Research Progress of Electrically Controlled Reconfigurable Polarization Manipulation Using Metasurface

Metasurfaces are two-dimensional artificial structures with numerous subwavelength elements arranged periodically or aperiodically. They have demonstrated their exceptional capabilities in electromagnetic wave polarization manipulation, opening new avenues for manipulating electromagnetic waves. Metasurfaces exhibiting electrically controlled reconfigurable polarization manipulation have garnered widespread research interest. These unique metasurfaces can dynamically adjust the polarization state of electromagnetic waves through real-time modification of their structure or material properties via electrical signals. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the development of metasurfaces exhibiting electrically controlled reconfigurable polarization manipulation and explores the technological advancements of metasurfaces with different transmission characteristics in the microwave region in detail. Furthermore, it delves into and anticipates the future development of this technology

Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Tracking Control of Nonaffine Nonlinear Systems with Actuator Failure

This paper proposes an adaptive fault-tolerant control scheme for nonaffine nonlinear systems. A model approximation method which is a solution that bridges the gap between affine and nonaffine control systems is developed firstly. A joint estimation approach is based on unscented Kalman filter, in which both failure parameters and states are simultaneously estimated by means of the argument state vector composed of the unknown faults and states. Then, stability analysis is given for the closed-loop system. Finally, the proposed approach is verified using a three-degree-of-freedom simulation of a typical fighter aircraft and the significantly improved system response demonstrates the practical potential of the theoretic results obtained

Wave-Packet Surface Propagation for Light-Induced Molecular Dissociation

Recent advances in laser technology have enabled tremendous progress in photochemistry, at the heart of which is the breaking and formation of chemical bonds. Such progress has been greatly facilitated by the development of accurate quantum-mechanical simulation method, which, however, does not necessarily accompany clear dynamical scenarios and is rather often a black box, other than being computationally heavy. Here, we develop a wave-packet surface propagation (WASP) approach to describe the molecular bond-breaking dynamics from a hybrid quantum-classical perspective. Via the introduction of quantum elements including state transitions and phase accumulations to the Newtonian propagation of the nuclear wave-packet, the WASP approach naturally comes with intuitive physical scenarios and accuracies. It is carefully benchmarked with the H2+ molecule and is shown to be capable of precisely reproducing experimental observations. The WASP method is promising for the intuitive visualization of strong-field molecular dynamics and is straightforwardly extensible toward complex molecules.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figure

Astragaloside IV improves slow transit constipation by regulating gut microbiota and enterochromaffin cells

Purpose: Slow transit constipation (STC) is a common gastrointestinal disorder characterized by altered gut microbiota and reduced number of enterochromaffin cells (ECs). Astragaloside IV (AS-IV), a low drug permeability saponin, has showed beneficial effects on patients with STC. However, the specific mechanism by which AS-IV regulates STC remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of AS-IV on STC and its associated mechanisms involving gut microbiota.Methods: The effect of AS-IV on STC was evaluated on STC mice induced with loperamide. We measured defecation frequency, intestinal mobility, ECs loss, and colonic lesions in STC mice treated with AS-IV. We also analyzed the changes in gut microbiota and metabolites after AS-IV treatment. Moreover, we investigated the relationship between specific gut microbes and altered fecal metabolites, such as 3-bromotyrosine (3-BrY). We also conducted in vitro experiments to investigate the effect of 3-BrY on caspase-dependent apoptosis of ECs and the activation of the p38 MAPK and ERK signaling pathways induced by loperamide.Results: AS-IV treatment promoted defecation, improved intestinal mobility, suppressed ECs loss, and alleviated colonic lesions in STC mice. AS-IV treatment also affected gut microbiota and metabolites, with a significant correlation between specific gut microbes and altered fecal metabolites such as 3-BrY. Furthermore, 3-BrY may potentially reduce caspase-dependent apoptosis of ECs and protect cell survival by inhibiting the activation of the p38 MAPK and ERK signaling pathways induced by loperamide.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that changes in gut microbiota and ECs mediated the therapeutic effect of STC by AS-IV. These results provide a basis for the use of AS-IV as a prebiotic agent for treating STC. The specific mechanism by which AS-IV regulates gut microbiota and ECs warrants further investigation

Expression of the phosphorylated MEK5 protein is associated with TNM staging of colorectal cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Activation of MEK5 in many cancers is associated with carcinogenesis through aberrant cell proliferation. In this study, we determined the level of phosphorylated MEK5 (pMEK5) expression in human colorectal cancer (CRC) tissues and correlated it with clinicopathologic data.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>pMEK5 expression was examined by immunohistochemistry in a tissue microarray (TMA) containing 335 clinicopathologic characterized CRC cases and 80 cases of nontumor colorectal tissues. pMEK5 expression of 19 cases of primary CRC lesions and paired with normal mucosa was examined by Western blotting. The relationship between pMEK5 expression in CRC and clinicopathologic parameters, and the association of pMEK5 expression with CRC survival were analyzed respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>pMEK5 expression was significantly higher in CRC tissues (185 out of 335, 55.2%) than in normal tissues (6 out of 80, 7.5%; <it>P </it>< 0.001). Western blotting demonstrated that pMEK5 expression was upregulated in 12 of 19 CRC tissues (62.1%) compared to the corresponding adjacent nontumor colorectal tissues. Overexpression of pMEK5 in CRC tissues was significantly correlated to the depth of invasion (<it>P </it>= 0.001), lymph node metastasis (<it>P </it>< 0.001), distant metastasis (<it>P </it>< 0.001) and high preoperative CEA level (<it>P </it>< 0.001). Consistently, the pMEK5 level in CRC tissues was increased following stage progression of the disease (<it>P </it>< 0.001). Analysis of the survival curves showed a significantly worse 5-year disease-free (<it>P </it>= 0.002) and 5-year overall survival rate (<it>P </it>< 0.001) for patients whose tumors overexpressed pMEK5. However, in multivariate analysis, pMEK5 was not an independent prognostic factor for CRC (DFS: <it>P </it>= 0.139; OS: <it>P </it>= 0.071).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>pMEK5 expression is correlated with the staging of CRC and its expression might be helpful to the TNM staging system of CRC.</p

Progress in the toxicological researches for quantum dots

Quantum dots (QDs) have received more and more attention as a novel example of nanomaterials. Due to their unique fluorescent characteristics, quantum dots have been successfully applied in biotechnology and medicine applications. Recently, the toxicity and the potential environmental effects of QDs have become a research hotspot. In this paper, toxicological effects of QDs are reviewed, and the prospects and research directions are given based on the analysis of this research field

Design model-free adaptive PID controller based on lazy learning algorithm

The nonlinear system is difficult to achieve the desired effect by using traditional proportional integral derivative (PID) or linear controller. First, this study presents an improved lazy learning algorithm based on k-vector nearest neighbors, which not only considers the matching of input and output data, but also considers the consistency of the model. Based on the optimization index of an additional penalty function, the optimal solution of the lazy learning is obtained by the iterative least-square method. Second, based on the improved lazy learning, an adaptive PID control algorithm is proposed. Finally, the control effect under the condition of complete data and incomplete data is compared by simulation experiment