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High-intensive land development had led to increasingly fragmented urban habitat patches, and the contradiction between regional development and ecological protection is gradually intensified. This ecological problem is spreading from cities to counties and towns, which are mainly villages and towns. Constructing a reasonable ecological network is an effective way to connect fragmented habitats and balance regional morphological and spatial patterns. Taking the Shilin County of the Yunnan province, China as the study area, morphological spatial pattern analysis and connectivity analysis were used together to identify the key ecological source areas and their importance levels. The comprehensive resistance surface based on the migration characteristics of terrestrial animals was assembled based on five variables (altitude; slope; distance to road; distance to population centers; land use map). The gravity model was used to identify the priority of the ecological corridors, and the ecological networks was derived. The results show that the initially constructed ecological network includes 11 ecological sources and 26 ecological corridors, of which seven are important ecological corridors that need priority construction. However, the ecological networks were less distributed in the northern regions, so three supplementary ecological sources and ten supplementary ecological corridors were added to optimize the ecological network. In addition, there are significant differences in the size and number of ecological source sites and corridors between townships, and targeted construction strategies are necessary. The in-depth analysis from county to township makes the construction and management of ecological networks more maneuverable in national administration. This study provides guidance for constructing ecological network structures in townships with complex landscape types, and may also provide lessons for other regions. Through an in-depth analysis from county to town, this study can provide guidance to construct the township ecological network structure with complex landscape types and provide reference for other regions as well.

Renal damage is one of the typical clinical manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and few effective markers can be used to predict SLE with renal damage. Additionally, the relationship among AhR, B cells and SLE with renal damage is poorly understood.A case-control study was performed, and the clinical and laboratory data were acquired from medical records. Flow cytometry was used to analyze the expression of AhR in B cells.Both the proportion of B cells in peripheral blood lymphocytes and AhR in B cells were significantly higher in SLE patients than in healthy controls. AhR in B cells was negatively correlated with complement 3 and 4 levels but was positively correlated with SLEDAI-2 K, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein and absolute lymphocyte count. Furthermore, more SLE patients suffered from renal damage and arthritis in the high-AhR B-cell group than in the low-AhR B-cell group. Interestingly, AhR in B cells was significantly increased in SLE with renal damage compared with SLE without renal damage, but no significant difference was observed between SLE with arthritis and SLE without arthritis. In addition, the area under the curve for AhR in B cells was 0.815, and its optimal cut-off level was 3.05 %, which provided a 83.3 % sensitivity and a 70.0 % specificity in predicting SLE with renal damage.AhR in B cells was correlated with SLE disease activity, and it may be a potential marker for predicting SLE with renal damage.

On-chip efficient nonlinear functions are instrumental in escalating the utilities and performance of photonic integrated circuits (PICs), especially for a wide range of classical and quantum applications, such as tunable coherent radiation, optical frequency conversion, spectroscopy, quantum science, etc. Lithium tantalate (LT) has been widely used in nonlinear wavelength converters, surface acoustic wave resonators, and electro-optic, acoustic-optic devices owing to its excellent optical properties. Here, we fabricated a Z-cut lithium tantalate on insulator (LTOI) microdisk with high quality(Q) factors in both telecom (10$^{6}$) and visible (10$^{5}$) bands by optimizing the fabrication. With the Q factor of the LTOI microdisk increasing, we can obtain higher pump light intensity in the cavity which is beneficial to get more optical nonlinear effect easily. By making use of the mode phase matching of interacting waves and inputting high pump power, we experimentally observed on-chip near-infrared light, visible (red, green), and ultraviolet (UV) from microresonator-based $ χ^{(2)}-χ^{(2)}$, $ χ^{(2)}-χ^{(3)}$, and $χ^{(2)}$ nonlinear processes such as cascaded four-wave mixing (cFWM), cascaded sum-frequency generation (cSFG), third harmonic generation (THG), second harmonic generation (SHG). It is believed that the LTOI can support a variety of on-chip optical nonlinear processes, which heralds its new application potential in integrated nonlinear photonics.

Amide bond is often seen in value-added nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds, which can present promising chemical, biological, and pharmaceutical significance. However, current synthesis methods in the preparation of amide-containing N-heterocyclic compounds have low specificity (large amount of by-products) and efficiency. In this study, we focused on reviewing the feasible enzymes (nitrogen acetyltransferase, carboxylic acid reductase, lipase, and cutinase) for the amidation of N-heterocyclic compounds; summarizing their advantages and weakness in the specific applications; and further predicting candidate enzymes through in silico structure-functional analysis. For future prospects, current enzymes demand further engineering and improving for practical industrial applications and more enzymatic tools need to be explored and developed for a broader range of N-heterocyclic substrates.

