Review of advanced road materials, structures, equipment, and detection technologies

As a vital and integral component of transportation infrastructure,pavement has a direct and tangible impact on socio-economic sustainability.In recent years,an influx of groundbreaking and state-of-the-art materials,structures,equipment,and detection technologies related to road engineering have continually and progressively emerged,reshaping the landscape of pavement systems.There is a pressing and growing need for a timely summarization of the current research status and a clear identification of future research directions in these advanced and evolving technologies.Therefore,Journal of Road Engineering has undertaken the significant initiative of introducing a comprehensive review paper with the overarching theme of“advanced road materials,structures,equipment,and detection technologies”.This extensive and insightful review meticulously gathers and synthesizes research findings from 39 distinguished scholars,all of whom are affiliated with 19 renowned universities or research institutions specializing in the diverse and multidimensional field of highway engineering.It covers the current state and anticipates future development directions in the four major and interconnected domains of road engineering:advanced road materials,advanced road structures and performance evaluation,advanced road construction equipment and technology,and advanced road detection and assessment technologies.

Particle swarm optimization-based algorithm of a symplectic method for robotic dynamics and control

Multibody system dynamics provides a strong tool for the estimation of dynamic performances and the optimization of multisystem robot design. It can be described with differential algebraic equations(DAEs). In this paper, a particle swarm optimization(PSO) method is introduced to solve and control a symplectic multibody system for the first time. It is first combined with the symplectic method to solve problems in uncontrolled and controlled robotic arm systems. It is shown that the results conserve the energy and keep the constraints of the chaotic motion, which demonstrates the efficiency, accuracy, and time-saving ability of the method. To make the system move along the pre-planned path, which is a functional extremum problem, a double-PSO-based instantaneous optimal control is introduced. Examples are performed to test the effectiveness of the double-PSO-based instantaneous optimal control. The results show that the method has high accuracy, a fast convergence speed, and a wide range of applications.All the above verify the immense potential applications of the PSO method in multibody system dynamics.

A core epitope targeting antibody of SARS-CoV-2

Dear Editor,Tremendous efforts have been made globally to develop therapeutics and prophylactics against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2(SARS-CoV-2)which has caused thousands of millions of infections and deaths worldwide.A series of potent neutralizing antibodies with defined epitopes targeting RBD have been recently identified with different strategies.However,being an RNA virus,the instability of the SARS-CoV-2 genome results in numerous S-protein variants with altered viral phenotypes.

New innovations in pavement materials and engineering:A review on pavement engineering research 2021

Sustainable and resilient pavement infrastructure is critical for current economic and environmental challenges.In the past 10 years,the pavement infrastructure strongly supports the rapid development of the global social economy.New theories,new methods,new technologies and new materials related to pavement engineering are emerging.Deterioration of pavement infrastructure is a typical multi-physics problem.Because of actual coupled behaviors of traffic and environmental conditions,predictions of pavement service life become more and more complicated and require a deep knowledge of pavement material analysis.In order to summarize the current and determine the future research of pavement engineering,Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering(English Edition)has launched a review paper on the topic of"New innovations in pavement materials and engineering:A review on pavement engineering research 2021".Based on the joint-effort of 43 scholars from 24 well-known universities in highway engineering,this review paper systematically analyzes the research status and future development direction of 5 major fields of pavement engineering in the world.The content includes asphalt binder performance and modeling,mixture performance and modeling of pavement materials,multi-scale mechanics,green and sustainable pavement,and intelligent pavement.Overall,this review paper is able to provide references and insights for researchers and engineers in the field of pavement engineering.

Key elements for designing and performing a CRISPR/Cas9-based genetic screen

Reverse genetic screens are invaluable for uncovering gene functions, but are traditionally hampered by some technical limitations. Over the past few years, since the advent of the revolutionary CRISPR/Cas9 technology, its power in genome editing has been harnessed to overcome the traditional limitations in reverse genetic screens, with successes in various biological contexts. Here, we outline these CRISPR/Cas9-based screens, provide guidance on the design of effective screens and discuss the potential future directions of development of this field.

CAR trafficking does matter:prospects of‘Chimeric antigen receptor designed to prevent ubiquitination and downregulation showed durable antitumor efficacy’

Chimeric antigen receptor(CAR)is a synthetic antigen receptor containing a specific antigen-recognition ectodomain to make T cells selectively attack cancer cells,a hinge-transmembrane region to confer stable surface expression,and one or more intracellular signaling domains to regulate T-cell activation.CAR T-cell therapy has produced unprecedented clinical outcomes for treating cancers,particularly B-cell malignancies.However,increasing clinic data reveal some limitations of current CAR T therapies.For example,>30%of B-cell malignancy patients who initially achieved complete remission encountered relapses after 1-year infusion of CAR T cells.In case of solid tumors,most of the patients did not benefit from CAR T treatment(Park et al.,2018;Schmidts and Maus,2018).CAR T-cell persistence,defined as how long CAR T cells could survive in vivo after infusion into patients,is one of the major factors affecting the clinical outcomes of CAR T therapy(Porter et al.,2015).Therefore,it is important to understand the molecular mechanism(s)controlling the persistence of CAR T cells.

A protective AAV vaccine for SARS-CoV-2

Dear Editor,Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2(SARS-CoV-2)has caused the COVID-19 pandemic,with more than 528 million infections and 6.2 million deaths.To fight against this rapidly spreading pandemic,prophylactic vaccines have been developed using different techniques,such as inactivated virus,messenger RNAs,recombinant proteins,and viral-vectored vaccines.However,rapidly spreading variants of SARS-CoV-2,such as alpha,beta,delta,and omicron variants,have been emerging.