processing applications based on VFI are also mentioned in this survey, such as slow-motion generation, video compression, video restoration. Finally, we outline the bottleneck faced by the current video frame interpolation technology and discuss future research work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four new isolates including one new butanediamide glycoside (1), one new flavonoid glycoside (2) and two new flavonone glycosides (3, 4) were identified from the leaves and stems of Panax quinquefolius, among which 1 possessed the firstly reported N,N'-(5-hydroxy-1,3-phenylene) butanediamide skeleton with an unique 6/9 ranged dual-ring structure. The structures were elucidated by the NMR data, ECD analysis and chemical acid hydrolysis. All the compounds (1-4) were tested for their cytotoxicity against two human cancer cell lines of HepG2, A549 and HCT116 by the MTT method. Outstandingly, compound 1 exhibited targeted inhibitory proliferation of HCT116 cell with IC50 value of 12.1 μM, whereas compounds 3 and 4 exhibited targeted inhibitory proliferation of HepG2 cell with IC50 values of 15.3 and 17.3 μM, as well as no obvious cytotoxicity of compounds 1-4 against A549. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Sino-Western Studies is the property of Sanovan Press, Nordic Forum of Sino-Western Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Successful isolation of 15 compounds from Polygonti rhizome was obtained by an efficient technique combined with macroporous resin column chromatography pretreatment and three different modes of high‐speed counter‐current chromatography for the first time. For the pretreatment, AB‐8 resin was applied to remove the polysaccharides and enrich four different parts (samples I, II, III, and IV) by polarities. For the separation, sample I was separated by pH‐zone‐refining counter‐current chromatography and seven cycle recycling mode high‐speed counter‐current chromatography, yielding four alkaloids (1‐‐4); samples II–IV were further separated by the conventional high‐speed counter‐current chromatography, yielding seven flavonoids (5–10, 12), one steroid saponin (11), and three terpenoids (13–15). Finally, the isolates were assayed for their anti‐inflammatory activities against nitric oxide production with compounds 5, 9–10, 13 showing significant anti‐inflammatory activities, IC50 values which were 13.0, 16.2, 17.1, and 14.7 μM, respectively, while others showing moderate and weak anti‐inflammatory activities, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xiangqian Guan, Yuyan Lu, Heping Zhu, Shuqi Yu, Wenxiu Zhao, Xiaoqin Chi, Chengrong Xie, Zhenyu Yin Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Xiamen University, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Chronic Liver Disease and Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Xiamen, Fujian, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Chengrong Xie; Zhenyu YinDepartment of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Xiamen University, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Chronic Liver Disease and Hepatocellular Carcinoma, 209 South Hubin Road, Xiamen, Fujian Province, 361004, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail eason_xiecr@126.com; yinzy@xmu.edu.cnBackground: Emerging evidences have highlighted the roles of neutrophils, as the major host microenvironment component, in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Neutrophils extracellular traps (NETs) produced in the infection can strengthen the behavior of cancer metastasis. Here, we investigated the roles of NETs in HCC metastasis and further explore the underlying mechanism of how NETs interact with cancer.Methods: The neutrophils were isolated from whole blood of HCC patients and used to evaluate the formation of NETs. NET markers were detected in tissue samples, plasma and cell climbing slice. Mouse models were used to evaluate the roles of NETs in HCC metastasis in vivo, and the corresponding mechanisms were explored using in vivo and in vitro assays.Results: An increase in the release of NETs in patients with HCC, particularly those with portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT). The presence of NETs in HCC tumor tissues closely correlated with a poor prognosis. Functionally, the invasion ability of HCC cells was enhanced by co-culture with HCC neutrophils, through NETs formation, while the neutrophils from a healthy donor (HD) exhibited the inhibition of the invasion ability. Furthermore, we observed an enhanced ability of forming NETs in neutrophils from HCC patients in vitro, especially patients with PVTT or extra-hepatic metastasis. An in-vivo animal study demonstrated that neutrophils of HCC facilitated the metastatic behavior towards the lung. The further mechanistic investigation unveiled that HCC cells-derived cytokine IL-8 triggered NETs formation in an NADPH oxidase-dependent manner, and NETs-associated cathepsin G (cG) promoted HCC metastasis in vitro as well as vivo. Clinically, the expression of the cG protein in tumor tissues displayed a close correlation with the disease prognosis of HCC patients.Conclusion: Our findings implicated that the induction of NETs by HCC cells is a critical metastasis-supporting cancer–host interaction and that NETs may serve as an immune-based potential therapeutic target against HCC progression.Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma, neutrophils extracellular traps, cathepsin G, IL-8, E-cadherin, metastasis, NADPH

