The Excitation of Guided-waves by Underground Point Source: an Investigation with Theoretical Seismograms

AbstractNear-Source scattering of Rg into S appears to be the primary contributor to the low-frequency Lg. The authors further suggest that the prominent low-frequency spectral null in Lg is due to Rg from a compensated linear vector dipole (CLVD) source, and the low-frequency null in Rg excitation is due to a zero-crossing of the horizontal displacement eigenfunctions. In this study, the mechanism of the excitation of Lg from explosions in layered earth structures are analyzed with theoretical seismograms. Our result shows that the CLVD source generates prominent Lg waves,and the null in the Lg spectra showing remarkably good agreement with those expected from Rg due to a CLVD source. We conclude that the derivative of displacement eigenfunction also takes a key role in the excitation of the null, only zero-crossing of the horizantall displacement eigenfunction can not fully explain it

Integrated risk management of hazardous processing facilities

Processing facilities handling large amounts of hazardous substances are attractive targets for terrorists. Thus, these work sites are exposed not only to accidents but also to intentional threats. Some research has separately studied risk caused by either potential accidental events or terrorist acts. However, studies focusing on integrated risk assessment and management (dealing with both safety and security issues) are lacking. This paper proposes an approach to assess and manage integrated risks. This method is based on an influence diagram which incorporates safety and security-related factors into one framework. It considers the effects of management actions on both accidental and intentional risks. This method can help to detect hidden risk (i.e., the risk not recognized during design and operation stages) and ensure to reduce the real risk to an acceptable level by guiding the selection of management actions. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated using the overfilling risk management of an oil tank. (c) 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Process Saf Prog 38: 42-51, 201

Normalization Enhances Generalization in Visual Reinforcement Learning

Recent advances in visual reinforcement learning (RL) have led to impressive success in handling complex tasks. However, these methods have demonstrated limited generalization capability to visual disturbances, which poses a significant challenge for their real-world application and adaptability. Though normalization techniques have demonstrated huge success in supervised and unsupervised learning, their applications in visual RL are still scarce. In this paper, we explore the potential benefits of integrating normalization into visual RL methods with respect to generalization performance. We find that, perhaps surprisingly, incorporating suitable normalization techniques is sufficient to enhance the generalization capabilities, without any additional special design. We utilize the combination of two normalization techniques, CrossNorm and SelfNorm, for generalizable visual RL. Extensive experiments are conducted on DMControl Generalization Benchmark and CARLA to validate the effectiveness of our method. We show that our method significantly improves generalization capability while only marginally affecting sample efficiency. In particular, when integrated with DrQ-v2, our method enhances the test performance of DrQ-v2 on CARLA across various scenarios, from 14% of the training performance to 97%

Document re-ranking using cluster validation and label propagation

This paper proposes a novel document re-ranking approach in information retrieval, which is done by a label propagation-based semi-supervised learning algorithm to utilize the intrinsic structure underlying in the large document data. Since no labeled relevant or irrelevant documents are generally available in IR, our approach tries to extract some pseudo labeled documents from the ranking list of the initial retrieval. For pseudo relevant documents, we determine a cluster of documents from the top ones via cluster validation-based k-means clustering; for pseudo irrelevant ones, we pick a set of documents from the bottom ones. Then the ranking of the documents can be conducted via label propagation. Evaluation on benchmark corpora shows that the approach can achieve significant improvement over standard baselines and performs better than other related approaches

20-Hydroxyecdysone (20E) Primary Response Gene \u3cem\u3eE93\u3c/em\u3e Modulates 20E Signaling to Promote \u3cem\u3eBombyx\u3c/em\u3e Larval-Pupal Metamorphosis

