Deconfinement Phase Transition Heating and Thermal Evolution of Neutron Stars

The deconfinement phase transition will lead to the release of latent heat during spins down of neutron stars if the transition is the first-order one.We have investigated the thermal evolution of neutron stars undergoing such deconfinement phase transition. The results show that neutron stars may be heated to higher temperature.This feature could be particularly interesting for high temperature of low-magnetic field millisecond pulsar at late stage.Comment: 4 pages, to be published by American Institute of Physics, ed. D.Lai, X.D.Li and Y.F.Yuan, as the Proceedings of the conference Astrophysics of Compact Object

Assessing and predicting small industrial enterprises’ credit ratings:A fuzzy decision-making approach

Corporate credit-rating assessment plays a crucial role in helping financial institutions make their lending decisions and in reducing the financial constraints of small enterprises. This paper presents a new approach for small industrial enterprises’ credit-rating assessment using fuzzy decision-making methods, and tests it using real bank loan data from 1,820 small industrial enterprises in China. The procedure of the proposed rating approach includes (1) using triangular fuzzy numbers to quantify the qualitative evaluation indicators; (2) adopting a correlation analysis, univariate analysis and stepping backwards feature selection method to select the input features; (3) employing the best-worst method (BWM) combined with the entropy weight method (EWM), the fuzzy c-means algorithm and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to classify small enterprises into rating classes; and (4) applying the lattice degree of nearness to predict a new loan applicant’s rating. We also conduct a 10-fold cross-validation to evaluate the predictive performance of our proposed approach. The predictive results demonstrate that our proposed data-processing and feature selection approaches have better accuracy than the alternative approaches in predicting default, offering bankers a new valuable rating system to assist their decision making

An improved nuclear mass formula with a unified prescription for the shell and pairing corrections

An improvedmacroscopic-microscopic nuclear mass formula is presented in which shell and pairing effects are simultaneously evaluated by a procedure similar to Strutinsky method. The coefficients of the macroscopic-microscopic mass formula have been adjusted on 2267 experimental atomic masses extracted from the atomic mass evaluation of 2012 (AME2012). Same as inthe Weizsäcker-Skyrme (WS) model, the influence of the nuclear deformation on the macroscopic energy as well as the mirror nuclei constraint istaken into account, and for the sake of the consistency of the model parameters between the macroscopic and the microscopic parts we approximate the isospin-dependent component of the macroscopic energy to the depth of the Woods-Saxon potential. As a result, the root-mean square (rms) deviation with respect to 2267 measured nuclear masses is 0.493MeV. Then,based on the fitted formula we predict the remaining 988 nuclei from the AME2012 for which the masses are still unknown or not well-known, and calculate the α-decay energies of seven chains in the superheavy nuclei region with Z=117 and 118

Efficacy of combined nebulized aerosol inhalation and pulmicort respules in the treatment of emergency pediatric laryngitis, and its effect on adverse reactions

Purpose: To determine the efficacy of combined use of nebulized epinephrine inhalation and pulmicortrespules in the treatment of emergency pediatric laryngitis and, its impact on the incidence of adverse reactions.Methods: A total of 100 cases of pediatric laryngitis admitted in The People’s Hospital of Zhangqiu District between December 2018 and December 2020 were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive either pulmicort respules (control group) or pulmicort respules plus nebulized epinephrine inhalation treatment (study group).  Outcome measures included level of effectiveness and adverse reactions.Results: Pulmicort respules plus nebulized epinephrine inhalation treatment was associated with shorter remission time for dyspnea, wheeze, croup, and hoarseness versus pulmicort respules. The combination treatment produced higher total effectiveness of 96 % than pulmicort respules with total effectiveness of 82 % (p < 0.05). After treatment, both groups had decreased serum levels of interleukin-8 (IL-8), IL-6, C-reactive protein (CRP), and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, with markedly lower levels in the group given nebulized epinephrine inhalation in combination with pulmicort respules (p < 0.05). Compared with patients given pulmicort respules only, those given combination treatments had a significantly shorter hospitalization time and a lower incidence of adverse reactions (4 vs 8 %; p < 0.05).Conclusion: Nebulized epinephrine inhalation in combination with pulmicort respules has high safety in the treatment of emergency pediatric laryngitis, and it significantly reduces clinical symptoms, inflammatory response, and hospital stay. However, further clinical trials are required prior to its use in clinical practice

