Geodesic Path for the Minimal Energy Cost in Shortcuts to Isothermality.

Shortcuts to isothermality are driving strategies to steer the system to its equilibrium states within finite time, and enable evaluating the impact of a control promptly. Finding the optimal scheme to minimize the energy cost is of critical importance in applications of this strategy in pharmaceutical drug tests, biological selection, and quantum computation. We prove the equivalence between designing the optimal scheme and finding the geodesic path in the space of control parameters. Such equivalence allows a systematic and universal approach to find the optimal control to reduce the energy cost. We demonstrate the current method with examples of a Brownian particle trapped in controllable harmonic potentials.

Quantum-Classical Correspondence Principle for Heat Distribution in Quantum Brownian Motion.

Quantum Brownian motion, described by the Caldeira-Leggett model, brings insights to the understanding of phenomena and essence of quantum thermodynamics, especially the quantum work and heat associated with their classical counterparts. By employing the phase-space formulation approach, we study the heat distribution of a relaxation process in the quantum Brownian motion model. The analytical result of the characteristic function of heat is obtained at any relaxation time with an arbitrary friction coefficient. By taking the classical limit, such a result approaches the heat distribution of the classical Brownian motion described by the Langevin equation, indicating the quantum-classical correspondence principle for heat distribution. We also demonstrate that the fluctuating heat at any relaxation time satisfies the exchange fluctuation theorem of heat and its long-time limit reflects the complete thermalization of the system. Our research study justifies the definition of the quantum fluctuating heat via two-point measurements.

Simulating Finite-Time Isothermal Processes with Superconducting Quantum Circuits.

Finite-time isothermal processes are ubiquitous in quantum-heat-engine cycles, yet complicated due to the coexistence of the changing Hamiltonian and the interaction with the thermal bath. Such complexity prevents classical thermodynamic measurements of a performed work. In this paper, the isothermal process is decomposed into piecewise adiabatic and isochoric processes to measure the performed work as the internal energy change in adiabatic processes. The piecewise control scheme allows the direct simulation of the whole process on a universal quantum computer, which provides a new experimental platform to study quantum thermodynamics. We implement the simulation on ibmqx2 to show the 1/τ scaling of the extra work in finite-time isothermal processes.

Maximum Entropy Approach to Reliability of Multi-Component Systems with Non-Repairable or Repairable Components.

The degradation and recovery processes are multi-scale phenomena in many physical, engineering, biological, and social systems, and determine the aging of the entire system. Therefore, understanding the interplay between the two processes at the component level is the key to evaluate the reliability of the system. Based on the principle of maximum entropy, an approach is proposed to model and infer the processes at the component level, and is applied to repairable and non-repairable systems. By incorporating the reliability block diagram, this approach allows for integrating the information of network connectivity and statistical moments to infer the hazard or recovery rates of the degradation or recovery processes. The overall approach is demonstrated with numerical examples.

Experimental Test of the 1/τ-Scaling Entropy Generation in Finite-Time Thermodynamics.

The finite-time dynamics, apart from its fundamental importance in nonequilibrium thermodynamics, is of great significance in designing heat engine cycles. We build an experimental apparatus to test the predicted long-time 1/τ scaling of the irreversible entropy generation in the finite-time (τ) thermodynamic process by compressing dry air in a temperature-controlled water bath. We present the first direct experimental validation of the scaling, utilized in many finite-time thermodynamic models at the long-time regime. The experimental data also demonstrate a clear deviation from the scaling at the short-time regime. We show the optimal control scheme to minimize the irreversible entropy generation in finite-time process. Such optimization shall bring new insight to the practical design of heat engine cycles.

Intra-articular injection of hUC-MSCs expressing miR-140-5p induces cartilage self-repairing in the rat osteoarthritis.

