Flux Jumps and H-T Diagram of Instability for MgB2

We present a study of magneto-thermal instabilities in polycrystalline MgB₂ superconductor, by magnetic hysteresis loop measurements and by investigations of magnetic flux dynamics with a miniature Hall probe. Temperature and magnetic field ranges where the flux jumps may be observed have been determined. On the basis of measurements of the magnetic flux dynamics, an average magnetic diffusivity describing the process of the flux jump is estimated. This parameter is compared with the thermal and magnetic diffusivities calculated on the basis of available data for thermal conductivity, heat capacity and resistivity. It is shown that the estimated value of the field of the first flux jump is influenced significantly by the field dependence of specific heat. In order to explain the observed phenomenon, the temperature reached by the sample during the flux jump at different magnetic fields is calculated.     

俄联邦防爆电气设备——对照国际标准俄国国家标准的修改、差异和独特性

1 俄联邦防爆电气设备应用情况 传统上快速发展的工业部门如进行石油和天然气生产、运输以及加工处理的那些部门、石油化工行业，以及很多可能出现爆炸性环境的其他行业，在其一些场所中需要使用防爆电气设备。     

Halogenated Ti3C2 MXenes Prepared by Microwave Molten Salt for Hg0 Photo-Oxidation

Ti₃C₂ MXenes with different halogen modifications are prepared rapidly and efficiently by microwave molten salt method, and the MXene surface functional group modification is successfully achieved to address the problems of low purity, complex functional groups, and uncontrollable energy band structure of MXenes obtained by traditional liquid phase etching. Among them, the modification of the iodine (I) functional group onto the surface of Ti₃C₂ changes the energy band structure and band gap, resulting in easier photoexcitation and more photogenerated carriers. The increased Fermi energy is closer to the conduction band, the decreased surface work function weakens the electron confinement ability. The photogenerated carriers can migrate to the surface of the material more easily with extended lifetime, so the activity of the catalyst is improved. Further, for gaseous monomeric mercury (Hg⁰) photo-oxidative removal, Ti₃C₂-I₂ exhibits 85.5% efficiency of Hg⁰ photo-oxidative removal under visible light. Based on the experimental characterization and density functional theory calculations, a mechanism for the photo-oxidative removal of Hg° from Ti₃C₂-I₂ MXene is proposed, which provides a valuable strategy for studying Ti₃C₂ MXenes in the field of photocatalysis.     

Automatic control system for a pipe’s inner surface coating

Theoretical bases for controlling the application of coatings to the inner surface of pipes and other hollow products are considered based on the stabilization of the velocity of the coating material in the product cavity taking into account temperature and viscosity. The device makes it possible to automatically compensate for the variation in the coating thickness depending on temperature taking into account the characteristics of the used control equipment. The dependence of the coating thickness on temperature and material velocity is described. The system that implements the proposed method in the MATLAB + SIMULINK shell is simulated. The optimal values of the system gain and level sensor sensitivity that minimize the dynamic error of the control system are determined.     

Diagnostics of degradation processes induced by pulsed electric signals at the aluminum-silicon interface

Thermal conditions in an aluminum metallization stripe deposited onto a single crystal silicon substrate have been studied during the passage of single rectangular electric pulse with a current density of j < 8 × 10¹⁰ A/m² and a duration of τ = 100–1000 μs. Based on the results of this analysis, a method of diagnostics of the state of metallization contact systems and determination of the conditions of their safe operation is proposed.     

Prognostic Analysis of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Based on Their Morphological Portrait and Expression of Pluripotent Markers

The ability of human pluripotent stem cells for unlimited proliferation and self-renewal promotes their application in the fields of regenerative medicine. The morphological assessment of growing colonies and cells, as a non-invasive method, allows the best clones for further clinical applications to be safely selected. For this purpose, we analyzed seven morphological parameters of both colonies and cells extracted from the phase-contrast images of human embryonic stem cell line H9, control human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) line AD3, and hiPSC line HPCASRi002-A (CaSR) in various passages during their growth for 120 h. The morphological phenotype of each colony was classified using a visual analysis and associated with its potential for pluripotency and clonality maintenance, thus defining the colony phenotype as the control parameter. Using the analysis of variance for the morphological parameters of each line, we showed that selected parameters carried information about different cell lines and different phenotypes within each line. We demonstrated that a model of classification of colonies and cells by phenotype, built on the selected parameters as predictors, recognized the phenotype with an accuracy of 70–75%. In addition, we performed a qRT-PCR analysis of eleven pluripotency markers genes. By analyzing the variance of their expression in samples from different lines and with different phenotypes, we identified group-specific sets of genes that could be used as the most informative ones for the separation of the best clones. Our results indicated the fundamental possibility of constructing a morphological portrait of a colony informative for the automatic identification of the phenotype and for linking this portrait to the expression of pluripotency markers.     

Regulation of the Key Epithelial Cancer Suppressor miR-124 Function by Competing Endogenous RNAs

A decrease in the miR-124 expression was observed in various epithelial cancers. Like a classical suppressor, miR-124 can inhibit the translation of multiple oncogenic proteins. Epigenetic mechanisms play a significant role in the regulation of miR-124 expression and involve hypermethylation of the MIR-124-1/-2/-3 genes and the effects of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) according to the model of competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs). More than 40 interactomes (lncRNA/miR-124/mRNA) based on competition between lncRNAs and mRNAs for miR-124 binding have been identified in various epithelial cancers. LncRNAs MALAT1, NEAT1, HOXA11-AS, and XIST are the most represented in these axes. Fourteen axes (e.g., SND1-IT1/miR-124/COL4A1) are involved in EMT and/or metastasis. Moreover, eight axes (e.g., OIP5-AS1/miR-124-5p/IDH2) are involved in key pathways, such as Wnt/b-catenin, E2F1, TGF-β, SMAD, ERK/MAPK, HIF-1α, Notch, PI3K/Akt signaling, and cancer cell stemness. Additionally, 15 axes impaired patient survival and three axes reduced chemo- or radiosensitivity. To date, 14 cases of miR-124 regulation by circRNAs have been identified. Half of them involve circHIPK3, which belongs to the exonic ecircRNAs and stimulates cell proliferation, EMT, autophagy, angiogenesis, and multidrug resistance. Thus, miR-124 and its interacting partners may be considered promising targets for cancer therapy.     

Quality Control of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Colonies by Computational Image Analysis Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Human pluripotent stem cells are promising for a wide range of research and therapeutic purposes. Their maintenance in culture requires the deep control of their pluripotent and clonal status. A non-invasive method for such control involves day-to-day observation of the morphological changes, along with imaging colonies, with the subsequent automatic assessment of colony phenotype using image analysis by machine learning methods. We developed a classifier using a convolutional neural network and applied it to discriminate between images of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) colonies with “good” and “bad” morphological phenotypes associated with a high and low potential for pluripotency and clonality maintenance, respectively. The training dataset included the phase-contrast images of hESC line H9, in which the morphological phenotype of each colony was assessed through visual analysis. The classifier showed a high level of accuracy (89%) in phenotype prediction. By training the classifier on cropped images of various sizes, we showed that the spatial scale of ~144 μm was the most informative in terms of classification quality, which was an intermediate size between the characteristic diameters of a single cell (~15 μm) and the entire colony (~540 μm). We additionally performed a proteomic analysis of several H9 cell samples used in the computational analysis and showed that cells of different phenotypes differentiated at the molecular level. Our results indicated that the proposed approach could be used as an effective method of non-invasive automated analysis to identify undesirable developmental anomalies during the propagation of pluripotent stem cells.