In this study, a novel polymer‐based solid acid catalyst was prepared by free radical polymerization of N, N′‐methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) and allyl sodium sulfonate (SAS), followed by acidifying of diluted hydrochloric acid. The prepared solid acid was fully characterized by FTIR, solid‐state 13C‐NMR, TGA, XPS, element analysis, and SEM. In addition, the prepared solid acid poly(MBA‐SAA) was used as a catalyst to extract diosgenin from Dioscorea zingiberensis C.H.Wright (DZW) under solvethermal condition using ethanol as a solvent. And the optimal conditions of temperature (104.02°C), alcoholysis time (5.87 h) and solid acid dosage (0.39 g), were obtained by response surface analysis based on the results of single factor experiments. The yield of diosgenin (14.53%) obtained in the alcoholysis is higher than that of the traditional sulfuric acid hydrolysis method. The alcoholysis products were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC–MS) and UV–vis, respectively. The results showed that the solid acid with higher catalytic activity and good reusability can replace sulfuric acid to extract diosgenin, which has a great potential for the clean production of diosgenin in industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vincetoxicum versicolor (Bunge) Decne is the original plant species of the Chinese herbal medicine Cynanchi Atrati Radix et Rhizoma. The lack of information on the transcriptome and chloroplast genome of V. versicolor hinders its evolutionary and taxonomic studies. Here, the V. versicolor transcriptome and chloroplast genome were assembled and functionally annotated. In addition, the comparative chloroplast genome analysis was conducted between the genera Vincetoxicum and Cynanchum. A total of 49,801 transcripts were generated, and 20,943 unigenes were obtained from V. versicolor. One thousand thirty-two unigenes from V. versicolor were classified into 73 functional transcription factor families. The transcription factors bHLH and AP2/ERF were the most significantly abundant, indicating that they should be analyzed carefully in the V. versicolor ecological adaptation studies. The chloroplast genomes of Vincetoxicum and Cynanchum exhibited a typical quadripartite structure with highly conserved gene order and gene content. They shared an analogous codon bias pattern in which the codons of protein-coding genes had a preference for A/U endings. The natural selection pressure predominantly influenced the chloroplast genes. A total of 35 RNA editing sites were detected in the V. versicolor chloroplast genome by RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) data, and one of them restored the start codon in the chloroplast ndhD of V. versicolor. Phylogenetic trees constructed with protein-coding genes supported the view that Vincetoxicum and Cynanchum were two distinct genera. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

purpose of the study was to investigate the occurrence of 16S rRNA methyltransferase (RMTase) genes in carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) clinical isolates associated with bloodstream infections (BSIs) in China. Methods: From July 2015 to December 2018, a total of 137 unique CRKP clinical isolates associated with BSIs were collected from 11 Chinese teaching hospitals. PCR and DNA sequencing were used to identify 16S RMTase genes. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) was performed on all CRKP clinical isolates. Relevant information was extracted from WGS data (antibiotic resistance determinants, K-type and wzi allelic types). All 16S RMTase-producing CRKP clinical isolates were characterized by antimicrobial susceptibility testing, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Results: In this study, 137 CRKPs were found to harbor at least one carbapenemase gene. Among 137 CRKPs, 78 (56.9%, 78/137) were positive for 16S RMTase genes (5 for armA, 70 for rmtB, 3 for both armA and rmtB) and highly resistant to gentamicin and amikacin (MICs ≥ 256 mg/L). Seventy-five isolates harboring 16S RMTase genes also produced ESBLs. In this study, 5 sequence types (STs) and 6 capsule serotypes were found among 78 isolates positive for 16S RMTases genes, while 14 STs and 6 capsule serotypes were found among 59 isolates negative for 16S RMTases genes. Compared with the isolates negative for 16S RMTases genes, the STs and capsular serotypes of 16S RMTases-positive strains are more concentrated. Among 78 16S RMTases-positive strains, the most prevalent clone type is ST11-PFGE-B-KL64-wzi64 (62.8%, 49/78), which mainly carries the rmtB and blaKPC genes and is distributed in 7 provinces in China. Conclusion: A high prevalence of 16S RMTase genes was found among CRKP clinical isolates associated with BSIs from Chinese teaching hospitals, which was attributed to the dissemination of the ST11-PFGE-B-KL64-wzi64 clone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Time–frequency images have been widely employed in vibration signal analysis in the field of rotating machinery fault diagnosis. Generally, global features such as gray statistic features and texture features, are extracted from time–frequency images for fault classification, but the effect is not satisfactory. The locality-constrained linear coding model based on local features has been successfully employed in image classification. This paper contributes to this ongoing investigation by developing a locality-constrained linear coding optimization model applied in time–frequency images classification for rotating machinery fault diagnosis. The classification accuracy and generalization of the locality-constrained linear coding model depend on the selection of pooling methods, values of pooling parameters, and penalization coefficient. In the optimization model, misclassification rate is chosen as an objective function, and an improved particle swarm optimization algorithm is adopted to optimize the pooling parameters and penalization coefficient. The improved particle swarm optimization algorithm is utilized to produce optimal solutions at the training stage, and then these solutions will be evaluated at the testing stage. The promise of the novel model is illustrated by performing our procedure on vibration signals from a rolling bearing with 16 health states. Experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed approach could obviously increase the classification accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The table of contents for August 28, 2015 issue of "Journal of Materials Chemistry A" is presented.

Micro-/nanostructured mixed transition metal oxides (MTMOs) with their unique morphologies have attracted much attention due to their potential applications such as lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Nevertheless, in contrast to active research for the synthesis of MTMOs (AxB3−xO4 (A, B = Co, Ni, Zn, Mn, Fe)), metal vanadates seem to be an unnoticed group, possibly due to the lack of appropriate synthetic methods. In this work, for the first time, we report a structure- and size-controlled synthesis of pseudohexagonal monoclinic Co2V2O7·nH2O monodisperse hexagonal nanoplatelets (MHNPs) through a facile water bath method via a micelle-assisted assembly-Ostwald ripening process. The amount of hexamethylenetetramine in the reaction was found to be pivotal to the formation of hexagonal nanoplatelets. Additionally, the structure of MHNPs could be retained only in a certain temperature range. By calcination of Co2V2O7·nH2O in air, mesoporous Co2V2O7 MHNPs composed of numerous nanometer-sized subunits could be harvested. Benefiting from the unique structure and probably synergetic effects of different metal ions, the as-prepared Co2V2O7 MHNPs possess high specific capacity, long-term cycling stability, and good rate capability. Specifically, the Co2V2O7 MHNPs exhibit a reversible capacity as high as 866 mA h g−1 with nearly 100% capacity retention after 150 cycles, making them potential electrode materials for LIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]