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This study develops a simultaneous system combining low-temperature drying, extraction, and sterilization under low temperature, by comprising a microwave source and a vacuum chamber. The study commences by investigating the reduction in moisture content under microwave heating in vacuum conditions as a function of the drying time, the material load, and the microwave output power. Subsequently, the study compares the results obtained for the yield and composition of the essential oil extracted from Coleus amboinicus Loureiro leaves using the proposed system with those obtained using a conventional steam distillation technique. Finally, the study investigates the performance of the developed system in inactivating Bacillus subtilis spores using a low-pressure plasma sterilization technique. The experimental results show that the low-temperature vacuum conditions established in the proposed drying system accelerate the rate of moisture removal. Furthermore, the microwaves penetrate the interior of the material, heating the internal moisture directly. This not only reduces the drying time but also preserves the original flavor and appearance of the dried material. The extraction results show no significant difference between the final yield percentages and compositions of the essential oils extracted using the proposed system and the distilled steam technique, respectively. However, the extraction time is reduced from 90 minutes in the distilled steam method to just 30 minutes in the proposed system. Finally, the plasma sterilization results demonstrate that the proposed system reduces the number of colony-forming units of Bacillus subtilis from 170 to 7 within a treatment time of 1 s, and achieves complete sterilization following 180 s.

Supplemental Material for Risk Factors for Postoperative Ileus Following Spine Surgery: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis by Yu Chang, MD, Chia-En Wong, MD, Wei-Cheng Chen, MD, Hao-Hsiang Hsu, MD, Po-Hsuan Lee, MD, Chi-Chen Huang, MD, and Jung-Shun Lee, MD, MSc in Global Spine Journal

In recent years, Moringa oleifera has received commercial interest for its blood pressure (BP)-lowering effect. The objectives of this study were to investigate the hypotensive, diuretic, and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitory activities of M. oleifera ethanolic and aqueous extracts. Spontaneously hypertensive (SH) and normotensive (NT)rats were fed the ethanolic and aqueous extracts at a dose of 1000 mg/kg each for 14 days. The rats were allocated to 12 groups of five rats each. Systolic and diastolic BP were measured, and urine was collected. All extracts, except the aqueous stem extract, significantly reduced systolic and diastolic BP in SH rats, but none of the extracts showed significant hypotensive effects on NT rats. The ethanolic leaf extract (ELE) caused significant diuresis. Moreover, most of the extracts inhibited ACE activity significantly at 40 and 80 μg/mL. ELE, aqueous leaf extract (ALE), and ethanolic pod extract (EPE) showed the highest levels of inhibition (>50%), and their IC50 values; ELE (58.65±1.55), ALE (71.35±1.00) and EPE (54.04±1.00) were determined. The hypotensive effect observed was achieved either by diuretic or ACE-inhibitory activity. The active extracts are worthy of further investigation, as they have the potential to be developed as dietary supplements for pre-hypertensive individuals.

Additional file 1: Fig. S1. The real-time and retrospective interactive visualized dashboard was established through “Microsoft Power BI” for ARDS patients monitoring and data-driven decision support. Fig. S2. Flowchart of enrolled subjects. Table S1. The ARDS “Lung protective strategy” protocol in the medical intensive care units of China Medical University Hospital. Table S2. Logistic regression analysis of ICU and hospital mortality determinants.

Additional file 1: Figure S1. Publication bias. Table S1. Electronic search strategy. Table S2. Risk of bias assessment according to Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale for cohort studies.Table S3. Assessment of the quality of included studies by GRADE. Table S4. Pairwise meta-analysis of odds ratio (95% CI).

Bio-derived optoelectronic material is captivating and sustainable research as it reduces the environmental toxicity and comforting the wearable aspects. Our research involves the synthesis of series of bio-derived polyfluorene-block-poly(delta-decanolactone) (PF-b-PDL) conjugated block copolymers through smart one-pot procedure that involves simple purification for fabricating touch-responsive light-emitting diode (LED) devices. Compared with PF homopolymer, the block copolymers exhibit higher photoluminescence quantum yields and higher exciton binding energies. PF18-b-PDL13 specifically exhibits external quantum efficiency (EQE %) (similar to 6 times higher than PF homopolymer). Moreover, because of coily PDL block inducing a highly stable bound state in block copolymer generating the increment in PL lifetime and exciton binding energies than the homopolymer. Furthermore, the diblock copolymers device exhibits fully solution processability, higher carrier recombination efficiency, flex-stretch stability, good structural integrity and mechanical endurance highlighting the brighter potential of our bio-derived block copolymers for fabricating highly durable wearable stretchable nano and microelectronic devices.

