Accuracy Assessment of “Step-by-Step” Simulation Modeling Method for Rock Breaking by TBM Disc Cutters Assisted with Laser

Rock breaking by laser-assisted disc cutters is a novel high-efficiency rock breaking mode that combines mechanical stress induced by the disc cutters with thermal cracking by laser. This paper presented a “step-by-step” simulation modeling concept, and conducted an in-depth study on potential influencing factors of simulation accuracy at each key step. First, the prediction accuracy of laser holes in laser drilling simulation was discussed. Second, the SHPB simulation and experiment were carried out to evaluate the accuracy of the selected material constitutive model in simulating the dynamic fracture damage of rock. Then, taking the laser-assisted rock-penetrating process of the scaled disc cutter as an example, the simulation prediction accuracy of rock-breaking by the disc cutter was analyzed. Finally, the simulation and experiment of laser-assisted disc cutter penetration into rock was carried out, and then the feasibility of the “step-by-step” concept was analyzed. The results show that: (1) in the laser drilling simulation, the predicted accuracy of laser hole size is higher when the power is low; with the laser power increases, the large amount of glass glaze will affect the subsequent modeling accuracy; (2) the HJC model can be used to simulate the transient nonlinear fracture damage behavior of granite; (3) the damage morphology of the granite obtained by the penetration simulation is highly similar to the experimental results, and the load curve should be corrected by the peak point fitting method. The results show the application prospects of the proposed numerical modeling method in future laser-assisted TBM tunnelling

Efficacy and safety of small-incision corneal intrastromal lenticule implantation for hyperopia correction: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PurposeTo assess the efficacy and safety of intrastromal lenticule implantation for the treatment of hyperopia.MethodsA systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Internet, and Wan Fang Database identified studies on small-incision intrastromal lenticule implantation for hyperopia correction until January 2023. The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) critical appraisal tool was used to assess the quality of the retrospective research, and the Methodological Index for Non-randomized Studies (MINORS) was used to assess the quality of the prospective research. This study included postoperative visual outcomes, corneal morphology, and biomechanical outcomes.ResultsA total of 456 articles were identified, of which 10 were included in the meta-analysis. Ten single-arm studies involving 190 eyes were included. A meta-analysis demonstrated that corneal intrastromal lenticule implantation treatment significantly improved hyperopia. Uncorrected distance visual acuity (UDVA) significantly improved compared to the preoperative value (p = 0.027), corrected distance visual acuity showed no difference compared to the preoperative value (p = 0.27), and 87% eyes have no loss of one or more lines in the Snellen lines of CDVA (p < 0.00001). There was a significant difference between the spherical equivalent refractive (SE) and preoperative examination (p < 0.00001), 52% of eyes had ±0.5 diopters (D) postoperative SE (p < 0.00001), and 74% eyes had ±1.0 D postoperative SE (p < 0.00001). The central corneal thickness (CCT) increased by 72.68 μm compared to that preoperatively (p < 0.00001), and corneal curvature increased by 4.18D (p < 0.00001). The Q-value decreased by 0.82 (p < 0.00001), and higher-order aberration (HOA) decreased by 0.66 (p < 0.00001).ConclusionSmall-incision intrastromal lenticule implantation may be an effective solution for correcting hyperopia. The effect of improved vision is significant, but further exploration is needed for changes in corneal biomechanics and long-term safety.Systematic review registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/, identifier: CRD42023432343

MsPrompt: Multi-step Prompt Learning for Debiasing Few-shot Event Detection

Event detection (ED) is aimed to identify the key trigger words in unstructured text and predict the event types accordingly. Traditional ED models are too data-hungry to accommodate real applications with scarce labeled data. Besides, typical ED models are facing the context-bypassing and disabled generalization issues caused by the trigger bias stemming from ED datasets. Therefore, we focus on the true few-shot paradigm to satisfy the low-resource scenarios. In particular, we propose a multi-step prompt learning model (MsPrompt) for debiasing few-shot event detection, that consists of the following three components: an under-sampling module targeting to construct a novel training set that accommodates the true few-shot setting, a multi-step prompt module equipped with a knowledge-enhanced ontology to leverage the event semantics and latent prior knowledge in the PLMs sufficiently for tackling the context-bypassing problem, and a prototypical module compensating for the weakness of classifying events with sparse data and boost the generalization performance. Experiments on two public datasets ACE-2005 and FewEvent show that MsPrompt can outperform the state-of-the-art models, especially in the strict low-resource scenarios reporting 11.43% improvement in terms of weighted F1-score against the best-performing baseline and achieving an outstanding debiasing performance

Development and Characterization of Microsatellite Loci for Ficus hirta (Moraceae)

Microsatellite primers were developed to investigate population genetic structure in Ficus hirta (Moraceae). Sixteen microsatellite primers were developed and optimized for F. hirta using Illumina paired-end sequencing of pre-receptive and receptive developmental-phase female flowers. Out of 16 primers, nine were found to be polymorphic in four populations of F. hirta. Alleles per locus ranged from two to 15 across the 94 F. hirta individuals, while within-population observed and expected heterozygosity per locus ranged from 0.000 to 0.955 and from 0.000 to 0.882, respectively. In addition, the 16 primers were tested in 29 additional Ficus species, with all found to amplify in at least 11 of these species and with most amplifying in a majority of the species. This set of microsatellite primers is the first specifically developed for F. hirta and will facilitate studies of genetic diversity within and genetic differentiation among populations of Ficus species

Complete Moment Convergence for Arrays of Rowwise -Mixing Random Variables

We investigate the complete moment convergence for maximal partial sum of arrays of rowwise -mixing random variables under some more general conditions. The results obtained in the paper generalize and improve some known ones

Molecular cloning, sequence analysis and structure prediction of the related to b0,+ amino acid transporter (rBAT) in Cyprinus carpio L.

