Evaluating the ageing degrees of bitumen by rheological and chemical indices

The ageing of bitumen is an inevitable phenomenon which is still challenging to be characterised. This paper aims at evaluating the ageing degrees of bitumen comprehensively. There were six types of bitumen being aged to five levels for comparing purposes and multiple rheological tests by a DSR as well as chemical test for the SARA (saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes) properties of bitumen were carried out. The critical temperatures, G-R parameter and nonrecoverable-compliance-based ageing indices were proposed to evaluate the ageing degrees of bitumen in terms of low-, intermediate- and high-temperature performance of bitumen, respectively. Also, a novel ageing evaluation index based on the integration of modulus of master curves was employed and modified, which can evaluate the ageing degrees of bitumen accurately in terms of the whole range of temperature. Finally, the chemical ageing index were analysed and was confirmed to have strong linear relationship with rheological indices of bitumen

Adiponectin-Mediated Promotion of CD44 Suppresses Diabetic Vascular Inflammatory Effects

While adiponectin (APN) was known to significantly abolish the diabetic endothelial inflammatory response, the specific mechanisms have yet to be elucidated. Aortic vascular tissues from mice fed normal and high-fat diets (HFD) were analyzed by transcriptome analysis. GO functional annotation showed that APN inhibited vascular endothelial inflammation in an APPL1-dependent manner. We confirmed that activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays a key role in APN-mediated anti-inflammation. Mechanistically, APN promoted APPL1/reptin complex formation and β-catenin nuclear translocation. Simultaneously, we identified APN promoted the expression of CD44 by activating TCF/LEF in an APPL1-mediated manner. Clinically, the serum levels of APN and CD44 were decreased in diabetes; the levels of these two proteins were positively correlated. Functionally, treatment with CD44 C-terminal polypeptides protected diabetes-induced vascular endothelial inflammation in vivo. Collectively, we provided a roadmap for APN-inhibited vascular inflammatory effects and CD44 might represent potential targets against the diabetic endothelial inflammatory effect

Efficiently Training 7B LLM with 1 Million Sequence Length on 8 GPUs

Nowadays, Large Language Models (LLMs) have been trained using extended context lengths to foster more creative applications. However, long context training poses great challenges considering the constraint of GPU memory. It not only leads to substantial activation memory consumption during training, but also incurs considerable memory fragmentation. To facilitate long context training, existing frameworks have adopted strategies such as recomputation and various forms of parallelisms. Nevertheless, these techniques rely on redundant computation or extensive communication, resulting in low Model FLOPS Utilization (MFU). In this paper, we propose MEMO, a novel LLM training framework designed for fine-grained activation memory management. Given the quadratic scaling of computation and linear scaling of memory with sequence lengths when using FlashAttention, we offload memory-consuming activations to CPU memory after each layer's forward pass and fetch them during the backward pass. To maximize the swapping of activations without hindering computation, and to avoid exhausting limited CPU memory, we implement a token-wise activation recomputation and swapping mechanism. Furthermore, we tackle the memory fragmentation issue by employing a bi-level Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) approach, optimizing the reuse of memory across transformer layers. Empirical results demonstrate that MEMO achieves an average of 2.42x and 2.26x MFU compared to Megatron-LM and DeepSpeed, respectively. This improvement is attributed to MEMO's ability to minimize memory fragmentation, reduce recomputation and intensive communication, and circumvent the delays associated with the memory reorganization process due to fragmentation. By leveraging fine-grained activation memory management, MEMO facilitates efficient training of 7B LLM with 1 million sequence length on just 8 A800 GPUs, achieving an MFU of 52.30%

Evaluation of Susceptibility of Asphalt Binders to Rutting through MSCR Test

Using modified asphalt binder is one of the most effective methods to solve the rutting problem of asphalt pavement, but the traditional G ∗ / sin     δ parameter is not enough to characterize the rutting resistance of modified asphalt in field use. In order to accurately evaluate the high temperature performance of asphalt and establish the relationship between the rutting resistance of binder and mixture, two kinds of matrix asphalt and three kinds of modified asphalt were selected for DSR and MSCR tests. G ∗ / sin     δ , nonrecoverable creep compliance Jnr, recovery rate R, and other parameters were used to characterize the permanent deformation resistance of the binder, and the correlation between these parameters and the results of rutting test was analyzed. The results show that Jnr3.2 can accurately characterize the permanent deformation resistance of asphalt, while the stress sensitivity index Jnrdiff is not applicable to all types of modified asphalt. In contrast, Jnrslope can better reflect the stress sensitivity of asphalt, and Jnrslope is significantly correlated with the results of rutting test.</jats:p

