A dual-RPA based lateral flow strip for sensitive,on-site detection of CP4-EPSPS and Cry1Ab/Ac genes in genetically modified crops

Traditional transgenic detection methods require high test conditions and struggle to be both sensitive and efficient.In this study,a one-tube dual recombinase polymerase amplification(RPA)reaction system for CP4-EPSPS and Cry1Ab/Ac was proposed and combined with a lateral flow immunochromatographic assay,named“Dual-RPA-LFD”,to visualize the dual detection of genetically modified(GM)crops.In which,the herbicide tolerance gene CP4-EPSPS and the insect resistance gene Cry1Ab/Ac were selected as targets taking into account the current status of the most widespread application of insect resistance and herbicide tolerance traits and their stacked traits.Gradient diluted plasmids,transgenic standards,and actual samples were used as templates to conduct sensitivity,specificity,and practicality assays,respectively.The constructed method achieved the visual detection of plasmid at levels as low as 100 copies,demonstrating its high sensitivity.In addition,good applicability to transgenic samples was observed,with no cross-interference between two test lines and no influence from other genes.In conclusion,this strategy achieved the expected purpose of simultaneous detection of the two popular targets in GM crops within 20 min at 37°C in a rapid,equipmentfree field manner,providing a new alternative for rapid screening for transgenic assays in the field.

The Contribution of United States Aircraft Reconnaissance Data to the China Meteorological Administration Tropical Cyclone Intensity Data:An Evaluation of Homogeneity

This paper investigates the homogeneity of United States aircraft reconnaissance data and the impact of these data on the homogeneity of the tropical cyclone(TC)best track data for the seasons 1949-1987 generated by the China Meteorological Administration(CMA).The evaluation of the reconnaissance data shows that the minimum central sea level pressure(MCP)data are relatively homogeneous,whereas the maximum sustained wind(MSW)data show both overestimations and spurious abrupt changes.Statistical comparisons suggest that both the reconnaissance MCP and MSW were well incorporated into the CMA TC best track dataset.Although no spurious abrupt changes were evident in the reconnaissance-related best track MCP data,two spurious changepoints were identified in the remainder of the best-track MCP data.Furthermore,the influence of the reconnaissance MSWs seems to extend to the best track MSWs unrelated to reconnaissance,which might reflect the optimistic confidence in making higher estimates due to the overestimated extreme wind“observations”.In addition,the overestimation of either the reconnaissance MSWs or the best track MSWs was greater during the early decades compared to later decades,which reflects the important influence of reconnaissance data on the CMA TC best track dataset.The wind-pressure relationship(WPR)used in the CMA TC best track dataset is also evaluated and is found to overestimate the MSW,which may lead to inhomogeneity within the dataset between the aircraft reconnaissance era and the satellite era.

Role of macroscopic on-site evaluation of endoscopic ultrasoundguided fine-needle aspiration/biopsy:Results of a multicentric prospective study

BACKGROUND The concept of macroscopic on-site evaluation(MOSE)was introduced in 2015 when the endoscopist observed better diagnostic yield when the macroscopically visible core on MOSE was superior to 4 mm.Recent studies suggest that MOSE by the endoscopist may be an excellent alternative to rapid on-site evaluation,and some classi-fications have been published.Few studies have assessed the adequacy of histologic cores in MOSE during endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration/biopsy(EUS-FNA/FNB).AIM To evaluate the performance of MOSE during EUS-FNA/FNB.METHODS This multicentric prospective study was conducted in 16 centers in 3 countries(Egypt,Iraq,and Morocco)and included 1108 patients with pancreatic,biliary,or gastrointestinal pathology who were referred for EUS examination.We prospectively analyzed the MOSE in 1008 patients with available histopathological reports according to 2 classifications to determine the adequacy of the histological core samples.Data management and analysis were performed using a Statistical Package for Social Sciences(SPSS)version 27.RESULTS A total of 1074 solid lesions were biopsied in 1008 patients with available cytopathological reports.Mean age was 59 years,and 509 patients(50.5%)were male.The mean lesion size was 38 mm.The most frequently utilized needles were FNB-Franseen(74.5%)and 22 G(93.4%),with a median of 2 passes.According to 2 classifications,618 non-bloody cores(61.3%)and 964 good samples(95.6%)were adequate for histological evaluation.The overall diagnostic yield of cytopathology was 95.5%.The cytological examination confirmed the diagnosis of malignancy in 861 patients(85.4%),while 45 samples(4.5%)were inconclusive.Post-procedural adverse events occurred in 33 patients(3.3%).Statistical analysis showed a difference between needle types(P=0.035)with a high sensitivity of FNB(97%).The analysis of the relationship between the MOSE-score and the final diagnosis showed a significant difference between the different scores of the MOSE(P<0.001).CONCLUSION MOSE is a simple method that allows endoscopists to increase needle passes to improve sample quality.There is significantly higher FNB sensitivity and cytopathology diagnostic yield with good MOSE cores.

