•This paper estimates water use efficiency of 31 provinces in China.•Water use efficiency is higher in economically developed provinces.•This paper analyzes factors affecting water use efficiency.
...This paper estimates water use efficiency of 31 provinces in China during 2004–2013 using slack based measure-data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model which takes consideration of sewage. By using panel data model, factors that influence water use efficiency are explored. The results show that: (1) water use efficiency is higher in economically developed provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. (2) In general, inefficiencies of labor input and water input are larger than that of capital input. (3) After taking into account sewage as unexpected output, inefficiency of gross domestic product (GDP) for each province is quite low, but most provinces have inefficient sewage emission. (4) It is found in the analysis of influencing factors that the ratio of added value of agricultural sector, water usage per capita and sewage per unit of output have negative impact on water resources use efficiency, while the import dependence and export dependence have positive impact. The results are robust.
AbstractRussia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 is not an accident but an inevitable consequence of how the West, especially the US, has utilised NATO in the post-Cold War period. This encompasses the ...activities which the US has supported NATO to pursue in the last 30 years: transformation, expansion, and participation in “out of area” actions. However, the US has never found it easy to help NATO remain the leading security organisation in Europe, not only because of threats posed by outside actors like Russia but also the mounting internal challenges, especially the long-standing issue of a “two-tiered” alliance. Washington has already shown reluctance to utilise NATO in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine to varying degrees. This paper seeks to understand why the US has remained committed to NATO and how the future US-NATO relationship will likely fare, including whether the Ukraine crisis can inject new life into the Alliance. It is believed that in the current context of uncertainty posed by NATO’s “Smart Defence” and the US “Pivot to Asia”, it seems highly likely that unless something changes, NATO will end up just doing less with less.
In this work, the tensile behavior and microhardness of 316L stainless steel fabricated by selective laser melting under different process parameters were investigated. The ultimate tensile strength ...decreased slightly with increasing energy input, while the opposite tendency was observed for the elongation to failure. Microstructure characterizations were performed to relate the pore morphology, melting pool geometry, solidification cell structure, and grain sizes to the mechanical performance of as-built samples. Fine grains with high fraction of low-angle grain boundaries and fine cellular structures with nano-inclusions are observed in the sample fabricated with a high scanning speed (1000 mm/s). As a result, the sample shows high ultimate tensile strength of up to 707 MPa, while maintaining a total elongation of 30%. The sample fabricated with a low scanning speed (800 mm/s) shows high ductility with total elongation to failure of 55%. The improved ductility is mainly attributed to the elimination of residual pores and melting pool boundaries, which result in brittle features in the as-built samples. The results indicate that selective laser melting may act as a physical metallurgy method to modify the microstructure, and thus improve the mechanical performance of metallic materials.
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•The scanning speed altered melting pool boundaries, residual pores, solidification cells, nano-inclusions and grain sizes.•High ultimate tensile strength was attributed to fine cellular structures and fine grains with low-angle grain boundaries.•Low scanning speed resulted in an enhanced ductility due to the minimization of residual defects and melting pool boundaries.
