Consensus for nonlinear multi-agent systems with actuator saturation by adaptive event-triggered scheme.

This paper studies the leader-follower consensus problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems with actuator saturation by adaptive event-triggered scheme. This adaptive mechanism allows parameters in triggered mechanism to change automatically compared to fixed ones in traditional strategies. The paper introduces two distinct approaches to address the issue of saturation. The first approach is sector bounded condition, while the second relies on convex hull representation. Compared with the former one, the latter one can reduce the conservatism of controller design effectively. Furthermore, it is assumed that the nonlinear function adheres to incremental quadratic limitations, thereby offering a more comprehensive depiction of its nonlinear properties. Finally, the validity of the proposed approaches is demonstrated by one numerical example in the background of mechanical systems.

HfO2-ZrO2 Ferroelectric Capacitors with Superlattice Structure: Improving Fatigue Stability, Fatigue Recovery, and Switching Speed.

HfO2-ZrO2 ferroelectric films have recently gained considerable attention from integrated circuit researchers due to their excellent ferroelectric properties over a wide doping range and low deposition temperature. In this work, different HfO2-ZrO2 superlattice (SL) FE films with varying periodicity of HfO2 (5 cycles)-ZrO2 (5 cycles) (SL5), HfO2 (10 cycles)-ZrO2 (10 cycles) (SL10), and HfO2 (15 cycles)-ZrO2 (15 cycles) (SL15) were studied systematically. The HfZrOx (HZO) alloy was used as a comparison device. The SL5 film demonstrated improved ferroelectric properties compared to the HZO film, with the 2 times remnant polarization (2Pr) values increasing from 41.4 to 48.6 µC/cm2 at an applied voltage of 3 V/10 kHz. Furthermore, the first-order reversal curve diagrams of different SL and HZO capacitors at different states (initial, wake-up, fatigue, and recovery) were measured. The SL capacitors were found to effectively suppress the diffusion of defects during P-V cycling, resulting in improved fatigue stability characteristics and fatigue recovery capability compared to the HZO capacitor. Moreover, an improved switching speed of the SL films compared to the HZO capacitor was concluded based on the inhomogeneous field mechanism (IFM) model. These results indicate that the SL structure has a high potential in future high-speed ferroelectric memory applications with excellent stability and recovery capability.

Impact of multi-domain effect on the effective carrier mobility of ferroelectric field-effect transistor.

HfO2-based ferroelectric field-effect transistors (FeFETs) are a promising candidate for multilevel memory manipulation and brain-like computing due to the multi-domain properties of the HfO2FE films based polycrystalline structure. Although there have been many reports on the working mechanism of the HfO2-based FeFET and improving its reliability, the impact of multi-domain effect on the effective carrier mobility (µchannel) has not been carried out yet. The effectiveµchanneldetermines the level of readout current and affects the accuracy of the precision of peripheral circuit. In this work, FeFETs with HfZrOxFE gate dielectric were fabricated, and the effect of write (or erase) pulses with linear gradient variation on the effectiveµchannelwas studied. For the multiple downward polarization under write pulses, theµchanneldegrades as the domains gradually switch to downward. This is mainly due to the enhancement of the scattering effect induced by the positive charges (e.g. oxygen vacanciesVO2+) trapping and the increase of channel carrier density. For the erase pulses, theµchannelincreases as the domains gradually reverse to upward, which is mainly due to the reduction of the scattering effect induced by the detrapping of positive charges and the decrease of channel carrier density. In addition, the modulation effect of multilevel polarization states onµchannelis verified by numerical simulation. This effect provides a new idea and solution for the development of low power HfO2-based FeFETs in neuromorphic computing.

Synthesis of phytic acid-modified chitosan and the research of the corrosion inhibition and antibacterial properties.