We developed an efficient and environmentally friendly two-step tandem methodology for the synthesis of sugar-containing coumarin derivatives catalyzed by lipozyme TL IM from Thermomyces lanuginosus in continuous-flow microreactors. Compared to those observed for other methods, the salient features of this work including green reaction conditions, short residence time (50 min), and catalysts are more readily available and the biocatalysis reaction process is efficient and easy to control. This two-step tandem synthesis of coumarin derivatives using the continuous-flow technology is a proof of concept that opens the use of enzymatic microreactors in coumarin derivative biotransformations.

The modified isochronal well test is a deliverability test method suitable for gas wells in low-permeability gas reservoirs. Generally, the absolute open flow of gas wells is determined by modified...

Location-based services recommend points of interests (POIs) which are nearer to the user’s position q. In practice, when the user is moving with a velocity \(\overrightarrow{v}\), he may prefer the nearer POIs which match his moving direction. In this paper, we propose the velocity-dependent nearest neighbor query (VeloNN query), which selects the POIs that are nearer and best match the user’s moving direction. In the VeloNN query, if the direction of a POI o highly matches the direction of \(\overrightarrow{v}\), o is likely to be preferred. Since computing the directional preferences of all POIs is time-consuming, we propose rules to filter out the POIs with low directional preferences. We also divide the space into tiles, i.e., rectangular areas, and compute a candidate set for each tile in advance. The VeloNN candidates can be quickly prepared after finding the tile where the user is. We conduct experiments on both synthetic and real datasets and the results show the proposed algorithms can support VeloNN queries efficiently.

Additional file 1: Table S1. Detailed comorbidities of patients in Sichuan and Wuhan cohorts. Table S2. Regression analysis of the risk factors for death, ICU admission and mechanical ventilation in all patients from the Sichuan and Wuhan cohorts. Table S3. Demographics and clinical characteristics of patients in Sichuan sub-cohorts with vs. without Wuhan-related exposure. Table S4. Outcomes of patients in Sichuan sub-cohorts with vs. without Wuhan-related exposure. Table S5. Risk of adverse outcomes in Sichuan sub-cohorts with vs. without Wuhan-related exposure. Table S6. Demographics and clinical characteristics of patients in Sichuan sub-cohort with Wuhan-related exposure vs. Wuhan cohort. Table S7. Outcomes in Sichuan sub-cohort with Wuhan-related exposure vs. Wuhan cohort. Table S8. Risk of adverse outcomes in Sichuan sub-cohort with Wuhan-related exposure vs. the Wuhan cohort.

A fast and green protocol for the Michael addition of imidazoles to acrylates catalyzed by Lipozyme TL IM from Thermomyces lanuginosus in a continuous flow microreactor was developed. In contrast with existing methods, this method is simple (35 min), uses mild reaction conditions (45 °C) and is environmentally friendly. This enzymatic Michael addition performed in continuous flow microreactors is an innovation that may open up the use of enzymatic microreactors in imidazole analogue biotransformations.

This study examined the phase-change Ge12Sb88 films that are fabricated through radio-frequency reactive magnetron sputtering to substrates with varying thermal conductivity. The in situ resistance was measured, and x-ray diffraction was conducted to investigate the phase-change behavior of the films under adjustments to the heating and annealing temperature. Differences in the films’ band gaps were determined by a spectrometer. The results were as follows: (a) the initial resistance levels of the films on low-thermal-conductivity substrates were higher than those on high-thermal-conductivity substrates. Resistance ratios were in the range of 102–103. The substantial changes in resistance influenced the characteristics of accelerating switching time and reduced the power consumption of the investigated materials. (b) Because of the partial crystallization of the films, an additional phase transition (from face-centered cubic (fcc)1 to fcc2) was observed among thin films on low-thermal-conductivity substrates. This phase transition can be leveraged in the development of data storage devices.

