Strategy Selection for Product Service Systems Using Case-based Reasoning

A product service system integrates products and services in order to lower environmental impact. It can achieve good eco-efficiency and has received increase in the last decade. This study focuses on strategy selection for product service system design. Case-based reasoning is utilized to provide suggestions for finding an appropriate strategy. To build a case database, successful PSS cases from the literature and websites were collected and formulated. Twelve indices under three categories were analyzed and selected to describe cases. A lot of successful PSS cases and their information were collected. Forty seven cases were used in this study because of the completeness of information. The analytic hierarchic process is used to find the relative weights of the factors that relate to the selection of customers. These weights are used in calculating the similarity in the case-based reasoning process. The successful strategy of the most similar case is extracted and recommended for PSS strategy determination. More than 90% of tested cases obtained an appropriate strategy from the most similar case. Finally, two new products are introduced to find the best strategy for product service system design and development using the proposed case-based reasoning system

High spatial-resolution imaging of label-free in vivo protein aggregates by VISTA

Amyloid aggregation, formed by aberrant proteins, is a pathological hallmark for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. High-resolution holistic mapping of the fine structures from these aggregates should facilitate our understanding of their pathological roles. Here, we achieved label-free high-resolution imaging of the polyQ and the amyloid-beta (Aβ) aggregates in cells and tissues utilizing a sample-expansion stimulated Raman strategy. We further focused on characterizing the Aβ plaques in 5XFAD mouse brain tissues. 3D volumetric imaging enabled visualization of the whole plaques, resolving both the fine protein filaments and the surrounding components. Coupling our expanded label-free Raman imaging with machine learning, we obtained specific segmentation of aggregate cores, peripheral filaments together with cell nuclei and blood vessels by pre-trained convolutional neural network models. Combining with 2-channel fluorescence imaging, we achieved a 6-color holistic view of the same sample. This ability for precise and multiplex high-resolution imaging of the protein aggregates and their micro-environment without the requirement of labeling would open new biomedical applications

3,3′-Dibenzyl-1,1′-[naphthalene-1,4-diylbis(methyl­ene)]di(1H-imidazol-3-ium) bis­(hexa­fluoro­phosphate)

In the title N-heterocyclic carbene compound, C32H30N4 2+·2PF6 −, the mean plane of the naphthalene ring system makes dihedral angles of 79.15 (15) and 76.85 (16) with the imidazole rings and 56.15 (19) and 80.56 (16)° with the benzene rings. An intra­molecular C—H⋯N hydrogen bond occurs. The crystal structure is stabilized by C—H⋯F inter­actions. In addition, π–π inter­actions [centroid–centroid distances = 3.848 (1) and 3.574 (3) Å] are observed. The nine equatorial F atoms in the two PF6 − anions were disordered over two positions with occupancy ratios of 0.545 (10):0.455 (10) and 0.793 (11):0.207 (11) in the two anions

Investigation of the interactions between titanium and calcium zirconium oxide (CaZrO3) ceramics modified with alumina

Powdered mixtures of CaO, ZrO2 and Al2O3 in various ratios were hot pressed. The mixtures reacted with titanium at 1600 °C for 30 min in argon to evaluate the suitable ceramic crucibles for casting of titanium. The interfacial microstructures between titanium and ceramic composites were characterized using X-ray diffractometer, scanning and transmission electron microscope. The produced hot pressed mixtures that were chemically bonded together, contained calcium aluminate (CaAl2O4), calcium dialuminate (CaAl4O7), cubic zirconia (c-ZrO2), and calcium zirconium oxide (CaZrO3). The increase in Al2O3 amount led to the decrease in CaZrO3 amount and an increase in the amount of CaAl2O4, CaAl4O7 and c-ZrO2 due to the reaction of CaO and Al2O3. At the end of the reaction of the ceramic mixtures with Ti at 1600 °C for 30 min, the acicular α-Ti and β′-Ti were formed at the interface of Ti and the composites containing up to 10 vol.% Al2O3. In composites containing more than 20 vol.% Al2O3, Ti3Al5 was found at the interface instead of α-Ti and β′-Ti. Furthermore, CaZrO3, ZrO2 and Ca3Al2O6 existed on the sides of the ceramic far away from the interface. CaZrO3/Al2O3 composites with less than 20 vol.% Al2O3 could be a potential crucible or mould material for productive applications in titanium casting

Placement study of composite vibration isolation system for machinery equipment

In traditional vibration isolation and placement studies, vibration participation of foundation is often ignored, and optimizations are focused on the improvements of isolated object and isolation system. In this paper, clamped thin plate was considered as the foundation, and "machinery equipment vibration isolator foundation" was proposed as a composite vibration isolation system. Based on the theory of mechanical fourpole connection, transmitted force from equipment to plate was derived, and the intermediate variable was the displacement admittance of contact points (isolators) on the plate. To peruse the optimal placement, a novel procedure has been programmed, and two cases of arrangement direction have been involved. This study could give a lot of inspiration for vibration isolation and placement strategies of engineering equipment so that extended researches based on this could be performed

