A laser beam is an effective power and data carrier that offers inherent advantages in terms of the simultaneous transfer of wireless information and power, which is widely used in both the Internet ...of Things and the Internet of Energy. This paper proposes an adaptive high-power and high-efficiency laser-based simultaneous wireless information and power transfer system. This is achieved through the use of adjusted and modulated laser diode systems at the transmitter and multiplexed photovoltaic cells, a coupler, a filter, and a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) converter at the receiver. The interaction between the converter and the communication component is investigated theoretically and experimentally using a current-fed boost MPPT converter with the MPPT algorithm of perturbation and observation. The results indicate a maximum DC output power of 7.3 W at the receiver and a maximum MPPT converter efficiency of 84%. Additionally, at a data rate of 495 kbit/s, with a DC output power of 5.11 W, the bit error ratio is 2.62 × 10 -4 for the binary amplitude shift keying modulation format, the MPPT converter efficiency is 88%, and the corresponding loss of communication is about 1% of the total transmitted power.
The optimal perioperative chemotherapeutic regimen for locally advanced gastric cancer remains undefined. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of perioperative and postoperative S-1 and oxaliplatin ...(SOX) compared with postoperative capecitabine and oxaliplatin (CapOx) in patients with locally advanced gastric cancer undergoing D2 gastrectomy.
We did this open-label, phase 3, superiority and non-inferiority, randomised trial at 27 hospitals in China. We recruited antitumour treatment-naive patients aged 18 years or older with historically confirmed cT4a N+ M0 or cT4b Nany M0 gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, with Karnofsky performance score of 70 or more. Patients undergoing D2 gastrectomy were randomly assigned (1:1:1) via an interactive web response system, stratified by participating centres and Lauren classification, to receive adjuvant CapOx (eight postoperative cycles of intravenous oxaliplatin 130 mg/m2 on day one of each 21 day cycle plus oral capecitabine 1000 mg/m2 twice a day), adjuvant SOX (eight postoperative cycles of intravenous oxaliplatin 130 mg/m2 on day one of each 21 day cycle plus oral S-1 40–60 mg twice a day), or perioperative SOX (intravenous oxaliplatin 130 mg/m2 on day one of each 21 day plus oral S-1 40–60 mg twice a day for three cycles preoperatively and five cycles postoperatively followed by three cycles of S-1 monotherapy). The primary endpoint, assessed in the modified intention-to-treat population, 3-year disease-free survival to assess the superiority of perioperative-SOX compared with adjuvant-SOX and the non-inferiority (hazard ratio non-inferiority margin of 1·33) of adjuvant-SOX compared with adjuvant-CapOx. Safety analysis were done in patients who received at least one dose of the assigned treatment. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01534546.
Between Aug 15, 2012, and Feb 28, 2017, 1094 patients were screened and 1022 (93%) were included in the modified intention-to-treat population, of whom 345 (34%) patients were assigned to the adjuvant-CapOx, 340 (33%) patients to the adjuvant-SOX group, and 337 (33%) patients to the perioperative-SOX group. 3-year disease-free survival was 51·1% (95% CI 45·5–56·3) in the adjuvant-CapOx group, 56·5% (51·0–61·7) in the adjuvant-SOX group, and 59·4% (53·8–64·6) in the perioperative-SOX group. The hazard ratio (HR) was 0·77 (95% CI 0·61–0·97; Wald p=0·028) for the perioperative-SOX group compared with the adjuvant-CapOx group and 0·86 (0·68–1·07; Wald p=0·17) for the adjuvant-SOX group compared with the adjuvant-CapOx group. The most common grade 3–4 adverse events was neutropenia (32 12% of 258 patients in the adjuvant-CapOx group, 21 8% of 249 patients in the adjuvant-SOX group, and 30 10% of 310 patients in the perioperative-SOX group). Serious adverse events were reported in seven (3%) of 258 patients in adjuvant-CapOx group, two of which were related to treatment; eight (3%) of 249 patients in adjuvant-SOX group, two of which were related to treatment; and seven (2%) of 310 patients in perioperative-SOX group, four of which were related to treatment. No treatment-related deaths were reported.
Perioperative-SOX showed a clinically meaningful improvement compared with adjuvant-CapOx in patients with locally advanced gastric cancer who had D2 gastrectomy; adjuvant-SOX was non-inferior to adjuvant-CapOx in these patients. Perioperative-SOX could be considered a new treatment option for patients with locally advanced gastric cancer.
National Key Research and Development Program of China, Beijing Scholars Program 2018–2024, Peking University Clinical Scientist Program, Taiho, Sanofi-Aventis, and Hengrui Pharmaceutical.
For the Chinese translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.
•The degree of patch fragmentation of H. ammodendron gradually increased with succession.•The system change type of sand-binding vegetation H. ammodendron is a discontinuous system jump.•Soil water ...content in deep layers and the competition are the main driving factors leading to the spatial pattern variation.
