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Abstract Zirconia is an inorganic, nonmetallic material with excellent properties. However, the brittleness of the zirconia, resulting from the thermal performance during the heating and cooling process, seriously limits the application of zirconia in the metallurgical, military, and aerospace industries. Al2O3 doped ZrO2 was developed to improve the potential material’s toughness. This paper studied the evolution of the surface functional groups, phase composition, toughening mechanism, and particle morphology of Al2O3 doped ZrO2 during the heating process. Especially microwave heating was selected as the heating method during the experiments to save energy consumption. The results showed that the phase transition temperature was reduced by the microwave sintering technique, which also promoted the transformation between the m-ZrO2 and t-ZrO2, advancing the crystallinity and structural properties of the samples. The specific surface area shows a positive relationship with the microwave heating temperature, while the particle size of the powder decreased with the temperature increase. The optimized sintering effect appears at 1000 °C in the studied roasting temperature range (800 °C–1200 °C) for Al2O3–ZrO2 powders. With the optimized sintering temperature, the void of the granular zirconia material was controlled, and the best micromorphology was obtained. In practical production, the application of microwave sintering and alumina doping is beneficial to saving costs and protecting the environment. Al2O3–ZrO2
Abstract The dried ammonium polyvanadate (APV) can be used to produce high-purity Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) by calcination. Therefore, drying is a necessary process. The advantages of microwave drying are uniform heating, selective heating, high heating efficiency and the operation process is clean and hygienic. This study uses a microwave to dry APV and discusses the effect of the initial mass, microwave power, initial moisture content on the drying efficiency of APV. The results display that the average drying rate is positively correlated with the microwave output power. When the initial mass is 35 g, the average rate is shown as 0.000263%/s. As the initial moisture content and power of APV increases to 25% and 560W, the average drying rate increases to 0.00036231%/s and 0.003125%/s, respectively. At the same time, through the analysis of APV drying kinetics and the fitting of experimental data, it is found that the APV microwave drying process can be precisely described by the Modified Page model. The microwave heating process saves energy and time, directly penetrates the product, and has certain advantages in green metallurgy.
Abstract In this paper, we propose a cooperative model combined the multi-task reverse sparse representation model (MTRSR) and the AdaBoost classifier, which were used to cope with the disturbing of target gradient information caused by motion blur or target serious occlusion, and a descriptive dictionary were used to estimate the weights of each candidates. First, we use the MTRSR model to get the blur kernel which were used to get the blur target template set, meanwhile the confidence of the candidates is also obtained by the reconstruction error. Then we use the HOG features of the target templates to get the descriptive dictionary to calculate the weights of the candidates, and a AdaBoost classifier is used to calculate the confidences of all candidates. Finally, the best target is retrieved by the sum of production of weight value and the two confidences. The experimental data show that the proposed algorithm can fully cope with the target’s information change which were caused by motion blur and target occlusion in the complex scene, and our algorithm can further improve the accuracy and robustness in visual tracking.
Abstract The rigidity of traditional solid-state surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate hampers their application in the curved structure for nonplanar surface test and in-situ detection. Traditionally, the flexible Raman substrates are often prepared by transferring printing of patterned nanoparticles on the flexible materials such as polymer, paper, etc. However, the replicate patterns are often produced by high-cost instruments. In this study, a low-cost and flexible SERS substrate is prepared by using a microcontact printing technology to transfer three-phase-assembled nanoparticles on a polydimethylsiloxane film, which can stabilize the assembled nanoparticles. Combining with the endonuclease Nt.BbvCI assisted amplification method, a SERS biosensor is constructed for microRNA 21 (miRNA 21) assay. This platform presents a wide dynamic range (100 fM ∼1 nM), achieving a fabulous sensitivity with limit of detection of 11.96 fM for miRNA 21. Furthermore, after being bent 90° for 50 times, the Raman intensity of the flexible substrate shows a negligible change. This versatile flexible substrate exhibits considerable potential for SERS analysis, which also opens a new avenue for preparing flexible devices.
