Influences of commuting mode, air conditioning mode and meteorological parameters on fine particle (PM2.5) exposure levels in traffic microenvironments

With the aim of determining the impacts of various factors on commuter exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5), a series of field studies were carried out to measure commuter exposure to PM2.5 on six major commuting modes (in-cabin mode: bus, taxi and metro; on-roadway mode: walking, bicycle and motorcycle) in a highly industrialized city in the Pearl River Delta, China. The results showed that the exposure level was greatly influenced by the commuter mode, with the on-roadway mode showing a higher PM2.5 concentration (76 μg/m3). An experiment with the taxi mode suggested that the use of air-conditioning can effectively reduce exposure levels in most cases (by at least 83%). Apart from traffic-related emissions, ambient PM2.5 concentration also had important impacts on exposure levels in most commuting modes, which was further ascertained by the seasonal variations in exposure levels and their significant correlations (p < 0.05) with meteorological parameters (temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and direction). The results of a General Linear Model analysis show that temperature, traffic mode and wind speed were significant factors that explained 27.3% of variability for the in-cabin mode, while relative humidity and wind speed were the significant determinants for the on-roadway mode, which contributed 14.1% of variability. In addition, wind direction was also an important determinant for both in-cabin and on-roadway modes. This study has some valuable implications that can help commuters to adopt appropriate travel behavior to reduce their personal exposure to such pollutants

Rethinking Client Drift in Federated Learning: A Logit Perspective

Federated Learning (FL) enables multiple clients to collaboratively learn in a distributed way, allowing for privacy protection. However, the real-world non-IID data will lead to client drift which degrades the performance of FL. Interestingly, we find that the difference in logits between the local and global models increases as the model is continuously updated, thus seriously deteriorating FL performance. This is mainly due to catastrophic forgetting caused by data heterogeneity between clients. To alleviate this problem, we propose a new algorithm, named FedCSD, a Class prototype Similarity Distillation in a federated framework to align the local and global models. FedCSD does not simply transfer global knowledge to local clients, as an undertrained global model cannot provide reliable knowledge, i.e., class similarity information, and its wrong soft labels will mislead the optimization of local models. Concretely, FedCSD introduces a class prototype similarity distillation to align the local logits with the refined global logits that are weighted by the similarity between local logits and the global prototype. To enhance the quality of global logits, FedCSD adopts an adaptive mask to filter out the terrible soft labels of the global models, thereby preventing them to mislead local optimization. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of our method over the state-of-the-art federated learning approaches in various heterogeneous settings. The source code will be released.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

An Assay for Systematically Quantifying the Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex to Assess Vestibular Function in Zebrafish Larvae

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae are widely used to study otic functions because they possess all five typical vertebrate senses including hearing and balance. Powerful genetic tools and the transparent body of the embryo and larva also make zebrafish a unique vertebrate model to study otic development. Due to its small larval size and moisture requirement during experiments, accurately acquiring the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) of zebrafish larva is challenging. In this report, a new VOR testing device has been developed for quantifying linear VOR (LVOR) in zebrafish larva, evoked by the head motion about the earth horizontal axis. The system has a newly designed larva-shaped chamber, by which live fish can be steadily held without anesthesia, and the system is more compact and easier to use than its predecessors. To demonstrate the efficacy of the system, the LVORs in wild-type (WT), dlx3b and dlx4b morphant zebrafish larvae were measured and the results showed that LVOR amplitudes were consistent with the morphological changes of otoliths induced by morpholino oligonucleotides (MO). Our study represents an important advance to obtain VOR and predict the vestibular conditions in zebrafish

Isolation and characterization of a novel arenavirus harbored by Rodents and Shrews in Zhejiang province, China

AbstractTo determine the biodiversity of arenaviruses in China, we captured and screened rodents and shrews in Wenzhou city, Zhejiang province, a locality where hemorrhagic fever diseases are endemic in humans. Accordingly, arenaviruses were detected in 42 of 351 rodents from eight species, and in 12 of 272 Asian house shrews (Suncus murinus), by RT-PCR targeting the L segment. From these, a single arenavirus was successfully isolated in cell culture. The virion particles exhibited a typical arenavirus morphology under transmission electron microscopy. Comparison of the S and L segment sequences revealed high levels of nucleotide (>32.2% and >39.6%) and amino acid (>28.8% and >43.8%) sequence differences from known arenaviruses, suggesting that it represents a novel arenavirus, which we designated Wenzhou virus (WENV). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that all WENV strains harbored by both rodents and Asian house shrews formed a distinct lineage most closely related to Old World arenaviruses

Spectrosc. Spectr. Anal.

