Tea for Two: The Dual Modes of Contemporary Zisha Teaware Production and their Implications for Archaeological Research

In archaeology, ceramics receive much attention because they are abundant in many archaeological contexts, chronologically sensitive, and provide a good window into past human behaviors, in particular decision-making in ceramic production which reflects past communities of practice and individual actions. While most studies tend to rely heavily on differences in object shape and style to distinguish between different periods and cultural contexts, the present ethnographic study focuses on one object type, namely zisha teapots from Yixing, China, to explore the hidden diversity in potting behaviors resulting in products that are visually nearly identical in form and style. The article raises awareness of potential differences in raw materials, techniques, and markets for the production of morphologically similar vessels, which would be categorized as the same “type” within typological ceramic classification, and calls for careful evaluation of the complexities within technological practices and their corresponding social boundaries

A polarization study of the supernova remnant CTB 80

We present a radio polarization study of the supernova remnant CTB 80 based on images at 1420 MHz from the Canadian Galactic plane survey, at 2695 MHz from the Effelsberg survey of the Galactic plane, and at 4800 MHz from the Sino-German 6cm polarization survey of the Galactic plane. We obtained a rotation measure (RM) map using polarization angles at 2695 MHz and 4800 MHz as the polarization percentages are similar at these two frequencies. RM exhibits a transition from positive values to negative values along one of the shells hosting the pulsar PSR B1951+32 and its pulsar wind nebula. The reason for the change of sign remains unclear. We identified a partial shell structure, which is bright in polarized intensity but weak in total intensity. This structure could be part of CTB 80 or part of a new supernova remnant unrelated to CTB 80.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in RA

Process Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis for Shell Rolling Production of Seamless Tube

Continuous rolling production process of seamless tube has many characteristics, including multiperiod and strong nonlinearity, and quickly changing dynamic characteristics. It is difficult to build its mechanism model. In this paper we divide production data into several subperiods by -means clustering algorithm combined with production process; then we establish a continuous rolling production monitoring and fault diagnosis model based on multistage MPCA method. Simulation experiments show that the rolling production process monitoring and fault diagnosis model based on multistage MPCA method is effective, and it has a good real-time performance, high reliability, and precision

Prognostic value of inflammatory markers for in-hospital mortality in intensive care patients with acute ischemic stroke: a retrospective observational study based on MIMIC-IV

BackgroundAcute ischemic stroke (AIS) is a primary cause of death and disability worldwide. Four markers that can be readily determined from peripheral blood, namely, the systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and total bilirubin, were measured in this study. We examined the relationship between the SII and in-hospital mortality after AIS and evaluated which of the above four indicators was most accurate for predicting in-hospital mortality after AIS.MethodsWe selected patients from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care-IV (MIMIC-IV) database who were aged >18 years and who were diagnosed with AIS on admission. We collected the patients’ baseline characteristics, including various clinical and laboratory data. To investigate the relationship between the SII and in-hospital mortality in patients with AIS, we employed the generalized additive model (GAM). Differences in in-hospital mortality between the groups were summarized by the Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and the log-rank test. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess the accuracy of the four indicators (SII, NLR, PLR, and total bilirubin) for predicting in-hospital mortality in patients with AIS.ResultsThe study included 463 patients, and the in-hospital mortality rate was 12.31%. The GAM analysis showed a positive correlation between the SII and in-hospital mortality in patients with AIS, but the correlation was not linear. Unadjusted Cox regression identified a link between a high SII and an increased probability of in-hospital mortality. We also found that patients with an SII of >1,232 (Q2 group) had a considerably higher chance of in-hospital mortality than those with a low SII (Q1 group). The Kaplan–Meier analysis demonstrated that patients with an elevated SII had a significantly lower chance of surviving their hospital stay than those with a low SII. According to the results of the ROC curve analysis, the in-hospital mortality of patients with AIS predicted by the SII had an area under the ROC curve of 0.65, which revealed that the SII had a better discriminative ability than the NLR, PLR, and total bilirubin.ConclusionThe in-hospital mortality of patients with AIS and the SII were positively correlated, but not linearly. A high SII was associated with a worse prognosis in patients with AIS. The SII had a modest level of discrimination for forecasting in-hospital mortality. The SII was slightly better than the NLR and significantly better than the PLR and total bilirubin for predicting in-hospital mortality in patients with AIS

N,N′-Bis(2,6-diethyl­phen­yl)acenaphthyl­ene-1,2-diimine

The title compound, C32H32N2, has crystallographic twofold rotation symmetry, with two C atoms lying on the rotation axis. The dihedral angle between the substituted benzene ring and the naphthalene ring system is 79.8 (1)°. The crystal structure is stabilized by C—H⋯N inter­actions, which form a chain motif along the b-axis direction

Evolution of Near-Well Damage Caused by Fluid Injection through Perforations in Wellbores in Low-Permeability Reservoirs: A Case Study in a Shale Oil Reservoir

AbstractDuring the development of shale oil resources, fluid injection is usually involved in the process of hydraulic fracturing. Fluid injection through perforations causes near-well damage, which is closely related to the subsequent initiation and propagation of hydraulic fractures. This study is focused on the characterization of the temporal and spatial evolving patterns for near-well damage induced by fluid injection through perforations in the early stage of hydraulic fracturing. A coupled hydromechanical model is introduced in a case study in a shale oil reservoir in northwestern China. The model considers porous media flow during fluid injection. It also considers elasticity in the rock skeleton before the damage. Once the damage is initiated, a damage factor is employed to quantify the magnitude of injection-induced damage. Results show that damage evolution is highly sensitive to perforation number and injection rate in each individual perforation. Damage propagation is more favorable in the direction of the initial maximum horizontal principal stress. The propagation of damage is drastic at the beginning of fluid injection, while the damage front travels relatively slow afterward. This study provides insights into the near-well damage evolution before main fractures are initiated and can be used as a reference for the optimization of perforation parameters in the hydraulic fracturing design in this shale oil field