In this study, chitosan (CS) and phytic acid (PA) were employed as raw materials to synthesize a range of chitosan-phytic acid complexes (CP) with different ratios (CS:PA = 12:1, 9:1, 6:1, 3:1, 1:1). The structures and elemental compositions of the compounds were characterized using Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). The thermal stability of the synthesized materials was analyzed using a Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TG). Electrochemical testing was conducted to explore the corrosion inhibition effect of the modified inhibitors with varying ratios on Q235 steel in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. Additionally, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) was utilized to investigate the surface morphology of the immersed samples. When the CS:PA ratio was 3:1, CP exhibited an impressive corrosion inhibition efficiency of 94.9 %. Furthermore, the antimicrobial properties of CP were evaluated using the colony plate counting method. At a CS:PA ratio of 1:1, CP demonstrated the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) at 0.1250 % and 0.5000 %, respectively. This research introduces a novel green corrosion inhibitor capable of simultaneously reducing the electrochemical corrosion of Q235 while inhibiting biocorrosion, avoiding the antagonistic effects arising from the simultaneous use of biocides and corrosion inhibitors in the system.

Prognostic value of plasma 7-ketocholesterol in sepsis.

BACKGROUND: Early evaluation of the severity of sepsis and estimation of its prognosis remains one of the main challenges in current therapeutic strategies. This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic value of plasma 7-ketocholesterol (7-KC) in sepsis. METHODS: We retrospectively measured by liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) the plasma 7-KC concentration in 176 patients with sepsis and 90 healthy volunteers. A multivariate Cox proportional hazard model was introduced to identify independent factors, including plasma 7-KC and clinical features, for the 28-day mortality of sepsis, and a nomogram for predicting the 28-day mortality of sepsis was established. Decision curve analysis (DCA) was performed to assess the prediction model of death risk of sepsis. RESULTS: The area under the curve (AUC) of plasma 7-KC in diagnosing sepsis was 0.899 (95% CI = 0.862-0.935, P < 0.001), while it was 0.830 (95% CI = 0.764-0.894, P < 0.001) in diagnosing septic shock. The AUCs of plasma 7-KC in predicting the survival of sepsis patients in the training cohort and the test cohort were 0.770 (95% CI = 0.692-0.848, P < 0.05) and 0.869 (95% CI = 0.763-0.974, P < 0.05), respectively. In addition, high plasma 7-KC expression predicts poor prognosis in sepsis. Then, 7-KC and platelet count were identified as the two factors with significant differences by a multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, and the 28-day mortality probability ranged from 0.002 to 0.985 and was assessed using a nomogram. DCA results revealed that the combination of plasma 7-KC and platelet count showed the best prognostic efficiency of the risk threshold compared to a single factor in both the training cohort and test cohort. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, the elevated plasma 7-KC level is an indicator of sepsis and was identified as a prognostic indicator for sepsis patients, providing a landscape for predicting survival in early sepsis with potential clinical utility.

SPT: Single Pedestrian Tracking Framework with Re-Identification-Based Learning Using the Siamese Model.

Pedestrian tracking is a challenging task in the area of visual object tracking research and it is a vital component of various vision-based applications such as surveillance systems, human-following robots, and autonomous vehicles. In this paper, we proposed a single pedestrian tracking (SPT) framework for identifying each instance of a person across all video frames through a tracking-by-detection paradigm that combines deep learning and metric learning-based approaches. The SPT framework comprises three main modules: detection, re-identification, and tracking. Our contribution is a significant improvement in the results by designing two compact metric learning-based models using Siamese architecture in the pedestrian re-identification module and combining one of the most robust re-identification models for data associated with the pedestrian detector in the tracking module. We carried out several analyses to evaluate the performance of our SPT framework for single pedestrian tracking in the videos. The results of the re-identification module validate that our two proposed re-identification models surpass existing state-of-the-art models with increased accuracies of 79.2% and 83.9% on the large dataset and 92% and 96% on the small dataset. Moreover, the proposed SPT tracker, along with six state-of-the-art (SOTA) tracking models, has been tested on various indoor and outdoor video sequences. A qualitative analysis considering six major environmental factors verifies the effectiveness of our SPT tracker under illumination changes, appearance variations due to pose changes, changes in target position, and partial occlusions. In addition, quantitative analysis based on experimental results also demonstrates that our proposed SPT tracker outperforms the GOTURN, CSRT, KCF, and SiamFC trackers with a success rate of 79.7% while beating the DiamSiamRPN, SiamFC, CSRT, GOTURN, and SiamMask trackers with an average of 18 tracking frames per second.

