Current Status of Angiogenic Cell Therapy and Related Strategies Applied in Critical Limb Ischemia

Critical limb ischemia (CLI) constitutes the most severe form of peripheral arterial disease (PAD), it is characterized by progressive blockade of arterial vessels, commonly correlated to atherosclerosis. Currently, revascularization strategies (bypass grafting, angioplasty) remain the first option for CLI patients, although less than 45% of them are eligible for surgical intervention mainly due to associated comorbidities. Moreover, patients usually require amputation in the short-term. Angiogenic cell therapy has arisen as a promising alternative for these “no-option” patients, with many studies demonstrating the potential of stem cells to enhance revascularization by promoting vessel formation and blood flow recovery in ischemic tissues. Herein, we provide an overview of studies focused on the use of angiogenic cell therapies in CLI in the last years, from approaches testing different cell types in animal/pre-clinical models of CLI, to the clinical trials currently under evaluation. Furthermore, recent alternatives related to stem cell therapies such as the use of secretomes, exosomes, or even microRNA, will be also described.     

Cryptographic Lightweight Encryption Algorithm with Dimensionality Reduction in Edge Computing

Edge Computing is one of the radically evolving systems through generations as it is able to effectively meet the data saving standards of consumers, providers and the workers. Requisition for Edge Computing based items have been increasing tremendously. Apart from the advantages it holds, there remain lots of objections and restrictions, which hinders it from accomplishing the need of consumers all around the world. Some of the limitations are constraints on computing and hardware, functions and accessibility, remote administration and connectivity. There is also a backlog in security due to its inability to create a trust between devices involved in encryption and decryption. This is because security of data greatly depends upon faster encryption and decryption in order to transfer it. In addition, its devices are considerably exposed to side channel attacks, including Power Analysis attacks that are capable of overturning the process. Constrained space and the ability of it is one of the most challenging tasks. To prevail over from this issue we are proposing a Cryptographic Lightweight Encryption Algorithm with Dimensionality Reduction in Edge Computing. The t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding is one of the efficient dimensionality reduction technique that greatly decreases the size of the non-linear data. The three dimensional image data obtained from the system, which are connected with it, are dimensionally reduced, and then lightweight encryption algorithm is employed. Hence, the security backlog can be solved effectively using this method.     

Stability of electronic nose (e-nose) as determined by considering date-pits heated at different temperatures

Variability and sensitivity of a portable electronic nose (32 sensors) was assessed by considering different variables for measurement (i.e., reference, standard, first and second purges, sample draw time, waiting time for the volatiles released in the headspace, and mass of sample or headspace volume of the jar containing sample). In this study, dried date-pits were used a model sample. The highest stability was achieved when both reference and standard (i.e., dried date-pits, no heating treatment) were used before test sample measurement. Higher sample draw time more than 10 s significantly decreased the stability, whereas optimum second purge was observed at 50 s. Optimum time to generate volatile was observed as 24 h. A sample of 100 g increased the signal intensity compared to the 50 g sample for the 60°C and 100°C treated samples, while an opposite trend was observed for the 150°C treated sample. Finally, the responses of volatile components in date-pits heated at different temperatures (60°C, 100°C, and 150°C) were measured using the optimum operating conditions. Principal component analysis explored the relationships between the volatile features and classified date-pits heated at different temperatures. The results showed that an electronic nose was able to classify date-pits based on their volatile components generated by different degrees of heating (93.3% accuracy).     

基于太赫兹光谱的人参和西洋参鉴别

为了快速区分人参和西洋参，依据两者所含的人参皂苷在太赫兹波段具有不同指纹光谱，提出了一种基于人参皂苷的太赫兹光谱鉴别人参和西洋参的方法。采用MATLAB软件识别人参和西洋参的太赫兹光谱，同时根据太赫兹光谱特征并通过标准的主成分分析(PCA)区分出人参、西洋参。实验结果表明，基于太赫兹光谱的主成分分析可精确区分出人参、西洋参，并且还可以应用于其他类似物质的区分中。     

Governance choices and policy outcomes in the Latin American and caribbean electricity sector

