Residual Feature Attentional Fusion Network for Lightweight Chest CT Image Super-Resolution

The diagnosis of COVID-19 requires chest computed tomography (CT). High-resolution CT images can provide more diagnostic information to help doctors better diagnose the disease, so it is of clinical importance to study super-resolution (SR) algorithms applied to CT images to improve the resolution of CT images. However, most of the existing SR algorithms are studied based on natural images, which are not suitable for medical images; and most of these algorithms improve the reconstruction quality by increasing the network depth, which is not suitable for machines with limited resources. To alleviate these issues, we propose a residual feature attentional fusion network for lightweight chest CT image super-resolution (RFAFN). Specifically, we design a contextual feature extraction block (CFEB) that can extract CT image features more efficiently and accurately than ordinary residual blocks. In addition, we propose a feature-weighted cascading strategy (FWCS) based on attentional feature fusion blocks (AFFB) to utilize the high-frequency detail information extracted by CFEB as much as possible via selectively fusing adjacent level feature information. Finally, we suggest a global hierarchical feature fusion strategy (GHFFS), which can utilize the hierarchical features more effectively than dense concatenation by progressively aggregating the feature information at various levels. Numerous experiments show that our method performs better than most of the state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods on the COVID-19 chest CT dataset. In detail, the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) is 0.11 dB and 0.47 dB higher on CTtest1 and CTtest2 at SR compared to the suboptimal method, but the number of parameters and multi-adds are reduced by 22K and 0.43G, respectively. Our method can better recover chest CT image quality with fewer computational resources and effectively assist in COVID-19.     

Peptidyl Virus-Like Nanovesicles as Reconfigurable “Trojan Horse” for Targeted siRNA Delivery and Synergistic Inhibition of Cancer Cells

The self-assembly of peptidyl virus-like nanovesicles (pVLNs) composed of highly ordered peptide bilayer membranes that encapsulate the small interfering RNA (siRNA) is reported. The targeting and enzyme-responsive sequences on the bilayer's surface allow the pVLNs to enter cancer cells with high efficiency and control the release of genetic drugs in response to the subcellular environment. By transforming its structure in response to the highly expressed enzyme matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP-7) in cancer cells, it helps the siRNA escape from the lysosomes, resulting in a final silencing efficiency of 92%. Moreover, the pVLNs can serve as reconfigurable “Trojan horse” by transforming into membranes triggered by the MMP-7 and disrupting the cytoplasmic structure, thereby achieving synergistic anticancer effects and 96% cancer cell mortality with little damage to normal cells. The pVLNs benefit from their biocompatibility, targeting, and enzyme responsiveness, making them a promising platform for gene therapy and anticancer therapy.     

Composition-Controllable Syntheses and Property Modulations from 2D Ferromagnetic Fe5Se8 to Metallic Fe3Se4 Nanosheets

Exploring new-type 2D magnetic materials with high magnetic transition temperature and robust air stability has attracted wide attention for developing innovative spintronic devices. Recently, intercalation of native metal atoms into the van der Waals gaps of 2D layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) has been developed to form 2D non-layered magnetic TMDs, while only succeeded in limited systems (e.g., Cr₂S₃, Cr₅Te₈). Herein, composition-controllable syntheses of 2D non-layered iron selenide nanosheets (25% Fe-intercalated triclinic Fe₅Se₈ and 50% Fe-intercalated monoclinic Fe₃Se₄) are firstly reported, via a robust chemical vapor deposition strategy. Specifically, the 2D Fe₅Se₈ exhibits intrinsic room-temperature ferromagnetic property, which is explained by the change of electron spin states from layered 1T'-FeSe₂ to non-layered Fe-intercalated Fe₅Se₈ based on density functional theory calculations. In contrast, the ultrathin Fe₃Se₄ presents novel metallic features comparable with that of metallic TMDs. This work hereby sheds light on the composition-controllable synthesis and fundamental property exploration of 2D self-intercalation induced novel TMDs compounds, by propelling their application explorations in nanoelectronics and spintronics-related fields.     

