Modeling and energy efficiency optimization of belt conveyors

The improvement of the energy efficiency of belt conveyor systems can be achieved at equipment and operation levels. Specifically, variable speed control, an equipment level intervention, is recommended to improve operation efficiency of belt conveyors. However, the current implementations mostly focus on lower level control loops without operational considerations at the system level. This paper intends to take a model based optimization approach to improve the efficiency of belt conveyors at the operational level. An analytical energy model, originating from ISO 5048, is firstly proposed, which lumps all the parameters into four coefficients. Subsequently, both an off-line and an on-line parameter estimation schemes are applied to identify the new energy model, respectively. Simulation results are presented for the estimates of the four coefficients. Finally, optimization is done to achieve the best operation efficiency of belt conveyors under various constraints. Six optimization problems of a typical belt conveyor system are formulated, respectively, with solutions in simulation for a case study.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergyai201

Research avenues supporting embodied cognition in learning and instruction

Research on embodied cognition acknowledges that cognitive processing is tightly coupled with bodily activities and the environment. An important implication for education is that learning can be enhanced when the brain, body, and environment mutually influence each other, such as when making or observing human actions, especially those involving hand gestures and manipulation of objects. In this narrative review article, we describe the evidence from six research avenues that can help explain why embodied cognition can enhance learning and instruction. Through the exploration of these six interconnected research pathways, we aim to make a significant contribution by proposing innovative directions for learning and instruction research, all rooted in the principles of embodied cognition. We establish a direct link between the six research pathways and embodied phenomena, both in the contexts of making and observing human movements. When making human movements, the research avenues explaining the learning benefits due to these movements are physical activity, generative learning, and offloaded cognition. When observing human movements, the avenues researching these phenomena are specialized processor and signaling. Lastly, the research avenue social cognition is integral to both making and observing human movements. With originality in focus, we also include research that has not been traditionally associated with embodied cognition or embodiment. This article offers comprehensive discussions, substantiated with evidence and influencing features, for each of these research avenues. We conclude by outlining the implications of these findings for instruction and charting potential directions for future investigation

LatEval: An Interactive LLMs Evaluation Benchmark with Incomplete Information from Lateral Thinking Puzzles

With the continuous evolution and refinement of LLMs, they are endowed with impressive logical reasoning or vertical thinking capabilities. But can they think out of the box? Do they possess proficient lateral thinking abilities? Following the setup of Lateral Thinking Puzzles, we propose a novel evaluation benchmark, LatEval, which assesses the model's lateral thinking within an interactive framework. In our benchmark, we challenge LLMs with 2 aspects: the quality of questions posed by the model and the model's capability to integrate information for problem-solving. We find that nearly all LLMs struggle with employing lateral thinking during interactions. For example, even the most advanced model, GPT-4, exhibits the advantage to some extent, yet still maintain a noticeable gap when compared to human. This evaluation benchmark provides LLMs with a highly challenging and distinctive task that is crucial to an effective AI assistant.Comment: Work in progres

Contextual Similarity is More Valuable than Character Similarity: Curriculum Learning for Chinese Spell Checking

Chinese Spell Checking (CSC) task aims to detect and correct Chinese spelling errors. In recent years, related researches focus on introducing the character similarity from confusion set to enhance the CSC models, ignoring the context of characters that contain richer information. To make better use of contextual similarity, we propose a simple yet effective curriculum learning framework for the CSC task. With the help of our designed model-agnostic framework, existing CSC models will be trained from easy to difficult as humans learn Chinese characters and achieve further performance improvements. Extensive experiments and detailed analyses on widely used SIGHAN datasets show that our method outperforms previous state-of-the-art methods

Mixture of tree species enhances stability of soil bacterial community through phylogenetic diversity

The composition of tree species might influence microbial diversity considerably, yet investigation of the consequences of changes in diversity on stability of the microbial community is still in its early stages. Understanding how diversity governs community stability is vital for predicting the response of an ecosystem to environmental changes. Phylogenetic diversity (PD) describes the distinct evolution of species in a community, and might be useful for estimating the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem function and stability. High‐throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing was used to examine soil bacterial phylogenetic distances, phylogenetic diversity and interactions between individuals in five single‐species plantations and three mixed‐species plantations. The plantations were established on the same initial substrate, and sampling was at 68 relatively spatially independent sites. Our results showed that mixed tree species enhanced soil bacterial phylogenetic diversity and community stability, and that phylogenetic diversity had a positive effect on stability of the soil microbial community. We also found evidence that microbial communities characterized by distantly related species with weak interactions were more stable in mixed plantations than communities with strong interactions in single‐species plantations. These results may be explained by the ‘insurance hypothesis’, that large phylogenetic diversity of microbial communities which share different ecological niches insures them against decline in their stability. This is because, even if some microbial species fail to deal with environmental change, others might not necessarily be affected similarly. Our findings demonstrate that phylogenetic diversity is the main controlling factor of the variation in stability across sites and requires more attention in sustainable forest management

