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For posterior pilon fractures, the posterior approach (PA) is widely used but has its limitations. The transfibular approach (TFA) has been adopted to treat posterior malleolar fractures for the advantage of direct visual confirmation of the reduction status intraoperatively, yet the report of its application on posterior pilon fractures is rare. This study aims to compare TFA with PA in terms of their corresponding reduction quality.Clinical data of 85 posterior pilon fracture patients treated via PA (n = 62) or TFA (n = 23) were retrospectively reviewed. Radiographic and clinical assessments, including articular step-off or gap, syndesmosis reduction quality, signs of ankle arthritis, the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) ankle-hindfoot score, visual analogue scale (VAS), ankle stability, and the active range of motion (ROM) of the ankle, were all evaluated by two readers independently.The total incidence of step-off or gap ≥ 1 mm was significantly higher in the PA group (35.5%) than in the TFA group (8.7%, p = 0.015). In all the patients, step-off ≥ 1 mm was identified as an independent risk factor for the development of arthritis and a lower AOFAS score (p0.001). No significant difference was found in ROM and complication incidence between the two groups. Ankle instability was found in neither group during the follow-up.TFA could offer a way to intraoperatively evaluate the reduction status with direct visual confirmation and, thereby, might improve the results of reduction for posterior pilon fractures.Level III.

Supplemental Material for Steroid-loaded reconstituted high-density lipoprotein nanocarrier: A new treatment for systemic lupus erythematosus by Ye Yu, Xuesong Liu, Xinyi Ma, Gan Jiang, Qingxiang Song, Ruru Guo, Suli Wang, Xiaoling Gao and Liangjing Lu in Journal of Biomaterials Applications.

Cr-activated phosphor-converted light sources have attracted widespread attention in various applications based on Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. Unfortunately, Cr ions usually face the issue of multivalence and typically exist in valence...

PURPOSE: Pure ankle dislocation without associated fracture is extremely rare. The current study reports eight cases of this type of injury, aiming to add some new material to the published data and present our clinical experience. METHODS: Six open and two closed posteromedial tibiotalar dislocations without associated fractures treated in our department from 2015 to 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Emergent reduction was performed for all patients followed by an average of 6 weeks of immobilization with external fixators in open cases and a short leg cast in closed cases. No patients underwent ligament or capsule repair except one case. The clinical data were recorded and analyzed. RESULTS: At a mean follow-up of 33 months (range 13–61), the average AOFAS score was 91 (range 78–100) with five ankles rated as excellent and three rated as good. All of the eight patients returned to their prior daily life and the two closed patients with sports injuries resumed pre-injury activity level. The average range of motion (ROM) loss of the ankles was 9 degrees for plantarflexion and 3 degrees for dorsiflexion. Complications included superficial infection, moderate ankle stiffness, ankle degenerative change and residual numbness. None of the eight patients showed obvious ankle instability. CONCLUSION: Pure ankle dislocation without associated fracture is a rare injury. Emergent reduction, appropriate wound care in open injuries and proper joint stabilisation with a cast or external fixator provide good clinical results and could be the mainstay of treatment.

The self-etherification of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 5,5′(oxy-bis(methylene))bis-2-furfural (OBMF) was investigated on ZSM-5, MCM-22, beta and hierarchical micro–mesoporous ZSM-5 (HMZ) catalysts. The hierarchically structured zeolites exhibited a superior intrinsic activity and good resistance to carbonaceous deposit; the latter could be ascribed to the lower mass transfer barrier in the mesopores of the HMZ catalysts. The structure–activity correlation showed that the catalytic activity mainly originated from one or several specific Bronsted acid sites, providing key clues to design efficient zeolite catalysts for producing OBMF.