The correlation between the expression of differentiated embryo-chondrocyte expressed gene l and oral squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: This study aims to explore the correlation between expression of differentiated embryo-chondrocyte expressed gene l (DEC1) and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), which could provide the reference for treatment and prognosis assessment of OSCC. METHODS: The expression of DEC1 in tissues from 56 primary OSCC patients and 20 normal oral mucosa samples were detected using real-time polymerase chain reaction and immunohistochemical methods, respectively. RESULTS: The results showed that the positive expression rate of DEC1 in the OSCC group was significantly higher than that in the normal group (P <0.05); further, the expression of DEC1 in different OSCC groups was statistically significant (P <0.05). The expression of DEC1 in the 1-year recurrence OSCC group was significantly higher than other groups. The expression of DEC1 in the 3-years no recurrence OSCC group was the lowest. CONCLUSIONS: The expression of DEC1 was associated with the incidence of OSCC and there was a negative correlation between the expression of DEC1 and the prognosis of OSCC

MAT: Mask-Aware Transformer for Large Hole Image Inpainting

Recent studies have shown the importance of modeling long-range interactions in the inpainting problem. To achieve this goal, existing approaches exploit either standalone attention techniques or transformers, but usually under a low resolution in consideration of computational cost. In this paper, we present a novel transformer-based model for large hole inpainting, which unifies the merits of transformers and convolutions to efficiently process high-resolution images. We carefully design each component of our framework to guarantee the high fidelity and diversity of recovered images. Specifically, we customize an inpainting-oriented transformer block, where the attention module aggregates non-local information only from partial valid tokens, indicated by a dynamic mask. Extensive experiments demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of the new model on multiple benchmark datasets. Code is released at https://github.com/fenglinglwb/MAT.Comment: Accepted to CVPR2022 Ora

Multi-objective optimization of parameters and location of passive vibration isolation system excited by clamped thin plate foundation

This paper reports a novel optimization strategy combined with artificial intelligence for parameters and location design of precision equipment and provides a broader view for traditional passive vibration isolation. It also considers "precision equipment-vibration isolators-thin plate foundation" as a composite passive vibration isolation system and the clamped thin plate. The vibration isolation system is considered as four-point support, and the displacement amplitude transmissibility from the thin plate to precision equipment is derived and based on the analysis of influencing factors of transmissibility; subsequently, multi-objective optimization of the composite system is performed. A novel swarm intelligence multi-objective optimization method—a multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm is adopted in this paper which can achieve a global optimal solution and by selecting the desired solution from an equivalence relation, the whole Pareto set can be avoided. The maximum and variance of the four transmitted peak displacements are simultaneously considered as fitness functions, and the purpose is to reduce the amplitude of the multi-peak isolation system, and in the meantime,  to allow the plate to be uniformly vibrated as far as possible. Moreover, the presented idea is validated numerically, and the location research of the precision equipment mounted on the plate is also conducted

Cardiac Specific Overexpression of Mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 Induces Myocardial Apoptosis and Cardiac Dysfunction.

Myocardial apoptosis is a significant problem underlying ischemic heart disease. We previously reported significantly elevated expression of cytoplasmic Omi/HtrA2, triggers cardiomyocytes apoptosis. However, whether increased Omi/HtrA2 within mitochondria itself influences myocardial survival in vivo is unknown. We aim to observe the effects of mitochondria-specific, not cytoplasmic, Omi/HtrA2 on myocardial apoptosis and cardiac function. Transgenic mice overexpressing cardiac-specific mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 were generated and they had increased myocardial apoptosis, decreased systolic and diastolic function, and decreased left ventricular remodeling. Transiently or stably overexpression of mitochondria Omi/HtrA2 in H9C2 cells enhance apoptosis as evidenced by elevated caspase-3, -9 activity and TUNEL staining, which was completely blocked by Ucf-101, a specific Omi/HtrA2 inhibitor. Mechanistic studies revealed mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 overexpression degraded the mitochondrial anti-apoptotic protein HAX-1, an effect attenuated by Ucf-101. Additionally, transfected cells overexpressing mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 were more sensitive to hypoxia and reoxygenation (H/R) induced apoptosis. Cyclosporine A (CsA), a mitochondrial permeability transition inhibitor, blocked translocation of Omi/HtrA2 from mitochondrial to cytoplasm, and protected transfected cells incompletely against H/R-induced caspase-3 activation. We report in vitro and in vivo overexpression of mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 induces cardiac apoptosis and dysfunction. Thus, strategies to directly inhibit Omi/HtrA2 or its cytosolic translocation from mitochondria may protect against heart injury