INTRODUCTION: Currently, osteoarthritis (OA) receives global increasing attention because it associates severe joint pain and serious disability. Stem cells intra-articular injection therapy showed a potential therapeutic superiority to reduce OA development and to improve treating outputs. However, the long-term effect of stem cells intra-articular injection on the cartilage regeneration remains unclear. Recently, miR-140-5p was confirmed as a critical positive regulator in chondrogenesis. We hypothesized that hUC-MSCs overexpressing miR-140-5p have better therapeutic effect on osteoarthritis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To enhance stem cell chondrogenic differentiation, we have transfected human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) with miR-140-5p mimics and miR-140-5p lentivirus to overexpress miR-140-5p in a short term or a long term accordingly. Thereafter, MSCs proliferation, chondrogenic genes expression and extracellular matrix were assessed. Destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) surgery was performed on the knee joints of SD rats as an OA model, and then intra-articular injection of hUC-MSCs or hUC-MSCs transfected with miR-140-5p lentivirus was carried to evaluate the cartilage healing effect with histological staining and OARSI scores. The localization of hUC-MSCs after intra-articular injection was further confirmed by immunohistochemical staining. RESULTS: Significant induction of chondrogenic differentiation in the miR-140-5p-hUC-MSCs (140-MSCs), while its proliferation was not influenced. Interestingly, intra-articular injection of 140-MSCs significantly enhanced articular cartilage self-repairing in comparison to normal hUC-MSCs. Moreover, we noticed that intra-articular injection of high 140-MSCs numbers reinforces cells assembling on the impaired cartilage surface and subsequently differentiated into chondrocytes. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, these results indicate therapeutic superiority of hUC-MSCs overexpressing miR-140-5p to treat OA using intra-articular injection.

A Novel Fuzzy PID Congestion Control Model Based on Cuckoo Search in WSNs.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of multiple sensor nodes, each of which has the ability to collect, receive and send data. However, irregular data sources can lead to severe network congestion. To solve this problem, the Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller is introduced into the congestion control mechanism to control the queue length of messages in nodes. By running the PID algorithm on cluster head nodes, the effective collection of sensor data is realized. In addition, a fuzzy control algorithm is proposed to solve the problems of slow parameter optimization, limited adaptive ability and poor optimization precision of traditional PID controller. However, the parameter selection of the fuzzy control algorithm relies too much on expert experience and has certain limitations. Therefore, this manuscript proposes the Cuckoo Fuzzy-PID Controller (CFPID), whose core idea is to apply the cuckoo search algorithm to optimize the fuzzy PID controller's quantization factor and PID parameter increment. Simulation results show that in comparison with the existing methods, the instantaneous queue length and real-time packet loss rate of CFPID are better.

Immunosuppressive effect of zhankuic acid C from Taiwanofungus camphoratus on dendritic cell activation and the contact hypersensitivity response.

Some ergostane triterpenoids from Taiwanofungus camphoratus have been shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory activity in vitro. However, the effect of ergostane triterpenoids on the immune response remains unknown. In this study, we elucidated that ergostane triterpenoids significantly decreased the cytokines and chemokine release by dendritic cells (DC) and that, in the case of zhankuic acid C (ZAC), the decrease was dose-dependent and inhibited DC maturation. ZAC inhibited the contact hypersensitivity response and infiltrative T cells in the ears of DNFB-stimulated mice. Thus, we demonstrate for the first time that ZAC exhibits an immunosuppressive effect on DC activation and the contact hypersensitivity response. It is suggested that ZAC can potentially be used for treating chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases.

Adaptive random testing with combinatorial input domain.

Random testing (RT) is a fundamental testing technique to assess software reliability, by simply selecting test cases in a random manner from the whole input domain. As an enhancement of RT, adaptive random testing (ART) has better failure-detection capability and has been widely applied in different scenarios, such as numerical programs, some object-oriented programs, and mobile applications. However, not much work has been done on the effectiveness of ART for the programs with combinatorial input domain (i.e., the set of categorical data). To extend the ideas to the testing for combinatorial input domain, we have adopted different similarity measures that are widely used for categorical data in data mining and have proposed two similarity measures based on interaction coverage. Then, we propose a new version named ART-CID as an extension of ART in combinatorial input domain, which selects an element from categorical data as the next test case such that it has the lowest similarity against already generated test cases. Experimental results show that ART-CID generally performs better than RT, with respect to different evaluation metrics.

Maximum neighborhood margin discriminant projection for classification.