渗碳钢变温渗碳过程分析

以２０ＣｒＭｎＴｉ钢为例,建立了连续冷却渗碳模型;对变温渗碳质量进行了分析计算;对渗碳后的组织情况进行预测,从而对变温渗碳的可行性进行了理论论证．     

On the elasticT-term of a main crack induced by near tip microcracks

In the expansion form of the stress field near a crack tip, the nonsingular and constant stress acting parallel to the crack plane is called the elasticT-term, which is very important in fracture analysis. The elasticT-term of a main crack induced by near tip microcracks is analyzed. The original problem considered consists of a main crack accompanied by near tip microcracks, which are loaded remotely by the first three terms of the crack tip stress field expansion parameterized by stress intensity factorsK _I ,K _II , and the nonsingular stress, i.e., theT-term,. With the principle of superposition, the problem can be reduced to a system of Fredholm integral equations which can be solved numerically. After obtaining the solution, the induced elasticT-term is evaluated. Several typical numerical examples are given and the results are shown in Figures, from which some useful discussion and conclusions are obtained.     

精密装配机器人型号样机的研制

研制了我国第一台高性能精密装配机器人,该机器人是一台带有多传感器和多任务操作系统且可离线编程的高速、高精度、四轴ＳＣＡＲＡ平面关节型智能精密装配机器人原型样机,简要介绍了机器人各部分的工作原理以及整台样机在性能上与美国８０年代产品ＡＤＥＰＴｏｎｅ的对比。     

Jordan surfaces in simply connected digital spaces

Certain tasks in multidimensional digital image analysis, in particular surface detection and volume estimation, lead us to the study of surfaces in the digital environment. It is desirable that these surfaces should have a Jordan property analogous to that of simple closed curves in two dimensions-namely, that they should partition the underlying space into an inside and an outside which are disconnected from each other. A version of this property, called near-Jordanness, has been previously defined and has been shown to be useful within a general theory of surfaces in digital spaces. The definition of a near-Jordan surface is global: it demands that all paths from the interior to the exterior cross the surface. This makes it difficult in many practical applications to check whether surfaces are near-Jordan. The work reported in this paper is motivated by the desire for a local condition, such that if a surface satisfies this condition at each of its elements, then it is guaranteed to be near-Jordan. In the search for such a condition, we were led to a concept of simple connectedness of a digital space, which resembles simple connectedness in ordinary topological spaces. We were then able to formulate the desired local condition for simply connected digital spaces. Many digital spaces, in particular those based on the commonly-studied tessellations of n-dimensional Euclidean space, are shown to be simply connected and thus our theory yields general sufficient conditions for boundaries in binary pictures to be near-Jordan.     

New delay-range-dependent exponential estimates for singular systems with time-varying delay

This paper considers the problem of exponential stability for continuous-time singular systems with interval time-varying delay. By defining a novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii function and giving a tighter upper bound of its derivative, a new delay-range-dependent exponential admissibility criterion, which not only guarantees the regularity, absence of impulses and exponential stability of the system but also gives the estimates of decay rate and decay coefficient, is established in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI). The resulting criterion has advantages over the result previously reported by Haidar et al. [17] in that it involves fewer matrix variables but has less conservatism, which is established theoretically. Examples are provided to demonstrate the advantage of the proposed criterion.     

An LMI Approach to consensus in second-order multi-agent systems

This paper deals with the consensus problem of the second-order multi-agent systems based on linear system theory. By a system transformation, the consensus problem is converted to the stability problem of a linear system. The second-order systems considered include the systems with both the fixed topology and the Markov switching topology. Necessary and sufficient conditions of consensus or mean square consensus are obtained. The results are extended to the cases of the uncertain transition probability rates and time-delay, respectively. Finally, a simulation example is given to show the effectiveness of the presented results.     

Feedback passivation of switched nonlinear systems using storage-like functions

This paper addresses the issues of passivity and feedback passivation of switched nonlinear systems via multiple storage functions. The concept of storage-like functions for switched systems is presented. A sufficient condition for passivity of switched nonlinear systems is given via multiple storage functions under some switching signal. Then, the result is extended to find conditions under which a switched system is feedback equivalent to a passive switched system. Furthermore, passivity of switched cascade systems is investigated.