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Magnesium alloys are considered to be one of the most promising stent materials due to their good biological compatibility and biodegradable properties. However, the poor workability at room temperature restricts the processing of high-precision micro-tubes for the application as stent materials. In this study, Mg–Zn–Y–Nd alloy tube blank was firstly produced through hot extrusion. By multi-pass cold drawing combining with interpass annealing, the extruded tube blank can be processed into high-precision micro-tube with an outer diameter of about 2.0 mm and a wall thickness of about 0.15 mm. The drawn micro-tube after annealing exhibits improved mechanical properties with an ultimate tensile strength of about 298 MPa and a large breaking elongation of up to 20%. Meanwhile, the micro-tube shows good corrosion resistance with a trend of uniform corrosion in simulated body fluid solution. The investigation revealed that a significant improvement in the mechanical properties is mainly attributed to grain refinement and texture weaken, while the good biodegradable properties is related with the low density of crystallographic defects as well as fine and homogeneous microstructure. As a result, the successful processing of magnesium alloy micro-tube provides the precursor for laser engraving stents.

In order to design a 3-DOF hybrid bionic manipulator based on joint reintegration and bearing capacity. Firstly, the coordinate system of the 3-DOF hybrid manipulator is described, the vector method is used to solve the kinematic positive solution of the manipulator so as to express the pose of the end-effector based on the base coordinates. Second, the workspace of 3-DOF hybrid bionic manipulator is solve, and the workspace distribution map of 3-DOF hybrid bionic manipulator is obtained. The workspace analysis results shows the workspace of 3-DOF hybird bionic manipulator is fan-shaped and nearly symmetrical, structural parameters with larger workspace are obtained. Finally, a virtual prototype of the bionic manipulator is designed based on the obtained structural parameters. The manipulator has good alignment and stability, and can be used in a variety of scenarios.

Background Portal/hepatic vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT/HVTT) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a sign of advanced stage disease and is associated with poor prognosis. This study investigated the surgical outcomes of patients with HCC and PVTT/HVTT to determine the most appropriate surgical treatment strategy for these patients. Materials and Methods The study population included 77 HCC patients from January 2004 to June 2009 who underwent hepatectomy in our department and were diagnosed with PVTT/HVTT based on pathological examination. The patients were divided into two groups: in group 1, PVTT/HVTT was located in the hepatic resection area and removed with the tumor en bloc (38 cases); in group 2, PVTT/HVTT was beyond the resection line and removed by suction or thrombectomy (39 cases). Concerning the factor of surgical margins, the patients were further divided into four subgroups: group 1A: patients in group 1 with surgical margins ≤1 cm (28 cases); group 1B: patients in group 1 with surgical margins >1 cm (9 cases); group 2A: patients in group 2 with surgical margins ≤1 cm (28 cases); and group 2B: patients in group 2 with surgical margins >1 cm (9 cases). Results Most of the characteristics of groups 1 and 2 were similar. Patients in group 2 had significantly higher median blood loss (p=0.002) and higher blood transfusion rate (p=0.002) during the operation, which were not considered prognostic factors (p=0.323 and 0.571, respectively). The median overall survival (OS) duration in group 1 was significantly longer than that in group 2 (14.3 vs. 10.4 months, p=0.047). The median OS durations in groups 1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B were 14.3, 42.7, 7.5, and 18.0 months, respectively, which were significantly different(p=0.018). Conclusions When PVTT/HVTT is located in the hepatic resection area and removed with the tumor en bloc, the median OS duration is longer. Based on this finding, widening the surgical margins when technically possible may increase OS.

One of the most important aspects of Gerontechnology is to support the elder who lives alone at home. According to the elder's relatively obvious and stable routine of daily activities, this paper proposes a statistical approach based on machine vision to build an Elder Indoor and Outdoor Activity Model (EIOAM) through analysis of the elder's daily activity data in the main activity places and the entry/exit places collected by the Omni-directional Vision Sensor (ODVS). Since the elder's daily routine varies with the alternating of seasons and growing of age, the model should learn the routine of activities adaptively. This model is able to detect and predict the abnormal activities of the elder through detecting the significant deviations of the activity data in spatial and temporal aspects. By using this model, one can not only detect the abnormal activities happened in sight of the vision sensor (indoor), but also out of sight (outdoor). Thus provides a new methodology for the remote home care of the elder who lives alone.

Water quality monitoring is of great importance in water safety protection and water emergency supervision. Water quality can be reflected by aquatic creatures' ecological status, especially fish's, directly and synthetically. Therefore, aquatic creatures' ecological status can be used to monitor water quality safety. This paper presents an real-time water quality monitoring technology in which computer image processing technique, network communication technique and observation of aquatic creatures' ecological status, such as small fish's, technique are used. A machine vision based biological water quality monitoring equipment is proposed. It monitors water quality safety by observing fish's biological status. This new water quality monitoring technology overcomes the shortages of existing water quality monitoring technology, which is costly, and inapplicable to large-scale long-term and on-line water quality monitoring. Thus, it provides an economical and effective method for water quality monitoring, water safety protection and water emergency supervision.