Abstract MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in the regulation of gene expression via incomplete base pairing to sequence motifs at the three prime untranslated regions (3′-UTRs) of mRNAs and play critical roles in the etiology of cancers. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the 3′-UTR miRNA-binding regions may influence the miRNA affinity. However, this biological mechanism in prostate cancer (PCa) remains unclear. Here, a three-stage genome-wide association study of 3′-UTR SNPs (n=33 117) is performed in 5515 Chinese men. Three genome-wide significant variants are discovered at 8p21.2 (rs1567669, rs4872176, and rs4872177), which are all located in a linkage disequilibrium region of the NKX3–1 gene. Phenome-wide association analysis using the FinnGen data reveals a specific association of rs1567669 with PCa over 2,264 disease endpoints. Expression quantitative trait locus analyses based on both Chinese PCa cohort and the GTEx database show that risk alleles of these SNPs are significantly associated with low expression of NKX3–1. Based on the MirSNP database, dual-luciferase reporter assays show that risk alleles of these SNPs downregulate the expression of NKX3–1 via increased miRNA binding. These results indicate that the SNPs at the 3′-UTR of NKX3–1 significantly downregulate NKX3–1 expression by influencing the affinity of miRNA and increase the PCa risk.
Abstract Pain is a significant indicator that shows people are suffering from an unwell experience and its automatic estimation has attracted much interest in recent years. Of late, most estimation methods are designed to capture the dynamic pain information from visual signals while a few physiological-signal based methods can provide extra potential cues to analyze the pain more accurately. However, it is still challenging to capture the physiological data from patients as it requires contact devices and patients’ cooperation. In this paper, we propose to leverage the pseudo physiological information by generating new modal data from the original visual videos and jointly estimating the pain by an end-to-end network. To extract the representations from bi-modal data, we design a spatio-temporal pain estimation network, which employs a dual-branch framework for extracting pain-aware visual and pseudo physiological features separately and fuses the features in a probabilistic way. The inherent vital sign, i.e., heart rate gain (HRG), from pseudo physiological information can be utilized as an auxiliary signal and integrated with the visual pain estimation framework. Moreover, specially-designed 3D convolution filters and attention structures are employed to extract spatio-temporal features for both branches. To use the HRG as an auxiliary way for pain estimation, we propose a probabilistic inference model by jointly considering the visual branch and physiological branch, which makes our model estimate the pain comprehensively. Experiments on two publicly-available datasets show the effectiveness of introducing the pseudo modality, and the proposed method can outperform the state-of-the-art methods.
Abstract Nanostructured ceramic materials doped with stabilizers have superior mechanical, chemical, and electrical properties. In this study, tetragonal zirconia stabilized by 6 mol% MgO and 2 mol% Y2O3 (t-6MgO–2Y2O3–ZrO2) nanopowders with quasi-spherical morphology, uniform particle size, and narrower grain size distributions were prepared by a combination process including two steps: namely co-precipitation and high-energy ball milling. The effect of ball milling time on ZrO2 crystal particles was investigated by characterizations including XRD, Raman, FT-IR, FEESM, BET, and TEM. With the increase of ball milling time, the average grain size of the powder showed a gradual decrease tendency, the particle size distribution changed from wide to narrow, the particle morphology tended to be spherical, and the specific surface area gradually increased. Under the optimized conditions (ball milling for 8 h, calcination temperature of 800 °C, and holding time of 2 h), the highly dispersed spherical nanopowders with a minimum particle size of 18.47 nm and an average particle size of 29.02 nm were obtained. These zirconium oxide nanopowders are suitable for the preparation of inorganic coatings, biomedical materials, catalyst materials, and other types of functional materials.
Abstract Tetragonal zirconia has excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility, and is widely used in medicine, aviation, ceramics, and other fields. In this study, nano-zirconia (6MgO–2Y2O3–ZrO2) was prepared by co-precipitation method assisted with pressure-less sintering which was used to obtain tetragonal phase zirconia. The zirconia powders were analyzed by XRD, Raman spectroscopy, FT-IR, SEM, and Gaussian mathematical fitting. The outcomes demonstrate that elevated temperature favors the promotion of phase transitions which enhances structural properties and the crystallinity of zirconia, and enables the stable existence of t-ZrO2 at room temperature. The size of the powder gradually decreases, and the particle size distribution becomes narrower with the temperature increases. With the increasing specific surface area, the morphology of nano-oxidation gradually tends to be spherical. In the sintering temperature (350 °C–950 °C), the spherical nano-powders obtained at 950 °C shows the lowest voidage and the best density. In actual production, it can provide a reference for the preparation of high-quality nano-zirconia and broaden the application field of zirconia.
