By means of first-principles calculation, we explore the vacancy mechanism of titanium sesquioxide (Ti2O3) and further investigate the influence of vacancy on the electronic properties of Ti2O3. Two ...vacancy models are considered. We find that Ti2O3 prefers to form oxygen vacancy (O-va) in comparison to Ti vacancy (Ti-va) because the removed oxygen atom improves the localized hybridization between Ti and O. The low concentration of vacancies is more thermodynamic stability than that of high concentration of vacancies. In comparison to titanium dioxide (TiO2), Ti2O3 exhibits the metallic behavior due to the band overlap between the conduction band and the valence band. Importantly, we find that those vacancies enhance the electronic transport of Ti2O3 because the removed atom promotes the band overlaps at the Fermi level (EF).
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•Vacancy mechanism of Titanium Sesquioxide is studied by first-principles calculations.•Ti2O3 exhibits the semiconductor-to-metal transition compared to the TiO2.•Ti2O3 prefers to form the O vacancy due to the strong localized hybridization between Ti and O.•Those vacancies enhance the electronic transport of Ti2O3.
A novel nano‐packing material with lower relative humidity, oxygen transmission rate and high longitudinal strength was synthesized by blending polyethylene with nano‐powder (nano‐Ag, kaolin, anatase ...TiO2, rutile TiO2), and its effect on preservation quality of strawberry fruits (Fragaria ananassa Duch. cv Fengxiang) was investigated during storage at 4 °C. Results showed that nano‐packaging was able to maintain the sensory, physicochemical, and physiological quality of strawberry fruits at a higher level compared with the normal packing (polyethylene bags). After a 12‐d storage, decreases in the contents of total soluble solids, titratable acidity, and ascorbic acid of nano‐packing were significantly inhibited. Meanwhile, decay rate, anthocyanin, and malondialdehyde contents were decreased to 16.7%, 26.3 mg/100g, 66.3 μmol/g for nano‐packing and 26.8%, 31.9 mg/100g, 75.4 μmol/g for normal packing; polyphenoloxidase (PPO) and pyrogallol peroxidase (POD) activities were significantly lower in nano‐packing than the control. These data indicated that the nano‐packaging might provide an attractive alternative to improve preservation quality of the strawberry fruits during extended storage.
Practical Application: Nano‐packing exhibited identified quality benefits applicable to the preservation of fresh strawberry. Furthermore, nano‐packing has the advantages of simple processing and feasibility to be industrialized in contrast with other storages. Thus, the utilization of nano‐packing will likely assist commercial producers and retailers in extending the shelf life of products over a broader range in the future.
The Krüppel-like factor 5 (KLF5) is a zinc-finger transcription factor promoting cell proliferation, cell-cycle progression and survival. A high expression level of KLF5 mRNA has been shown to be ...associated with shorter breast cancer patient survival. However, the mechanism of KLF5 action in breast cancer is still not clear. In this study, we found that both KLF5 and its downstream gene fibroblast growth factor binding protein 1 (FGF-BP) are co-expressed in breast cell lines and primary tumors. Manipulation of the KLF5 expression can positively regulate the FGF-BP mRNA and protein levels in multiple breast cell lines. In addition, the secreted FGF-BP protein in the conditional medium is also regulated by KLF5. Furthermore, we demonstrated that KLF5 binds and activates the FGF-BP promoter through a GC box by luciferase reporter, oligo pull down and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays. When FGF-BP is depleted by siRNA, KLF5 fails to promote cell proliferation in MCF10A, SW527 and TSU-Pr1. We further demonstrated that overexpression or addition of FGF-BP rescues the KLF5-knockdown-induced growth arrest in MCF10A cells. Finally, KLF5 significantly promotes MCF7 breast cancer cell xenograft growth in athymic nude mice. These findings suggest that KLF5 may promote breast cancer cell proliferation at least partially through directly activating the FGF-BP mRNA transcription. Understanding the mechanism of KLF5 action in breast cancer may result in useful diagnostic and therapeutic targets.
Semiconductor compounds are widely used for photocatalytic hydrogen production applications, where photogenerated electron-hole pairs are exploited to induce catalysis. Recently, powders of a ...metallic oxide (Sr
NbO
, 0.03<x<0.20) were reported to show competitive photocatalytic efficiencies under visible light, which was attributed to interband absorption. This discovery expanded the range of materials available for optimized performance as photocatalysts. Here we study epitaxial thin films of SrNbO
and find that their bandgaps are ∼4.1 eV. Surprisingly, the carrier density of the conducting phase exceeds 10
cm
and the carrier mobility is only 2.47 cm
V
s
. Contrary to earlier reports, the visible light absorption at 1.8 eV (∼688 nm) is due to the plasmon resonance, arising from the large carrier density. We propose that the hot electron and hole carriers excited via Landau damping (during the plasmon decay) are responsible for the photocatalytic property of this material under visible light irradiation.
•The antioxidation mechanism of RuAl film is studied by first-principles calculation.•The influence of alloying elements on the oxidation resistance of RuAl (1 1 1) surface is studied.•Cr element ...improves the oxidation resistance of RuAl(1 1 1) surface.•Oxygen prefers to occupy the Ru-bridge site in comparison to other sites.•The calculated bond strength of Cr-O bond is stronger than that of Al-O bond.