As revealed in a previous microarray study to identify genes regulated by 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) and juvenile hormone (JH) in the silkworm, Bombyx mori, E93 expression in the fat body was markedly low prior to the wandering stage but abundant during larval-pupal metamorphosis. Induced by 20E and suppressed by JH, E93 expression follows this developmental profile in multiple silkworm alleles. The reduction of E93 expression by RNAi disrupted 20E signaling and the 20E-induced autophagy, caspase activity, and cell dissociation in the fat body. Reducing E93 expression also decreased the expression of the 20E-induced pupal-specific cuticle protein genes and prevented growth and differentiation of the wing discs. Importantly, the two HTH domains in E93 are critical for inducing the expression of a subset of 20E response genes, including EcR, USP, E74, Br-C, and Atg1. By contrast, the LLQHLL and PLDLSAK motifs in E93 inhibit its transcriptional activity. E93 binds to the EcR-USP complex via a physical association with USP through its LLQHLL motif; and this association is enhanced by 20E-induced EcR-USP interaction, which attenuates the transcriptional activity of E93. E93 acts through the two HTH domains to bind to GAGA-containing motifs present in the Atg1 promoter region for inducing gene expression. In conclusion, E93 transcriptionally modulates 20E signaling to promote Bombyx larval-pupal metamorphosis

Scutellarin Ameliorates Renal Injury via Increasing CCN1 Expression and Suppressing NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation in Hyperuricemic Mice

Considerable evidences have indicated that elevated uric acid (UA) was involved in renal tubular injury leading to hyperuricemic nephropathy (HN). Scutellarin is a biologically active flavonoid derived from the Chinese traditional herb Erigeron breviscapus Hand-Mazz, which has been widely used in the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. In the present study, we analyzed the effect of scutellarin on HN, by using C57BL/6 mice and human renal tubular epithelial cell line HK-2 which was subjected to adenine/potassium oxonate and UA to mimic a HN injury. The HN mice showed a significant decrease in renal function with the increased SCr and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) (p < 0.05). Hematoxylin-eosin staining results showed a histological injury in HN mice kidney tissues with severe tubular damage. Scutellarin dose dependently alleviated the renal injury of the HN model (p < 0.05), and a dose of 20 mg/kg/day remarkably reduced the Scr level (26.10 +/- 3.23 mu mol/ml vs. 48.39 +/- 7.51 mu mol/ml, p < 0.05) and BUN (151.12 +/- 30.24 mmol/L vs. 210.43 +/- 45.67 mmol/L, p < 0.05) compared with the HN model group. Similarly, scutellarin decreased NGAL, Kim-1, cystatin C, and IL-18 protein expression levels in HN mouse (p < 0.05). Overexpressed CCN1 could not induce NLRP3 inflammasome activation, with no change of mRNA and protein expression levels of NLRP3, ASC, and pro-caspase-1 compared with the control HK-2. However, HK-2 showed a significant NLRP3 inflammasome activation and apoptosis. Importantly, knockdown of CCN1 not only aggravated NLRP3 inflammasome activation and apoptosis but also abrogated the protective effect of scutellarin in UA-induced HK-2 injury. Thus, scutellarin might alleviate HN progression via a mechanism involved in CCN1 regulation on NLRP3 inflammasome activation

HP1-β is required for development of the cerebral neocortex and neuromuscular junctions

HP1 proteins are thought to be modulators of chromatin organization in all mammals, yet their exact physiological function remains unknown. In a first attempt to elucidate the function of these proteins in vivo, we disrupted the murine Cbx1 gene, which encodes the HP1-β isotype, and show that the Cbx1−/−-null mutation leads to perinatal lethality. The newborn mice succumbed to acute respiratory failure, whose likely cause is the defective development of neuromuscular junctions within the endplate of the diaphragm. We also observe aberrant cerebral cortex development in Cbx1−/− mutant brains, which have reduced proliferation of neuronal precursors, widespread cell death, and edema. In vitro cultures of neurospheres from Cbx1−/− mutant brains reveal a dramatic genomic instability. Our results demonstrate that HP1 proteins are not functionally redundant and that they are likely to regulate lineage-specific changes in heterochromatin organization