Abstract Sparse coding has achieved a great success in various image processing studies. However, there is not any benchmark to measure the sparsity of image patch/group because sparse discriminant conditions cannot keep unchanged. This paper analyzes the sparsity of group based on the strategy of the rank minimization. Firstly, an adaptive dictionary for each group is designed. Then, we prove that group-based sparse coding is equivalent to the rank minimization problem, and thus the sparse coefficients of each group are measured by estimating the singular values of each group. Based on that measurement, the weighted Schatten p-norm minimization (WSNM) has been found to be the closest solution to the real singular values of each group. Thus, WSNM can be equivalently transformed into a non-convex lp-norm minimization problem in group-based sparse coding. Experimental results on two applications: image in painting and image compressive sensing (CS) recovery show that the proposed scheme outperforms many state-of-the-art methods.
Abstract Aberrant telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) expression is crucial for tumor survival and cancer cells escaping apoptosis. Multiple TERT-locus variants at 5p15 have been discovered in association with cancer risk, yet the underlying mechanisms and clinical impacts remain unclear. Here, our association studies showed that the TERT promoter variant rs2853669 confers a risk of prostate cancer (PCa) in different ethnic groups. Further functional investigation revealed that the allele-specific binding of MYC and E2F1 at TERT promoter variant rs2853669 associates with elevated level of TERT in PCa. Mechanistically, androgen stimulations promoted the binding of MYC to allele T of rs2853669, thereby activating TERT, whereas hormone deprivations enhanced E2F1 binding at allele C of rs2853669, thus upregulating TERT expression. Notably, E2F1 could cooperate with AR signaling to regulate MYC expression. Clinical data demonstrated synergistic effects of MYC/E2F1/TERT expression or with the TT and CC genotype of rs2853669 on PCa prognosis and severity. Strikingly, single-nucleotide editing assays showed that the CC genotype of rs2853669 obviously promotes epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) and the development of castration-resistant PCa (CRPC), confirmed by unbiased global transcriptome profiling. Our findings thus provided compelling evidence for understanding the roles of noncoding variations coordinated with androgen signaling and oncogenic transcription factors in mis-regulating TERT expression and driving PCa.
Abstract In the family of inorganic nanomaterials, zirconia is a highly promising functional ceramic with a high refractive index, hardness, and dielectric constant, as well as excellent chemical inertness and thermal stability. These properties are enhanced in nano-zirconia ceramics, because nanopowders have a small particle size, good morphology, and uniform and dispersive distribution. In this study, a co-precipitation process was proposed to synthesise highly dispersed MgO–Y2O3 co-stabilized ZrO2 nanopowders. The effects of different calcination temperatures on the crystallisation degree and particle dispersion of zirconia nanopowders were characterised by X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetry-differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC), Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), nitrogen adsorption using the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) theory, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The optimum synthesis conditions were obtained as follows: 6 h of high-energy planetary grinding and calcination at 800 °C in an electric furnace. Under these optimum conditions, the average particle size of the prepared powder was 28.7 nm. This process enriches the literature on the controllable preparation of Mg–Y/ZrO2 nanopowders obtained by the co-precipitation method.
Abstract Metal oxide-based surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) platforms have attracted considerable interest, which show potentials for biomolecule detection due to their wide bandgap tuning range, stable properties, high electron mobility and good optical properties. However, the types and enhancement factor (EF) of metal oxide SERS substrates are limited. And the band-matched efficient photo-induced charge transfer (PICT) is the important process to further improve the EF. In this study, one efficient SERS substrate Sn1-xCexO2 was synthesized by varying concentrations of Ce ions with band gap tuning and oxygen vacancies introducing. As a result, the charge transfer pathway and strong interaction between the Sn1-xCexO2 nanoflowers (NFs) and methylene blue (MB) molecules are promoted, and the enhancement factor (EF) of this Sn1-xCexO2 (x = 0.03) NF is as high as 1.80 × 106. Then, we constructed a biosensor based on hybridization chain reaction (HCR) strategy combining with Mg2+-dependent DNAzyme cleavage nucleic acid cascade signal amplification to achieve sensitive and quantitative detection of microRNA 21 (miRNA 21). The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.72 fM with a detection linearity ranged from 1 fM to 10 nM. This study gives an approach for preparation of new SERS substrates which can be used in bioanalysis.