Xue-miao Tang,1,2,* Hao Chen,2,3,* Qing Li,1,2 Yiling Song,2,3 Shuping Zhang,2,3 Xiao-Shuan Xu,4 Yiwei Xu,5,6 Shulin Chen2,3 1Department of Ultrasound and Electrocardiogram, 2State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, 3Department of Clinical Laboratory, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, 4School of Laboratory Medicine, Guangdong Medical University, 5Department of Clinical Laboratory, The Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, 6The Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology for High Cancer Incidence Coastal Chaoshan Area, Shantou University Medical College, Guangdong, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Objective: The cardiac safety of cetuximab and panitumumab, particularly as single agents, has not been investigated extensively. This trial was designed to specifically evaluate the cardiac safety of cetuximab and panitumumab as single therapy in Chinese chemotherapy-refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients.Patients and methods: Sixty-one patients received cetuximab at an initial dose of 400 mg/m2 intravenously over 120 minutes on day 1 (week 1), followed by a maintenance dose of 250 mg/m2 intravenously over 60 minutes on day 1 of each 7-day cycle. Forty-three patients received panitumumab at a dose of 6 mg/kg intravenously every 14 days. Routine laboratory tests and electrocardiogram (ECG) were performed at baseline, during therapy and after the treatment (4th and 10th months). The incidence of elevation of troponin I ultra (TNI Ultra), abnormal ECGs, cardiac events and noncardiac adverse events (AEs) were recorded and analyzed.Results: The incidence of elevation of TNI Ultra between the two groups had no significance (p=0.681), and TNI Ultra+ was observed more frequently in patients with metastases to more than three organs and they received fourth or above lines of chemotherapy. The most frequent abnormal ECG manifestations were nonspecific ST changes and QTc prolongation in the two groups. At 10 months after treatment, most of the abnormal ECG manifestations were reversed. The most common cardiac AEs of cetuximab and panitumumab included palpitations, dyspnea, chest pain and arrhythmias requiring treatment. Most of the events were mild and transient. The incidence of cardiac AEs had no significant difference between the two groups. Rash was still the most common noncardiac AE in both groups.Conclusion: Cetuximab and panitumumab showed favorable cardiac safety as single agents for Chinese chemotherapy-refractory mCRC patients. But monitoring for cardiac AEs is still necessary throughout the entire treatment process. Keywords: cetuximab, panitumumab, targeted therapy, colorectal cancer, toxicity, cardiac safety

In this paper, we study a direction-aware spatial data query method, i.e., range nearest neighbor query with the direction constraint (Range-DCNN query). Traditional DCNN query retrieves the top-k nearest neighbors within an angular range. Our Range-DCNN query finds all nearest neighbors within an angular range for all points in a rectangle. Dissimilar to the traditional DCNN query, the user’s location in the Range-DCNN query is abstracted to a rectangle rather than a point and the user’s location can be anywhere in the rectangle. In doing so, the user’s precise location will not be leaked, which ensures an effective privacy protection of user’s location. In Range-DCNN query, an observation is made that splitting points can be utilized to obtain all query results without having to search for all points. We propose some properties of locating splitting points. According to these properties, efficient algorithms are designed with the assistance of the R-tree. Extensive experiments have been conducted on both real and synthetic datasets. The experimental results demonstrate that our algorithms are capable of locating all results precisely and efficiently.

Three crystalline forms of Al2O3 featuring rod-like fibers are synthesized, to perform the gaseous degradation of 1-chloronaphthalene (CN-1), a model compound. The degradation efficiency (DE) decreases as follows: micro/nano-γ-Al2O3 > micro/nano-η-Al2O3 > regular α-Al2O3. The high DE of 92.2% attained over γ-Al2O3 is attributed to its specific defective spinel structure, resulting in its large surface area and pore volume, large amounts of surface-adsorbed oxygen species, and Bronsted and Lewis acid sites. The degradation products, naphthalene and 1,4/1,6-dichloronaphthalene (DiCN), with yield ratios of 7.3–13.3, are detected, indicating the occurrence of hydrodechlorination and side chlorination reactions. 1,6-DiCN is believed to be the most favored DiCN isomer product based on the calculated ΔHr and ΔGr. However, the percentage values of intermediates formed via these two reactions, in the degradation of CN-1, are 9.1%, 4.5% and 4.4%, over α-, η- and γ-Al2O3, respectively. The oxidative degradation pathway possibly dominantly occurs especially over micro/nano-γ-Al2O3 with oxidative species such as O2−, O− and O2−, following the Mars–van Krevelen mechanism. Oxidation intermediates containing –CH2–, –CH3, and C–O groups are produced, which can be subsequently oxidized to low-molecular-weight products, such as formic, acetic and propanoic acids, and eventually completely oxidized to CO2.

Mesoporous face-centered-cubic (fcc) In4Ni alloy nanorices (NRs) were successfully synthesized as superior catalysts for N2H4 dehydrogenation in aqueous solution via a facile solution plasma technique (SPT) in an ionic liquid, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([BMIM][BF4]). This incorporation introduces basic sites for dehydrogenation. Also, the synthesis of In and Ni weakens the interactions among generated adspecies such as H2 and NHx and surface metal atoms. Alongside their unique NR structure, the as-prepared fcc-In4Ni alloy NRs exhibited superior performance for N2H4 dehydrogenation in aqueous solution. The activation energy of the fcc-In4Ni alloy NRs was 38.9 ± 1.0 kJ mol(-1). The NRs were also found to be stable for catalytic N2H4 dehydrogenation in aqueous solution, providing an average TOF value of 82.0 (mol of H2 (mol of active In4Ni min)(-1)) over 30 h reaction. These fcc-In4Ni alloy NRs have demonstrated exceptional performance, which indicates that the construction of hydrogen-producing systems from N2H4, capable of matching the performance of NaBH4 and NH3BH3 hydrogen-producing systems for fuel-cell applications, is a promising possibility.

