Current availability of Advanced Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (ARAIM) for LPV-200 in aviation is experimentally investigated using real navigation data and GPS measurements collected at ...60 stations across Australia. ARAIM algorithm and fault probabilities were first discussed. Availability sensitivity analysis due to changes in the elevation mask angle and the error model parameters URA, URE, and nominal biases for integrity and accuracy used for computation of the protection level is presented. It is shown that incorporation of other GNSS constellation with GPS in ARAIM is needed to achieve LPV-200 Australia wide. The inclusion of BeiDou with GPS at two tests sites in Western and Eastern Australia demonstrates the promising potential of achieving this goal.
Research has revealed the positive effects of flipped classroom approaches on students' learning engagement and performance compared with conventional lecture-based classrooms. However, because of a ...lack of out-of-class learning support, many students fail to comprehensively prepare the provided lecture materials before class. One promising solution to this problem is recommendation systems in the educational area, which have been instrumental in helping learners identify useful and relevant lecture materials that satisfy their learning needs. Thus, in this study, we propose a summarized lecture material recommendation system, which is integrated into an e-book reading system as an enhancement of the flipped classroom approach. This system helps students identify pages that contain essential knowledge that must be thoroughly studied before class. The proposed system was constructed on the basis of our previous work. In this study, a quasi-experiment was conducted in a graduate course that implemented the flipped classroom model: experimental group students learned with the proposed system, whereas the control group students had no access to the additional features. The findings of this study suggest that students who learn with the proposed recommendation system significantly outperform those who learn without the system in a flipped classroom in terms of their learning outcomes and engagement in preclass preparation.
At a signalized intersection, there exists an area where drivers become indecisive as to either stop their car or proceed through when the traffic signal turns yellow. This point, called a dilemma ...zone, has remained a safety concern for drivers due to the great possibility of a rear-end or right-angle crash occurring. In order to reduce the risk of car crashes at the dilemma zone, Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) recommended a dilemma zone model. The model, however, fails to provide precise calculations on the decision of drivers because it disregards the supplemental roadway information, such as whether a red light camera is present. Hence, the goal of this study was to incorporate such roadway environmental factors into a more realistic driver decision-making model for the dilemma zone. A driving simulator was used to determine the influence of roadway conditions on decision-making of real drivers. Following data collection, each driver's decision outcomes were implemented in an Agent-Based Simulation (ABS) so as to analyze behaviors under realistic road environments. The experimental results revealed that the proposed dilemma zone model was able to accurately predict the decisions of drivers. Specifically, the model confirmed the findings from the driving simulator study that the changes in the roadway environment reduced the number of red light violations at an intersection.
The ground or naive pluripotent state of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), which was initially established in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs), is an emerging and tentative concept. To verify ...this vital concept in hPSCs, we performed a multivariate meta-analysis of major hPSC datasets via the combined analytic powers of percentile normalization, principal component analysis (PCA), t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE), and SC3 consensus clustering. This robust bioinformatics approach has significantly improved the predictive values of our meta-analysis. Accordingly, we revealed various similarities or dissimilarities between some naive-like hPSCs (NLPs) generated from different laboratories. Our analysis confirms some previous studies and provides new evidence concerning the existence of three distinct naive-like pluripotent states. Moreover, our study offers global transcriptomic markers that define diverse pluripotent states under various hPSC growth protocols.
Summary
Forty‐eight castrated male goats were used to determine the effects of feeding green tea by‐products (GTB) on growth performance, meat quality, blood metabolites and immune cell ...proliferation. Experimental treatments consisted of basal diets supplemented with four levels of GTB (0%, 0.5%, 1.0% or 2.0%). Four replicate pens were assigned to each treatment with three goats per replicate. Increasing dietary GTB tended to linearly increase the overall average weight gain and feed intake (p = 0.09). Water holding capacity, pH and sensory attributes of meat were not affected by GTB supplementation, while cooking loss was reduced both linearly and quadratically (p < 0.01). The redness (linear; p = 0.02, quadratic; p < 0.01) and yellowness (quadratic; p < 0.01) values of goat meat were improved by GTB supplementation. Increasing dietary GTB quadratically increased protein and decreased crude fat (p < 0.05), while linearly decreased cholesterol (p = 0.03) content of goat meat. The proportions of monounsaturated fatty acid, polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) and n‐6 PUFA increased linearly (p < 0.01) and n‐3 PUFA increased quadratically (p < 0.05) as GTB increased in diets. Increasing dietary GTB linearly increased the PUFA/SFA (saturated fatty acid) and tended to linearly and quadratically increase (p ≤ 0.10) the n‐6/n‐3 ratio. The thiobarbituric acid‐reactive substances values of meat were lower in the 2.0% GTB‐supplemented group in all storage periods (p < 0.05). Dietary GTB linearly decreased plasma glucose and cholesterol (p < 0.01) and quadratically decreased urea nitrogen concentrations (p = 0.001). The growth of spleen cells incubated in concanavalin A and lipopolysaccharides medium increased significantly (p < 0.05) in response to GTB supplementation. Our results suggest that GTB may positively affect the growth performance, meat quality, blood metabolites and immune cell proliferation when supplemented as a feed additive in goat diet.
As azo dyes are carcinogenic, toxic, and biodegradable, the harmless treatment of dye wastewater has become increasingly urgent. This study aimed to investigate the decolorization and detoxification ...effect of a
Stenotrophomonas acidaminiphila
EFS1 strain on methyl orange (MO), and the application prospect in the biological treatment of dye wastewater. The linear fitting analysis between the time elapses of
S. acidaminiphila
EFS1 and the concentration of MO showed a strong positive linear relationship between them. At the same time, under the condition of constant temperature and oscillation, the decolorization rate of
S. acidaminiphila
EFS1 to the initial concentration of MO (10 mg/L) was as high as 80%. The optimal oxygen content
of
MO to decolorize was 10 mL, and the optimal temperature was 30 ℃. The isolate’s decolorization rate reached the highest level when lactose was the single carbon source. With prolonged decolorization time, the decolorization of MO was completed in 24 h. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) revealed that decolorization occurred as the azo bonds of MO broke and formed new colorless compounds when incubated with the strain. The metabolites obtained after decolorization were tested for their toxicity to wheat (
Triticum aestivum L.
