The predictive methods of tool wear are usually based on different algorithm predictors, different source data, and different sensing devices for remaining useful life (RUL). In general, it has challenges to model and ensure all of the cutting conditions that are suitable in the actual cutting process for sustainable manufacturing. In order to overcome the doing large amount of experimental data and predict different tool RULs, this study combines the analytical force modeling, the back-propagation neural network (BPNN) machine learning, and the current sensor which all are integrated in smart machine box (SMB) to realize the practical RUL prediction for on-line and real-time applications. The analytical model of the cutting force coefficients of shear and ploughing was established from average cutting forces, it could reduce the experimental number and predict the different cutting conditions. In general, the loading current of the cutting tool from a spindle motor is relatively easier acquired than the resultant forces. Thus, the loading currents of the spindle are used to train and predict the cutting forces using the BPNN model during intelligent manufacturing. The SMB architecture mainly performed the autonomous actions based on the edge layer, the fog layer, and the cloud layer via the TCP/IP, the MQTT protocol, and the unified communication library. Results showed that a predictive error for the ends of the tool life is about 3–10% that are based on the calculating of the cumulative current ratio.

The literature on the relationship between foreign aid and institutions has found that the effects of aid vary across different donor characteristics and delivery mechanisms. This article focuses on China's resource-related development projects, which have been considered controversial due to the relative lack of conditionality. By distinguishing between vertical and horizontal dimensions of political accountability, the study finds that China's resource-related projects are particularly detrimental to the accountability of recipient countries' horizontal (legislative and judicial) institutions. These projects are often delivered to resource-rich countries, in the form of packaging access to resources and infrastructure construction, to improve China's own energy access. Local officials may be tempted to weaken horizontal institutions so that the projects can be implemented quickly. Nevertheless, these projects have little effect on vertical accountability, as China has less intention and capacity to fundamentally restrain electoral competition in recipient countries.

This study aimed to determine the effects of supplementing the diet of adult Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus with phosphatidylcholine (PC) on growth performance, body composition, fatty acid composition and gene expression. Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia fish with an initial body weight of 83·1 (sd 2·9) g were divided into six groups. Each group was hand-fed a semi-purified diet containing 1·7 (control diet), 4·0, 6·5, 11·5, 21·3 or 41·0 g PC/kg diet for 68 d. Supplemental PC improved the feed efficiency rate, which was highest in the 11·5 g PC/kg diet. Weight gain and specific growth rate were unaffected. Dietary PC increased PC content in the liver and decreased crude fat content in the liver, viscera and body. SFA and MUFA increased and PUFA decreased in muscle with increasing dietary PC. Cytoplasmic phospholipase A2 and secreted phospholipase A2 mRNA expression were up-regulated in the brain and heart in PC-supplemented fish. PC reduced fatty acid synthase mRNA expression in the liver and visceral tissue but increased expression in muscle. Hormone-sensitive lipase and lipoprotein lipase expression increased in the liver with increasing dietary PC. Growth hormone mRNA expression was reduced in the brain and insulin-like growth factor-1 mRNA expression in liver reduced with PC above 6·5 g/kg. Our results demonstrate that dietary supplementation with PC improves feed efficiency and reduces liver fat in adult Nile tilapia, without increasing weight gain, representing a novel dietary approach to reduce feed requirements and improve the health of Nile tilapia.

