Genetic and biological properties of H9N2 avian influenza viruses isolated in central China from2020 to 2022

The H9N2 subtype of avian influenza virus(AIV)is widely prevalent in poultry and wild birds globally,and has become the predominant subtype circulating in poultry in China.The H9N2 AIV can directly or indirectly(by serving as a"donor virus")infect humans,posing a significant threat to public health.Currently,there is a lack of in-depth research on the prevalence of H9N2 viruses in Shanxi Province,central China.In this study,we isolated 14 H9N2 AIVs from October 2020 to April 2022 in Shanxi Province,and genetic analysis revealed that these viruses belonged to 7 different genotypes.Our study on animals revealed that the H9N2 strains we identified displayed high transmission efficiency among chicken populations,and exhibited diverse replication abilities within these birds.These viruses could replicate efficiently in the lungs of mice,with one strain also demonstrating the capacity to reproduce in organs like the brain and kidneys.At the cellular level,the replication ability of different H9N2 strains was evaluated using plaque formation assays and multi-step growth curve assays,revealing significant differences in the replication and proliferation efficiency of the various H9N2 viruses at the cellular level.The antigenicity analysis suggested that these isolates could be classified into 2 separate antigenic clusters.Our research provides crucial data to help understand the prevalence and biological characteristics of H9N2 AIVs in central China.It also highlights the necessity of enhancing the surveillance of H9N2 AIVs.

RAIENet:End-to-End Multitasking Road All Information Extractor

Road lanes and markings are the bases for autonomous driving environment perception.In this paper,we propose an end-to-end multi-task network,Road All Information Extractor named RAIENet,which aims to extract the full information of the road surface including road lanes,road markings and their correspondences.Based on the prior knowledge of pavement information,we explore and use the deep progressive relationship between lane segmentation and pavement mark-ing detection.Then,different attention mechanisms are adapted for different tasks.A lane detection accuracy of 0.807 F1-score and a ground marking accuracy of 0.971 mean average precision at intersection over union(IOU)threshold 0.5 were achieved on the newly labeled see more on road plus(CeyMo+)dataset.Of course,we also validated it on two well-known datasets Berkeley Deep-Drive 100K(BDD100K)and CULane.In addition,a post-processing method for generating bird’s eye view lane(BEVLane)using lidar point cloud information is proposed,which is used for the construction of high-definition maps and subsequent decision-making planning.The code and data are available at https://github.com/mayberpf/RAIEnet.

Biomass-derived nitrogen-doped hierarchical porous carbon as efficient sulfur host for lithium–sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur(Li-S) battery is a potential energy storage technology with high energy density and low cost. However, the gap between theoretical expectation and practical performance limits its wide implementation. Herein, we report a nitrogen-doped porous carbon derived from biomass pomelo peel as sulfur host material for Li-S batteries. The hierarchical porous architecture and the polar surface introduced by N-doping render a favorable combination of physical and chemical sulfur confinements as well as an expedite electron/ion transfer, thus contributing to a facilitated and stabilized sulfur electrochemistry. As a result, the corresponding sulfur composite electrodes exhibit an ultrahigh initial capacity of 1534.6 mAh g^-1, high coulombic efficiency over 98% upon 300 cycles, and decent rate capability up to 2 C. This work provides an economical and effective strategy for the fabrication of advanced carbonaceous sulfur host material as well as the significant improvement of Li-S battery performance.

A novel design of 3D carbon host for stable lithium metal anode

Rational design of porous conductive hosts with high electrical conductivity,large surface area,and adequate interior space is desirable to suppressing dendritic lithium growth and accommodating large volume change of lithium metal anode during the Li plating/stripping process.However,due to the conductive nature of the conductive hosts,Li is easily deposited directly on the top of the hosts,which hinders it from fully functioning.To circumvent the issue,in this study,we designed a novel porous carbon host with a gradient-pore-size structure based on one-dimensional(1D)carbon with different diameters.With this kind of host,stable cycling with high and stable Coulombic efficiency of~98%is achieved at 0.5 mA cm^(−2) with an areal capacity of 1 mAh cm^(−2) over 320 cycles.In contrast,the normal three-dimensional(3D)carbon nanotube host presents a moss-like Li morphology with wildly fluctuating Coulombic efficiency after 100 cycles.The results reveal that the unique gradient-pore-size structure of the 3D conductive host greatly improves the performance of lithium metal batteries.

Rapid Survey of Total Protein Content in Mycelia of Oyster Mushroom Based on Near Infrared Spectroscopy

Using the total protein content in mycelia of oyster mushroom cultured in plate medium as the index, the spectral information in 1 000-1 799 nm region was collected to establish a quantitative prediction model for the parameters of strains through partial least squares regression combined with chemometrics. The results showed that the optimal spectral pretreatment method was the combination of Savitzky-Golay smoothing＋Savitzky-Golay derivative＋MSC＋Mean-Centefing. Parameters of the quantitative model including RC, SEC, RP, SEP, MF, SEP /SEC were all in the reasonable regions. The correlation coefficient of the real value and predictive value of the model was 0.672 63. The prediction model had better reliability, robustness and predictive effects, so it could be used for protein content detection in mycelia.

