A bony-crested Jurassic dinosaur with evidence of iridescent plumage highlights complexity in early paravian evolution

The Jurassic Yanliao theropods have offered rare glimpses of the early paravian evolution and particularly of bird origins, but, with the exception of the bizarre scansoriopterygids, they have shown similar skeletal and integumentary morphologies. Here we report a distinctive new Yanliao theropod species bearing prominent lacrimal crests, bony ornaments previously known from more basal theropods. It shows longer arm and leg feathers than Anchiornis and tail feathers with asymmetrical vanes forming a tail surface area even larger than that in Archaeopteryx. Nanostructures, interpreted as melanosomes, are morphologically similar to organized, platelet-shaped organelles that produce bright iridescent colours in extant birds. The new species indicates the presence of bony ornaments, feather colour and flight- related features consistent with proposed rapid character evolution and significant diversity in signalling and locomotor strategies near bird origins

Band gap engineering of N-alloyed Ga2O3 thin films

The authors report the tuning of band gap of GaON ternary alloy in a wide range of 2.75 eV. The samples were prepared by a two-step nitridation method. First, the samples were deposited on 2-inch fused silica substrates by megnetron sputtering with NH3 and Ar gas for 60 minutes. Then they were annealed in NH3 ambience at different temperatures. The optical band gap energies are calculated from transmittance measurements. With the increase of nitridation temperature, the band gap gradually decreases from 4.8 eV to 2.05 eV. X-ray diffraction results indicate that as-deposited amorphous samples can crystallize into monoclinic and hexagonal structures after they were annealed in oxygen or ammonia ambience, respectively. The narrowing of the band gap is attributed to the enhanced repulsion of N2p -Ga3d orbits and formation of hexagonal structur

Not only Online Review but also its Helpfulness is Manipulated: Evidence from Peer to Peer Lending Forum

Online reviews have become proposed as useful information for consumers to make decision. Meanwhile, review manipulation will weaken the credibility of online reviews. Except manipulating the review text and rating, we propose that review helpfulness, an important signal for consumer to filter the reviews, could also be manipulated. This study thus explores the existence of review helpfulness manipulation and the relationship between firm quality and review manipulation. Based on a dataset from a review forum in www.wdzj.com which is the leading and largest portal of peer to peer lending industry in China, we get the following interesting results. First, due to the manipulation of review helpfulness, a manipulated positive review is more likely to receive higher helpfulness, while a manipulated negative is more likely to get lower helpfulness. Second, a manipulated review tends to be lower quality in terms of readability and word count, which are found as positive predictors for review helpfulness. Third, high quality firms tend to manipulate more positive reviews, and at the same time high quality firms will receive more negative manipulated reviews. This study extends current understanding about online review manipulation, thereby providing theoretical and practice implications

Fuzzy-Model-Based Asynchronous Fault Detection for Markov Jump Systems with Partially Unknown Transition Probabilities: An Adaptive Event-Triggered Approach

This article addresses the event-triggered asynchronous fault detection (FD) problem of fuzzy-model-based nonlinear Markov jump systems (MJSs) with partially unknown transition probabilities. For this objective, the nonlinear plant is modeled as an interval type-2 (IT2) fuzzy MJS with the aid of the IT2 fuzzy sets capturing the uncertainties of the membership functions. An adaptive event-triggered scheme is introduced to bring down the costs of the communication network from the system to the fuzzy fault detection filter (FDF), in which the triggering parameter can be adaptively tuned with the system dynamics. A hidden Markov model (HMM) is employed to characterize the asynchronous phenomenon between the system and the FDF. Unlike the existing results, the transition probabilities of the plant and the FDF are allowed to be partially known. By using the Lyapunov and the membership-function-dependent methods, the existence conditions of the FDF are derived. Finally, the proposed FD methods are verified by a numerical simulation.</p

Event-Based Dissipative Control of Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Markov Jump Systems under Sensor Saturation and Actuator Nonlinearity