The East Asian-Australasian Flyway supports the greatest diversity and populations of migratory birds globally, as well as the highest number of threatened migratory species of any flyway, including passerines (15 species). However it is also one of the most poorly understood migration systems, and little is known about the populations and ecology of the passerine migrants that breed, stop over and winter in the habitats along this flyway. We provide the first flyway-wide review of diversity, ecology, and conservation issues relating to 170 species of long-distance and over 80 short-distance migrants from 32 families. Recent studies of songbird migration movements and ecology is limited, and is skewed towards East Asia, particularly Mainland China, Taiwan, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Strong evidence of declines exists for some species, e.g. Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola, but tends to be fragmentary, localised or anecdotal for many others. More species have small breeding ranges (< 250,000 km2) and/or are dependent on tropical forests as wintering habitat than those in any other Eurasian migratory system, and are thus more vulnerable to habitat loss and degradation throughout their ranges. Poorly regulated hunting for food and the pet trade, invasive species and collisions with man-made structures further threaten migratory songbirds at a number of stop-over or wintering sites, while climate change and habitat loss may be of increasing concern in the breeding ranges. A key conservation priority is to carry out intensive field surveys across the region while simultaneously tapping into citizen science datasets, to identify important stop-over and wintering sites, particularly for poorly-known or globally threatened species across South-East Asia and southern China for targeted conservation actions. Additionally, the advent of miniaturised tracking technology, molecular and isotopic techniques can provide novel insights into migration connectivity, paths and ecology for species in this migration system, complementing data from banding exercises and observation-based surveys, and could prove useful in informing conservation priorities. However, until most states along the East Asian-Australasian flyway ratify the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and other cross-boundary treaties, the relative lack of cross-boundary cooperation, coordination and information sharing in the region will continue to present a stumbling block for effective conservation of migratory passerines.

Based on the results of the study of convex object motion1 (J. Hopcroft and G. Wilfong, “Motion of objects in contact,” Int. J. Robot. Res., 4(4), 32–46 (1986)), this paper addresses the problem of exact collision detection of a pair of scaled convex polyhedra in relative motion, and determines the contact conditions of tangential contact features, arbitrary relative motion involving translation and rotation, and uniform scaling of the objects about a fixed point. We propose a new concept of the decision curve based on analytical contact equations that characterize a continuum of scaling factors (or a single scaling factor), which ensures that a pair of objects undergoing a scaling transformation will maintain the same tangential contact feature pair (or make instantaneous tangential contact feature transitions). We propose a reliable simulation-based approach to construct the decision curve by hybridizing analytical contact equations and conventional collision detection method, called the Fast Collision Detection Method (FCDM). This method can determine whether two scaled objects will make contact at specific tangential contact features (vertices, edges, or faces) under particular uniform scaling factors and after distinctive relative motion with better accuracy and less computational time than the existing collision detection methods. Finally, we demonstrate our approach for solving motion design in simple assembly/disassembly problems.

The junction characteristics between ZnO:Ga (GZO) film and p-Si substrate are discussed in the research. For the transparent semiconductor ZnO, the element Ga is chosen to be the dopant source to produce a high quality n-type ZnO thin film. The ZnO:Ga (GZO) film shows a average transmittance is 84.7% (above 400 nm), a bandgap energy of 3.37 eV, a carrier concentration of 7.29×1013 cm−3and a resistivity of 118 Ω-cm. For the GZO/p-Si junction, it shows a junction barrier height of 0.54 eV with an ideality factor of 1.24. The capacitance-voltage measurement shows that it has a uniform reverse bias depletion layer. The Cheung function is also brought to discussion the diode characteristics.

Based on a scanning electron microscope operated at 30 kV with a homemade specimen holder and a multiangle solid-state detector behind the sample, low-kV scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) is presented with subsequent electron tomography for three-dimensional (3D) volume structure. Because of the low acceleration voltage, the stronger electron-atom scattering leads to a stronger contrast in the resulting image than standard TEM, especially for light elements. Furthermore, the low-kV STEM yields less radiation damage to the specimen, hence the structure can be preserved. In this work, two-dimensional STEM images of a 1-μm-thick cell section with projection angles between ±50° were collected, and the 3D volume structure was reconstructed using the simultaneous iterative reconstructive technique algorithm with the TomoJ plugin for ImageJ, which are both public domain software. Furthermore, the cross-sectional structure was obtained with the Volume Viewer plugin in ImageJ. Although the tilting angle is constrained and limits the resulting structural resolution, slicing the reconstructed volume generated the depth profile of the thick specimen with sufficient resolution to examine cellular uptake of Au nanoparticles, and the final position of these nanoparticles inside the cell was imaged.

