Numerical and Experimental Characterization of Radiation Mode of 45° Tilted Fiber Grating

In this paper, we have numerically and experimentally investigated the radiation mode of 45° tilted fiber grating (45° TFG). By introducing the axial distributions into the volume current method, we have established a three-dimensional theoretical model to analyze spatial distributions of the radiation mode of 45° TFG, and measured the radiation mode spatial distributions in experiment. Both numerical and experimental results show that the radiation mode of 45° TFG exhibits an exponential reduction along the fiber axial direction, and a quasi-Gaussian profile along the radial direction of fiber. Additionally, we have also measured the detailed polarization-dependent azimuthal intensity distributions of radiation modes of both s-and p-polarized core modes. The degree of polarization of radiation mode is around 99.886%, which is independent of the length and the polarization extinction ratio of the grating. Moreover, for the first time, we have experimentally observed a very weak p-polarized component existing in the radiation mode, which has matched well with the simulation results

Compact linear polarization spectrometer based on radiation mode shaped in-fiber diffraction grating

We propose a compact linear polarization spectrometer based on the in-fiber polarization-dependent diffraction grating. The beam profile of radiated light of the grating is shaped to be a Gaussian profile to improve the performance of the spectrometer, where the size of the focused light spot is reduced from 44 um to 33 um with the shaped radiation mode of the grating. Based on the experimental results, the proposed spectrometer can achieve 0.05 nm resolution and 115 nm wavelength responding range from 1495 nm to 1610 nm. To verify the performance of the proposed fiber spectrometer, we measure the transmission spectra of an excessively tilted fiber grating, which has a pair of orthogonal polarization transmission spectra. Compared with the traditional measuring method, the proposed fiber spectrometer integrates the polarizing and spectral analyzing functions in the measuring system and achieves the polarization-sensitive spectral analysis, which shows good wavelength consistency and perfect polarization characteristics

hsa_circ_0061140 Knockdown Reverses FOXM1-Mediated Cell Growth and Metastasis in Ovarian Cancer through miR-370 Sponge Activity

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are a class of noncoding RNAs that regulate gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. The specific functions of circRNAs in ovarian cancer are yet to be established. Previous sequencing analyses have revealed an abnormal expression of hsa_circ_0061140 in ovarian cancer. The main aim of the present study is to establish the specific role of hsa_circ_0061140 in ovarian cancer. circRNA expression in ovarian cancer cells was detected via real-time qPCR. The effects on specific cellular characteristics (proliferation, migration, and the EMT) and subcellular localization of hsa_circ_0061140 were assessed via RNA fluorescence in situ hybridization, knockdown, and luciferase reporter assays in the SKOV3 and A2780 cell lines. Tumorigenesis was induced in nude mice to assess the effects of hsa_circ_0061140 on ovarian cancer growth in vivo. Our results showed that hsa_circ_0061140 was upregulated in ovarian cancer cell lines. Knockdown of hsa_circ_0061140 suppressed cell proliferation and migration, both in vivo and in vitro, by inhibiting FOXM1 expression through sponging miR-370. Overexpression of FOXM1 or suppression of miR-370 rescued hsa_circ_0061140 silencing-induced inhibition of cell proliferation, migration, and the EMT. The associations among hsa_circ_0061140, miR-370, and FOXM1 were confirmed via bioinformatic prediction and fluorescein reporter experiments. Thus, hsa_circ_0061140 appeared to function as a competing endogenous RNA of miR-370 that promoted cell growth and metastasis in ovarian cancer through regulation of the miR-370/FOXM1 pathway mediating EMT. Keywords: Ovarian cancer, hsa_circ_0061140, miR-370, FOXM1, cell proliferation and metastasi

Sustainable Chemoenzymatic Cascade Transformation of Corncob to Furfuryl Alcohol with Rice Husk-Based Heterogeneous Catalyst UST-Sn-RH

