Capacity sharing strategy with sustainable revenue-sharing contracts

This paper develops a duopoly model to analyse capacity sharing strategy and the optimal revenue-sharing contract under a two-part tariff and examines the effects of capacity sharing, cost, and sharing charges in three scenarios. The paper uses the two-part tariff method and adds a more realistic assumption of incremental marginal costs to improve the research on capacity sharing strategies. The results show that capacity constraints affect the sustainable development of firms. A sustainable revenue-sharing contract can create a win-win situation for both firms and promote capacity sharing. Capacity sharing, cost, and the revenue-sharing rate have different impacts in different scenarios; the optimal revenue-sharing rate and fixed fee can be determined to maximise the profits of firms that share capacity. However, capacity sharing may not improve social welfare. First published online 28 December 202

The progress and prospect of sentinel lymph node mapping in endometrial carcinoma

Sentinel lymph node (SLN) refers to the initial site of the lymphatic drainage from a primary tumor area. Identifying the SLN and analyzing tumor involvement can predict the status of the remaining lymph nodes. Accordingly, sentinel lymph node mapping (SLN mapping) has been brought up and widely applied to cancer therapy for its illuminating role in clinical lymph node resection. Sufficient information to guide surgical pathological staging and adjuvant treatment in endometrial cancer can be rendered by SLN mapping, hence minimizing surgery injury and reducing the incidence of complications. Evidence suggests that using SLN mapping does not affect progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of endometrial cancer patients. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that using SLN mapping has a high detection rate (DR), sensitivity, and negative predictive value (NPV) for patients with early-stage lower-risk endometrial cancer. This review aims to systematically summarize the advances and application prospects of SLN mapping in endometrial cancer, with an expectation of furnishing reference for the clinical application

Phosphine-Catalyzed Annulations of Azomethine Imines: Allene-Dependent [3 + 2], [3 + 3], [4 + 3], and [3 + 2 + 3] Pathways

In this paper we describe the phosphine-catalyzed [3 + 2], [3 + 3], [4 + 3], and [3 + 2 + 3] annulations of azomethine imines and allenoates. These processes mark the first use of azomethine imines in nucleophilic phosphine catalysis, producing dinitrogen-fused heterocycles, including tetrahydropyrazolo-pyrazolones, -pyridazinones, -diazepinones, and -diazocinones. Counting the two different reaction modes in the [3 + 3] cyclizations, there are five distinct reaction pathways—the choice of which depends on the structure and chemical properties of the allenoate. All reactions are operationally simple and proceed smoothly under mild reaction conditions, affording a broad range of 1,2-dinitrogen-containing heterocycles in moderate to excellent yields. A zwitterionic intermediate formed from a phosphine and two molecules of ethyl 2,3-butadienoate acted as a 1,5-dipole in the annulations of azomethine imines, leading to the [3 + 2 + 3] tetrahydropyrazolo-diazocinone products. The incorporation of two molecules of an allenoate into an eight-membered-ring product represents a new application of this versatile class of molecules in nucleophilic phosphine catalysis. The salient features of this protocol—the facile access to a diverse range of nitrogen-containing heterocycles and the simple preparation of azomethine imine substrates—suggest that it might find extensive applications in heterocycle synthesis

Lithium Sulfide–Carbon Composites via Aerosol Spray Pyrolysis as Cathode Materials for Lithium–Sulfur Batteries

We demonstrate a new technique to produce lithium sulfide-carbon composite (Li2S-C) cathodes for lithium-sulfur batteries via aerosol spray pyrolysis (ASP) followed by sulfurization. Specifically, lithium carbonate-carbon (Li2CO3-C) composite nanoparticles are first synthesized via ASP from aqueous solutions of sucrose and lithium salts including nitrate (LiNO3), acetate (CH3COOLi), and Li2CO3, respectively. The obtained Li2CO3-C composites are subsequently converted to Li2S-C through sulfurization by reaction to H2S. Electrochemical characterizations show excellent overall capacity and cycle stability of the Li2S-C composites with relatively high areal loading of Li2S and low electrolyte/Li2S ratio. The Li2S-C nanocomposites also demonstrate clear structure-property relationships

Network reliability analysis through survival signature and machine learning techniques

As complex networks become ubiquitous in modern society, ensuring their reliability is crucial due to the potential consequences of network failures. However, the analysis and assessment of network reliability become computationally challenging as networks grow in size and complexity. This research proposes a novel graph-based neural network framework for accurately and efficiently estimating the survival signature and network reliability. The method incorporates a novel strategy to aggregate feature information from neighboring nodes, effectively capturing the response flow characteristics of networks. Additionally, the framework utilizes the higher-order graph neural networks to further aggregate feature information from neighboring nodes and the node itself, enhancing the understanding of network topology structure. An adaptive framework along with several efficient algorithms is further proposed to improve prediction accuracy. Compared to traditional machine learning-based approaches, the proposed graph-based neural network framework integrates response flow characteristics and network topology structure information, resulting in highly accurate network reliability estimates. Moreover, once the graph-based neural network is properly constructed based on the original network, it can be directly used to estimate network reliability of different network variants, i.e., sub-networks, which is not feasible with traditional non-machine learning methods. Several applications demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in addressing network reliability analysis problems