Polyaniline nanofiber (PANF) was synthesized using interfacial polymerization and was mixed with aqueous solution of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) to form PANF–PVA binaries. The PANF suspension in water could be stabilized by PVA for more than 3 months due to the hydrogen bonding interaction between PANF and PVA. The specific characteristics of PANF–PVA films was checked by scanning electron microscopy, conductivity measurement, thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry. The composite film contained 25 wt% PVA (PANF–PVA25) casting at 105 °C was found to have a porous structure and good conductivity. The presence of hydrogen bonding interaction between PANF and PVA improves the electroactivity and electroactive stability of PANF–PVA25 for electrochemical applications. However, an ether linkage between PANF and PVA polymer chain was also found as casting the PANF–PVA film at 200 °C, which is unfavorable for electrochemical applications.

Vegetables, the indispensable staple produce providing humans with many beneficial substances, are readily contaminated by nitrate, heavy metals and pesticides during conventional cultivation. In particular, off-season vegetables grown in protected systems with low light intensity do tend to accumulate more nitrate in tissues due to excess N fertilization driven by farmers' desire for high yields. Over-the-limit accumulation of the harmful substances in vegetables constitutes a serious hazard to human health globally. Soilless cultivation, currently a fraction of vegetable cultivation in China, is a promising cultivation method to decrease the accumulation of harmful substances through nutrient solution regulation and environmental factor control. However, conventional inorganic nutrient solutions present few quality benefits besides plant nutrition for the widely acknowledged formulations. Currently, high-quality vegetables are urgently desired by humans globally, but they are difficult to grow for lack of an effective and practical cultivation method to lower the accumulation of harmful substances and to improve nutritional quality simultaneously. Although some attempts have been made, few commercial formulations have been applied in practice. Biogas manure (biogas slurry and biogas dregs) is a by-product of biogas production. It has been shown to be a good fertilizer with abundant nutrients, amino acids and bioactive substances. In China, as a product of the recycling process of agricultural wastes, biogas manure is an ever-growing resource due to the rapid development of biogas projects. Therefore, the need to utilize biogas manure is an urgent issue that relates both to environment protection and nutrient resources utilization. In this paper, the updated research results on yield and the quality effects of vegetables cultivated with biogas dregs and the solutions modified from biogas slurry in China are summarized, highlighting the feasibility and benefits of biogas manure in high-quality vegetable production. It is concluded that biogas manure is an effective nutrient source for high-quality vegetable production based on its synergistic effects and effectiveness in yield and quality improvement (particularly depression effects on nitrate accumulation), and stress resistance. However, deliberate component regulations need to be developed for better yield and quality of vegetables under soilless cultivation due to the large variability of components of biogas manure caused by various combinations of fermentative materials.

Visible-light-driven Ag3VO4 photocatalysts were successfully synthesized using low-temperature hydrothermal synthesis method. Under various hydrothermal conditions, the structures of silver vanadates were tuned by manipulating the hydrothermal time and the ratio of silver to vanadium. X-ray diffraction (XRD) results reveal that the powders prepared in a stoichiometric ratio consisted of pure α-Ag3VO4 or mixed phases of Ag4V2O7 and α-Ag3VO4. With increasing the Ag-to-V mole ratio to 6:1, the resulting samples were identified as pure monoclinic structure α-Ag3VO4. UV-vis spectroscopy indicated that silver vanadate particles had strong visible light absorption with associated band gaps in the range of 2.2-2.5 eV. The sample synthesized in the excess silver exhibited higher photocatalytic activity than that synthesized in a stoichiometric ratio. The powder synthesized at silver-rich at 140℃ for 4 h (SHT4) exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity among all samples. The reactivity of SHT4 (surface area, 3.52 m2 g-1) on the decomposition of gaseous benzene was about 16 times higher than that of P25 (surface area, 49.04 m2 g-1) under visible light irradiation. A well developed crystallinity of Ag3VO4 of SHT 4 was considered to enhance the photocatalytic efficiency.