The Effect of GFRP Powder on the High and Low-Temperature Properties of Asphalt Mastic

Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) is the main composite material used in wind turbine blades. In recent years, zero-carbon energy sources such as wind power have been widely used to reduce carbon emissions, resulting in a large amount of waste GFRP, and causing serious environmental problems. To explore efficient ways to recycle waste GFRP, this study explores the impact of adding GFRP powder (nominal maximum particle size ≤ 0.075 mm) on the high and low temperature properties of asphalt mastic. Samples of GFRP asphalt mastics were prepared with filler-asphalt mass ratios of 0.01:1, 0.1:1, 0.8:1, and 1:1, as well as two control samples of limestone filler asphalt mastics with filler-asphalt mass ratios of 0.8:1 and 1:1. The study analyzed the effect of GFRP on the asphalt mastic’s performance using temperature sweep, MSCR, and BBR tests. Results showed that the presence of GFRP improved the high-temperature resistance and recovery of asphalt mastic but led to decreased low-temperature crack resistance. The results suggest that GFRP has the potential to be used as a filler in asphalt mastic, with a recommended filler-asphalt mass ratio range of less than 0.8:1 for optimal low-temperature performance. However, further research is necessary to determine the optimal content of GFRP in asphalt mastic and to study its impact on other road performance metrics.</jats:p

The Effect of GFRP Powder on the High and Low-Temperature Properties of Asphalt Mastic

Glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) is the main composite material used in wind turbine blades. In recent years, zero-carbon energy sources such as wind power have been widely used to reduce carbon emissions, resulting in a large amount of waste GFRP, and causing serious environmental problems. To explore efficient ways to recycle waste GFRP, this study explores the impact of adding GFRP powder (nominal maximum particle size &le; 0.075 mm) on the high and low temperature properties of asphalt mastic. Samples of GFRP asphalt mastics were prepared with filler-asphalt mass ratios of 0.01:1, 0.1:1, 0.8:1, and 1:1, as well as two control samples of limestone filler asphalt mastics with filler-asphalt mass ratios of 0.8:1 and 1:1. The study analyzed the effect of GFRP on the asphalt mastic&rsquo;s performance using temperature sweep, MSCR, and BBR tests. Results showed that the presence of GFRP improved the high-temperature resistance and recovery of asphalt mastic but led to decreased low-temperature crack resistance. The results suggest that GFRP has the potential to be used as a filler in asphalt mastic, with a recommended filler-asphalt mass ratio range of less than 0.8:1 for optimal low-temperature performance. However, further research is necessary to determine the optimal content of GFRP in asphalt mastic and to study its impact on other road performance metrics

Evaluation of Susceptibility of Asphalt Binders to Rutting through MSCR Test

Using modified asphalt binder is one of the most effective methods to solve the rutting problem of asphalt pavement, but the traditional G∗/sin  δ parameter is not enough to characterize the rutting resistance of modified asphalt in field use. In order to accurately evaluate the high temperature performance of asphalt and establish the relationship between the rutting resistance of binder and mixture, two kinds of matrix asphalt and three kinds of modified asphalt were selected for DSR and MSCR tests. G∗/sin  δ, nonrecoverable creep compliance Jnr, recovery rate R, and other parameters were used to characterize the permanent deformation resistance of the binder, and the correlation between these parameters and the results of rutting test was analyzed. The results show that Jnr3.2 can accurately characterize the permanent deformation resistance of asphalt, while the stress sensitivity index Jnrdiff is not applicable to all types of modified asphalt. In contrast, Jnrslope can better reflect the stress sensitivity of asphalt, and Jnrslope is significantly correlated with the results of rutting test

The Application of Bioreactors for Cartilage Tissue Engineering: Advances, Limitations, and Future Perspectives

Tissue engineering (TE) has brought new hope for articular cartilage regeneration, as TE can provide structural and functional substitutes for native tissues. The basic elements of TE involve scaffolds, seeded cells, and biochemical and biomechanical stimuli. However, there are some limitations of TE; what most important is that static cell culture on scaffolds cannot simulate the physiological environment required for the development of natural cartilage. Recently, bioreactors have been used to simulate the physical and mechanical environment during the development of articular cartilage. This review aims to provide an overview of the concepts, categories, and applications of bioreactors for cartilage TE with emphasis on the design of various bioreactor systems.</jats:p