Establish a new classification system of distal radius fracture based on computed tomographic (CT), and evaluate its reliability and reproducibility preliminarily, and provide a new theoretical ...reference for clinicians to use the clinical classification system. The imaging data and clinical data of 204 inpatients with distal radius fracture during 6 years from January 1, 2014 to January 1, 2019 in orthopaedic department were analyzed retrospectively and classified based on CT. Three observers evaluated the image data of 48 randomly selected cases based on CT at different time nodes of T1 and T2. Cohen's kappa was used to calculate the consistency. At the last follow-up, patients' Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH), Patient Rated Wrist Evaluation (PRWE), and VAS scores were collected. Among 204 cases, there were 12 cases of type 1, including 6 cases of type 1-D, 4 cases of type 1-V and 2 cases of type 1-R. There were 6 cases of type 2, including 2 cases of type 2-DV, 2 cases of type 2-DR and 2 cases of type 2-VR. There were 186 cases of type 3, including 32 cases of type 3-0, 127 cases of type 3-1 and 27 cases of type 3-2. There was no significant difference in DASH, PRWE and VAS scores among all types (P > 0.05). The results of interobserver reproducibility were kappa = 0.985, ICC = 0.984 in the first evaluation, kappa = 0.986, ICC = 0.986 in the second evaluation. The results of intraobserver reproducibility were O1 = 0.991, O2 = 0.991, O3 = 0.989 respectively. The new classification system of distal radius fracture based on CT has theoretical and practical significance for incision selection, fracture reduction and internal fixation. 123 classification system is clear, comprehensive, easy to understand and remember. Moreover, it has higher interobserver reliability and intraobserver reproducibility than other systems reported at present.
The formation of pre-metastatic niche is a key step in the metastatic burden. The pluripotent factor Lin28B is frequently expressed in breast tumors and is particularly upregulated in the triple ...negative breast cancer subtype. Here, we demonstrate that Lin28B promotes lung metastasis of breast cancer by building an immune-suppressive pre-metastatic niche. Lin28B enables neutrophil recruitment and N2 conversion. The N2 neutrophils are then essential for immune suppression in pre-metastatic lung by PD-L2 up-regulation and a dysregulated cytokine milieu. We also identify that breast cancer-released exosomes with low let-7s are a prerequisite for Lin28B-induced immune suppression. Moreover, Lin28B-induced breast cancer stem cells are the main sources of low-let-7s exosomes. Clinical data further verify that high Lin28B and low let-7s in tumors are both indicators for poor prognosis and lung metastasis in breast cancer patients. Together, these data reveal a mechanism by which Lin28B directs the formation of an immune-suppressive pre-metastatic niche.
Although certain success has been achieved in atherosclerosis treatment, tremendous challenges remain in developing more efficient strategies to treat atherosclerosis. Platelets have inherent ...affinity to plaques and naturally home to atherosclerotic sites. Rapamycin features potent anti-atherosclerosis effect, but its clinical utility is limited by its low concentration at the atherosclerotic site and severe systemic toxicity. In the present study, we used platelet membrane-coated nanoparticles (PNP) as a targeted drug delivery platform to treat atherosclerosis through mimicking platelets' inherent targeting to plaques. PNP displayed 4.98-fold greater radiant efficiency than control nanoparticles in atherosclerotic arterial trees, indicating its effective homing to atherosclerotic plaques in vivo. In an atherosclerosis model established in apolipoprotein E-deficient mice, PNP encapsulating rapamycin significantly attenuated the progression of atherosclerosis and stabilized atherosclerotic plaques. These results demonstrated the perfect efficacy and pro-resolving potential of PNP as a targeted drug delivery platform for atherosclerosis treatment.
Platelet membranes were coated onto the surface of PLGA cores to mimic platelet inherent affinity to atherosclerotic plaques. TEM showed most PNP were well coated with platelet membranes. PNP could effectively target atherosclerotic plaques, delayed the progression of atherosclerosis and stabilized atherosclerotic plaques when encapsulating RAP, representing a promising platform for the treatment of atherosclerosis. Display omitted
•High thermal conductivity and high energy density compatible latent heat thermal energy storage are achieved via porous AlN ceramics-based phase change composites.•The thermal conductivity of ...composites is as high as 52.63 W/m-K enabled by continuous thermal transport channels of densified AlN skeletons.•The average solar absorptance of composites is enhanced from 70% to 90% after decorating plasmonic TiN nanoparticles on AlN surfaces.
