•The multifractal singularity spectrum was firstly utilized to investigate the heterogeneity of HPMI PSDs for typical sequential TDCs.•The D−10-D0 increases with the increasing deformation ...intensity.•The left branch of the generalized fractal dimension spectrum is an indicator of the tectonic deformation intensity.
Concerning the matrix compression and inter-particle volids, the multifractal characteristics f(α) and Dq were revealed through LPCO2/N2GA (low temperature CO2/N2 adsorption) and HPMI (high-pressure mercury intrusion) for bituminous TDCs (tectonically deformed coals). The CCs (compression coefficients) increase with the increasing tectonic deformation during brittle deformation stages and decrease for the shear- and ductile deformation coals. The singular index (α0) transformations demonstrate that the brittle- and shear deformation can promote the PSD (pore size distribution) irregularity. The lower spectral width (αq−-αq+) for the cataclastic- (0.54–0.58, 0.56 in average), mortar- (0.63–0.64, 0.64 in average), and granulitic coals (0.63–0.64, 0.64 in average) indicates the relatively simple multifractal structures of the PSD. While for the shear- and ductile deformed coals, the multifractal structures are complex with high heterogeneity and significant internal differences within PSD. The left-hand side width (αq−−α0) and D0-D1 (the difference of information dimension to capacity dimension) increase, indicating that the shear- and ductile TDCs have a more clustered distribution in pore volume than brittle TDCs. There exist good positive linear relationships between Dap (adsorption pores’ fractal dimension by Sierpinski model) and left-side width D−10-D0 (R2=0.8741), as well as between Dsp (seepage pores’ fractal dimension by Sierpinski model) and right-side width D0-D10 (R2=0.831), indicating that the variations of multifractal parameters for q>0 are attributed to seepage pores’ heterogeneity and these for q<0 are assigned to adsorption-pores’ heterogeneity. The D−10-D0 increases with the increasing deformation intensity, indicating the most complex shapes of the adsorption pores for the ductile TDCs. The D0-D10 firstly decreases for the brittle- and shear TDCs then increases for the ductile TDCs.
Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS), as a carbon emission reduction technology, is an important way for China to achieve the goal of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”. Therefore, it ...is crucial to explore how to diffuse CCUS technology. Under the guidance of considering the carbon trading mechanism, this paper establishes a tripartite evolutionary game model of thermal power enterprises-government-public, discusses the evolutionary stability of each stakeholder and the dynamic evolution process of the system; then the simulation parameters are determined by the optimal power generation decision-making model based on Gounod's equilibrium; finally, the system dynamics (SD) model based on the evolutionary game is used for the simulation of the system's evolution paths, and the sensitivity analyses of the important parameters are carried out. The conclusions of the study are as follows: (1) Currently, the diffusion of CCUS technology in China is in the development stage, corresponding to the system equilibrium state of {investment, no incentives, no participation}, i.e., investment by thermal power generating enterprises, no incentives from the government, and no participation from the public. (2) The carbon trading market has guidance for the deployment of CCUS technology, and an appropriate reduction of carbon allowances and an increase in the unit price of carbon trading can stimulate the willingness of thermal power enterprises to invest in CCUS technology. (3) The choice of equilibrium strategy for thermal power enterprises is influenced by parameters and other stakeholders' initial strategies. Lower investment costs, higher carton emission reduction efficiency, moderate increases in penalties and subsidies, as well as a higher probability of government incentives and public participation in monitoring will increase the probability of thermal power enterprises investing in CCUS technology, and facilitate the evolution of the developmental stage {Investment, No incentive, No participation} to the ideal stage {Investment, Incentive, Participation}.
Fluid displacement is the fundamental process for subsurface fossil fuels extraction. Water invasion in coal seams is one of the routinely used stimulation approaches for coal seam methane extraction ...in underground coal mines. However, how the invading bulk water interacts with adsorbed/gaseous methane in coal is rarely considered even though it is known that moisture presence in coal decreases methane uptake by occupying adsorption sites. Here we study how the invading water interacts with adsorbed/gaseous methane in molded coal under elevated pressures using a custom-designed instrument; the test procedure mimics the real water invasion process in engineering applications. Experimental results demonstrate that invasion water displaces adsorbed methane in nanopores of coal and thus enhances the free gas content. The displacement mechanism can be attributed to capillary effect and preferential flow in a coating mode. It was found that Philip's sorptivity model can simulate the relationship between displaced methane content and time, and the obtained sorptivity increases with increasing water invasion content and is independent of gas pressure. It was observed that the higher the initial adsorption equilibrium pressure, the larger the displaced methane content, and this can be attributed to the pressure-dependent feature of adsorbed methane density. The higher the invasion water content, the higher the displaced methane content. These experimental results are also applied for optimizing gas drainage borehole arrangement to efficiently drain coal seam gas in underground coal mines. These findings provide a new perspective to understand the interactions between bulk water and methane in coals and pave the way for developing new technologies for methane recovery in coal seams.