In this study, the full-length cDNA of basic amino acid transporter gene rBAT was cloned from intestinal cells of Cyprinus carpio L. using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and rapid-amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) methods. The amplified product was 2370 bp, including a 42 bp 5'-untranslated region, a 288 bp 3'-untranslated region, and a 2040 bp open reading frame (ORF), which encoded 679 amino acids. The predicted amino acid sequence showed high similarity with that of zebrafish (83.5%), and low similarity with that of rat (50.90%). The 3-D protein models were predicted by the comparative protein modeling program SWISS-MODEL. The prediction result displayed that the Cyprinus carpio L. rBAT had a hydrophilic cytoplasmic N terminus, a single membrane-spanning domain, and an extracellular C terminus. The structural core was a β-sheet at the N terminus. The rBAT associates with the light subunit b0,+AT by a disulfide bridge with conserved cysteine residues (residues 109). A better understanding of the functional roles and regulation mechanism of rBAT would provide unique opportunities to investigate the biochemical processes underlying amino acid metabolism in C. carpio L., and support the foundation for improving aquaculture culture of C. carpio L.Keywords: rBAT gene, cDNA sequence analysis, protein tertiary structure, Cyprinus carpio

A Survey on Automated Program Repair Techniques

With the rapid development and large-scale popularity of program software, modern society increasingly relies on software systems. However, the problems exposed by software have also come to the fore. Software defect has become an important factor troubling developers. In this context, Automated Program Repair (APR) techniques have emerged, aiming to automatically fix software defect problems and reduce manual debugging work. In particular, benefiting from the advances in deep learning, numerous learning-based APR techniques have emerged in recent years, which also bring new opportunities for APR research. To give researchers a quick overview of APR techniques' complete development and future opportunities, we revisit the evolution of APR techniques and discuss in depth the latest advances in APR research. In this paper, the development of APR techniques is introduced in terms of four different patch generation schemes: search-based, constraint-based, template-based, and learning-based. Moreover, we propose a uniform set of criteria to review and compare each APR tool, summarize the advantages and disadvantages of APR techniques, and discuss the current state of APR development. Furthermore, we introduce the research on the related technical areas of APR that have also provided a strong motivation to advance APR development. Finally, we analyze current challenges and future directions, especially highlighting the critical opportunities that large language models bring to APR research.Comment: This paper's earlier version was submitted to CSUR in August 202

FG-4592 relieves diabetic kidney disease severity by influencing metabolic profiles via gut microbiota reconstruction in both human and mouse models

Objective: Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is one of the most prevalent complications of diabetes mellitus (DM) and is highly associated with devastating outcomes. Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF), the main transcription factor that regulates cellular responses to hypoxia, plays an important role in regulating erythropoietin (EPO) synthesis. FG-4592 is the HIF stabilizer that is widely used in patients with renal anemia. We investigated the effect of FG-4592 on DKD phenotypes and the pharmacologic mechanism from the perspective of gut microbiota and systemic metabolism.Design: We collected the clinical data of 73 participants, including 40 DKD patients with combined renal anemia treated with FG-4592, and 33 clinical index-matched DKD patients without FG-4592 treatment from The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University at the beginning and after a 3–6-month follow-up period. We established DKD mouse models treated by FG-4592 and performed fecal microbiota transplantation from FG-4592-treated DKD mice to investigate the effects of FG-4592 on DKD and to understand this mechanism from a microbial perspective. Untargeted metabolome–microbiome combined analysis was implemented to globally delineate the mechanism of FG-4592 from both microbial and metabolomic aspects.Result: DKD phenotypes significantly improved after 3–6 months of FG-4592 treatment in DKD patients combined with renal anemia, including a decreased level of systolic blood pressure, serum creatinine, and increased estimated glomerular infiltration rate. Such effects were also achieved in the DKD mouse model treated with FG-4592 and can be also induced by FG-4592-influenced gut microbiota. Untargeted plasma metabolomics-gut microbiota analysis showed that FG-4592 dramatically altered both the microbial and metabolic profiles of DKD mice and relieved DKD phenotypes via upregulating beneficial gut microbiota-associated metabolites.Conclusion: FG-4592 can globally relieve the symptoms of DKD patients combined with renal anemia. In the animal experiment, FG-4592 can reconstruct the intestinal microbial profiles of DKD to further upregulate the production of gut-associated beneficial metabolites, subsequently improving DKD phenotypes