Valorization of the abundant renewable lignocellulose through an efficient chemoenzymatic strategy to produce the furan-based platform compounds has raised great interest in recent years. In this work, a newly prepared sulfonated tin-loaded rice husk-based heterogeneous chemocatalyst UST-Sn-RH was utilized to transform corncob (75.0 g/L) into furfural (72.1 mM) at 170 °C for 30 min in an aqueous system. To upgrade furfural into furfuryl alcohol, whole cells of recombinant E. coli KPADH harboring alcohol dehydrogenase were employed to transform corncob-derived furfural into furfuryl alcohol at 30 °C and pH 7.5. In the established chemoenzymatic cascade process, corncob was efficiently transformed to furfuryl alcohol with a productivity of 0.304 g furfuryl alcohol/(g xylan in corncob). In general, biomass could be efficiently valorized into valuable furan-based chemicals in this tandem reaction with the chemocatalyst (bio-based UST-Sn-RH) and the biocatalyst (KPADH cell) in an aqueous system, which has potential application

Knowledge-Graph Augmented Word Representations for Named Entity Recognition

By modeling the context information, ELMo and BERT have successfully improved the state-of-the-art of word representation, and demonstrated their effectiveness on the Named Entity Recognition task. In this paper, in addition to such context modeling, we propose to encode the prior knowledge of entities from an external knowledge base into the representation, and introduce a Knowledge-Graph Augmented Word Representation or KAWR for named entity recognition. Basically, KAWR provides a kind of knowledge-aware representation for words by 1) encoding entity information from a pre-trained KG embedding model with a new recurrent unit (GERU), and 2) strengthening context modeling from knowledge wise by providing a relation attention scheme based on the entity relations defined in KG. We demonstrate that KAWR, as an augmented version of the existing linguistic word representations, promotes F1 scores on 5 datasets in various domains by +0.46∼+2.07. Better generalization is also observed for KAWR on new entities that cannot be found in the training sets

PhoneProtector: Protecting User Privacy on the Android-Based Mobile Platform

With the popularity of Android platform based mobile phones, privacy protection of Android platform becomes a focus area. Now protection for Android based smart phone has many shortages, and also most phone protection systems are based on C/S model. In this paper, we propose a browser-free multilevel smart phone privacy protection system, which is based on the Android sensor platform. In this system, protection is ensured by means of SMS, which turns out to be easy, quick, and convenient. Users can send SMS to phones remotely as operating instructions; then the sensors on remote phones execute the instructions and return useful information. Second, the sensors based on the daemon process mechanism are used to prevent the sensors from being maliciously closed and uninstalled. Third, our system adopts SIM detecting mechanism to judge whether the SIM card is removed or changed. If exception is detected, the phone will be locked automatically by its inside sensors. The three points ensure full protection of phone privacy. Test results show that our system has good robustness and low resource consumption

Noninvasive respiration movement sensor based on distributed Bragg reflector fiber laser with beat frequency interrogation

A distributed Bragg reflector fiber laser-based respiration movement monitoring system has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated. To fabricate the sensing element for respiration monitoring, a fixture that consists of a plastic plate, a section of elastic textile is employed to experience and transfer the belly expansion induced pressure onto the cross-section of the laser cavity. By tracing the change of the beat signal that generates between two polarization lasing modes, the information of the respiration movement can be extracted in real time. Experimental studies have demonstrated that the system is able to detect both respiration waveform and rate simultaneously. Moreover, the recorded results show that the different gestures as well as the physiology conditions can be distinguished by monitoring the amplitude and period change of the waveform. It is anticipated that the proposed fiber laser-based sensor would be highly suitable for respiratory monitoring.Published versio

Experimental and numerical studies on the thermal nonequilibrium behaviors of CO with Ar, He, and H₂