Effect of spatial distortions in head-mounted displays on visually induced motion sickness.

Incomplete optical distortion correction in VR HMDs leads to spatial dynamic distortion, which is a potential cause of VIMS. A perception experiment is designed for the investigation with three spatial distortion levels, with the subjective SSQ, five-scale VIMS level rating, and objective postural instability adopted as the evaluation metrics. The results show that the factor of spatial distortion level has a significant effect on all metrics increments (p<0.05). As the spatial distortion level drops off, the increments of VIMS symptoms decrease. The study highlights the importance of perfect spatial distortion correction in VR HMDs for eliminating the potential VIMS aggravation effect.

Successful Treatment of Balamuthia mandrillaris Granulomatous Amebic Encephalitis with Nitroxoline.

A patient in California, USA, with rare and usually fatal Balamuthia mandrillaris granulomatous amebic encephalitis survived after receiving treatment with a regimen that included the repurposed drug nitroxoline. Nitroxoline, which is a quinolone typically used to treat urinary tract infections, was identified in a screen for drugs with amebicidal activity against Balamuthia.

Event-triggered interval estimation method for cyber-physical systems with unknown inputs.

The issue of secure estimation for cyber-physical systems subject to unknown inputs and stealthy deception attacks is addressed in this paper. First, the unknown inputs are treated as augmented state and on the basis of that, the original plant is transformed into a singular system, which is decoupled with the unknown inputs. Then, for the purpose of reducing communication burden and avoiding congestion in the network, the event-triggered mechanism is introduced. Two approaches are presented to accomplish state estimation. The former one is known as the monotone system method. In the latter method, an input-to-state stable robust observer is constructed and by using the set-membership method, approximated estimation error is obtained. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by two illustrative examples.

Safety of oral nemonoxacin: A systematic review of clinical trials and postmarketing surveillance.

Background: Postmarketing safety analysis is an effective supplement for new drugs in clinical practice. Therefore, we aimed to systematically assess the safety of oral nemonoxacin malate, the first approved C-8-methoxy non-fluorinated quinolone, in clinical studies and via postmarketing safety surveillance. Methods: We electronically and manually searched and screened safety data (including premarketing and postmarketing data) of oral nemonoxacin from clinical registries. We standardized and summarized the reported adverse events according to the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities System Organ Class and Preferred Terms. We summarized and reported the number and frequency (%) of the AEs and serious AEs in patients with community-acquired pneumonia and in specific patients. Results: Three Phase II/III comparator studies (n = 670, nemonoxacin), one Phase IV study (n = 461), two special population pharmacokinetic studies (n = 40), four observational studies (n = 1,852), and one 5-year postmarketing surveillance project (n = 257,420) were included in this study. The Phase II/III studies showed that the commonly reported drug-related AEs were similar for oral 500 mg nemonoxacin and levofloxacin treatments, which mainly included increased alanine aminotransferase levels (4.4% vs. 2.5%), neutropenia (2.5% vs. 4.4%), nausea (2.5% vs. 1.6%), and leukopenia (2.3% vs. 3.2%). No drug-related deaths were reported. Postmarketing safety surveillance revealed that known adverse drug reaction characteristics were generally unchanged. Pharmacokinetic data suggested that dose adjustment was not necessary in elderly patients, which was confirmed by a Phase IV study in an elderly population, in patients with renal impairment with CLcr ≥50 ml/min, and in those with mild-to-moderate hepatic impairment. Conclusion: Clinical trial data of approximately 1,450 patients and postmarketing data of >257,420 patients suggest that nemonoxacin is generally well tolerated and can be a suitable alternative to fluoroquinolones for patients with CAP.

