Biochars prepared at 300-700 °C were functionalized with amidoxime groups to evaluate their selective adsorptive removal capabilities towards Cu(II), Cd(II), and Pb(II). The results show that the amidoxime modification significantly enhanced the the Cu(II) adsorption capacity of the biochar prepared at 300 °C (AOBC300) by 1.6 times, reaching 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper addresses the problems of valve-turning operation in rescue environments where a wheeled mobile manipulator (WMM) is employed, including the possible occurrence of large internal forces. Rather than attempting to obtain the exact position of the valve, this paper presents a solution to two main problems in robotic valve-turning operations: the radial position deviation between the rotation axes of the tool and the valve handle, which may cause large radial forces, and the possible axial displacement of the valve handle as the valve turns, which may lead to large axial forces. For the former problem, we designed a compliant end-effector with a tolerance of approximately 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoil salinization, especially in arid environments, is a leading cause of land degradation and desertification. Excessive salt in the soil is detrimental to plants. Plants have developed various sophisticated regulatory mechanisms that allow them to withstand adverse environments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFYutu-2 rover conducted an exciting expedition on the 41st lunar day to investigate a fin-shaped rock at Longji site (45.44°S, 177.56°E) by extending its locomotion margin on perilous peaks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIdentifying terrain parameters is important for high-fidelity simulation and high-performance control of planetary rovers. The wheel-terrain interaction classes (WTICs) are usually different for rovers traversing various types of terrain. Every terramechanics model corresponds to its wheel-terrain interaction class (WTIC).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: While previous studies have established a significant correlation between baseline remnant cholesterol (RC) and ischemic heart disease (IHD), the enduring impact of RC on incident IHD remains to be elucidated. This study aimed to investigate the association between cumulative remnant cholesterol(cumRC) and IHD susceptibility.
Methods: Participating from the Kailuan Study (2006-2010) were enrolled, excluding those with prior myocardial infarction, coronary artery revascularization and cancer across three consecutive examinations.
Objective: This study aims to explore the ramifications of weight fluctuations preceding and succeeding the identification of heart failure (HF) on all-cause mortality.
Methods: The research cohort comprised individuals engaged in the Kailuan Group's health assessments from 2006 to 2018, who were subsequently diagnosed with HF. The moment of HF recognition marked the commencement of the monitoring period, culminating either at the instance of comprehensive mortality or at the conclusion of the monitoring phase (December 31, 2021).
Multiphoton lithography inside a mesoporous host can create optical components with continuously tunable refractive indices in three-dimensional (3D) space. However, the process is very sensitive at exposure doses near the photoresist threshold, leading previous work to reliably achieve only a fraction of the available refractive index range for a given material system. Here, we present a method for greatly enhancing the uniformity of the subsurface micro-optics, increasing the reliable index range from 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIEEE Trans Neural Netw Learn Syst
November 2024
Based on actor-critic neural networks (NNs), an optimal controller is proposed for solving the constrained control problem of an affine nonlinear discrete-time system with disturbances. The actor NNs provide the control signals and the critic NNs work as the performance indicators of the controller. By converting the original state constraints into new input constraints and state constraints, the penalty functions are introduced into the cost function, and then the constrained optimal control problem is transformed into an unconstrained one.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCompact visible wavelength achromats are essential for miniaturized and lightweight optics. However, fabrication of such achromats has proved to be exceptionally challenging. Here, using subsurface 3D printing inside mesoporous hosts we densely integrate aligned refractive and diffractive elements, forming thin high performance hybrid achromatic imaging micro-optics.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFis an opportunistic pathogen that infects patients by regulating virulence factors and biofilms through a quorum sensing (QS) system to protect itself from antibiotics and environmental stress. Therefore, the development of quorum sensing inhibitors (QSIs) is expected to become a new strategy for studying drug resistance to infections. Marine fungi are valuable resources for screening QSIs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhysical characteristics of terrains, such as softness and friction, provide essential information for legged robots to avoid non-geometric obstacles, like mires and slippery stones, in the wild. The perception of such characteristics often relies on tactile perception and vision prediction. Although tactile perception is more accurate, it is limited to close-range use; by contrast, establishing a supervised or self-supervised contactless prediction system using computer vision requires adequate labeled data and lacks the ability to adapt to the dynamic environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe piezoelectric properties of semiconductor micro/nanowires (M/NWs) are crucial for optimizing semiconductors' electronic structure and carrier dynamics. However, the dynamic characterization of the piezoelectric properties of M/NWs remains challenging. Here, a Kelvin probe force microscopy technique based on a dual-probe atomic force microscope is developed to achieve in situ piezoelectric potential measurements of dynamic bending MWs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Perinatal blood including umbilical cord blood and placental blood are splendid sources for allogeneic NK cell generation with high cytotoxicity of combating pathogenic microorganism and malignant tumor. Despite the generation of NK cells from the aforementioned perinatal blood, yet the systematical and detailed information of the biological and transcriptomic signatures of UC-NKs and P-NKs before large-scale clinical applications in disease remodeling is still largely obscure.