On the mechanism of the cyclonic circulation in the Gulf of Tonkin in the summer

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2008. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 113 (2008): C09029, doi:10.1029/2007JC004208.The circulation in the Gulf of Tonkin had been traditionally considered to be anticyclonic in the summer. This view was challenged recently by results from reanalyzing observational data, which clearly revealed that the circulation is cyclonic in all seasons. The surface wind stress is monsoonal, southwesterly in the summer and reversed in the winter. It remains unexplained why the circulation is always cyclonic, while the surface forcing reverses seasonally. In this study, we hypothesize that the inflow through Qiongzhou Strait, a shallow and narrow channel between Hainan Island and the Chinese mainland, is responsible for maintaining the cyclonic circulation in the summer. Besides the requirements of mass conservation and bathymetry constraint, this flow, even with a rather small transport, carries a considerable amount of potential vorticity (PV) into the gulf, and the integral constraint of PV requires the presence of a frictional torque to be associated with a cyclonic circulation. Several numerical experiments with a three-dimensional model have been conducted to test this hypothesis. When the westward flow through Qiongzhou Strait is blocked, the model simulates an anticyclonic circulation in the summer. When the westward flow through Qiongzhou Strait is allowed, the circulation changes to a cyclonic one, consistent with our hypothesis.This study is supported by the National Basic Research Program of China under contract 2005CB422302 and 2007CB411804, the key project of the International Science and Technology Cooperation program of China under contract 2006DFB21250, and the 111 project under contract B07036

New insights into the interplay between autophagy and cartilage degeneration in osteoarthritis

Autophagy is an intracellular degradation system that maintains the stable state of cell energy metabolism. Some recent findings have indicated that autophagy dysfunction is an important driving factor for the occurrence and development of osteoarthritis (OA). The decrease of autophagy leads to the accumulation of damaged organelles and macromolecules in chondrocytes, which affects the survival of chondrocytes and ultimately leads to OA. An appropriate level of autophagic activation may be a new method to prevent articular cartilage degeneration in OA. This minireview discussed the mechanism of autophagy and OA, key autophagy targets regulating OA progression, and evaluated therapeutic applications of drugs targeting autophagy in preclinical and clinical research. Some critical issues worth paying attention to were also raised to guide future research efforts

Strategies towards enabling lithium metal in batteries: interphases and electrodes

Despite the continuous increase in capacity, lithium-ion intercalation batteries are approaching their performance limits. As a result, research is intensifying on next-generation battery technologies. The use of a lithium metal anode promises the highest theoretical energy density and enables use of lithium-free or novel high-energy cathodes. However, the lithium metal anode suffers from poor morphological stability and Coulombic efficiency during cycling, especially in liquid electrolytes. In contrast to solid electrolytes, liquid electrolytes have the advantage of high ionic conductivity and good wetting of the anode, despite the lithium metal volume change during cycling. Rapid capacity fade due to inhomogeneous deposition and dissolution of lithium is the main hindrance to the successful utilization of the lithium metal anode in combination with liquid electrolytes. In this perspective, we discuss how experimental and theoretical insights can provide possible pathways for reversible cycling of twodimensional lithium metal. Therefore, we discuss improvements in the understanding of lithium metal nucleation, deposition, and stripping on the nanoscale. As the solid–electrolyte interphase (SEI) plays a key role in the lithium morphology, we discuss how the proper SEI design might allow stable cycling. We highlight recent advances in conventional and (localized) highly concentrated electrolytes in view of their respective SEIs. We also discuss artificial interphases and three-dimensional host frameworks, which show prospects of mitigating morphological instabilities and suppressing large shape change on the electrode level

DeePMD-kit v2: A software package for Deep Potential models

DeePMD-kit is a powerful open-source software package that facilitates molecular dynamics simulations using machine learning potentials (MLP) known as Deep Potential (DP) models. This package, which was released in 2017, has been widely used in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, and material science for studying atomistic systems. The current version of DeePMD-kit offers numerous advanced features such as DeepPot-SE, attention-based and hybrid descriptors, the ability to fit tensile properties, type embedding, model deviation, Deep Potential - Range Correction (DPRc), Deep Potential Long Range (DPLR), GPU support for customized operators, model compression, non-von Neumann molecular dynamics (NVNMD), and improved usability, including documentation, compiled binary packages, graphical user interfaces (GUI), and application programming interfaces (API). This article presents an overview of the current major version of the DeePMD-kit package, highlighting its features and technical details. Additionally, the article benchmarks the accuracy and efficiency of different models and discusses ongoing developments.Comment: 51 pages, 2 figure