We apply the first-principles calculations to investigate the influence of Cr and Y on the oxidation resistance of RuAl(1 1 0) surface. Four possible oxygen adsorption sites: Al-top, Ru-top, Ru-bridge and Al-bridge are considered. It is found that the capacity of oxidation resistance of Ru is stronger than that of Al. Oxygen atom is adsorbed on the Ru-bridge site because of the strong charge interaction between Ru and the O. Importantly, the calculated adsorption energy of Cr-doped RuAl(1 1 0) surface is −0.350 eV, which is smaller than that of Ru-bridge site. The calculated result indicates that Cr-dopant can improve the oxidation resistance of RuAl(1 1 0) surface. The reason is that Cr-dopant improves the localized hybridization between Cr atom and the O atom, and weakens the charge interaction of Ru-O atoms and Al-O atoms. Therefore, we predict that Cr is a beneficial element to improve the oxidation resistance of RuAl thermal barrier coating.
The coordinated operation of an integrated electricity and heating system (IEHS) can improve overall energy efficiency and provide additional flexibility. However, the inherent uncertainties ...pertaining to pipeline parameters and ambient temperature in a district heating network (DHN) have not been addressed in the literature, although such uncertainties could affect the quality or even security of IEHS operation. To address this issue, we propose a two-stage robust IEHS scheduling model that considers the uncertainties of the heat load, ambient temperature and heat dissipation coefficients of heating pipelines. The proposed model embedded with bilinear terms is equivalently transformed via the big-M method into an adaptive linear robust optimization problem that can be solved by the column-and-constraint generation (C&CG) algorithm. Case studies are conducted for two test systems. The simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively handle the uncertainties in DHN and improve the robustness of the IEHS.
Although neural networks have achieved great success in various fields, applications on mobile devices are limited by the computational and storage costs required for large models. The model ...compression (neural network pruning) technology can significantly reduce network parameters and improve computational efficiency. In this article, we propose a differentiable network channel pruning (DNCP) method for model compression. Unlike existing methods that require sampling and evaluation of a large number of substructures, our method can efficiently search for optimal substructure that meets resource constraints (e.g., FLOPs) through gradient descent. Specifically, we assign a learnable probability to each possible number of channels in each layer of the network, relax the selection of a particular number of channels to a softmax over all possible numbers of channels, and optimize the learnable probability in an end-to-end manner through gradient descent. After the network parameters are optimized, we prune the network according to the learnable probability to obtain the optimal substructure. To demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of DNCP, experiments are conducted with ResNet and MobileNet V2 on CIFAR, Tiny ImageNet, and ImageNet datasets.
Dapsone is an important medication for the treatment of leprosy, but a life-threatening drug hypersensitivity syndrome develops in some patients. In this report from China, an
HLA-B
locus is ...identified as a strong genetic risk factor for the syndrome.
Dapsone (4-4′-sulfonyldianiline), which was first synthesized in 1908,
1
is both an antibiotic and an antiinflammatory agent. Dapsone alone or in combination with other drugs has been used for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases (e.g., leprosy, malaria, and actinomycetoma, as well as
Pneumocystis jirovecii
pneumonia in persons with human immunodeficiency virus HIV infection) and chronic inflammatory diseases characterized by the infiltration of neutrophils or eosinophils (e.g., dermatitis herpetiformis, linear IgA dermatosis, subcorneal pustular dermatosis, and erythema elevatum diutinum).
2
,
3
About 0.5 to 3.6% of persons treated with dapsone have a drug hypersensitivity syndrome,
3
–
5
which was first described by . . .
Microwave treatment has been considered as a promising rock breakage method. The weakening mechanism of vaporizing expansion of pore water in sandstone under microwave irradiation was studied in this ...paper. The effect of water in the heating process was studied by comparing the heating characteristics of dry and saturated sandstones, which was further explained by the mercury intrusion porosimetry tests. Moreover, the influencing factors including rock strength, permeability, saturation degree and microwave power on rock bursting were investigated by comparing the bursting time of water-bearing sandstone samples under microwave irradiation. The results show that water plays a more important role in the heating process of sandstones with higher porosity and lower microwave sensitivity. The heating curves of saturated sandstones can be divided into 3 stages according to the heating rate, which is related to the interaction of water heating and steam escape during microwave irradiation. In addition, it is found that the favorable conditions of water-bearing sandstone bursting under microwave irradiation are low rock strength, low permeability, high saturation degree and high microwave power. This law can be explained by the interaction of rock properties and the generation, increase, diffusion, and escape of steam in rock.
•The effect of pore water in the heating process of sandstone is analyzed.•The heating curves of saturated sandstones can be divided into 3 stages.•The weakening mechanism of vaporizing expansion is studied.•The favorable conditions of water-bearing sandstone bursting are derived.
The wire-driven flexible robot with multiple bending sections is an efficient approach for the minimally invasive surgery and diagnosis. It can function properly in the complicated and restrained ...environment. One drawback of this technology is that the real-time positional and shape information cannot be well estimated. In order to settle this limitation, we proposed a novel shape estimation method for a wire-driven flexible robot with multiple bending sections in this paper. Each bending section can be controlled independently to deform as an arc with different curvatures. This method is based on the positional and the directional information of limited specific joints on the robot, which can be estimated with an effective positioning method, such as electromagnetic tracking method. The number and the position of these specific joints are only determined by the number of sections. Based on the positional and the directional information, as well as the curve length information, the shape reconstruction algorithm can be carried out by fitting multiple quadratic Bézier curves. Real-time shape sensing platform is built to verify the proposed method. Experimental results show that the method works well and the mean position error is 1.7 mm.
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