Effect of Ga on the Inoxidizability and Wettability of Sn-0.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.05Pr Solder

The effect of trace amount of Ga on the inoxidizability and wettability of Sn-0.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.05Pr solders was investigated systematically by means of microstructure characterizations. The results indicate that the wettability and oxidation resistance properties are remarkably improved with addition of trace amount of Ga. Moreover, it is observed that the trace amount of Ga in Sn-0.5Ag-0.7Cu-0.05Pr solders refines the matrix microstructure. The relationship between wettability and oxidation resistance was put into deep study. And Ga was found to be enriched on the surface of the molten solder, which benefited the properties correspondingly. The results of this study can stimulate the use of low-silver Sn-Ag-Cu-Pr solders for various applications

Imaging of InGaN inhomogeneities using visible apertureless near-field scanning optical microscope

Received ( The optical properties of epitaxially grown islands of InGaN are investigated with nanometer-scale spatial resolution using visible apertureless near-field scanning optical microscopy. Scattered light from the tip-sample system is modulated by cantilever oscillations and detected at the third harmonic of the oscillation frequency to distinguish the near-field signal from unwanted scattered background light. Scattered near-field measurements indicate that the as-grown InGaN islanded film may exhibit both inhomogeneous In composition and strain-induced changes that affect the optical signal at 633 nm and 532 nm. Changes are observed in the optical contrast for large 3D InGaN islands (100's of nm) of the same height. Near-field optical mapping of small grains on a finer scale reveals InGaN composition or strain-induced irregularities in features with heights of only 2 nm, which exhibit different near-field signals at 633 nm and 532 nm incident wavelengths. Optical signal contrast from topographic features as small as 30 nm is detected

Understanding the Heat Shock Response in the Sea Cucumber Apostichopus japonicus, Using iTRAQ-Based Proteomics

The sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus is exploited as a commercial species owing to their high nutritive and medicinal value. Recent high summer temperatures have caused high mortality rates in A. japonicus. In this study, we applied the isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) technique to investigate the global protein expression profile under an acute short-term (48 h) heat stress. In total, 3432 proteins were identified, and 127 proteins showed significant heat stress responses, with 61 upregulated proteins and 66 downregulated proteins. Our results suggest that heat stress influenced the expression of proteins involved in various biological processes, such as tissue protection and detoxification, lipid and amino acid metabolism, energy production and usage, transcription and translation, cell apoptosis, and cell proliferation. These findings provide a better understanding about the response and thermo-tolerance mechanisms of A. japonicus under heat stress

Lysine Acetylation is an Important Post-Translational Modification that Modulates Heat Shock Response in the Sea Cucumber Apostichopus japonicus

Heat stress (HS) is an important factor for the survival of the marine organism Apostichopus japonicus. Lysine acetylation is a pivotal post-translational modification that modulates diverse physiological processes including heat shock response (HSR). In this study, 4028 lysine acetylation sites in 1439 proteins were identified in A. japonicus by acetylproteome sequencing. A total of 13 motifs were characterized around the acetylated lysine sites. Gene Ontology analysis showed that major acetylated protein groups were involved in “oxidation–reduction process”, “ribosome”, and “protein binding” terms. Compared to the control group, the acetylation quantitation of 25 and 41 lysine sites changed after 6 and 48 h HS. Notably, lysine acetyltransferase CREB-binding protein (CBP) was identified to have differential acetylation quantitation at multiple lysine sites under HS. Various chaperones, such as caseinolytic peptidase B protein homolog (CLBP), T-complex protein 1 (TCP1), and cyclophilin A (CYP1), showed differential acetylation quantitation after 48 h HS. Additionally, many translation-associated proteins, such as ribosomal proteins, translation initiation factor (IF), and elongation factors (EFs), had differential acetylation quantitation under HS. These proteins represented specific interaction networks. Collectively, our results offer novel insight into the complex HSR in A. japonicus and provide a resource for further mechanistic studies examining the regulation of protein function by lysine acetylation