) and brassica (
Brassica napus L.
). The results revealed that the decolorized metabolites of this strain had no obvious toxic effects on the test plants. These findings can lay a solid theoretical foundation for optimizing various conditions and environmental protection of the
S. acidaminiphila
EFS1 strain used in sewage treatment.
Graphical abstract
Under the pressure of ensuring student visual performance, this study investigated whether improving the classroom lighting is helpful in relieving the daytime serum melatonin concentration in ...undergraduates who suffer from sub-syndromal seasonal affective disorder in winter. Two negative control groups (Undergraduates without sub-SAD, lighting conditions 300 lx, 4000K), two positive control groups (undergraduates with sub-seasonal affective disorder, lighting conditions 300 lx, 4000K) and six positive intervention groups (undergraduates with sub-seasonal affective disorder, lighting conditions 1000, 2000, 3000 lx and 4000K and 5000K). There were eight participants in each group (four males and four females). A total of 80 participants took part in 15 successive days of study, and the melatonin was measured every seven days. After comparing participants’ melatonin levels before and after exposure, statistical analysis revealed: (1) Participants with sub-seasonal affective disorder had a higher daytime serum melatonin level than the normal; (2) Increasing the illuminant colour temperature or illuminance in daytime can effectively restrain sub-seasonal affective disorder participants’ daytime serum melatonin secretion; (3) Compared to the 4000K intervention, the 5000K light source affected the participants’ daytime serum melatonin suppression more significantly. These results provide suggestions for classroom lighting in sunless areas from the aspect of melatonin rhythm.
Stage III NSCLC represents a heterogeneous disease for which optimal treatment continues to pose a clinical challenge. Recent changes in the American Joint Commission on Cancer staging to the eighth ...edition has led to a shift in TNM stage grouping and redefined the subcategories (IIIA–C) in stage III NSCLC for better prognostication. Although concurrent chemoradiotherapy has remained standard-of-care for stage III NSCLC for almost 2 decades, contemporary considerations include the impact of different molecular subsets of NSCLC, and the roles of tyrosine kinase inhibitors post-definitive therapy and of immune checkpoint inhibitors following chemoradiotherapy. With rapid evolution of diagnostic algorithms and expanding treatment options, the need for interdisciplinary input involving multiple specialists (medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pulmonologists, radiologists, pathologists and thoracic surgeons) has become increasingly important. The unique demographics of Asian NSCLC pose further challenges when applying clinical trial data into clinical practice. This includes differences in smoking rates, prevalence of oncogenic driver mutations, and access to health care resources including molecular testing, prompting the need for critical review of existing data and identification of current gaps. In this expert consensus statement by the Asian Thoracic Oncology Research Group, an interdisciplinary group of experts representing Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Mainland China was convened. Standard clinical practices for stage III NSCLC across different Asian countries were discussed from initial diagnosis and staging through to multi-modality approaches including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, targeted therapies, and immunotherapy.
The use of localized surface plasmon (LSP) interaction for significantly enhancing InGaN absorption near its band edge and the overall efficiency of an InGaN-based solar cell by embedding Ag ...nanoparticles (NPs) in the InGaN absorbing layer is numerically demonstrated. The generation of LSP resonance on the embedded Ag NPs and the NP scattering can produce a field distribution in the InGaN layer for enhancing absorption. It is shown that the embedded Ag NPs do not significantly affect the transport of the photo-generated carriers. The distortion of static electrical stream lines in the solar cell due to the embedded Ag NP leads to a decrease of photocurrent by only a few percents. Based on the material parameter values we use, unless the surface recombination velocity at the interface between the Ag NP and surrounding InGaN is extremely high, Ag NP embedment in the absorbing layer of an InGaN-based solar cell can enhance its efficiency by up to 27%. Such an increase is significantly larger than that achieved by depositing metal NP on the top surface of a solar cell.
The two approved treatments for patients with metastatic melanoma, interleukin (IL)-2 and dacarbazine, mediate objective response rates of 12% to 15%. We previously reported that adoptive cell ...therapy (ACT) with autologous antitumor lymphocytes in lymphodepleted hosts mediated objective responses in 51% of 35 patients. Here, we update that study and evaluate the safety and efficacy of two increased-intensity myeloablative lymphodepleting regimens.
We performed two additional sequential trials of ACT with autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in patients with metastatic melanoma. Increasing intensity of host preparative lymphodepletion consisting of cyclophosphamide and fludarabine with either 2 (25 patients) or 12 Gy (25 patients) of total-body irradiation (TBI) was administered before cell transfer. Objective response rates by Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) and survival were evaluated. Immunologic correlates of effective treatment were studied.
Although nonmyeloablative chemotherapy alone showed an objective response rate of 49%, when 2 or 12 Gy of TBI was added, the response rates were 52% and 72% respectively. Responses were seen in all visceral sites including brain. There was one treatment-related death in the 93 patients. Host lymphodepletion was associated with increased serum levels of the lymphocyte homeostatic cytokines IL-7 and IL-15. Objective responses were correlated with the telomere length of the transferred cells.
Host lymphodepletion followed by autologous TIL transfer and IL-2 results in objective response rates of 50% to 70% in patients with metastatic melanoma refractory to standard therapies.
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