We develop a novel maximum neighborhood margin discriminant projection (MNMDP) technique for dimensionality reduction of high-dimensional data. It utilizes both the local information and class information to model the intraclass and interclass neighborhood scatters. By maximizing the margin between intraclass and interclass neighborhoods of all points, MNMDP cannot only detect the true intrinsic manifold structure of the data but also strengthen the pattern discrimination among different classes. To verify the classification performance of the proposed MNMDP, it is applied to the PolyU HRF and FKP databases, the AR face database, and the UCI Musk database, in comparison with the competing methods such as PCA and LDA. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our MNMDP in pattern classification.

Simultaneous electrocoagulation and E-peroxone coupled with ultrafiltration membrane for shale gas produced water treatment.

Membrane fouling caused by the organics-coated particles was the main obstacle for the highly efficient shale gas produced water (SGPW) treatment and recycling. In this study, a novel hybrid electrocoagulation (EC) and E-peroxone process coupled with UF (ECP-UF) process was proposed to examine the efficacy and elucidate the mechanism for UF fouling mitigation in assisting SGPW reuse. Compared to the TMP (transmembrane pressure) increase of -15 kPa in the EC-UF process, TMP in ECP-UF system marginally increased to -1.4 kPa for 3 filtration cycles under the current density of 15 mA/cm2. Both the total fouling index and hydraulically irreversible fouling index of the ECP-UF process were significantly lower than those of EC-UF process. According to the extended Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek theory, the potential barriers was the highest for ECP-UF processes due to the substantial increase of the acid-base interaction energy in ECP-UF process, which was well consistent with the TMP and SEM results. Turbidity and TOC of ECP-UF process were 63.6% and 45.8% lower than those of EC-UF process, respectively. According to the MW distribution, the variations of compounds and their relative contents were probably due to the oxidation and decomposing products of the macromolecular organics. The number of aromatic compound decreased, while the number of open-chain compounds (i.e., alkenes, alkanes and alcohols) increased in the permeate of ECP-UF process. Notably, the substantial decrease in the relative abundance of di-phthalate compounds was attributed to the high reactivity of these compounds with ·OH. Mechanism study indicated that ECP could realize the simultaneous coagulation, H2O2 generation and activation by O3, facilitating the enhancement of ·OH and Alb production and therefore beneficial for the improved water quality and UF fouling mitigation. Therefore, the ECP-UF process emerges as a high-efficient and space-saving approach, yielding a synergistic effect in mitigating UF fouling for SGPW recycling.

Pirfenidone improves early cardiac function following myocardial infarction by enhancing the elastin/collagen ratio.

BACKGROUND: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a leading cause of mortality worldwide, with reduced elastin/collagen ratios exacerbating cardiac dysfunction due to collagen-rich scar tissue replacing necrotic myocardial cells. This study aims to evaluate pirfenidone's therapeutic effect on early cardiac function post-AMI and elucidate its impact on the elastin/collagen ratio. METHODS: Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into four groups: Sham, AMI, AMI treated with PBS (AMI-PBS), and AMI treated with pirfenidone (AMI-PFD) (n=12 each). AMI was induced via coronary artery ligation. The AMI-PFD and AMI-PBS groups received pirfenidone and PBS for 14 days, respectively. Cardiac function, fibrosis, serum cytokines, collagen and elastin content, and their ratios were assessed. Cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) from neonatal rats were categorized into control, hypoxia-induced (LO), LO+PBS, and LO+PFD groups. ELISA measured inflammatory factors, and RT-PCR analyzed collagen and elastin gene expression. RESULTS: The AMI-PFD group showed improved cardiac function and reduced serum interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß), IL-6, and transforming growth factor-ß (TGF-ß). Type I and III collagen decreased by 22.6 % (P=0.0441) and 34.4 % (P=0.0427), respectively, while elastin content increased by 79.4 % (P=0.0126). E/COLI and E/COLIII ratios rose by 81.1 % (P=0.0026) and 88.1 % (P=0.0006). CFs in the LO+PFD group exhibited decreased IL-1ß, IL-6, TGF-ß, type I and III collagen, with increased elastin mRNA, enhancing the elastin/collagen ratio. CONCLUSION: Pirfenidone enhances cardiac function by augmenting the early elastin/collagen ratio post-AMI.

Intrapericardial Administration of Human Pericardial Fluid Cells Improves Cardiac Functions in Rats with Heart Failure.