Mesoporous face-centered-cubic (fcc) In4Ni alloy nanorices (NRs) were successfully synthesized as superior catalysts for N2H4 dehydrogenation in aqueous solution via a facile solution plasma technique (SPT) in an ionic liquid, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ([BMIM][BF4]). This incorporation introduces basic sites for dehydrogenation. Also, the synthesis of In and Ni weakens the interactions among generated adspecies such as H2 and NHx and surface metal atoms. Alongside their unique NR structure, the as-prepared fcc-In4Ni alloy NRs exhibited superior performance for N2H4 dehydrogenation in aqueous solution. The activation energy of the fcc-In4Ni alloy NRs was 38.9 ± 1.0 kJ mol(-1). The NRs were also found to be stable for catalytic N2H4 dehydrogenation in aqueous solution, providing an average TOF value of 82.0 (mol of H2 (mol of active In4Ni min)(-1)) over 30 h reaction. These fcc-In4Ni alloy NRs have demonstrated exceptional performance, which indicates that the construction of hydrogen-producing systems from N2H4, capable of matching the performance of NaBH4 and NH3BH3 hydrogen-producing systems for fuel-cell applications, is a promising possibility.

An efficient method for the preparation of β-amino alcohols catalyzed by lipase TL IM from Thermomyces lanuginosus in a continuous-flow reactor was developed. The eco-friendly biocatalyst combined with continuous-flow reaction technology displayed high efficiency in the synthesis of β-amino alcohols. The benign reaction conditions (35 °C) and short residence time (20 min), together with the use of low cost and readily available starting materials, make this synthetic approach a promising alternative to current β-amino alcohol synthesis.

This paper proposes a new spatial data query, the continuous nearest neighbor query with the direction constraint (DCNN query). The DCNN query finds the nearest point of interest (POI), which also satisfies the direction constraint. The direction constraint depends on the direction of the user’s speed. It is an angle range with the direction of the user’s speed as the angle bisector. And the angle range is determined by the user. We study the snapshot and the continuous DCNN queries. The snapshot query finds the nearest POI according to the user’s current location. The continuous query updates the results when the user is moving on a segment. To answer the DCNN queries, we propose R-tree-based approaches. The snapshot query algorithm is more efficient than the existing method. The continuous query algorithm finds the change points of the results according to two geographical properties. The experimental results show that we can answer the snapshot and the continuous queries accurately and efficiently.

Traditional location-based services (LBSs) only consider the distance of the spatial object w.r.t the user. However, a spatial object has not only the distance attribute but also the direction attribute. In this paper, we propose a new spatial object query, i.e., the direction-aware top-k dominating query (DirDom query). Given a user’s position and his favorite direction, the DirDom query finds the top-k objects with the highest dominant capabilities. The dominant capability of an object is the number of the objects it can dominate. An object can dominate another object if it is better considering both the distance and the direction. Here “better” means it is closer to the user and it is more consistent with the user’s favorite direction. We design R-tree-based algorithms to answer DirDom queries. We evaluate the correctness and the efficiency of the algorithms by using real and synthetic datasets.

A continuous-flow procedure for the synthesis of β-amino acid esters has been developed via lipase-catalyzed Michael reaction of various aromatic amines with acrylates. Lipase TL IM from Thermomyces lanuginosus was first used to catalyze Michael addition reaction of aromatic amines. Compared with other methods, the salient features of this work include green reaction conditions (methanol as reaction medium), short residence time (30 min), readily available catalyst and a reaction process that is easy to control. This enzymatic synthesis of β-amino acid esters performed in continuous-flow microreactors is an innovation that provides a new strategy for the fast biotransformation of β-amino acid esters.

6.8 nm face-centered-cubic indium nanocubes were prepared via plasma-assisted hydrogen reduction in ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride and KClO4 as a {100}-facet director. The nanocubes exhibited excellent dehydrogenation activity toward aqueous hydrazine owing to their localized surface plasmon resonance.

Hollow amorphous NaFePO4 nanospheres were prepared on a large scale by a simple in situ hard template process, wherein the hollow nanospheres exhibited a high storage capacity and high rate as a cathode material for sodium-ion batteries.

Li9V3(P2O7)3(PO4)2 nanotubes were prepared on large scale by a simple molten salt route without the use of a surfactant as a template and the nanotubes exhibited excellent cycling stability in addition to enhanced rate capability as cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries.