The time-dependent rotational and vibrational temperatures were measured to study the shock-heated thermal nonequilibrium behaviors of CO with Ar, He, and H-2 as collision partners. Three interference-free transition lines in the fundamental vibrational band of CO were applied to the fast, in situ, and state-specific measurements. Vibrational relaxation times of CO were summarized over a temperature range of 1110-2820 K behind reflected shocks. The measured rotational temperature instantaneously reached an equilibrium state behind shock waves. The measured vibrational temperature experienced a relaxation process before reaching the equilibrium state. The measured vibrational temperature time histories were compared with predictions based on the Landau-Teller model and the state-to-state approach. The state-to-state approach treats the vibrational energy levels of CO as pseudo-species and accurately describes the detailed thermal nonequilibrium processes behind shock waves. The datasets of state-specific inelastic rate coefficients of CO-Ar, CO-He, CO-CO, and CO-H-2 collisions were calculated in this study using the mixed quantum-classical method and the semiclassical forced harmonic oscillator model. The predictions based on the state-to-state approach agreed well with the measured data and nonequilibrium (non-Boltzmann) vibrational distributions were found in the post-shock regions, while the Landau-Teller model predicted slower vibrational temperature time histories than the measured data. Modifications were applied to the Millikan-White vibrational relaxation data of the CO-Ar and CO-H-2 systems to improve the performance of the Landau-Teller model. In addition, the thermal nonequilibrium processes behind incident shocks, the acceleration effects of H2O on the relaxation process of CO, and the characterization of vibrational temperature were highlighted

Gap analysis of Firmiana danxiaensis, a rare tree species endemic to southern China

Firmiana danxiaensis (F. danxiaensis) is a special native species with a narrow distribution. More than 90 % of the plant species in the genus that F. danxiaensis belongs to are rare species with a narrow distribution. The main distribution area is Mount Danxia, a representative area of China Danxia where many endemic species of the Danxia landform have been bred. We carried out a gap analysis by overlapping the nature reserves with the potential habitat of F. danxiaensis. The results show that: (1) the potential habitat area of F. danxiaensis is 6,255.28 km2 simulated by the Biomod2 ensemble model and 4,114.19 km2 by Maxent, respectively, which accounted for 3.48 % and 2.29 % of the study area, located in Nanxiong county, Shixing county, Renhua county, and Qujiang county; (2) F. danxiaensis prefers areas with the max temperature of the warmest month over 32.5℃, the temperature seasonality between 6000 and 7000, and the occurrence probability of F. danxiaensis was at its highest level when the max temperature of the warmest month reached between 36 and 37 °C, the temperature seasonality was nearly 7000; (3) more than 40 % of the potential habitat of F. danxiaensis was anthropogenically disturbed; (4) in the potential habitat simulated by Maxent, the conservation gap area is 3,390.26 km2, accounting for 82.40 % of the total potential habitat, in the potential habitat simulated by Biomod2 ensemble model, the conservation gap area is 4.899.62 km2, accounting for 78.33 % of the total potential habitat. The protection status of F. danxiensis is poor, with populations of F. danxiaensis in Yingde and Shixing not covered by nature reserves and already subject to serious human disturbance. It is recommended that the structure of existing protected areas be adjusted, the scope of corresponding nature reserves be appropriately expanded, and new nature reserves be added to ensure the sustainable development of F. danxiaensis populations

Improved location algorithm for multiple intrusions in distributed Sagnac fiber sensing system

An improved algorithm named “twice-FFT” for multi-point intrusion location in distributed Sagnac sensing system is proposed and demonstrated. To find the null-frequencies more accurately and efficiently, a second FFT is applied to the frequency spectrum of the phase signal caused by intrusion. After Gaussian fitting and searching the peak response frequency in the twice-FFT curve, the intrusion position could be calculated out stably. Meanwhile, the twice-FFT algorithm could solve the problem of multi-point intrusion location. Based on the experiment with twice-FFT algorithm, the location error less than 100m for single intrusion is achieved at any position along the total length of 41km, and the locating ability for two or three intrusions occurring simultaneously is also demonstrated.Published versio