Neutralizing Immunity Induced Against the Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 Variants in Vaccine Breakthrough Infections.

BACKGROUND: As of early 2022, the Omicron variants are the predominant circulating lineages globally. Understanding neutralizing antibody responses against Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 after vaccine breakthrough infections will provide insights into BA.2 infectivity and susceptibility to subsequent reinfection. METHODS: Live virus neutralization assays were used to study immunity against Delta and Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 variants in samples from 86 individuals, 24 unvaccinated (27.9%) and 62 vaccinated (72.1%), who were infected with Delta (n = 42, 48.8%) or BA.1 (n = 44, 51.2%). Among the 62 vaccinated individuals, 39 were unboosted (62.9%), whereas 23 were boosted (37.1%). RESULTS: In unvaccinated infections, neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) against the three variants were weak or undetectable, except against Delta for Delta-infected individuals. Both Delta and BA.1 breakthrough infections resulted in strong nAb responses against ancestral wild-type and Delta lineages, but moderate nAb responses against BA.1 and BA.2, with similar titers between unboosted and boosted individuals. Antibody titers against BA.2 were generally higher than those against BA.1 in breakthrough infections. CONCLUSIONS: These results underscore the decreased immunogenicity of BA.1 compared to BA.2, insufficient neutralizing immunity against BA.2 in unvaccinated individuals, and moderate to strong neutralizing immunity induced against BA.2 in Delta and BA.1 breakthrough infections.

Neutralizing immunity in vaccine breakthrough infections from the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron and Delta variants.

Virus-like particle (VLP) and live virus assays were used to investigate neutralizing immunity against Delta and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants in 259 samples from 128 vaccinated individuals. Following Delta breakthrough infection, titers against WT rose 57-fold and 3.1-fold compared with uninfected boosted and unboosted individuals, respectively, versus only a 5.8-fold increase and 3.1-fold decrease for Omicron breakthrough infection. Among immunocompetent, unboosted patients, Delta breakthrough infections induced 10.8-fold higher titers against WT compared with Omicron (p = 0.037). Decreased antibody responses in Omicron breakthrough infections relative to Delta were potentially related to a higher proportion of asymptomatic or mild breakthrough infections (55.0% versus 28.6%, respectively), which exhibited 12.3-fold lower titers against WT compared with moderate to severe infections (p = 0.020). Following either Delta or Omicron breakthrough infection, limited variant-specific cross-neutralizing immunity was observed. These results suggest that Omicron breakthrough infections are less immunogenic than Delta, thus providing reduced protection against reinfection or infection from future variants.

Enantioselective Dearomative [3 + 2] Umpolung Annulation of N-Heteroarenes with Alkynes.

Enantioselective [3 + 2] annulation of N-heteroarenes with alkynes has been developed via a cobalt-catalyzed dearomative umpolung strategy in the presence of chiral ligand and reducing reagent. A variety of electron-deficient N-heteroarenes, including quinolines, isoquinolines, quinoxaline, and pyridines, and internal or terminal alkynes are employed in this reaction, showing a broad substrate scope and good functionality tolerance. Annulation of electron-rich indoles with alkynes is also developed. This protocol provides a straightforward access to a variety of N-spiroheterocyclic molecules in excellent enantioselectivities (76 examples, up to 99% ee).