Population pharmacokinetics of nalbuphine in patients undergoing general anesthesia surgery

Purpose: The aim of this study was to build a population pharmacokinetics (PopPK) model of nalbuphine and to estimate the suitability of bodyweight or fixed dosage regimen.Method: Adult patients who were undergoing general anesthetic surgery using nalbuphine for induction of anesthesia were included. Plasma concentrations and covariates information were analyzed by non-linear mixed-effects modeling approach. Goodness-of-fit (GOF), non-parametric bootstrap, visual predictive check (VPC) and external evaluation were applied for the final PopPK model evaluation. Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to assess impact of covariates and dosage regimens on the plasma concentration to nalbuphine.Results: 47 patients aged 21–78 years with a body weight of 48–86 kg were included in the study. Among them, liver resection accounted for 14.8%, cholecystectomy for 12.8%, pancreatic resection for 36.2% and other surgeries for 36.2%. 353 samples from 27 patients were enrolled in model building group; 100 samples from 20 patients were enrolled in external validation group. The results of model evaluation showed that the pharmacokinetics of nalbuphine was adequately described by a two-compartment model. The hourly net fluid volume infused (HNF) was identified as a significant covariate about the intercompartmental clearance (Q) of nalbuphine with objective function value (OFV) decreasing by 9.643 (p < 0.005, df = 1). Simulation results demonstrated no need to adjust dosage based on HNF, and the biases of two dosage methods were less than 6%. The fixed dosage regimen had lower PK variability than the bodyweight regimen.Conclusion: A two-compartment PopPK model adequately described the concentration profile of nalbuphine intravenous injection for anesthesia induction. While HNF can affect the Q of nalbuphine, the magnitude of the effect was limited. Dosage adjustment based on HNF was not recommended. Furthermore, fixed dosage regimen might be better than body weight dosage regimen

A Study on Determining Time-Of-Flight Difference of Overlapping Ultrasonic Signal: Wave-Transform Network

An ultrasonic sensors system is commonly used to measure the wall thickness of buried pipelines in the transportation of oil and gas. The key of the system is to precisely measure time-of-flight difference (TOFD) produced by the reflection of ultrasonic on the inner and outer surfaces of the pipelines. In this paper, based on deep learning, a novel method termed Wave-Transform Network is proposed to tackle the issues. The network consists of two parts: part 1 is designed to separate the potential overlapping ultrasonic echo signals generated from two surfaces, and part 2 is utilized to divide the sample points of each signal into two types corresponding to before and after the arrival time of ultrasonic echo, which can determine the time-of-flight (TOF) of each signal and calculate the thickness of pipelines. Numerical simulation and actual experiments are carried out, and the results show satisfactory performances. Document type: Articl

QTL analysis for yield-related traits under different water regimes in maize

Drought is one of the most essential factors influencing maize yield. Improving maize varieties with drought tolerance by using marker-assisted or genomic selection requires more understanding of the genetic basis of yield-related traits under different water regimes. In the present study, 213 F2:3 families of the cross of H082183 (drought-tolerant) × Lv28 (drought susceptible) were phenotyped with five yield-related traits under four well-watered and six drought environments for two years. Quantitative trait loci analysis identified 133 significant QTLs (94 QTLs for ear traits and 39 QTLs for kernel traits) based on single environment analysis. The joint-environment analysis detected 25 QTLs under well-watered environments (eight QTLs for ear length, eight for ear diameter, one for ear weight, two for kernel weight per ear, and six for 100-kernel weight), and nine QTLs under water-stressed environments (two QTLs for ear length, three for ear diameter, one for ear weight, one for kernel weight, and two for 100-kernel weight). Among these joint-environment QTLs, one common QTL (qEL5) was stably identified at both of the water regimes. Meanwhile, two main-effect QTLs were detected in the well-watered environments, i.e. qEL10 for ear length and qHKW2 for 100-kernel weight. Also, qED8, qEW8, and qKW8 were found to be located in the same interval of Chr. 8. Similarly, qEL4s and qKW4s were found to be located in the same interval under water-stressed environments. These genomic regions could be candidate targets for further fine mapping and marker-assisted breeding in maize

High-speed ghost imaging by an unpredictable optical phased array

Ghost imaging (GI) retrieves an image from the correlation between a sequence of illumination patterns on the object and their corresponding bucket detections. Traditionally, GI requires the precise information of the illumination patterns, which raises technology barriers on building a high-speed illumination source, limiting the scope of its application. In this study, we propose a high-speed GI system, which implements a self-correlation with a purely optical operation without determining illumination patterns. The light source is an optical phased array (OPA), built of a set of waveguide-type electro-optic phase modulators. The OPA is driven to randomly change the phases in every 200 ns, generating speckle patterns at a rate of 5 MHz. Although the speckle patterns are not predictable or post-determinable, with the help of the naked-eye GI scheme, the system in real time optically generates the images of the object at a frame rate of more than 1 kHz, which can be directly observed by eyes or using a camera. This method avoids acquiring the information of the illumination, thus providing a simple and easy way to realize high-speed GI. It also inspires a different way of applying OPAs to high-speed imaging