Potential plasma biomarkers at low altitude for prediction of acute mountain sickness

BackgroundAscending to high altitude can induce a range of physiological and molecular alterations, rendering a proportion of lowlanders unacclimatized. The prediction of acute mountain sickness (AMS) prior to ascent to high altitude remains elusive.MethodsA total of 40 participants were enrolled for our study in the discovery cohort, and plasma samples were collected from all individuals. The subjects were divided into severe AMS-susceptible (sAMS) group, moderate AMS-susceptible (mAMS) group and non-AMS group based on the Lake Louise Score (LLS) at both 5000m and 3700m. Proteomic analysis was conducted on a cohort of 40 individuals to elucidate differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) and associated pathways between AMS-susceptible group and AMS-resistant group at low altitude (1400m) and middle high-altitude (3700m). Subsequently, a validation cohort consisting of 118 individuals was enrolled. The plasma concentration of selected DEPs were quantified using ELISA. Comparative analyses of DEPs among different groups in validation cohort were performed, followed by Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis to evaluate the predictive efficiency of DEPs for the occurrence of AMS.ResultsThe occurrence of the AMS symptoms and LLS differed significantly among the three groups in the discovery cohort (p<0.05), as well as in the validation cohort. Comparison of plasma protein profiles using GO analysis revealed that DEPs were primarily enriched in granulocyte activation, neutrophil mediated immunity, and humoral immune response. The comparison of potential biomarkers between the sAMS group and non-AMS group at low altitude revealed statistically higher levels of AAT, SAP and LTF in sAMS group (p=0.01), with a combined area under the curve(AUC) of 0.965. Compared to the mAMS group at low altitude, both SAP and LTF were found to be significantly elevated in the sAMS group, with a combined AUC of 0.887. HSP90-α and SAP exhibited statistically higher levels in the mAMS group compared to the non-AMS group at low altitude, with a combined AUC of 0.874.ConclusionInflammatory and immune related biological processes were significantly different between AMS-susceptible and AMS-resistant groups at low altitude and middle high-altitude. SAP, AAT, LTF and HSP90-α were considered as potential biomarkers at low altitude for the prediction of AMS

Striped Non-Uniform Corrosion Behavior of Non-Equiatomic FeMnCoCr High-Entropy Alloy Prepared by Laser Melting Deposition in 0.1 M H2SO4 Solution

The corrosion behavior of the Fe50Mn30Co10Cr10 high-entropy alloy (HEA) manufactured via laser melting deposition (LMD) was investigated using open circuit potential, potentiodynamic polarization, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements. The microstructure and morphology of LMD samples before and after the electrochemical tests were compared using X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and electron backscatter diffraction techniques. After the corrosion tests, a striped morphology was observed on the surface of the LMD HEA, which is mainly caused by the interval distribution of high-density and low-density grain-boundary regions. The corrosion performances varied with different planes of the LMD HEA sample, which is mainly controlled by the grain size at each plane. Local corrosion in this HEA is concentrated at the melt pool boundary, which may be due to the abundant metallurgical defects and stress concentration at this location

The growth kinetic behaviors of the intermetallics at W/Co interface under the current of spark plasma sintering

The interdiffusion behaviors of elements at the W/Co interface under the application of current during SPS were investigated. It is found that Co _7 W _6 and Co _3 W are formed at the W/Co bonding interface. The growth of the Co _3 W layer is apparently improved by the high current during SPS. The growth rate constant of the Co _3 W layer undercurrent is 1.73–3.03 times faster than that without current. The research shows that the growth rate is increased with the current density. The growth activation energy of the Co _3 W layer is calculated to be 229.51 ± 27 kJ mol ^−1 undercurrent, which is smaller than that without current (279.38 ± 11 kJ mol ^−1 ). Moreover, the growth activation energy of the Co _3 W layer is decreased with the increase of the current density. The mechanism of current-improved growth of the Co _3 W layer is suggested to be the fact that the current lowers the nucleation barrier of intermetallic layer, which accordingly promotes chemical reactions

Tidal Structures in the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere and Their Solar Cycle Variations

