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BackgroundInternet hospitals in China are being rapidly developed as an innovative approach to providing health services. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the development of internet hospitals that promote outpatient service delivery to the public via internet technologies. To date, no studies have assessed China's internet hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic. ObjectiveThis study aimed to elucidate the characteristics of China's internet hospitals and assess the health service capacity of these hospitals. MethodsData on 711 internet hospitals were collected from official websites, the WeChat (Tencent Inc) platform, smartphone apps, and the Baidu search engine until July 16, 2020. ResultsAs of July 16, 2020, 711 internet hospitals were developed in mainland China. More than half of these internet hospitals (421/711, 59.2%) were established during 2019 (206/711, 29%) and 2020 (215/711, 30.2%). Furthermore, about one-third (215/711, 30.2%) of internet hospitals were established at the beginning of 2020 as an emergency response to the COVID-19 epidemic. The 711 internet hospitals consisted of the following 3 types of hospitals: government-oriented (42/711, 5.91%), hospital-oriented (143/711, 20.11%), and enterprise-oriented internet hospitals (526/711, 73.98%). The vast majority of internet hospitals were traditional hospitals (526/711, 74%). Nearly 46.1% (221/711) of internet hospitals requested doctors to provide health services at a specific web clinic. Most patients (224/639, 35.1%) accessed outpatient services via WeChat. Internet hospitals’ consulting methods included SMS text messaging consultations involving the use of graphics (552/570, 96.8%), video consultations (248/570, 43.5%), and telephone consultations (238/570, 41.8%). The median number of available web-based doctors was 43, and the median consultation fees of fever clinics and other outpatient clinics were ¥0 (US $0) per consultation and ¥6 (US $0.93) per consultation, respectively. Internet hospitals have provided various services during the COVID-19 pandemic, including medical prescription, drug delivery, and medical insurance services. ConclusionsThe dramatic increase of internet hospitals in China has played an important role in the prevention and control of COVID-19. Internet hospitals provide different and convenient medical services for people in need.

Constructing Z-scheme heterojunctions incorporating an exquisite hollow structure is an effective performance regulation strategy for the realization of high quantum efficiency and a strong redox ability over photocatalysts. Herein, we report the delicate design and preparation of a core–shell hollow CdS@CoTiO3 Z-scheme heterojunction with a CdS nanoparticle (NP)-constructed outer shell supported on a CoTiO3 nanorod (NR) inner shell. The in situ growth synthetic method led to a tightly connected interface for the heterojunction between CdS and CoTiO3, which shortened the transport distance of photoinduced charges from the interface to the surface. The promoted charge carrier separation efficiency and the retained strong redox capacity caused by the Z-scheme photoinduced charge-transfer mechanism were mainly responsible for the boosted photocatalytic performance. Additionally, the well-designed core–shell structure afforded a larger interfacial area by the multiple direction contact between CdS and CoTiO3, ensuring sufficient channels for efficient charge transfer, and thus further boosting the photocatalytic activity. As an efficient photocatalyst, the optimized CdS@CoTiO3 nanohybrids displayed excellent 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) and tetracycline (TC) degradation efficiencies of 91.3% and 91.8%, respectively. This study presents a Z-scheme heterojunction based on ecofriendly CoTiO3, which could be valuable for the development of metal perovskite photocatalysts for application in environmental remediation, and also demonstrated the tremendous potential of integrating a Z-scheme heterojunction with the morphology design of photocatalyts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The correlation between TNF-α and N-acetylaspartate levels in the hippocampus was analysed. • The level of TNF-α was closely related to hippocampal sclerosis in patients with mTLE. • The high expression of TNF-α may be valuable for evaluating hippocampal sclerosis. By analysing the difference in TNF-α levels in the peripheral blood of patients with medial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) with or without hippocampal sclerosis and the correlation between TNF-α and N-acetylaspartate levels in the hippocampus, we explored the relationship between TNF-α and the degree of damage to hippocampal sclerosis neurons in medial temporal lobe epilepsy. This is a prospective, population-based study. A total of 71 Patients with medial temporal lobe epilepsy diagnosed by clinical seizures, video-EEG, epileptic sequence MRI, and other imaging examinations were recruited from October 2020 to July 2022 in the Department of Neurology, Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University. Twenty age-matched healthy subjects were selected as the control group. The patients were divided into two groups: the medial temporal epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis group (positive group, mTLE-HS-P group) and the medial temporal epilepsy without hippocampal sclerosis group (negative group, mTLE-HS-N group). The levels of IL-1β, IL-5, IL-6, IL-8, IL-17, IFN-γ and TNF-α in the peripheral blood of the patients in the three groups were detected by multimicrosphere flow immunofluorescence assay. The level of N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the hippocampus was measured by 1H-MRS. The differences in cytokine levels among the three groups were analysed, and the correlation between cytokine and NAA levels was analysed. The level of TNF-α in the peripheral blood of the patients in the mTLE-HS-P group was significantly higher than that of the patients in the mTLE-HS-N and healthy control groups, and the level of TNF-α in the patients in the mTLE-HS-N group was significantly higher than that of the patients in the healthy control group. The NAA level in mTLE-HS-P group patients was significantly lower than that of mTLE-HS-N patients and healthy controls, but there was no significant difference between mTLE-HS-N patients and healthy controls (P > 0.05). Spearman correlation analysis showed that TNF-α level (r s = -0.437, P < 0.05) and the longest duration of a single seizure (r s = -0.398, P < 0.05) were negatively correlated with NAA level. Logistic regression analysis showed that there was no significant correlation between the longest duration of a single seizure and hippocampal sclerosis, but TNF-α level was closely related to hippocampal sclerosis in patients with mTLE (OR = 1.315, 95 % CI 1.084–1.595, P = 0.005). The level of TNF-α in the peripheral blood of patients with medial temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis was higher, and it was correlated with NAA and hippocampal sclerosis. The high expression of TNF-α may be of important value in the evaluation of hippocampal sclerosis patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute Liver Failure (ALF) is a critical medical condition with rapid development, often caused by viral infections, hepatotoxic drug abuse, or other severe liver diseases. Timely and accurate prediction of ALF occurrence is clinically crucial. However, predicting ALF poses challenges due to the diverse physiological differences among patients and the dynamic nature of the disease.This study introduces a deep learning approach that combines fully connected and convolutional neural networks for effective ALF prediction. The goal is to overcome limitations of traditional machine learning methods and enhance predictive model performance and generalization.The proposed model integrates a fully connected neural network for handling basic patient features and a convolutional neural network dedicated to capturing temporal patterns in patient data. The combination allows automatic learning of complex patterns and abstract features present in highly dynamic medical data associated with ALF. The model’s effectiveness is demonstrated through comprehensive experiments and performance evaluations. It outperforms traditional machine learning methods, achieving 94.8% accuracy and superior generalization capabilities.The study highlights the potential of deep learning in ALF prediction, emphasizing the importance of considering individualized medical factors. Future research should focus on improving model robustness, addressing imbalanced data, and further exploring personalized features for enhanced predictive accuracy in real-world clinical scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ti2AlNb is a typical hard cutting material whose high strength and hardness result in a low traditional mechanical cutting efficiency and high tool wear. Short electric arc milling (SEAM) is a non-contact machining method whose machining process is unaffected by the material itself. It shows good machining performance and a high machining efficiency for Ti2AlNb materials. In this paper, the effects of the milling method, electrode material, and W-Cu alloy electrode on the sidewall properties of Ti2AlNb materials milled by SEAM were investigated. We used material removal rate (MRR), relative electrode wear ratio (REWR), and surface roughness (Ra) as technical indicators. The experiments showed that the W-Cu alloy electrode was more suitable for the rough machining of Ti2AlNb materials. Up-milled Ti2AlNb showed a high surface quality. Compared with a copper–graphite electrode, the MRR and REWR of W-Cu alloy is twice and 1/8 that of copper–graphite. The maximum thickness of the recast layer and heat-affected layer on the workpiece surface after W-Cu alloy electrodes is about 3.3 times and 3.1 times that of copper–graphite. This work provides a theoretical basis and practical reference for the efficient, high-quality, and high-precision short arc machining of Ti2AlNb materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tourist flows, crucial information within online travelogues, reveal the interactive relationships between different tourist destinations and serve as the nerve center and link of the tourism system. This study takes Hangzhou, China, as a case to investigate the spatial network structure of its tourist flows. Firstly, a BERT-BiLSTM-CRF model and pan-attraction database are built to extract tourist attractions from online travelogues and create the tourist flow matrix. Then, this study uses social network analysis (SNA) to examine the structure of the tourist flow network from a county-level perspective. Additionally, GIS spatial analysis methods are applied to analyze the evolution of the tourist gravity center and standard deviation ellipse (SDE) of the network. The results reveal that the identification performances of the tourist flow extraction model this study proposed are significantly better than those of previous mainstream models, with an F1 value of 0.8752. Furthermore, the tourist flow network in Hangzhou displays a relatively sparse and unbalanced distribution, forming a "Core–Semi-Periphery–Periphery" structure. Lastly, from 2020 to 2022, the network's gravity center experienced a shift towards the southwest, paralleled by an initial expansion and subsequent contraction of the SDE in the same southwest direction. These findings provide valuable insights into the spatial network structure of tourism in Hangzhou and can serve as a reference for policymakers to promote the "all-for-one" tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyse the risk factors affecting wound healing and infection after spinal meningioma resection surgery. The surgical incision healing of 137 patients who underwent spinal meningioma resection at our hospital from January 2021 to January 2024 was analysed. The data collected included physical examination findings, haematological and biochemical measurements, and various scales assessed upon admission and after surgery. These data were then analysed. The surgical wound healing, infection and postoperative complications were statistically analysed. Multiple logistic regression analysis method was used to conduct risk factor analysis on corresponding indicators; the odds ratio and p value of 95% confidence interval were calculated. Factors such as age and smoking history were significantly negatively correlated with wound healing after meningioma resection (odds ratio < 1.000, p < 0.05), while preoperative albumin and platelet count were significantly positively correlated with wound healing (odds ratio > 1.000, p < 0.05). Age, WHO Meningioma Grading, preoperative albumin and preoperative platelet were significantly negatively correlated with wound infection after meningioma resection (odds ratio < 1.000, p < 0.05). The history of virus infection and history of neurological disorders were significantly positively correlated with wound infection (odds ratio > 1.000, p < 0.05). The influence of each factor is different. Age, smoking history, WHO Meningioma Grading, preoperative albumin, preoperative platelets, history of virus infection and history of neurological disorders had the greatest influence on wound healing and infection after meningioma resection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords Walmart; House prices; Spatial relationship; Difference-in-differences method; Nonparametric estimation; Temporal variations Highlights * The temporal effects of Walmart on house prices are estimated using a non-parametric Difference-in-Differences (DID) method. * The non-parametric DID improves on the traditional DID by making control and treatment properties as similar as possible. * Walmart store openings had turned from increasing to decreasing neighboring house prices over 1990 to 2013. * Walmart led to fewer kinds of businesses,increasing negative spillovers, and loss of nearby higher income residents. Abstract Walmart experienced tremendous growth and changes from 1962 when the first store opened. This study examines the temporal variation in Walmart's effects on neighboring house prices and local labor markets employing a new non-parametric difference-in-differences method to address concerns that areas immediately around a Walmart and comparison areas nearby may have different trends prior to a store opening. The results show that the prices of homes located within 0.5 miles of Walmart increased at a maximum rate of 2.97% due to store openings from 1990 to 2000. Conversely, store openings in 2002--2007 resulted in approximately zero effects on neighboring house prices, and stores that opened in 2008--2013 experienced house price declines of roughly 3% within 0.5 miles of the store. Explorations of the underlying mechanisms suggest that Walmart openings had led to deteriorating shopping convenience but increasing negative spillovers from the early to the late 2000s. Government subsidies and zoning policies targeting these issues might help mitigate the negative spillovers from Walmart. Author Affiliation: Finance, Law and Real Estate in the College of Business and Economics in California State University, Los Angeles, USA Article History: Received 27 August 2021; Revised 15 December 2022; Accepted 19 December 2022 (footnote)[white star] This article benefits greatly from Prof. Richard K. Green, Raphael Bostic, and Gary Dean Painter for their guildance. I am also thankful to Editor Stephen Ross and reviewers for their insightful suggestions and comments. Byline: Bingbing Wang [bwang23@calstatela.edu]

During electrical discharge machining (EDM), the process parameters greatly influence the discharge characteristics and machining performance, including electrical and non-electrical parameters. As a new EDM method, short electrical arc milling (SEAM) is plagued by frequent short circuits, poor debris removal, and low energy-transfer efficiency. Therefore, this paper investigated the influence of non-electrical parameters (electrode material, working medium, and electrode rotation) on the crater characteristics, machining efficiency, and electrode wear. The micromorphological characteristics of the workpiece were explored. The results suggested that non-electrical parameters compressed and fractured the plasma channels, thus changing the effect of EDM. The air-tap water medium and electrode rotation promoted debris removal and arc breaking, which prevented the arc from ablating the workpiece. When GH4099 alloy was machined with a copper electrode, the workpiece surface quality and machining efficiency were high, and the thickness of the heat-affected zone was small. This work reveals the characteristics of short electric arc discharge and provided a theoretical basis for the efficient and high-quality machining of difficult-to-cut materials by SEAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of turbulence in the heliosphere remains a mystery, due to the complexity in not only modeling the turbulence transport equations but also identifying the drivers of turbulence that vary with time and spatial location. Beyond the ionization cavity (a few astronomical units (AU) from the Sun), the turbulence is driven predominantly by freshly created pickup ions (PUIs), in contrast to the driving by stream shear and compression. Understanding the source characteristics is necessary to refine turbulence transport models and interpret measurements of turbulence and solar wind temperature in the outer heliosphere. Using a recent latitude-dependent solar wind speed model and the ionization rate of neutral interstellar hydrogen (H), we investigate the temporal and spatial variation in the strength of low-frequency turbulence driven by PUIs from 1998 to 2020. We find that the driving rate is stronger during periods of high solar activity and at lower latitudes in the outer heliosphere. The driving rates for parallel and anti-parallel propagating (relative to the background magnetic field) slab turbulence have different spatial and latitude dependences. The calculated generation rate of turbulence by PUIs is an essential ingredient to investigate the latitude dependence of turbulence in the outer heliosphere, which is important to understand the heating of the distant solar wind and the modulation of cosmic rays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy-conserving performance of a building, normally realized by a variety of insulation materials, needs to be carefully considered, from the design to construction operations. Traditional mineral or chemically synthesized insulation materials are facing severer environment or health challenges. Hence, this work aims at developing an alternative thermal insulation material from wood. Two species, balsa and Paulownia, were chosen for their naturally low densities. Lignin and hemicellulose components were removed to create a "foamed" structure with more air induced. Polylactic acid (PLA) was applied to cover the delignified wood samples to further improve the hydrophobicity. The microstructure, physical properties, thermal conductivity and insulation properties of the treated wood samples were assessed. After lignin and hemicellulose removal, the original porous micro skeleton of balsa and Paulownia wood was retained, along with an increased porosity to 96.6% and 94%, respectively. Meanwhile, the thermal conductivity was successfully decreased by 22% to 0.053 W/(m·K) for balsa wood and by 27% to 0.067 W/(m·K) for Paulownia wood. PLA-covering treatment further enhanced the water resistance of the delignified wood samples without an evident change in the thermal conductivity. The above findings demonstrated the feasibility of applying delignified wood as a potential insulation material in modern construction operations, which may help set up a new pathway for a low-carbon and energy-saving construction industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric particles from different sources can impact cloud formation and play a critical role in regulating cloud properties. However, particle characteristics at single particle level and their abilities to serve as ice nucleating particles (INPs) over different marine atmosphere are poorly understood. Here, we present characterizations and ice nucleation properties of particles collected during a northern and southern hemisphere cruise from South Korea to Antarctica. Micro-spectroscopic analysis was used to obtain composition of individual particles and mixing state of particle populations. Major particle classes were identified and have different contributions over the Western Pacific and the Southern Ocean, including fresh and aged sea salt, sea salt mixed with sulfate, carbonaceous, sulfur-containing, and dust particles. Increasing contribution of fresh sea salt particles, the dominate particle class in the samples, tended toward an increasing mixing state index indicating the population becoming more internally mixed. Aging processes and new particle sources introduce particles with new compositions resulting in external mixtures. We found that the investigated particles demonstrated a variety of ice nucleation abilities at cirrus conditions. The identified INPs are all major particle classes present in the population, and the sea salt mixed sulfate particle is enriched in INPs. Aging processes affected both particle mixing state and their ice nucleation abilities. We tested different ice nucleation parameterizations of marine atmospheric particles for their applicability. Finally, we discuss how the mixing state of particle populations impacts ice nucleation in the atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigation of the environmental occurrence and behavior of organophosphate esters (OPEs) is very important and is becoming a hot topic in the academic community. In this study, 12 targeted OPEs in the water and sediment from 19 coastal tourist resorts in the Shandong Peninsula in China were analyzed to show their concentrations, spatial variations, and potential ecological risks. The results showed that the total concentrations of OPEs (ΣOPEs) were in the range of 18.52–3069.43 ng/L in the water and 3.20–568.76 ng/g in the sediment. The dominant OPEs in the water and sediment were tris (2-chloroisopropyl) phosphate (TCIPP), tris (2-chloroethyl) phosphate (TCEP), and triethyl phosphate (TEP). The OPE concentrations in the water were ranked as dry season > normal season > wet season. The sewage treatment plants near tourist resorts were important contributors to the level of OPEs in the water. Triphenyl phosphate (TPHP), tri-n-butyl phosphate (TNBP), and resorcinol-bis(diphenyl)phosphate (RDP) had a relatively higher ecological risk than other OPEs in the water samples. Industrial emissions might be the main source of OPEs in the coastal tourist resorts of Shandong Peninsula in China. The results of this study verified that OPEs occur in the water and sediment of coastal tourist resorts, and more attention should be given to the existence of OPEs and the safety of aquatic environments near coastal tourist resorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The incidence of ulcerative colitis (UC) is increasing annually. There are few treatments for UC patients, and some drugs have serious side effects. Sea cucumber peptide (SCP) has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and other biological activities, and various sea cucumber species are in pharmaceutical development. However, relevant studies on the effects of SCP on UC progression are still lacking. In this study, a mouse model of acute colitis was induced by 3% dextran sulfate (DSS), and the effect of 500 mg/kg SCP on colitis was investigated. The results showed that SCP can alleviate DSS-induced colon damage and intestinal barrier damage. SCP significantly inhibited the expression of inflammatory factors and oxidative stress in UC mice. SCP reversed the intestinal microbiota dysregulation induced by DSS, inhibited the growth of Sutterella, Prevotella_9 and Escherichia-Shigella harmful bacteria, and increased the abundance of Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group. At the same time, SCP treatment significantly inhibited the LPS-induced polarization of M1 macrophages, which may be mediated by two monopeptides, IPGAPGVP and TGPIGPPGSP, via FPR2. In conclusion, SCP can protect against colitis by modulating the intestinal microbiota composition and the intestinal barrier and inhibiting the polarization of M1 macrophages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Small object detection has a broad application prospect in image processing of unmanned aerial vehicles, autopilot and remote sensing. However, some difficulties exactly exist in small object detection, such as aggregation, occlusion and insufficient feature extraction, resulting in a great challenge for small object detection. In this paper, we propose an improved algorithm for small object detection to address these issues. By using the spatial pyramid to extract multi-scale spatial features and by applying the multi-scale channel attention to capture the global and local semantic features, the spatial pooling pyramid and multi-scale channel attention module (SPP-MSCAM) is constructed. More importantly, the fusion of the shallower layer with higher resolution and a deeper layer with more semantic information is introduced to the neck structure for improving the sensitivity of small object features. A large number of experiments on the VisDrone2019 dataset and the NWPU VHR-10 dataset show that the proposed method significantly improves the Precision, mAP and mAP50 compared to the YOLOv5 method. Meanwhile, it still preserves a considerable real-time performance. Undoubtedly, the improved network proposed in this paper can effectively alleviate the difficulties of aggregation, occlusion and insufficient feature extraction in small object detection, which would be helpful for its potential applications in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a p–n GaN/AlN heterojunction in a piezoelectric semiconductor (PSC) composite fiber driven by dynamic magnetic loads is studied. The numerical results of nonlinear dynamic responses of a composite p–n heterojunction subjected to a time‐harmonic magnetic load and a pulse magnetic load are obtained by the finite‐element method, respectively. The effects of different magnetic loads on the I–V curve and piezoelectric behavior of a composite p–n heterojunction are investigated. Numerical results show that when driven by uniformly dynamic magnetic loads, the electromechanical fields show significant asymmetry due to electric nonlinearity. The time‐harmonic magnetic loads drive the round‐trip motion of electrons and holes, and the dynamic electric behaviors driven by pulsed magnetic loads are nonlinear pulse motions. Further analysis of the p–n heterojunction subjected to the bias voltage shows that positive magnetic loads increase the depletion layer's width but decrease the carrier concentration. The results presented in this study have a referential significance to contactless performance tuning of a PSC heterojunction structure and new‐generation piezotronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linear‐conjugated polymers (LCPs) are excellent semiconductor photocatalysts. However, its inherent amorphous structures and simple electron transport channels restrict efficient photoexcited charge separation and transfer. Herein, "2D conjugated engineering" is employed to design high‐crystalline polymer photocatalysts with multichannel charge transport by introducing alkoxyphenyl sidechains. The electronic state structure and electron transport pathways of the LCPs are investigated using experimental and theoretical calculations. Consequently, the 2D B←N‐containing polymers (2DPBN) exhibit excellent photoelectric characteristics, which enable the efficient separation of electron–hole and rapidly transfer photogenerated carriers to the catalyst surface for efficient catalytic reactions. Significantly, the further hydrogen evolution of 2DPBN‐4F heterostructures can be achieved by increasing the fluorine content of the backbones. This study highlights that the rational design of LCP photocatalysts is an effective strategy to spur further interest in photofunctional polymer material applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Siliceous earth (SE), which has a special morphology and structure, was selected as filler of natural rubber (NR) and mechanical properties of compounds were analyzed. Two processes were employed to prepare SE/NR compounds described as mechanical mixing method and latex method, respectively. Cure characteristics, mechanical properties of the vulcanizates prepared from the master-batches were compared with those prepared by mechanical mixing method. X-ray diffraction results of NR/SE vulcanizations indicated that mechanical mixing above the latex process facilitated the intercalation of NR into the galleries of SE. The results of mechanical properties show that SE has good reinforcing properties on NR both by latex or mechanical mixing process. By comparison, H samples show slightly higher crosslink density, tensile strength, 300% modulus, and lower elongation at break than M sample in same loading. But in the aspect of dynamic properties there exist obviously difference between latex and mechanical mixing process. Rubber processing analyzer (RPA) results showed that uncured M samples showed obviously higher storage modulus than that of H samples. The heat build-up of M30 is much lower than that of H30. These behaviors indicated better dynamitic properties when the masterbatches prepared by the predispersing method was utilized. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 58:1043-1052, 2018. [C] 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers, INTRODUCTION The development of the green tire push the silica increasingly applied in the tire as tread rubber [1, 2], Introduced in the 1990s, silica is one of the key [...]