Predominance of antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants in vaccine breakthrough cases from the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Associations between vaccine breakthrough cases and infection by different SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants have remained largely unexplored. Here we analysed SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequences and viral loads from 1,373 persons with COVID-19 from the San Francisco Bay Area from 1 February to 30 June 2021, of which 125 (9.1%) were vaccine breakthrough infections. Vaccine breakthrough infections were more commonly associated with circulating antibody-resistant variants carrying ≥1 mutation associated with decreased antibody neutralization (L452R/Q, E484K/Q and/or F490S) than infections in unvaccinated individuals (78% versus 48%, P = 1.96 × 10-8). Differences in viral loads were non-significant between unvaccinated and fully vaccinated cases overall (P = 0.99) and according to lineage (P = 0.09-0.78). Symptomatic vaccine breakthrough infections had comparable viral loads (P = 0.64), whereas asymptomatic breakthrough infections had decreased viral loads (P = 0.023) compared with infections in unvaccinated individuals. In 5 cases with serial samples available for serologic analyses, vaccine breakthrough infections were found to be associated with low or undetectable neutralizing antibody levels attributable to an immunocompromised state or infection by an antibody-resistant lineage. Taken together, our results show that vaccine breakthrough infections are overrepresented by antibody-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants, and that symptomatic breakthrough infections may be as efficient in spreading COVID-19 as unvaccinated infections, regardless of the infecting lineage.

Consensus control of multi-agent systems with P-one-sided Lipschitz.

This paper investigates the consensus problem for a class of multi-agent systems with P-one-sided Lipschitz nonlinearity. This nonlinearity offers a significant extension to application range of existing consensus control protocol design methods, which removes the assumption of the quadratic inner-boundedness. To solve this problem, a strongly connected graph topology is applied within the consensus protocol design framework. Moreover, the leader-following scenario is addressed under the graph topology. Under the above objectives, sufficient conditions are employed to yield consensus. Two examples are performed to illustrate the properties.

4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B as a novel tubulin polymerization inhibitor suppressed the proliferation and migration of acute myeloid leukaemia cells.

BACKGROUND: Recent years, survival rates of human with high-risk acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) have not raised substantially. This research aimed to investigate the role of 4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B, for the treatment of human AML. METHODS: Firstly, we evaluated the effects of six chalcones on AML cells activity by MTT assay. Immunofluorescence staining, tubulin polymerization assay and N,N'-ethylenebis (iodoacetamide) (EBI) competition assay were performed on ML-2 cells. Transwell and apoptosis assay were also utilized in ML-2 cells and OCI-AML5 cells. The expressions of migration-related proteins, apoptosis-related proteins and Wnt/ß-catenin pathway were detected by Western Blot. RESULTS: The results found six chalcones exhibited the anti-proliferative activity against different AML cell lines. Based on the results of immunofluorescence staining, tubulin polymerization assay and EBI competition assay, 4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B was discovered to be a novel colchicine site tubulin polymerization inhibitor. 4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B could induce apoptosis, inhibit proliferation and migration of ML-2 cells and OCI-AML5 cells. The cells were arrested in the G2-M phase by the treatment of 4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B. In addition, 4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B regulated MAPK and Wnt/ß-catenin pathways in AML cells. CONCLUSION: 4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B might inhibit proliferation and migration of the AML cells by MAPK and Wnt/ß-catenin pathways as a tubulin polymerization inhibitor. It is promising for 4'-O-Methylbroussochalcone B to become a new drug to treat AML.

Detecting and correlating bacterial populations to visual color change of polydiacetylene-coated filters.

Membrane filters were coated with 10,12-pentacosadiynoic acid (PCDA) then polymerized on the filter for rapid bacterial detection and quantification. The polymerized PCDA (pPDCA)-coated filter changed color in response to Salmonella Typhimurium and Escherichia coli but not to Listeria innocua. The time required for color change of pPCDA-coated filters was determined by a visual panel. A simple linear regression model was generated to fit the observed data and was validated with goodness of fit analysis and residual analysis. The pPCDA-filter method estimated Salmonella Typhimurium populations of 8 to 3 log CFU ml-1 within 1.5-7.5 h, respectively.

Synthesis of Polymer Single-Chain Nanoparticle with High Compactness in Cosolvent Condition: A Computer Simulation Study.

