Search

Background and purpose: The baseline glucose-to-potassium ratio (GPR) is associated with poor outcomes in patients with acute brain injury and intracranial hemorrhage. However, the impact of serum GPR on clinical outcomes after endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) is unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the association between the GPR at admission and functional outcomes at 90 days after EVT. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed our database for patients with acute ischemic stroke involving an anterior circulation large-vessel occlusion who received EVT between October 2019 and December 2021. The baseline serum GPR was measured after admission. The primary outcome was a 90-day poor outcome, which was defined as a modified Rankin scale score of 3–6. Results: A total of 273 patients (mean age, 70.9 ± 11.9 years; 161 men) were finally included for analyses. During the 90-day follow-up, 151 patients (55.3%) experienced an unfavorable outcome. After adjusting for demographic characteristics and other potential confounders, the increased GPR was significantly associated with a higher risk of a 90-day poor outcome (odds ratio, 1.852; 95% confidence interval, 1.276–2.688, p = 0.001). Similar results were observed when the GPR was analyzed as a categorical variable. In addition, the restricted cubic spline observed a positive and linear association between the GPR and poor outcomes at 90 days (p = 0.329 for linearity; p = 0.001 for linearity). Conclusion: Our study found that ischemic stroke patients with the higher GPR at admission were more likely to have an unfavorable prognosis at 3 months, suggesting that GPR may be a potential prognostic biomarker for ischemic stroke after EVT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is common in surgical patients and associated with worse perioperative outcomes. Objectives: To investigate the effect of mini-dose dexmedetomidine supplemented analgesia on postoperative sleep quality pattern in patients at high risk of OSA. Design: A pilot randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Setting: A tertiary university hospital in Beijing, China. Patients: One hundred and fifty-two adult patients who had a STOP-Bang score ≥3 and a serum bicarbonate level ≥28  mmol/L and were scheduled for major noncardiac surgery between 29 January 2021 and 20 September 2022. Intervention: After surgery, patients were provided with high-flow nasal cannula and randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive self-controlled opioid analgesia supplemented with either mini-dose dexmedetomidine (median 0.02  μg/kg/h) or placebo. We monitored polysomnogram from 9:00  pm to 6:00  am during the first night. Main outcome measures: Our primary outcome was the percentage of stage 2 non-rapid eye movement (N2) sleep. Secondary and exploratory outcomes included other postoperative sleep structure parameters, sleep-respiratory parameters, and subjective sleep quality (Richards-Campbell Sleep Questionnaire; 0–100 score range, higher score better). Results: All 152 patients were included in intention-to-treat analysis; 123 patients were included in sleep structure analysis. Mini-dose dexmedetomidine supplemented analgesia increased the percentage of stage N2 sleep (median difference, 10%; 95% CI, 1 to 21%; p  =  0.029); it also decreased the percentage of stage N1 sleep (median difference, −10%; 95% CI, −20% to −1%; p  =  0.042). Other sleep structure and sleep-respiratory parameters did not differ significantly between the two groups. Subjective sleep quality was slightly improved with dexmedetomidine on the night of surgery, but not statistically significant (median difference, 6; 95% CI, 0 to 13; p  =  0.060). Adverse events were similar between groups. Conclusion: Among patients at high risk of OSA who underwent noncardiac surgery, mini-dose dexmedetomidine supplemented analgesia may improve sleep quality without increasing adverse events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: The baseline glucose-to-potassium ratio (GPR) is associated with poor outcomes in patients with acute brain injury and intracranial hemorrhage. However, the impact of serum GPR on clinical outcomes after endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) is unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the association between the GPR at admission and functional outcomes at 90 days after EVT. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed our database for patients with acute ischemic stroke involving an anterior circulation large-vessel occlusion who received EVT between October 2019 and December 2021. The baseline serum GPR was measured after admission. The primary outcome was a 90-day poor outcome, which was defined as a modified Rankin scale score of 3-6. Results: A total of 273 patients (mean age, 70.9 ± 11.9 years; 161 men) were finally included for analyses. During the 90-day follow-up, 151 patients (55.3%) experienced an unfavorable outcome. After adjusting for demographic characteristics and other potential confounders, the increased GPR was significantly associated with a higher risk of a 90-day poor outcome (odds ratio, 1.852; 95% confidence interval, 1.276-2.688, p = 0.001). Similar results were observed when the GPR was analyzed as a categorical variable. In addition, the restricted cubic spline observed a positive and linear association between the GPR and poor outcomes at 90 days (p = 0.329 for linearity; p = 0.001 for linearity). Conclusion: Our study found that ischemic stroke patients with the higher GPR at admission were more likely to have an unfavorable prognosis at 3 months, suggesting that GPR may be a potential prognostic biomarker for ischemic stroke after EVT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experiment employed viewing time methods to investigate the effects of individual differences in visuospatial working memory (VWM) on the processing of older adults' bridging inferences in the understanding of visual narratives. The results showed that older adults could make bridging inferences in visual narrative processing, and that VWM had no significant effect on the generation of older adults' bridging inferences in visual narrative comprehension. The findings of this study have the potential to enrich and advance the theories and models related to discourse comprehension and its inference processing, and they would have important implications for using visual media to facilitate training in inference processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Caveolin‐1 (Cav‐1) is reported to mediate blood–brain barrier integrity after ischaemic stroke. Our purpose was to assess the role of circulating Cav‐1 levels in predicting symptomatic intracranial haemorrhage (sICH) amongst ischaemic stroke patients after endovascular thrombectomy (EVT). Methods: Patients with large‐vessel occlusive stroke after EVT from two stroke centres were prospectively included. Serum Cav‐1 level was