State-of-charge (SOC) estimation is one of the most challengeable tasks for battery management system (BMS) in electric vehicles. Since the external factors (voltage, current, temperature, ...arrangement of the batteries, etc.) are complicated, the formula of SOC is difficult to deduce and the existent SOC estimation methods are not generally suitable for the same vehicle running in different road conditions. In this paper, we propose a new SOC estimation based on an optimized support vector machine for regression (SVR) with double search optimization process. Our developed method is tested by simulation experiments in the ADVISOR, with a comparison of the estimations based on artificial neural network (ANN). It is demonstrated that our method is simpler and more accurate than that based on ANN to deal with the SOC estimation task.
Summary
Deficiency of CARD9 (caspase recruitment domain‐containing protein 9) has been reported in individuals with recurrent and invasive fungal infections. We report on a patient who first had ...Trichosporon asahii affecting the skin then Candida albicans infections involving the digestive tract and knee joint, along with elevated serum IgE. After stimulation with C. albicans, peripheral blood mononuclear cells of this patient produced less tumour necrosis factor‐α, interferon‐γ and interleukin‐17 than those of healthy controls. Furthermore, the serum IgE levels of this patient were positively correlated with the severity of fungal infection during the course of treatment. Sanger sequencing identified one homozygous frameshift mutation (p.D274fsX60) in CARD9. We further performed a review including 48 cases with CARD9 deficiency. According to the data published previously, CARD9‐deficient patients demonstrated obviously elevated IgE in serum (median 1300 IU mL−1), which could distinguish them from otherwise healthy people with fungal infections (area under the curve 0·94, P < 0·001). Patients carrying the mutations Q289X and Q295X had a higher mortality rate (24% vs. 0%, P < 0·05). Patients with the mutations R18W, R35Q, R70W, G72S or Y91H in the CARD domain, and the nonsense mutation Q295X in the coiled‐coil domain, seemed to be more prone to Candida infections (90% vs. 20%, P < 0·005) and central nervous system infections (60% vs. 12%, P < 0·005).
What's already known about this topic?
CARD9 deficiency is a rare autosomal recessive genetic defect in T helper 17 immunity, resulting in susceptibility to recurrent and invasive fungal infections.
Patients with genetic defects in T helper 17 immunity are prone to hyper‐IgE syndrome.
What does this study add?
We report a patient with CARD9 p.D274fsX60 mutation manifested as multiple organs infections by Trichosporon asahii and Candida albicans.
This study enriches the phenotypic spectrum of CARD9 deficiency.
IgE level seems to be a possible clue for diagnosis or therapeutic effect of fungal infection in CARD9‐deficient patients.
Development of efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts has a direct impact on the water splitting efficiency and cost effectiveness. In this work, we report the successful ...synthesis of a new Ni(OH)
2
structure, strain-stabilized Ni(OH)
2
nanoribbons (NR-Ni(OH)
2
) two to three layers thick, with widths of 2-5 nm,
via
an electro-oxidation route. Conventional Ni(OH)
2
usually has negligible OER activity, while NR-Ni(OH)
2
shows high activity for the oxygen evolution reaction and an overpotential of 162 millivolts and furthermore exhibits long-term stability in alkaline electrolyte. The substantial reduction in the overpotential of NR-Ni(OH)
2
is due to its easier OOH* adsorption by the active four-coordinated Ni edge sites. The enhanced catalytic activity of NR-Ni(OH)
2
makes it an excellent candidate for industrial applications.
Development of efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts has a direct impact on the water splitting efficiency and cost effectiveness.
Due to the limitation in the prediction of the foundation pit settlement, this paper proposed a new methodology which takes advantage of the grey Verhulst model and a genetic algorithm. In the ...previous study, excavation times are often the only factor to predict the settlement, which is mainly because the correspondence between real-time excavation depth and the excavation time is hard to determine. To solve this issue, the supporting times are precisely recorded and the excavation depth rate can be obtained through the excavation time length and excavation depth between two adjacent supports. After the correspondence between real-time excavation depth and the excavation time is obtained, the internal friction angle, cohesion, bulk density, Poisson’s ratio, void ratio, water level changes, permeability coefficient, number of supports, and excavation depth, which can influence the settlement, are taken to be considered in this study. For the application of the methodology, the settlement monitoring point of D4, which is near the bridge pier of the highway, is studied in this paper. The predicted values of the BP neural network, GA-BP neural network, BP neural network optimized by the grey Verhulst model, and GA-BP neural network optimized by the grey Verhulst model are detailed compared with the measured values. And the evaluation indexes of RMSE, MAE, MSE, MAPE, and R2 are calculated for these models. The results show that the grey Verhulst model can greatly improve the consistency between predicted values and measured values, while the accuracy and resolution is still low. The genetic algorithm (GA) can greatly improve the accuracy of the predicted values, while the GA-BP neural network shows low reflection to the fluctuation of measured values. The GA-BP neural network optimized by the grey Verhulst model, which has taken the advantages of GA and the grey Verhulst model, has extremely high accuracy and well consistency with the measured values.
