Effects of Hot Water Immersion on Storage Quality of Fresh Broccoli Heads

Freshly harvested broccoli heads were immersed for 0, 1, 4 or 8 min into hot water at 45 °C, and then were hydrocooled rapidly for 10 min at 10 °C. Following these treatments, the broccoli were air-dried for 30 min, then packed in commercial polymeric film bags, and, finally, stored for 16 days at –1, 1, and 12 °C. The samples treated with hot water maintained high contents of chlorophyll concentrations, their yellowing rate was delayed, and fungal infection and chilling or freezing injury were inhibited markedly. Compared to non-heat-treated broccoli, a lower level of peroxidase activity with a relatively higher chlorophyll concentration was observed when broccoli were treated with hot water. Among these heat treatments, immersion in hot water for 4 min at 45 °C was the most effective for maintaining the quality of harvested broccoli heads

Social4Rec: Distilling User Preference from Social Graph for Video Recommendation in Tencent

Despite recommender systems play a key role in network content platforms, mining the user's interests is still a significant challenge. Existing works predict the user interest by utilizing user behaviors, i.e., clicks, views, etc., but current solutions are ineffective when users perform unsettled activities. The latter ones involve new users, which have few activities of any kind, and sparse users who have low-frequency behaviors. We uniformly describe both these user-types as "cold users", which are very common but often neglected in network content platforms. To address this issue, we enhance the representation of the user interest by combining his social interest, e.g., friendship, following bloggers, interest groups, etc., with the activity behaviors. Thus, in this work, we present a novel algorithm entitled SocialNet, which adopts a two-stage method to progressively extract the coarse-grained and fine-grained social interest. Our technique then concatenates SocialNet's output with the original user representation to get the final user representation that combines behavior interests and social interests. Offline experiments on Tencent video's recommender system demonstrate the superiority over the baseline behavior-based model. The online experiment also shows a significant performance improvement in clicks and view time in the real-world recommendation system. The source code is available at https://github.com/Social4Rec/SocialNet

Operator radiation dose during trans-hepatic arterial chemoembolization: different patients’ positions via transradial or transfemoral access

PURPOSEThis study aimed to compare the radiation dose received by the operator among different patients’ positions via transradial access (TRA) or transfemoral access (TFA) during transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).METHODSA total of 120 patients with HCC undergoing TACE for the first time between January and November 2019 were randomized into 4 groups with 30 patients in each group. In group A, patients were placed in the foot-first position with the left upper arm abducted, and TACE was performed via the left radial artery. In group B, patients were placed in the conventional headfirst position with the left hand placed at the left groin, and TACE was performed via the left radial artery. In group C, patients were placed in the conventional head-first position, and TACE was performed via the right radial artery. In group D, patients were placed in the conventional head-first position, and TACE was performed via the right femoral artery. Before each procedure, thermoluminescent dosimeters were taped at 7 different body parts of the operator and the radiation dose was measured and collected after the procedure. The normalized radiation dose was also calculated. Procedural parameters included radiation dose, fluoroscopy time (FT), dose–area product (DAP), and air kerma (AK) were recorded. Patients’ demographics, tumor baseline characteristics, radiation dose, and procedural parameters were compared between groups.RESULTSNo significant differences were found in patients’ demographics, tumor baseline characteristics, as well as in total FT, DAP, and AK. However, significant differences were found in the total radiation dose received by the operator and the doses on the pelvic cavity and the right wrist (P < .05). In group C, the radiation doses received on the pelvic cavity, the right wrist, and the total radiation doses were relatively higher. Significant differences were also found in the normalized radiation doses received by the operator on the thyroid, chest, left wrist, right wrist, and pelvic cavity, and the total normalized doses (all P < .05). Similarly, the radiation doses received by the operator at the aforementioned parts in group C were higher, while those in group A were lower.CONCLUSIONNo statistically significant differences were observed in the FT, DAP, and AK in TACE via TRA when patients were placed in different positions. However, TACE via the left TRA, with patients in the feet-first position, reduced the radiation dose received by the operator, thereby reducing the radiation risk

Preparative Separation and Identification of the Flavonoid Phlorhizin from the Crude Extract of Lithocarpus Polystachyus Rehd

The flavonoid phlorhizin is abundant in the leaves of Sweet Tea(ST, Lithocarpus Polystachyus Rehd). Phlorhizinwas preparatively separated and purified from a crude ST extract containing 40% total flavonoids by static adsorption and dynamic desorption on ADS-7 macroporous resin and neutral alumina column chromatography. Only water and ethanol were used as solvents and eluants throughout the whole separation and purification process. Using a phlorhizin standard as the reference compound, the target compound separated from the crude ST extracts was analyzed by thin layer chromatography (TLC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and electrosprayionization mass spectrometry (EIS-MS) and identified as 99.87% pure (by HPLC-UV) phlorhizin. The results showed that 10g of the targetcompound could be obtained from 40g of the crude extracts in a single operation, indicating a 40% recovery. Therefore, this represents an efficientand environmentally-friendly technology for separating and purifying phlorhizinfrom ST leaves

Straightforward data transfer in a blockwise dataflow for an analog RRAM-based CIM system