tested after admission. sICH was diagnosed according to the Heidelberg Bleeding Classification. Results: Of 325 patients (mean age 68.6 years; 207 men) included, 47 (14.5%) were diagnosed with sICH. Compared with patients without sICH, those with sICH had a lower concentration of Cav‐1. After adjusting for potential confounders, multivariate regression analysis demonstrated that the increased Cav‐1 level was associated with a lower sICH risk (odds ratio 0.055; 95% confidence interval 0.005–0.669; p = 0.038). Similar results were obtained when Cav‐1 levels were analysed as a categorical variable. Using a logistic regression model with restricted cubic splines, a linear and negative association of Cav‐1 concentration was found with sICH risk (p = 0.001 for linearity). Furthermore, the performance of the conventional risk factors model in predicting sICH was substantially improved after addition of the Cav‐1 levels (integrated discrimination index 2.7%, p = 0.002; net reclassification improvement 39.7%, p = 0.007). Conclusions: Our data demonstrate that decreased Cav‐1 levels are related to sICH after EVT. Incorporation of Cav‐1 into clinical decision‐making may help to identify patients at a high risk of sICH and warrants further consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fatigue driving is a significant factor in traffic accidents, underscoring the importance of driver fatigue detection. Existing fatigue detection methods are susceptible to factors such as acquisition angle and face occlusion, and a large number of parameters make them unsuitable for deployment on embedded devices. To address these issues, this paper proposes a lightweight fatigue driving detection method based on facial features. Firstly, a lightweight face detection method is presented, which introduces a lightweight backbone network to extract effective features. Subsequently, a lightweight facial landmark detection method is proposed to enhance positioning accuracy by modifying the structure of the model and the loss function, obtaining 98 landmarks of the driver, and allowing for the calculation of fatigue characterization parameters for the eyes, mouth, and head. Finally, we combine the extracted fatigue characteristic parameters to comprehensively assess the driver's fatigue state. Experimental results demonstrate that our method exhibits low model complexity, fulfilling the real-time and accuracy requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uniaxial compression tests were conducted on quartz mica schist in a laboratory to study the brittle failure modes of foliated rocks. By focusing on the crack evolution pattern, the failure mechanisms of foliated rocks were investigated by numerical tests based on particle discrete element theory. Furthermore, the effect of fabric on the mechanical anisotropy of foliated rocks was explored. The results indicated that the failure of foliated rocks subjected to uniaxial compression is heavily controlled by the rock fabric, exhibiting complex modes depending on the loading direction, including axial tensile fracture, oblique shear fracture, conical shear fracture, slip shear failure and splitting failure. Cracks initiated in the compressed rocks are induced from the contact surfaces of granular and flaky minerals and from the tips of flaky minerals. The crack initiation of foliated rocks, attributed to the concentration of tensile stress within the rock, responds to the loading direction in terms of the induced mechanism. When α = 90°, 45° and 0°, crack initiation depends on the differences in the mechanical properties of different minerals, the slipping of flaky minerals, and the kinking of flaky minerals, respectively. The formation of primary fracture planes results from tension crack coalescence + shear crack connection (α = 90°), shear crack or tension‒shear composite crack connection (α = 45°), and tension crack coalescence (α = 0°). As the orientation degree of flaky minerals decreases, the failure mode experiences a gradual decrease in sensitivity to the loading direction, and the curve of strength variation with orientation angle changes from U-shaped to shoulder-shaped or wave-shaped, accompanied by a decreasing anisotropy degree of rock strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Literature on integrated coastal zonal management (ICZM) for coastal sustainability from a legal perspective provided significant measures. Recently, sustainable development goals (SDGs) have become a focus in ICZM literature, which establishes coastal goals and connects these goals with other goals. Although integrating coastal goals into ICZM under international law challenges the existing models presented in the literature, the comprehensive literature review (CLR) methodology is appropriate for observing the current literature and provides a way-forward for coastal goals. Therefore, through this research, a CLR on ICZM literature is conducted to observe how far SDGs are integrated for coastal sustainability. The CLR identified that coastal city governance is a pertinent part of ICZM, and the coastal goals are devised in the form of environmental goals of SDG - 14 (life below water). This CLR examines the anthropogenic connections of waste, sanitation, and emissions management and urban planning with coastal ecosystems under the ICZM system. For such purposes, governance tools of science-policy integration under international law and policy for sustainable development are utilized to form an obligatory framework. The CLR further provided coordination, adaptivity, monitoring, and capacity-building tools, which were utilized thoroughly throughout the literature and can be incorporated with the SDGs in a multilevel governance framework of ICZM. Throughout the study, international law formulating SDGs is pivotal to be transplanted successfully into the ICZM governance processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social distancing is an important non-pharmaceutical intervention tool (NPIs) to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, it also created negative impacts of economic activities. Understanding the emotions and public opinions about social distancing are important for the future policy making of COVID-19 mitigation and the assessment of public health impacts. This study collected 77,627 number of Twitter messages (tweets) between February 1, 2020 and April 30, 2020 from five English-speaking countries (United States, the United Kingdom, India, Canada, and Australia) using the social distancing keywords. We adopted a multi-module hybrid convolutional neural network model sentiment analysis on social distancing related tweets with 85.95% accuracy. This paper conducts a sentiment analysis of tweets from the public on social distancing measures in five countries. Our findings show similar sentiments in tweets from these five countries, which is more positives than negatives about social distancing measures in the public. Additionally, when the daily number