Talaromyces marneffei
(
T. marneffei
) can cause talaromycosis, a fatal systemic mycosis, in patients with AIDS. With the increasing number of talaromycosis cases in Guangdong, China, we aimed to ...investigate the susceptibility of 189
T. marneffei
clinical strains to eight antifungal agents, including three echinocandins (anidulafungin, micafungin, and caspofungin), four azoles (posaconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole, and fluconazole), and amphotericin B, with determining minimal inhibition concentrations (MIC) by Sensititre YeastOne™ YO10 assay in the yeast phase. The MICs of anidulafungin, micafungin, caspofungin, posaconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole, fluconazole, and amphotericin B were 2 to > 8 μg/ml, >8 μg/ml, 2 to > 8 μg/ml, ≤ 0.008 to 0.06 μg/ml, ≤ 0.015 to 0.03 μg/ml, ≤ 0.008 to 0.06 μg/ml, 1 to 32 μg/ml, and ≤ 0.12 to 1 μg/ml, respectively. The MICs of all echinocandins were very high, while the MICs of posaconazole, itraconazole, and voriconazole, as well as amphotericin B were comparatively low. Notably, fluconazole was found to have a higher MIC than other azoles, and exhibited particularly weak activity against some isolates with MICs over 8 μg/ml. Our data in vitro support the use of amphotericin B, itraconazole, voriconazole, and posaconazole in management of talaromycosis and suggest potential resistance to fluconazole.
OBJECTIVE: To develop a brief, reliable screening questionnaire for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for use in primary care settings.METHODS: We developed a COPD Screening Questionnaire ...(COPD-SQ) using data collected from 19 800 subjects aged ≥40 years obtained
from an epidemiological study of COPD in China in 2002 (Phase I). A stepwise logistic regression method was adopted for item reduction and scoring. We then assessed the COPD-SQ through a cross-sectional study (Phase II) among 3231 subjects aged ≥40 years.RESULTS: The final COPD-SQ consisted
of seven items: age, smoking pack-years, body mass index, cough, dyspnoea, family history of respiratory diseases and exposure to biomass smoke from cooking. Using the questionnaire to screen for COPD in Phase II, we obtained high classification accuracy with an area under the curve of 0.812
(95%CI 0.786-0.838). The sensitivity, specificity and correct classification rates for COPD diagnosis were respectively 60.6%, 85.2% and 82.7% at a cut-off score of 16.CONCLUSIONS: The COPD-SQ can be used in first-level screening for COPD.
Early life stress (ELS) is a significant risk factor for depression. The effects of ELS exposure on neural network organization have not been differentiated from the effect of depression. ...Furthermore, many individuals exposed to ELS do not develop depression, yet the network organization patterns differentiating resiliency versus susceptibility to the depressogenic effects of ELS are not clear.
Women aged 18-44 years with either a history of ELS and no history of depression (n = 7), a history of ELS and current or past depression (n = 19), or a history of neither ELS nor depression (n = 12) underwent a resting-state 3-T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. An emotion regulation brain network consisting of 21 nodes was described using graph analyses and compared between groups.
Group differences in network topology involved decreased global connectivity and hub-like properties for the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and decreased local network connectivity for the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) among resilient individuals. Decreased local connectivity and increased hub-like properties of the left amygdala, decreased hub-like properties of the dACC and decreased local connectivity of the left vlPFC were observed among susceptible individuals. Regression analyses suggested that the severity of ELS (measured by self-report) correlated negatively with global connectivity and hub-like qualities for the left dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC).
These preliminary results suggest functional neural connectivity patterns specific to ELS exposure and resiliency versus susceptibility to the depressogenic effects of ELS exposure.
The allures of city life have culminated in the rise of urban populations resulting in conditions that promote the establishment of certain insect pests. Globally, the public health significance of ...these urban insect pests is enormous, ranging from billions of dollars to loss of lives. Most chemical insecticides no longer provide the anticipated level of control, and significant insecticide resistance has been reported.Therefore, there has been a spike in interest for alternatives to conventional insecticides. Among them, natural products from plants such as essential oils (EOs) and essential oil components (EOCs) have enjoyed the most attention owing to widespread reports of efficacy and toxicity even against insecticide-resistant urban insects. Yet, there is no comprehensive synthesis on the extent and impact of the management of urban insects using EOs or EOCs. Such a review is highly relevant since it provides a means to assess the extent of progress made, shortfalls, limitations, and prospects. More so, we hope it can be used to make informed decisions and develop relevant policies reliably. We present the ranges of insecticidal effects of EOs, EOCs, and commercially available EO-based products from laboratory and field studies. Finally, we discuss the gaps in our knowledge and prospects for the sustainable use of EOs.
The commercial conductive carbon black (CCB) with large surface area and good electrical conductivity after activation treatment is employed as conductive matrix to support sulfur for the cathode of ...lithium/sulfur battery. The S/activated CCB composites with 64 and 73 wt% sulfur are prepared by a simple heat treatment method. The microstructure and morphology of the as-prepared S/activated CCB composites are characterized by thermogravimetry (TG), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It is demonstrated that sulfur can be loaded into the pores of the host activated CCB matrix in highly dispersed state, when sulfur loading is limited to 64 wt%. While the loaded sulfur increases to 73 wt%, some crystalline sulfur nanoparticles of less than 2 nm can be observed near the pores of the host activated CCB matrix. As expected, the S/activated CCB composite with 64 wt % sulfur presents the optimized electrochemical performance, including the utilization of active sulfur, discharge capacity and cycle stability. Apparently, in order to improve the electrochemical performance of the S/activated CCB composite, the activation treatment of the commercial CCB is essential for increasing the sulfur loading.
•The commercial CCB is activated with KOH as matrix to load sulfur as cathode for Li/S battery.•After activation treatment, the surface area and pore volume of the CCB are increased.•The S/A-CCB composite with 64 wt% S presents the optimized electrochemical performance.
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