The ant colony optimization algorithm (ACO) had an exceptional performance in solving discrete optimization problems because of its design in solution construction and search strategy. However, the ...study of ACO in discrete many-objective optimization remains insufficient. This paper proposes a decomposition-based ACO for discrete many-objective optimization. The proposed algorithm utilizes a reinforcement learning-based adaptive pheromone updating strategy that enhances the solution construction phase’s searching ability in the high-dimensional objective space. Furthermore, an adaptive selection strategy is adopted to improve its convergence performance using different reference points. And A comparative experimental study is conducted on many-objective benchmark test cases. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm achieves competitive performance on optimization quality.
Neonicotinoids (NEOs) are widely used insecticides and have been detected in aquatic environments globally. However, little is known about NEOs contamination in the coastal environments under the ...terrestrial pressure of multiple planting types simultaneously. This study investigated the occurrence, spatial-seasonal variability, and ecological risks of NEOs along the coast of the Shandong Peninsula during the dry and wet seasons, where located many largest fruit, vegetable, and grain production bases in China. The concentrations of ∑NEOs in seawater were higher in wet seasons (surface: 195.46 ng/L; bottom: 14.56 ng/L) than in dry seasons (surface: 10.07 ng/L; bottom: 8.45 ng/L). During the wet seasons, NEOs peaked in the northern and eastern areas of the Shandong Peninsula, where the inland fruit planting area is located. While dry seasons had higher concentrations in Laizhou Bay, influenced by rivers from vegetable-growing areas. Grain crops, fruit, and cotton planting were major NEOs sources during wet seasons, while wheat and vegetables dominated in dry seasons. Moderate or above ecological risks appeared at 53.8% of the monitoring sites. Generally, NEOs caused high risks in the wet seasons mainly caused by Imidacloprid, and medium risk in the dry seasons caused by Clothianidin, which should be prevented and controlled in advance.
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●Imidacloprid and acetamipri dominated the total Neonicotinoids (NEOs) pollution.●NEOs concentrations are higher along the coast during wet seasons than dry seasons.●NEOs peaked in the northern and eastern areas of the Shandong Peninsula.●Wet season sources: crops, fruits, cotton; dry season: wheat, vegetables.●NEOs posed moderate ecological risks in seawater at 58.8% of sites.
Hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation is an essential event during liver fibrogenesis. Phosphatase and tension homolog deleted on chromosome 10 (PTEN) is a negative regulator of this process. DNA ...methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1), which catalyzes DNA methylation and subsequently leads to the transcriptional repression of PTEN, is selectively induced in myofibroblasts from diseased livers. Sennoside A (SA), a major purgative constituent of senna and the Chinese herb rhubarb, is widely used in China and other Asian countries as an irritant laxative. SA is reported to improve hepatic steatosis. However, the effect and mechanism of SA on liver fibrosis remain largely unknown. We recently identified a novel strategy for protecting liver fibrosis via epigenetic modification by targeting DNMT1. A Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) assay first reported that SA could directly bind DNMT1 and inhibit its activity. Administration of SA significantly prevented liver fibrosis, as evidenced by the dramatic downregulation of α‐smooth muscle actin (α‐SMA) and type I collagen alpha‐1 (Col1α1) protein levels in a CCl4‐induced mouse hepatic fibrosis model and in TGF‐β1‐activated HSC‐T6 cells, in vivo and in vitro. SA decreased the expression of Cyclin D1, CDK, and C‐myc, indicating that SA may inhibit the activation and proliferation of TGF‐β1‐induced HSC‐T6. Moreover, SA significantly promoted the expression of PTEN and remarkably inhibited the expression of p‐AKT and p‐ERK in vitro. Blocking PTEN or overexpressing DNMT1 could reduce the effect of SA on liver fibrosis. These data suggest that SA directly binds and inhibits the activity and that attenuated DNMT1‐mediated PTEN hypermethylation caused the loss of PTEN expression, followed by the inhibition of the AKT and ERK pathways and prevented the development of liver fibrosis. Hence, SA might be employed as a promising natural supplement for liver fibrosis drug therapy.
Zirconium nitride microspheres with uniform size of ~680 μm, good sphericity, and good integrity were prepared by internal gelation process and two-step nitridation. The effects of carbon black and ...temperature on stability of sol were investigated. Induction of carbon black decreased stability of sol but the amount of carbon black added has little effect on the sol stability. Increasing temperature linearly decreased the stable time of the sol. Sol with stable time of up to 1 h, which was adequate for casting of liquid spheres was achieved at 11.0 °C, a significant increase from conventional 4.0 °C. Two-step nitridation was developed to prepare crack-free ceramic microspheres with high relative nitride phase content. The special microstructure on surface and cross section of microspheres reveals stepped-growth of nitride crystals.
