Equipment Development Project Research Articles

A resource scheduling model for complex equipment development projects considering random overlapping and random feedback of activities

ABSTRACT Aiming to address the time and resource conflict problem caused by multiple tasks and frequent overlapping at each level in the process of complex equipment development, this article constructs a design structure matrix–graphical evaluation and review technique (DSM-GERT) hybrid model, takes the shortest duration of the project as the optimization objective and solves it using the genetic algorithm. Under the conditions of meeting the constraints of time, cost and quality, the project’s parameters are improved by adjusting the resource inputs. The study found that when project resources are insufficient, intertask messaging should be avoided as much as possible. If messaging is initiated, early messaging can be effective in reducing resource consumption, and decision makers can make trade-offs based on their preferences for resources.

Prevalence, risk factors, and management of dementia and mild cognitive impairment in adults aged 60 years or older in China: a cross-sectional study

China has a large population of older people, but has not yet undertaken a comprehensive study on the prevalence, risk factors, and management of both dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). For this national cross-sectional study, 46 011 adults aged 60 years or older were recruited between March 10, 2015, and Dec 26, 2018, using a multistage, stratified, cluster-sampling method, which considered geographical region, degree of urbanisation, economic development status, and sex and age distribution. 96 sites were randomly selected in 12 provinces and municipalities representative of all socioeconomic and geographical regions in China. Participants were interviewed to obtain data on sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle, medical history, current medications, and family history, and then completed a neuropsychological testing battery administered by a psychological evaluator. The prevalence of dementia (Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, and other dementias) and MCI were calculated and the risk factors for different groups were examined using multivariable-adjusted analyses. Overall age-adjusted and sex-adjusted prevalence was estimated to be 6·0% (95% CI 5·8-6·3) for dementia, 3·9% (3·8-4·1) for Alzheimer's disease, 1·6% (1·5-1·7) for vascular dementia, and 0·5% (0·5-0·6) for other dementias. We estimated that 15·07 million (95% CI 14·53-15·62) people aged 60 years or older in China have dementia: 9·83 million (9·39-10·29) with Alzheimer's disease, 3·92 million (3·64-4·22) with vascular dementia, and 1·32 million (1·16-1·50) with other dementias. Overall MCI prevalence was estimated to be 15·5% (15·2-15·9), representing 38·77 million (37·95-39·62) people in China. Dementia and MCI shared similar risk factors including old age (dementia: odds ratios ranging from 2·69 [95% CI 2·43-2·98] to 6·60 [5·24-8·32]; MCI: from 1·89 [1·77-2·00] to 4·70 [3·77-5·87]); female sex (dementia: 1·43 [1·31-1·56]; MCI: 1·51 [1·43-1·59]); parental history of dementia (dementia: 7·20 [5·68-9·12]; MCI: 1·91 [1·48-2·46]); rural residence (dementia: 1·16 [1·06-1·27]; MCI: 1·45 [1·38-1·54]); fewer years of education (dementia: from 1·17 [1·06-1·29] to 1·55 [1·38-1·73]; MCI: from 1·48 [1·39-1·58] to 3·48 [3·25-3·73]); being widowed, divorced, or living alone (dementia: from 2·59 [2·30-2·90] to 2·66 [2·29-3·10]; MCI: from 1·58 [1·44-1·73] to 1·74 [1·56-1·95]); smoking (dementia: 1·85 [1·67-2·04]; MCI: 1·27 [1·19-1·36]), hypertension (dementia: 1·86 [1·70-2·03]; MCI: 1·62 [1·54-1·71] for MCI), hyperlipidaemia (dementia: 1·87 [1·71-2·05]; MCI: 1·29 [1·21-1·37]), diabetes (dementia: 2·14 [1·96-2·34]; MCI: 1·44 [1·35-1·53]), heart disease (dementia: 1·98 [1·73-2·26]; MCI: 1·17 [1·06-1·30]), and cerebrovascular disease (dementia: 5·44 [4·95-5·97]; MCI: 1·49 [1·36-1·62]). Nine of these risk factors are modifiable. Dementia and MCI are highly prevalent in China and share similar risk factors. A prevention strategy should be developed to target the identified risk factors in the MCI population to thwart or slow down disease progression. It is also crucial to optimise the management of dementia and MCI as an important part of China's public health system. Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project, Mission Program of Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals, Beijing Scholars Program, Beijing Brain Initiative from Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission, Project for Outstanding Doctor with Combined Ability of Western and Chinese Medicine, and Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning.

