Enhancement of polar phases in PVDF by forming PVDF/SiC nanowire composite

Different contents of silicon carbide (SiC) nanowires were mixed with Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) to facilitate the polar phase crystallization. It was shown that the annealing temperature and SiC content affected on the phase and crystalline structures of PVDF/SiC samples. Furthermore, the addition of SiC nanowire enhanced the transformation of non-polar α phase to polar phases and increased the relative fraction of β phase in PVDF. Due to the nucleating agent mechanism of SiC nanowires, the ion-dipole interaction between the negatively charged surface of SiC nanowires and the positive CH2 groups in PVDF facilitated the formation of polar phases in PVDF

Gait Recognition as a Service for Unobtrusive User Identification in Smart Spaces

Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) has raised as an important research area that combines the environmental sensing and machine learning capabilities to flourish the concept of smart spaces, in which intelligent and customized services can be provided to users in a smart manner. In smart spaces, one fundamental service that needs to be provided is accurate and unobtrusive user identification. In this work, to address this challenge, we propose a Gait Recognition as a Service (GRaaS) model, which is an instantiation of the traditional Sensing as a Service (S2aaS) model, and is specially deigned for user identification using gait in smart spaces. To illustrate the idea, a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)-based gait recognition service is designed and implemented following the GRaaS concept. Novel tag selection algorithms and attention-based Long Short-term Memory (At-LSTM) models are designed to realize the device layer and edge layer, achieving a robust recognition with 96.3% accuracy. Extensive evaluations are provided, which show that the proposed service has accurate and robust performance and has great potential to support future smart space applications

High-efficiency edge couplers enabled by vertically tapering on lithium-niobate photonic chips

In the past decade, photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) have advanced in various fields, including optical communication, nonlinear photonics, and quantum optics. A critical component is an efficient edge coupler connecting PICs to light sources or detectors. Here, we propose an innovative edge coupler design with a wedge-shaped TFLN waveguide and a silicon oxynitride (SiON) cladding. Experimental results show that the coupling loss between the TFLN PIC and a 3-{\mu}m mode field diameter (MFD) lensed fiber is low at 1.52 dB/facet, with the potential for improvement to 0.43 dB/facet theoretically. The coupling loss between the edge coupler and a UHNA7 fiber with an MFD of 3.2 {\mu}m is reduced to 0.92 dB/facet. This design maintains robust fabrication and alignment tolerance. Importantly, the minimum linewidth of the TFLN waveguide of the coupler (600 nm) can be easily achieved using foundry-available i-line stepper lithography. This work benefits the development of TFLN integrated platforms, such as on-chip electro-optic modulators, frequency comb generation, and quantum sensors

Neuroprotective Effect of Gui Zhi ( Ramulus Cinnamomi

Herb Ephedra (Ma Huang in Chinese) and Ramulus Cinnamomi (Gui Zhi in Chinese) are traditional Chinese herbs, often used together to treat asthma, nose and lung congestion, and fever with anhidrosis. Due to the adverse effects of ephedrine, clinical use of Ma Huang is restricted. However, Gui Zhi extract has been reported to decrease spontaneous activity in rats and exert anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective effects. The present study explored the possible inhibitory effect of Gui Zhi on Ma Huang-induced neurotoxicity in rats when the two herbs were used in combination. All Ma Huang and Ma Huang-Gui Zhi herb pair extracts were prepared using methods of traditional Chinese medicine and were normalized based on the ephedrine content. Two-month-old male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=6 rats/group) were administered Ma Huang or the Ma Huang-Gui Zhi herb pair extracts for 7 days (ephedrine = 48 mg/kg), and locomotor activity was measured. After 7 days, oxidative damage in the prefrontal cortex was measured. Gui Zhi decreased hyperactivity and sensitization produced by repeated Ma Huang administration and attenuated oxidative stress induced by Ma Huang. The results of this study demonstrate the neuroprotective potential of Gui Zhi in Ma Huang-induced hyperactivity and oxidative damage in the prefrontal cortex of rats when used in combination

Gene Ranking of RNA-Seq Data via Discriminant Non-Negative Matrix Factorization

RNA-sequencing is rapidly becoming the method of choice for studying the full complexity of transcriptomes, however with increasing dimensionality, accurate gene ranking is becoming increasingly challenging. This paper proposes an accurate and sensitive gene ranking method that implements discriminant non-negative matrix factorization (DNMF) for RNA-seq data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to explore the utility of DNMF for gene ranking. When incorporating Fisher's discriminant criteria and setting the reduced dimension as two, DNMF learns two factors to approximate the original gene expression data, abstracting the up-regulated or down-regulated metagene by using the sample label information. The first factor denotes all the genes' weights of two metagenes as the additive combination of all genes, while the second learned factor represents the expression values of two metagenes. In the gene ranking stage, all the genes are ranked as a descending sequence according to the differential values of the metagene weights. Leveraging the nature of NMF and Fisher's criterion, DNMF can robustly boost the gene ranking performance. The Area Under the Curve analysis of differential expression analysis on two benchmarking tests of four RNA-seq data sets with similar phenotypes showed that our proposed DNMF-based gene ranking method outperforms other widely used methods. Moreover, the Gene Set Enrichment Analysis also showed DNMF outweighs others. DNMF is also computationally efficient, substantially outperforming all other benchmarked methods. Consequently, we suggest DNMF is an effective method for the analysis of differential gene expression and gene ranking for RNA-seq data

Investigation of the morbidity of dry eye among special crowd in Shunde district

AIM: To investigate the morbidity of dry eye in policeman of Shunde district, and to analyze the related factors and proposed methods of preventing and treating dry eye.<p>METHODS:Totally 650 policemen who came for physical examination in Shunde district recived questionnaire survey. The patients with dye eye disease were finally diagnosed through slit lamp examination, Schirmer test, tear film break-up time(BUT)measurement and keratoconjunctival fluorescent staining. The morbidity among different policemen was further analyzed and stasticed.<p>RESULTS:The results showed that 152 in 650 policemen suffered from dry eye disease, the ratio was 23.4%. Comparied with security police and crimanl police, the ratio in traffic police, patrolman,and back office police was significantly higher. The prevalence was higher when the ages were greater than 40.<p>CONCLUSION: Unsuitable working environment, air contamination are high risk factors of dry eye disease

Relations of loop partial amplitudes in gauge theory by Unitarity cut method

It is well known that under the color-decomposition, one-loop amplitude of gluons contains partial amplitudes of single and double trace structures, and particularly all partial amplitudes of double trace structure can be expressed as a linear combination of partial amplitudes of single trace structure. Using unitarity cut method, we prove that this result is the natural consequence of tree-level Kleiss-Kuijf relation. Generalizing the unitarity cut method to two-loop (triple cut in this case), we show that, unlike the one-loop case, partial amplitudes of double and triple trace structures can not be expressed as a linear combination of partial amplitudes of leading-color single trace structure. For partial amplitudes of subleading-color single trace structure, we have shown a very nontrivial Kleiss-Kuijf relation for six and seven-point amplitudes, which is one new result of our paper and can not be obtained by U(1)-decoupling method. Mysteriously, when we consider the case of eight points, Kleiss-Kuijf relation must be modified for subleading-color single trace partial amplitudes.Comment: 35pages; v2:reference added and minor correction; v3; v4: to appear in NP