Highlights
The effects of carbon black and temperature on stability of the sol were studied.
Optimized storage temperature of sol was raised to 11.0 °C for less energy input.
ZrN microspheres with uniform size, good sphericity, and crack-free were prepared.
High conversion from oxide to nitride was achieved by two-step nitridation.
Step-like microstructure of microspheres reveals the stepped-growth of nitride crystals.
The Z-Scheme Ag
3
PO
4
/Ag/g-C
3
N
4
nanosheets composites are synthesised via simple annealing and anion-exchange precipitation method. The obtained samples are characterized by SEM, XRD, TEM, XPS, ...UV–Vis and PL, which imply that the Z-Scheme Ag
3
PO
4
/Ag/g-C
3
N
4
structure has been prepared successfully. The photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared Ag
3
PO
4
/Ag/g-C
3
N
4
nanosheets composites displays a remarkable enhancement after the Ag
3
PO
4
/Ag nanoparticles being introduced by the hydrogen production under visible light. Further, the Z-Scheme structure of the sample and the lamellar structure of the C
3
N
4
are considered as the main reasons for the enhancement.
A kHz-order linewidth controllable 1550 nm single-frequency fiber laser (SFFL) is demonstrated for the first time to our best knowledge. The control of the linewidth is realized by using a low-pass ...filtered white Gaussian noise (WGN) signal applied on a fiber stretcher in an optical feedback loop. Utilizing WGN signals with different signal amplitudes An and different cutoff frequencies fc, the linewidths are availably controlled in a wide range from 0.8 to 353 kHz. The obtained optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) is more than 72.0 dB, and the relative intensity noise (RIN) at frequency greater than 40 MHz reaches -148.5 dB/Hz which approaches the shot noise limit (-152.9 dB/Hz). This kHz-order linewidth controllable SFFL is meaningful and valuable, for optimizing the receiver sensitivity and bit error rate (BER) performance of the coherent optical communication system based on high-order quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM).
Hair loss is characterized by the inability of hair follicles (HFs) to enter the telogen‐anagen transition (TAT) and lack of de novo HFs. Current pharmaceutical therapies and surgical modalities have ...been largely limited to regulating hair regrowth efficiently without side effects and lacking treatment compliance. Here, this work proposes a materiobiomodulation therapy (MBMT), wherein polydopamine (PDA) nanoparticles with redox activity can be modulated to have a stoichiometric ROS (H2O2) donating ability. These nanoparticles can intracellularly deliver ROS with high‐efficiency via the clathrin‐dependent endocytosis process. Utilizing homozygote transgenic HyPerion (a genetically‐encoded H2O2 biosensor) mice, this work also achieves in vivo dynamic monitoring of intracellular H2O2 elevation induced by ROS donators. Subcutaneous administration with ROS donators results in rapid onset of TAT and subsequent hair regrowth with a specific ROS “hormesis effect.” Mechanistically, ROS activate β‐catenin‐dependent Wnt signaling, upregulating hair follicle stem cell expression. This work further develops a microneedles patch for transdermal ROS delivery, demonstrating long‐term, low‐dose ROS release. Unlike photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT), MBMT requires no external stimuli, providing a convenient and efficient approach for clinical hair loss treatment. This material‐HF communication implicates new avenues in HF‐related diseases, achieving targeted ROS delivery with minimal side effects.
This study presents a materiobiomodulation therapy using polydopamine nanoparticles for controlled ROS delivery in hair regrowth, utilizing Hyperion mice with an H2O2 biosensor for in vivo ROS monitoring and activation of β‐catenin dependent Wnt signaling in hair follicle stem cells, enabled by a microneedle patch for hair loss treatment.