The pricing of financial derivatives, which requires massive calculations and close-to-real-time operations under many trading and arbitrage scenarios, were largely infeasible in the past. However, with the advancement of modern computing, the efficiency has substantially improved. In this work, we propose and design a multi-path option pricing approach via autoregression (AR) process and Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS). Our approach learns and incorporates the price characteristics into AR process, and re-generates the price paths for options. We apply our approach to price weekly options underlying Taiwan Stock Exchange Capitalization Weighted Stock Index (TAIEX) and compare the results with prior practiced models, e.g., Black-Scholes-Merton and Binomial Tree. The results show that our approach is comparable with prior practiced models., 5 pages, 61st Meeting of EURO Working Group for Commodities and Financial Modeling (EWGCFM), Financial derivative pricing, Autoregressive process, Monte carlo simulation, Short-term option pricing

Residual pump peak in fiber-based supercontinuum, as a general phenomenon, limits its practical application. We report a novel supercontinuum generation (SCG) in a conventional highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) through multiple coherent pump technique, which eliminates the residual pump peak existed in conventional SCG. The multiple coherent pump technique is realized by double bound-state solitons achieved from a homemade modelocked fiber laser. We further compare the SCGs pumped by conventional bound-state soliton and single soliton. It confirms that the effective elimination of the residual pump peak in supercontinuum owes to higher transferring efficiency of the pump energy to new generated frequencies in the multiple coherent pump scheme. The use of multiple coherent pump scheme, i.e., double bound-state solitons, provides a new, simple and promising method to obtain flat supercontinuum source., 8 pages,5 figures

Images are 2D surfaces. People usually scale images using interpolations, which produce 2D polynomial surfaces. Therefore, in this paper we propose an image retrieval scheme that uses the coefficients of the polynomials as local features. To obtain the coefficients, we apply the iterative linear interpolation (ILI) which produces degree-2 polynomial surfaces. The coefficients are normalized according to the center pixel of the 4x4 sliding window and histogram of the normalized coefficients become the image features for the image retrieval. Experimental results show that for some classes of images, the proposed retrieval outperforms the local binary pattern (LBP), the local ternary pattern (LTP) and the local tetra pattern (LTrP) schemes while it inherits ILI's low computational complexity nature.

This paper reports the periodic power variation of the pulse-train in a passively mode-locked soliton fiber ring laser. It can obtain either the uniform or nonuniform pulse-train output by simply rotating the polarization controllers. The experimental results show that the pulse-train nonuniformity is caused by the interaction between the nonuniform polarization states of the soliton pulses and the passive polarizer in the cavity.

By considering higher-order effects, the properties of self-similar parabolic pulses propagating in the microstructured fibre amplifier with a normal group-velocity dispersion have been investigated. The numerical results indicate that the higher-order effects can badly distort self-similar parabolic pulse shape and optical spectrum, and at the same time the peak shift and oscillation appear, while the pulse still reveals highly linear chirp but grows into asymmetry. The influence of different higher-order effects on self-similar parabolic pulse propagation has been analysed. It shows that the self-steepening plays a more important role. We can manipulate the geometrical parameters of the microstructured fibre amplifier to gain a suitable dispersion and nonlinearity coefficient which will keep high-quality self-similar parabolic pulse propagation. These results are significant for the further study of self-similar parabolic pulse propagation.

We investigate the controlled implementation of a non-local CNOT operation using a three-qubit entangled state. Firstly, we show how the non-local CNOT operation can be implemented with unit fidelity and unit probability by using a maximally entangled GHZ state as controlled quantum channel. Then, we put forward two schemes for conclusively implementing the non-local operation with unit fidelity by employing a partially entangled pure GHZ state as quantum channel. The feature of these schemes is that a third side is included, who may participate the process of quantum non-local implementation as a supervisor. Furthermore, when the quantum channel is partially entangled, the third one can rectify the state distorted by imperfect quantum channel. In addition to the GHZ class state, the W class state can also be used to implement the same non-local operation probabilistically. The probability of successful implementation using the W class state is always less than that using the GHZ class state.