The spatial pattern of vegetation can reflect the impacts of the environment on plants and the response of plants to the environment, which can promote a deep understanding of the potential driving mechanisms of vegetation evolution and community maintenance. A sand-binding vegetation system without irrigation has been implemented in the oasis–desert transitional zone since the 1970 s, where the annual precipitation has been approximately 120 mm. While the mobile dunes have been effectively stabilized, a patchy pattern of sand-binding vegetation has been observed. However, we do not understand why the pattern of sand-binding vegetation changed from the initial uniform distribution to the current patchy pattern. In this study, low-altitude UAV remote sensing technology and imaging-based quantification techniques were used to explore the effects of biotic and abiotic factors on the spatial patterns of sand-binding vegetation over 50 years. The spatial pattern of Haloxylon ammodendron changed gradually from a uniform distribution to an aggregated distribution, and the degree of patch fragmentation of H. ammodendron at the landscape scale gradually increased with the age of the sand-binding vegetation. The artificial sand-binding vegetation composed of H. ammodendron showed discontinuous change in which the system state reached a transition point after 30 years and changed to another state after 40 years. There were no significant correlations between the landscape indices and soil water content in the shallow layers (0–10 cm, 10–50 cm), while the soil water content in the 50–100 cm layers was significantly negatively correlated with the class area, percentage of landscape, largest patch index, percentage of like adjacencies and aggregation index and was positively correlated with the normalized landscape shape index. The soil water content in the 100–200 cm layers was positively correlated with the number of patches and patch density. Competition intensity at the individual level had a more significant effect on the area-type indices, and competition intensity at the population level had a more significant effect on the clustering-type indices. Finally, we found that the soil water content in deep layers and competition are the main drivers of the H. ammodendron spatial pattern change from a uniform pattern to a patchy pattern. These findings enrich theory on the self-organization of vegetation in arid and semiarid environments and have important theoretical and practical significance for the establishment and management of artificial vegetation in arid areas.
Clostridium butyricum
(
C. butyricum
) can survive at low pH, and it has been widely used as an alternative to antibiotics for the improvement of feed efficiency and animal health in monogastrics. A ...recent study suggested that the improved ruminal fermentation with supplementing
C. butyricum
is may be associated with increasing the abundance of rumen microbiota in Holstein heifers, as ruminal pH plays a key role in rumen microbiota and the probiotics are often active in a dose-dependent manner. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of increasing the doses of
C. butyricum
on gas production (GP) kinetics, dry matter disappearance (DMD), fermentation characteristics, and rumen microbiota using a high grain substrate in batch culture varying with media pH levels. The doses of
C. butyricum
were supplemented at 0 (control), 0.5 × 10
6
, 1 × 10
6
, and 2 × 10
6
CFU/bottle, respectively, at either media pH 6.0 or pH 6.6. The fermentation microbiota at 0 and 1 × 10
6
CFU/bottle were determined using the 16S rRNA high throughput sequencing technology. Overall, the GP, DMD, total volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentration, and the ratio of acetate:propionate were higher (
P
<0.01) at media pH 6.6 than at pH 6.0. However, there was interaction between pH × dose of C. butyricum for rate constant of GP (
P
= 0.01), average GP rate (
P
= 0.07), and volume of GP (
P
= 0.06); with the increase in
C. butyricum
supplementation, the GP kinetics were not changed at media pH 6.0, but the volume (
P
= 0.02), rate of GP (
P
= 0.01), and average GP rate (
P
= 0.01) were quadratically changed at media pH 6.6. The DMD was not affected by increasing the supplementation of C. butyricum. The molar proportions of propionate (
P
<0.09), butyrate (
P
<0.06), and NH
3
-N concentration (
P
= 0.02) were quadratically changed with increasing supplementation of
C. butyricum
regardless of media pH levels. The interactions between media pH level and dose of
C. butyricum
supplementation were noticed for alpha diversity indexes of Shannon (
P
= 0.02) and Evenness (
P
= 0.04). The alpha diversity indexes increased (
P
<0.05) except for Chao1 with supplementation of
C. butyricum
. The unweighted uniFrac analysis showed that the group of control at media pH 6.0 and control at media pH 6.6, and supplementation of
C. butyricum
and control at media pH 6.0 clustered separately from each other. At the phylum level, relative abundance (RA) of
Bacteroidota
was lower (
P
<0.01) and
Firmicutes
was higher (
P
<0.01) at media pH 6.6 than pH 6.0. Moreover, RA of
Proteobacteria
decreased (
P
<0.05) with supplemented
C. butyricum
at either media pH 6.6 or pH 6.0. At media pH 6.6, RA of
Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group
and
Prevotella
were decreased, and CAG-352 was increased (at genus level) compared to pH 6.0. Supplementation of
C. butyricum
decreased RA of
Rikenellaceae_RC9_gut_group
and increased
CAG-352
at media pH 6.0. It could hence be concluded that manipulating media pH level and supplementation of
C. butyricum
effectively modulated
in vitro
rumen fermentation characteristics and microbiota but in a dose depending manner of
C. butyricum
addition.