The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Visible), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-1 NMR) and TG analysis were used to study the oxidation of corn stover lignin by chloride dioxide and subsequently modified by furfuryl alcohol. The results were as following: The selective oxidation of lignin by chlorine dioxide was obtained by spectroscopy study. FTIR showed that the characteristic absorbance peaks of aromatic units were decreased after chloride dioxide oxidation. The increased absorbance for the band around 1 720 cm(-1) corresponding to carbonyl stretching was achieved in the oxidized lignin and the lignin modified with furfuryl alcohol. The ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy showed that the absorbance around 280 run was largely reduced after the lignin was oxidized. The I H NMR spectroscopy also showed the decrease of aromatic units and methoxyl group in the oxidized lignin. All these indicated the formation of muconic acid and ester, or quinone derivatives when the lignin was selectively oxidized by chloride dioxide. The modification by furfuryl alcohol made the oxidized lignin more thermally stable.The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-Visible), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-1 NMR) and TG analysis were used to study the oxidation of corn stover lignin by chloride dioxide and subsequently modified by furfuryl alcohol. The results were as following: The selective oxidation of lignin by chlorine dioxide was obtained by spectroscopy study. FTIR showed that the characteristic absorbance peaks of aromatic units were decreased after chloride dioxide oxidation. The increased absorbance for the band around 1 720 cm(-1) corresponding to carbonyl stretching was achieved in the oxidized lignin and the lignin modified with furfuryl alcohol. The ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy showed that the absorbance around 280 run was largely reduced after the lignin was oxidized. The I H NMR spectroscopy also showed the decrease of aromatic units and methoxyl group in the oxidized lignin. All these indicated the formation of muconic acid and ester, or quinone derivatives when the lignin was selectively oxidized by chloride dioxide. The modification by furfuryl alcohol made the oxidized lignin more thermally stable

Spectrosc. Spectr. Anal.

The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy (UV-visible), Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy (FT-Raman), and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-1 NMR) were used to study the oxidation of spruce lignin by chloride dioxide. The results are as following: The selective oxidation of lignin by chlorine dioxide was obtained by spectroscopy study. FTIR showed that the characteristic absorbance peak of guaiacyl unit in the lignin structure was decreased after chloride dioxide oxidation, while the peaks of syringyl and para-hydroxyphenol disappeared after oxidation. The largely increased absorbance for the band around 1 720 cm(-1) corresponding to carbonyl stretching was achieved in the oxidized lignin. The ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy showed that the absorbance around 280 nm was largely reduced after the lignin had been oxidized. The H-1 NMR spectroscopy also showed the decrease of aromatic units and methoxyl group in the oxidized lignin. These indicated the formation of ester, or quinone derivatives when the lignin was selectively oxidized by chloride dioxide.The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy (UV-visible), Fourier transform Raman spectroscopy (FT-Raman), and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-1 NMR) were used to study the oxidation of spruce lignin by chloride dioxide. The results are as following: The selective oxidation of lignin by chlorine dioxide was obtained by spectroscopy study. FTIR showed that the characteristic absorbance peak of guaiacyl unit in the lignin structure was decreased after chloride dioxide oxidation, while the peaks of syringyl and para-hydroxyphenol disappeared after oxidation. The largely increased absorbance for the band around 1 720 cm(-1) corresponding to carbonyl stretching was achieved in the oxidized lignin. The ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy showed that the absorbance around 280 nm was largely reduced after the lignin had been oxidized. The H-1 NMR spectroscopy also showed the decrease of aromatic units and methoxyl group in the oxidized lignin. These indicated the formation of ester, or quinone derivatives when the lignin was selectively oxidized by chloride dioxide

Smart airer = 智能晾衫架

Airing under the sunlight is one of the most energy saving and environmentally-friendly approaches in drying clothes. However, rain showers could suddenly occur while no one is at home, causing the clothes out in the air to become soaked. To address this problem, the specially-designed “Smart Airer” could be a good helper. When raindrops are detected by the Airer\u27s moisture sensor, a canopy will be activated to shield the clothing from the rain. Depending on the weather conditions, users can also control the canopy manually or use their smart phones to control it remotely through internet connections. With the help of “Smart Airer”, users can ease when going out and need not worry about sudden weather changes that could affect their clothes

Fiber Temperature Sensor Based on Vernier Effect and Optical Time Stretching Method

A novel method for ultra-sensitive and ultra-fast temperature sensing has been successfully implemented by cascading Saganc rings to generate the Vernier effect and doing the same dispersive fibers to achieve the optical time-stretching effect. This is different from the traditional point fiber sensor demodulated by optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) whose demodulation speed is usually at the second level. The designed system maps the wavelength domain to the time domain through the dispersive fiber, which can realize the ultra-fast temperature monitoring at the nanosecond level. The cascaded Sagnac ring is composed of polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) which is significantly affected by the thermal-optical coefficient. When the temperature changes, the variation is as high as &minus;6.228 nm/&deg;C, which is 8.5 times higher than the sensitivity based on the single Sagnac ring system. Furthermore, through the optical time stretching scheme, the corresponding response sensitivity is increased from 0.997 ns/&deg;C to 7.333 ns/&deg;C, and the magnification is increased 7.4 times with a response speed of 50 MHz

Chiroptical spectroscopic properties of natural T-muurolols: A DFT and TD-DFT study

1017-1025The optical rotation (OR) values, vibrational circular dichroism (VCD), and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectra of a series of newly discovered bioactive molecules, (−)-T-muurolol A~D, have been calculated using the gradient-corrected density functional theory method. The vibrational and transition modes of molecular chirality are explored in terms of their microscopic origin. OR analysis indicates that optical rotation values are regulated by hydroxyl substitution. The sum of vibrational rotation strength (Rj) ΣRj and electric rotatory strength (Re) ΣRe has been used to estimate the OR magnitudes symbol marked on the left and right hand. Vibrations occurring on the chiral skeleton may cause strong absorption in VCD spectra; VCD spectra are thus the spectral response occurring as a result of deformation vibrations on the chiral carbon skeleton. The highest-energy negative Cotton effect is caused by σ→π* transition. Frontier molecular orbital analysis shows that strong ECD absorptions are produced when the dominant transition on the chiral skeleton is asymmetric; ECD spectra are thus the spectral response occurring as a result of transitions lacking asymmetry on the chiral skeleton