The objective of the present study was to examine whether Clostridium butyricum supplementation has a role in the regulation of the intestinal flora and the development of the immune system of neonatal mice. A total of 30 pregnant BALB/c mice, including their offspring, were randomly divided into three groups: In the maternal intervention group (Ba), maternal mice were treated with Clostridium butyricum from birth until weaning at postnatal day 21 (PD21) followed by administration of saline to the offspring at PD21-28; in the offspring intervention group (Ab), breast-feeding maternal mice were supplemented with saline and offspring were directly supplemented with Clostridium butyricum from PD21-28; in the both maternal and offspring intervention group (Bb), both maternal mice and offspring were supplemented with Clostridium butyricum at PD 0-21 and at PD21-28. While mice in the control group were given the same volume of normal saline. Stool samples from the offspring were collected at PD14, -21 and -28 to observe the intestinal flora by colony counts of Enterococcus spp., Enterobacter spp., Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus spp. Detection of intestinal secreted immunoglobulin A (sIgA) levels and serum cytokine (interferon-γ, and interleukin-12, -4 and -10) levels in offspring was performed to evaluate the effect on their immune system. The results revealed that compared with the control group, offspring in the Ba group displayed significantly decreased stool colony counts of Enterococcus spp. (t=3.123, P

A field experiment was conducted to evaluate clofentezine residue levels and dissipation trend in tangerine and soil for the safe application of clofentezine. A modified QuEChERS-HPLC-UVD method was developed to analyse clofentezine in tangerine and soil. Tangerine samples were homogenised and extracted by acetonitrile and then cleaned up with dispersive solid phase extraction (dSPE) by primary and secondary amine (PSA) and C18. Clofentezine residue was determined by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with a UV detector (UVD) at the wavelength of 268 nm. The presented method achieved the good linear relationship within the range from 0.05 to 5.0 mg kg−1 for clofentezine (R2 > 0.998). At the fortification levels of 0.05, 0.50 and 1.00 mg kg−1 in tangerine pulp, tangerine peel and soil, recoveries ranged from 75.9% to 117.7% with relative standard deviations (RSD) less than 8.2%. In the supervised field trials, the half-lives of clofentezine in tangerine and soil were approximately 11.3 and 8.6 d...

Hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs), a new type of persistent organic pollutants widely used as brominated flame retardants, have attracted wide attention due to their increasing level and toxicity. A method based on high-performance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS-MS) in electrospray ionization mode has been developed by optimization of various parameters, which effectively improved the separation degree and responsive intensity of α-, β- and γ-HBCD isomers. The concentrations and distribution profiles of three HBCD isomers were investigated in sediments from the Haihe River in China. It was observed that the concentrations of HBCDs varied in the range of 0.4-58.82ng/g, showing a decreasing trend along the flow direction, possibly due to attenuation and biodegradation along the flow direction of the Haihe River. The distribution profile of α-, β-, γ-HBCD was 7.91%-88.6%, 0-91.47%, and 0.62%-42.83%, respectively. Interestingly, α-HBCD dominated in most sample sites. This was different from the distribution profile in commercial industrial products, which might be attributed to the inter-transformation and different degradation rates of the three HBCD isomers. The potential ecological risk of HBCDs in sediment was characterized under the two-tiered procedure of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency for environmental risk assessment. Although the HBCDs in the selected section of the Haihe River presented "no risk" in the sediment compartment, its risk in sediment cannot be neglected since sediment is one of the important sinks and reservoirs of pollutants.

The objective of the present study was to examine whether Clostridium butyricum supplementation has a role in the regulation of the intestinal flora and the development of the immune system of neonatal mice. A total of 30 pregnant BALB/c mice, including their offspring, were randomly divided into three groups: In the maternal intervention group (Ba), maternal mice were treated with Clostridium butyricum from birth until weaning at postnatal day 21 (PD21) followed by administration of saline to the offspring at PD21-28; in the offspring intervention group (Ab), breast-feeding maternal mice were supplemented with saline and offspring were directly supplemented with Clostridium butyricum from PD21-28; in the both maternal and offspring intervention group (Bb), both maternal mice and offspring were supplemented with Clostridium butyricum at PD 0–21 and at PD21-28. While mice in the control group were given the same volume of normal saline. Stool samples from the offspring were collected at PD14, −21 and −28 to observe the intestinal flora by colony counts of Enterococcus spp., Enterobacter spp., Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacillus spp. Detection of intestinal secreted immunoglobulin A (sIgA) levels and serum cytokine (interferon-γ, and interleukin-12, −4 and −10) levels in offspring was performed to evaluate the effect on their immune system. The results revealed that compared with the control group, offspring in the Ba group displayed significantly decreased stool colony counts of Enterococcus spp. (t=3.123, P