•Experiments evidence that bulk water invasion displaces adsorbed methane in coal.•The displace efficiency depends on equilibrium pressure and invasion water content.•The displacement effects can be attributed to capillary effects and preferential flow.•This work provides insights for coal seam gas drainage design using water invasion.
Objective
To evaluate fertility intensions among couples in Shanghai under the novel coronavirus infection (COVID‐19) pandemic against the backdrop of persistently low fertility.
Methods
A ...cross‐sectional study was carried out using data from studies conducted before the COVID‐19 pandemic. Data were collected regarding sociodemographic characteristics, history of reproduction and gynecology, fertility intention before and after the COVID‐19 pandemic, female psychological state, and the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on daily life.
Results
Under the influence of COVID‐19, 296/447 (66.2%) participants did not change their original fertility intention to have children, while 151/447 (33.8%) of participants were affected by the outbreak. Participants who believed in government and hospital control policies were less likely to change their intention to become pregnant (P < 10–3, P < 10–3). In contrast, concerns about the impact of COVID‐19 on female and fetal health led participants to cancel their original pregnancy plans (P < 10−3).
Conclusion
Three in ten couples of childbearing age, who originally expressed their intention of becoming pregnant, canceled their pregnancy plans after the COVID‐19 outbreak. The COVID‐19 outbreak has brought new challenges to people’s physical and mental health. Effective policies and measures can help to improve people’s fertility intentions with respect to having children.
Three in ten couples of childbearing age, who originally indicated their intention of becoming pregnant, changed their mind about becoming pregnant after the COVID‐19 outbreak.
In the context of China’s current “carbon neutrality” constraint, high-quality development of energy enterprises (HQDEE) is a win-win situation for both economic development and carbon reduction, and ...digital transformation may accelerate the achievement of its goals. To test the above hypothesis, this paper uses a two-way fixed effects model to estimate the association between digital transformation and HQDEE, based on a panel dataset of Chinese provinces from 2015–2021 and further explores their heterogeneous influence. In addition, we construct a threshold model to explore the enabling effect of digital transformation on HQDEE. The main results show that: (1) the HQDEE index is still in the “quantitative” stage of year-on-year improvement, while the digital transformation ability (DTA) is distributed in a stepwise incremental effect from west to east. (2) Digital transformation has a positive impact on HQDEE in China; in other words, a 1% increase in the digital transformation ability will boost HQDEE by an average of 0.3266%. And digital transformation can positively contribute to China’s HQDEE through the sub-indicators digital technology foundation, capital investment in digitalization, labor supply to digitalization, and digital transaction management, with digital technology base making the largest contribution. (3) The heterogeneity results show that the impact of digital transformation on HQDEE in China is more significant in the east, followed by the central region and the west region. (4) In terms of the empowerment mechanism, both sides of threshold value (0.7209), DTA has a significant empowering effect on HQDEE in China, and the empowerment effect is stronger when the DTA is higher than the threshold. We also provide policy insights for governments and scholars in related fields for reference.
In this work, we propose a visual tracking algorithm based on structural-appearance information fusion that aims to distinguish the target from distractors, including both semantical and visual ...distractors. It measures the similarity of targets using both appearance information and structural information, with the former extracted from siamese networks and the latter learned from appearance information using a target-cross attention mechanism. The structural and appearance information can be dynamically fused by using a gating recurrent unit, which can control the fusion ratio between them.Additionally, we introduce a similarity matching loss function to explicitly guide feature extraction. Our proposed method can extract discriminative features that facilitate the identification of the target, thus improving tracking performance. Extensive experimental results show that our proposed similarity feature extraction method can improve the tracking performance.
When rats are given daily sessions of access to activity wheels, the amount that they run can increase over sessions. In addition to the suggestion that this could indicate the development of an ...addiction, there are alternative explanations. The present study tested whether running at a fixed time of day (ToD) might allow stronger entrainment of circadian rhythms than running at varied ToDs. In two experiments, Fixed groups of male rats were given 90-min wheel sessions at a fixed ToD during their dark period, while such sessions for Varied groups were given at times that varied over days between early in or in the middle of the dark period. In addition, each experiment also contained inactive controls in order to assess running-induced changes in body weight. Daily wheel sessions were given for 12 days in Experiment
1
and for 18 days in Experiment
2
to younger rats. In Experiment
1
the Fixed groups ran more each day, whereas little increase was found in the Varied groups. In Experiment
2
this difference was found only for rats in the Fixed condition whose sessions were held in the middle of the dark period. Independent of condition, rats ran more in the middle than early in the dark period. As previously reported, the rats given wheel access consumed less food and gained less weight than inactive rats. In conclusion, the results provided support for the proposal that wheel sessions at a fixed ToD entrain circadian rhythms and thus facilitate increases in running.
