Safety Evaluation of Highway Tunnel-Entrance Illuminance Transition Based on Eye-Pupil Changes

Utilizing the EMR-8B eye-tracker system, the pupil changes of eight drivers were monitored when they drove through 26 typical highway tunnels. Based on the test results, the driver’s pupil areas and pupil illuminance were found to be in a power function relationship at tunnel entrances. Furthermore, a quantitative relationship between the pupil area and its critical velocity was established, and the ratio of pupil area’s velocity in relation to its critical velocity was used to evaluate the lighting transitions and to establish the ideal curve of pupil illuminance at tunnel entrances. The results demonstrated that the relationship between the pupil illuminance of the tunnel entrance and the driver’s pupil areas conforms to the Stevens law found in experimental psychology; severe pupil illuminance transition within the range of 10 metres of the existing highway tunnel entrances, which results in great visual load, is in urgent need of improvement.</p

A hybrid decision support system with golden cut and bipolar q-ROFSs for evaluating the risk-based strategic priorities of fintech lending for clean energy projects

In the last decade, the risk evaluation and the investment decision are among the most prominent issues of efficient project management. Especially, the innovative financial sources could have some specific risk appetite due to the increasing return of investment. Hence, it is important to uncover the risk factors of fintech investments and investigate the possible impacts with an integrated approach to the strategic priorities of fintech lending. Accordingly, this study aims to analyze a unique risk set and the strategic priorities of fintech lending for clean energy projects. The most important contributions to the literature can be listed as to construct an impact-direction map of risk-based strategic priorities for fintech lending in clean energy projects and to measure the possible influences by using a hybrid decision making system with golden cut and bipolar q-rung orthopair fuzzy sets. The extension of multi stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (M-SWARA) is applied for weighting the risk factors of fintech lending. The extension of elimination and choice translating reality (ELECTRE) is employed for constructing and ranking the risk-based strategic priorities for clean energy projects. In this process, data is obtained with the evaluation of three different decision makers. The main superiority of the proposed model by comparing with the previous models in the literature is that significant improvements are made to the classical SWARA method so that a new technique is created with the name of M-SWARA. Hence, the causality analysis between the criteria can also be performed in this proposed model. The findings demonstrate that security is the most critical risk factor for fintech lending system. Moreover, volume is found as the most critical risk-based strategy for fintech lending. In this context, fintech companies need to take some precautions to effectively manage the security risk. For this purpose, the main risks to information technologies need to be clearly identified. Next, control steps should be put for these risks to be managed properly. Furthermore, it has been determined that the most appropriate strategy to increase the success of the fintech lending system is to increase the number of financiers integrated into the system. Within this framework, the platform should be secure and profitable to persuade financiers.Optimization and upgrading of Industrial structure in Henan Province ; Key Scientific Research Project of Colleges and Universities in Henan Provinc

Etiologic analysis of Chinese patients with agranulocytosis and hematopathies infected with resistant bacteria: Antibacterial effect of tigecycline

Purpose: To assess the etiologic characteristics of resistant bacterial infections occurring in agranulocytosis patients with hematopathies, and to determine the effect of tigecycline (TGC).Methods: After ineffective treatment with carbapenem, all of the patients were divided into the following three groups: TGC alone (15 cases); TGC as initial treatment, followed by a combination with other antibiotics (40 cases); and TGC in combination with other antibiotics from the start of treatment (71 cases).Results: Among the 126 patients, 108 had fevers (85.71 %). The most common infection site was lung, accounting for 71.43 % of all infections. A total of 52 pathogens were isolated from 126 hospitalized patients, including 38 Gram-negative bacteria (70.37 %), 14 Gram-positive bacteria (25.93 %), and 2 fungi (3.70 %). TGC treatment efficacy was 50.79 %. There were no statistically significant differences between the three treatment groups (p = 0.473). Adverse drug reaction was nausea and vomiting (14.29 %), nausea without vomiting (11.90 %), diarrhea (6.35 %), and generalized skin rash with itching (3.17 %).Conclusion: TGC is effective in treating neutropenic patients with hematopathies who are infected with resistant bacteria. The side effects of TGC are few; thus, TGC is safe and generally well-tolerated.Keywords: Tigecycline, Agranulocytosis, Resistant bacteria, Hematopathy, Neutropenic patient

Wood construction under cold climate:Part one: Impact of cold temperatures on the shear strength of different adhesives glued wood joints of Norway spruce and Scots pine

As wood constructions increasingly use engineered wood products worldwide, concerns arise about the integrity of the wood and adhesives system. The glueline stability is a crucial issue for engineered wood application, especially under cold climate. In this study, Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) joints (150mm x 20mm x 10mm) were bonded with seven commercially available resins (PUR, PVAc, EPI, MF, MUF1, PRF and MUF2) and tested at six temperatures (20, -20, -30, -40, -50 and -60 °C), respectively. Generally, for both species, temperature changes significantly affected shear strength of wood joints. As temperature decreased, the shear strength decreased. PUR resin resulted in the strongest shear strength at all temperatures tested. MF resin responded to temperature changes in a similar ways as the PUR resin. The shear strength of wood joints with EPI resins was sensitive to temperature change. MUF, PRF and PVAc resins demonstrated different characters with Norway spruce and Scot pine. At room temperature, all types of adhesive showed relative stability, in terms of shear strength variation. While at low temperature, the shear strength varied considerably. More specimens need to be tested in further work to more completely present the issue. The EN 301 and EN 302 may need to be specified based on wood species.Godkänd; 2014; 20141112 (aliwan

