Towards sustainable industry 4.0: A green real-time IIoT multitask scheduling architecture for distributed 3D printing services

As the keystones of the personalized manufacturing, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) consolidated with 3D printing pave the path for the era of Industry 4.0 and smart manufacturing. By resembling the age of craft manufacturing, Industry 4.0 expedites the alteration from mass production to mass customization. When distributed 3D printers (3DPs) are shared and collaborated in the IIoT, a promising dynamic, globalized, economical, and time-effective manufacturing environment for customized products will appear. However, the optimum allocation and scheduling of the personalized 3D printing tasks (3DPTs) in the IIoT in a manner that respects the customized attributes submitted for each model while satisfying not only the real-time requirements but also the workload balancing between the distributed 3DPs is an inevitable research challenge that needs further in-depth investigations. Therefore, to address this issue, this paper proposes a real-time green-aware multi-task scheduling architecture for personalized 3DPTs in the IIoT. The proposed architecture is divided into two interconnected folds, namely, allocation and scheduling. A robust online allocation algorithm is proposed to generate the optimal allocation for the 3DPTs. This allocation algorithm takes into consideration meeting precisely the customized user-defined attributes for each submitted 3DPT in the IIoT as well as balancing the workload between the distributed 3DPs simultaneously with improving their energy efficiency. Moreover, meeting the predefined deadline for each submitted 3DPT is among the main objectives of the proposed architecture. Consequently, an adaptive real-time multi-task priority-based scheduling (ARMPS) algorithm has been developed. The built ARMPS algorithm respects both the dynamicity and the real-time requirements of the submitted 3DPTs. A set of performance evaluation tests has been performed to thoroughly investigate the robustness of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results proved the robustness and scalability of the proposed architecture that surpasses its counterpart state-of-the-art architectures, especially in high-load environments.     

Register allocation for write activity minimization on non-volatile main memory for embedded systems

Non-volatile memories are good candidates for DRAM replacement as main memory in embedded systems and they have many desirable characteristics. Nevertheless, the disadvantages of non-volatile memory co-exist with its advantages. First, the lifetime of some of the non-volatile memories is limited by the number of erase operations. Second, read and write operations have asymmetric speed or power consumption in non-volatile memory. This paper focuses on the embedded systems using non-volatile memory as main memory. We propose register allocation technique with re-computation to reduce the number of store instructions. When non-volatile memory is applied as the main memory, reducing store instructions will reduce write activities on non-volatile memory. To re-compute the spills effectively during register allocation, a novel potential spill selection strategy is proposed. During this process, live range splitting is utilized to split certain long live ranges such that they are more likely to be assigned into registers. In addition, techniques for re-computation overhead reduction is proposed on systems with multiple functional units. With the proposed approach, the lifetime of non-volatile memory is extended accordingly. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique can efficiently reduce the number of store instructions on systems with non-volatile memory by 33% on average.     

Structure-Activity Relationships of Benzamides and Isoindolines Designed as SARS-CoV Protease Inhibitors Effective against SARS-CoV-2

Inhibition of coronavirus (CoV)-encoded papain-like cysteine proteases (PL^pro) represents an attractive strategy to treat infections by these important human pathogens. Herein we report on structure-activity relationships (SAR) of the noncovalent active-site directed inhibitor (R)-5-amino-2-methyl-N-(1-(naphthalen-1-yl)ethyl) benzamide ( 2 b ), which is known to bind into the S3 and S4 pockets of the SARS-CoV PL^pro. Moreover, we report the discovery of isoindolines as a new class of potent PL^pro inhibitors. The studies also provide a deeper understanding of the binding modes of this inhibitor class. Importantly, the inhibitors were also confirmed to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication in cell culture suggesting that, due to the high structural similarities of the target proteases, inhibitors identified against SARS-CoV PL^pro are valuable starting points for the development of new pan-coronaviral inhibitors.     

Mutual Prodrugs of 5-Fluorouracil: From a Classic Chemotherapeutic Agent to Novel Potential Anticancer Drugs

The development of potent antitumor agents with a low toxicological profile against healthy cells is still one of the greatest challenges facing medicinal chemistry. In this context, the “mutual prodrug” approach has emerged as a potential tool to overcome undesirable physicochemical features and mitigate the side effects of approved drugs. Among broad-spectrum chemotherapeutics available for clinical use today, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is one of the most representative, also included in the World Health Organization model list of essential medicines. Unfortunately, severe side effects and drug resistance phenomena are still the primary limits and drawbacks in its clinical use. This review describes the progress made over the last ten years in developing 5-FU-based mutual prodrugs to improve the therapeutic profile and achieve targeted delivery to cancer tissues.     

