Evaluation of Multiloop Diagrams via Lightcone Integration

We present a systematic method to determine the dominant regions of internal momenta contributing to any two-body high-energy near-forward scattering diagram. Such a knowledge is used to evaluate leading high-energy dependences of loop diagrams. It also gives a good idea where dominant multiparticle cross sections occur.Comment: 14 pages with eight postscript figures; composed in the Revtex widetext format. This is an expanded and a completely rewritten version replacing the previous on

Four-Hundred-and-Ninety-Million-Year Record of Bacteriogenic Iron Oxide Precipitation at Sea-Floor Hydrothermal Vents

Fe oxide deposits are commonly found at hydrothermal vent sites at mid-ocean ridge and back-arc sea floor spreading centers, seamounts associated with these spreading centers, and intra-plate seamounts, and can cover extensive areas of the seafloor. These deposits can be attributed to several abiogenic processes and commonly contain micron-scale filamentous textures. Some filaments are cylindrical casts of Fe oxyhydroxides formed around bacterial cells and are thus unquestionably biogenic. The filaments have distinctive morphologies very like structures formed by neutrophilic Fe oxidizing bacteria. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Fe oxidizing bacteria have a significant role in the formation of Fe oxide deposits at marine hydrothermal vents. The presence of Fe oxide filaments in Fe oxides is thus of great potential as a biomarker for Fe oxidizing bacteria in modern and ancient marine hydrothermal vent deposits. The ancient analogues of modern deep-sea hydrothermal Fe oxide deposits are jaspers. A number of jaspers, ranging in age from the early Ordovician to late Eocene, contain abundant Fe oxide filamentous textures with a wide variety of morphologies. Some of these filaments are like structures formed by modern Fe oxidizing bacteria. Together with new data from the modern TAG site, we show that there is direct evidence for bacteriogenic Fe oxide precipitation at marine hydrothermal vent sites for at least the last 490 Ma of the Phanerozoic

Effect of a tilted magnetic field on the orientation of Wigner crystals

We study the effect of a tilted magnetic field on the orientation of Wigner crystals by taking account of the width of a quantum well in the $z$-direction. It is found that the cohesive energy of the electronic crystal is always lower for the $[110]$ direction parallel to the in-plane field. In a realistic sample, a domain structure forms in the electronic solid and each domain orients randomly when the magnetic field is normal to the quantum well. As the field is tilted an angle, the electronic crystal favors to align along a preferred direction which is determined by the in-plane magnetic field. The orientation stabilization is strengthened for wider quantum wells as well as for larger tilted angles. Possible consequence of the tilted field on the transport property in the electronic solid is discussed

Оптимизация множества частиц для обеспечения их активности

Алгоритм оптимизации множества частиц имеет ряд недостатков, поэтому предложена стратегия комплексного улучшения, представляющая собой простую оптимизацию множества частиц с динамической адаптивной гибридизацией экстремальных возмущений и кроссов (алгоритм ecds-PSO). Предложенный новый комплексный улучшенный алгоритм множества частиц отбрасывает их скорость и уменьшает PSO от второго порядка до разностного уравнения первого порядка. Эволюционный процесс управляется только переменными положения частиц. Операция гибридизации, заключающаяся в увеличении возмущения экстремума и введении генетического алгоритма, может ускорить частицы до выхода за пределы локального экстремума. Математический вывод и множество сравнительных экспериментов подтверждают, что улучшенная оптимизация множества частиц – это простой и эффективный алгоритм оптимизации, который может повысить точность алгоритма, вязкость сходимости и способность избегать локального экстремума, а также эффективно снизить сложность расчета

High relative risk of all-cause mortality attributed to smoking in China: Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study

Prediction of disease burden in China arising from smoking based on earlier cohorts in the West and China could not reflect the disease burden at the current stage accurately. No cohort studies in China focused specifically on people born since 1950. We examined the risk of all-cause mortality attributed to smoking in adults in Guangzhou, the city with the most rapidly expanding economy in China.This population-based prospective cohort included 21,658 women and 8,284 men aged 50+ years enrolled from 2003-2008 and followed until January 2016. During an average follow-up of 8.8 (standard deviation = 1.8) years, 2,986 (1,586 women, 1,400 men) deaths were recorded. After adjustment for confounders, the hazards ratios (95% confidence interval (CI)) of all-cause mortality in current versus never smokers increased from 1.61 (95% CI 1.45-1.80) in those born in 1920-1939 to 2.02 (95% CI 1.74-2.34), and 4.40 (95% CI 3.14-6.17), in those born in the 1940s and 1950s, respectively (P for trend 0.009).In smokers born after 1949 in Guangzhou and other areas which have the longest history of smoking, the mortality risk could have reached three fold that of non-smokers, as in the UK, US and Australia. If confirmed, unless China quickly and strictly complies with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control with massive smoking cessation in the population, this is a more striking warning that China will be facing an even larger disease burden from tobacco use than previous forecasts

马来西亚大学华语二语教材的编写方向 （the direction of TCSL materials in Malaysian Universities）

(abstract only available in Chinese) 学习华语就要有教材，现时的趋势是很多傜来西亚儈等学府的华语课程教材䜭是自编的，很多儈等学府的华语二语讲师䜭很努力地自编和本土化他们的华语课程教材。在这电子媒体盛行，讲求认证和新冠疫情肆虐的时代，为䝽合时代的变迁和新挑战，华语课程新教材也要和汉语水平考试接轨和䝽合电子学习的时代，有些原则上调整，因此教材编写会出现了一些格式和编写上的改变。傜来西亚的华语教学课本的编写历史并不䮯，本土编写的有关课本也不多。开始时，课本模拟中国的对外汉语教学课本来编写，发展到最后才开始有自己的格调，也本地化和根据这䟼的要求来编写。 这篇文章会简单介绍大学的华语教材、和教材有关的教学法、华语文教材编写原则和华语 二语（对外汉语）教材编写原则，过后以编写玛拉工艺大学文凭课程课本生活华语（二）为例提出编写新时代教材的方向，并将过程中会䙷上的䳮仈和解决方案写出来，以为对编写教材有兴趣者提供资料和借鉴

Lowering Low-Density Lipoprotein Particles in Plasma Using Dextran Sulphate Co-Precipitates Procoagulant Extracellular Vesicles

Plasma extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid membrane vesicles involved in several biological processes including coagulation. Both coagulation and lipid metabolism are strongly associated with cardiovascular events. Lowering very-low- and low-density lipoprotein ((V)LDL) particles via dextran sulphate LDL apheresis also removes coagulation proteins. It remains unknown, however, how coagulation proteins are removed in apheresis. We hypothesize that plasma EVs that contain high levels of coagulation proteins are concomitantly removed with (V)LDL particles by dextran sulphate apheresis. For this, we precipitated (V)LDL particles from human plasma with dextran sulphate and analyzed the abundance of coagulation proteins and EVs in the precipitate. Coagulation pathway proteins, as demonstrated by proteomics and a bead-based immunoassay, were over-represented in the (V)LDL precipitate. In this precipitate, both bilayer EVs and monolayer (V)LDL particles were observed by electron microscopy. Separation of EVs from (V)LDL particles using density gradient centrifugation revealed that almost all coagulation proteins were present in the EVs and not in the (V)LDL particles. These EVs also showed a strong procoagulant activity. Our study suggests that dextran sulphate used in LDL apheresis may remove procoagulant EVs concomitantly with (V)LDL particles, leading to a loss of coagulation proteins from the blood