Analog resistive random-access memory (RRAM)-based computation-in-memory (CIM) technology is promising for constructing artificial intelligence (AI) with high energy efficiency and excellent scalability. However, the large overhead of analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) is a key limitation. In this work, we propose a novel LINKAGE architecture that eliminates PE-level ADCs and leverages an analog data transfer module to implement inter-array data processing. A blockwise dataflow is further proposed to accelerate convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to speed up compute-intensive layers and solve the unbalanced pipeline problem. To obtain accurate and reliable benchmark results, key component modules, such as straightforward link (SFL) modules and Tile-level ADCs, are designed in standard 28 nm CMOS technology. The evaluation shows that LINKAGE outperforms the conventional ADC/DAC-based architecture with a 2.07×∼11.22× improvement in throughput, 2.45×∼7.00× in energy efficiency, and 22%–51% reduction in the area overhead while maintaining accuracy. Our LINKAGE architecture can achieve 22.9∼24.4 TOPS/W energy efficiency (4b-IN/4b-W) and 1.82 ∼4.53 TOPS throughput with the blockwise method. This work demonstrates a new method for significantly improving the energy efficiency of CIM chips, which can be applied to general CNNs/FCNNs

Preparative Separation and Identification of the Flavonoid Phlorhizin from the Crude Extract of Lithocarpus Polystachyus Rehd

The flavonoid phlorhizin is abundant in the leaves of Sweet Tea(ST, Lithocarpus Polystachyus Rehd). Phlorhizinwas preparatively separated and purified from a crude ST extract containing 40% total flavonoids by static adsorption and dynamic desorption on ADS-7 macroporous resin and neutral alumina column chromatography. Only water and ethanol were used as solvents and eluants throughout the whole separation and purification process. Using a phlorhizin standard as the reference compound, the target compound separated from the crude ST extracts was analyzed by thin layer chromatography (TLC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and electrosprayionization mass spectrometry (EIS-MS) and identified as 99.87% pure (by HPLC-UV) phlorhizin. The results showed that 10g of the targetcompound could be obtained from 40g of the crude extracts in a single operation, indicating a 40% recovery. Therefore, this represents an efficientand environmentally-friendly technology for separating and purifying phlorhizinfrom ST leaves

Comparative analysis of two acetylcholinesterase genes of Bombyx mandarina and Bombyx mori

Acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which contains two subfamilies, ace1 and ace2 in insects, was identified to be the target of organophosphorous and carbamate insecticides. Resistance to insecticides is apparently different between Bombyx mori and Bombyx mandarina. To compare the sequences and tissue expressions of the two aces between the two species, cDNAs encoding two ace genes were cloned and designated as Bmm-ace1 and Bmm-ace2 from the larvae of the B. mandarina. The amino acid sequence of Bmm-ace1 shared 99.71% homology with its homolog, Bm-ace1, in B. mori, with two mutations (G664S and S307P) and the amino acid sequence of Bmm-ace2 shared 99.37% homology with Bm-ace2, in Bombyx mori, with four mutations (M18I, N233S, I310V and G621S). Analysis of tissue expression showed that ace1 genes of the two species were highly expressed only in brain tissues and fat bodies, while ace2 genes were expressed in all tissues tested; the expression level of Bmm-ace and Bm-ace1 in brain tissue was almost the same, while the expression level of Bmm-ace2 was 4.17 fold as high as that of Bmm-ace2 in brain tissue. The results indicated that ace gene mutations and the difference in the expression level of ace2 were speculated to be the molecular basis for the difference in sensitivity to organophosphate insecticides between B. mori and B. mandarina. This was the first  experimental report in which the ace2 gene was closely related to insecticide resistance in silkworm.Key words: Bombyx mori, Bombyx mandarina, acetylcholinesterase gene, expression, insect, resistance

Customized Preventive Maintenance Strategies for Products Sold with Two-Dimensional Warranty

Two-dimensional warranty has played a significant role in improving product quality and competitiveness. However, two-dimensional basic warranty (BW) and extended warranty (EW) have not yet been combined effectively, and the customized maintenance strategies based on the consumers’ heterogeneity have been quite limited, which result in high maintenance costs. In this paper, the possibility of reducing warranty cost over BW and EW is explored by classifying customers based on their usage rates and then offering them with customized preventive maintenance (PM) strategies. By considering the purchasing ratio of EW contracts, the PM strategies for BW and EW are closely combined by the bi-level programming model. Numerical analysis is given to show the application of the proposed warranty strategy, and the significant findings and sensitivity of the main parameters are analyzed in the end. The findings demonstrate that the customized PM strategies combining BW and EW can effectively reduce warranty costs within the warranty period and provide a scientific guidance for manufacturers to design a more reasonable PM strategy

Thermal-Hydraulic Characteristics of the Liquid-Based Battery Thermal Management System with Intersected Serpentine Channels

Liquid thermal management is the prevailing method to maintain the operating performance and safety of Li-ion batteries. However, a better heat transfer performance is often accompanied by a higher power cost for liquid-based cooling methods. In the present work, V-shaped intersecting bypasses are integrated into conventional serpentine channels to reduce the liquid pressure drop across the cold plate without loss of thermal performance. The thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the battery thermal management system are studied based on CFD simulations. The non-dimensional j/f factor is developed and adopted to evaluate the heat transfer ability and friction loss of different designs. The effects of intersecting channel addition, flow direction, channel inlet, and outlet distributions are explored with the simulation results and data analysis. The results show that all of these factors would impact the thermal–hydraulic characteristics of the liquid cold plate. The addition of intersecting channels remarkably reduces the power cost, thus increasing the j/f factor. The alteration of the flow direction from longitudinal to widthwise could further improve the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the intersected channel design. For conventional serpentine channels, the inlet and outlet distributions show no evident impact on thermal performance. However, regarding the intersected cases, the thermal-hydraulic performance is enhanced when the inlet and outlet are placed on the opposite sides of the cold plate, especially when the inlet velocity is less than 0.3 m/s. The findings of this study could shed light on the liquid flow channel design for battery thermal management