Failure Analysis

Two approaches to failure analysis are explained: analysis of individual failures and statistical analysis. Various criteria for failure sorting and classification are presented, as well as the main causes and mechanisms of failures. The text is accompanied by figures with characteristic fracture patterns. The chapter is complemented by an example of computer aided sorting of failures in railway driving vehicles

High-Fidelity Lake Extraction via Two-Stage Prompt Enhancement: Establishing a Novel Baseline and Benchmark

The extraction of lakes from remote sensing images is a complex challenge due to the varied lake shapes and data noise. Current methods rely on multispectral image datasets, making it challenging to learn lake features accurately from pixel arrangements. This, in turn, affects model learning and the creation of accurate segmentation masks. This paper introduces a unified prompt-based dataset construction approach that provides approximate lake locations using point, box, and mask prompts. We also propose a two-stage prompt enhancement framework, LEPrompter, which involves prompt-based and prompt-free stages during training. The prompt-based stage employs a prompt encoder to extract prior information, integrating prompt tokens and image embeddings through self- and cross-attention in the prompt decoder. Prompts are deactivated once the model is trained to ensure independence during inference, enabling automated lake extraction. Evaluations on Surface Water and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Lake datasets show consistent performance improvements compared to the previous state-of-the-art method. LEPrompter achieves mIoU scores of 91.48% and 97.43% on the respective datasets without introducing additional parameters or GFLOPs. Supplementary materials provide the source code, pre-trained models, and detailed user studies.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

LtpA, a CdnL-type CarD regulator, is important for the enzootic cycle of the Lyme disease pathogen

Little is known about how Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease pathogen, adapts and survives in the tick vector. We previously identified a bacterial CarD N-terminal-like (CdnL) protein, LtpA (BB0355), in B. burgdorferi that is preferably expressed at lower temperatures, which is a surrogate condition mimicking the tick portion of the enzootic cycle of B. burgdorferi. CdnL-family proteins, an emerging class of bacterial RNAP-interacting transcription factors, are essential for the viability of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Myxococcus xanthus. Previous attempts to inactivate ltpA in B. burgdorferi have not been successful. In this study, we report the construction of a ltpA mutant in the infectious strain of B. burgdorferi, strain B31-5A4NP1. Unlike CdnL in M. tuberculosis and M. xanthus, LtpA is dispensable for the viability of B. burgdorferi. However, the ltpA mutant exhibits a reduced growth rate and a cold-sensitive phenotype. We demonstrate that LtpA positively regulates 16S rRNA expression, which contributes to the growth defects in the ltpA mutant. The ltpA mutant remains capable of infecting mice, albeit with delayed infection. Additionally, the ltpA mutant produces markedly reduced spirochetal loads in ticks and was not able to infect mice via tick infection. Overall, LtpA represents a novel regulator in the CdnL family that has an important role in the enzootic cycle of B. burgdorferi

Activity of Fengycin and Iturin A Isolated From Bacillus subtilis Z-14 on Gaeumannomyces graminis Var. tritici and Soil Microbial Diversity

Bacillus subtilis Z-14 can inhibit phytopathogenic fungi, and is used as a biocontrol agent for wheat take-all disease. The present study used the soil-borne fungus Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici (Ggt), which causes wheat take-all disease, and the soil microbial community as indicators, and investigated the antifungal effects of fengycin and iturin A purified from strain Z-14 using high performance liquid chromatography and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, respectively. The results showed that fengycin destroyed the internal structure of Ggt cells by digesting the cytoplasm and organelles, forming vacuoles, and inducing hyphal shrinkage and distortion. Iturin A induced cell wall disappearance, membrane degeneration, intracellular material shrinkage, and hyphal fragmentation. A biocontrol test demonstrated a 100% control effect on wheat take-all when wheat seedlings were treated with fengycin at 100 μg/ml or iturin A at 500 μg/ml. Iturin A and fengycin both reduced the relative abundance of Aspergillus and Gibberella. At the genus level, iturin A reduced the relative abundance of Mortierella and Myrothecium, while fengycin reduced that of Fusarium. Only fengycin treatment for 7 days had a significant effect on soil bacterial diversity

Historical Developments of BHR Humanoid Robots

Humanoid robots can achieve increasingly complex functions and adapt to more complex environments. To boost the development of humanoid robot technology, a team at Beijing Institute of Technology initiated the research on humanoid robots from 2000. Their research primarily focuses on stable walking, whole-body complex motion, human-robot interaction, and multimodal motion of humanoid robots. Thus far, the team has developed 6 generations of humanoid robots. The latest humanoid robot, BHR-6P, can achieve multi-mode motions (for example, walk, jump, fall protection, crawl and roll), which will significantly improve the ability of robot to adapt to the environment. This paper presented the historical evolution of BHR humanoid robots and outlined their functions and features

Ocean acidification alters the benthic biofilm communities in intertidal soft sediments

Microphytobenthos (MPB) and bacterial biofilms play crucial roles in primary and secondary production, nutrient cycling and invertebrate settlement in coastal ecosystems, yet little is known of the effects of ocean acidification (OA) on these communities in intertidal soft sediments. To fill in this gap, a 28-day CO2 enhancement experiment was conducted for the benthic biofilms in soft intertidal sediments (muds and sands) from Qingdao, China. This experiment included three CO2 treatments: 400 ppm CO2 (control), 700 ppm CO2 and 1000 ppm CO2 (IPCC predicted value in 2100), which were established in a three-level CO2 incubator that can adjust the CO2 concentration in the overlying air. The effects of OA on benthic biofilms were assessed in the following three aspects: MPB biomass, biofilm community structure and microbial biogeochemical cycling (e.g., C-cycle, N-cycle and S-cycle). This study found that the 700 ppm CO2 treatment did not significantly affect the benthic biofilms in intertidal soft sediments, but the 1000 ppm CO2 treatment significantly altered the biofilm community composition and potentially their role in microbial biogeochemical cyc\ling in sediments (especially in sandy sediments). For the bacterial community in biofilms, the 1000 ppm CO2 enhancement increased the relative abundance of Alteromonadales and Bacillales but decreased the relative abundance of Rhodobacterales and Flavobacteriales. For microbial biogeochemical cycling, the 1000 ppm CO2 treatment enhanced the potential of chemoheterotrophic activity, nitrate reduction and sulfur respiration in sediments, likely resulting in a more stressful environment (hypoxic and enriched H2S) for most benthic organisms. Even though incubations in this study were only 28 days long and thus couldn’t fully accommodate the range of longer-term adaptions, it still suggests that benthic biofilms in intertidal sandy sediments are likely to change significantly near the end of the century if anthropogenic CO2 emissions unmitigated, with profound implications on local ecosystems and biogeochemical cycling