A synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction pattern was measured for a lithium superionic conductor, Li7P3S11, which has a high conductivity of 3.2X10-3Scm-1 at room temperature and a low activation ...energy of 12kJmol-1 Mizuno et al., Solid State Ionics, vol. 177 (2006) 2721. The crystal structure was solved by a direct space global optimization technique and refined by the Rietveld method. The compound crystallizes in a triclinic cell, space group P-1, a=12.5009(3) A, b=6.03160(17) A, c=12.5303(3) A, alpha=102.845(3) deg , beta=113.2024(18) deg , gamma=74.467(3) deg . PS4 tetrahedra and P2S7 ditetrahedra are contained in the structure and Li ions are situated between them.
To explore the characteristics of phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH) gene variants and prenatal diagnosis for 43 Chinese pedigrees affected with Phenylketonuria (PKU).
Forty three PKU pedigrees ...diagnosed at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University between 2019 and 2021 were selected as the study subjects. Variants of the PAH gene of the probands were screened by high-throughput sequencing, and candidate variants were verified by Sanger sequencing. Negative cases were further analyzed by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) to detect large fragment deletions and duplications of the PAH gene. For 43 women undergoing subsequent pregnancy, Sanger sequencing, MLPA, combined with short tandem repeats (STR) sequence-based linkage analysis, were carried out for prenatal diagnosis.
Among the 86 alleles carried by the 43 probands, 78 nucleotide variants (90.70%) and 3 large deletions (3.49%) were found based on high-throughput sequencing and MLPA. The 81 mutant alleles had included 21 misse
To explore the clinical and genetic characteristics of a neonate with Microvillus inclusion disease (MVID).
A neonate with MVID admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in ...May 2019 was selected as the study subject. Clinical data were collected. Whole exome sequencing (WES) was carried out, and candidate variants were verified by Sanger sequencing and multiple ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA). A literature was also carried out to summarize the clinical and genetic characteristics of MVID.
The prematurely born neonate had presented with unexplained refractory diarrhea and metabolic acidosis. Active symptomatic treatment was ineffective, and the child had died at 2 months old. WES revealed that he had harbored compound heterozygous variants of the MYO5B gene, namely c.1591C>T (p.R531W) and deletion of exon 9. Sanger sequencing showed that the R531W variant was inherited form his father, and MLPA confirmed that the exon 9 deletion was inherited from his mother. Seven childre
Localization is a hot research spot for many areas, especially in the mobile robot field. Due to the weak signal of the global positioning system (GPS), the alternative schemes in an indoor ...environment include wireless signal transmitting and receiving solutions, laser rangefinder to build a map followed by a re-localization stage and visual positioning methods, etc. Among all wireless signal positioning techniques, Wi-Fi is the most common one. Wi-Fi access points are installed in most indoor areas of human activities, and smart devices equipped with Wi-Fi modules can be seen everywhere. However, the localization of a mobile robot using a Wi-Fi scheme usually lacks orientation information. Besides, the distance error is large because of indoor signal interference. Another research direction that mainly refers to laser sensors is to actively detect the environment and achieve positioning. An occupancy grid map is built by using the simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) method when the mobile robot enters the indoor environment for the first time. When the robot enters the environment again, it can localize itself according to the known map. Nevertheless, this scheme only works effectively based on the prerequisite that those areas have salient geometrical features. If the areas have similar scanning structures, such as a long corridor or similar rooms, the traditional methods always fail. To address the weakness of the above two methods, this work proposes a coarse-to-fine paradigm and an improved localization algorithm that utilizes Wi-Fi to assist the robot localization in a geometrically similar environment. Firstly, a grid map is built by using laser SLAM. Secondly, a fingerprint database is built in the offline phase. Then, the RSSI values are achieved in the localization stage to get a coarse localization. Finally, an improved particle filter method based on the Wi-Fi signal values is proposed to realize a fine localization. Experimental results show that our approach is effective and robust for both global localization and the kidnapped robot problem. The localization success rate reaches 97.33%, while the traditional method always fails.
AbstractUnit hydrograph (UH) is widely used for predictions of flood hydrograph from a known storm. Its concept and theory are simple and straightforward, but its practical applications are ...cumbersome because it is discrete and inflexible for different rainfall durations. An internet search indicates that though Nash’s gamma function is widely accepted as a theoretical model, it is not a true form of instantaneous UH. Briefly, a simple, general, and analytic model for UH has not been found in the literature, which forms the objective of this research. To this end, we first make three hypotheses on instantaneous UH based on empirical observations; we next find a general unit-volume hydrograph for S-hydrograph that leads to analytic expressions for interval and instantaneous unit-volume hydrographs; we then apply the proposed method to simplify applications of the Soil Conservation Society (SCS) dimensionless UH. After that, we examine the proposed method with real-world data. We confirmed that the proposed general and analytic UH predicts flood hydrograph simply and accurately, and it agrees with data better than the classic Nash instantaneous UH model.
