Active Multiple Plasmon-Induced Transparency with Graphene Sheets Resonators in Mid-Infrared Frequencies

A multiple plasmon-induced transparency (PIT) device operated in the mid-infrared region has been proposed. The designed model is comprised of one graphene ribbon as main waveguide and two narrow graphene sheets resonators. The phase coupling between two graphene resonators has been investigated. The multimode PIT resonances have been found in both cases and can be dynamically tuned via varying the chemical potential of graphene resonators without optimizing its geometric parameters. In addition, this structure can get multiple PIT effect by equipping extra two sheets on the symmetric positions of graphene waveguide. The simulation results based on finite element method (FEM) are in good agreement with the resonance theory. This work may pave new way for graphene-based thermal plasmonic devices applications

Application of Pedestrian Upstream Detection Strategy in a Mixed Flow Traffic Circumstance

Walking is an environment-friendly trip mode and can help ease the congestion caused by automobiles. Proper design of pedestrian facilities that promotes efficiency and safety can encourage more people to choose walking. Upstream detection (UD) strategy is proposed by previous studies to reduce pedestrian waiting time at mid-block crosswalk (MBC). This paper applied UD strategy to MBC under mixed traffic circumstance where the crosswalk serves both pedestrians and non-motor users. Traffic data was collected from an MBC in the city of Nanjing, China. Simulation models were developed by using the VISSIM software and its add-on module Vehicle Actuated Programming (VAP). The models were categorised by the volume and composition of pedestrians and non-motor users. Models were simulated according to different experimental schemes to explore the effectiveness of the UD strategy under mixed traffic circumstance. T-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to interpret the simulation results. The main conclusions of this paper are that the UD strategy is still effective at the MBC with a mixed traffic circumstance despite the proportion of non-motor users. However, as the proportion of non-motor users becomes higher, the average delay of pedestrians and non-motor users will increase compared to pure pedestrian flow

p38α MAPK regulates proliferation and differentiation of osteoclast progenitors and bone remodeling in an aging-dependent manner.

Bone mass is determined by the balance between bone formation, carried out by mesenchymal stem cell-derived osteoblasts, and bone resorption, carried out by monocyte-derived osteoclasts. Here we investigated the potential roles of p38 MAPKs, which are activated by growth factors and cytokines including RANKL and BMPs, in osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption by ablating p38α MAPK in LysM+monocytes. p38α deficiency promoted monocyte proliferation but regulated monocyte osteoclastic differentiation in a cell-density dependent manner, with proliferating p38α-/- cultures showing increased differentiation. While young mutant mice showed minor increase in bone mass, 6-month-old mutant mice developed osteoporosis, associated with an increase in osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption and an increase in the pool of monocytes. Moreover, monocyte-specific p38α ablation resulted in a decrease in bone formation and the number of bone marrow mesenchymal stem/stromal cells, likely due to decreased expression of PDGF-AA and BMP2. The expression of PDGF-AA and BMP2 was positively regulated by the p38 MAPK-Creb axis in osteoclasts, with the promoters of PDGF-AA and BMP2 having Creb binding sites. These findings uncovered the molecular mechanisms by which p38α MAPK regulates osteoclastogenesis and coordinates osteoclastogenesis and osteoblastogenesis

Extremum Seeking Control of Hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump System

The ground source heat pump (GSHP) technology is a renewable alternative for space conditioning by rejecting/absorbing heat to/from the ground, which has demonstrated higher energy efficiency for residential and commercial buildings. As the system capacity is limited by the initial cost of construction of ground-loop heat exchanger (GHE), developing the so-called Hybrid GSHP system by utilizing supplemental heat rejecters such as cooling towers has emerged as a cost-effective alternative. In practice, operational efficiency of Hybrid GSHP system mainly depends on 1) the actual characteristics of heat pump, cooling tower, GHE and other equipment; 2) ambient air and ground conditions. In particular, the GHE heat transfer is heavily affected by the ground thermal characteristics which, however, is difficult and expensive in practice to determine due to the complexity of soil type and distribution. In addition, the actual cooling tower characteristics can vary significantly. Such uncertainties bring forth dramatic difficulty for successful application of model based control or optimization methods. In this study, an extremum seeking control (ESC) strategy is proposed for efficient operation of a hybrid GSHP system with cooling tower, which minimizes the total power (i.e. GHE loop water pump, cooling tower fan and pump, and the heat-pump compressor) consumption by tuning the air-flow rate of the cooling tower fan and the GHE loop water flow rate. To evaluate the proposed control method, a Modelica based model of the Hybrid GSHP system is developed by utilizing the Buildings Library developed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which consists of a 20-borehole GHE, a water-to-water heat pump, a counter-flow cooling tower and a plate heat exchanger. The transient conduction model of vertical GHE in the Buildings Library is adopted, which is based on a finite-volume method inside the borehole and cylindrical source model outside the borehole. A variable-flow water pump model is constructed for the GHE water loop, which gives power consumption under different operating scenarios. A cooling tower model in the Buildings Library is adopted, which is a static polynomial model based on a York cooling tower correlation. The relative air flow rate can be regulated to maintain the leaving water temperature at the setpoint, and then the corresponding fan power consumption is obtained. The heat pump model is based on the evaporator temperature, condenser temperature and Carnot efficiency. An inner-loop proportional-integral (PI) controller is implemented to regulate the evaporator leaving water temperature at 7 deg-C. Under the air wet-bulb temperature of 35 deg-C and dry-bulb temperature 23 deg-C, steady-state simulation of the plant model yields the static map of the total power with respect to the cooling tower relative air flow rate and the GHE water flow rate, which indicates about 25% power variation across the adjustable range of inputs. Simulation was conducted in two conditions: change in evaporator inlet water temperature and change in ambient air condition. The simulation study under way is to validate the effectiveness of the proposed ESC strategy, and the potential for energy saving will also be evaluated