The AFLATOX® Project: Approaching the Development of New Generation,Natural-Based Compounds for the Containment of the Mycotoxigenic Phytopathogen Aspergillus flavus and Aflatoxin Contamination

The control of the fungal contamination on crops is considered a priority by the sanitary authorities of an increasing number of countries, and this is also due to the fact that the geographic areas interested in mycotoxin outbreaks are widening. Among the different pre- and post-harvest strategies that may be applied to prevent fungal and/or aflatoxin contamination, fungicides still play a prominent role; however, despite of countless efforts, to date the problem of food and feed contamination remains unsolved, since the essential factors that affect aflatoxins production are various and hardly to handle as a whole. In this scenario, the exploitation of bioactive natural sources to obtain new agents presenting novel mechanisms of action may represent a successful strategy to minimize, at the same time, aflatoxin contamination and the use of toxic pesticides. The Aflatox^® Project was aimed at the development of new-generation inhibitors of aflatoxigenic Aspergillus spp. proliferation and toxin production, through the modification of naturally occurring molecules: a panel of 177 compounds, belonging to the thiosemicarbazones class, have been synthesized and screened for their antifungal and anti-aflatoxigenic potential. The most effective compounds, selected as the best candidates as aflatoxin containment agents, were also evaluated in terms of cytotoxicity, genotoxicity and epi-genotoxicity to exclude potential harmful effect on the human health, the plants on which fungi grow and the whole ecosystem.     

A Review on the Fundamentals of Palm Oil Fractionation: Processing Conditions and Seeding Agents

Fractionation is a well-established process adopted in the fats and oils industries. It involves the separation of low and high melting triacylglycerol under controlled cooling conditions into olein and stearin fractions with distinct chemical and physical properties. Amongst the other vegetable oils, palm oil is one of the most fractionated oils in the past few decades mainly attributed to its semisolid properties. The various fraction of palm oil allows it to be used in different types of food products such as margarine, frying oil, and cocoa butter substitute. In fractionation, proper control of the fractionation conditions is important to produce the fractions with desirable stearin and olein quality. The purpose of this paper is to critically review the fractionation conditions (crystallization temperature, agitation, cooling rate and crystallization time) that affect the yield and quality of the oil produced. Additionally, it also provides the latest updates on the influence of seeding agents (diacylglycerol, monoacylglycerol, hard fat, phytosterol, phospholipid, lecithin, essential oil, sugar, polyglycerol ester, and talc) used in fractionation. This article is useful to provide a fundamental understanding of fractionation to scientists from the industries or academia working in the fats and oils industries. Practical Applications: This paper provides an in-depth understanding of fractionation particularly on the parameters of fractionation in influencing the quality and yield of the stearin and olein produced. It also for the first time presents the effect of addition of various seeding agents on palm oil fractionation which can help the industry to select the appropriate seeding agents to improve the currently employed fractionation process. Thus, it can act as a guideline for the industry to understand and select the appropriate fractionation conditions when developing a new product using this approach. The fractionation conditions discussed here can also be used as a reference when fractionating other types of fats and oils as most of them share a common background.     

Preparation and Bioactivity of Iridium(III) Phenanthroline Complexes with Halide Ions and Pyridine Leaving Groups

A series of half-sandwich structural iridium(III) phenanthroline (Phen) complexes with halide ions (Cl⁻, Br⁻, I⁻) and pyridine leaving groups ([(η⁵-Cp^X)Ir(Phen)Z](PF₆)_n, Cp^x: electron-rich cyclopentadienyl group, Z: leaving group) have been prepared. Target complexes, especially the Cp^xbiph (biphenyl-substituted cyclopentadienyl)-based one, showed favourable anticancer activity against human lung cancer (A549) cells; the best one ( Ir8 ) was almost five times that of cisplatin under the same conditions. Compared with complexes involving halide ion leaving groups, the pyridine-based one did not display hydrolysis but effectively caused lysosomal damage, leading to accumulation in the cytosol, inducing an increase in the level of intracellular reactive oxygen species and apoptosis; this indicated an anticancer mechanism of oxidation. Additionally, these complexes could bind to serum albumin through a static quenching mechanism. The data highlight the potential value of half-sandwich iridium(III) phenanthroline complexes as anticancer drugs.     

Luminescent Amphiphilic Aminoglycoside Probes to Study Transfection

We report the characterization of amphiphilic aminoglycoside conjugates containing luminophores with aggregation-induced emission properties as transfection reagents. These inherently luminescent transfection vectors are capable of binding plasmid DNA through electrostatic interactions; this binding results in an emission “on” signal due to restriction of intramolecular motion of the luminophore core. The luminescent cationic amphiphiles effectively transferred plasmid DNA into mammalian cells (HeLa, HEK 293T), as proven by expression of a red fluorescent protein marker. The morphologies of the aggregates were investigated by microscopy as well as ζ-potential and dynamic light-scattering measurements. The transfection efficiencies using luminescent cationic amphiphiles were similar to that of the gold-standard transfection reagent Lipofectamine® 2000.     

Metal Complexes as Antiviral Agents for SARS-CoV-2

The severe acute respiratory syndrome – coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the infectious agent responsible for COVID-19 – has caused more than 2.5 million deaths worldwide and triggered a global pandemic. Even with successful vaccines being delivered, there is an urgent need for novel treatments to combat SARS-CoV-2, and other emerging viral diseases. While several organic small molecule drug candidates are in development, some effort has also been devoted towards the application of metal complexes as potential antiviral agents against SARS-CoV-2. Herein, the metal complexes that have been reported to show antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 or one of its target proteins are described and their proposed mechanisms of action are discussed.     

聚丙烯改性技术进展

介绍了近年来聚丙烯改性技术研究方面的进展．研究内容包括用结晶成核剂对聚丙烯的晶型进行设计，用橡胶、矿物填料等对聚丙烯进行改性．