We studied the correlations between the migrating and non-migrating tides and solar cycle in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) regions between 60° S and 60° N, which are in LAT-LON Earth coordinates, by analyzing the simulation datasets from the thermosphere and ionosphere extension of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM-X). A least squares fitting method was utilized to obtain the daily mean migrating tides and non-migrating tides. The Pearson linear correlation coefficient was used to analyze the correlations between tides and solar activity. Our analysis shows that the negative correlations between tides and solar activity are mostly impacted by the first symmetrical structure of the tidal modes for both migrating and non-migrating components. The coefficient of molecular thermal conductivity for the first symmetrical structure is small at low solar flux, so the tides dissipate more slowly when the F10.7 cm radio flux level is low. Thus, the amplitudes of tidal variations under a solar minimum condition are larger than those under a solar maximum condition. The correlation between tides and solar activity could also be influenced by some other factors, such as geomagnetic activity and the density of carbon dioxide  CO2 on Earth. The tidal variations can be influenced by westward background wind, which grows stronger as geomagnetic activity rises. Further, dissipation of the tides decreases because the heat conduction and molecular viscosity are weakened in the cooling thermosphere caused by increasing CO2, which results in larger tidal amplitudes under the solar maximum condition. It is found that the correlations between tides and solar cycle vary at different altitudes and latitudes. The negative correlations are most possibly influenced by the first symmetrical structure of tidal variations and may also be impacted by geomagnetic activity. The positive correlations are impacted by the density of CO2

Effect of Flaring Gate Piers on Discharge Coefficient for Finite Crest-Length Weirs

The use of flaring gate piers (FGPs) along with finite crest-length weirs changes the shape of plunging jets and increases the efficiency of energy dissipation in some projects; however, the FGPs may affect the discharge capacity. In this study, the flow pattern and discharge coefficient were experimentally investigated under different conditions by varying the weir lengths Lw, contraction ratio β, contraction angle θ, and water heads H. A comparative analysis of the weirs with and without FGPs was performed. For the finite crest-length weirs with FGPs, the water-surface profiles in the flow channel were backwater curves. Moreover, the plunging jets leaving the weir became narrower and then subsequently diffused largely in the transverse and longitudinal directions in air. The discharge coefficients of the weirs with FGPs were approximately equal for various weir lengths. Moreover, following the earlier studies on traditional finite crest-length weirs, a discharge-coefficient equation was developed for the weir with an FGP in this study. The results showed that in the weirs with FGPs, the discharge coefficients clearly increased with the increase in the contraction ratio and water head, but the changes in their values along with the contraction angle were neglected

RGB-D Human Action Recognition of Deep Feature Enhancement and Fusion Using Two-Stream ConvNet

Action recognition is an important research direction of computer vision, whose performance based on video images is easily affected by factors such as background and light, while deep video images can better reduce interference and improve recognition accuracy. Therefore, this paper makes full use of video and deep skeleton data and proposes an RGB-D action recognition based two-stream network (SV-GCN), which can be described as a two-stream architecture that works with two different data. Proposed Nonlocal-stgcn (S-Stream) based on skeleton data, by adding nonlocal to obtain dependency relationship between a wider range of joints, to provide more rich skeleton point features for the model, proposed a video based Dilated-slowfastnet (V-Stream), which replaces traditional random sampling layer with dilated convolutional layers, which can make better use of depth the feature; finally, two stream information is fused to realize action recognition. The experimental results on NTU-RGB+D dataset show that proposed method significantly improves recognition accuracy and is superior to st-gcn and Slowfastnet in both CS and CV

Tidal Structures in the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere and Their Solar Cycle Variations

