Circular Box Research Articles

Plate Loading Tests on Clay with Construction and Demolition Materials

This study presents a series results of plate loading tests on a clay with various construction and demolition (CD) materials conducted in a large-scale model box and a numerical verification on the use of these material mixtures. The tests have been applied to the clay with three different types of CD materials (concrete, asphalt, and brick) prepared in a reinforced concrete circular box with a diameter of 2.0 m and a depth of 1.5 m. The CD materials were added to the clay with a mix ratio of 10% by dry weight and then compacted at optimum water content (wopt) and corresponding maximum dry density (γdrymax). The testing results have indicated that the CD materials increased the ultimate bearing capacity of the clay with a range of 50–75%. Furthermore, a remarkable correlation between the results of plate loading tests and numerical simulations made by a commercial finite element software (Plaxis 2D) was observed for all mixtures tested.

Contactless Distribution mode based on Circular Express Box

During the outbreak of new coronavirus, the traditional way of distribution has many disadvantages, such as wide contact with people and wide range of activities. These disadvantages will not only cause cross infection between distribution personnel and customers, but also increase the difficulty of epidemic prevention and control to a certain extent. As a new distribution mode, contactless distribution is widely used under special outbreaks due to the advantages of fewer contact personnel and high distribution efficiency. In view of this situation, we have carried out a study on the problems arising from the express delivery process, put forward the “Contactless distribution mode based on circular express box” point of view, namely, the establishment of express delivery station shipping station in the community. All express delivery companies are placed in the designated location, in order to solve the shortcomings of the traditional delivery process.

YOLO-Tomato: A Robust Algorithm for Tomato Detection Based on YOLOv3.

Automatic fruit detection is a very important benefit of harvesting robots. However, complicated environment conditions, such as illumination variation, branch, and leaf occlusion as well as tomato overlap, have made fruit detection very challenging. In this study, an improved tomato detection model called YOLO-Tomato is proposed for dealing with these problems, based on YOLOv3. A dense architecture is incorporated into YOLOv3 to facilitate the reuse of features and help to learn a more compact and accurate model. Moreover, the model replaces the traditional rectangular bounding box (R-Bbox) with a circular bounding box (C-Bbox) for tomato localization. The new bounding boxes can then match the tomatoes more precisely, and thus improve the Intersection-over-Union (IoU) calculation for the Non-Maximum Suppression (NMS). They also reduce prediction coordinates. An ablation study demonstrated the efficacy of these modifications. The YOLO-Tomato was compared to several state-of-the-art detection methods and it had the best detection performance.

Circulating exosomal circFoxp1 confers cisplatin resistance in epithelial ovarian cancer cells.

ObjectiveEarly detection and treatment are particularly important to epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Studies have shown that circular RNA (circRNA) dysregulation is associated with the proliferation and metastasis of ovarian cancer cells. This study focused on the role of serum exosomal circular forkhead box protein P1 (circFoxp1) on survival outcome and cisplatin (DDP) resistance in patients with EOC.MethodsQuantitative polymerase chain reaction, 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine (EdU) staining, CCK-8, luciferase reporter assay, RNA immunoprecipitation, tumor xenograft in nude mice, and bioinformatic analysis were performed.ResultsCirculating exosomal circFoxp1 was significantly increased in patients with EOC, especially in DDP-resistant EOC patients. circFoxp1 expression was positively associated with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage, primary tumor size, lymphatic metastasis, distant metastasis, residual tumor diameter, and clinical response. Exosomal circFoxp1 also was an independent factor predicting survival and disease recurrence in patients with EOC. Overexpression of circFoxp1 could promote cell proliferation and confer DDP resistance, while knockdown of circFoxp1 could inhibit cell proliferation and enhance DDP sensitivity in vitro and in vivo. In addition, miR-22 and miR-150-3p mimic treatment attenuated circFoxp1-meadiated DDP resistance, while miR-22 and miR-150-3p inhibitor treatment enhanced DDP resistance that mitigated by circFoxp1 knockdown. Furthermore, circFoxp1 positively regulated the expression of CCAAT enhancer binding protein gamma (CEBPG) and formin like 3 (FMNL3) through miR-22 and miR-150-3p.ConclusionscircFoxp1 is an oncogene in EOC cells and can confer DDP resistance to EOC cells. Circulating exosomal circFoxp1 can be used as a biomarker and potential therapeutic target for EOC.