In the context of topcolor-assisted techicolor($TC2$) models, we investigate the feasibility of detecting the non-universal gauge boson $Z^{'}$ in the future high-energy linear $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider($LC$) experiments by performing $\chi^{2}$ analysis via studying its virtual effects on the processes $e^{+}e^{-}\to f\bar{f}$ with $f=\tau$, $\mu$, b, and c. We find that the non-universal gauge boson $Z^{'}$ is most sensitive to the process $e^{+}e^{-}\to \tau\bar{\tau}$. Discovery limits of the $Z^{'}$ mass $M_{Z^{'}}$ can be enhanced by the suitably polarized beams. If we assume that polarization of electron beam and positron beam are 80% and 60%, the $LC$ experiment with $\sqrt{s}=500GeV$ and $\pounds_{int}=340fb^{-1}$ can explore $M_{Z^{'}}$ up to 8$TeV$ for the coupling parameter $K_{1}\leq$0.8 at 95% $CL$.

An optical phase conjugator is used to enhance transmission stability of polarization solitons in highly birefringent fibres. Two polarization solitons form a breather in fibres with low birefringence firstly and the optical phase conjugator is used to make the spectra of polarization solitons converse, which results in the fact that the polarization soliton along the fast axis is compressed due to the strengthened self-phase modulation effect. Two polarization solitons are compressed further due to the cross-phase modulation effect. The enhanced nonlinear effects make the central peak frequencies of two polarization solitons shift to the larger range in opposite directions so that they trap each other fully to suppress the effect of birefringence.

In this paper, we report on the enhanced pulse compression due to the interaction between the positive third-order dispersion (TOD) and the nonlinear effect (cross-phase modulation effect) in birefringent fibres. Polarization soliton compression along the slow axis can be enhanced in a birefringent fibre with positive third-order dispersion, while the polarization soliton compression along the fast axis can be enhanced in the fibre with negative third-order dispersion. Moreover, there is an optimal third-order dispersion parameter for obtaining the optimal pulse compression. Redshifted initial chirp is helpful to the pulse compression, while blueshifted chirp is detrimental to the pulse compression. There is also an optimal chirp parameter to reach maximum pulse compression. The optimal pulse compression for TOD parameters under different N-order solitons is also found.

In this paper, we investigate the modulation instability for generating femtosecond pulses in fibres with slowly decreasing dispersion. Higher-order dispersion and higher-order nonlinear effects are taken into account when the continuous wave or quasi-continuous wave evolves into sub-picosecond and femtosecond pulses by modulation instability in the optical fibres. Our research results show that the gain spectrum of the dispersion-decreasing fibres is much wider than that in conventional fibres. The third-order dispersion effect has no contribution to gain spectrum, while the self-steepening effect reduces the maximum value and gain bandwidth and the Raman self-scattering effect widens the extent to which the modulation instability occurs.

A self-starting, passively mode-locked all-fibre ring laser based on the homemade Er3+/Yb3+codoped phosphate glass fibre is reported. Dual-pump sources were used to achieve the mode-locked operation in the experiment. The fundamental mode-locked pulse repetition rate is 10.67 MHz. The pulse duration, assumed as the fit of hyperbolic secant pulse shape, is 5.82ps. We also observe the multi-pulse output of the fibre laser.

This study was undertaken to evaluate the therapeutic effects of topical chlorogenic acid on excision wounds in Wistar rats. A 1 % (w/w) chlorogenic acid or silver sulfadiazine ointment was applied topically once a day for 15 days on full-thickness excision wounds created on rats. The 1 % (w/w) chlorogenic acid ointment had potent wound healing capacity as evident from the wound contraction on the 15th post-surgery day, which was similar to that produced by 1 % (w/w) silver sulfadiazine ointment. Increased rates of epithelialization were observed in the treated rats. It also improved cellular proliferation, increased tumor necrosis factor-α levels during the inflammatory phase (12 h, 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h post-wounding) of wound healing, upregulated transforming growth factor-β1 and elevated collagen IV synthesis in the chlorogenic acid-treated group. The results also indicated that chlorogenic acid possesses potent antioxidant activity by increasing superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione, and decreasing lipid peroxidation. In conclusion, these results demonstrate that topical application of chlorogenic acid can accelerate the process of excision wound healing by its ability to increase collagen synthesis through upregulation of key players such as tumor necrosis factor-α and transforming growth factor-β1 in different phases of wound healing as well as by its antioxidant potential.