We studied the correlations between the migrating and non-migrating tides and solar cycle in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) regions between 60° S and 60° N, which are in LAT-LON Earth coordinates, by analyzing the simulation datasets from the thermosphere and ionosphere extension of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM-X). A least squares fitting method was utilized to obtain the daily mean migrating tides and non-migrating tides. The Pearson linear correlation coefficient was used to analyze the correlations between tides and solar activity. Our analysis shows that the negative correlations between tides and solar activity are mostly impacted by the first symmetrical structure of the tidal modes for both migrating and non-migrating components. The coefficient of molecular thermal conductivity for the first symmetrical structure is small at low solar flux, so the tides dissipate more slowly when the F10.7 cm radio flux level is low. Thus, the amplitudes of tidal variations under a solar minimum condition are larger than those under a solar maximum condition. The correlation between tides and solar activity could also be influenced by some other factors, such as geomagnetic activity and the density of carbon dioxide  CO2 on Earth. The tidal variations can be influenced by westward background wind, which grows stronger as geomagnetic activity rises. Further, dissipation of the tides decreases because the heat conduction and molecular viscosity are weakened in the cooling thermosphere caused by increasing CO2, which results in larger tidal amplitudes under the solar maximum condition. It is found that the correlations between tides and solar cycle vary at different altitudes and latitudes. The negative correlations are most possibly influenced by the first symmetrical structure of tidal variations and may also be impacted by geomagnetic activity. The positive correlations are impacted by the density of CO2

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of a Combination Interface between Direct Energy Deposition and Selective Laser Melted Al-Mg-Sc-Zr Alloy

Selective laser melting (SLM) and direct energy deposition (DED) are two widely used technologies in additive manufacturing (AM). However, there are few studies on the combination of the two technologies, which can synthetically combine the advantages of the two technologies for more flexible material design. This paper systematically studies the Al-Mg-Sc-Zr alloy by combination of SLM and DED with emphasis on its bonding properties, microstructure, and metallurgical defects. It is found that the aluminum alloy prepared by the two methods achieves a good metallurgical combination. The microstructure of aluminum alloy prepared by DED is composed of equiaxed crystals, and there are a large number of Al3(Sc, Zr) precipitated phase particles rich in Sc and Zr. The microstructure of SLM aluminum alloy is composed of equiaxed crystals and columnar crystals, and there is a fine-grained area at the boundary of the molten pool. With the decrease of laser volumetric energy density (VED), the width and depth of the molten pool at the interface junction gradually decrease. The porosity gradually increases with the decrease of VED, and the microhardness shows a downward trend. Tensile strength and elongation at fracture of the SLM printed sample at 133.3 J/mm3 are about 400 MPa and 9.4%, while the direct energy depositioned sample are about 280 MPa and 5.9%. Due to the excellent bonding performance, this research has certain guiding significance for SLM–DED composite aluminum alloy

Microstructural evolvement and formation of selective laser melting W–Ni–Cu composite powder

W–Ni–Cu alloy (90 wt% W, 7.5 wt% Ni, and 2.5 wt% Cu) parts were successfully fabricated via selective laser melting method. Phases, microstructure, compositions, and laser forming parameters of laser melted samples were investigated. It was found that the W–Ni–Cu powder system was based on the mechanism of liquid solidification. This process was realized through full melting of W, Ni, and Cu particles under high laser energy input. However, using relatively lower energy input, particle bonding was realized through liquid phase sintering with complete melting of Ni–Cu acting as binder and nonmelting of W acting as structure. Due to the Ni–Cu solid solution phase that appeared in a wide range from 1,084 to 1,455 °C, a coherent matrix interface can be observed after solidification. The microhardness of laser-fabricated specimens varied with different powder layer thicknesses, resulting from the laser-treated condition and ability of trapped air in the loose powder bed to escape. The metallurgical mechanisms were also addressed

The preferential growth behaviors of the intermetallics at the W/Co interface during spark plasma sintering

The strong electric current in spark plasma sintering (SPS) often gives sintered materials unique microstructures. In the present study, it is found that the Co3W grains formed at the W/Co bonding interface preferentially grow along [2 1 ¯ 1 ¯0] (or its equivalent orientations) in the current direction during SPS, which is significantly different from that without current. We propose that the resistance anisotropy of grains under electromigration leads to anisotropic atomic diffusion, inducing the preferential growth of grains under current. This work may provide an approach and a theoretical foundation for the preparation of materials exhibiting directional growth