Dynamic measurement of beam divergence angle of different fields of view of scanning lidar* *Project supported by the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Projects of China (Grant No. 62027823), the Shenzhen Fundamental Research Program (Grant No. JCYJ2020109150808037), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61775048).

The laser beam divergence angle is one of the important parameters to evaluate the quality of the laser beam. It can not only accurately indicate the nature of the beam divergence when the laser beam is transmitted over a long distance, but also objectively evaluate the performance of the laser system. At present, lidar has received a lot of attention as a core component of environment awareness technology. Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) micromirror has become the first choice for three-dimensional imaging lidar because of its small size and fast scanning speed. However, due to the small size of the MEMS micromirror, the lidar scanning system has a small field of view (FOV). In order to achieve a wide range of scanning imaging, collimating optical system and wide-angle optical system are generally added to the system. However, due to the inherent properties of the optical lens, it is impossible to perfect the imaging, so the effects of collimating and expanding the beam will be different at different angles. This article aims to propose a measurement system that dynamically measures the divergence angles of MEMS scanning lidar beams in different fields of view to objectively evaluate the performances of scanning lidar systems.

A New Approach for Residual Stress Analysis of GH3535 Alloy by Using Two-Dimensional Synchrotron X-Ray DiffractionSupported by the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Projects of China under Grant No. 2017YFA0403401, the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai under Grant No. 18ZR1448100, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 11705270 and 11104307.

We propose a new method to evaluate residual stress based on the analysis of a portion of a Debye ring with two-dimensional synchrotron x-ray diffraction. The residual stress of a nickel-based alloy GH3535 evaluated by the proposed method is determined to be – 1149±34 MPa based on the quantitative analysis of the deformation of the (200) reflection, and the residual stress obtained by analyzing THE (111) plane is –933± 68 MPa. The results demonstrate that the GH3535 alloy surface is highly compressive, as expected for a polishing surface treatment. The proposed method provides insight into the field of residual stress measurement and quantitative understanding of the residual stress states in GH3535.

Compact ultra-narrowband superconducting filter using N-spiral resonator with open-loop secondary coupling structure**Project supported by the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project of China (Grant No. 2014YQ030975).

A novel N-spiral resonator with open-loop secondary coupling structure (OLSCS) is proposed to realize a compact ultra-narrowband high temperature superconducting (HTS) filter. The coupling strength and polarity between the resonators can be significantly reduced and changed by introducing OLSCS, thus the required weak coupling can be achieved in a very compact size. A six-pole superconducting filter at 1701 MHz with a fractional bandwidth of 0.19% is designed to validate this method. The filter is fabricated on MgO substrate with a compact size of 15 mm × 10 mm. The measured insertion loss is 0.79 dB, and the return loss is better than 17.4 dB. The experimental results show a good agreement with the simulations.

Influence of the anisotropy on the magneto-acoustic response of magnetic surface acoustic wave resonators**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61871081) and the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project of China (Grant No. 51827802).

One-port magnetic surface acoustic wave (MSAW) resonators are fabricated by stacking multilayered (FeCoSiB/SiO2)n films directly on top of interdigital electrodes. It is shown that the magneto-acoustic response of the MSAW resonators critically depends the hysteresis of ΔE effect. For the magnetic multilayer without induced magnetic anisotropy, the resonance frequency (fR) exhibits a butterfly-like dependence on the external field, therefore, enabling bipolar detection of magnetic field smaller than its coercive field. However, for the magnetic multilayers with induced magnetic anisotropy, butterfly-like or loop-like fR–H curves are measured along the interdigtial electrode fingers or the SAW propagation direction, which can be attributed to the competition between the magnetic field-induced anisotropy and the stress-induced or shape anisotropy.

