Do innovative firms communicate more? Evidence from the relation between patenting and management guidance

Singapore Management University SOA

Experimental Investigation on R245fa Throttling Devices under High Temperature

The experiments on mass flow rate characteristics of R245fa refrigerant flowing through throttling devices including seven capillary tubes and the electronic expansion valve were carried out under the high-temperature working conditions. By combining data analysis with flow correlations, the design basis that is applicable to R245fa throttling devices can be obtained. By comparing the experimental mass flow rate with that predicted by Jung Correlation and Kim Correlation, it can be concluded that root mean square deviations of two correlations are 3.2 % and 3.3%, respectively. The root mean square deviation for electronic expansion valve is 4.5%. The conclusions offer high-accuracy design basis for throttling devices selection of high-temperature heat pump systems using R245fa as refrigerant

Decentralized Uncoded Storage Elastic Computing with Heterogeneous Computation Speeds

Elasticity plays an important role in modern cloud computing systems. Elastic computing allows virtual machines (i.e., computing nodes) to be preempted when high-priority jobs arise, and also allows new virtual machines to participate in the computation. In 2018, Yang et al. introduced Coded Storage Elastic Computing (CSEC) to address the elasticity using coding technology, with lower storage and computation load requirements. However, CSEC is limited to certain types of computations (e.g., linear) due to the coded data storage based on linear coding. Then Centralized Uncoded Storage Elastic Computing (CUSEC) with heterogeneous computation speeds was proposed, which directly copies parts of data into the virtual machines. In all existing works in elastic computing, the storage assignment is centralized, meaning that the number and identity of all virtual machines possible used in the whole computation process are known during the storage assignment. In this paper, we consider Decentralized Uncoded Storage Elastic Computing (DUSEC) with heterogeneous computation speeds, where any available virtual machine can join the computation which is not predicted and thus coordination among different virtual machines' storage assignments is not allowed. Under a decentralized storage assignment originally proposed in coded caching by Maddah-Ali and Niesen, we propose a computing scheme with closed-form optimal computation time. We also run experiments over MNIST dataset with Softmax regression model through the Tencent cloud platform, and the experiment results demonstrate that the proposed DUSEC system approaches the state-of-art best storage assignment in the CUSEC system in computation time.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, submitted to ISIT202

Fucoxanthin attenuates LPS-induced acute lung injury via inhibition of the TLR4/MYD88 signaling axis

Acute lung injury (ALI) is a critical clinical condition with a high mortality rate. It is believed that the inflammatory storm is a critical contributor to the occurrence of ALI. Fucoxanthin is a natural extract from marine seaweed with remarkable biological properties, including antioxidant, anti-tumor, and anti-obesity. However, the anti-inflammatory activity of Fucoxanthin has not been extensively studied. The current study aimed to elucidate the effects and the molecular mechanism of Fucoxanthin on lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury. In this study, Fucoxanthin efficiently reduced the mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory factors, including IL-10, IL-6, iNOS, and Cox-2, and down-regulated the NF-kappaB signaling pathway in Raw264.7 macrophages. Furthermore, based on the network pharmacological analysis, our results showed that anti-inflammation signaling pathways were screened as fundamental action mechanisms of Fucoxanthin on ALI. Fucoxanthin also significantly ameliorated the inflammatory responses in LPS-induced ALI mice. Interestingly, our results revealed that Fucoxanthin prevented the expression of TLR4/MyD88 in Raw264.7 macrophages. We further validated Fucoxanthin binds to the TLR4 pocket using molecular docking simulations. Altogether, these results suggest that Fucoxanthin suppresses the TLR4/MyD88 signaling axis by targeting TLR4, which inhibits LPS-induced ALI, and fucoxanthin inhibition may provide a novel strategy for controlling the initiation and progression of ALI

Optimizing the physical activity intervention for older adults with mild cognitive impairment: a factorial randomized trial

BackgroundPhysical activity (PA) intervention is one of the most effective interventions to promote cognitive function of older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). However, the level of PA remains low. Based on the two core interventions (X-CircuiT and health education), this study aimed to examine the effect of three implementation strategies (viz., role modeling, goal-setting, and reminding) on the PA level among older adults with MCI using the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST).MethodsParticipants were randomized into one of eight conditions in a factorial design involving three factors with two levels: (i) role modeling (on vs. off); (ii) goal-setting (on vs. off); and (iii) reminding (on vs. off). The primary outcome was PA level at 12 weeks. The secondary outcomes were cognitive function, self-efficacy, and cost-effectiveness at 12 weeks. The intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis was performed as the main analysis and the per-protocol (PP) analysis as the sensitivity analysis.ResultsA total of 107 participants were included and randomly assigned into three groups, each receiving different implementation strategies. The results of the multivariate regression analysis showed that the three implementation strategies, namely, reminding (B = 0.31, p < 0.01), role modeling (B = 0.21, p < 0.01), and goal-setting (B = 0.19, p < 0.01), could significantly improve PA level. Specifically, it was found that role modeling (B = 0.68, p = 0.03) could significantly improve cognitive function. There were no significant interactions among the three implementation strategies. Role modeling was the most cost-effective strategy, costing 93.41 RMB for one unit of PA.ConclusionsRole modeling was likely to be the best implementation strategy. The value-based and cost-effective PA intervention package could include the core intervention (X-CircuiT and health education) and implementation strategy (role modeling).Clinical Trial Registrationhttps://www.chictr.org.cn, The study was retrospectively registered on 30 June 2022 (ChiCTR2200061693)

