Topological triply-degenerate point with double Fermi arcs

Unconventional chiral particles have recently been predicted to appear in certain three dimensional (3D) crystal structures containing three- or more-fold linear band degeneracy points (BDPs). These BDPs carry topological charges, but are distinct from the standard twofold Weyl points or fourfold Dirac points, and cannot be described in terms of an emergent relativistic field theory. Here, we report on the experimental observation of a topological threefold BDP in a 3D phononic crystal. Using direct acoustic field mapping, we demonstrate the existence of the threefold BDP in the bulk bandstructure, as well as doubled Fermi arcs of surface states consistent with a topological charge of 2. Another novel BDP, similar to a Dirac point but carrying nonzero topological charge, is connected to the threefold BDP via the doubled Fermi arcs. These findings pave the way to using these unconventional particles for exploring new emergent physical phenomena

Quantized octupole acoustic topological insulator

The Berry phase associated with energy bands in crystals can lead to quantized quantities, such as the quantization of electric dipole polarization in an insulator, known as a one-dimensional (1D) topological insulator (TI) phase. Recent theories have generalized such quantization from dipole to higher multipole moments, giving rise to the discovery of multipole TIs, which exhibit a cascade hierarchy of multipole topology at boundaries of boundaries: A quantized octupole moment in the three-dimensional (3D) bulk can induce quantized quadrupole moments on its two-dimensional (2D) surfaces, which then produce quantized dipole moments along 1D hinges. The model of 2D quadrupole TI has been realized in various classical structures, exhibiting zero-dimensional (0D) in-gap corner states. Here we report on the realization of a quantized octupole TI on the platform of a 3D acoustic metamaterial. By direct acoustic measurement, we observe 0D corner states, 1D hinge states, 2D surface states, and 3D bulk states, as a consequence of the topological hierarchy from octupole moment to quadrupole and dipole moment. The critical conditions of forming a nontrivial octupole moment are further demonstrated by comparing with another two samples possessing a trivial octupole moment. Our work thus establishes the multipole topology and its full cascade hierarchy in 3D geometries

A Chunk-Based Reordering Model for Phrase-Based SMT Systems

This paper proposed a novel reordering model based on the reordering of source language chunks. This model is used as a preprocessing step of phrase-based translation models and could be well integrated with them. At the same time, as a chunk-based model, syntax information could be concerned in the process of reordering while the entire parsing of the source sentence is not required. Two experiments were carried out and the results showed that the proposed model could improve the performance of a phrase-based statistical machine translation (SMT) system greatly

Sh-MARCH8 Inhibits Tumorigenesis via PI3K Pathway in Gastric Cancer

Background/Aims: To identify new treatment strategies for gastric cancer and to elucidate the mechanism underlying its pathophysiology, we transfected sh-MARCH8 into the human gastric cancer cell lines MKN-45 and AGS to investigate the roles of MARCH8 in gastric cancer. Methods: We used genetic engineering to construct the sh-MARCH8 interference plasmid and transfected it into gastric cancer cells. Colony formation assays and cell viability measurements were performed to detect the viability and proliferation of cancer cells. Wound healing assays were performed to estimate the migration and proliferation rates of the cells. Cell invasion assays were used to estimate the invasive abilities of the cells. Cell apoptosis analysis was performed by using flowing cytometry. Western blot analysis was performed to estimate the expression levels of proteins. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS 18.0 software. Student’s t-test was used to determine the significance of all pairwise comparisons of interest. Results: We observed that the transfection of sh-MARCH8 inhibited the survival and proliferation of MKN-45 and AGS cells. The migration and invasion of the MKN-45 and AGS cells were significantly decreased, and apoptosis was induced in comparison with the control cells. These results were further confirmed by data showing that sh-MARCH8 increased the BAX/BCL2 ratio in MKN-45 and AGS cells. We also observed that sh-MARCH8 inactivated the PI3K and ß-catenin stat3 signaling pathways by changing protein expression levels or the phosphorylation of related proteins. Conclusion: These data suggested that sh-March8 reduced viability and induced apoptosis of the MKN-45 and AGS cells through the PI3K and ß-catenin stat3 signaling pathways. Taken together, our data revealed that transfection of sh-MARCH8 into the MKN-45 and AGS gastric cancer cell lines inhibited their growth, and this approach may be useful as a novel strategy for gastric cancer therapy