A novel copper-azido coordination polymer, [Cu2(N3)3(L)]n (1, HL=pyrazine-2-carboxylic acid), has been synthesized by hydrothermal reaction with “Non-innocent” reagent in the aqueous solution. In the reaction system, CuII ions are avoided to reduce to CuI ions due to the existence of NdIII. It is found that the complex is a 3D structure based on two double EO azido bridged trimmers and octahedron CuII ions, in which the azide ligands take on EO and μ1,1,3 mode to form CuII-azido 2D layers, furthermore L ligands pillar 2D layers into an infinite 3D framework with the Schlafli symbol of {4;62}4{42;612;810;104}{42;64}. Magnetic studies revealed that the interactions between the CuII ions in the trimmer are ferromagnetic for the Cu–N–Cu angle nearly 98°, while the interactions between the trimmer and octahedron CuII ion are antiferromgantic and result in an antiferromagnetic state.

Four isomorphous lanthanide complexes, [Ln2(L)6(H2O)2]·2H2O [Ln = Ce (1), Ln = Nd (2), Ln = Sm (3), Ln = Pr (4)] (HL = 4-Hydroxy-6-methylnicotinic acid) were synthesized by the reaction of nitrate salts of LnIII and HL by hydrothermal method, which were characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, elemental analysis, FT-IR spectra, UV–vis spectra, TG analyses and X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD). The crystal structures of 1–4 consist of homodinuclear species, which bridged by two oxygen atoms from two L ligands. The photoluminescence properties of compounds 3 and 4 in the solid state at room temperature were investigated. The complex 3 is demonstrated orange–red luminescence, while the luminescence spectrum of complex 4 is typical for the praseodymium complexes.

Chlorophenols are structurally similar to PCDD/Fs and have been considered as highly potential precursors for PCDD/Fs formation. The suppressing effects of PCDD/F formation from pentachlorophenol (PCP) were investigated on various mass ratios of CaO and urea. The total concentration of 2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs, mostly dominated by OCDD, was determined to be 48.58-10186ng/mg in inhibitor-reaction systems, being much lower than that in blank reaction system (75654ng/mg). Interestingly, compared with pure CaO and urea reaction system, the concentration and TEQ of formed 2,3,7,8-PCDD/Fs in mixed urea/CaO reaction system were lower, especially with 5-20% urea reaction systems being respectively at decrease by 96.5-99.4% and 99.2-99.7%. The suppression efficiency of TEQ in 5-20% urea reaction systems could be always approximately 100% under 250-350°C. These results suggested that mixed inhibitors, especially 5-20% urea inhibitors, have a synergetic inhibition effect for PCDD/Fs formation from PCP. Mixed inhibitor generated several intermediates, involving CO2, H2O, NH3, Ca(OH)2, CaCO3, HNCO, biuret and ammelide. The complex between PCP and Ca, N-doped species, lower chlorinated phenols and benzenediol, and organic acids were also determined. Synergetic inhibition mechanism may be attributed to accelerated facilitation of acid-base reaction and N doping. The decomposition of PCP itself also contributes to prevent PCDD/Fs formation.

A series of Fe-Al composite oxides were synthesized by the hydrothermal method using different urea dosages and examined towards the degradation of 2,2',4,4'-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47) at 300 °C. The as-prepared oxides were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The morphology and composition of the prepared materials could be regulated by controlling the urea concentration. Interestingly, these properties influenced the nature and amount of the hydrodebromination products generated during the degradation of BDE-47. The degradation of BDE-47 over the composite oxide prepared at a urea dosage of 3 mmol generated BDE-17 as the major isomer product, followed by BDE-28/33, -30, and -32, among the tribromodiphenyl ethers (tri-BDEs). Regarding the dibromodiphenyl ethers (di-BDEs) produced, the amount of the isomers decreased in the order of BDE-8/11 > BDE-7 > BDE-15 > BDE-10. And the BDE-1 among monobromodiphenyl was determined. In contrast, over the composite oxides prepared at urea dosages greater than 3 mmol, BDE-28/33 gradually become the major isomer product instead of BDE-17 among tri-BDEs. The amount of the other di-BDEs isomer such as BDE-15 and -10 approach to be comparable to that BDE-8/11. However, regardless of the urea dosage, BDE-47 converted into BDE-75 via an isomerization reaction. Based on these intermediate products identification, a possible hydrodebromination mechanism of BDE-47 over Fe-Al composite oxide was comprehensively traced.

Large scale preparation of Li9V3(P2O7)3 (PO4)2 nanotubes is performed by a simple molten salt route without the use of a surfactant as a template.