Support vector regression-based operational effectiveness evaluation approach to reconnaissance satellite system

As one of the most important part of weapon system of systems(WSoS),quantitative evaluation of reconnaissance satellite system(RSS)is indispensable during its construction and application.Aiming at the problem of nonlinear effectiveness evaluation under small sample conditions,we propose an evaluation method based on support vector regression(SVR)to effectively address the defects of traditional methods.Considering the performance of SVR is influenced by the penalty factor,kernel type,and other parameters deeply,the improved grey wolf optimizer(IGWO)is employed for parameter optimization.In the proposed IGWO algorithm,the opposition-based learning strategy is adopted to increase the probability of avoiding the local optima,the mutation operator is used to escape from premature convergence and differential convergence factors are applied to increase the rate of convergence.Numerical experiments of 14 test functions validate the applicability of IGWO algorithm dealing with global optimization.The index system and evaluation method are constructed based on the characteristics of RSS.To validate the proposed IGWO-SVR evaluation method,eight benchmark data sets and combat simulation are employed to estimate the evaluation accuracy,convergence performance and computational complexity.According to the experimental results,the proposed method outperforms several prediction based evaluation methods,verifies the superiority and effectiveness in RSS operational effectiveness evaluation.

Cheesy material on macroscopic on-site evaluation after endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy:Don't miss the tuberculosis

Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy(EUS-FNB)is an excellent investigation to diagnose pancreatic lesions and has shown high accuracy for its use in pathologic diagnosis.Recently,macroscopic on-site evaluation(MOSE)performed by an endoscopist was introduced as an alternative to rapid on-site cytologic evaluation to increase the diagnostic yield of EUS-FNB.The MOSE of the biopsy can estimate the adequacy of the sample directly by the macroscopic evaluation of the core tissue obtained from EUS-FNB.Isolated pancreatic tuberculosis is extremely rare and difficult to diagnose because of its non-specific signs and symptoms.Therefore,this challenging diagnosis is based on endoscopy,imaging,and the bacteriological and histological examination of tissue biopsies.This uncommon presentation of tuberculosis can be revealed as pancreatic mass mimicking cancer.EUS-FNB can be very useful in providing a valuable histopathological diagnosis.A calcified lesion with a cheesy core in MOSE must be suggestive of tuberculosis,leading to the request of the GeneXpert,which can detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis deoxyribonucleic acid and resistance to rifampicin.A decent diagnostic strategy is crucial to prevent unnecessary surgical resection and to supply conservative management with antitubercular therapy.

Analysis of detection capabilities of LEO reconnaissance satellite constellation based on coverage performance

In the design problem of low earth orbit(LEO) reconnaissance satellite constellation, optimization of coverage performance is the design goal in most current methods. However,in the using process, the user only concerns with the detection capabilities rather than coverage performance. To establish the relationship between these two aspects, the reconnaissance processes of normal stochastic targets are considered and the mathematic models of detection processes are built. The indicators of coverage performance are used to evaluate the detection probability and expectation of detection time delay, which are important factors in reconnaissance constellation estimation viewed from military intelligence discipline. The conclusions confirmed by the final simulation will be useful in LEO reconnaissance constellation design, optimization and evaluation.

Field reconnaissance of the 2007 Niigata-Chuetsu Oki earthquake

As part of the 2007 Tri-Center Field Mission to Japan, a reconnaissance team comprised of fourteen graduate students and three faculty members from three U.S. earthquake engineering research centers, namely, Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research （MCEER）, Mid-America Earthquake Center （MAE）, and Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center （PEER）, undertook a reconnaissance visit to the affected area shortly after the 2007 Niigata- Chuetsu Oki earthquake. This mission provided an opportunity to review the nature of the earthquake damage that occurred, as well as to assess the significance of the damage from an educational perspective. This paper reports on the seismological characteristics of the earthquake, preliminary findings of geotechnical and structural damage, and the causes of the observed failures or collapses. In addition, economic and socio-economic considerations and experiences to enhance earthquake resilience are presented.