Solid rocket motor propellant grain burnback simulation based on fast minimum distance function calculation and improved marching tetrahedron method

To efficiently compute arbitrary propellant grain evolution of the burning surface with uniform and non-uniform burning rate for solid rocket motor,a unified framework of burning surface regression simulation has been developed based on minimum distance function.In order to speed up the computation of the mini-mum distance between grid nodes of grain and the triangular mesh of burning surface,a fast distance querying method based on the equal size cube voxel structure was employed.An improved marching tetrahedron method based on piecewise linear approximation was carried out on second-order tetrahedral elements,achieved high-efficiency and adequate accuracy of burning surface extraction simultaneously.The cases of star grain,finocyl grain,and non-uniform tube grain were studied to verify the proposed method.The observed result indicates that the grain burnback computation method could realize the accurate simulation on unstructured tetrahedral mesh with a desirable performance on computational time.

Analysis of floc morphology in a continuous-flow flocculation and sedimentation reactor

The floc morphology was investigated in a continuous-flow reactor, in order to understand the evolution of flocs in practical flocculation and sedimentation processes in water utilities. Kaolin-humic acid suspension was used as the test water, and polyaluminum chloride was chosen as the coagulant. An in-situ recognition system was applied to analyze the floc size, boundary fractal dimension, and eccentricity ratios. Particle numbers and turbidity were also determined in the sedimentation stage. At a coagulant dose of 1 mg/L as Al, the average floc size increased from 62 to 78 μm and the boundary fractal dimension was around 1.14, suggesting that flocs were compact and continuously grew during the entire flocculation process. However, with the dose increased to 5 mg/L, the average floc size decreased and stabilized at around 65 μm, with the fractal dimension of 1.20. It can be concluded that the excess coagulant doses resulted in the formation of chain-shaped, lower density, and more branched structure flocs, thereby restricting flocs’ further growth in the subsequent flocculation. Floc morphology analysis suggested that charge neutralization dominated in the initial flocculation stage, then the bridge and sweep mechanisms were dominant in the subsequent flocculation. In addition, compared with the traditional inclined plate settler, a novel V-shaped plate settler introduced in this study had an advantage in small size floc（less than 5 μm） removal. The V-shaped region could promote aggregate restructuring and re-flocculation; therefore, the V-shaped plate settler provides an alternative method for sedimentation.

Advanced noble-metal-free bifunctional electrocatalysts for metal-air batteries

The sluggish reaction kinetics at the oxygen cathode is one of the important issues hindering the commercialization of the metal-air batteries.Although the noble metal can be used as the high-efficiency electrocatalyst to solve the problems to some extent,the high cost and scarcity of these noble-metal catalysts have limited their application in electrocatalysis.In this review,we discussed the mecha-nisms of the ORR and OER,and proposed the principles for the bifunctional electrocatalysts firstly,and then the state-of-the-art bifunctional catalysts,including carbon-based materials and transition-metal-based materials.On the basis of that,the self-supporting 3D noble-metal-free bifunctional ORR/OER catalysts were also discussed.Finally,the perspectives for the bifunctional electrocatalysts were discussed.

Representation of the Madden–Julian Oscillation in CAMS-CSM

The Madden–Julian Oscillation(MJO)has a significant impact on global weather and climate and can be used as a predictability resource in extended-term forecasting.We evaluate the ability of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences Climate System Model(CAMS-CSM)to represent the MJO by using the diagnostic method proposed by the US Climate Variability and Predictability Program(CLIVAR)MJO Working Group(MJOWG).In general,the model simulates some major characteristics of MJO well,such as the seasonality characteristics and geographical dependence,the intensity of intraseasonal variability(ISV),dominant periodicity,propagation characteristics,coherence between outgoing longwave radiation(OLR)and wind,and life cycle of MJO signals.However,there are a few biases in the model when compared with observational/reanalyzed data.These include an overestimate of precipitation in the convergence zone of the North and South Pacific,a slightly weaker eastward propagation,and a shift in the dominant periodicity toward lower frequencies with slower speeds of eastward propagation.The model gives a poor simulation of the northward propagation of MJO in summer and shows less coherence between the MJO convection and wind.The role of moistening in the planetary boundary layer(PBL)in the eastward/northward propagation of MJO was also explored.An accurate representation of the vertical titling structure of moisture anomalies in CAMS-CSM leads to moistening of the PBL ahead of convection,which accounts for the eastward/northward propagation of MJO.Poor simulation of the vertical structure of the wind and moisture anomalies in the western Pacific leads to a poor simulation of the northward propagation of MJO in this area.Budget analysis of the PBL integral moisture anomalies shows that the model gives a good simulation of the moisture charging process ahead of MJO convection and that the zonal advection of moisture convergence term has a primary role in the detour of MJO over the Maritime Continent.

Nickel-decorated TiO2 nanotube arrays as a self-supporting cathode for lithium-sulfur batteries

Lithium-sulfur batteries are considered to be one of the strong competitors to replace lithium-ion batteries due to their large energy density.However,the dissolution of discharge intermediate products to the electrolyte,the volume change and poor electric conductivity of sulfur greatly limit their further commercialization.Herein,we proposed a self-supporting cathode of nickel-decorated TiO2 nanotube arrays(TiO2 NTs@Ni)prepared by an anodization and electrodeposition method.The TiO2 NTs with large specific surface area provide abundant reaction space and fast transmission channels for ions and electrons.Moreover,the introduction of nickel can enhance the electric conductivity and the polysulfide adsorption ability of the cathode.As a result,the TiO2 NTs@Ni-S electrode exhibits significant improvement in cycling and rate performance over TiO2 NTs,and the discharge capacity of the cathode maintains 719 mA·h·g−1 after 100 cycles at 0.1 C.