Early studies have shown that some mouse cumulus–oocyte complexes (COCs) stored at room temperature for 24 h still retained full developmental potential. In this study, we stored denuded mouse oocytes (DOs) at room temperature (25 °C) for 24 h and activated these oocytes with 10 mM SrCl2 or fertilized the oocytes by IVF. We found that nearly half of the DOs stored at room temperature for 1 day can be fertilized normally by IVF and that two foster mothers gave birth to seven pups. Embryos from stored oocytes were cultured in CZB medium with or without 1 μg/ml 17β-estradiol (E2). The numbers of embryo that developed to morula/blastocyst stage after parthenogenetic activation and IVF were significantly increased when E2 was added to the culture (p < 0.05). These results suggest that E2 might improve mouse embryo development in vitro. The birth of seven agouti pups and their healthy growth indicated that the storage of DOs at room temperature for 1 day may be a practical procedure for mammalian reproduction.

We investigated a cluster of postoperative febrile episodes and episodes of Acinetobacter baumannii bacteremia in obstetrics and gynecology wards after an electrical blackout and loss of the water supply. The use of patient-controlled analgesia was the only independent risk factor associated with postoperative fever, and A. baumannii isolates recovered from the blood of patients who had received patient-controlled analgesia were genetically related to an isolate recovered from the diluted morphine solution used for this procedure. After inappropriate preparation of the morphine solution was identified and stopped, the outbreak ended.

In order to reveal the molecular basis of heterosis, Large White (LW), an introduced European pig breed, and Meishan (MS), a Chinese indigenous pig breed, were selected to hybridize directly and reciprocally in the present experiment. mRNA differential display (DD) technique was performed to identify genes that were differentially expressed in the backfat tissues of hybrids (LW×MS, MS×LW) and purebred (LW×LW, MS×MS) pigs. The ten anchor primers in combination with ten arbitrary primers (100 sets in total) were used and nearly 1500 reproducible bands were observed in polyacrylamide gels. The 40 differentially displayed bands were selected for cloning and sequencing. Thirty-six out of 40 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) proved to be novel and the sequences were submitted to GenBank (accession No. CV507051-CV507087); the other four showed similarity to known genes published in GenBank. Three among 36 novel ESTs were chosen for further identification with semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The result showed that two ESTs were differentially expressed, and the third showed no obvious difference between hybrids and purebreds. In order to reduce the percentage of false-positive DD, RNA pools of four types of pigs were constructed, by mixing samples from six pigs of the same genotype, and subjected to DD. Stringent annealing temperature was applied and only bands that could be repeated in duplicate PCR were used for further study. The results showed that the expression pattern of these 36 ESTs differed among the four genotypes of pigs, suggesting that the genes corresponding to these differentially expressed ESTs might be related to the heterosis occurring in fat tissue.

The study reported is about an integrated wireless physiological monitor module of the flexible patch type, used on a non-woven material to package this module by a hot press process. The module can monitor the body temperature and heart rate. Experimental results showed that the specification and accuracy should be 25-40 °C ± 0.5 °C and 50-200 bpm ± 2 bpm. The main advantage of the module is that the postural change can be monitored. At the same time, it has also a good adhesion between substrate and components, without crack of conductor trace line after bending the module repeatedly. Thickness is about 2 mm. The aim of this study is to speed up the physiological technology and to create more efficiency by miniaturization. In addition, the acceptance level of wearing it is increased by the small and ergonomic design.

The paper reported a novel flexible concept for acquiring the fingerprint that based on the piezoelectric PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) was integrated into the flexible polyimide substrate to form the fingerprint. In this study, it focused on the array PVDF fabrication and dynamic control circuit to read pressure signal for fingerprint identification. The fabrication of PVDF powder was melt at 180°C, pressed under 2 tons and subsequently quenched at 10°C/min to form the PVDF films. Next the PVDF films were put into the oven at different temperatures for 40 minutes to stretch 4 times from its original length. As for the dynamic control, the sensing circuit was presented two parts, one is charge amplifier and the other is capacitance detect by using frequency oscillator. We demonstrated that the dynamic pressure measurement of PVDF could achieve fingerprint acquisition. Experimental results showed the response speed of sensing is as fast as 5 ms. Therefore, the aim of this study is to speed up the technology for promoting the flexible fingerprint.