Abstract Genome-wide association studies have identified 270 loci conferring risk for prostate cancer (PCa), yet the underlying biology and clinical impact remain to be investigated. Here we observe an enrichment of transcription factor genes including HNF1B within PCa risk-associated regions. While focused on the 17q12/HNF1B locus, we find a strong eQTL for HNF1B and multiple potential causal variants involved in the regulation of HNF1B expression in PCa. An unbiased genome-wide co-expression analysis reveals PCa-specific somatic TMPRSS2-ERG fusion as a transcriptional mediator of this locus and the HNF1B eQTL signal is ERG fusion status dependent. We investigate the role of HNF1B and find its involvement in several pathways related to cell cycle progression and PCa severity. Furthermore, HNF1B interacts with TMPRSS2-ERG to co-occupy large proportion of genomic regions with a remarkable enrichment of additional PCa risk alleles. We finally show that HNF1B co-opts ERG fusion to mediate mechanistic and biological effects of the PCa risk-associated locus 17p13.3/VPS53/FAM57A/GEMIN4. Taken together, we report an extensive germline-somatic interaction between TMPRSS2-ERG fusion and genetic variations underpinning PCa risk association and progression.
Abstract Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is widely used in drug molecular detection. However, SERS detections of drug molecules in serum with high sensitivity and reproducibility remains extremely challenging due to signal interference of complex constituents of serum. The latter presents a high SERS background noise that buries the signals of the drug molecules. Here, we report a 3-step method to make SERS system of silver nanoparticle clusters to overcome the interference and achieve quantitative SERS analysis of drugs in serum by 1) proteins removal from serum; 2) enhanced drug adsorption on the nanoparticles; and 3) background suppression by internal standard in nanoparticle aggregation. By careful selection of the aggregation agents and internal standard, clear SERS peaks of the internal standard and six different drug analytes were observed for pesticide identification in human serum. Significantly, the SERS peak ratio of the internal stardard and drug analytes has achieved univariate quantitative monitoring of drug metabolism in mice serum, which is in agreement with analysis by the multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares method. Our method shows great clinical application potential in therapeutic drug monitoring and personalized medicine.
Abstract We report the properties of primary cosmic-ray sulfur (S) in the rigidity range 2.15 GV to 3.0 TV based on 0.38 x 106 sulfur nuclei collected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment (AMS). We observed that above 90 GV the rigidity dependence of the S flux is identical to the rigidity dependence of Ne-Mg-Si fluxes, which is different from the rigidity dependence of the He-C-O-Fe fluxes. We found that, similar to N, Na, and Al cosmic rays, over the entire rigidity range, the traditional primary cosmic rays S, Ne, Mg, and C all have sizeable secondary components, and the S, Ne, and Mg fluxes are well described by the weighted sum of the primary silicon flux and the secondary fluorine flux, and the C flux is well described by the weighted sum of the primary oxygen flux and the secondary boron flux. The primary and secondary contributions of the traditional primary cosmic-ray fluxes of C, Ne, Mg, and S (even Z elements) are distinctly different from the primary and secondary contributions of the N, Na, and Al (odd Z elements) fluxes. The abundance ratio at the source for S/Si is 0.167 ± 0.006, for Ne/Si is 0.833 ± 0.025, for Mg/Si is 0.994 ± 0.029, and for C/O is 0.836 ± 0.025. These values are determined independent of cosmic-ray propagation.
Background: DNA methylation at the GFI1-locus has been repeatedly associated with exposure to smoking from the foetal period onwards. We explored whether DNA methylation may be a mechanism that links exposure to maternal prenatal smoking with offspring's adult cardio-metabolic health. Methods: We meta-analysed the association between DNA methylation at GFI1-locus with maternal prenatal smoking, adult own smoking, and cardio-metabolic phenotypes in 22 population-based studies from Europe, Australia, and USA (n = 18,212). DNA methylation at the GFI1-locus was measured in whole-blood. Multivariable regression models were fitted to examine its association with exposure to prenatal and own adult smoking. DNA methylation levels were analysed in relation to body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), fasting glucose (FG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL—C), triglycerides (TG), diastolic, and systolic blood pressure (BP). Findings: Lower DNA methylation at three out of eight GFI1-CpGs was associated with exposure to maternal prenatal smoking, whereas, all eight CpGs were associated with adult own smoking. Lower DNA methylation at cg14179389, the strongest maternal prenatal smoking locus, was associated with increased WC and BP when adjusted for sex, age, and adult smoking with Bonferroni-corrected P b 0·012. In contrast, lower DNA methylation at cg09935388, the strongest adult own smoking locus, was associated with decreased BMI, WC, and BP (adjusted 1 × 10−7 b P b 0.01). Similarly, lower DNA methylation at cg12876356, cg18316974, cg09662411, and cg18146737 was associated with decreased BMI and WC (5 × 10−8 b P b 0.001). Lower DNA methylation at all the CpGs was consistently associated with higher TG levels. Interpretation: Epigenetic changes at the GFI1 were linked to smoking exposure in-utero/in-adulthood and robustly associated with cardio-metabolic risk factors.