Rapid on-site evaluation of endoscopic-ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration diagnosis of pancreatic masses

Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) has become an essential tool for the study of pancreatic diseases. Specifically, EUS plays a pivotal role evaluating patients with a known or suspected pancreatic mass. In this setting, differential diagnosis remains a clinical challenge. EUS-guided fine-needle aspiration (FNA) and fine-needle biopsy (FNB) have been proven to be safe and useful tools in this setting. EUS-guided FNA and FNB, by obtaining cytological and/or histological samples, are able to diagnose pancreatic lesions with high sensitivity and specificity. In this context, several methodological features, trying to increase the diagnostic yield of EUS-guided FNA and FNB, have been evaluated. In this review, we focus on the role of rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE). From data reported in the literature, ROSE may increase diagnostic yield of EUS-FNA specimens by 10%-30%, and thus, diagnostic accuracy. However, we should point out that many recent studies have reported adequacy rates of &#x0003e; 90% without ROSE, indicating that, perhaps, at high-volume centers, ROSE may not be indispensable to achieve excellent results. The use of ROSE can be considered important during the learning curve of EUS-FNA, and also in hospital with diagnostic accuracy rates &#x0003c; 90%.

Re-examining Tropical Cyclone Fullness Using Aircraft Reconnaissance Data

We use FLIGHT+ aircraft reconnaissance data for tropical cyclones(TCs) in the North Atlantic and Eastern Pacific from 1997 to 2015 to re-examine TC fullness(TCF) characteristics at the flight level.The results show a strong positive correlation between the flight-level TCF and the intensity of TCs,with the flight-level TCF increasing much more rapidly than the near-surface TCF with increasing intensity of the TCs.The tangential wind in small-TCF hurricanes is statistically significantly stronger near the eye center than that in large-TCF hurricanes.Large-TCF hurricanes have a ring-like vorticity structure.No significant correlation is observed between the flight-level TCF and the comparative extent of the vorticityskirt region occupied in the outer core skirt.The proportion of the rapid filamentation zone in the outer core skirt increases with increasing flight-level TCF.The differences in entropy between the radius of the maximum wind and the outer boundary of the outer core skirt also increase with increasing flight-level TCF.

Improved edge lightweight YOLOv4 and its application in on-site power system work

A“cloud-edge-end”collaborative system architecture is adopted for real-time security management of power system on-site work,and mobile edge computing equipment utilizes lightweight intelligent recognition algorithms for on-site risk assessment and alert.Owing to its lightweight and fast speed,YOLOv4-Tiny is often deployed on edge computing equipment for real-time video stream detection;however,its accuracy is relatively low.This study proposes an improved YOLOv4-Tiny algorithm based on attention mechanism and optimized training methods,achieving higher accuracy without compromising the speed.Specifically,a convolution block attention module branch is added to the backbone network to enhance the feature extraction capability and an efficient channel attention mechanism is added in the neck network to improve feature utilization.Moreover,three optimized training methods:transfer learning,mosaic data augmentation,and label smoothing are used to improve the training effect of this improved algorithm.Finally,an edge computing equipment experimental platform equipped with an NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX chip is established and the newly developed algorithm is tested on it.According to the results,the speed of the improved YOLOv4-Tiny algorithm in detecting on-site dress code compliance datasets is 17.25 FPS,and the mean average precision(mAP)is increased from 70.89%to 85.03%.

A multiple heterogeneous UAVs reconnaissance mission planning and re-planning algorithm

Reconnaissance mission planning of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)under an adversarial environment is a discrete combinatorial optimization problem which is proved to be a non-deterministic polynomial(NP)-complete problem.The purpose of this study is to research intelligent multiUAVs reconnaissance mission planning and online re-planning algorithm under various constraints in mission areas.For numerous targets scattered in the wide area,a reconnaissance mission planning and re-planning system is established,which includes five modules,including intelligence analysis,sub-mission area division,mission sequence planning,path smoothing,and online re-planning.The intelligence analysis module depicts the attribute of targets and the heterogeneous characteristic of UAVs and computes the number of sub-mission areas on consideration of voyage distance constraints.In the sub-mission area division module,an improved K-means clustering algorithm is designed to divide the reconnaissance mission area into several sub-mission areas,and each sub-mission is detected by the UAV loaded with various detective sensors.To control reconnaissance cost,the sampling and iteration algorithms are proposed in the mission sequence planning module,which are utilized to solve the optimal or approximately optimal reconnaissance sequence.In the path smoothing module,the Dubins curve is applied to smooth the flight path,which assure the availability of the planned path.Furthermore,an online re-planning algorithm is designed for the uncertain factor that the UAV is damaged.Finally,reconnaissance planning and re-planning experiment results show that the algorithm proposed in this paper are effective and the algorithms designed for sequence planning have a great advantage in solving efficiency and optimality.