of new cases changes, public sentiment fluctuates with it. We believe that social distancing is effective in preventing the spread of coronavirus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14) was launched in 2015 to provide an overarching governance framework for long-term sustainable ocean development. This research paper analyzes the extent to which global and regional organizations are coherent with SDG 14 under the existing frameworks of international law. This research paper further assessed Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) under the framework of the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and International Environmental Law (IEL) in the context of joint governance of ocean and fisheries as Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs). According to its objectives, the research indicated that coherence across governing instruments should be increased for the governance of LMEs, leading to the development of a mechanism representing consistency with SDG 14. As a result, a mechanism that demonstrates the coherence of SDG 14 with Agenda—2030 is made, which indicates that, in order to govern fisheries and oceans as LMEs jointly, coherence among governing instruments must be increased. The conclusion followed SDG 14's recommended actions, which are sly in line with UNCLOS and IEL, although the current initiatives of the regional organizations should be updated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isostructural, pillar-layered metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) will provide an ideal structural model for studying the influence of functional groups on fluorescence sensing. Here, we study dipyridyl linkers to tune the detection of Fe3+ ions. Three isostructural analogues of pillar-layered frameworks were used as fluorescence sensors to quickly, sensitively, and selectively detect Fe3+ ions with good repeatability. Importantly, an increase in length of the pillars and accessible volumes may lead to an increase in the fluorescence quenching constants (Ksv(PL-1) = 1.58 × 104 M−1) < (Ksv(PL-2) = 1.72 × 104 M−1) < (Ksv(PL-3) = 2.47 × 104 M−1), which may be related to different dipyridyl ligands acting as pillars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the characteristics of respiratory involvement in Chinese paediatric neuromuscular disease (NMD) at early stage and to explore convenient monitoring methods. Children with NMD (age < 18) diagnosed at a multidisciplinary joint NMD clinic at Peking University First Hospital from January 2016 to April 2021 were included. Overnight polysomnography (PSG) and pulmonary function test (PFT) data were analysed, and the characteristics of four groups: congenital muscular dystrophy (CMD), congenital myopathy, spinal muscular atrophy, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) were compared. A total of 83 children with NMD were referred for respiratory assessment, of who 80 children underwent PSG; 41 performed spirometry and 38, both. The duration of pulse oxygen saturation (SpO2) <90% over apnoea and hypopnoea index (AHI) was lowest in DMD and significantly different from CMD (p = 0.033). AHI was positively correlated with the oxygen desaturation index (ODI) (r = 0.929, p = 0.000). The peak expiratory flow (PEF) were positively correlated with forced vital capacity (FVC), both as actual values and percent pred, respectively (r = 0.820, 0.719, p = 0.000). ROC derived sensitivity and specificity of prediction of AHI > 15/h or duration of SpO2<90% ≥ 60 min from FVC <51% pred was 75.8% and 85.7%, respectively. AHI and hypoxia burden were independent factors in children with NMD in PSG and attention needed to be paid in both. FVC might be a daytime predictor for significant sleep-disordered breathing or hypoxia. Nocturnal consecutive oximetry with diurnal peak flow measurement may be convenient and effective for home monitoring at early stage of respiratory involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) image object detection has great application value in the military and civilian fields. However, the objects in the captured images from UAVs have problems of large-scale variation, complex backgrounds, and a large proportion of small objects. To resolve these problems, a multi-scale object detector based on coordinate and global information aggregation is proposed, named CGMDet. Firstly, a Coordinate and Global Information Aggregation Module (CGAM) is designed by aggregating local, coordinate, and global information, which can obtain features with richer context information. Secondly, a Feature Fusion Module (FFM) is proposed, which can better fuse features by learning the importance of different scale features and improve the representation ability of multi-scale features by reusing feature maps to help models better detect multi-scale objects. Moreover, more location information of low-level feature maps is integrated to improve the detection results of small targets. Furthermore, we modified the bounding box regression loss of the model to make the model more accurately regress the bounding box and faster convergence. Finally, we tested the CGMDet on VisDrone and UAVDT datasets. The proposed CGMDet improves mAP0.5 by 1.9% on the VisDrone dataset and 3.0% on the UAVDT dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-compartment vehicle routing problem (MCVRP) is an extension of the classical capacitated vehicle routing problem where products with different characteristics are transported together in one vehicle with multiple compartments. This paper deals with this problem, whose objective is to minimize the total travel distance while satisfying the capacity and maximum route length constraints. We proposed a hybrid iterated local search metaheuristic (HILS) algorithm to solve it. In the framework of iterated local search, the current solution was improved iteratively by five neighborhood operators. For every obtained neighborhood solution after the local search procedure, a large neighborhood search-based perturbation method was executed to explore larger solution space and get a better neighborhood solution to take part in the next iteration. In addition, the worse solutions found by the algorithm were accepted by the nondeterministic simulated annealing-based acceptance rule to keep the diversification of solutions. Computation experiments were conducted on 28 benchmark instances and the experimental results demonstrate that our presented algorithm finds 17 new best solutions, which significantly outperforms the existing state-of-the-art MCVRP methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been widely used in the field of remote sensing (RS) scene classification, which have achieved remarkable results. In RS scene classification, local key objects are particularly crucial for classification results. However, most existing CNN methods directly utilize the deep-level global features of CNN, ignoring object-level information in shallow features or leading