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Vehicle driving safety is influenced by many factors, including drivers, vehicles, and road environments. The interactions among them are quite complex. Consequently, existing methods that evaluate driving safety perform inadequately because they only consider limited factors and their interactions. As such, it is difficult for kinematics-based and dynamics-based vehicle driving safety assistant systems to adapt to increasingly complex traffic environments. In this paper, we propose a new concept, i.e., the driving safety field. The concept makes use of field theory to represent risk factors owing to drivers, vehicles, road conditions, and other traffic factors. A unified model of the driving safety field is constructed, which includes the following three parts: 1) a potential field, which is determined by nonmoving objects on the roads, such as a stopped vehicle; 2) a kinetic field, which is determined by the moving objects on roads, such as vehicles and pedestrians; and 3) a behavior field, which is determined by the individual characteristics of drivers. Moreover, the applications of the model are proposed, and its application to a typical carfollowing scenario is illustrated, which evaluates the risks caused by multiple traffic factors. The driving safety field can reveal driver-vehicle-road interactions and their influences on driving safety, as well as predict driving safety trends owing to dynamic changes. In addition, the model can provide a new foundation for establishing driving safety measures and active vehicle control under complex traffic environments.

Hierarchical Mn2O3 hollow microspheres of diameter about 6-10 μm were synthesized by solvent-thermal method. When serving as anode materials of LIBs, the hierarchical Mn2O3 hollow microspheres could deliver a reversible capacity of 580 mAh g(-1) at 500 mA g(-1) after 140 cycles, and a specific capacity of 422 mAh g(-1) at a current density as high as 1600 mA g(-1), demonstrating a good rate capability. Ex situ X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectrum reveals that, for the first time, the pristine Mn2O3 was reduced to metallic Mn when it discharged to 0.01 V, and oxidized to MnO as it charged to 3 V in the first cycle. Furthermore, the XANES data demonstrated also that the average valence of Mn in the sample at charged state has decreased slowly with cycling number, which signifies an incomplete lithiation process and interprets the capacity loss of the Mn2O3 during cycling.

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Melanoma is the most lethal skin cancer characterized by its high metastatic potential. It is urgent to find novel therapy strategies to overcome this feature. Metformin has been confirmed to suppress invasion and migration of various types of cancer. However, additional mechanisms underlying the antimetastatic effect of metformin on melanoma require further investigation. Here, we performed microarray analysis and uncovered an altered mRNA and miRNA expression profile between melanoma and nevus. Luciferase reporter assay confirmed that miR-5100 targets SPINK5 to activate STAT3 phosphorylation. Migration and wound healing assays showed that the miR-5100/SPINK5/STAT3 axis promotes melanoma cell metastasis; the mechanism was proven by initiation of epithelial–mesenchymal transition. Co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) further confirmed an indirect interaction between SPINK5 and STAT3. Furthermore, metformin dramatically inhibited miR-5100/SPINK5/STAT3 pathway, and decreased B16-F10 cell metastasis to lung in C57 mouse module. Intriguingly, pretreatment of metformin before melanoma cell injection improved this effect further. These findings exposed the underlying mechanisms of action of metformin and update the use of this drug to prevent metastasis in melanoma.

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