Random Forests Algorithm Based Duplicate Detection in On-Site Programming Big Data Environment

On-site programming big data refers to the massive data generated in the process of software development with the characteristics of real-time,complexity and high-difficulty for processing.Therefore,data cleaning is essential for on-site programming big data.Duplicate data detection is an important step in data cleaning,which can save storage resources and enhance data consistency.Due to the insufficiency in traditional Sorted Neighborhood Method(SNM)and the difficulty of high-dimensional data detection,an optimized algorithm based on random forests with the dynamic and adaptive window size is proposed.The efficiency of the algorithm can be elevated by improving the method of the key-selection,reducing dimension of data set and using an adaptive variable size sliding window.Experimental results show that the improved SNM algorithm exhibits better performance and achieve higher accuracy.

Projectile-Borne Video Reconnaissance System

Aiming at applications as a projectile-borne video reconnaissance system, the overall design and prototype in principle of a mortar video reconnaissance system bomb were developed. Mortar launched test results show that the initial integrated system was capable of transmitting images through tens of kilometers with the image resolution identifying effectively tactical targets such as roads, hills, caverns, trees and rivers. The projectile-borne video reconnaissance system is able to meet the needs of tactical target identification and battle damage assessment for tactical operations. The study will provide significant technological support for further independent development.

New Explorations of Laboratory and On-site Testing of Broadband Seismographs in China

According to different testing purposes, methods and available environmental conditions, the seismograph testing can be divided into laboratory and on-site testing, respectively. The testing of the seismograph's key parameters and other concerning technical specifications are well described in guide documents(China Earthquake Administration, 2017). This includes seismometer sensitivity, linearity and clip levels based on the shake table test, as well as the seismometer natural period, damping constant based on electrical calibration(Wang Guangfu,1986; Ple?inger A.,1993) and instrumental self-noise collocation estimation(Holcomb L.G., 1989; Sleeman R. et al., 2006). However, with the development of seismic observation technology, many new requirements for the performance evaluation of seismographs have been put forward, and new testing items and methods have emerged.

Dynamical energy equipartition of the Toda model with additional on-site potentials

We study the dynamical energy equipartition properties in the integrable Toda model with additional uniform or disordered on-site energies by extensive numerical simulations. The total energy is initially equidistributed among some of the lowest frequency linear modes. For the Toda model with uniform on-site potentials, the energy spectrum keeps its profile nearly unchanged in a relatively short time scale. On a much longer time scale, the energies of tail modes increase slowly with time. Energy equipartition is far away from being attached in our studied time scale. For the Toda model with disordered on-site potentials, the energy transfers continuously to the high frequency modes and eventually towards energy equipartition. We further perform a systematic study of the equipartition time teq depending on the energy density ε and the nonlinear parameter α in the thermodynamic limit for the Toda model with disordered on-site potentials. We find teq∝ （1/ε）^a（1/α）^b, where b≈ 2a. The values of a and b are increased when increasing the strengths of disordered on-site potentials or decreasing the number of initially excited modes.

Increased Effluent Dosage Effects on On-Site Wastewater Treatment Systems of Differing Architecture Type

Approximately 20% of homes nationwide use an on-site treatment system as a form of household wastewater management. However, approximately 10% to 20% of on-site treatment systems malfunction each year, many of which have either failed or exceeded the soil’s long-term acceptance rate (LTAR), causing environmental and human health risks. The objective of this field study was to evaluate the effects of soil condition (e.g., wet and dry) and product architecture type [i.e., chamber, gravel-less-pipe (GLP), polystyrene-aggregate, and pipe-and-aggregate] on in-product solution storage and biomat thickness in a profile-limited soil in northwest Arkansas under increased loading rates and to estimate the LTAR for each product. During Phase I of this study (March 13 to October 4, 2013), effluent loading rates were approximately doubled, while rates were approximately quadrupled during Phase II (October 8, 2013 to May 29, 2014), from the maximum allowable loading rate for each product. The pipe-and-tire-chip, 46-cm-wide trench pipe-and-gravel, and the 25-cm diameter GLP products had the greatest (p < 0.001), while the 31-cm-width and the 5.4-m-long chambers had the lowest (p < 0.001) in-product solution storage during wet-soil conditions of Phase I monitoring. The 25-cm diameter GLP product had the greatest (p < 0.001), while the 61-cm-width, 5.4-m-long chamber had the lowest (p < 0.001) in-product solution storage during Phase II. Results of this study indicate that some alternative products may be able to effectively handle effluent loading rates in excess of those currently allowed by the State of Arkansas. Further research will be required to confirm these interpretations.