Self-assembly of core-corona particles confined in a circular box

Using Monte Carlo simulations, we study the assembly of colloidal particles interacting via isotropic core-corona potentials in two dimensions and confined in a circular box. We explore the structural variety at low temperatures as function of the number of particles (N) and the size of the confining box and find a rich variety of patterns that are not observed in unconfined flat space. For a small number of particles , we identify the zero-temperature minimal energy configurations at a given box size. When the number of particles is large (), we distinguish different regimes that appear in route towards close packing configurations as the box size decreases. These regimes are characterized by the increase in the number of branching points and their coordination number. Interestingly, we obtain anisotropic open structures with unexpected variety of rotational symmetries that can be controlled by changing the model parameters, and some of the structures have chirality, in spite of the isotropy of the interactions and of the confining box. For arbitrary temperatures, we employ Monte Carlo integration to obtain the average energy and the configurational entropy of the system, which are then used to construct a phase diagram as function of temperature and box radius. Our findings show that confined core-corona particles can be a suitable system to engineer particles with highly complex internal structure that may serve as building blocks in hierarchical assembly.

CircFOXO3 promotes glioblastoma progression by acting as a competing endogenous RNA for NFAT5.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs), a newly discovered type of endogenous noncoding RNA, have been proposed to mediate the progression of diverse types of tumors. Systematic studies of circRNAs have just begun, and the physiological roles of circRNAs remain largely unknown. Here, we focused on elucidating the potential role and molecular mechanism of circular forkhead box O3 (circFOXO3) in glioblastoma (GBM) progression. First, we analyzed circFOXO3 alterations in GBM and noncancerous tissues through real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR). Next, we used loss- and gain-of-function approaches to evaluate the effect of circFOXO3 on GBM cell proliferation and invasion. Mechanistically, fluorescent in situ hybridization, RNA pull-down, dual luciferase reporter, and RNA immunoprecipitation assays were performed to confirm the interaction between circFOXO3 and miR-138-5p/miR-432-5p in GBM. An animal model was used to verify the in vitro experimental findings. CircFOXO3 expression was significantly higher in GBM tissues than in noncancerous tissues. GBM cell proliferation and invasion were reduced by circFOXO3 knockdown and enhanced by circFOXO3 overexpression. Further biochemical analysis showed that circFOXO3 exerted its pro-tumorigenic activity by acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) to increase expression of nuclear factor of activated T cells 5 (NFAT5) via sponging both miR-138-5p and miR-432-5p. Notably, tumor inhibition by circFOXO3 downregulation could be reversed by miR-138-5p/miR-432-5p inhibitors in GBM cells. Moreover, GBM cells with lower circFOXO3 expression developed less aggressive tumors in vivo. Our data demonstrate that circFOXO3 can exert regulatory functions in GBM and that ceRNA-mediated microRNA sequestration might be a potential strategy for GBM therapy.

Resonant Transitions Due to Changing Boundaries

The problem of a particle confined in a box with moving walls is studied, focusing on the case of small perturbations which do not alter the shape of the boundary (‘pantography’). The presence of resonant transitions involving the natural transition frequencies of the system and the Fourier transform of the velocity of the walls of the box is brought to the light. The special case of a pantographic change of a circular box is analyzed in depth, also bringing to light the fact that the movement of the boundary cannot affect the angular momentum of the particle.

Vortex-lattice in a uniform Bose–Einstein condensate in a box trap

We study numerically the vortex-lattice formation in a rapidly rotating uniform quasi-two-dimensional Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) in a box trap. We consider two types of boxes: square and circle. In a square-shaped 2D box trap, when the number of generated vortices is the square of an integer, the vortices are found to be arranged in a perfect square lattice, although deviations near the center are found when the number of generated vortices is arbitrary. In case of a circular box trap, the generated vortices in the rapidly rotating BEC lie on concentric closed orbits. Near the center, these orbits have the shape of polygons, whereas near the periphery the orbits are circles. The circular box trap is equivalent to the rotating cylindrical bucket used in early experiment(s) with liquid He II. The number of generated vortices in both cases is in qualitative agreement with Feynman’s universal estimate. The numerical simulation for this study is performed by a solution of the underlying mean-field Gross–Pitaevskii (GP) equation in the rotating frame, where the wave function for the generated vortex lattice is a stationary state. Consequently, the imaginary-time propagation method can be used for a solution of the GP equation, known to lead to an accurate numerical solution. We also demonstrated the dynamical stability of the vortex lattices in real-time propagation upon a small change of the angular frequency of rotation, using the converged imaginary-time wave function as the initial state.

