Modified embedded-atom method interatomic potential for the Mg–Zn–Ca ternary system

Mg–Zn–Ca alloys are representative Mg alloys with high formability at room temperature. Their high formability is thought to be related to slip, twinning, and recrystallization of the alloys, but the detailed mechanisms have not yet been clarified. To enable atomistic simulations for investigating those behaviors, an interatomic potential for the Mg–Zn–Ca ternary system was developed. The development was based on the second nearest-neighbor modified embedded-atom method formalism, combining previously developed Mg–Zn and Mg–Ca potentials with the newly developed Zn–Ca binary potential. The Zn–Ca and Mg–Zn–Ca potentials reproduce structural, elastic, and thermodynamic properties of compounds and solution phases of relevant alloy systems in reasonable agreement with experimental data, first-principles and CALPHAD calculations. The applicability of the developed potentials is demonstrated through calculations of the effects of Zn and Ca solutes on the generalized stacking fault energy for various slip systems, segregation energy on twin boundaries, and volumetric misfit strain.     

DOPO‐Based Phosphorus‐Containing Methacrylic (Co)Polymers: Glass Transition Temperature Investigation

A two‐step synthetic procedure is designed for preparing new flame‐retardant methacrylic monomers containing 9,10‐dihydro‐9‐oxa‐10‐phosphaphenanthrene‐10‐oxide (DOPO) as a substituent side group. DOPO and methacrylate moieties are linked by linear aliphatic hydrocarbon spacers (3 to 11 carbon atoms). Copolymerization with methyl methacrylate is carried out leading to copolymers containing between 2 and 10 wt% phosphorus. All homo‐ and copolymers exhibit a unique glass transition temperature (T_g ). A new group contribution for DOPO‐based substituent is extracted that leads to reasonable estimations of T_g s of other published polymers. The Fox equation provides a good estimation of T_g s for most copolymers and for physical blends of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and DOPO. When using monomers having three and four carbon atoms in the hydrocarbon spacer, the T_g of copolymers remains close to that of PMMA over a wide range of composition.     

Application of adhesively bonded single lap joints for fracture assessment of adhesive materials

In this study, a method has been proposed to obtain the failure envelope of brittle adhesives using the experimental failure loads of precracked single lap joints (SLJs). The proposed technique is based on the principles of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), on J-integral relations, and on results of a numerical analysis. Compared to the previous approaches, the introduced experimental method has some advantages such as low manufacturing costs and simpler test procedure. The proposed method can also provide a wide range of mode mix ratios without the need of an additional apparatus. The fracture envelope obtained from the proposed method was then verified by performing some fracture tests including double cantilever beam (DCB), end-notched flexure (ENF), and single leg bending (SLB) specimens. Good correlation was seen between the fracture envelopes of the proposed method and the ones obtained from the fracture mechanics experiments.     

考虑关节角加速度约束的仿人机器人偏摆力矩控制方法

针对仿人机器人步行过程中存在的机器人关节角加速度约束影响控制性能的问题，提出一种考虑关节角加速度约束的仿人机器人偏摆力矩控制方法.该方法充分考虑了双臂在摆动过程中对偏摆力矩的影响，根据力矩平衡条件得到需要抵消的偏摆力矩的大小与方向，将偏摆力矩的控制问题转化为带约束条件的二次规划问题，并设计了一种在线变步长迭代算法计算得到优化后的双臂摆动轨迹.实验表明，该方法能有效抵消机器人步行中产生的偏摆力矩，避免控制过程中的"削峰"现象，有效提高机器人的步行稳定性.     

一种外LET柔顺半铰的动力学建模与分析

对一种外LET柔顺半铰进行建模与动力学特性分析。采用斜率不连续的绝对节点坐标法（ANCF）建立了该柔顺半铰系统动力学方程；对外力作用下半铰中心线和外轮廓的运动变形进行仿真，与实验结果对比，证明了绝对节点坐标法对柔顺半铰动力学建模的有效性；进一步分析了半铰外形尺寸变化对其变形规律的影响。     

基于人体关节点数据的攻击性行为识别

针对人体攻击性行为识别问题，提出一种基于人体关节点数据的攻击性行为识别方法。首先，利用OpenPose获得单帧图像中的人体关节点数据，并通过最近邻帧特征加权法和分段多项式回归完成由人体自遮挡和环境因素所导致缺失值的补全；然后，对每个人体定义动态"安全距离"阈值，如果两人真实距离小于阈值，则构建行为特征矢量，其中包括帧间人体重心位移、人体关节旋转角角速度和发生交互时的最小攻击距离等；最后，提出改进的LightGBM算法w-LightGBM，并对攻击性行为进行识别。采用公共数据集UT-interaction对所提出的攻击性行为分类识别方法进行测试实验，准确率达到95.45%。实验结果表明，所提方法能够有效识别各种角度的攻击性行为。     

High Levels of the Cleaved Form of Galectin-9 and Osteopontin in the Plasma Are Associated with Inflammatory Markers That Reflect the Severity of COVID-19 Pneumonia