Integrated Glycosylation Patterns of Glycoproteins and DNA Methylation Landscapes in Mammal Oogenesis and Preimplantation Embryo Development

Background: Post-translational modification is a crucial event during mammalian embryonic development. Glycosylation is one of the most fundamental post-translational modifications. However, the glycosylation patterns of glycoproteins have not been analyzed in mammal preimplantation embryos, because of technical difficulties and scarcity of required materials. Methods: This study investigated the glycosylation patterns of glycoproteins and DNA methylation landscapes in mammal oogenesis and preimplantation embryo development by high-throughput lectin microarray of low-input cells, electrochemical techniques, and genome-wide DNA methylation analysis. Finding: We showed that there were dramatic changes in protein glycosylation levels that occur during mammal oogenesis and preimplantation embryo development. Further analysis identified several stage-specific lectins, such as MNA-M, ABA, and MAL I. Subsequent results showed that the variation tendencies of glycosylation patterns of glycoproteins were opposite to the TET levels during oogenesis and preimplantation embryo development. Moreover, analysis of correlation between the changes in glyco-gene expression and female germline stem cell glycosylation profiles indicated that glycosylation was related to DNA methylation. Subsequent integration analysis showed that the tendency variations of glycosylation patterns of glycoproteins were similar to that of DNA methylation, and opposite to the TET protein levels during female germ cell and preimplantation embryo development. Interpretation: Our findings provide insight into the complex molecular mechanisms that regulate human embryo development, and a foundation that can be used to help further elucidate early embryonic development and inform reproductive medicine. Funding Statement: This work was supported by National Basic Research Program of China (2018YFC1003501, 2017YFA0504201), National Nature Science Foundation of China (81720108017), the National Major Scientific Instruments and Equipment Development Project, National Nature Science Foundation of China (61827814). Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: Animal experimentation was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Shanghai and performed in accordance with the National Research Council Guide for Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.

Toxic amyloid-β oligomers induced self-replication in astrocytes triggering neuronal injury.

BackgroundSoluble amyloid-β oligomer (AβO) induced deleterious cascades have recently been considered to be the initiating pathologic agents of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, little is known about the neurotoxicity and production of different AβOs. Understanding the production and spread of toxic AβOs within the brain is important to improving understanding of AD pathogenesis and treatment.MethodsHere, PS1V97L transgenic mice, a useful tool for studying the role of AβOs in AD, were used to identify the specific AβO assembly that contributes to neuronal injury and cognitive deficits. Then, we investigated the production and spread of toxic Aβ assemblies in astrocyte and neuron cultures, and further tested the results following intracerebroventricular injection of AβOs in animal model.FindingsThe results showed that cognitive deficits were mainly caused by the accumulation of nonameric and dodecameric Aβ assemblies in the brains. In addition, we found that the toxic AβOs were duplicated in a time-dependent manner when BACE1 and apolipoprotein E were overexpressed, which were responsible for producing redundant Aβ and forming nonameric and dodecameric assemblies in astrocytes, but not in neurons.InterpretationOur results suggest that astrocytes may play a central role in the progression of AD by duplicating and spreading toxic AβOs, thus triggering neuronal injury.FundThis study was supported by the Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China; the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project; Beijing Scholars Program, and Beijing Brain Initiative from Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission.

Factory of the Future – new solution and new quality in scientific instrumentation

Scientific instrument making is one of the key drivers for the economy of a highly developed country. R&D and manufacturing of scientific devices and equipment in the Russian Federation have been facing a lot of different obstacles during recent decades. The weak link is the transition of the results of fundamental and applied research into prototypes of products, as well as the subsequent organization of mass production. In particular, the problem is the lack of seamless knowledge transfer processes from researchers to developers, as well as the extremely high price of manufacturing samples of scientific instruments and equipment. In this paper we consider the state of art concept of Future plant implementation for scientific instrument making. We also demonstrate an example of successful using of digital technologies in high-tech equipment development project.

Amorphous Si critical dimension structures with direct Si lattice calibration**Project supported by the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Projects of China (Grant No. 2014YQ090709), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFA0200902), and Major Projects of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai, China (Grant No. 17JC1400800).

Developing highly accurate critical dimension standards is a significant task for nanoscale metrology. In this paper, we put forward an alternative approach to fabricate amorphous Si critical dimension structures with direct Si lattice calibration in the same frame scanning transmission electron microscopy image. Based on the traceable measurement analysis, the optimized method can provide the same calibration accuracy and increase the fabrication throughput and lower the cost simultaneously, which benefits the application needs in atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip geometry characterization, benchmarking measurement tools, and conducting comparison measurements between different approaches.

