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.

The Impact of the“Belt and Road”Initiative on Industrial Structure Upgrading Along the Corridor

The“Belt and Road”initiative functions as a novel impetus for China’s external economic development within the framework of the new normal of economic growth.By leveraging panel data from 30 provinces and regions across China for the period of 2010 to 2020,this research assesses the influence of the“Belt and Road”initiative on the enhancement of the industrial structure along its trajectory.The findings indicate that:the most notable influence on the rationalization and progress of the industrial structure is observed in the eastern region,with the central region following suit,whereas the western region has yet to exhibit a significant transformation.The analysis delves into the role of technological innovation,concluding that the initiative primarily catalyzes optimization and upgrading through the effect of technological advancement.The study advances several pertinent policy recommendations to support and enhance these developments.

3D printing-enabled advanced electrode architecture design

A high-performance energy storage device plays an important role in controlling carbon emissions.The emerging additive manufacturing techniques bring a great revolution of electrode fabrication process and promote the performance of energy storage devices through the advanced electrode architecture design.In this paper,recent studies on the three-dimensional(3D)-printed electrode with advanced architecture have been mainly reviewed,including interdigitated structure,through-thickness aligned structure,hierarchical porous structure and fiber and fibric structure of electrodes,and expectations for the development of novel advanced electrode architecture generated and optimized by computational simulation and machine learning.The strategy of advanced electrode architecture design and fabrication enabled by the 3D printing technique represents a promising direction toward future energy storage devices with high electrochemical and mechanical performance.

Preface: Advanced Thin Film Developments and Nano Structures

In this special issue, we invited a few leading materials researchers to present topics in thin films, coatings, and nano structures. Readers will find most recent developments in topics, including recent advances in hard, tough, and low friction nanocomposite coatings; thin films for coating nanomaterials; electroless plating of silver thin films on porous Al2O3 substrate; CrN/Nano Cr interlayer coatings; nano-structured carbide derived carbon （CDC） films and their tribology; predicting interdiffusion in high-temperature coatings; gallium-catalyzed silica nanowire growth; and corrosion protection properties of organofunctional silanes. Authors are from both national laboratories and academia.

Metasurfaces enabling structured light manipulation:advances and perspectives [Invited]

Metasurfaces and structured light have rapidly advanced over the past few years, from being paradigms to forming functional devices and tailoring special light beams for wide emerging applications. Here, we focus on harnessing metasurfaces for structured light manipulation. We review recent advances in shaping structured light by metasurfaces on different platforms（metal, silica, silicon, and fiber）. Structured light manipulation based on plasmonic metasurfaces, reflection-enhanced plasmonic metasurfaces, metasurfaces on fiber facets, dielectric metasurfaces, and sub-wavelength structures on silicon are presented, showing impressive performance.Future trends, challenges, perspectives, and opportunities are also discussed.

Effect of Digital Economy Development onHuman Capital Structure

Based on the panel data on 276 prefectural-level cities from 2011 to 2018,this paper uses longitudinal fixed effects models,panel threshold effects and instrumental variables to explore the relationship between digital economy development and human capital structure advancement.In addition,this paper examines how the development of the digital economy is related to human capital levels.The results show that digital economy development significantly boosts human capital structure advancement,as well as low-level and high-level human capital.However,the effect of digital economy development on midlevel human capital is not statistically significant.In terms of heterogeneity,we find that digital economy development significantly promotes human capital structure advancement in eastern and central-western regions of China,as well as in core and peripheral cities.Effects on the various levels of human capital show significant differences.Furthermore,digital economy development has a positive effect on human capital structure when industrial structure advancement is low.Past a certain threshold,however,the effect reverses.This paper suggests that each region should accelerate the development of digital infrastructure,rationally promote industrial structure advancement and boost the effectiveness of human resources to achieve high-quality economic development.