A rapid on-site calibration method for measuring dynamic envelope curve of high-speed trains

Dynamic envelope curve is a significant parameter to assess the running safety of high-speed trains.Up to now the method based on binocular stereo vision is the only way available to measure the dynamic envelope curve of a train,the speed of which is over200km/h.Nevertheless the method has two limitations,one is large field-〇f-view(FO V),the other is calibration time.Hence portable calibration equipment,easy-t〇-build target and rapid calibration algorithm are required to complete the calibration.In this paper,a new rapid on-site calibration method with large FOV based on binocular stereo vision is proposed.To address these issues,a light target has been designed,the rail coordinate system(RCS)is represented by40fixed retroreflective points on the target,and they are utilized to calibrate the parameters of two cameras.In addition,two cameras merely capture a single image of the target simultaneously,and the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the cameras can be calculated rapidly.To testify the proposed method,the experiments have been conducted and the results reveal that the accuracy can reach+1mm,which can meet the measurement requirement.

Geographical Reconnaissance of Household in Northern Nigeria towards Optimizing Indoor Residual Spraying Method for Malaria Elimination

As a part of an effort to roll back malaria in Nigeria, exploring the use of geographically related tools triggered the use of modern approaches of knowing the spatial distribution of target populations to attain significant malaria elimination intervention. GIS tool was used for geographical reconnaissance (GR), providing demographic data on respondents’ household and spatial information on the distribution of households in the selected location. A cross-sectional study design was used to collect spatial data in the two locations, while a quantitative questionnaire was used to collect the household data. The analysis of field data indicated that 49,500 unique households were enumerated and thus included in the Indoor Residual Spraying to prevent malaria infection, covering 424 towns in the two Local Government Areas (LGAs). 383,301 persons were recorded during the GR exercise in Doma and Nassarawa Eggon LGAs out of which 79,339 were children of agesless than five years, with 13,526 pregnant women. Further data analysis revealed that the average number of persons per household in both LGAs was approximately eight. The spatial information from the GR provides a foundation for an updateable database for any future survey for developmental activities in Nigeria. The use of modern GR approach has proved to be accurate, reliable and more cost effective and less cumbersome than the traditional approach in the collection and geo-positioning of household data. Use of Garmin e-Trex GPS handheld instruments to collect household data in the designated areas removed the constraints of expensive Personal Digital Assistants and reduced errors of wrong location coordinates. Several African countries which did not use GR or applied the use of Geospatial tool appropriately had setbacks. The previous study in other countries showed limitations which was characterized by substantial inherent logistical and technical challenges culminating in missed targets. This setback was addressed in our study.

On-Site Calibration Method of Dosimeter Based on X-Ray Source

The real-time monitoring of environmental radiation dose for nuclear fa-cilities is an important part of safety, in order to guarantee the accuracy of the monitoring results regular calibration is necessary. Around nuclear facilities there are so many environmental dosimeters installed dispers-edly, because of its huge quantity, widely distributed, and in real-time monitoring state;it will cost lots of manpower and finance if it were tak-en to calibrate on standard laboratory;what’s more it will make the en-vironment out of control. To solve the problem of the measurement ac-curacy of the stationary gamma radiation dosimeter, an on-site calibra-tion method is proposed. The radioactive source is X-ray spectrum, and the dose reference instrument which has been calibrated by the national standard laboratory is a high pressure ionization. On-site calibration is divided into two parts;firstly the energy response experiment of dosim-eter for high and low energy is done in the laboratory, and the energy response curve is obtained combining with Monte Carlo simulation;sec-ondly experiment is carried out in the field of the measuring dosimeter, and the substitution method to calibrate the dosimeter is used;finally the calibration coefficient is gotten through energy curve correction. In order to verify the accuracy of on-site calibration method, the calibrated dosimeter is test in the standard laboratory and the error is 3.4%. The re-sult shows that the on-site calibration method using X-ray is feasible, and it can improves the accuracy of the measurement results of the stationary &gamma;-ray instrument;what’s more important is that it has great reference value for the radiation safety management and radiation environment evaluation.