CD133 expression in cancer cells predicts poor prognosis of non-mucin producing intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma

Background; CD133 is a marker of stem cells as well cancer stem cells. This study investigated the association between CD133 expression in cancer cells and the clinical outcome of non-mucin producing intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC). Methods: Fifty-seven non-mucin producing ICC patients were enrolled in this study. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence staining for CD133 as well as other cancer-associated proteins, including cytokeratin 19, TGF-β1, p-Smad2 and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers S100A4, E-Cadherin and Vimentin were analyzed. Results: IHC staining showed that tumor cells in 52.6% of patients expressed CD133. The CD133+ patients had significantly higher metastasis rate than those without CD133+ tumor cells (36.7% vs. 10.1%, p = 0.03). The CD133+ patients had shorter overall and disease-free survival time as compared to the CD133− patients. Furthermore, 90.9% of CD133+ patients developed cancer recurrence, as compared to 64.3% of CD133− patients (p = 0.02). As compared to CD133− patients, tumor cells in CD133+ patients demonstrated high levels of TGF-β/p-Smad2 as well as EMT-like alteration, characterized by loss of E-Cadherin and expression of Vimentin and S100A4. Conclusions: CD133 expression in ICC tumor cells indicates poor prognosis of the disease and might be associated with TGF-β related EMT alterations

Influence of one-dimensional material flow on mechanical properties and fiber orientation distribution of thin-ply carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastics sheet molding compounds

The molding flow of carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic sheet molding compounds (CFRTP-SMC) is complex and requires a comprehensive understanding of underlying processes. This study investigates the material behavior during compression molding processes, focusing on the influence of the ratio of initial material charge area over mold area (charge ratio) on mechanical properties. The results highlight the CFRTP-SMC material's excellent flowability and moldability and confirm that the mechanical properties and internal morphology change with charge ratios. In addition, a correlation between mechanical properties and internal morphology is established through quantitative analysis of fiber orientation distributions using X-ray computed tomography. This comprehensive investigation not only sheds light on the molding ‘behavior of CFRTP-SMCs, but also underscores the importance of material charge ratios in influencing the mechanical properties. This study also provides a case study for validating numerical process models.This work was supported by Japan Science and Technology Agency's SPRING Program (JPMJSP2108). The work was also partially funded by the Royal Society (IEC\R3\213017) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JPJSBP 120225702).Composites Communication

A Novel P53/POMC/Gas/SASH1 Autoregulatory Feedback Loop and Pathologic Hyperpigmentation

P53-regulated proteins in transcriptional level are associated with many signal transduction pathways and p53 plays a pivotal role in a number of positive and negative autoregulatory feedback loops. Although POMC/α-MSH productions induced by ultraviolet (UV) are directly mediated by p53, p53 is related to UV-independent pathological pigmentation. In the process of identifying the causative gene of dyschromatosis universalis hereditaria (DUH), three mutations encoding amino acid substitutions were found in the gene SAM and SH3 domain containing 1 (SASH1). SASH1 was identified to interact with guanine nucleotide-binding protein subunit-alpha isoforms short (Gαs). However, for about 90 years, the pathological gene and the pathological mechanism of DUH are unclear. Our study indicates that SASH1 is physiologically medicated by p53 upon UV stimulation and a reciprocal SASH-p53 inducement is existed physiologically and pathophysiologically. A novel p53/POMC/α-MSH/Gαs/SASH1 signal cascade regulates SASH1 to foster melanogenesis. SASH1 mutations control a novel p53/POMC/Gαs/SASH1 autoregulatory positive feedback loop to promote pathological hyperpigmentation phenotype in DUH-affected individuals. Our work illustrates a novel p53/POMC/Gαs/SASH1 autoregulatory positive feedback loop that is mediated by SASH1 mutations to foster pathological hyperpigmentation phenotype

On the relationship between unit cells and channel systems in high silica zeolites with the "butterfly” projection

Zeolites are crystalline aluminosilicate framework materials with corner sharing TO4 (T = Al, Si) tetrahedra forming well-defined pores and channels. Many zeolites are built from similar building units (i.e., isolated units, chains or layers), which are connected in different ways to form a variety of topologies. We have identified ten zeolite frameworks that share the same two-dimensional "butterfly” net containing 5-, 6- and 10-rings: *MRE, FER, MEL, SZR, MFS, MFI, TUN, IMF, BOG and TON. Different orientations of the TO4 tetrahedra within the layer lead to different connectivities between neighboring layers. Some layers are corrugated and some are flat, resulting in different channel systems parallel to the layer. We found some interesting relationships between the unit cell parameters and this channel system that allow the size of the channels and their directions to be deduced from the unit cell dimensions. This may facilitate the prediction of new members of this zeolite family. In addition, other zeolites containing the "butterfly” layers are also discussed