Background
Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) is considered to be a powerful instrument for the diagnosis of intestine diseases. Convolution neural network (CNN) is a type of artificial intelligence ...that has the potential to assist the detection of WCE images. We aimed to perform a systematic review of the current research progress to the CNN application in WCE.
Methods
A search in PubMed, SinoMed, and Web of Science was conducted to collect all original publications about CNN implementation in WCE. Assessment of the risk of bias was performed by Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 risk list. Pooled sensitivity and specificity were calculated by an exact binominal rendition of the bivariate mixed-effects regression model.
I
2
was used for the evaluation of heterogeneity.
Results
16 articles with 23 independent studies were included. CNN application to WCE was divided into detection on erosion/ulcer, gastrointestinal bleeding (GI bleeding), and polyps/cancer. The pooled sensitivity of CNN for erosion/ulcer is 0.96 95% CI 0.91, 0.98, for GI bleeding is 0.97 (95% CI 0.93–0.99), and for polyps/cancer is 0.97 (95% CI 0.82–0.99). The corresponding specificity of CNN for erosion/ulcer is 0.97 (95% CI 0.93–0.99), for GI bleeding is 1.00 (95% CI 0.99–1.00), and for polyps/cancer is 0.98 (95% CI 0.92–0.99).
Conclusion
Based on our meta-analysis, CNN-dependent diagnosis of erosion/ulcer, GI bleeding, and polyps/cancer approached a high-level performance because of its high sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, future perspective, CNN has the potential to become an important assistant for the diagnosis of WCE.
High-quality geological remote sensing interpretation (GRSI) products play a vital role in a wide range of fields, including the military, meteorology, agriculture, the environment, mapping, etc. Due ...to the importance of GRSI products, this research aimed to improve their accuracy. Although deep-learning (DL)-based GRSI has reduced dependence on manual interpretation, the limited accuracy of multiple geological element interpretation still poses a challenge. This issue can be attributed to small inter-class differences, the uneven distribution of geological elements, sensor limitations, and the complexity of the environment. Therefore, this paper proposes a point–surface data optimal fusion method (PSDOF) to improve the accuracy of GRSI products based on optimal transport (OT) theory. PSDOF combines geological survey data (which has spatial location and geological element information called point data) with a geological remote sensing DL interpretation product (which has limited accuracy and is called surface data) to improve the quality of the resulting output. The method performs several steps to enhance accuracy. First, it calculates the gray-scale correlation feature information for the pixels adjacent to the geological survey points. Next, it determines the distribution of the feature information for geological elements in the vicinity of the point data. Finally, it incorporates complementary information from the survey points into the geological elements’ interpretation boundary, as well as calculates the optimal energy loss for point–surface fusion, thus resulting in an optimal boundary. The experiments conducted in this study demonstrated the superiority of the proposed model in addressing the problem of the limited accuracy of GRSI products.
As a fatal disease, the mechanism of pancreatic cancer is unclear. Urothelial carcinoma antigen 1(UCA1), a long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) that was first reported in bladder cancer, acts as an oncogene. ...However, the regulatory role and mechanism of UCA1 in pancreatic cancer remain unknown. This study aims to investigate the expression level and prognostic value of UCA1 in pancreatic cancer tissues, the effects and mechanism of UCA1 in regulating cell proliferation, apoptosis and metastasis.
UCA1 expression levels in tissues were detected by in situ hybridization (ISH) and the prognostic value was evaluated by univariate and multivariate survival analysis. For
experiments, proliferation was evaluated by a cell count kit assay, Edu experiments, and a clone formation assay. Apoptosis was evaluated by fluorescence-activated cell sorting flow-cytometry. Cell migration and invasion capacities were detected by wound healing and transwell assays. Western blots were performed to detect apoptotic associated molecules and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers. For the
experiment, subcutaneous transplantation models of pancreatic cancer in nude mice were established to observe the tumor growth. The regulatory mechanism of UCA1 was explored by proteomics, bioinformatic analysis, luciferase reporter assays, and rescue experiments.
ISH staining revealed that UCA1 levels between cancer tissues (n=94) and tumor-adjacent tissues (n=73) did not show significant differences. Survival analysis indicated that high expression of UCA1 was an unfavorable prognosis factor for pancreatic cancer. Downregulation of UCA1 by siRNA significantly inhibited cell proliferation, decreased the capacities of cell migration and invasion, induced cell apoptosis, and inhibited EMT. Furthermore, we demonstrated that UCA1 positively regulated the expression of BRCC3 by inhibiting miR-582-5p. Rescue experiments indicated that either inhibiting the expression of miR-582-5p or enhancing expression of BRCC3 could partly attenuate the antitumor effects of downregulation of UCA1.
UCA1 acted as an oncogene in pancreatic cancer by partly regulating miR-582-5p/BRCC3, which could be a new therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer.
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