In this paper, we study the existence of a nontrivial solution to the following nonlinear elliptic boundary value problem of
p
-Laplacian type:
(
(
P
)
λ
)
{
−
Δ
p
u
=
λ
f
(
x
,
u
)
,
x
∈
Ω
,
u
=
0
,
...x
∈
∂
Ω
where
p
>
1
,
λ
∈
R
1
,
Ω
⊂
R
N
is a bounded domain and
Δ
p
u
=
d
i
v
(
|
∇
u
|
p
−
2
∇
u
)
is the
p
-Laplacian of
u
.
f
∈
C
0
(
Ω
̄
×
R
1
,
R
1
)
is
p
-superlinear at
t
=
0
and subcritical at
t
=
∞
. We prove that under suitable conditions for all
λ
>
0
, the problem
(
(
P
)
λ
)
has at least one nontrivial solution without assuming the
Ambrosetti–Rabinowitz condition. Our main result extends a result for
(
(
P
)
λ
)
for when
p
=
2
given by Miyagaki and Souto (2008) in
8 to the general problem
(
(
P
)
λ
)
where
p
>
1
. Meanwhile, our result is stronger than a similar result of Li and Zhou (2003) given in
15.
Polymers from biomass waste including plant/forest waste, biological industrial process waste, municipal solid waste, algae, and livestock are potential sources for renewable and sustainable ...resources. Converting biomass-derived polymers to functional biochar materials via pyrolysis is a mature and promising approach as these products can be widely utilized in many areas such as carbon sequestration, power production, environmental remediation, and energy storage. With abundant sources, low cost, and special features, the biochar derived from biological polymeric substances exhibits great potential to be an alternative electrode material of high-performance supercapacitors. To extend this scope of application, synthesis of high-quality biochar will be a key issue. This work systematically reviews the char formation mechanisms and technologies from polymeric substances in biomass waste and introduces energy storage mechanisms of supercapacitors to provide overall insight into the biological polymer-based char material for electrochemical energy storage. Aiming to enhance the capacitance of biochar-derived supercapacitor, recent progress in biochar modification approaches including surface activation, doping, and recombination is also summarized. This review can provide guidance for valorizing biomass waste to functional biochar materials for supercapacitor to meet future needs.
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•The methanogenic performance was better when the applied voltage was 0.8 V.•Clostrodium and Methanosaeta were the most dominant microbial populations.•MES-Cathode was more tolerant ...to the effects of higher NH4+-N concentration.•CH4 was produced mainly via hydrogenotrophic methanogenic pathway in MES-Cathode.•MES produced CH4 via SOAB, hydrogenotrophic archaea if acetoclastic pathway curbed.
Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) has great potential for energy and resource recovery in wastewater treatment and has therefore gradually become a popular research topic. In this study, MES with an applied voltage (0.6 V, 0.8 V and 1.0 V) significantly improved biogas production (36.0 %, 52.3 %, and 59.1 %, respectively) compared with the control (without electrodes). Analysis of microbial community structure revealed that Clostridium and Methanosaeta had the highest relative abundance in all reactors. The abundances of Acetivibrio and Geobacter dominated the bioanode, and methane production was mainly mediated by the acetoclastic methanogenic pathway. On the biocathode, the abundances of Methanolinea and Methanothermobacter were higher than those of other microbes, and methane was produced primarily through the hydrogenotrophic methanogenic pathway. When the acetoclastic methanogenic pathway in the biocathode was inhibited, MES could efficiently produce methane through other pathways. In addition, MES was more tolerant to the effects of high NH4+-N concentrations than anaerobic digestion (AD). These results suggest that applying voltage to the bioanode and biocathode could better improve the efficiency of methane production.
To investigate the ability of an auxiliary diagnostic model based on the YOLO-v7-based model in the classification of cervical lymphadenopathy images and compare its performance against qualitative ...visual evaluation by experienced radiologists. Three types of lymph nodes were sampled randomly but not uniformly. The dataset was randomly divided into for training, validation, and testing. The model was constructed with PyTorch. It was trained and weighting parameters were tuned on the validation set. Diagnostic performance was compared with that of the radiologists on the testing set. The mAP of the model was 96.4% at the 50% intersection-over-union threshold. The accuracy values of it were 0.962 for benign lymph nodes, 0.982 for lymphomas, and 0.960 for metastatic lymph nodes. The precision values of it were 0.928 for benign lymph nodes, 0.975 for lymphomas, and 0.927 for metastatic lymph nodes. The accuracy values of radiologists were 0.659 for benign lymph nodes, 0.836 for lymphomas, and 0.580 for metastatic lymph nodes. The precision values of radiologists were 0.478 for benign lymph nodes, 0.329 for lymphomas, and 0.596 for metastatic lymph nodes. The model effectively classifies lymphadenopathies from ultrasound images and outperforms qualitative visual evaluation by experienced radiologists in differential diagnosis.