The Internet has abundant path redundancy, especially in the interdomain routing. However, current routing system can not exploit the Internet path diversity and utilize the disjoint end-to-end paths efficiently. The unawareness of sources to the path selection and the best paths advertisement mechanism in the interdomain routing make it difficult to use disjoint end-to-end paths. In this paper, we present the Source-Directed Path Diversity (SDPD), leveraging which sources can specify the alternate paths to forward the traffic besides the default path. In SDPD, the packets carry the Source-Directed Tag (SDT) in the packet headers to hint the BGP routers the preference of the sources on the path selection, while the BGP routers forward the packets independently based on the sources' indication. Moreover, we propose the multipath advertisement of the BGP route reflectors in SDPD to reduce the filtration of the redundant paths in the interdomain routing. We evaluate the SDPD through simulations over a synthetic Internet-like topology. The simulation results show that the SDPD can exploit alternate paths with low similarity and stretch efficiently

A rapid and simple HPLC-fluorescence detection method has been developed for the determination of abamectin residues in edible oil. Residues are extracted with acetonitrile and by vortexing and then directly derivatized with no need for a time-consuming cleanup step. Trifluoroacetic anhydride and N-methylimidazole were used as derivatizing agents of abamectin. Abamectin was detected and quantitated with fluorescence detection (excitation: 365 nm; emission: 475 nm), and methanol was used as the mobile phase. The LOD was 0.001 mg/kg and the LOQ was 0.003 mg/kg. The recoveriesranged from 86 to 100.4% with satisfactory precision (RSD < 10.1%). This method proved to be sensitive, environmentally friendly, time-saving, and efficient.

In this work, a rapid, environment friendly and sensitive method was established for the extraction and analysis of five organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs) (chlorpyrifos, chlorpyrifos-methyl, isocarbophos, malathion and phorate) in milk samples by means of gas chromatography-flame photometric detection. The pesticides were first extracted with acetonitrile from milk samples by using the modified "quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged, and safe" (QuEChERS) method. No other clean-up was required after extraction. Then the above-mentioned acetonitrile extract was concentrated by using the dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with solidification of floating organic droplets technique. Several factors that could influence the extraction efficiency, such as type of extraction solvent, disperser solvent, volume of extraction and disperser solvent, salt effect, sample pH, and extraction time, were investigated and optimized. As a result, 15 µL of 1-dodecanol were used as the extractant because of its lower toxicity, 300 µL methanol was chosen as dispersant and the extraction time was set to 1 min. Under the optimized conditions, good linearity was exhibited from 0.01 to 1.0 mg/L with the correlation coefficients higher than 0.9968. The limits of detection of the five OPPs were ranged in 0.1-0.3 μg/L, and the limits of quantification were at the range of 0.3-1.0 μg/L. Moreover, the recoveries of the target analytes from milk samples at spiking levels of 0.01, 0.05 and 0.1 mg/L were between 80.5 and 106.5% with the relative standard deviations varied from 3.6 to 6.3%. This method has been successfully applied to detect OPPs in real milk samples.

The cardiac safety of cetuximab, particularly as single approach, has not been investigated extensively. This trial was designed to evaluate the cardiac safety of cetuximab as salvage monotherapy in Chinese chemotherapy-refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients. Cetuximab was administrated at an initial dose of 400 mg/m2on day 1 (week 1), followed by a maintenance dose of 250 mg/m2 on day 1 of each 7-day cycle. Electrocardiograph (ECG), routine laboratory tests, and troponin I (TNI) Ultra were performed at baseline, during, and after the cetuximab therapy. The incidence of abnormal ECGs, elevated TNI Ultra, cardiac events, and noncardiac events were recorded and analyzed. TNI Ultra+ was found in 20 patients (32.3%) during the cetuximab therapy.TNI Ultra+ occurred more frequently in patients with more than 3 organs affected and accepted fourth or above lines of chemotherapy. The most frequent abnormal ECG was ST depression in 24 (38.7%) patients. The elevated TNI Ultra and abnormal ECGs could recover after the cetuximab therapy. The most of cardiac adverse events were mild and transient and the noncardiac adverse events were also consistent with the known safety profile for cetuximab. Cetuximab showed its cardiac safety as a single agent for chemotherapy-refractory mCRC patients. And TNI Ultra and ECG could be sensitive and convenient approaches for the surveillance of adverse events.

The paper presents an algebraic specification of net objects. By net objects we mean those that are defined in object-oriented paradigms and those defined with nested relations in complex database models. An algebraic specification is set up that involves structures of net objects, accesses of net objects, and some features of object-oriented programming, such as multiple inheritance and polymorphism. Objects and their relationships are then characterized formally in the modeling, which utilizes the hierarchical approach in the algebraic theory of abstract data types, and is further developed by adding mechanisms from existing object systems. Categories of net objects are presented with the properties of accesses among them. >

The electrohydraulic servo system of a certain type of mines weeping plough is a complex and nonlinear system. It is difficult to construct its accurate model by first principle method and to achieve satisfactory control performance by traditional PID controller. In this paper, the radial basis function neural network with orthogonal least square learning algorithm is used to model the electrohydraulic system and the neural network based direct inverse is adopted to control the system. The experimental results and comparisons with other techniques clearly show the validity of the proposed methods.