Ceramics embedded phase change materials (PCMs) composites are promising candidates for high-temperature thermal energy storage due to good chemical stability and high thermal shock resistance. However, the energy storage rate is severely restricted by the low thermal conductivity of composites. Here, we successfully achieve high thermal conductivity and high energy density compatible thermal energy storage based on porous AlN-eutectic NaCl/LiNO3 composites. Designed composites possess a high thermal conductivity ranging from 31.8 to 52.63 W/m-K benefiting from continuous thermal transport channels of densified AlN skeletons. Meanwhile, the phase change enthalpy reaches 140 to 186 kJ/kg since about up to 92% of pores are filled with PCMs. Further decorating AlN skeletons with TiN nanoparticles can significantly increase the solar absorptance from 70% to 90%, enabling proposed composites to be applicable for direct solar thermal energy storage as well. This work provides new routes to achieve high thermal conductivity and energy density compatible thermal energy storage via porous AlN ceramics-based phase change composites.
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Deep learning is robust to the perturbation of a point cloud, which is an important data form in the Internet of Things. However, it cannot effectively capture the local information of the point ...cloud and recognize the fine-grained features of an object. Different levels of features in the deep learning network are integrated to obtain local information, but this strategy increases network complexity. This paper proposes an effective point cloud encoding method that facilitates the deep learning network to utilize the local information. An axis-aligned cube is used to search for a local region that represents the local information. All of the points in the local region are available to construct the feature representation of each point. These feature representations are then input to a deep learning network. Two well-known datasets, ModelNet40 shape classification benchmark and Stanford 3D Indoor Semantics Dataset, are used to test the performance of the proposed method. Compared with other methods with complicated structures, the proposed method with only a simple deep learning network, can achieve a higher accuracy in 3D object classification and semantic segmentation.
Willd (HDW) is one of the most well-known herbs used in the treatment of prostate cancer. However, the potential mechanisms of its anti-tumor effects have not been fully explored. Here, we applied a ...network pharmacology approach to explore the potential mechanisms of HDW against prostate cancer (PCa). We obtained 14 active compounds from HDW and 295 potential PCa related targets in total to construct a network, which indicated that quercetin and ursolic acid served as the main ingredients in HDW. Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase 8 (MAPK8), Interleukin 6 (IL6), Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A (VEGFA), Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3), Jun Proto-Oncogene (JUN), C-X-C Motif Chemokine Ligand 8 (CXCL8), Interleukin-1 Beta (IL1B), Matrix Metalloproteinase-9 (MMP9), C-C Motif Chemokine Ligand 2 (CCL2), RELA Proto-Oncogene (RELA), and CAMP Responsive Element Binding Protein 1 (CREB1) were identified as key targets of HDW in the treatment of PCa. The protein-protein interaction (PPI) cluster demonstrated that CREB1 was the seed in this cluster, indicating that CREB1 plays an important role in connecting other nodes in the PPI network. This enrichment demonstrated that HDW was highly related to translesion synthesis, unfolded protein binding, regulation of mitotic recombination, phosphatidylinositol and its kinase-mediated signaling, nucleotide excision repair, regulation of DNA recombination, and DNA topological change. The enrichment results also showed that the underlying mechanism of HDW against PCa may be due to its coordinated regulation of several cancer-related pathways, such as angiogenesis, cell differentiation, migration, apoptosis, invasion, and proliferation.
The large-scale rural land acquisition projects for non-agricultural purposes has cast a long shadow on rural households' livelihoods in China. In this paper, by applying Sustainable Livelihood ...Framework and vulnerability approach, and based on our longitudinal study (2008–2017) on a land acquisition case in S village, Jining city, Shandong province, we discuss the dynamism of households' livelihood changes before land acquisition and in decade after land acquisition. It is found that households' different vulnerabilities and livelihood restorations in decade after land acquisition, are the results of their different capabilities of building various livelihood capitals. Another evident finding is that land acquisition as it is increasingly practiced with China's rapid urbanisation process has triggered risks to most rural households' livelihoods. The implications of the research indicate the necessity of local governments to guarantee for sustaining rural households' livelihoods after land acquisition.
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