Translation memory sharing models in XMCAT

In this paper, two Translation Memory (TM) sharing models adopted in XMCAT, a Computer Assisted Translation tool (CAT) supporting cooperated work in machine translation, was described in detail. One is Center-based TM sharing model, which is only fit for users in a local area network (LAN) and the other is a novel model called P2P-based TM sharing model, which could be used through Internet by geographically distributed users. With the two TM sharing models, a user may share data with other users through network, so that he/she may reduce the repeated work further,and cooperate with others more easily. Besides, the methods used in XMCAT to deal with the problem of multi-translations arose in the cooperated memory sharing models, were also proposed in this paper. XMCAT system has been adopted and approved by some translation companies

Generation and bioenergetic analysis of cybrids containing mitochondrial DNA from mouse skeletal muscle during aging

Mitochondrial respiratory chain defects have been associated with various diseases and normal aging, particularly in tissues with high energy demands including skeletal muscle. Muscle-specific mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations have also been reported to accumulate with aging. Our understanding of the molecular processes mediating altered mitochondrial gene expression to dysfunction associated with mtDNA mutations in muscle would be greatly enhanced by our ability to transfer muscle mtDNA to established cell lines. Here, we report the successful generation of mouse cybrids carrying skeletal muscle mtDNA. Using this novel approach, we performed bioenergetic analysis of cells bearing mtDNA derived from young and old mouse skeletal muscles. A significant decrease in oxidative phosphorylation coupling and regulation capacity has been observed with cybrids carrying mtDNA from skeletal muscle of old mice. Our results also revealed decrease growth capacity and cell viability associated with the mtDNA derived from muscle of old mice. These findings indicate that a decline in mitochondrial function associated with compromised mtDNA quality during aging leads to a decrease in both the capacity and regulation of oxidative phosphorylation

Reliability Improvement Strategies for HVDC Transmission System

This paper analyses reliability data of HVDC systems of Southern China Power Grid. The weak links of HVDC sys-tems ’ operational reliability are DC control and protection, valve hall and valve cooling system and transmission lines

A CLASS OF RECONSTRUCTED DISCONTINUOUS GALERKIN METHODS IN COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

A class of reconstructed discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods is presented to solve compressible flow problems on arbitrary grids. The idea is to combine the efficiency of the reconstruction methods in finite volume methods and the accuracy of the DG methods to obtain a better numerical algorithm in computational fluid dynamics. The beauty of the resulting reconstructed discontinuous Galerkin (RDG) methods is that they provide a unified formulation for both finite volume and DG methods, and contain both classical finite volume and standard DG methods as two special cases of the RDG methods, and thus allow for a direct efficiency comparison. Both Green-Gauss and least-squares reconstruction methods and a least-squares recovery method are presented to obtain a quadratic polynomial representation of the underlying linear discontinuous Galerkin solution on each cell via a so-called in-cell reconstruction process. The devised in-cell reconstruction is aimed to augment the accuracy of the discontinuous Galerkin method by increasing the order of the underlying polynomial solution. These three reconstructed discontinuous Galerkin methods are used to compute a variety of compressible flow problems on arbitrary meshes to assess their accuracy. The numerical experiments demonstrate that all three reconstructed discontinuous Galerkin methods can significantly improve the accuracy of the underlying second-order DG method, although the least-squares reconstructed DG method provides the best performance in terms of both accuracy, efficiency, and robustness

Intrinsic antibacterial thermosets resin from eugenol and soybean oil: Synthesis and properties

The use of solvent-free approach to manufacture antibacterial epoxy coatings with high renewable carbon content is of important for environmental sustainability and the diversity of antibacterial materials. Herein, an epoxy monomer with inherent antibacterial properties, eugenol-modified epoxidized soybean oil (EUESO) with totally natural carbon was synthesized from renewable epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) and eugenol via one-step solvent-free method. Then, EUESO was cured with DGEBA and 4, 4′-diaminodicyclohexylmethane (HDDM) to construct mechanically robust and anti-release antibacterial epoxy coatings. The influence of the weight ratio of EUESO on epoxy coating and comprehensive performance was systematically studied. According to DSC, TGA and bending test on the thermal and mechanical properties of the cured resins, all cured resins demonstrated high thermodynamic properties and high Tg. Meanwhile, in the dynamic shake test, all cured resins demonstrated a certain degree of killing effect on Escherichia coli (E. coli), with a maximum killing rate of 93.8% as the concentration of EUESO increased