Heart failure (HF) is still the main cause of mortality worldwide. This study investigated the characteristics of human pericardial fluid-derived cells (hPFCs) and their effects in treating doxorubicin (DOX)-induced HF rats through intrapericardial injection. hPFCs were isolated from patients who underwent heart transplantation (N = 5). These cells that primarily expressed SCA-1, NANOG, and mesenchymal markers, CD90, CD105, and CD73, were able to form adipocytes, osteoblasts, and cardiomyocytes in vitro. Passage 3 hPFCs (2.5 × 105 cells/heart) were injected into the pericardial cavity of the DOX-injured rat hearts, significantly improving cardiac functions after 4 weeks. The tracked and engrafted red fluorescent protein-tagged hPFCs coexpressed cardiac troponin T and connexin 43 after 4 weeks in the host myocardium. This observation was also coupled with a significant reduction in cardiac fibrosis following hPFC treatment (P < 0.0001 vs. untreated). The elevated inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor-α in the DOX-treated hearts were found to be significantly reduced (P < 0.001 vs. untreated), while the regional proangiogenic vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) level was increased in the hPFC-treated group after 4 weeks (P < 0.05 vs. untreated). hPFCs possess stem cell characteristics and can improve the cardiac functions of DOX-induced HF rats after 4 weeks through pericardial administration. The improvements were attributed to a significant reduction in cardiac fibrosis, inflammation, and elevated regional proangiogenesis factor VEGFA, with evidence of cellular engraftment and differentiation in the host myocardium.

An approach of vulnerability testing for third-party component based on condition and parameter mutation.

The research on component vulnerability testing is critical. In this paper, an approach of vulnerability testing is proposed based on condition mutation and parameter mutation in order to effectively detect the explicit vulnerabilities of third-party components. To start with, the Pre-condition Mutation Algorithm (PCMA) is presented to generate mutants set of the pre-condition and test cases are generated based on these mutants. Then, the Single Parameter Mutated Values (SPMV) procedure is addressed to generate parameter values based on mutation operators of parameter specification. These values are then taken as the input of the Test Case Generation Algorithm based on the Parameter Constraint (TCGPC), which is addressed to generate test case set violating the parameter constraint. The explicit vulnerabilities can be detected by the vulnerability detecting algorithm based on the test cases of condition and parameter mutation. The experiments show that our approach can detect explicit vulnerability faults of third-party components. Furthermore, the proposed approach can detect more vulnerability faults than other related approaches such as condition coverage methods, fuzzy testing method and boundary value method.

Hierarchical structure of fluctuation theorems for a driven system in contact with multiple heat reservoirs.

For driven open systems in contact with multiple heat reservoirs, we find the marginal distributions of work or heat do not satisfy any fluctuation theorem, but only the joint distribution of work and heat satisfies a family of fluctuation theorems. A hierarchical structure of these fluctuation theorems is discovered from microreversibility of the dynamics by adopting a step-by-step coarse-graining procedure in both classical and quantum regimes. Thus, we put all fluctuation theorems concerning work and heat into a unified framework. We also propose a general method to calculate the joint statistics of work and heat in the situation of multiple heat reservoirs via the Feynman-Kac equation. For a classical Brownian particle in contact with multiple heat reservoirs, we verify the validity of the fluctuation theorems for the joint distribution of work and heat.

Exploring quasiprobability approaches to quantum work in the presence of initial coherence: Advantages of the Margenau-Hill distribution.

In quantum thermodynamics, the two-projective-measurement (TPM) scheme provides a successful description of stochastic work only in the absence of initial quantum coherence. Extending the quantum work distribution to quasiprobability is a general way to characterize work fluctuation in the presence of initial coherence. However, among a large number of different definitions, there is no consensus on the most appropriate work quasiprobability. In this article, we list several physically reasonable requirements including the first law of thermodynamics, time-reversal symmetry, positivity of second-order moment, and a support condition for the work distribution. We prove that the only definition that satisfies all these requirements is the Margenau-Hill (MH) quasiprobability of work. In this sense, the MH quasiprobability of work shows its advantages over other definitions. As an illustration, we calculate the MH work distribution of a breathing harmonic oscillator with initial squeezed states and show the convergence to classical work distribution in the classical limit.