A18878 Circular RNA expression is reset by brief antihypertensive treatment in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR)

Objectives: The ‘legacy effect’ of persistently lower blood pressure in SHR is observed after short-term treatment with angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEi) or angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB) antihypertensive drugs and is associated with changes in renal function. This presumably involves resetting of the genetic program leading to hypertension in SHR. Circular RNAs (circRNA) are novel non-coding RNAs that regulate mRNA expression post-transcriptionally and might be relevant to the legacy effect. Our aim was to study circRNA expression in the SHR after antihypertensive treatment. Methods: We treated male SHR with an ACEi (perindopril), an angiotensin II receptor blocker (losartan) or a vasodilator (hydralazine) from 10–14 weeks of age. Renal cortex and cardiac left ventricular tissues were collected at 20-weeks of age (n = 3–5 per group). We measured the expression of heart related circular RNA (Hrcr), circular titin (cTtn) and circular foxhead box O3 (cFoxo3) using quantitative real-time PCR. These circRNAs have been implicated in cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure in mice. Statistical analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA and significance was set as P < 0.05. Results: Hrcr and cFoxo3 were downregulated in renal cortex at 20-weeks when compared with vehicle after all antihypertensive treatments (P < 0.01 for all). However, renal cortical cTtn expression was upregulated only after treatment with ACEi (P < 0.05) or ARB (P < 0.05). Differences in circRNA expression were not observed in heart tissues. Conclusion: Early antihypertensive treatment in SHR resets circRNA expression in renal cortices of SHR but not in the heart. This indicates tissue-specific regulation of circRNA expression might be important in reprogramming genetic hypertension by early renin-angiotensin system blocking drugs in SHR.

ADDITIVES TO CONTROL THE QUALITY OF COFFEE HUSK POULTRY LITTER

The poultry litter keeps the birds comfortable and absorbs the humidity generated in the environment, reducing the feet injuries. Then, its quality is essential. The objective for carrying out the present study was to evaluate the quality of the coffee husk poultry litter, treated with chemical additives, based on its humidity, N-ammonia, pH and bacteria total counting. The experiment was carried out in Minas Gerais state, Brazil, in a coffee producer region. It were used three facilities, in which it were placed circular boxes, each of them divided in seven parts, 2 m2 each one, where it were put the different types of poultry litter, being these the seven treatments: sawdust and coffee husks litter, being this last, new and untreated or treated with different additives and reused. Twenty-two chicks were distributed in each treatment (154 birds per facility, 11 birds m-2). Litter samples were collected at 7, 21 and 42 days of birds age. The experimental design was in randomized blocks, subdivided plots. The results were submitted to ANOVA and Tukey’s test. The hydrated lime increased the pH in the initial phase (7 days) and decreased the moisture of the reused litter, compared to the new one. The gypsum reduced the pH of the litter at the end of the second phase. The N-ammonia content of the reused litter, without treatment, was superior compared to the new one, untreated and treated with lime. There was no effect on the standard counting of bacteria and on the surface temperature of the litter. Then, the use of chemical additives in the poultry litter constitutes a good strategy to control its quality, as well as the environmental conditions to produce poultry meat.

Shear Strength Behavior of Different Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil Structure from Direct Shear Test

This paper presents the results of direct shear test on soil samples reinforced with geosynthetics, conducted with the aim of characterize the shear strength of reinforced soil composite. Two types of granular soil (well graded sand and silty sand) and four types of geosynthetic (woven and nonwoven geotextile—uniaxial and biaxial geogrid) were selected. Laboratory testing program were performed in two shear boxes, circular box with 63 mm in diameter and square box with 100 mm in length; the samples were made with loose and dense sand; the reinforcement layer was placed perpendicular to the failure surface; tests are conducted with three vertical confining pressures: 15.7, 31.4 and 62.8 kPa. The effect of different factors that influence the results of the shear tests is analyzed, such as: the particle size of soils, density of soils, shear box size and type of geosynthetics. The test results reveal that the maximum value of shear strength improvement was achieved for dense silty sand samples reinforced with biaxial geogrid. In general, the improvement was more favorable for samples reinforced with geogrid compared to samples reinforced with geotextile.

Destination memory for self-generated actions.