Polymeric single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) are soft nano-objects synthesized by intramolecular crosslinking of isolated single polymer chains. Syntheses of such SCNPs usually need to be performed in a dilute solution. In such a condition, the bonding probability of the two active crosslinking units at a short contour distance along the chain backbone is much higher than those which are far away from each other. Such a reaction condition often results in local spheroidization and, therefore, the formation of loosely packed structures. How to inhibit the local spheroidization and improve the compactness of SCNPs is thus a major challenge for the syntheses of SCNPs. In this study, computer simulations are performed and the fact that a precollapse of the polymer chain conformation in a cosolvent condition can largely improve the probability of the crosslinking reactions at large contour distances is demonstrated, favoring the formations of closely packed globular structures. As a result, the formed SCNPs can be more spherical and have higher compactness than those fabricated in ultradilute good solvent solution in a conventional way. It is believed this simulation work can provide a insight into the effective syntheses of SCNPs with spherical conformations and high compactness.

A novel angiotensin-I converting enzyme inhibitory peptide derived from the glutelin of vinegar soaked black soybean and its antihypertensive effect in spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Vinegar soaked black soybean is a traditional Chinese food widely used for the treatment of hypertension. While its pharmacodynamic substance was not fully unveiled. It contained abundant glutelin, thus the purpose of this study was to obtain potent antihypertensive peptides from vinegar soaked black soybean. Black soybean was soaked with vinegar and then glutelin was first catalyzed by alcalase. Ultrafiltration, ion exchange chromatography and reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography were sequentially applied to separate and purify the angiotensin-I converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory peptides from glutelin hydrolysates. As a result, the fraction L1-4 with the highest ACE inhibitory activity (83.41%) at the final concentration of 0.01 mg/ml was obtained and five peptides were then identified. These peptides were further optimized by virtual screening combining with in silico proteolysis. Finally, a novel tetrapeptide Phe-Gly-Ser-Phe (FGSF) was obtained. FGSF exhibited high in vitro ACE inhibitory activity (IC50 = 117.11 µM) and in vivo hypotensive effect which maximally reduced systolic blood pressure of 21.95 mmHg at 20 mg/kg body weight in spontaneously hypertensive rats. Our study demonstrated that FGSF derived from vinegar soaked black soybean might be used as a promising ingredient for pharmaceuticals against hypertension and its related diseases.

Methodological quality evaluation of systematic reviews or meta-analyses on ERCC1 in non-small cell lung cancer: a systematic review.

PURPOSES: To assess the methodological quality of systematic reviews (SRs) or meta-analysis concerning the predictive value of ERCC1 in platinum chemotherapy of non-small cell lung cancer. METHODS: We searched the PubMed, EMbase, Cochrane library, international prospective register of systematic reviews, Chinese BioMedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan Fang and VIP database for SRs or meta-analysis. The methodological quality of included literatures was evaluated by risk of bias in systematic review (ROBIS) scale. RESULTS: Nineteen eligible SRs/meta-analysis were included. The most frequently searched databases were EMbase (74%), PubMed, Medline and CNKI. Fifteen SRs did additional retrieval manually, but none of them retrieved the registration platform. 47% described the two-reviewers model in the screening for eligible original articles, and seven SRs described the two reviewers to extract data. In methodological quality assessment, inter-rater reliability Kappa was 0.87 between two reviewers. Research question were well related to all SRs in phase 1 and the eligibility criteria was suitable for each SR, and rated as 'low' risk bias. But the 'high' risk bias existed in all the SRs regarding methods used to identify and/or select studies, and data collection and study appraisal. More than two-third of SRs or meta-analysis were finished with high risk of bias in the synthesis, findings and the final phase. CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrated poor methodological quality of SRs/meta-analysis assessing the predictive value of ERCC1 in chemotherapy among the NSCLC patients, especially the high performance bias. Registration or publishing the protocol is recommended in future research.