to redundant and erroneous information when using shallow features. To fully utilize the important information in shallow features, we proposed an end-to-end contextual spatial-channel attention network (CSCANet) to learn multilayer feature representations and further improve classification performance by employing shallow object-level semantic information. First, ResNet34 is pretrained to extract different levels of features. Second, a contextual spatial-channel attention module (CSCAM) is constructed to generate contextual spatial-channel attention features by exploiting features at different levels. Finally, the triple loss function is combined with the central loss function to guide the model training. Experiments on three public RS scene classification datasets [UC-Merced (UCM), aerial image dataset (AID), and NWPU-RESISC45 (NWPU)] demonstrate that the proposed method achieves highly competitive results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex background and small scale of objects in remote sensing images (RSIs) lead to poor detection performance. To solve these problems, a new object detection method named the residual feature enhancement detection network (RFEDN) is proposed. First, to weaken the interference of irrelevant backgrounds, we introduce a common-and-differential attention network into the cross-stage partial darknet−53, which can refine features in both channel and spatial dimensions so that the network pays attention to meaningful features. After this, we design the residual feature enhancement-based path aggregation network (RFE-PANet), which can help alleviate the problem of information loss caused by channel reduction. We perform experiments on the dataset of object detection in aerial images (DOTA) series datasets and the HRSC2016 dataset. The experimental results reveal the superior performance of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With about 13,000 known species, ants are the most abundant venomous insects. Their venom consists of polypeptides, enzymes, alkaloids, biogenic amines, formic acid, and hydrocarbons. In this study, we investigated, using in silico techniques, the peptides composing a putative antimicrobial arsenal from the venom gland of the neotropical trap-jaw ant Odontomachus chelifer. Focusing on transcripts from the body and venom gland of this insect, it was possible to determine the gland secretome, which contained about 1022 peptides with putative signal peptides. The majority of these peptides (75.5%) were unknown, not matching any reference database, motivating us to extract functional insights via machine learning-based techniques. With several complementary methodologies, we investigated the existence of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) in the venom gland of O. chelifer, finding 112 non-redundant candidates. Candidate AMPs were predicted to be more globular and hemolytic than the remaining peptides in the secretome. There is evidence of transcription for 97% of AMP candidates across the same ant genus, with one of them also verified as translated, thus supporting our findings. Most of these potential antimicrobial sequences (94.8%) matched transcripts from the ant's body, indicating their role not solely as venom toxins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the spatial variability of hydraulic properties, probabilistic slope seepage analysis becomes necessary. This study conducts a probabilistic analysis of slope seepage under rainfall, considering the spatial variability of saturated hydraulic conductivity. Through this, both the commonly used Monte Carlo simulation method and the proposed first-order stochastic moment approach are tested and compared. The results indicate that the first-order analysis approach is effective and applicable to the study of flow processes in a slope scenario. It is also capable of obtaining statistics such as mean and variance with a high enough accuracy. Using this approach, higher variabilities in the pressure head and the fluctuation of the phreatic surface in the slope are found with a higher value of the correlation length of the saturated hydraulic conductivity. The Monte Carlo simulation is found to be time-consuming: at least 10,000 realizations are required to reach convergence, and the number of realizations needed is sensitive to the grid density. A coarser grid case requires more realizations for convergence. If the number of realizations is not enough, the results are unreliable. Compared with Monte Carlo simulation, the accuracy of the first-order stochastic moment analysis is generally satisfied when the variance and the correlation length of the saturated hydraulic conductivity are not too large. This study highlights the applicability of the proposed first-order stochastic moment analysis approach in the slope scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. The use of basal implantation permitted to perform prosthetic rehabilitation of patients with defects of the upper jaw, where traditional dental implantation could not be used. Materials and methods. We present the clinical case of a patient with a subtotal defect of the right half of the maxilla after removal of a benign tumor, for prosthetic rehabilitation through basal dental implantation. Results and discussion. According to the significant post-resection deficit of the bone, it was decided to create a fixed prosthetic construction with support on 3 dental implants located in "strategic" areas - floor of the nose, tubero-pterygoid area and zygomatic body. The treatment was uneventful. No complications were detected during 9 years of follow-up observation. Conclusions. This clinical case successfully demonstrates the possibility of rehabilitation of patients with post-resection defects of the upper jaw trough basal dental implants with fixed prosthetic bridge-like constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The objective of this study is to explore and compare the strength of associations between work‐related potential traumatic events and burnout among operating room nurses based on three different approaches. Design: The study followed a multisite cross‐sectional design. Methods: A stratified sampling method was conducted. Cities in the Shandong Province were divided into four groups, and two tertiary hospitals were randomly selected from all tertiary hospitals in cities of each group. A total of 361 eligible operating room nurses provided valid questionnaires between June and November 2019. Work‐related potential traumatic events questionnaire and the Chinese version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory were conducted. Associations between individual, cumulative potential traumatic events, as well as latent class analysis‐derived patterns of potential traumatic experiences with burnout were examined using logistic regression analysis. Results: Specific traumatic events (e.g., patients' sudden death, bullying and ostracism from colleagues) were independently