Since the TCP protocol implements in the internet, the AIMD algorithm has always been the dominating congest control algorithm for about 20 years, and most of the common operating systems follow the recommendation of the IETF to adopt the AIMD algorithm in their TCP variations. But in recent years, many high-speed congest control algorithms have been proposed for fast data transfer over high speed and long distance networks, and many operating systems take the high-speed TCP variations as default: the Linux kernel uses CUBIC TCP as default since version 2.6.18, while Compound TCP becomes default TCP in Windows Server 2008 and a part of Microsoft Windows Vista, where it is easy to be enabled. As there are still not sufficient and comprehensive performance comparison of the high-speed TCP variations, the deployment of them as default TCP in the operating systems raises concerns about the future of congest control in the internet and worries about the fairness problem. This paper is an attempt to evaluate the fairness of the default TCP in the newest Linux and Microsoft Windows. The simulation results indicate that between CUBIC TCP and Compound TCP it indeed exhibits unfairness. The CUBIC TCP is too aggressive to the Compound TCP in the high bandwidth-delay product network, and the performance of Compound TCP is unacceptable comparing to CUBIC TCP.

To investigate the sensitivity to bleomycin (BLM) in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) among coke-oven workers.Ninty-four coke-oven workers with exposure to a high level of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and 64 non-coke-oven workers (control) were recruited into this study. PBL was challenged by 8 microg/ml BLM, a known carcinogen, to induce certain amount of DNA damage, the difference of olive tail moment (TM) measured by comet assay before and after BLM treatment reflected the sensitivity towards mutagens.The distribution of age, sex, and prevalence of smoking and drinking were not significantly different between these two groups. The geometric mean of urinary 1-hydroxypyrene (1-OHP) was significantly higher in coke-oven workers than in controls (9.0 versus 1.5 microg/L, t = -9.317, P0.01). The coke-oven workers showed significantly higher sensitivity to BLM than controls (17.7 versus 14.9, t = -2.583, P = 0.01). A large inter-group difference in sensitivity to BLM was observed in both controls and coke-oven workers. Stratification analysis revealed the significant association between high 1-OHP level (9.0 microg/L) and increased sensitivity to BLM (F = 4.001, P = 0.05) among coke-oven workers. Smoking subjects showed a significant higher value of sensitivity than nonsmokers in controls but not in coke-oven workers. No significant difference was observed between age, drinking status, coking history or external exposure class and BLM sensitivity.Exposure to coke oven emission could increase the sensitivity to mutagens, which might be a reason of high incidence of lung cancer among coke-oven workers.

In [10] a recursive algorithm was proposed for the multipeg Towers of Hanoi problem, a generalization of the standard problem. Based on the observation of the recursive algorithm, a nonrecursive approach is obtained in this paper and many characteristics disclosed to remove the recursion. Among those is the interesting relation between the Towers and the binary representation of nonnegative integers, which greatly helps the establishment of the new approach. In addition, several classes of nonnegative integers with elegant combinatorial properties will be involved in establishing and analysing the new algorithm.

To evaluate the significance of upper mediastinal lymph nodes dissection for thyroid carcinoma patients.The clinical data of 79 thyroid carcinoma patients who underwent the upper mediastinal lymph node dissection (between January 1984 and December 1998) were retrospectively analysed. There were 45 male and 34 female with a median age of 47 years (range 10 to 74 years). Follow-up was ended on December 31, 2003.Histopathologically, there were 58 (73.4%) papillary carcinoma, 14 (17.7%) medullary carcinoma, and 7 (8.9%) follicular carcinomas. Four of them had poorly-differentiated carcinoma. Upper mediastinal lymph node dissection was carried out in 62 patients through trans-cervical approach, in 10 through an inverted T-shaped incision, and in 7 through a midline sternotomy. Seventy-six patients had 93 neck lymph node dissection procedures, and 47 patients developed paratracheal lymph node metastasis. The overall 5- and 10-year cumulative survival rate was 64.6% and 63.1%, respectively. Mediastinal lymph node recurrence developed only in 10 patients after initial upper mediastinal lymph node dissection. Nine patients died of upper mediastinal lymph node metastasis. Postoperative complications were observed in 11 patients without perioperative death.Upper mediastinal lymph node metastasis is most frequently found in papillary thyroid carcinoma. Surgical dissection of upper mediastinal metastatic lymph nodes through either cervical incision or mediastinotomy is safe and effective with low rate of perioperative complications. It may improve the life quality and survival of thyroid carcinoma patients.