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Thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) is an organ-specific autoimmune disease that has a significant impact on patients' life and health of. Clinically, the Clinical Activity Score (CAS) is one of the crucial methods for the early diagnosis of TAO. However, due to the diversity of TAO symptoms, utilizing medical expertise to artificially obtain CAS scores is challenging and highly dependent on personal subjectivity. Therefore, accurate identification of TAO regions segmented by scientific techniques is one of the essential prerequisites for the objective acquisition of the CAS scores. In this study, an encoder–decoder wavelet model (EDWM) with multiple-scale cascaded attention mechanism (MCAM) and residual deformable convolution (RDC) was proposed for multifocal region segmentation of TAO from facial images. The proposed method employs the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to construct an encoder structure for the coarse feature extraction of the diseased regions. The inverse wavelet transform (IWT) is designed to build a decoder structure for resolution recovery. Meanwhile, the MCAM is developed to extract finer features of adjacent wavelet scales in the encoder structure by suppressing the background and focusing on the coarse segmentation of the diseased regions. The RDC is ultimately utilized for enlargement of arbitrary receptive fields and the accurate multi-segmentation task in different regions. In comparison with other selected benchmark models, the EDWM has, respectively, achieved state-of-the-art segmentation performance with 93.12% and 0.804 of the precision and the MIoU when tested on the images of 600 TAO patients. Since the EDWM is characterized by compact structure, interpretability, and strong feature extraction capability, it can provide a much more reliable and scientific basis for the early detection and diagnosis of TAO, reducing reliance on subjective experience in obtaining CAS scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new material [Ni2(BODC)2(TED)], (BODC=4,4′-bicyclo[2.2.2]octane dicarboxylate and TED=triethylene-4,4′-diamine), which is a guest-free, porous metal-organic coordination network, has been successfully synthesized. The crystal structure of this compound is tetragonal with the space group P4/mmm. It is a three-dimensional network that can be deconstructed into rectangular gridlike layers along ab planes. These planes are formed by BODC and Zn2O4 paddle-wheel-like clusters, and the TED ligands from the axial directions of the paddle-wheels connect the layers into a three-dimesional structure. There are no guest molecules found in the pores. The shortest Ni–Ni distance within the paddle wheel is found to be 2.613 Å. Magnetic susceptibility χ(T)=M(T)/H and isothermal magnetization M(H) measurements have been measured on powder samples of this compound. The results of χ(T) show that there is a rapid increase in the susceptibility below 20 K due to a spontaneous ordering of the Ni2+ moments. The effective moment μeff of Ni2+ is about 2.20μB at room temperature. The M(H) result at 1.8 K shows a clear hysteresis with a coercivity of Hcoe≈1700 G. The behavior of this compound is discussed in terms of Ni–Ni coupling within the Ni dimers and dimer chains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The small size of micropores (typically <1 nm) in zeolites causes slow diffusion of reactant and product molecules in and out of the pores and negatively impacts the product selectivity of zeolite based catalysts, for example, fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalysts. Size-tailored mesoporosity was introduced into commercial zeolite Y crystals by a simple surfactant-templating post-synthetic mesostructuring process. The resulting mesoporous zeolite Y showed significantly improved product selectivity in both laboratory testing and refinery trials. Advanced characterization techniques such as electron tomography, three-dimensional rotation electron diffraction, and high resolution gas adsorption coupled with hysteresis scanning and density functional theory, unambiguously revealed the intracystalline nature and connectivity of the introduced mesopores. They can be considered as molecular highways that help reactant and product molecules diffuse quickly to and away from the catalytically active sites within the zeolite crystals and, thus, shift the selectivity to favor the production of more of the valuable liquid fuels at reduced yields of coke and unconverted feed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What a cracker! Many approaches to mesoporous zeolites have been reported. The preparation of mesoporous zeolite Y, as the most widely used zeolite in catalysis, its properties, and its application in fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) and hydrocracking are reviewed. Finally, the scale‐up and use of mesostrutured zeolite Y on an industrial scale are described, as the first commercial application of hierarchical zeolites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commensurate adsorption occurs when the number of molecules adsorbed per unit cell relates to the symmetry of the framework and its topology. While rare in zeolite materials, commensurate adsorption has been observed in several MOF materials. In some MOF materials, several molecules having dimensions within a limited size range show this effect. This paper describes the commensurate adsorption properties of three MOF materials and also two MOFs showing unusual combined structure-composition adsorption features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

M(N3)2(bpy) [where M = Cu(II), Co(II), N3 = azide, and bpy = 4,4′-bipyridine] are two newly synthesized metal-organic framework (MOF) systems, in which the divalent M ions are connected though the azide ligands forming almost ideal magnetic 1 D chains. Specific heat measurements were performed on these compounds and the magnetic specific heats were deduced using appropriate methods for estimating the lattice specific heat. The magnetic specific heat data were analyzed and fit to the Ising model. The exchange interaction J/kB values of 13.1 K for Cu(N3)2(bpy) and 8.2 K for Co(N3)2(bpy) were obtained and compared to the J values from fitting the measured magnetic susceptibility data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Powder crystalline metal-organic frameworks (MOF), M(N3)2(bpy) (where M = Ni, Co, Cu, and bpy = 4,4′-bipyridine), were successfully synthesized by mixing M(II) salts with solutions of 4,4′-bipyridine and NaN3. All three MOFs crystallize in an orthorhombic crystal system with the space group Cmmm (No. 65), which is isostructural to that of 2D-Fe(N3)2(bpy). The M(II) ions are coordinated with four azide ligands (N3) in equatorial plane forming linear magnetic chains. Isothermal magnetization, magnetic susceptibility, and heat capacity measurements were performed. No clear phase transitions were observed. The intra-chain magnetic interaction was found to be ferromagnetic for the Co and Ni compounds, and antiferromagnetic for the Cu compound. The data were fit to theoretical models, and the variation in the exchange interactions was interpreted in terms of the geometric distortions on the octahedral M(II) sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Zeolite Peacemakers The cover picture shows that a new family of materials, namely mesostructured zeolites, can bridge the gap between conventional (microporous) zeolites and surfactant‐templated (mesoporous) solids. In their Full Paper on p. 3110 ff., J. Garcia‐Martinez, X. Zou, M. Thommes and co‐workers describe how size‐tailored mesoporosity could be introduced into commercial zeolite Y crystals by a simple surfactant‐templating post‐synthetic mesostructuring process. The resulting mesoporous zeolite Y showed significantly improved product selectivity in both laboratory testing and refinery trials. A collaboration of three teams was able to characterize these materials with advanced techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The front cover artwork for Issue 11/2014 is a collaboration between Rive Technology, Inc. (USA), Stockholm University (Sweden), Quantachrome Instruments (USA), and the University of Alicante (Spain), The image shows that a new family of materials, namely mesostructured zeolites, bridges the gap between conventional (microporous) zeolites and surfactant-templated (mesoporous) solids. See the Full Paper itself on page . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "Realizing the Commercial Potential of Hierarchical Zeolites: New Opportunities in Catalytic Cracking" by C. Martinez et al that was published in the 2013 issue is presented.