associated with an increased risk of burnout. Work‐related potential traumatic events had a cumulative effect on burnout, whereby operating room nurses exposed to cumulative potential traumatic events carried a higher risk for burnout than others. The "multiple work‐related potential traumatic events" pattern derived by latent class analysis was related to an increased risk of high depersonalization. Conclusion: Operating room nurses who reported specific or multiple work‐related potential traumatic events were at high risk for burnout. It is of great significance to provide qualified and timely counselling or support. Impact: This study is the first to focus on work‐related potential traumatic events among operating room nurses and examine their relationship with burnout based on three perspectives. The findings could help identify those operating room nurses who are at high risk of burnout in clinical practice. Hospital managers should develop targeted interventions to prevent or mitigate the harmful impact of potential traumatic events on occupational health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable natural polymer: cellulose nanofibers (CNF), with the characteristics of one-dimensional nanowires structure and rich in functional groups, have shown a wide range of potential applications in lithium-sulfur batteries. However, the electrical insulating properties of CNF inhibit its application in host materials of lithium-sulfur batteries. In this work, the influence of the CNF with different charge states (positively or negatively charged CNF) and delaminated-MXene (d-MXene) composite materials on the electrochemical performance of lithium-sulfur batteries was investigated. Two different types of cellulose nanofibers (TEMPO-mediated oxidation cellulose nanofiber and cationic cellulose nanofiber) were combined with d-MXene through the directional assembly of ice templates to prepare d-MXene/TEMPO-mediated oxidation cellulose nanofiber (MT) and d-MXene/cationic cellulose nanofiber (MC) composite aerogels, respectively. As a result, MT-4 aerogel as the cathode for lithium-sulfur battery shows excellent rate performance (capacity of 848.1 mA h g−1 at the current density of 2 C), MC-6 aerogel cathode exhibits ultra-high capacity (1573.7 mA h g−1 at 0.1 C), and excellent long-term cycling performance (capacity retention rate of 96.3% after 200 cycles). The design strategy of renewable cellulose nanofiber composite materials offers a new angle for the design of low-cost and high-performance lithium-sulfur batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A brief overview of the research history of the early stages of Polyphaga evolution is given. Reasons for the unparalleled evolutionary success of Polyphaga, which allowed them to become the dominant suborder from the Early Cretaceous to the present time, is analyzed on the basis of published data. Morphology of early findings of crown group beetles (family Ademosynidae, genera Archosyne Ponomarenko et al., 2014 and Ponomarenkium Yan et al., 2018) from the Middle and Late Permian and Triassic (family Peltosynidae) are evaluated morphologically, and their key apomorphies are highlighted. Phylogenetic hypotheses based on molecular analysis, which aimed at reconstructing the appearance and lifestyle of the earliest Polyphaga, are evaluated. Basal branching is shown in Polyphaga, which produced a wide spectrum of forms, no less than in other infraorder-level taxa of Holometabola, and helped them to survive three out of the five mass extinctions of Phanerozoic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Underground water-sealed storage cavern is an important way for petroleum strategic reserve in China, which owns lots of outstanding advantages, such as low operating costs, high safety, and land resource conservation. As the major structure in underground water-sealed storage cavern, its layout parameters and excavation scheme will have significant impact on rock stability and overall project quality. A method is put forward to optimize layout and excavation scheme of main caverns. In this method, the Q system and Hoek–Brown strength criterion is utilized to estimate equivalent mechanical parameters of rock mass based on field survey data. Numerical test analysis is carried out by 3 Dimensions Distinct Element Code (3DEC). Displacement, maximum displacement and plastic zone volume are selected as three indicators for quantitative assessment. Besides, it is applied into a proposed large-scale underground water-sealed storage cavern project in China. Results show that axial direction should adopt NW325°, buried depth of cavern crown should locate at − 100 m, and spacing should be 1.5 times the span (36 m). Scheme two and "jump excavation" mode is recommended in construction, which can effectively reduce the interaction effect between adjacent caverns. This method has the characteristics of easy data acquisition, strong operability and common applicability. The achieved results can not only provide reference for related projects, but also further enrich the research content in this field, which has a certain engineering value and theoretical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A three-dimensional (3D) metal–organic framework [(CH3)2NH2][Zn2(DMTDC)2(3-mtz)]·4DMF·3H2O (Zn-MOF) has been solvothermally synthesized by using mixed ligands of 3-methyl-1,2,4-triazole (3-Hmtz) and a thiophene-functionalized dicarboxylate ligand, 3,4-dimethylthieno[2,3-b]thiophene-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (H2DMTDC). Zn-MOF exhibits a uninodal 6-connected pcu α-Po topology structure and possesses an anionic framework with large 1D-trapezoidal channels. Gas adsorption studies reveal that the activated Zn-MOF-a displays selective adsorption of CO2 over N2 at 273 K and 298 K as well as a high isosteric heat of CO2 adsorption. Moreover, Zn-MOF shows selective adsorption of the cationic dyes over the anionic and neutral dyes, and can be used as a fast-response and sensitive probe for the detection of Fe3+ by fluorescence quenching after encapsulation of Tb3+ into the pores by postsynthetic cation exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the leg-lowering process, the offshore jack-up platform is in a floating state, and the spudcan may collide with the seabed due to the platform motion in waves, thereby threatening the safety and stability of the platform. This paper first analyzed the hydrodynamic response of a jack-up platform under different sea states. Then a finite-element model was established which considered the material and geometrical nonlinearity in the structure and the nonlinear interaction between soil and structure to investigate the collision response between the spudcan and seabed during lowering jack-up legs. The results show that the dynamic response of the platform decreases and gradually tends to be stable as the wave period increases. The motion response of the platform reach the largest value when the