Numbers of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have increased rapidly worldwide. Plasma levels of full-length galectin-9 (FL-Gal9) and osteopontin (FL-OPN) as well as their truncated forms (Tr-Gal9, Ud-OPN, respectively), are representative inflammatory biomarkers. Here, we measured FL-Gal9, FL-OPN, Tr-Gal9, and Ud-OPN in 94 plasma samples obtained from 23 COVID-19-infected patients with mild clinical symptoms (CV), 25 COVID-19 patients associated with pneumonia (CP), and 14 patients with bacterial infection (ID). The four proteins were significantly elevated in the CP group when compared with healthy individuals. ROC analysis between the CV and CP groups showed that C-reactive protein had the highest ability to differentiate, followed by Tr-Gal9 and ferritin. Spearman’s correlation analysis showed that Tr-Gal9 and Ud-OPN but not FL-Gal9 and FL-OPN, had a significant association with laboratory markers for lung function, inflammation, coagulopathy, and kidney function in CP patients. CP patients treated with tocilizumab had reduced levels of FL-Gal9, Tr-Gal9, and Ud-OPN. It was suggested that OPN is cleaved by interleukin-6-dependent proteases. These findings suggest that the cleaved forms of OPN and galectin-9 can be used to monitor the severity of pathological inflammation and the therapeutic effects of tocilizumab in CP patients.     

Reversal of the Inflammatory Responses in Fabry Patient iPSC-Derived Cardiovascular Endothelial Cells by CRISPR/Cas9-Corrected Mutation

The late-onset type of Fabry disease (FD) with GLA IVS4 + 919G > A mutation has been shown to lead to cardiovascular dysfunctions. In order to eliminate variations in other aspects of the genetic background, we established the isogenic control of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for the identification of the pathogenetic factors for FD phenotypes through CRISPR/Cas9 genomic editing. We adopted droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) to efficiently capture mutational events, thus enabling isolation of the corrected FD from FD-iPSCs. Both of these exhibited the characteristics of pluripotency and phenotypic plasticity, and they can be differentiated into endothelial cells (ECs). We demonstrated the phenotypic abnormalities in FD iPSC-derived ECs (FD-ECs), including intracellular Gb3 accumulation, autophagic flux impairment, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, and these abnormalities were rescued in isogenic control iPSC-derived ECs (corrected FD-ECs). Microarray profiling revealed that corrected FD-derived endothelial cells reversed the enrichment of genes in the pro-inflammatory pathway and validated the downregulation of NF-κB and the MAPK signaling pathway. Our findings highlighted the critical role of ECs in FD-associated vascular dysfunctions by establishing a reliable isogenic control and providing information on potential cellular targets to reduce the morbidity and mortality of FD patients with vascular complications.     

Harvesting Air and Light Energy via “All-in-One” Polymer Cathodes for High-Capacity,Self-Chargeable,and Multimode-Switching Zinc Batteries

Aqueous rechargeable Zinc (Zn)–polymer batteries are promising alternatives to prevalent Li-ion cells in terms of cost, safety, and rate capability but they suffer from limited specific capacity in addition to poor environmental adaptability. Herein, air and light are successfully utilized from external environments in single near-neutral two-electrode Zn batteries to enable remarkably improved electrochemical performance, fast self-charging, and switchable multimode-operation from Zn–polymer to Zn–air cells. This system is enabled by a well-designed polyaniline-nanorod-array based “all-in-one” cathode combining reversible redox capability, oxygen reduction activity, and photothermal-responsiveness. The initiative design allows perfect integration of multiple energy harvesting from ambient “air” and light, energy conversion, and storage in one single cathode. Thus, it can act as an efficient light-assisted electrically-rechargeable Zn–polymer cell featuring the highest specific capacity of 430.0 mAh g⁻¹ among all existing polymer cathodes. Without external power sources, it can be self-charged to deliver a high discharging capacity of 363.1 mAh g⁻¹ by concurrently harvesting chemical energy from air and light energy for only 20 min. It can also switch to a light-responsive Zn–air battery mode to surmount the output capacity limit of Zn–polymer battery mode for continued electricity supply.     

Utilization of coordinating green solvents for high quality methylammonium bismuth iodide thin films for photovoltaic applications

Photovoltaic performances of the bismuth-based solar cells are profoundly affected by the thin film quality of the photoactive layer. Herein, we report on various green solvent system to obtain the highly crystalline, pinhole free and homogeneously methylammonium bismuth iodide (MBI) active layer. The MBI structure prepared with tetrahydrofuran:2-ethoxy-ethanol (THF-2ETO) solvent system was found to have the best film quality. Adding 0.05 M 2ETO as the co-solvent is sufficient to produce high quality BiI₃ and MBI thin films. According to the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyzes, we have demonstrated that there is an interaction between BiI₃ and 2ETO according to the concentration of 2ETO added to the main THF. Our study clarifies the importance of THF-2ETO solvent system that can accelerate the evolution of the Bi-based solar cells by creating high-quality BiI₃ or MBI thin films.