Integrative Identification by Hi‑C Revealed Distinct Advanced Structural Variations in Lung Adenocarcinoma Tissue

Advanced three-dimensional structure variations of chromatin in large genome fragments,such as conversion of A/B compartment,topologically associated domains(TADs)and chromatin loops are related closely to occurrence of malignant tumors.However,the structural characteristics of lung cancer still remain uncovered.In this study,we used high-throughput chromosome(Hi-C)conformation capture technology to detect the advanced structural variations in chromatin of two nonsmoking lung adenocarcinoma(LUAD)tumor and paired normal tissues.The results indicate that significant chromatin variations are detected in tumor tissues compared with normal tissues.At compartment scale,the main conversion type of compartment is A→B in tumor tissues,which are concentrated mainly on chromosome 3(Chr3)(33.6%).A total of 216 tumor-specific TADs are identified in tumor tissues,which are distributed mainly in Chr1(19),Chr2(15)and Chr3(17).Forty-one distinct enhancer-promoter loops are observed in tumor tissue,which are associated closely to tumor-related pathways including mitogen-activated protein kinase(MAPK),Phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase-Protein kinase B(PI3K-AKT),Ras,Wnt and Ras1.The most important observation in this study is that we identify five important genes(SYT16,NCEH1,NXPE3,MB21D2,and DZIP1L),which are detected in both A→B compartment,TADs and chromatin loops in tumor samples,and four of these genes(NCEH1,NXPE3,MB21D2,and DZIP1L)locate on q arm of Chr3.Further gene expression and invasion experiment analysis show that NCEH1,MB21D2 and SYT16 are involved in the tumor development.Thus,we provide a comprehensive overview of advanced structures in LUAD for the first time and provide a basis for further research on the genetic variation of this tumor.

Characterization of recombinant humanized collagen type III and its influence on cell behavior and phenotype

Collagen made a tremendous impact in the field of regenerative medicine as a bioactive material.For decades,collagen has been used not only as a scaffolding material but also as an active component in regulating cells’biological behavior and phenotype.However,animal-derived collagen as a major source suffered from problems of immunogenicity,risk of viral infection,and the unclear relationship between bioactive sequence and function.Recombinant humanized collagen(rhCol)provided alternatives for regenerative medicine with more controllable risks.However,the characterization of rhCol and the interaction between rhCol and cells still need further investigation,including cell behavior and phenotype.The current study preliminarily demonstrated that recombinant humanized collagen type III(rhCol III)conformed to the theoretical amino acid sequence and had an advanced structure resembling bovine collagen.Furthermore,rhCol III could facilitate basal biological behaviors of human skin fibroblasts,such as adhesion,proliferation and migration.rhCol III was beneficial for some extracellular matrix-expressing cell phenotypes.The study would shed light on the mechanism research of rhCol and cell interactions and further understanding of effectiveness in tissue regeneration.

Characterization of recombinant humanized collagen type Ⅲ and its influence on cell behavior and phenotype

Collagen made a tremendous impact in the field of regenerative medicine as a bioactive material.For decades,collagen has been used not only as a scaffolding material but also as an active component in regulating cells'biological behavior and phenotype.However,animal-derived collagen as a major source suffered from problems of immunogenicity,risk of viral infection,and the unclear relationship between bioactive sequence and function.Recombinant humanized collagen(rhCol)provided alternatives for regenerative medicine with more controllable risks.However,the characterization of rhCol and the interaction between rhCol and cells still need further investigation,including cell behavior and phenotype.The current study preliminarily demonstrated that recombinant humanized collagen typeⅢ(rhColⅢ)conformed to the theoretical amino acid sequence and had an advanced structure resembling bovine collagen.Furthermore,rhColⅢcould facilitate basal biological behaviors of human skin fibroblasts,such as adhesion,proliferation and migration.rhColⅢwas beneficial for some extracellular matrix-expressing cell phenotypes.The study would shed light on the mechanism research of rhCol and cell interactions and further understanding of effectiveness in tissue regeneration.