•Novel reversely-variable circuitry for finned-tube heat exchanger (FTHX) proposed.•Refrigerant flowpath of FTHX alters flexibly between evaporator and condenser modes.•Circuits are fewer for ...condenser but more for evaporator to match respective needs.•Fewer circuits enhance overall heat transfer coefficient for condenser.•Overall energy performance is improved for air source heat pump (ASHP).
The finned-tube heat exchanger (FTHX) is preferred to contain more circuits as an evaporator but fewer as a condenser, so as to obtain the desired performance in both heating and cooling operation of the air source heat pump (ASHP). However, the conventional FTHX has two-way fixed circuitry with the same refrigerant flowpath in the opposite direction. In this article, the reversely-variable circuitry is proposed for the FTHX to exhibit different flowpath in evaporator and condenser roles flexibly. The original 4-branch distributor in the outdoor FTHX of a nominal 3500-W ASHP is replaced with a 2-branch one and a 3-branch one successively to maintain 4 circuits as an evaporator. Two check valves, however, are added between the two distributors and inside the gas header to change the flowpath to two circuits merging into one as a condenser. Compared with the two-way fixed FTHX, the reversely-variable one yields 5.8% larger cooling capacity and 7.2% higher EER for the ASHP with similar heating performance under nominal conditions. Further simulation shows that fewer circuits of the reversely-variable FTHX increase the overall heat transfer coefficient as a condenser, dominating the increase in the capacity of the FTHX and the overall energy performance of the ASHP. This novel design provides new thoughts to the FTHXs and can be popularized to those with different circuits.
We first demonstrate the accelerating terahertz (THz) Airy beam with a 0.3-THz continuous wave. Two diffractive elements are designed and 3D-printed to form the generation system, which cannot only ...imprint the desired complex phase pattern but also perform the required Fourier transform (FT). We both numerically and experimentally demonstrate the propagation dynamics of the accelerating THz Airy beam and investigate its self-healing property during propagation in the free space. Our observations are in good agreement with the numerical simulations. Such an accelerating THz Airy beam could be able to develop novel THz imaging systems and robust THz communication links.
In this paper, we present and analyze a compact inner-wall grating slot microring resonator (IG-SMRR) with the footprint of less than 13 μm × 13 μm on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform for ...label-free sensing, which comprises a slot microring resonator (SMRR) and inner-wall grating (IG). Its detection range is significantly enhanced without the limitation of the free spectral region (FSR) owing to the combination of SMRR and IG. The IG-SMRR has an ultra-large quasi-FSR of 84.5 nm as the detection range, and enlarged factor is up to over 3 compared with the conventional SMRR. The concentration sensitivities of sodium chloride solutions and D-glucose solutions are 996.91 pm/% and 968.05 pm/%, respectively, and the corresponding refractive index (RI) sensitivities are 559.5 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) and 558.3 nm/RIU, respectively. The investigation on the combination of SMRR and IG is a valuable exploration of label-free sensing application for ultra-large detection range and ultra-high sensitivity in future.
The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is involved in the pathogeneses of ischemic stroke (IS). Geniposide (GEN), an iridoid glycoside isolated from Gardenia jasminoides Ellis, has been used for the treatment ...of IS. However, the effects of GEN on the BBB are poorly understood. In vitro disease models of the BBB could be very helpful for the elucidation of underlying mechanisms and the development of novel therapeutic strategies. Therefore, we established an in vitro BBB model composed of primary cultures of brain microvascular endothelial cells and astrocytes. We then used this in vitro model to investigate the effect of GEN on the function of the BBB. Oxygen glucose deprivation and reoxygenation (OGD/R) significantly increased permeability and cell apoptosis in this in vitro BBB model. Notably, GEN pretreatment effectively improved the BBB function by decreasing the permeability of the BBB, promoting expression of tight junction proteins (zonula occludens-1, claudin-5, and occludin) and gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase, increasing transendothelial electrical resistance, mitigating oxidative stress damage and the release of inflammatory cytokines, downregulating the expression levels of matrix metallopeptidases-9 (MMP-9) and MMP-2, and increasing the release of brain derived neurotrophic factor and glial cell derived neurotrophic factor. Therefore, GEN can ameliorate the BBB dysfunction induced by OGD/R conditions through multiple protective mechanisms. The findings suggest that GEN may be an appropriate drug for restoring the barrier function of the BBB.
•.In vitro BBB models can recapitulate in vivo functions for appropriate drug for the treatment of IS.•. Further study investigated the effect of GEN on the maintenance of the in vitro BBB models.•. GEN is capable of restoring the barrier function of the BBB under ischemic conditions.
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