Methods: Herein, we took advantage of the "3IL"-based strategy for high-efficient generation of NK cells from umbilical cord blood and placental blood (UC-NKs and P-NKs), respectively.
It is important for Mars exploration rovers to achieve autonomous and safe mobility over rough terrain. Terrain classification can help rovers to select a safe terrain to traverse and avoid sinking and/or damaging the vehicle. Mars terrains are often classified using visual methods.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraditional Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) is mainly limited to the characterization of two-dimensional (2D) surfaces, and in situ surface potential (SP) imaging along 3D device surfaces remains a challenge. This paper presents a multimode 3D-KPFM based on an orthogonal cantilever probe (OCP) that can achieve SP mapping of 3D micronano structures. It integrates three working modes: a bending mode for 2D horizontal surface imaging, a torsion mode for vertical sidewall imaging, and a vector tracking-based 3D scanning mode.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSepsis‑induced myocardial dysfunction is one of the features of multiple organ dysfunction in sepsis, which is associated with extremely high mortality and is characterized by impaired myocardial compliance. To date, there are few effective treatment options available to cure sepsis. Tannic acid (TA) is reportedly protective during sepsis; however, the underlying mechanisms by which TA protects against septic heart injury remain elusive.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is necessary to switch the control strategies for propulsion system frequently according to the changes of sea states in order to ensure the stability and safety of the navigation. Therefore, identifying the current sea state timely and effectively is of great significance to ensure ship safety. To this end, a reasoning model that is based on maximum likelihood evidential reasoning (MAKER) rule is developed to identify the propeller ventilation type, and the result is used as the basis for the sea states identification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe study investigated the expression of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) MALAT1 in high glucose (HG)-induced human vascular endothelial cells (HUVECs) and the role of MALAT1 in the apoptosis of HG-induced HUVECs. The HUVECs were cultured and induced with 25 mmol/L HG. After that, the HUVECs were transfected with MALAT1 siRNA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Arginine vasopressin (AVP) is elevated in patients with heart failure, and the increase in the AVP concentration in plasma is positively correlated with disease severity and mortality. Metoprolol (Met) is a beta blocker that is widely used in the clinic to treat pathological cardiac hypertrophy and to improve heart function. However, the specific mechanism by which Met alleviates AVP-induced pathological cardiac hypertrophy is still unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article proposes an adaptive finite-time tracking control based on fuzzy-logic systems (FLSs) for an uncertain nonstrict nonlinear multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) full-state-constrained system with the coupled uncertain dead-zone input. By using three kinds of FLSs: the uncertain system, the uncertain dead zone, and the uncertain input transfer inverse matrix are approximated using the system function FLS, dead-zone FLS, and input transfer inverse matrix FLS, respectively. After defining the barrier Lyapunov function, the fuzzy-based adaptive tracking controllers are designed, and the fuzzy weights are updated through the proposed adaptive laws.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConsidering the uncertain nonstrict nonlinear system with dead-zone input, an adaptive neural network (NN)-based finite-time online optimal tracking control algorithm is proposed. By using the tracking errors and the Lipschitz linearized desired tracking function as the new state vector, an extended system is present. Then, a novel Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) function is defined to associate with the nonquadratic performance function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMacrophage recruitment to the inflammation site is essential for LPS-induced myocarditis, although the underlying mechanism remains elusive. This study was designed to examine the role of the P-AKT2/SPK1 (P-SPK1) and P-MEK/P-ERK signaling cascades in the regulation of macrophage migration and LPS-induced myocarditis. Our data revealed that (1) the P-AKT2/SPK1 (P-SPK1) and P-MEK/P-ERK signaling cascades acted separately in the regulation of macrophage migration; (2) P-AKT2/SPK1 (P-SPK1) played a relatively important role compared to P-MEK/P-ERK cell signaling in LPS-induced macrophage migration; (3) atorvastatin (ATV) inhibited macrophage migration by inhibiting P-AKT2/SPK1 (P-SPK1) cell signaling, but ATV could increase P-MEK and P-ERK protein expression; (4) ATV has a beneficial effect on LPS-induced myocarditis via inhibition of P-AKT2/SPK1-mediated macrophage recruitment, apoptosis, TNFα, IL-1β, and IL-6; (5) ATV-offered protection against LPS-induced myocarditis was eliminated from SPK1-KO mice; (6) SPK1 may play a harmful role in LPS-induced myocarditis.
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