Multiplexed Serum Biomarkers for the Detection of Lung Cancer

AbstractCurrently, there is no available biomarker for lung cancer diagnosis. Here we recruited 844 lung cancer patients and 620 healthy participants from six hospitals. A total of four serum proteins was identified and subsequently assessed in the training and validation cohorts. The concentrations of four serum proteins were found to be significantly higher in lung cancer patients compared with healthy participants. The area under the curve (AUC) for the 4-biomarker were 0.86 in the training cohort, and 0.87 in the validation cohort. The classification improved to a corrected AUC of 0.90 and 0.89 respectively following addition of sex, age and smoking status. Similar results were observed for early-stage lung cancer. Remarkably, in a blinded test with a suspicious pulmonary nodule, the adjusted prediction model correctly discriminated the patients with 86.96% sensitivity and 98.25% specificity. These results demonstrated the 4-biomarker panel improved lung cancer prediction beyond that of known risk factors. Moreover, the biomarkers were valuable in differentiating benign nodules which will remain indolent from those that are likely to progress and therefore might serve as an adjuvant diagnosis tool for LDCT scanning

Preventive Effect of Chimonanthus praecox Flower Extract on High-fat Diet-induced Obesity in Mice

Objective: To study the preventive effect of ethanolic extract from Chimonanthus praecox flower on obesity induced by high-fat diet in mice. Methods: A total of 50 C57BL/6 mice were divided into five groups of blank control, model control, low-, medium- and high-dose Chimonanthus praecox flower extract (CPFE) treatment. The mice in the blank control group were provided with a basal diet whereas those in the other groups were given a high-fat diet. The mice in the low-, medium- and high-dose groups were orally administered with CPFE at doses of 0.2, 0.4 and 0.8 g/(kg mb·d), containing 24.81, 49.62 and 99.25 mg/(kg mb·d) of Chimonanthus praecox flower polyphenols, respectively. The blank control, model control groups were administered with 0.9% NaCl. The administration lasted for 4 weeks. Then, body weight, serum biochemical indicators, organ antioxidant capacity were measured and pathological sections of liver tissue were examined. Results: The body weight, liver coefficient, serum levels of TC, LDL-C, organ levels of MDA in the model control group were significantly higher than those in the blank control group (P<0.05). The levels of organ GSH-Px, CAT, SOD, GSH in the model control group were significantly lower than those in the blank control group (P<0.05). Pathological examination showed that compared with the blank control group, the structure of liver lobules was irregular, the cell morphology was destroyed, vacuolar degeneration occurs, and the hepatic cord was not clear, and the hepatic sinuses were squeezed and deformed, indicating successful obesity induction in mice. In addition, compared with the model control group, the CPFE especially at the high dose lowered serum TC, LDL-C, TG, organ MDA in obese mice (P<0.05) and increased serum HDL-C levels, organ GSH-Px, CAT, SOD, GSH levels, and the effect was dose-effective with the concentration of CPFE. Pathological status of the organ were improved compared to the model control group, as evidenced by a more intact liver histomorphology and structure. The extract also reduced the body weight and liver index of obese mice and the effect was more pronounced in the high dose group. Conclusion: The CPFE have the effects of lowering serum cholesterol, enhancing antioxidant capacity and protecting the functional morphology of liver tissue cells in mice

Comparative transcriptome analysis reveals gene network regulation of TGase-induced thermotolerance in tomato

Transglutaminase (TGase), the ubiquitous protein in plants, catalyzes the post-translational transformation of proteins and plays a vital role in photosynthesis. However, its role and mechanism in tomato subjected to heat stress still remain unknown. Here, we carried out a transcriptomic assay to compare the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between wild type (WT) and TGase overexpression (TGaseOE) plants employed to high-temperature at 42 °C and samples were collected after 0, 6, and 12 h, respectively. A total of 11,516 DEGs were identified from heat-stressed seedlings, while 1,148 and 1,353 DEGs were up-and down-regulated, respectively. The DEGs upon high-temperature stress were closely associated with the pathways encompassing protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, carbon fixation, and photosynthetic metabolism. In addition, 425 putative transcription factors (TFs) were identified, and the majority of them associated with the bHLH, HSF, AP2/ERF, MYB, and WRKY families. RNA-seq data validation further confirmed that 8 genes were linked to protein processing and photosynthesis, and the mRNA level of these genes in TGaseOE was higher than that in WT plants, which is consistent in transcriptome results. In conclusion, these results reveal the transcriptional regulation between WT and TGaseOE in tomato under heat stress and shed light on a new dimension of knowledge of TGase-mediated thermotolerance mechanism at the molecular level

Comparison of the Effects of Acarbose and TZQ-F, a New Kind of Traditional Chinese Medicine to Treat Diabetes, Chinese Healthy Volunteers

Ethnopharmacological Relevance. TZQ-F has been traditionally used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a formula for the treatment of diabetes. Aim of the Study. This study aims to compare the pharmacologic effects and gastrointestinal adverse events between TZQ-F and acarbose. Methods. The double-blind randomized placebo-controlled fivefold crossover study was performed in 20 healthy male volunteers. Plasma glucose, plasma IRI, and plasma C-peptide were measured to assess the pharmacologic effects. Flatus and bowel activity were measured to assess the adverse event of gastrointestinal effect. Results. 3 and 4 tablets of TZQ decreased the Cmax of plasma glucose compared with that of the previous day and with placebo. 3 tablets also decreased Cmax of plasma C-peptide compared with placebo. 4 tablets increased Cmax of plasma insulin after breakfast and the AUC of plasma C-peptide after breakfast and dinner. 2 tablets did not decrease plasma glucose and elevated the Cmax and AUC of C-peptide after breakfast and dinner, respectively. Acarbose 50 mg decreased the Cmax of plasma insulin and C-peptide after breakfast and the Cmax of plasma glucose and C-peptide after dinner. The subjects who received TZQ did not report any abdominal adverse events. Conclusions. 3 tablets of TZQ have the same effects as the acarbose