Abstract Precision measurements by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) on the International Space Station of 3He and 4He fluxes are presented. The measurements are based on 100 million 4He nuclei in the rigidity range from 2.1 to 21 GV and 18 million 3He from 1.9 to 15 GV collected from May 2011 to November 2017. We observed that the 3He and 4He fluxes exhibit nearly identical variations with time. The relative magnitude of the variations decreases with increasing rigidity. The rigidity dependence of the 3He/4He flux ratio is measured for the first time. Below 4 GV, the 3He/4He flux ratio was found to have a significant long-term time dependence. Above 4 GV, the 3He/4He flux ratio was found to be time independent, and its rigidity dependence is well described by a single power law ∝RΔ with Δ=−0.294±0.004. Unexpectedly, this value is in agreement with the B/O and B/C spectral indices at high energies.
Abstract The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is a precision particle physics detector on the International Space Station (ISS) conducting a unique, long-duration mission of fundamental physics research in space. The physics objectives include the precise studies of the origin of dark matter, antimatter, and cosmic rays as well as the exploration of new phenomena. Following a 16-year period of construction and testing, and a precursor flight on the Space Shuttle, AMS was installed on the ISS on May 19, 2011. In this report we present results based on 120 billion charged cosmic ray events up to multi-TeV energies. This includes the fluxes of positrons, electrons, antiprotons, protons, and nuclei. These results provide unexpected information, which cannot be explained by the current theoretical models. The accuracy and characteristics of the data, simultaneously from many different types of cosmic rays, provide unique input to the understanding of origins, acceleration, and propagation of cosmic rays.
Abstract We report the observation of new properties of primary cosmic rays, neon (Ne), magnesium (Mg), and silicon (Si), measured in the rigidity range 2.15 GV to 3.0 TV with 1.8×106 Ne, 2.2×106 Mg, and 1.6×106 Si nuclei collected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment on the International Space Station. The Ne and Mg spectra have identical rigidity dependence above 3.65 GV. The three spectra have identical rigidity dependence above 86.5 GV, deviate from a single power law above 200 GV, and harden in an identical way. Unexpectedly, above 86.5 GV the rigidity dependence of primary cosmic rays Ne, Mg, and Si spectra is different from the rigidity dependence of primary cosmic rays He, C, and O. This shows that the Ne, Mg, and Si and He, C, and O are two different classes of primary cosmic rays.
Abstract Background: DNA methylation at the GFI1-locus has been repeatedly associated with exposure to smoking from the foetal period onwards. We explored whether DNA methylation may be a mechanism that links exposure to maternal prenatal smoking with offspring’s adult cardio-metabolic health. Methods: We meta-analysed the association between DNA methylation at GFI1-locus with maternal prenatal smoking, adult own smoking, and cardio-metabolic phenotypes in 22 population-based studies from Europe, Australia, and USA (n = 18,212). DNA methylation at the GFI1-locus was measured in whole-blood. Multivariable regression models were fitted to examine its association with exposure to prenatal and own adult smoking. DNA methylation levels were analysed in relation to body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), fasting glucose (FG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL—C), triglycerides (TG), diastolic, and systolic blood pressure (BP). Findings: Lower DNA methylation at three out of eight GFI1-CpGs was associated with exposure to maternal prenatal smoking, whereas, all eight CpGs were associated with adult own smoking. Lower DNA methylation at cg14179389, the strongest maternal prenatal smoking locus, was associated with increased WC and BP when adjusted for sex, age, and adult smoking with Bonferroni-corrected P < 0·012. In contrast, lower DNA methylation at cg09935388, the strongest adult own smoking locus, was associated with decreased BMI, WC, and BP (adjusted 1 × 10−7 < P < 0.01). Similarly, lower DNA methylation at cg12876356, cg18316974, cg09662411, and cg18146737 was associated with decreased BMI and WC (5 × 10−8 < P < 0.001). Lower DNA methylation at all the CpGs was consistently associated with higher TG levels. Interpretation: Epigenetic changes at the GFI1 were linked to smoking exposure in-utero/in-adulthood and robustly associated with cardio-metabolic risk factors. Fund: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 633595 DynaHEALTH.