wave period is 8 s and the wave direction is 0°. The collision angle between the spudcan and seabed has a large influence on the collision response, while the velocity of leg-lowering has little influence on the collision response. The collision response is also significantly affected by soil conditions. For clay, the increase in undrained shear strength and Young's modulus will increase the impact force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large and severe plastic deformations (SPD) are two widely known approaches for the processing of metallic billets that have a different effect on the microstructure and physico−mechanical properties of materials. After a large deformation is implemented, for example, by longitudinal rolling or drawing, dislocation substructure cells and microbands are formed in billets. As a result of SPD, in particular, after equal‐channel angular pressing (ECAP), ultrafine nanoscale grains are formed in metals,[1,2] which provides their high mechanical and functional properties. Herein, in both cases, structure formation is largely conditioned by the patterns in the mechanics of plastic deformation. The difference in the produced microstructures is determined by different scalar and vector characteristics of large and severe strains. In the former case, monotonic strain accumulation takes place in a billet. In the latter case, due to the active nonmonotonic deformation of a billet, heavy strain is accumulated, and rotational modes are realized, which, as a result, produces shear bands with further formation of ultrafine grains with high‐angle grain boundaries. As a conclusion, a more precise definition of SPD is introduced, and recommendations are given for increasing the efficiency of the process of UFG structure formation in metals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model has been extensively applied to study ischaemic stroke. This study attempted to clarify effect of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) on infarct injury of MCAO rats. BMSCs were isolated and identified by staining CD29/CD44 and CD31/CD45. CX3CL1 silencing vector (pLVX-shRNA-CX3CL1) was generated and infected to BMSCs. pLVX-shRNA-CX3CL1 infected BMSCs were transplanted into brain tissue of MCAO rats. Real-time PCR was used to determine CX3CL1 expression. Infarct areas were stained with TTC to evaluate infarct size. Double-staining immunofluorescence was conducted to determine anti-inflammatory type CD206 and pro-inflammatory type tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α) microglia. Isolated BMSCs were positively presented for CD29/CD44, and negatively for CD31/CD45. CX3CL1 was significantly lower in the BMSC + pLVX-shRNA2-CX3-CL1 group compared to the BMSCs + pLVX group (p < 0.05). According to TTC and neurological scores, MCAO rats were successfully generated. BMSCs transplantation significantly increased CD206 microglia and decreased TNF-α microglia. However, shRNA-CX3CL1-infected BMSCs remarkably reduced CD206 microglia and enhanced TNF-α microglia compared to the MCAO + BMSCs group. In conclusion, BMSCs reverse microglia from pro-inflammatory type TNF-α microglia to anti-inflammatory type CD206 microglia in the infarct region of MCAO rats (3rd to 7th days post BMSC transplantation), through triggering of CX3CL1 secretion. Therefore, the potential effects of CX3CL1 secreted by BMSCs would provide an insight for stem cell-dependent therapeutic strategies in treating ischaemic stroke-associated disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discontinuities have huge impact on civil and mining engineering. To understand the spatial features of discontinuities, it is common to group them into different sets based on orientation. In this paper, a new algorithm is introduced for the identification of discontinuity sets. The new algorithm is developed by combined fuzzy C-means algorithm with variable length string genetic algorithm. In the new method, the number of discontinuity sets is not the necessary input parameter any more. This method is robust, global optimal and totally automatic. To verify its validity, the new method was firstly applied to an artificial data as well as a published data. For artificial data set, the assignment error rate is only 7.4%. For published data set, only 2 discontinuities are assigned to wrong sets. The results indicate that the new algorithm is better than fuzzy C-means algorithm and comparable with other common methods. Afterwards, the new method was utilized to analyze the orientation data sampled at an underground storage cavern site. The new method determines that the ideal number of sets is 3. The new method provided satisfactory results, which confirm its effectiveness and convenience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first fossil monotypic genus of the subfamily Necrophilinae (Coleoptera, Agyrtidae), Palaeonecrophilus buryaticus gen. et sp. nov., is described from a positive and negative imprint found at the Early Cretaceous Khasurty locality in Western Transbaikalia. The beetle is similar to modern Necrophilinae in the presence of notches on the apical antennomeres and the wide and flattened edges of the pronotum. It is distinguished from the modern species by the strong anterior protrusion of the anterior pronotal angles and the oblique orientation of the metanepisterna. Widely spaced anterior coxae with a process between them distinguish the new species from the representatives of the genus Necrophilus. Palaeonecrophilus presumably fed on carrion, like modern Necrophilus and Zeanecrophilus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three new alkaline earth metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), namely [Mg2(DMTDC)2(DMF)3(H2O)2]·2DMF·2H2O (1), [Ca(DMTDC)(DMF)] (2) and [Sr(DMTDC)(DMF)] (3), have been synthesized under solvothermal conditions by using a thiophene-functionalized dicarboxylate ligand, 3,4-dimethylthieno[2,3-b]thiophene-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (H2DMTDC). Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses demonstrate that the metal ion radii play an important role in coordination numbers and topologies, i.e., hexa-coordinated Mg2+ in 1 gives a two-dimensional layered framework with an sql net, while octa-coordinated Ca2+/Sr2+ in 2/3 exhibit a three-dimensional framework with lvt nets. All frameworks show a one-dimensional rhombus-shaped channel that is occupied by DMF and/or water molecules. Photoluminescence studies reveal that 1–3 can be used as fast-response fluorescence sensors for the sensitive detection of Fe3+ ions with favorable recyclability through fluorescence quenching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To assess the impact of sinogram-affirmed iterative reconstruction (SAFIRE) on risk category for coronary artery disease by combining coronary calcium score measurement and coronary CT angiography (CCTA). Materials and Methods. Eighty-nine patients (64.0% male) older than 18 years (64.4 ± 10.3 years) underwent coronary artery calcium scanning and prospectively ECG-triggered sequential CCTA examination. All raw data acquired in coronary artery calcium scanning were reconstructed by both filtered back projection (FBP) and SAFIRE algorithms with 5 different levels. Objective image quality and calcium quantification were evaluated and compared between FBP and all SAFIRE levels by the Sphericity Assumed test or Greenhouse-Geisser ε correction coefficient. Coronary artery stenosis was assessed in CCTA. Risk categories of all patients and of the patients with coronary artery stenosis in CCTA were compared between FBP and all SAFIRE levels by the Friedman test. Results. The reconstruction protocol from traditional FBP to SAFIRE 5 was associated with a gradual reduction in CT value and image noise (P < 0.001) but associated with a gradual improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio (P < 0.001). There was a gradual reduction in coronary calcification quantification (Agatston score: from 73.5 in FBP to 38.1 in SAFIRE 5, P < 0.001) from traditional FBP to SAFIRE 5. There was a significant difference for the risk category between FBP and all levels of SAFIRE in all patients (from 3.5 in FBP to 3.2 in SAFIRE 5, P < 0.001) and in the patients with coronary artery stenosis in CCTA (from 4.0 in FBP to 3.6 in SAFIRE 5, P < 0.001). Conclusions. SAFIRE significantly reduces coronary calcification quantification compared to FBP, resulting in the reduction of risk categories based on the Agatston score. The risk categories of the patients with coronary artery stenosis in CCTA may also decline. Thus, SAFIRE may lead risk categories to underestimate the existence of significant coronary artery stenosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, comprehensive laboratory experiments, such as thin-section and optical section analyses and P wave velocity and uniaxial compression tests, are performed on three types of quartz mica schist samples. The thin-section analysis reveals that the schist predominately consists of flaky mica and granular minerals, including quartz, feldspar, and calcite. The two types of minerals, both presenting a certain degree of orientation, are arranged to form a quasi-bedded structure as a whole, which essentially leads to macroscopic physicomechanic anisotropy. By means of optical section observation, directional microfissures are found to mainly be distributed alongside the edge of the oriented mica layer, while defects in other parts exhibit irregular orientation. Moreover, quantitative information is extracted from gray images by Image-Pro Plus (IPP), and then, relevant indicators are proposed to quantitatively analyze the differences in the content, morphology, and distribution characteristics of minerals and defects among the three types of samples. P wave velocity measurements of dry cylindrical specimens with different schistosity angles α show that the minimum value lies in the direction of the transverse schistosity planes (α = 90°) and that the P wave velocity increases with the decrease of the schistosity angle. There is an obvious linear positive correlation between the orientation coefficient of mica, which is adopted to indirectly reflect the orientation degree of microfissure, and the 0.5 power of the velocity anisotropy coefficient. The uniaxial compression test of specimens reveals the anisotropic characteristics of the peak strength, failure mode, and crack initiation and propagation for the schist samples. In particular, with the change of the schistosity angle, the peak strength and crack initiation strength have a U shape, characterized by a minimum value at α = 30° and maximum value at α = 0° or 90°. Directional microfissures and irregular defects with a dominant angle control the crack initiation of the specimens with 0° ≤ α ≤ 45° and 45° < α ≤ 90°, respectively. The weak edge of the directional mica layers has a more or less guiding effect on crack propagation when compressive loading is applied obliquely to the schistosity planes, while crack propagation is independent of weak edges when perpendicular to the planes. Three failure modes occur in the specimens with the change of the schistosity angle: tension-splitting failure, shear-slip failure, and shear failure. It is found that the mechanical anisotropy properties of the schist samples are closely associated with the content, morphology, and distribution characteristics of minerals and defects based on the analyses of the macro- and microquantitative data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the cluster analysis (CA), probabilistic methods, and artificial neural networks (ANNs) are used to predict landslide susceptibility. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is used as the basic tool for spatial data management. CA is applied to select non-landslide dataset for later analysis. A probabilistic method is suggested to calculate the rating of the relative importance of each class belonging to each conditional factor. ANN is applied to calculate the weight (i.e., relative importance) of each factor. Using the ratings and the weights, it is proposed to calculate the landslide susceptibility index (LSI) for each pixel in the study area. The obtained LSI values can then be used to construct the landslide susceptibility map. The aforementioned proposed method was applied to the Longfeng town, a landslide-prone area in Hubei province, China. The following eight conditional factors were selected: lithology, slope angle, distance to stream/reservoir, distance to road, stream power index (SPI), altitude, curvature, and slope aspect. To assess the conditional factor effects, the weights were calculated for four cases, using 8 factors, 6 factors, 5 factors, and 4 factors, respectively. Then, the results of the landslide susceptibility analysis for these four cases, with and without weighting, were obtained. To validate the process, the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve and the area under the curve (AUC) were applied. In addition, the results were compared with the existing landslide locations. The validation results showed good agreement between the existing landslides and the computed susceptibility maps. The results with weighting were found to be better than that without weighting. The best accuracy was obtained for the case with 5 conditional factors with weighting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) is one of the most commonly performed cardiac surgeries in the world. CABG using the internal mammary artery (IMA) remains the gold standard intervention for myocardial intervention in multivessel coronary artery disease. IMA harvesting can be performed with various techniques and approaches: pedicled vs skeletonized harvesting technique as well as approaches such as conventional sternotomy, robotic and endoscopic approaches. While each technique and approach have their respective advantages and disadvantages, evidence remains varied between