Hopf bifurcation for an SIR model with age structure

This paper deals with an SIR model with age structure of infected individuals. We formulate the model as an abstract non-densely defined Cauchy problem and derive the conditions for the existence of all the feasible equilibrium points of the system. The criteria for both stability and instability involving system parameters are obtained. Bifurcation analysis indicates that the system with age structure exhibits Hopf bifurcation which is the main result of this paper. Finally, some numerical examples are provided to illustrate our obtained results

A Two-Stage Method for Parameter Identification of a Nonlinear System in a Microbial Batch Process

This paper deals with the parameter identification of a microbial batch process of glycerol to 1,3-propanediol (1,3-PD). We first present a parameter identification model for the excess kinetics of a microbial batch process of glycerol to 1,3-PD. This model is a nonlinear dynamic optimization problem that minimizes the sum of the least-square and slope errors of biomass, glycerol, 1,3-PD, acetic acid, and ethanol. Then, a two-stage method is proposed to efficiently solve the presented dynamic optimization problem. In this method, two nonlinear programming problems are required to be solved by a genetic algorithm. To calculate the slope of the experimental concentration data, an integral equation of the first kind is solved by using the Tikhonov regularization. The proposed two-stage method could not only optimally identify the model parameters of the biological process, but could also yield a smaller error between the measured and computed concentrations than the single-stage method could, with a decrease of about 52.79%. A comparative study showed that the proposed two-stage method could obtain better identification results than the single-stage method could

Research on the dissipation of green tide and its influencing factors in the Yellow Sea based on Google Earth Engine

Since 2007, the outbreak of green tides has become the most serious ecological problem in the Yellow Sea. In this study, a new method was used to identify green tides in multi-source satellite data from 2007 to 2020, and the relationship between the conditions necessary for green tide dissipation and other environmental factors was discussed. We found a "wavy" trend of green tide scales over the 14-year dissipation period. The dissipation direction was influenced by sea surface wind (SSW) and sea surface circulation (SSC). Under the action of northeast moving SSW and SSC, green tides move away from the shore and drift northward; under the action of northwest or southwest moving SSW and SSC, they moved towards the shore and drift southward. The date of dissipation was influenced by sea surface temperature (SST) and precipitation, and high SST accelerated the process of green tide dissipation, while precipitation slowed it down

Analysis of Supply Chain under Different Subsidy Policies of the Government

The increasing public attention on green products prompted firms and government to focus on the design and manufacturing of these products. This study focuses on a supply chain system that consists of three members, namely, supplier, manufacturer, and government, and then investigates the effects of government subsidies on social welfare and the profits of supply chain members. We utilize game and optimization theories to calculate and compare the optimal decisions and profits of players in the following scenarios: (i) the government provides a subsidy rate to the cost of manufacturer’s greenness efforts (first subsidy policy); and (ii) the government grants a per unit subsidy to the manufacturer for the demand for green product (second subsidy policy). We also derive the necessary condition for the most effective subsidy policy that maximizes expected social welfare and profits. Our analysis derives the following findings: (i) under the first subsidy policy, the government tends to provide high subsidy rate to a manufacturer with low marginal profit; (ii) under the second subsidy policy, the government tends to offer low subsidy to a manufacturer with low marginal profit; and (iii) a government’s selection of subsidy policy depends on the sensitivity of consumers to price

Composite Terminal Guidance Law for Supercavitating Torpedoes with Impact Angle Constraints

A novel composite terminal guidance law with impact angle constraints is proposed for supercavitating torpedoes to intercept maneuvering warships. Based on an adaptive super-twisting algorithm and nonsingular terminal sliding mode (NTSM), the proposed guidance law can guarantee the finite-time convergence of line-of-sight (LOS) angle error and the LOS angular rate error. The new guidance law is a combination of finite-time stability theory, sliding mode control (SMC), tracking differentiator (TD), disturbance observer (DO), and dynamic surface control. A high-order sliding mode TD is used for denoising, tracking, and differentiating the measured target heading angle. A novel DO, with its finite-time stability proved, is designed to estimate the target lateral acceleration for feedforward compensation to attenuate chattering in control input. In the case of a first-order-lag autopilot, a new kind of tracking differentiator is adopted to compute the first-order time derivative of the virtual control command, which can improve the accuracy of dynamic surface control and avoid the “explosion of items” problem encountered with the backstepping control. Finally, numerical simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed TD, DO, and the composite guidance law