AbstractThe Shields diagram is a classic method for quantifying sand incipient motion in sediment transport. It is often expressed by empirical or semiempirical equations. This research applies the ...Padé approximant to the data in the extended Shields diagram and presents a simple generalized empirical model for the critical shear stress. The resulting dimensionless critical Shields parameter is a fractional function of the critical grain Reynolds number, which reproduces the extended Shields diagram by tending to two constants for lower and higher critical grain Reynolds numbers, respectively, and having a minimum value in the transitional regime. The proposed function results in an explicit Shields diagram in terms of grain Reynolds number and has an analytical solution for critical sediment diameter given a bed shear stress.
Immune checkpoint molecules, including inhibitory and stimulatory immune checkpoint molecules, are defined as ligand-receptor pairs that exert inhibitory or stimulatory effects on immune responses. ...Most of the immune checkpoint molecules that have been described so far are expressed on cells of the adaptive immune system, particularly on T cells, and of the innate immune system. They are crucial for maintaining the self-tolerance and modulating the length and magnitude of immune responses of effectors in different tissues to minimize the tissue damage. More and more evidences have shown that inhibitory or stimulatory immune checkpoint molecules are expressed on a sizeable fraction of tumor types. Although the main function of tumor cell-associated immune checkpoint molecules is considered to mediate the immune evasion, it has been reported that the immune checkpoint molecules expressed on tumor cells also play important roles in the maintenance of many malignant behaviors, including self-renewal, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, metastasis, drug resistance, anti-apoptosis, angiogenesis, or enhanced energy metabolisms. In this section, we mainly focus on delineating the roles of the tumor cell-associated immune checkpoint molecules beyond immune evasion, such as PD-L1, PD-1, B7-H3, B7-H4, LILRB1, LILRB2, TIM3, CD47, CD137, and CD70.
Objective To investigate the effects of cardiac extracellular matrix (c-ECM) combined with collagen-binding vascular endothelial growth factor (CBD-VEGF) and Ang-1 mimicking peptide (AMP) on cardiac ...function in rats with myocardial infarction (MI). Methods MTT assay was used to measure the activity of AMP in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in vitro, and the binding of Biotin-modified AMP (Bio-AMP) to c-ECM was tested. A myocardial infarction model was established by ligation of the left anterior descending artery in SD rats. The rats were randomly divided into PBS group (group A), c-ECM/CBD-VEGF group (group B), and CBD-VEGF/c-ECM/AMP group (group C), with four rats in each group. The rats were treated by injection of PBS, CBD-VEGF/c-ECM, or CBD-VEGF/c-ECM/AMP at the infarct site. After 3 months of treatment, echocardiography was used to evaluate the cardiac function of rats in the three groups. Immunofluorescence staining was used to determine the number of blood vessels as well as the ratios
AbstractThe log-law of the wall in the overlap for wall-bounded turbulent flows is rederived from a pure dimensional analysis and functional equation based on three experimental facts: (1) in the ...inner flow region, the mean velocity distribution is dominated by the viscous length scale; (2) in the outer flow region, the mean velocity distribution is dominated by the largest eddy size or the boundary layer thickness; and (3) there is an overlap between the inner and outer regions. These facts lead to a functional equation that yields a universal log-law in the overlap. Hence, the log-law is independent of any turbulence model, and it is an axiom accepted widely in fluid mechanics.
Metal halide perovskites are promising materials for future optoelectronic applications. One intriguing property, important for many applications, is the tunability of the band gap via compositional ...engineering. While experimental reports on changes in absorption or photoluminescence show rather good agreement for different compounds, the physical origins of these changes, namely the variations in valence and conduction band positions, are not well characterized. Here, we determine ionization energy and electron affinity values of all primary tin- and lead-based perovskites using photoelectron spectroscopy data, supported by first-principles calculations and a tight-binding analysis. We demonstrate energy level variations are primarily determined by the relative positions of the atomic energy levels of metal cations and halide anions and secondarily influenced by the cation-anion interaction strength. These results mark a significant step towards understanding the electronic structure of this material class and provides the basis for rational design rules regarding the energetics in perovskite optoelectronics.
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