Purpose This study evaluated the safety and efficacy of two insulin regimens for inpatient hyperglycemia management: combination short-plus long-acting insulin (basal-bolus insulin regimen, BBIR) vs. ...short-acting insulin only (correctional insulin only regimen, CIOR). Methods Chart reviews identified noncritically ill patients with pre-existing type 2 diabetes mellitus receiving insulin injections. Study participants (N = 138) were divided into BBIR (N = 104) and CIOR (N = 34) groups. Data for the entire duration of each patient’s stay were analyzed. Results The primary outcome of percent hyperglycemic days was higher in BBIR vs. CIOR (3.97 ± 0.33% vs. 1.22 ± 0.38%). The safety outcome of percent hypoglycemic events was not different between BBIR and CIOR (0.78 ± 0.22% vs. 0.53 ± 0.37%). Regarding secondary outcomes, the percentage of euglycemic days was lower in BBIR vs. CIOR (26.74 ± 2.97% vs. 40.98 ± 5.91%). Overall blood glucose (BG) and daily insulin dose were higher in BBIR vs. CIOR (231.43 ± 5.37 vs. 195.55 ± 6.25 mg/dL and 41.36 ± 3.07 vs. 5.02 ± 0.68 units, respectively). Insulin regimen-associated differences in hyperglycemia and daily insulin dose persisted after adjusting for covariates. Conclusion Our observations linking BBIR to worse glycemic outcomes differ from those reported in the randomized controlled Rabbit 2 and Rabbit 2 Surgery trials. This discrepancy can be partly explained by the fact that BBIR patients displayed worse glycemic baselines. Also, there was no diabetes stewardship team to monitor BG and modify insulin therapy, which is relevant since achieving euglycemia in BBIR patients requires more dose adjustments. This study highlights challenges with standard inpatient glycemic management and calls for further research assessing the benefits of pharmacist-led diabetes stewardship.
In higher plants, timely degradation of tapetai cells, the innermost sporophytic cells of the anther wall layer, is a prerequisite for the development of viable pollen grains. However, relatively ...little is known about the mechanism underlying programmed tapetai cell development and degradation. Here, we report a key regulator in monocot rice (Oryza sauva), PERSISTANT TAPETAL CELLI (PTCl), which controls programmed tapetal development and functional pollen formation. The evolutionary significance of PTCl was revealed by partial genetic complementation of the homologous mutation MALE STERILITY1 (MSI) in the dicot Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). PTCl encodes a PHD-finger (for plant homeodomain) protein, which is expressed specifically in tapetai cells and microspores during anther development in stages 8 and 9, when the wild-type tapetai cells initiate a typical apoptosis-like cell death. Even though ptcl mutants show phenotypic similarity to msl in a lack of tapetai DNA fragmentation, delayed tapetai degeneration, as well as abnormal pollen wall formation and aborted microspore development, the ptcl mutant displays a previously unreported phenotype of uncontrolled tapetai proliferation and subsequent commencement of necrosis-like tapetai death. Microarray analysis indicated that 2,417 tapetum-and microspore-expressed genes, which are principally associated with tapetai development, degeneration, and pollen wall formation, had changed expression in ptcl anthers. Moreover, the regulatory role of PTCl in anther development was revealed by comparison with MS2 and other rice anther developmental regulators. These findings suggest a diversified and conserved switch of PTCl /MSI in regulating programmed male reproductive development in both dicots and monocots, which provides new insights in plant anther development.
The accurate segmentation of lung lesions from computed tomography (CT) scans is important for lung cancer research and can offer valuable information for clinical diagnosis and treatment. However, ...it is challenging to achieve a fully automatic lesion detection and segmentation with acceptable accuracy due to the heterogeneity of lung lesions. Here, we propose a novel toboggan based growing automatic segmentation approach (TBGA) with a three-step framework, which are automatic initial seed point selection, multi-constraints 3D lesion extraction and the final lesion refinement. The new approach does not require any human interaction or training dataset for lesion detection, yet it can provide a high lesion detection sensitivity (96.35%) and a comparable segmentation accuracy with manual segmentation (P > 0.05), which was proved by a series assessments using the LIDC-IDRI dataset (850 lesions) and in-house clinical dataset (121 lesions). We also compared TBGA with commonly used level set and skeleton graph cut methods, respectively. The results indicated a significant improvement of segmentation accuracy . Furthermore, the average time consumption for one lesion segmentation was under 8 s using our new method. In conclusion, we believe that the novel TBGA can achieve robust, efficient and accurate lung lesion segmentation in CT images automatically.