Aero-engine rotor-stator rubbing position identification based on casing velocity signal

A rotor-stator rubbing position identification method based on casing velocity signal is proposed. Considering that velocity is an ideal parameter to reflect vibration, and its effective value is a standard to the measuring of vibration fault diagnosis in the world, firstly, the rotor experiment rig of aero-engine was used to simulate rubbing faults in different rubbing positions, and casing vibration acceleration signal was collected and changed to velocity signal through integral and polynomial least square fitting method. Secondly, low-frequency normalized energy characteristics of velocity signal and normalized mean-square value characteristics of acceleration signal were extracted; finally, normalized characteristic parameters including energy and mean-square value were input to nearest neighbor classifier and support vector machine(SVM) to identify the different rubbing positions. The results show that low-frequency energy characteristics of velocity signal can effectively identify the rotor-stator rubbing positions of aero-engine, and reach to 93 % of recognition rate based on nearest neighbor classification method and 98 % based on SVM, while mean-square value characteristics of acceleration signal recognition rate can only reach 81 % based on nearest neighbor algorithm and 85 % based on SVM

Characteristic extraction of rolling bearing compound faults of aero-engine

Rolling bearing’s fault mode usually shows compound faults in aero-engine. The compound faults characteristics are more complex than single one, and many signal analysis methods have rather great limitation for compound fault characteristic extraction which leads to the difficulty to monitor the running state of rolling bearing in aero-engine. Based on above analysis, a method of combining wavelet transform with cyclostationary theory, autocorrelation function and Hilbert transform is proposed and applied to extract characteristic frequency of rolling bearing from compound faults mode only according to single-channel vibration acceleration signal of aero-engine. Meanwhile, a consideration is given to the influence of sensor installation position, compound fault types in the extraction of compound faults characteristics. The result indicates that the proposed new method can effectively monitor rolling bearing running state in four different compound fault modes just according to single-channel vibration acceleration signal no matter sensors are installed in horizontal or vertical direction

Substitution of manure for chemical fertilizer affects soil microbial community diversity, structure and function in greenhouse vegetable production systems

Soil microbial communities and enzyme activities together affect various ecosystem functions of soils. Fertilization, an important agricultural management practice, is known to modify soil microbial characteristics; however, inconsistent results have been reported. The aim of this research was to make a comparative study of the effects of different nitrogen (N) fertilizer rates and types (organic and inorganic) on soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities and microbial attributes in a greenhouse vegetable production (GVP) system of Tianjin, China. Results showed that manure substitution of chemical fertilizer, especially at a higher substitution rate, improved soil physicochemical properties (higher soil organic C (SOC) and nutrient (available N and P) contents; lower bulk densities), promoted microbial growth (higher total phospholipid fatty acids and microbial biomass C contents) and activity (higher soil hydrolase activities). Manure application induced a higher fungi/bacteria ratio due to a lower response in bacterial than fungal growth. Also, manure application greatly increased bacterial stress indices, as well as microbial communities and functional diversity. The principal component analysis showed that the impact of manure on microbial communities and enzyme activities were more significant than those of chemical fertilizer. Furthermore, redundancy analysis indicated that SOC and total N strongly influenced the microbial composition, while SOC and ammonium-N strongly influenced the microbial activity. In conclusion, manure substitution of inorganic fertilizer, especially at a higher substitution rate, was more efficient for improving soil quality and biological functions.</p

Investigation and toxin identification of a poisoning incident caused by Gymnopilus dilepis in Yunnan Province

ObjectiveTo provide reference for the disposition and clinical treatment of poisoning incidents， rapid toxin screening and the clinical symptoms and treatment of a case of Gymnopilus dilepis poisoning were conducted and discussed.MethodsUltra-high performance liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry was used to detect the remaining poisonous mushroom in the contaminated food. Based on an epidemiological investigation， case data were collected. The results of the epidemiological investigation and the liver and kidney indexes of the patients were analyzed.ResultsPsilocybin and muscarine were detected in the Gymnopilus dilepis consumed by the patients. The symptoms were similar to those of psilocybin and muscarine poisoning， which included hallucinations， nausea， vomiting， abdominal pain， and diarrhea. The liver and kidney functions were normal.ConclusionThe poisoning event was caused by psilocybin and muscarine in Gymnopilus dilepis