The paper first provides, for Latin America and the Caribbean, country-specific synthetic quantitative measures of the degree of adoption of governance reforms in the electricity sector, focusing on four key dimensions (market structure, private sector participation (PSP), regulatory autonomy and operational organization). These measures are then correlated with standard policy performance outcomes measures. The findings suggest that, the reforms, considered jointly, were statistically significantly associated with higher technical and process quality but not with social or service improvements. Considered individually, increased regulatory autonomy enjoyed the highest positive correlation with desirable outcomes, but PSP has no significant correlation with any of the outcomes. In sum, as of 2018, governance reforms, considered jointly, had still not delivered on some promised payoffs, notably in addressing energy poverty, although the sensitivity analysis suggests that, for some indicators, the relationships are stronger for larger than for smaller countries.     

Laplacian regularized robust principal component analysis for process monitoring

Principal component analysis (PCA) is one of the most widely used techniques for process monitoring. However, it is highly sensitive to sparse errors because of the assumption that data only contains an underlying low-rank structure. To improve classical PCA in this regard, a novel Laplacian regularized robust principal component analysis (LRPCA) framework is proposed, where the “robust” comes from the introduction of a sparse term. By taking advantage of the hypergraph Laplacian, LRPCA not only can represent the global low-dimensional structures, but also capture the intrinsic non-linear geometric information. An efficient alternating direction method of multipliers is designed with convergence guarantee. The resulting subproblems either have closed-form solutions or can be solved by fast solvers. Numerical experiments, including a simulation example and the Tennessee Eastman process, are conducted to illustrate the improved process monitoring performance of the proposed LRPCA.     

Nb和时效时间对热轧中锰TRIP钢中P偏聚的影响

热轧态中锰TRIP钢首先经650 ℃退火2 h,随后在550 ℃进行等温时效热处理,采用场发射扫描电镜(FE-SEM)研究该钢中P的偏聚和时效析出行为的变化情况。结果表明,中锰TRIP钢中P在晶界的偏聚是一种非平衡偏聚现象,临界时间约为50 h,与理论计算结果48 h较为吻合。在局部偏聚区域内,C与P存在共偏聚的关系,即P偏聚量高的地方,C含量也高。而合金元素Nb具有抑制P偏聚的效果,在20~70 h时效时间内,可以相对降低6.57%~19.5%的最大P偏聚量。根据电子背散射衍射(EBSD)菊池线分析,P偏聚量低于2.28at%时,P为固溶状态,高于2.28at.%时,P为析出状态。     

夹杂物对工程机械用钢Q345FCA疲劳寿命的影响

采用QBWP-6000J型简支梁旋转弯曲疲劳试验机测定了高疲劳寿命工程机械用钢Q345FCA的疲劳寿命;采用扫描电镜(SEM)对疲劳断口形貌进行了观察,并用附带的能谱仪(EDS)寻找断口上的夹杂物;借助夹杂物自动分析系统对钢中的夹杂物进行了分析。通过对试验数据的分析,计算得出了Q345FCA钢和Q345钢夹杂物的表面临界尺寸、次表面临界尺寸和内部临界尺寸。结果表明,Q345FCA钢的疲劳极限为273 MPa,Q345钢的疲劳极限为266 MPa。Q345FCA钢和Q345钢中夹杂物尺寸均小于临界夹杂物尺寸,且断口形貌显示所有疲劳断裂均不是由夹杂物所引起,夹杂物不是疲劳源。     

New insight to the oxidation kinetics of silicon-containing steel at high temperature

This study investigated the oxidation kinetics of silicon-containing steel at 1150–1300 °C using a Simultaneous Thermal Analyzer under atmospheric conditions similar to that of an industry reheating furnace. There is a critical time point for the oxidation kinetics at an oxygen concentration of 4·0 vol.-%., following which the oxidation rate constant increases with the increasing oxidation temperature. The model coefficient A in the kinetic oxidation equation was found to be constant. However, before the critical time point, the oxidation rate constant remained unchanged; the model coefficient A decreased with the increasing temperature. Therefore, the kinetic model of silicon-containing steel for isothermal oxidation was observed to be a modified one on the basis of the experimental data. In addition, the critical time point was prolonged with the increasing isothermal oxidation temperature. Moreover, the oxidation activation energy of the tested silicon-containing steel was 366·16 kJ mol^?1.