To improve the stress transfer and distribution of carbon fiber/epoxy interface, a gradient interphase reinforced by graphene oxide (GO) was designed in the composites. GO was introduced onto the ...surface of carbon fibers by physical adsorption, forming a gradient interphase in composite interface during the procedure of resin wetting. In order to improve the dispersion of GO in gradient interphase and chemical adhesion between GO and epoxy, GO was covalently functionalized with silane coupling agents and the silanized graphene oxide (SGO) was introduced into the gradient interphase as well. Compared with the base composites without nanosheets, the interfacial shear strength (IFSS), interlaminar shear strength (ILSS), flexural and tensile properties of hierarchical composites decreased seriously when 0.5 wt% GO was introduced on carbon fiber surface. However, hierarchical composites containing 0.5 wt% SGO showed a significant increase 60% in IFSS, 19% in ILSS, 15% in flexural strength and 16% in flexural modulus. A new stiffness phase between carbon fibers and matrix was found in the stiffness distribution curve of hierarchical composites by atomic force microscope in force mode. In addition, the stiffness of interphase was proved to change gradually from carbon fibers to epoxy, indicating the gradient dispersion of nanosheets in interphase.
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•Graphene oxide was covalently functionalized with silane coupling agents.•Gradient interphase composed of SGO and epoxy was designed in fiber/matrix.•A new stiffness phase between fiber and matrix was found by AFM in force mode.•Interfacial properties of composites containing SGO/epoxy interphase were increased.
Soil microbial metabolic potential and ecosystem function have received little attention owing to difficulties in methodology. In this study, we selected natural mature forest and natural secondary ...forest and analyzed the soil microbial community and metabolic potential combing the high-throughput sequencing and GeoChip technologies. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA sequencing showed that one known archaeal phylum and 15 known bacterial phyla as well as unclassified phylotypes were presented in these forest soils, and Acidobacteria, Protecobacteria, and Actinobacteria were three of most abundant phyla. The detected microbial functional gene groups were related to different biogeochemical processes, including carbon degradation, carbon fixation, methane metabolism, nitrogen cycling, phosphorus utilization, sulfur cycling, etc. The Shannon index for detected functional gene probes was significantly higher (P<0.05) at natural secondary forest site. The regression analysis showed that a strong positive (P<0.05) correlation was existed between the soil microbial functional gene diversity and phylogenetic diversity. Mantel test showed that soil oxidizable organic carbon, soil total nitrogen and cellulose, glucanase, and amylase activities were significantly linked (P<0.05) to the relative abundance of corresponded functional gene groups. Variance partitioning analysis showed that a total of 81.58% of the variation in community structure was explained by soil chemical factors, soil temperature, and plant diversity. Therefore, the positive link of soil microbial structure and composition to functional activity related to ecosystem functioning was existed, and the natural secondary forest soil may occur the high microbial metabolic potential. Although the results can't directly reflect the actual microbial populations and functional activities, this study provides insight into the potential activity of the microbial community and associated feedback responses of the terrestrial ecosystem to environmental changes.
Diagnosing low-grade and high-grade endometrial stromal sarcoma (LG-ESS and HG-ESS) is a challenge. This study aimed to identify biomarkers. 22 ESS cases were analyzed using Illumina microarrays. ...Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified via Limma. DEGs were analyzed with String and Cytoscape. Core genes were enriched with GO and KEGG, their pan-cancer implications and immune aspects were studied. 413 DEGs were found by exome sequencing, 2174 by GSE85383 microarray. 36 common genes were identified by Venn analysis, and 10 core genes including RBFOX1, PCDH7, FAT1 were selected. Core gene GO enrichment included cell adhesion, T cell proliferation, and KEGG focused on related pathways. Expression was evaluated across 34 cancers, identifying immune DEGs IGF1 and AVPR1A. Identifying the DEGs not only helps improve our understanding of LG-ESS, HG-ESS but also promises to be potential biomarkers for differential diagnosis between LG-ESS and HG-ESS and new therapeutic targets.
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