Influence of channel/back-barrier thickness on the breakdown of AlGaN/GaN MIS-HEMTs * * Project partly supported by the Key Research and Development Program of Jiangsu Province (No. BE2016084), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11404372, 6157401, 61704185), the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing, China (No. 4182015), the Scientific Research Fund Project of Municipal Education Commission of Beijing (No. PXM2017_014204_500034),

The leakage current and breakdown voltage of AlGaN/GaN/AlGaN high electron mobility transistors on silicon with different GaN channel thicknesses were investigated. The results showed that a thin GaN channel was beneficial for obtaining a high breakdown voltage, based on the leakage current path and the acceptor traps in the AlGaN back-barrier. The breakdown voltage of the device with an 800 nm-thick GaN channel was 926 V @ 1 mA/mm, and the leakage current increased slowly between 300 and 800 V. Besides, the raising conduction band edge of the GaN channel by the AlGaN back-barrier lead to little degradation for sheet 2-D electron gas density, especially, in the thin GaN channel. The transfer and output characteristics were not obviously deteriorated for the samples with different GaN channel thickness. Through optimizing the GaN channel thickness and designing the AlGaN back-barrier, the lower leakage current and higher breakdown voltage would be possible.

Theoretical Prediction of Diamond Betavoltaic Batteries Performance Using 63Ni**Supported by the National Major Scientific Instruments and Equipment Development Project under Grant No 2012YQ240121, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No 11075064.

A diamond p–n junction is used to convert the decay energy of 63Ni source into electrical energy. The self-absorption effect of the 63Ni source, the backscatter process and the transport process of beta particles in diamond materials are studied. Then the theoretical maximum of electrical properties and the energy conversion efficiencies of diamond-63Ni p–n junction batteries are achieved. Finally, a feasible design of p+p−n+ junction battery, which has the maximum output power density of 0.42 μW/cm2 and the optimal device conversion efficiency of 26.8%, is proposed.

Flexible control of semiconductor laser with frequency tunable modulation transfer spectroscopy**Project supported by the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project, China (Grant No. 2014YQ35046103).

We introduce a new method of simultaneously implementing frequency stabilization and frequency shift for semiconductor lasers. We name this method the frequency tunable modulation transfer spectroscopy (FTMTS). To realize a stable output of 780 nm semiconductor laser, an FTMTS optical heterodyne frequency stabilization system is constructed. Before entering into the frequency stabilization system, the probe laser passes through an acousto-optical modulator (AOM) twice in advance to achieve tunable frequency while keeping the light path stable. According to the experimental results, the frequency changes from 120 MHz to 190 MHz after the double-pass AOM, and the intensity of laser entering into the system is greatly changed, but there is almost no change in the error signal of the FTMTS spectrum. Using this signal to lock the laser frequency, we can ensure that the frequency of the laser changes with the amount of AOM shift. Therefore, the magneto-optical trap (MOT)-molasses process can be implemented smoothly.

A slope-based decoupling algorithm to simultaneously control dual deformable mirrors in a woofer–tweeter adaptive optics system**Project supported by the Key Scientific Equipment Development Project of China (Grant No. ZDYZ2013-2), the National High-Tech R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. G128201-G158201 and G128603-G158603), the Innovation Fund of Chinese Academy of Science (Grant No. CXJJ-16M208), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese

We propose a slope-based decoupling algorithm to simultaneously control the dual deformable mirrors (DMs) in a woofer–tweeter adaptive optics system. This algorithm can directly use the woofer’s response matrix measured from a Shack–Hartmann wave-front sensor to construct a slope-based orthogonal basis, and then selectively distribute the large-amplitude low-order aberration to woofer DM and the remaining aberration to tweeter DM through the slope-based orthogonal basis. At the same moment, in order to avoid the two DMs generating opposite compensation, a constraint matrix used to reset tweeter control vector is convenient to be calculated with the slope-based orthogonal basis. Numeral simulation demonstrates that this algorithm has a good performance to control the adaptive optics system with dual DMs simultaneously. Compared with the typical decoupling algorithm, this algorithm can take full use of the compensation ability of woofer DM and release the stroke of tweeter DM to compensate high-order aberration. More importantly, it does not need to measure the accurate shape of tweeter’s influence function and keeps better performance of restraining the coupling error with the continuous-dynamic aberration.

Compact wide stopband superconducting bandpass filter using modified spiral resonators with interdigital structure**Project supported by the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project, China (Grant No. 2014YQ030975) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61371009 and 61401282).