Instead of training a single code vector for a word by using Elman network [1], this work presents a method to train multi-code for the polysemous word where each code represents a different meaning of the word. These multiple codes can accommodate different meanings of a word and facilitate the operation of word-sense disambiguation in semantic space.

Background Lonicera japonica Thunb. (Caprifoliaceae), a widely used traditional Chinese medicinal plant, is used to treat some infectious diseases and it may have uses as a healthy food and applications in cosmetics and as an ornamental groundcover. The ethanol extract of the flowering aerial parts of L. japonica (LJEE) was investigated for its healing efficiency in a rat excision wound model. Methods Excision wounds were inflicted upon three groups of eight rats each. Healing was assessed by the rate of wound contraction in skin wound sites in rats treated with simple ointment base, 10% (w/w) LJEE ointment, or the reference standard drug, 0.2% (w/w) nitrofurazone ointment. The effects of LJEE on the contents of hydroxyproline and hexosamine during healing were estimated. The antimicrobial activity of LJEE against microorganisms was also assessed. The in vivo anti-inflammatory activity of LJEE was investigated to understand the mechanism of wound healing. Results LJEE exhibited significant antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans, and Candida tropicalis. The ointment formulation prepared with 10% (w/w) LJEE exhibited potent wound healing capacity as evidenced by the wound contraction in the excision wound model. The contents of hydroxyproline and hexosamine also correlated with the observed healing pattern. These findings were supported by the histopathological characteristics of healed wound sections, as greater tissue regeneration, more fibroblasts, and angiogenesis were observed in the 10% (w/w) LJEE ointment-treated group. The results also indicated that LJEE possesses potent anti-inflammatory activity, as it enhanced the production of anti-inflammatory cytokines that suppress proinflammatory cytokine production. Conclusions The results suggest that the antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory activities of LJEE act synergistically to accelerate wound repair.

We investigate the adiabatic enhanced compression of ultrashort pulses from a distributed feedback laser operated at 1550 nm in fibres with slowly decreasing dispersion (FSDD). High-quality pulse compressions from 4.4 ps down to 1.1 ps in a 100 m FSDD and from 4.4 ps down to 830 fs in a 500 m FSDD are obtained. The Raman self-frequency shift of femtosecond pulses in the compression is observed. Theoretical analyses are in good agreement with experimental results.

We report on the enhanced pulse compression due to the interaction of positive third-order dispersion and cross-phase-modulation effects in birefringent fibres. Polarization soliton compression along the slow axis can be enhanced in birefringent fibres with positive third-order dispersion, and the polarization soliton compression along the fast axis can be enhanced in fibres with negative third-order dispersion. Moreover, the third-order dispersion parameter can be optimized to obtain the optimal pulse compression.

The influence of the third-order dispersion (TOD) on the polarization mode dispersion (PMD) is investigated. It is found that the TOD effect destroys orthogonal polarization modes in optical birefringent fibres. A new method is proposed to compensate for the PMD by means of cascading the fibres with the positive and negative TOD. This has proven to be practicable in long transmissions.

A proposal for photonic generation of a microwave signal is presented by employing a dual wavelength erbium-doped fibre ring laser. In the laser, a microring resonator is cascaded with a tunable bandpass filter to serve as a dual-wavelength selector, an unpumped polarization maintaining erbium-doped fibre is used as a saturable absorber. By replacing the microring resonator with a delay interferometer to verify the proposal, a wavelength-tunable dual wavelength single longitudinal mode laser is demonstrated, and a microwave signal at 10.01 GHz with a linewidth of less than 25 kHz is obtained by beating the two wavelengths at a photodetector.

Using the method based on the technique of symmetry reduction, we find the general analytical parabolic asymptotic self-similar solutions for the varying coefficient of Ginzburg-Landau equation that take consideration of the influence of the doped fiber retarding time. The parabolic asymptotic amplitude function, change of strict linear phase chirp and the effective temporal pulse width of self-similar pulse with gain dispersion are given for the dispersion decreasing fibers with longitudinal exponential distribution and hyperbolic distribution. And these theoretical results have been confirmed by numerical simulation in this paper.