Facile Preparation of Dense Polysulfone UF Membranes with Enhanced Salt Rejection by Post-Heating.

Polysulfone (PSf) membranes typically have a negligible rejection of salts due to the intrinsic larger pore size and wide pore size distribution. In this work, a facile and scalable heat treatment was proposed to increase the salt rejection. The influence of heat treatment on the structure and performance of PSf membranes was systematically investigated. The average pore size decreased from 9.94 ± 5.5 nm for pristine membranes to 1.18 ± 0.19 nm with the increase in temperature to 50 °C, while the corresponding porosity decreased from 2.07% to 0.13%. Meanwhile, the thickness of the sponge structure decreased from 20.20 to 11.5 µm as the heat treatment temperature increased to 50 °C. The MWCO of PSf decreased from 290,000 Da to 120 Da, whereas the membrane pore size decreased from 5.5 to 0.19 nm. Correspondingly, the water flux decreased from 1545 to 27.24 L·m-2·h-1, while the rejection ratio increased from 3.1% to 74.0% for Na2SO4, from 1.3% to 48.2% for MgSO4, and from 0.6% to 23.8% for NaCl. Meanwhile, mechanism analysis indicated that the water evaporation in the membranes resulted in the shrinkage of the membrane pores and decrease in the average pore size, thus improving the separation performance. In addition, the desalting performance of the heat-treated membranes for real actual industrial wastewater was improved. This provides a facile and scalable route for PSf membrane applications for enhanced desalination.

Heat statistics in the relaxation process of the Edwards-Wilkinson elastic manifold.

The stochastic thermodynamics of systems with a few degrees of freedom has been studied extensively so far. We would like to extend the study to systems with more degrees of freedom and even further-continuous fields with infinite degrees of freedom. The simplest case for a continuous stochastic field is the Edwards-Wilkinson elastic manifold. It is an exactly solvable model of which the heat statistics in the relaxation process can be calculated analytically. The cumulants require a cutoff spacing to avoid ultraviolet divergence. The scaling behavior of the heat cumulants with time and the system size as well as the large deviation rate function of the heat statistics in the large size limit is obtained.

An effector of Erysiphe necator translocates to chloroplasts and plasma membrane to suppress host immunity in grapevine.

The powdery mildew (Erysiphe necator) is a prevalent pathogen hampering grapevine growth in the vineyard. An arsenal of candidate secreted effector proteins (CSEPs) was encoded in the E. necator genome, but it is largely unclear what role CSEPs plays during the E. necator infection. In the present study, we identified a secreted effector CSEP080 of E. necator, which was located in plant chloroplasts and plasma membrane. Transient expressing CSEP080 promotes plant photosynthesis and inhibits INF1-induced cell death in tobacco leaves. We found that CSEP080 was a necessary effector for the E. necator pathogenicity, which interacted with grapevine chloroplast protein VviB6f (cytochrome b6-f complex iron-sulfur subunit), affecting plant photosynthesis. Transient silencing VviB6f increased the plant hydrogen peroxide production, and the plant resistance to powdery mildew. In addition, CSEP080 manipulated the VviPE (pectinesterase) to promote pectin degradation. Our results demonstrated the molecular mechanisms that an effector of E. necator translocates to host chloroplasts and plasma membrane, which suppresses with the grapevine immunity system by targeting the chloroplast protein VviB6f to suppress hydrogen peroxide accumulation and manipulating VviPE to promote pectin degradation.

Optimizing Brownian heat engine with shortcut strategy.

Shortcuts to isothermality provide a powerful method to speed up quasistatic thermodynamic processes within finite-time manipulation. We employ the shortcut strategy to design and optimize Brownian heat engines, and we formulate a geometric description of the energetics with the thermodynamic length. We obtain a tight and reachable bound of the output power for shortcut-driven heat engines. The bound is reached by the optimal shortcut protocol to vary the control parameters with a proper constant velocity of the thermodynamic length. With the shortcut strategy, we optimize the control of Brownian heat engines to achieve the maximum power in the general-damped situation. We also derive the efficiency at the maximum power and the maximum power at the given efficiency for shortcut-driven heat engines.