In this study, we propose a novel resonator that is composed of a modified spiral with an embedded interdigital capacitor. A large ratio of the first spurious frequency to the fundamental resonant frequency is obtained, which is suitable for the design of filters with wide stopbands, and the circuit size is considerably reduced by embedding the interdigital structure in the spiral. For demonstration, a compact four-pole high temperature superconducting (HTS) filter with a center frequency of 568 MHz is designed and fabricated on double-sided YBCO film with a size of 11.4 mm × 8.0 mm. The filter measurement shows excellent performance with an out-of-band rejection level better than 60.9 dB up to 3863 MHz.

Compact high-order quint-band superconducting band-pass filter**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61371009 and 61401282) and the National Key Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project of China (Grant No. 2014YQ030975).

In this paper, we present a compact quint-band superconducting filter operating at 2.4, 3.5, 4.7, 5.3, and 5.9 GHz. Matching junctions with different impedance branch lines are used to connect a dual-band sub-filter with a tri-band sub-filter and to reduce the channel interactions. The quint-band filter design is divided into two sections to determine the controllable frequencies and bandwidths, while ensuring compact size and reducing design complexity. The filter is fabricated on double-sided YBCO film deposited on an MgO substrate with a size of 26 mm × 19 mm. The measured results match well with the simulations.

Risk Analysis of Laundry Equipment Development Project with Interpretative Structural Modeling

This paper uses the method of expert voting to determine the top ten key risk factors, and then uses the interpretative structure model to find out the deep logic between the top ten risks. Ten key risk factors are attributable to five aspects of the project of washing equipment development: organization, initiative, planning, executing and controlling that more intuitively show the level of the relationship between the factors, which provides a theoretical foundation for risk management and risk response of washing equipment development project, to reduce the risk and failure.

Lorentz Force Electrical Impedance Detection Using Step Frequency Technique**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 51137004 and 61427806, the Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant No YZ201507, and the China Scholarship Council Program under Grant No 201604910849.

Lorentz force electrical impedance tomography (LFEIT) inherits the merit of high resolution by ultrasound stimulation and the merit of high contrast through electromagnetic field detection. To reduce the instantaneous peak power of the stimulating signal to the transducer, the sinusoidal pulse and step-frequency technique is investigated in LFEIT. The theory of application of step-frequency technique in LFEIT is formulated with the direct demodulation method and the in-phase quadrature demodulation method. Compared with the in-phase quadrature demodulation method, the direct demodulation method has simple experimental setup but could only detect half of the range. Experiments carried out with copper foils confirmed that LFEIT using the step-frequency technique could detect the electrical conductivity variations precisely, which suggests an alternative method of realization of LFEIT.

New Method for 3D Transient Eddy Current Field Calculation and Its Application in Magneto-Acoustic Tomography**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 51137004, 61427806 and 51577184, and the Equipment Development Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant No YZ201507.

A new method of 3D transient eddy current field calculation is proposed. The Maxwell equations with time component elimination (METCE) are derived under the assumption of magnetic quasi static approximation, especially for the sample of low conductivity. Based on METCE, we deduce a more efficient reconstruction algorithm of a 3D transient eddy current field. The computational burden is greatly reduced through the new algorithm, and the computational efficiency is improved. This new algorithm decompounds the space-time variables into two individual variables. The idea is to solve the spatial vector component firstly, and then multiply it by the corresponded time component. The iterative methods based on METCE are introduced to recover the distribution of conductivity in magneto-acoustic tomography. The reconstructed images of conductivity are consistent with the original distribution, which validate the new method.

Lorentz force electrical impedance tomography using pulse compression technique**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51137004 and 61427806), the Scientific Instrument and Equipment Development Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. YZ201507), and the China Scholarship Council (Grant No. 201604910849).

Lorentz force electrical impedance tomography (LFEIT) combines ultrasound stimulation and electromagnetic field detection with the goal of creating a high contrast and high resolution hybrid imaging modality. In this study, pulse compression working together with a linearly frequency modulated ultrasound pulse was investigated in LFEIT. Experiments were done on agar phantoms having the same level of electrical conductivity as soft biological tissues. The results showed that: (i) LFEIT using pulse compression could detect the location of the electrical conductivity variations precisely; (ii) LFEIT using pulse compression could get the same performance of detecting electrical conductivity variations as the traditional LFEIT using high voltage narrow pulse but reduce the peak stimulating power to the transducer by 25.5 dB; (iii) axial resolution of 1 mm could be obtained using modulation frequency bandwidth 2 MHz.