A Novel Model of Atherosclerosis in Rabbits Using Injury to Arterial Walls Induced by Ferric Chloride as Evaluated by Optical Coherence Tomography as well as Intravascular Ultrasound and Histology

This study aim was to develop a new model of atherosclerosis by FeCl3-induced injury to right common carotid arteries (CCAs) of rabbits. Right CCAs were induced in male New Zealand White rabbits (n = 15) by combination of a cholesterol-rich diet and FeCl3-induced injury to arterial walls. The right and left CCAs were evaluated by histology and in vivo intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) examinations of 24 hours (n = 3), 8 weeks (n = 6), and 12 weeks (n = 6) after injury. Each right CCA of the rabbits showed extensive white-yellow plaques. At eight and 12 weeks after injury, IVUS, OCT, and histological findings demonstrated that the right CCAs had evident eccentric plaques. Six plaques (50%) with evident positive remodeling were observed. Marked progression was clearly observed in the same plaque at 12 weeks after injury when it underwent repeat OCT and IVUS. We demonstrated, for the first time, a novel model of atherosclerosis induced by FeCl3. The model is simple, fast, inexpensive, and reproducible and has a high success rate. The eccentric plaques and remodeling of plaques were common in this model. We successfully carried out IVUS and OCT examinations twice in the same lesion within a relatively long period of time

Development of Solar Grade Silicon (SoG-Si) Feedstock by Recycling SoG-Si Wastes

Experiment results of EM separation show that the non-metallic inclusions were successfully pushed to the boundary layer of the crucible under EM force. Larger frequency and smaller current generate smaller thickness of accumulated inclusions. More detailed EM separation experiments are undergoing to investigate the factors that affect the removal efficient of inclusions from SoG-S

Linking PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR to Histone Modification in Plant Shade Avoidance

Shade avoidance syndrome (SAS) allows a plant grown in a densely populated environment to maximize opportunities to access to sunlight. Although it is well established that SAS is accompanied by gene expression changes, the underlying molecular mechanism needs to be elucidated. Here, we identify the H3K4me3/H3K36me3-binding proteins, Morf Related Gene (MRG) group proteins MRG1 and MRG2, as positive regulators of shade-induced hypocotyl elongation in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). MRG2 binds PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR7 (PIF7) and regulates the expression of several common downstream target genes, including YUCCA8 and IAA19 involved in the auxin biosynthesis or response pathway and PRE1 involved in brassinosteroid regulation of cell elongation. In response to shade, PIF7 and MRG2 are enriched at the promoter and gene-body regions and are necessary for increase of histone H4 and H3 acetylation to promote target gene expression. Our study uncovers a mechanism in which the shade-responsive factor PIF7 recruits MRG1/MRG2 that binds H3K4me3/H3K36me3 and brings histone-acetylases to induce histone acetylations to promote expression of shade responsive genes, providing thus a molecular mechanistic link coupling the environmental light to epigenetic modification in regulation of hypocotyl elongation in plant SAS

Regulation of neurocoel morphogenesis by Pard6γb

AbstractThe Par3/Par6/aPKC protein complex plays a key role in the establishment and maintenance of apicobasal polarity, a cellular characteristic essential for tissue and organ morphogenesis, differentiation and homeostasis. During a forward genetic screen for liver and pancreas mutants, we identified a pard6γb mutant, representing the first known pard6 mutant in a vertebrate organism. pard6γb mutants exhibit defects in epithelial tissue development as well as multiple lumens in the neural tube. Analyses of the cells lining the neural tube cavity, or neurocoel, in wildtype and pard6γb mutant embryos show that lack of Pard6γb function leads to defects in mitotic spindle orientation during neurulation. We also found that the PB1 (aPKC-binding) and CRIB (Cdc-42-binding) domains and the KPLG amino acid sequence within the PDZ domain (Pals1-and Crumbs binding) are not required for Pard6γb localization but are essential for its function in neurocoel morphogenesis. Apical membranes are reduced, but not completely absent, in mutants lacking the zygotic, or both the maternal and zygotic, function of pard6γb, leading us to examine the localization and function of the three additional zebrafish Pard6 proteins. We found that Pard6α, but not Pard6β or Pard6γa, could partially rescue the pard6γbs441 mutant phenotypes. Altogether, these data indicate a previously unappreciated functional diversity and complexity within the vertebrate pard6 gene family