There is a substantial body of literature showing memory enhancement for self-generated information in normal aging. The present paper investigated this outcome for destination memory or memory for outputted information. In Experiment 1, younger adults and older adults had to place (self-generated actions) and observe an experimenter placing (experiment-generated actions) items into two different destinations (i.e., a black circular box and a white square box). On a subsequent recognition task, the participants had to decide into which box each item had originally been placed. These procedures showed better destination memory for self- than experimenter-generated actions. In Experiment 2, destination and source memory were assessed for self-generated actions. Younger adults and older adults had to place items into the two boxes (self-generated actions), take items out of the boxes (self-generated actions), and observe an experimenter taking items out of the boxes (experiment-generated actions). On a subsequent recognition task, they had to decide into which box (destination memory)/from which box (source memory) each item had originally been placed/taken. For both populations, source memory was better than destination memory for self-generated actions, and both were better than source memory for experimenter-generated actions. Taken together, these findings highlight the beneficial effect of self-generation on destination memory in older adults.

Spin-orbit-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates in a circular box

In this paper we discuss the properties of the ground state of a Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupled Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) in a circular box with hard walls, especially the influence of the SO coupling. We first give the analytical solutions for non-interacting particles with Rashba coupling in a circular box. The solution shows that the eigenstate has a Skyrmion-type spin texture, but the Skyrmion charge is usually not an integer, which is different from the case of a harmonic trap. Then, we consider the ground state of a SO-coupled BEC with weak interparticle interaction by numerically solving the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation. We show that a quantum phase transition will appear as the SO coupling strength increases and give the phase diagram. Various aspects of the BEC ground state are discussed, especially their changes before and after the phase transition, such as the energy, the particle distribution, and the spin distribution. When the SO coupling is very strong or the box is very large, the trapped system should be similar to that in free space. We also discuss the relation between the ground states in the box and in free space.

Optimum Design of Bridge Cross Section with Low Clearance Considering Wave Load Effects Based on Numerical Wave-Tank

Zhang, X.; Chen X.; Huang, J.; Zhou, H., and Wang, Q., 2015. Optimum design of bridge cross section with low clearance considering wave load effects based on numerical wave-tank.Bridges with low clearance crossing sea are generally partially or fully submerged by surge or wave. The safety of bridge girder in the splash zones is closely related to wave impact. Using the 2D numerical wave-tank established by ANSYS FLUENT, authors make comparative analysis of the numerical simulation results of wave forces acting on three kinds of twin-deck girders (circular arc box girder, trapezoid box girder and T-shaped girder) of bridge with low clearance crossing sea. Wave forces on bridge girder under different circumstances were analyzed. The circumstances include different bridge deck elevation, different seabed elevation, and the influence of revetment. Then authors got economically reasonable, safe and reliable optimal bridge girder cross-section form. It proves that the box girder with arc-shaped bottom is considered to be the best form. For coastal twin-deck bridges with low clearance, there is an optimum deck elevation from sea level.

In situ surface shear strength as affected by soil characteristics and land use in calcareous soils of central Iran

Soil surface shear strength is an important input parameter in the process-based soil erosion models, but its direct measurement at the watershed scale is difficult, time-consuming and costly. This study was conducted to predict in situ shear strength of the soil surface using multiple-linear regression (MLR). The land use impact on the surface shear strength was examined as well. A direct shear box was constructed to measure in situ shear strength (cohesion, c and angle of internal friction, φ) of the soil surface in the Semirom region located in Isfahan province, central Iran. The shear device consisted of a circular shear box (with 10cm internal diameter and height of 1cm), an S-shaped load cell for measuring horizontal (shear) stress and an electric motor for applying the shear stress. The normal stress acting on the failure surface was adjusted by adding weights on the shear box. Soil surface shear strength was determined using the shear box at 100 locations under three land use systems of grassland, irrigated farming and dryland farming. Soil particle size distribution (clay, silt, sand and fine clay), organic matter content (OM), carbonate content, bulk density and gravel content were determined as predictors of the surface shear strength. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was also calculated using satellite images. The MLR was employed to predict the shear strength (i.e. c and φ) using two groups of input variables: i) easily-available soil properties (pedotransfer functions, PTFs) and ii) easily-available soil properties and NDVI (soil spatial prediction functions, SSPFs). A strong negative correlation (r=−0.72, p<0.001) was found between c and φ in the studied area. Positive correlation (r=0.41, p<0.001) was obtained between c and fine clay content. The c was negatively correlated (r=−0.31, p<0.01; r=−0.37, p<0.001) with sand and gravel contents, respectively. A significant positive correlation (r=0.47, p<0.001) was observed between φ and gravel content, indicating the roughness effect of coarse particles on frictional shear strength. The results also showed that NDVI is an important factor indirectly explaining the variability of both c and φ in the studied soils. The land use effect on the soil properties was investigated using the LSD0.05 test. The means of φ somehow follow the variation of gravel content among the land uses; the highest means of clay and fine clay contents and c, and the lowest means of sand and gravel contents and φ were observed in dryland farming. The c has the same trend as did clay content; irrigated farming with the highest mean of sand content and lowest mean of clay content had the lowest mean of c. The c means were significantly different between irrigated farming and dryland farming. Prediction models of in situ shear strength derived using both soil properties and NDVI as predictors (SSPFs) were more accurate than those derived using only soil properties (PTFs).

Chaotic image encryption based on circular substitution box and key stream buffer

A new image encryption algorithm based on spatiotemporal chaotic system is proposed, in which the circular S-box and the key stream buffer are introduced to increase the security. This algorithm is comprised of a substitution process and a diffusion process. In the substitution process, the S-box is considered as a circular sequence with a head pointer, and each image pixel is replaced with an element of S-box according to both the pixel value and the head pointer, while the head pointer varies with the previous substituted pixel. In the diffusion process, the key stream buffer is used to cache the random numbers generated by the chaotic system, and each image pixel is then enciphered by incorporating the previous cipher pixel and a random number dependently chosen from the key stream buffer. A series of experiments and security analysis results demonstrate that this new encryption algorithm is highly secure and more efficient for most of the real image encryption practices.

Experimental investigation of still performance for different active solar still designs under closed cycle mode

This paper presents a study into the enhancement of the productivity attained by a proper modification in the system designs. The basic heat and mass transfer expressions for designing solar stills were derived in terms of design and climatic parameters. These solar stills were based on using a direct solar energy collection unit integrated with flash evaporation, distillation equipment and air transportation. The main objective of this study is to estimate the water production and still efficiency for different types of active solar stills in certain locations. In this investigation, proper modifications in the system designs were also made and compared on daily yields and daily still efficiencies. It was observed that a maximum daily yield of 12.37l was obtained from the circular box solar still unit in Kayseri, Turkey. This study shows that the design of the circular box active solar still also provides the highest overall daily still efficiency, which is about 68.1%, in that of the active solar stills. It is clear that there is a significant effect on daily yield due to the proper modifications in the system designs.

Electrical Impedance Tomography using EIDORS in a Closed Phantom

Electrical Impedance Tomography is an imaging technique which images the resistivity distribution of the body. An alternating current is injected through the contact electrodes placed on the surface and resulting potentials are measured to image the current density distribution which is solved as Inverse Problem. The EIDORS (Electrical Impedance and Diffused Optical Reconstruction Software) is an open source software suite used for the reconstruction of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) and Diffused Optical Tomography (DOT). This paper describes the EIT experiments conducted on a circular box phantom. Here a low magnitude current is applied in a neighboring current pattern and the boundary potentials are measured and the resistivity images are reconstructed using EIDORS for circular inhomogeneities used inside the phantom. General Terms Electrical Impedance Tomography, Anomaly detection.

Modeling Boundary Vector Cell Firing Given Optic Flow as a Cue

Boundary vector cells in entorhinal cortex fire when a rat is in locations at a specific distance from walls of an environment. This firing may originate from memory of the barrier location combined with path integration, or the firing may depend upon the apparent visual input image stream. The modeling work presented here investigates the role of optic flow, the apparent change of patterns of light on the retina, as input for boundary vector cell firing. Analytical spherical flow is used by a template model to segment walls from the ground, to estimate self-motion and the distance and allocentric direction of walls, and to detect drop-offs. Distance estimates of walls in an empty circular or rectangular box have a mean error of less than or equal to two centimeters. Integrating these estimates into a visually driven boundary vector cell model leads to the firing patterns characteristic for boundary vector cells. This suggests that optic flow can influence the firing of boundary vector cells.

Study of Cotton/Wool Mixed Fabric Propensity to Fuzzing and to Pilling

Fuzzing and pilling of fabrics, which is one of the factors that affect fabric appearance and wear behaviour, has plagued the people for a long time. With the development of living standard, people have higher and higher requirements on the properties of apparel. Several methods can be used for testing the fuzzing and pilling performance of fabric, and different methods often have different results. Using circular locus method and pilling box method on the four kinds of fabrics at the same time, conduct experimental data processing, compare the advantage and disadvantage of two methods and obtain the principle of selection of them. There are many factors that cause fuzzing and pilling, among which the overall covering factor is a significant one. Through the testing for four different kinds of cotton-wool mixed fabrics, with different warp density and different weft density, establish the relationship between the number of pills and the overall covering factor, and obtain the critical covering factor according to the one factor nonlinear regression equation.