This paper proposes a new design of an event-based dissipative asynchronous controller for the interval type2 (IT2) fuzzy Markov jump systems (MJSs) subject to sensor saturation and actuator nonlinearity. By resorting to a generalized performance index, the &lt;formula&gt;&lt;tex&gt;$H_{\infty}$&lt;/tex&gt;&lt;/formula&gt;, passive, and dissipative fuzzy control problems are solved in a unified framework. The event-based scheme is developed for the IT2 fuzzy MJSs subject to sensor saturation and actuator nonlinearity, and the energy consumption of communication can be reduced. Moreover, the system and controller modes are asynchronous, and a hidden Markov model (HMM) is employed to observe the modes of the original system. The Membership-Function-Dependent (MFD) approach is applied to analyze the stability of the closed-loop system. Finally, two examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.</p

CDKN1A as a target of senescence in heart failure: insights from a multiomics study

BackgroundCardiomyocyte senescence plays a crucial role as a pathological mechanism in heart failure (HF). However, the exact triggering factors and underlying causes of HF onset and progression are still not fully understood.ObjectivesBy integrating multi-omics data, this study aimed to determine the genetic associations between cardiomyocyte and HF using cell senescence-related genes (SRGs).MethodsThe study utilized the CellAge database and the SenMayo dataset, combined with high-resolution single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data, to identify SRG and examine differences in cardiac cell expression. To explore the causal relationship with HF using Mendelian Randomization (MR). Genetic variations influencing gene expression, DNA methylation, and protein expression (cis-eQTL, cis-mQTL, and cis-pQTL) were analyzed using the two-sample MR (TSMR) and summary-data-based MR (SMR). Additionally, Bayesian colocalization analysis, germline genetic variation, and bulk RNA data were employed to strengthen the reliability of the results. The application potential of therapeutic targets is ultimately assessed by evaluating their druggability.ResultsThe expression of 39 SRGs in cardiomyocytes was identified. In the discovery set revealed that CDKN1A (OR = 1.09, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02–1.15, FDR = 0.048) could be causally related to HF, and the results are also replicated in the validation set (OR = 1.20, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.10–1.30, FDR &lt;0.0001). Based on the SMR method, CDKN1A was confirmed as a candidate pathogenic gene for HF, and its methylation (cg03714916, cg08179530) was associated with HF risk loci. The result is validated by Bayesian colocalization analysis, genetic variations, and bulk RNA data. The druggability analysis identified two potential therapeutic drugs.ConclusionBased on multi-omics data, this study uncovered the reciprocal regulation of cardiomyocyte senescence through CDKN1A, providing potential targets for HF drug development

Design and Operation of Biomass Circulating Fluidized Bed Boiler with High Steam Parameter

Two circulating fluidized bed(CFB) boilers with capacity of 12 MWe and 25 MWe, respectively, with biomass as fuel, adopting the basic technology independently developed by Institute of Engineering Thermophysics (IET), Chinese Academy of Sciences, have been in commercial operation since March 2010 in China. This paper focuses on the design principles, the design specifications and operating results of the two CFB boilers

Public Restroom Access and Mental Health Among Gender-Minoritized Individuals in China

open access articleThis cross-sectional study assesses the adequacy of gender-neutral public restrooms and examines the association of public restroom–related stress with mental health among gender-diverse individuals in China

Entangled X-ray Photon Pair Generation by Free Electron Lasers

Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen's prediction on incompleteness of quantum mechanics was overturned by experimental tests on Bell's inequality that confirmed the existence of quantum entanglement. In X-ray optics, entangled photon pairs can be generated by X-ray parametric down conversion (XPDC), which is limited by relatively low efficiency. Meanwhile, free electron laser (FEL) has successfully lased at X-ray frequencies recently. However, FEL is usually seen as a classical light source, and its quantum effects are considered minor corrections to the classical theory. Here we investigate entangled X-ray photon pair emissions in FEL. We establish a theory for coherently amplified entangled photon pair emission from microbunched electron pulses in the undulator. We also propose an experimental scheme for the observation of the entangled photon pairs via energy and spatial correlation measurements. Such an entangled X-ray photon pair source is of great importance in quantum optics and other X-ray applications.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure