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Fruit detection is essential for harvesting robot platforms. However, complicated environmental attributes such as illumination variation and occlusion have made fruit detection a challenging task. In this study, a Transformer-based mask region-based convolution neural network (R-CNN) model for tomato detection and segmentation is proposed to address these difficulties. Swin Transformer is used as the backbone network for better feature extraction. Multi-scale training techniques are shown to yield significant performance gains. Apart from accurately detecting and segmenting tomatoes, the method effectively identifies tomato cultivars (normal-size and cherry tomatoes) and tomato maturity stages (fully-ripened, half-ripened, and green). Compared with existing work, the method has the best detection and segmentation performance for these tomatoes, with mean average precision (mAP) results of 89.4% and 89.2%, respectively.

Clustering of animals at the level of pens, rooms, barns, or farms leads to statistical nonindependence of individual pigs. Failure to consider clustering when determining sample size will result in clinical trials that are too small to detect meaningful differences between intervention groups when clustering is controlled in the analysis. Failure to control clustering in the analysis will lead to inappropriately narrow confidence intervals and increases the probability of a false-positive finding. Thus, failure to consider clustering in trial design and analysis results in research that could misinform decision making on the use of interventions.

Excitons, Coulomb-bound electron-hole pairs, play a fundamental role in both optical excitation and correlated phenomena in solids. When an exciton interacts with other quasi-particles, few- and many-body excited states, such as trions, exciton Fermi-polarons, Mahan excitons can appear. Here, we report a new interaction between exciton and charges enabled by unusual quantum confinement in 2D moir\'e superlattices, which results in novel exciton many-body ground states composed of moir\'e excitons and correlated electron lattices. Unique to H-stacked (or 60o-twisted) WS2/WSe2 heterobilayer, we found that the interlayer atomic registry and moir\'e structural reconstruction leads to an interlayer moir\'e exciton (IME) whose hole in one layer is surrounded by its partner electron's wavefunction spread among three adjacent moir\'e traps in the other layer. This 3D excitonic structure can enable large in-plane electrical quadrupole moments in addition to the vertical dipole. Upon doping, the electric quadrupole facilitates the binding of IME to the charges in neighboring moir\'e cells, forming an intercell charged exciton complex. The exciton complex is unveiled by the IME photoluminescence energy jumps when the electron lattices form at both fractional and integer-filled moir\'e minibands, with replica-like spectral features between successive integer moir\'e fillings. Our work provides the framework in understanding and engineering emergent exciton many-body states in correlated moir\'e charge orders.

To investigate the clinical value of laparoscopic cytoreductive surgery (CRS) in treating of appendiceal pseudomyxoma peritonei with limited disease and low tumor burden.The clinical data of patients with appendiceal pseudomyxoma peritonei treated by surgery with CRS at the Aerospace Center Hospital from January 2018 to December 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were divided into laparoscopic or open CRS groups according to the operation method. A propensity score-matched (PSM) analysis (1:1) was performed, the related clinical variables were compared between the two groups, and the effect on progression-free survival (PFS) was also analyzed.One hundred and eight patients were included in this study. After PSM, 33 patients were selected from each group and the age and peritoneal cancer index were matched between the two groups. There were significant differences in operation time (P 0.001), intraoperative bleeding (P 0.001), intraoperative blood transfusion (P = 0.007), hospital stay (P 0.001). The analysis of PFS showed that there was no significant difference between the two operation methods. After multivariate analysis, the pathologic subtype (P = 0.012) was identified as an independent prognostic factor for PFS.The curative effect of laparoscopic CRS is like that of open operation, which can significantly shorten the operation time and hospital stay and reduce intraoperative bleeding and blood transfusion event. The laparoscopic CRS is safe and feasible in strictly selected patients. The pathologic subtype is an independent factor affecting the prognosis for PFS.

Purpose: To investigate corneal epithelial thickness changes during a 6-month follow-up period after transepithelial photorefractive keratectomy (tPRK), femtosecond laser–assisted laser in situ keratomileusis (FS-LASIK), and small incision lenticule extraction (SMILE). Methods: This prospective study included 76 eyes of 76 participants who underwent myopic refractive surgery (23 FS-LASIK, 22 SMILE, and 31 tPRK). Epithelial thickness and anterior curvature were averaged over 4 regions (subdivided into 25 areas) and measured by spectral-domain optical coherence tomography and Scheimpflug tomography before the operation (pre) and at 1 or 3 days (pos1-3d), 1 week (pos1w), and 1 month (pos1m), 3 months (pos3m), and 6 months (pos6m) postoperatively. Results: The epithelial thickness of the three groups was similar in both the pre and pos6m (all P > .05), but the tPRK group fluctuated the most during the follow-up period. The largest increase was in the inferior-temporal paracentral area (7.25 ± 2.58 μm for FS-LASIK; 5.79 ± 2.41 μm for SMILE; 4.88 ± 5.84 μm for tPRK; all P < .001). Only the epithelial thickness of tPRK increased from pos3m to pos6m ( P < .05), whereas all changes for FS-LASIK and SMILE were not significant ( P > .05). A positive correlation of thickness changes with curvature gradient in the paracentral region of tPRK was found ( r = 0.549, P = .018), but not in other regions in all groups. Conclusions: Epithelial remodeling followed different trends after different surgeries from the early postoperative stage onward, but exhibited similar values at pos6m. Although remodeling after FS-LASIK and SMILE stabilized by pos3m, it remained unstable at pos6m after tPRK. These changes may affect corneal profile and lead to deviation from the intended surgical outcome. [ J Refract Surg . 2023;39(3):187–196.]

Split grouting is a common method of stratum reinforcement. However, due to the concealment of grouting itself, it is difficult to observe the slurry diffusion of split grouting. Therefore, this paper uses PFC2D software to simulate the split grouting in loess to study the diffusion law of slurry and the change of formation porosity. The research results show that the number of fracturing cracks increases with the increase of time. The porosity of soil mass changes obviously after the first fracturing, and the change rate of porosity increases after the second fracturing. With the increase of the initial grouting pressure, the number of splitting cracks is increasing, and the change rate of soil porosity is also accelerating.

This article developed a deep learning (DL) model for estimating tropical cyclone (TC) 34-, 50-, and 64-kt (1 kt ≈ 0.51 m s−1) wind radii in four quadrants from infrared images in the global ocean. We collected 63 675 TC images from 2004 to 2016 and divided them into three periods (2004–12, 2013–14, and 2015–16) for model training, validation, and testing. First, four DL-based radius estimation models were developed to estimate the TC wind radius for each of the four quadrants. Then, the entire original images and the one-quarter-quadrant subimages were included in the model training for each quadrant. Last, we modified the mean absolute error (MAE) loss function in these DL-based models to reduce the side effect of an unbalanced distribution of wind radii and developed an asymmetric TC wind radius estimation model globally. The comparison of model results with the best-track data of TCs shows that the MAEs of 34-kt wind radius are 18.8, 19.5, 18.6, and 18.8 n mi (1 n mi = 1.852 km) for the northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest quadrants, respectively. The MAEs of 50-kt wind radius are 11.3, 11.3, 11.1, and 10.8 n mi, respectively, and the MAEs of 64-kt wind radius are 8.9, 9.9, 9.2, and 8.7 n mi, respectively. These results represent a 12.1%–35.5% improvement over existing methods in the literature. In addition, the DL-based models were interpreted with two deep visualization toolboxes. The results indicate that the TC eye, cloud, and TC spiral structure are the main factors that affect the model performance.

Transition metal oxalates (TMOxs, represented by iron oxalate) have attracted considerable interest in anode materials due to their excellent lithium storage properties and consistent cyclic performance.

MECA fabricated by far-field electrospinning exhibit excellent thermomechanical stability due to the medium entropy effects and superior high temperature thermal insulation performance due to the thermal radiation reflection of TiO2.

Small molecular prodrug-based nanomedicines with high drug-loading efficiency and tumor selectivity have attracted great attention for cancer therapy against solid tumors, including triple negative breast cancers (TNBC). However, abnormal tumor mechanical microenvironment (TMME) severely restricts antitumor efficacy of prodrug nanomedicines by limiting drug delivery and fostering cancer stem cells (CSCs). Herein, we employed carbamate disulfide bridged doxorubicin dimeric prodrug as pharmaceutical ingredient, marketed IR780 iodide as photothermal agent, and biocompatible hydroxyethyl starch-folic acid conjugates as amphiphilic surfactant to prepare a theranostic nanomedicine (FDINs), which could actively target at TNBC 4T1 tumor tissues and achieve reduction-responsive drug release with high glutathione concentration in cancer cells and CSCs. Importantly, in addition to directly causing damage to cancer cells and sensitizing chemotherapy, FDINs-mediated photothermal effect regulates aberrant TMME via reducing cancer associated fibroblasts and depleting extracellular matrix proteins, thereby normalizing intratumor vessel structure and function to facilitate drug and oxygen delivery. Furthermore, FDINs potently eliminate CSCs by disrupting unique CSCs niche and consuming intracellular GSH in CSCs. As a result, FDINs significantly suppress tumor growth in both subcutaneous and orthotopic 4T1 tumors. This study provides novel insights on rational design of prodrug nanomedicines for superior therapeutic effect against stroma- and CSCs-rich solid malignancies.

A series of tertiary supramolecular architectures were constructed based on an NDI-derived NHC-Au(i) macrocycle that exhibited redox-switchable properties in a one-electron redox process.

We aimed to validate and evaluate the comprehensive complication index (CCI) as a measure of postoperative complications (POCs) in the patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) who had undergone free-flap reconstruction.A single-center, prospective cohort study was conducted on the patients with primary HNSCC treated between 2015 and 2020.Of 443 patients, 177 experienced POCs (40.0%). According to the new CCI, 93 patients had severe POCs (score ≥26.2; 21.0%), and only 76 patients were classified as having severe POCs (grade ≥III; 17.2%) according to the traditional Clavien-Dindo classification (CDC). The patients with CCI scores ≥26.2 had a higher rate of major adverse short-term outcomes, such as prolonged length of the hospital stay after surgery, excessive medical costs, and the need for transfusion. Importantly, the Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed a lower overall survival rate for patients with severe complications (CCI score ≥26.2, P = .038). However, no statistically significant differences were observed between CDC grades III or above and overall survival (P = .100).The CCI can be used to evaluate POCs of free-flap reconstruction in patients with HNSCC. It performed more accurately than the CDC in short- and long-term outcome prediction and risk factor identification.

SnSe single crystals have gained great interest due to their excellent thermoelectric performance. However, polycrystalline SnSe is greatly desired due to facile processing, machinability, and scale-up application. Here, we report an outstanding high average