A Review on Diagnostic Phytoliths for the Application in Paleovegetation Reconstruction and Environmental Archaeology in East Asia

Phytoliths are extensively utilized as an archaeobotanical indicator in paleovegetation reconstruction and environmental archaeology. Over the past two decades, numerous phytolith morphotypes, particularly those exhibiting diagnostic morphological features and over representative of source plants at the genus and species levels, were discovered and reported. These advancements have significantly contributed to phytolith-based vegetation reconstruction on different timescales, enhanced our understanding of prehistoric plant utilization, and elucidated cultivation and domestication processes of key crops in ancient agriculture. However, there are still inconsistencies and misunderstandings regarding the morphological characteristics of diagnostic phytoliths in various plant groups. This review highlighted the standardization in the classification and description of phytolith morphotypes, and summarized the advancements in phytolith morphology research over the past two decades. Morphological illustrations of diagnostic phytoliths from various plant groups, particularly key crops and their relatives from dryland and rice agriculture in East Asia, were presented as references for phytolith identification and application. Finally, this review proposes future directions for phytolith morphological studies, emphasizing the comprehensive consideration of anatomical structure and morphometric parameters, as well as the need for extensive research on modern plant phytoliths and control experiments on phytolith growth.

Ambient Backscatter Communications over NOMA Downlink Channels

In this paper,we investigate the performance of commensal ambient backscatter communications(AmBC)that ride on a non-ortho go nal multiple access(NOMA)downlink transmission,in which a backscatter device(BD)splits part of its received signals from the base station(BS)for energy harvesting,and backscatters the remaining received signals to transmit information to a cellular user.Specifically,under the power consumption constraint at BD and the peak transmit power constraint at BS,we derive the optimal reflection coefficient at BD,the optimal total transmit power at BS,and the optimal power allocation at BS for each transmission block to maximize the ergodic capacity of the ambient backscatter transmission on the premise of preserving the outage performance of the NOMA downlink transmission.Furthermore,we consider a scenario where the BS is restricted by a maximum allowed average transmit power and the reflection coefficient at BD is fixed due to BD’s low-complexity nature.An algorithm is developed to determine the optimal total transmit power and power allocation at BS for this scenario.Also,a low-complexity algorithm is proposed for this scenario to reduce the computational complexity and the signaling overheads.Finally,the performance of the derived solutions are studied and compared via numerical simulations.

Recent biomedical advances enabled by HaloTag technology

The knowledge of interactions among functional proteins helps researchers understand disease mechanisms and design potential strategies for treatment.As a general approach,the fluorescent and affinity tags were employed for exploring this field by labeling the Protein of Interest(POI).However,the autofluorescence and weak binding strength significantly reduce the accuracy and specificity of these tags.Conversely,HaloTag,a novel self-labeling enzyme(SLE)tag,could quickly form a covalent bond with its ligand,enabling fast and specific labeling of POI.These desirable features greatly increase the accuracy and specificity,making the HaloTag a valuable system for various applications ranging from imaging to immobilization of POI.Notably,the HaloTag technique has already been successfully employed in a series of studies with excellent efficiency.In this review,we summarize the development of HaloTag and recent advanced investigations associated with HaloTag,including in vitro imaging(e.g.,POI imaging,cellular condition monitoring,microorganism imaging,system development),in vivo imaging,biomolecule immobilization(e.g.,POI collection,protein/nuclear acid interaction and protein structure analysis),targeted degradation(e.g.,L-AdPROM),and more.We also present a systematic discussion regarding the future direction and challenges of the HaloTag technique.

Phonon dispersion relations of crystalline solids based on LAMMPS package

The phonon dispersion relations of crystalline solids play an important role in determining the mechanical and thermal properties of materials.The phonon dispersion relation,as well as the vibrational density of states,is also often used as an indicator of variation of lattice thermal conductivity with the external stress,defects,etc.In this study,a simple and fast tool is proposed to acquire the phonon dispersion relation of crystalline solids based on the LAMMPS package.The theoretical details for the calculation of the phonon dispersion relation are derived mathematically and the computational flow chart is present.The tool is first used to calculate the phonon dispersion relation of graphene with two atoms in the unit cell.Then,the phonon dispersions corresponding to several potentials or force fields,which are commonly used in the LAMMPS package to modeling the graphene,are obtained to compare with that from the DFT calculation.They are further extended to evaluate the accuracy of the used potentials before the molecular dynamics simulation.The tool is also used to calculate the phonon dispersion relation of superlattice structures that contains more than one hundred of atoms in the unit cell,which predicts the phonon band gaps along the cross-plane direction.Since the phonon dispersion relation plays an important role in the physical properties of condensed matter,the proposed tool for the calculation of the phonon dispersion relation is of great significance for predicting and explaining the mechanical and thermal properties of crystalline solids.

Parametric study on the flutter sensitivity of a wide-chord hollow fan blade

In recent years, the hollow fan blades have been widely used to meet the demand for light weight and good performance of the aero-engine. However, the relationship between the hollow structure and the aeroelastic stability has not been studied yet in the open literature. In this paper,it has been investigated for an H-shaped hollow fan blade. Before studying the flutter behavior, the methods of parametric modeling and auto-generation of Finite Element Model(FEM) are presented. The influence of the feature parameters on the vibration frequency and mode shape(as the input of flutter calculation) of the first three modes are analyzed by the Orthogonal Experimental Design(OED) method. The results show that the parameters have a more remarkable impact on the first torsional mode and thus it is concerned in the flutter sensitivity analysis. Compared with the solid blade, the minimum aerodynamic damping of the hollow blade decreases, indicating that the hollow structure makes the aeroelastic stability worse. For the parameters describing the hollow section, the rib number N has the greatest influence on the minimum aerodynamic damping, followed by the wall thickness W5. For the parameters in the height of hollow segment, the aerodynamic damping increases with the increase of parameters M1 and M2. This means that reducing the height of the hollow segment is helpful to improve the aeroelastic stability. Compared with the impact of parameters in hollow section, the variation of aerodynamic damping caused by the height of the hollow segment is small.