As one of the major factors of the nontechnical losses (NTLs) in distribution networks, the electricity theft causes significant harm to power grids, which influences power supply quality and reduces operating profits. In order to help utility companies solve the problems of inefficient electricity inspection and irregular power consumption, a novel hybrid convolutional neural network-random forest (CNN-RF) model for automatic electricity theft detection is presented in this paper. In this model, a convolutional neural network (CNN) firstly is designed to learn the features between different hours of the day and different days from massive and varying smart meter data by the operations of convolution and downsampling. In addition, a dropout layer is added to retard the risk of overfitting, and the backpropagation algorithm is applied to update network parameters in the training phase. And then, the random forest (RF) is trained based on the obtained features to detect whether the consumer steals electricity. To build the RF in the hybrid model, the grid search algorithm is adopted to determine optimal parameters. Finally, experiments are conducted based on real energy consumption data, and the results show that the proposed detection model outperforms other methods in terms of accuracy and efficiency.

This article examines Holocene environmental change in Zhuye Lake in the marginal area of the Asian monsoon, NW China. Holocene environment records were obtained for the QTH01 and QTH02 sections in Zhuye Lake. The fluctuations in grain size, pollen, total organic carbon content and C/N ratios record notable environmental variation. The early Holocene (11.0 to 7.4 cal. kyr BP) was relatively arid, while vegetation coverage was sparse and primary productivity low. The optimal environment prevailed during the mid‐Holocene (7.4 to 4.7 cal. kyr BP). Vegetation coverage was the densest and primary productivity the highest during the mid‐Holocene. During the late Holocene (4.7 to 0 cal. kyr BP), the environment became arid, as shown by low lake level and sparse vegetation coverage. After 1.6 cal. kyr BP another strong aridification occurred. In this area, the environment was likely to have been influenced by both the Westerlies and the East Asian monsoon during the Holocene. During the early Holocene, the relatively arid environment lay in the background of the increasing East Asian monsoon and dry westerly wind. During the mid‐Holocene, central Asia was controlled by the humid Westerlies, while a strong East Asian monsoon prevailed in Central China. The mid‐Holocene optimum in this area benefited from an expanded East Asian monsoon and the humid Westerlies. Weakening of the East Asian monsoon caused aridification of the environment during the late Holocene. Intensification of this aridification after 1.6 cal. kyr BP might be correlated with appearance of the arid environments in the Westerly domain after ∼1.5 cal. kyr BP. These arid conditions might be affected by the decreased moisture content of the Westerlies.

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Recent evidence implicates the critical role of Sirtuin 3 (SIRT3) in the development of many metabolic diseases, but the contribution of SIRT3 to vascular homeostasis remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of SIRT3 in endothelial insulin resistance and vascular dysfunction in obesity. We found an impaired insulin-induced mesenteric vasorelaxation and concomitant reduced vascular SIRT3 expression in morbid obese human subjects compared with the non-obese subjects. Downregulation of SIRT3 in cultured human endothelial cells increased mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mtROS) and impaired insulin signaling as evidenced by decreased phosphorylation of Akt and endothelial nitric oxide synthase and subsequent reduced nitric oxide (NO) release. In addition, obese mice induced by 24-week high-fat diet (HFD) displayed an impaired endothelium-dependent vasorelaxation to both insulin and acetylcholine, which was further exacerbated by the gene deletion of Sirt3. Scavenging of mtROS not only restored insulin-stimulated NO production in SIRT3 knockdown cells, but also improved insulin-induced vasorelaxation in SIRT3 knockout mice fed with HFD. Taken together, our findings suggest that SIRT3 positively regulates endothelial insulin sensitivity and show that SIRT3 deficiency and resultant increased mtROS contribute to vascular dysfunction in obesity.

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The total protoxin complement in the parasporal body of mosquitocidal strain, Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. jegathesan 367, was determined by use of a polyacrylamide gel block coupled to mass spectrometry. A total of eight protoxins were identified from this strain, including five reported protoxins (Cry11Ba, Cry19Aa, Cry24Aa, Cry25Aa, and Cyt2Bb), as well as three previously undescribed (Cry30Ca, Cry60Aa, and Cry60Ba) in this isolate. It was interesting that the encoding genes of three new protoxins existed as cry30Ca-gap-orf2 and cry60Ba-gap-cry60Aa. The cry30Ca and a downstream orf2 gene were oriented in the same direction and separated by 114 bp, and cry60Ba was located 156 bp upstream from and in the same orientation to cry60Aa. The three new protoxin genes were cloned from B. thuringiensis subsp. jegathesan and expressed in an acrystalliferous strain under the control of cyt1A gene promoters and the STAB-SD stabilizer sequence. Recombinant strain containing only cry30Ca did not produce visible inclusion under microscope observation, while that containing both cry30Ca and orf2 could produce large inclusions. Cry60Aa and Cry60Ba synthesized either alone or together in the acrystalliferous host could yield large inclusions. In bioassays using the fourth-instar larvae of Culex quinquefasciatus, Cry60Aa and Cry60Ba alone or together had estimated 50% lethal concentrations of 2.9 to 7.9 g/ml; however, Cry30Ca with or without ORF2 was not toxic to this mosquito.

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) play important roles in tumor cell proliferation, metastasis, and invasion. However, the expression patterns of BMPs in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and their correlations with NSCLC pathogenesis have not been examined yet. In this study, the mRNA levels of BMP family members in NSCLC tissues were analyzed and results showed that the mRNA levels of BMP5 and BMP7 were significantly down-regulated and up-regulated, respectively, in tumor tissues compared with those in the corresponding noncancerous tissues. Interestingly, the mRNA level of BMP5 was significantly higher in lung adenocarcinoma tissues than that in lung squamous cell carcinoma tissues. Furthermore, results from immunohistochemistry analysis confirmed stronger expression of BMP5 protein in lung adenocarcinoma than in lung squamous cell carcinoma. Our findings suggested that BMP5 might be a potential prognostic biomarker or therapeutic target for patients with NSCLC.