Rain is a common natural phenomenon. Taking images in the rain however often results in degraded quality of images, thus compromises the performance of many computer vision systems. Most existing ...de-rain algorithms use only one single input image and aim to recover a clean image. Few work has exploited stereo images. Moreover, even for single image based monocular deraining, many current methods fail to complete the task satisfactorily because they mostly rely on per pixel loss functions and ignore semantic information. In this paper, we present a Paired Rain Removal Network (PRRNet), which exploits both stereo images and semantic information. Specifically, we develop a Semantic-Aware Deraining Module (SADM) which solves both tasks of semantic segmentation and deraining of scenes, and a Semantic-Fusion Network (SFNet) and a View-Fusion Network (VFNet) which fuse semantic information and multi-view information respectively. In addition, we also introduce an Enhanced Paired Rain Removal Network (EPRRNet) which exploits semantic prior to remove rain streaks from stereo images. We first use a coarse deraining network to reduce the rain streaks on the input images, and then adopt a pre-trained semantic segmentation network to extract semantic features from the coarse derained image. Finally, a parallel stereo deraining network fuses semantic and multi-view information to restore finer results. We also propose new stereo based rainy datasets for benchmarking. Experiments on both monocular and the newly proposed stereo rainy datasets demonstrate that the proposed method achieves the state-of-the-art performance.
https://github.com/HDCVLab/Stereo-Image-Deraining
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Understanding the environmental behavior of biochar-derived dissolved organic matter (BDOM) is crucial for promoting the extensive utilization of biochar and meeting the carbon neutrality targets. ...However, limited studies focused on the binding mechanism of protons and Cd with DOM released from biochar produced at different pyrolysis temperatures. By combining excitation-emission matrix spectroscopy and parallel factor analysis, we found that the humic-like fluorophores in BDOM had higher aromaticity, molecular weight, and contents of carboxylic and phenolic groups relative to the protein-like fluorophores. Conversely, the protein-like fluorophores exhibited a stronger binding affinity for Cd than humic-like fluorophores. With the pyrolysis temperature increased from 300 °C to 500 °C, the quenching effects of Cd on the protein-like components were enhanced significantly. Their fluorescence intensities could be quenched up to 51.64%. The results of ultraviolet–visible absorbance spectroscopy and differential absorbance spectroscopy showed that the carboxylic-like and phenolic-like chromophores were involved in the protons and Cd binding process of BDOM. The binding ability of phenolic-like chromophores with Cd was reduced as a function of increasing pyrolysis temperature. These findings implied that these carboxylic and phenolic groups were mainly contained in the non-fluorescent components. Besides, protons and Cd could also induce inter-chromophore interactions in BDOM, and the interaction was proportional to the pyrolysis temperature. These results clearly demonstrated the pyrolysis temperature-dependent changes in the protons and Cd binding properties of BDOM. More importantly, the possible risk of Cd mobility caused by the protein-like components in BDOM cannot be ignored when the biochar was applied in contaminated soils. This research extends our knowledge of the application potentiality of biochar in heavy metal polluted soil.
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•Protein-like fluorophores had higher affinity for Cd than humic-like fluorophores.•Rising pyrolysis temperature promoted the binding of protein-like components to Cd.•Cd preferred to bind to the carboxyl and phenol groups found in non-fluorophore.•Protons and Cd could induce inter-chromophore interactions in biochar-derive DOM.•The inter-chromophore interactions improved as pyrolysis temperature increasing.
Nitrogen (N) loss from paddy fields is an important source of agricultural non-point source pollution that leads to eutrophication of water bodies and degradation of water quality. The impacts of ...alternative N fertilizer management practices on N loading (N loss through runoff and leaching) from paddy fields in Shanghai were assessed using a process-based biogeochemical model, DNDC. The results indicated that the current fertilization rate in paddy fields of Shanghai (300kgN/ha) exceeds the actual rice demand and has led to substantial N loading of 1142±276kg. The combined application of urea at 150kgN/ha and organic manure at 100kgN/ha was identified as the best fertilization method for rice cultivation in Shanghai; this application maintained optimal rice yields and significantly reduced N loading to 714±151kg in comparison with the current fertilization rate. A sensitivity test was conducted with various input parameters, and the results indicated that fertilization, precipitation and soil properties were the most sensitive factors that regulate N loss from paddy fields. The variability of soil properties, especially SOC led to high uncertainties in the simulated results. Therefore, the local climate conditions and soil properties should be taken into account in the identification of the best management practice (BMP) for rice cultivation, given the high spatially heterogeneous N loading values across all towns used in the simulation. The DNDC model is an effective approach for simulating and predicting N loading in paddy fields under alternative agricultural management practices.
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•N loading in paddy fields across Shanghai region was simulated with DNDC model.•Rice production in 2013 at Shanghai led to 1142tN loss through runoff and leaching.•Combination use of 100kgN/ha manure and 150kgN/ha urea was the best fertilization method.•The high variability of soil properties led to substantial uncertainties in simulated results.
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