Severe calcaneal malunion is a clinical conundrum for the difficulty of calcaneal reconstruction without soft tissue complications. The aim of this study is to introduce the treatment strategy and preliminary results of staged Illizarov distraction histogenesis and corrective reconstruction for severe malunion of calcaneal fractures.From June 2014 to May 2020, 14 patients with severe calcaneal malunion treated with the staged strategy were retrospectively analyzed. At the first stage, calcaneal osteotomy and external fixation with Ilizarov frame were performed. The restoration of the approximate configuration of calcaneus and the expansion of contractural soft tissue were achieved by gradual calcaneal distraction. At the second stage, corrective reconstruction was performed and autogenous iliac crest bone graft was used. Clinical and radiographic outcomes were evaluated at final follow-up.The average time of Ilizarov distraction and total fixation was 21.4 days and 41.0 days at first-stage treatment. At a mean follow-up of 33.1 months, the average American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) ankle and hindfoot score increased significantly from 24.0 to 72.4 (p 0.01). And the mean visual analogue scale (VAS) score had improved remarkably from 8.2 to 2.4 (p 0.01). Radiographs showed that talocalcaneal height, calcaneal width, calcaneal tuberosity height, hindfoot alignment angle, and talar declination angle were improved to a great extent (p 0.01). Only one patient had minor pin site infection at first-stage treatment and one got superficial wound infection after second-stage surgery. No wound dehiscence, skin necrosis, or deep infection occurred.Staged Ilizarov distraction histogenesis and corrective reconstruction is a safe and effective treatment strategy for reducing soft tissue complications and improving reconstruction results in surgical correction of severe calcaneal malunion.

Wet torrefaction emerges as a potential biomass pretreatment process to enhance the fuel properties of biomass. The present research was aimed to determine the energy-efficient conditions for the w...

With the changes of urban development, the city tends to shape its unique history and culture which contribute to the construction of park landscape, along with the accumulation of historic culture that could build up a cultural city with the identity of history and culture. Taking Xishan Park in Mianyang as an example, the study is to explore the role of the history and landscape on the landscape construction. It is approached by analyzing the combination of relics and the landscape with the view of inheriting the historical culture and highlighting landscape elements and though this article, hoped to provide certain references about theory research and practice operation for City Park at all levels about its landscape cultural characteristics.

In order to design folk-house with unique village culture of Pingwu which provides short-term accommodation and create modern residential landscape environment, this paper researched the new methods and new forms of improving the folk-house’s landscape of Mianyang Pingwu by taking Senbola folk-house for example. We conclude that folk-houses should return to nature and retain characteristics.

In this manuscript, we report the simulation of electronic structures of TiO2 doped with Ag using first-principles calculation, based on the density functional theory (DFT) The mechanism to improve the visible-light photocatalytic activity for TiO2 doped with Ag. EF was displaced into the valence band (VB), narrowing the band gap. An independent energy band was also introduced above the VB and an energy band with the width of 0.9 eV is introduced under the conduction band (CB), also resulting in the narrowing of the band gap. New VB and CB were formed by three orbitals O-2p, Ti-3d and Ag-4d. Composite TiO2 nanotubes with Ag-doping were synthesized using the alkaline fusion and hydrothermal method under ambient atmosphere. XRD results indicated composite Ag-TiO2 nanotubes ranging from the single anatase phase to the anatase and rutile mixed phase. XPS showed an increase in the surface acidity and photo catalytic activity of TiO2 nanotubes due to the presence of OH radicals. Furthermore Ag-doping also facilitated the separation of photo-holes and photo-electrons and enhanced the optical properties.

Ag-doping TiO2 nanotubes (Ag-TNTs) were synthesized. A double junction is proposed, involving a Schottky junction and p-n junction (denoted as Ag-p-n junction) occurring between the Ag particles and the nanotube surface, as well as forming inside TiO2 nanotubes, respectively. The strongly built-in electric field of the junctions promotes the separation of photo-holes and photoelectrons, enhancing the photocatalytic efficiency. Ag-TNTs were characterized by XRD and TEM. XRD results indicated that a mixture of anatase and rutile phases. The presence of a new peak at 271 cm1 was revealed by Raman spectral analysis of Ag-TNTs.

In this work, rhamnolipid production was investigated using waste frying oil as the sole carbon source. By culture in shaking flasks, a naturally isolated strain synthesized rhamnolipid at concentration of 12.47 g/L and its mutant after treatment by UV light increased this productivity to 24.61 g/L. Fermentation was also conducted in a 50 L bioreactor and the productivity reached over 20 g/L. Hence, with a stable and high productive mutant strain, it could be feasible to reuse waste frying oil for rhamnolipid production on industrial scale.

While mining topics in a document collection, in order to capture the relationships between words and further improve the effectiveness of discovered topics, this paper proposed a feedback recurrent neural network-based topic model. We represented each word as a one-hot vector and embedded each document into a low-dimensional vector space. During the process of document embedding, we applied the long short-term memory method to capture the backward relationships between words and proposed a feedback recurrent neural network to capture the forward relationships between words. In the topic model, we used the original and muted document pairs as positive samples and the original and random document pairs as negative samples to train the model. The experiments show that the proposed model consumes not only lower running time and memory but also has better effectiveness during topic analysis.