cohorts. Traditionally, IMA has been used as an in situ conduit; however, IMA free grafts also provide satisfactory outcomes in certain situations. This literature review aims to explore the efficacy of different techniques and approaches of IMA harvesting and grafting. With evidence compiled, this will provide an overview of the complexity of CABG and locate gaps in current literature to direct future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study analyzes changes in the quality of bone regeneration and its tissue composition during restitution of postoperative bone defect on the mandible. The experiment involved 18 pubescent outbred (male) rabbits with surgically created defects on the mandible, which received 3 weekly procedures of 500 shockwave impulses each (groups A and B), except for the control group. According to CBCT assessment, bone density varied depending on the measurement site and treatment method selected. The histological picture in group A corresponded to restitution of bone defect, due to the variously mineralized cancellous bone, whereas in animals of group B, the newly formed bone tissue was not structurally different from the intact one. Under experimental conditions, by applying the methods proposed by the authors, certain modifications in bone tissue, radiographically and histologically confirmed, can be obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The anisotropy of schist usually has a complex influence on stability of tunnel surrounding rock. In this study, the schist anisotropy and its variation with the confining pressure are analyzed by the triaxial compression test. Then, geological models of tunnel under typical schistose angles α are established based on the highway tunnel project from Shiyan City to Fangxian County in China. Furthermore, the anisotropic failure mechanism, plastic zone distribution and displacement distribution of surrounding rock are investigated to understand its deformation and failure response pattern to the buried depth of tunnel and variable anisotropy. The results show that increased confining pressure weakens deformation anisotropy and weakly strengthens strength anisotropy of the schist. As the buried depth of tunnel changes from 60 to 140 m, the plastic morphology of surrounding rock with α = 0° presents a similar oval and it has a horizontal development trend. When α = 45°, it shows a spiral sector which has oblique extension as well as the increased angle θ between the long and short axis. While a cap shape with vertical development trend when α = 90°. With the weakening deformation anisotropy of surrounding rock, the anisotropic influence coefficient γ 1 decreases gradually, indicating that schistose plane engenders a diminishing effect on the anisotropic deformation of surrounding rock as buried depth of tunnel increases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To diagnose pulmonary embolism (PE) in children and adults since evaluating tiny pulmonary vasculature beyond segmental level is a challenging and demanding task with thousands of images. Purpose: To evaluate the effect of computer-assisted detection (CAD) on acute PE on CTPA in children and young adults by readers with varying experience levels. Material and Methods: Six radiologists were retrospectively divided into three groups according to experience levels and assessed the CTPA studies on a per-emboli basis. All readers identified independently the PE presence, and ranked diagnostic confidence on a 5-point scale with and without CAD. Reading time, sensitivities, specificities, accuracies, positive predictive values (PPVs), and negative predictive values (NPVs) were calculated for each reading. Results: The sensitivities and NPVs differed significantly in most readers (P = 0.004, 0.001, 0.010, 0.010, and 0.012 for sensitivities and P = 0.011, 0.003, 0.016, 0.017, and 0.019 for NPVs) except for reader 6 (P = 0.148 and 0.165, respectively), and the accuracies of all readers differed significantly (all P < 0.05) in peripheral PE (beyond segmental level) detection readings with CAD versus without CAD between two reading methods. The overall time using CAD was longer than those without CAD (76.6 ± 54.4 s vs. 49.4 ± 17.7 s, P = 0.000) for all readers. Significant differences were found for confidence scores in inter-group measurements with CAD (P = 0.045) and without CAD (P < 0.001). Conclusion: At the expense of longer reading time, the use of the CAD algorithms improves sensitivities, NPVs, and the accuracies of readers in peripheral PE detection, especially for readers with a poor level of interpretation experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first elucidates the importance of hydraulic heterogeneity of a rock mass on the design of an underground water‐sealed storage cavern. It then introduces an information fusion approach that integrates hydraulic tomography, displacement back analysis, and a stochastic successive linear estimator to map spatially varying hydraulic conductivity (Ks), Young's modulus (E′), cohesion (c′), and internal friction angle (ϕ′). This algorithm yields statistically unbiased estimate of the Ks, E′, c′, and ϕ′ fields and their uncertainty due to insufficient samples of their heterogeneity. Afterward, this uncertainty is translated into the probability of failure distribution around the cavern for the risk assessment. Results show that heterogeneity of Ks plays an important role in the deformation and failure of the cavern. They also show that the proposed approach can reveal more detailed parameter distributions than kriging approach, based on a large number of samples of the parameters before excavations. Further, the predicted probability of failure distribution based on the proposed approach can effectively reflect the actual failure locations. Key Points: This paper elucidates the importance of hydraulic heterogeneity of a rock mass on the design of underground water‐sealed storage cavernsThis paper also proposes fusion approach that integrates HT and displacement back analysis to map spatially varying hydraulic and mechanical propertiesThe approach identifies the high‐risk instability location around the caverns [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An adaptive sampling approach is proposed, which can sample spatially varying shear strength parameters efficiently to reduce uncertainty in the slope stability analysis. This approach employs a limit equilibrium model and stochastic conditional methodology to determine the likely sampling locations. Karhunen-Loève expansion is used to conduct the conditional Monte Carlo simulation. A first-order analysis is also proposed to ease the computational burden associated with Monte Carlo simulation. These approaches are then tested using borehole data from a field site. Results indicate that the proposed adaptive sampling approach is an effective and efficient sampling scheme for reducing uncertainty in slope stability analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]