Evaluating the Impacts of Modern Streetcar Tracks on Bicycling Through an Intersection

Bicycle traffic flow suffers from the impact of tracks at an intersection in which a modern streetcar route is laid. The primary objective of this study involves discussing the impacts of modern streetcar tracks on bicycling through an intersection and developing a quantitative approach to calculate bicycle delay. Field investigations are conducted at eight sites in Nanjing and Shenyang, China. The sites are related to five intersections. Two of the five intersections are designed with a central modern streetcar style of track. Other two intersections operate on a roadside style of track and the last intersection is without tracks. The impact of the differences in bicycle speed are tested at each site based on the observed data. The results show that modern streetcar tracks exert a significant influence on bicycle speed and bicycling behavior and lead to delay, discomfort and unsafe conditions. Furthermore, a model is proposed to predict bicycle delay caused by modern streetcar tracks. The proposed model achieved a relatively accurate prediction. The findings of this study help in adequately understanding the impacts of modern streetcar tracks on bicycling. The results also suggest that longer crossing times should be used in signal design for bicycling at an intersection in which a modern streetcar route is laid

MGTAB: A Multi-Relational Graph-Based Twitter Account Detection Benchmark

The development of social media user stance detection and bot detection methods rely heavily on large-scale and high-quality benchmarks. However, in addition to low annotation quality, existing benchmarks generally have incomplete user relationships, suppressing graph-based account detection research. To address these issues, we propose a Multi-Relational Graph-Based Twitter Account Detection Benchmark (MGTAB), the first standardized graph-based benchmark for account detection. To our knowledge, MGTAB was built based on the largest original data in the field, with over 1.55 million users and 130 million tweets. MGTAB contains 10,199 expert-annotated users and 7 types of relationships, ensuring high-quality annotation and diversified relations. In MGTAB, we extracted the 20 user property features with the greatest information gain and user tweet features as the user features. In addition, we performed a thorough evaluation of MGTAB and other public datasets. Our experiments found that graph-based approaches are generally more effective than feature-based approaches and perform better when introducing multiple relations. By analyzing experiment results, we identify effective approaches for account detection and provide potential future research directions in this field. Our benchmark and standardized evaluation procedures are freely available at: https://github.com/GraphDetec/MGTAB.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Gut stem cell aging is driven by mTORC1 via a p38 MAPK-p53 pathway.

Nutrients are absorbed solely by the intestinal villi. Aging of this organ causes malabsorption and associated illnesses, yet its aging mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we show that aging-caused intestinal villus structural and functional decline is regulated by mTORC1, a sensor of nutrients and growth factors, which is highly activated in intestinal stem and progenitor cells in geriatric mice. These aging phenotypes are recapitulated in intestinal stem cell-specific Tsc1 knockout mice. Mechanistically, mTORC1 activation increases protein synthesis of MKK6 and augments activation of the p38 MAPK-p53 pathway, leading to decreases in the number and activity of intestinal stem cells as well as villus size and density. Targeting p38 MAPK or p53 prevents or rescues ISC and villus aging and nutrient absorption defects. These findings reveal that mTORC1 drives aging by augmenting a prominent stress response pathway in gut stem cells and identify p38 MAPK as an anti-aging target downstream of mTORC1

ERK Phosphorylates p66shcA on Ser36 and Subsequently Regulates p27^kip1 Expression via the Akt-FOXO3a Pathway: Implication of p27^kip1 in Cell Response to Oxidative Stress

Mice deficient for p66shcA represent an animal model to link oxidative stress and aging. p66shcA is implicated in oxidative stress response and mitogenic signaling. Phosphorylation of p66shcA on Ser36 is critical for its function in oxidative stress response. Here we report the identification of ERK as the kinase phosphorylating p66shcA on Ser36. Activation of ERKs was necessary and sufficient for Ser36 phosphorylation. p66shcA interacted with ERK and was demonstrated to be a substrate for ERK, with Ser36 being the major phosphorylation site. Furthermore, in response to H2O2, inhibition of ERK activation repressed p66shcA-dependent phosphorylation of FOXO3a and the down-regulation of its target gene p27kip1. Down-regulation of p27 might promote cell survival, as p27 played a proapoptotic role in oxidative stress response. As a feedback regulation, Ser36 phosphorylated p66shcA attenuated H2O2-induced ERK activation, whereas p52/46shcA facilitated ERK activation, which required tyrosine phosphorylation of CH1 domain. p66shcA formed a complex with p52/46ShcA, which may provide a platform for efficient signal propagation. Taken together, the data suggest there exists an interplay between ERK and ShcA proteins, which modulates the expression of p27 and cell response to oxidative stress