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Abstract Adjacent vertebral fracture (AVF) is a serious complication of percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) or kyphoplasty (PKP) for osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (OVCF). This study aimed to explore the incidence and risk factors of AVF following PVP or PKP in postmenopausal women. The incidence of AVF was determined by spinal radiographic examinations. The potential risk factors of AVF were identified by univariate analysis, followed by multivariate logistic regression analyses to determine the independent risk factors. In total, 674 postmenopausal women who were treated with PVP or PKP from December 2019 to February 2022 were enrolled in the study. Among them, 58 (8.61%) women experienced an AVF following PVP or PKP. After adjusting for confounding factors, BMI (OR [95% CI] 0.863 [0.781–0.952]; p = 0.003), previous history of OVCF (OR [95% CI] 1.931 [1.044–3.571]; p = 0.036), and Hounsfield unit (HU) value (OR [95% CI] 0.979 [0.967–0.990]; p

Abstract The Dongba manuscripts are a unique primitive pictographic writing system that originated among the Naxi people of Lijiang, China, boasting over a thousand years of history. The uniqueness of the Dongba manuscripts stems from their pronounced pictorial and ideographic characteristics. However, the digital preservation and inheritance of Dongba manu manuscripts face multiple challenges, including extracting its rich semantic information, recognizing individual characters, retrieving Dongba manuscripts, and automatically interpreting the meanings of Dongba manuscripts. Developing efficient Dongba character detection technology has become a key research focus, wherein establishing a standardized Dongba detection dataset is crucial for training and evaluating techniques. In this study, we have created a comprehensive Dongba manuscripts detection dataset covering various commonly used Dongba characters and vocabularies. Additionally, we propose a model named STEF. Firstly, the Swin Transformer extracts the complex structures and diverse shapes of Dongba manuscripts’ features. Then, by introducing a Feature Pyramid Enhancement Module, features of different sizes are cascaded to preserve multi-scale information. Subsequently, all features are fused in a FUSION module, resulting in features of various Dongba manuscript styles. Each pixel’s binarisation threshold is dynamically adjusted through a differentiable binarisation operation, accurately distinguishing between foreground Dongba manuscripts and background. Lastly, deformable convolution is introduced, allowing the model to dynamically adjust the convolution kernel’s size and shape based on the Dongba manuscripts’ size, thereby better capturing the detailed information of Dongba characters of different sizes. Experimental results show that STEF achieves a recall rate of 88.88%, a precision rate of 88.65%, and an F-measure of 88.76%, outperforming other text detection algorithms. Visualization experiments demonstrate that STEF performs well in detecting Dongba manuscripts of various sizes, shapes, and styles, especially in blurred handwriting and complex backgrounds.

In the urban environment, the transient electromagnetic method often suffers from severe electromagnetic interference because it employs coils to perceive the electromagnetic field. To address this issue, the DC method employs electrodes to shield the electromagnetic noise in the urban environment. In this paper, a new geophysical resistivity imaging sensing approach based on a DC inversion model is proposed to explore and identify the path of underground water to solve the water disaster problem. A real-world case study is carried out in Xinjiang Region. In order to investigate the underground water conducted path, an electrode network is designed and installed for the buildings of interest to collect the DC electrical current and DC electrical potential data. Then, the proposed method establishes a DC resistivity inversion model based on the forward theory and finite-volume technique to extract the geological information from the collected data and visualize the underground water conducted path. Different from existing popular numerical techniques, such as the finite element and finite difference, the finite-volume technique has clear theoretical explanations to make the obtained geological images understandable. As a result, the underground water path can be directly observed from the geological images calculated by the proposed approach to successfully identify and locate the underground water disaster in real-world applications.

Abstract It is an increasingly mature application solution that triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) supplies power to electronic devices through its power management system (PMS). However, the previous PMS is able to manage a limited voltage magnitude and the energy storage elements are limited to capacitors. This work proposes an ultrahigh voltage PMS (UV‐PMS) to realize the charging of commercial lithium cells (LCs) by TENG. The design of UV‐PMS enables energy management of TENGs with ultrahigh open‐circuit voltages up to 3500 V and boosts the peak charging current from 30.9 µA to 2.77 mA, an increase of 89.64 times. With the introduction of UV‐PMS, the effective charging capacity of LC charged by a TENG at a working frequency of 1.5 Hz for 1 h comes to 429.7 µAh, making a 75.3 times enhancement compared to charging by TENG directly. The maximum charging power comes to 1.56 mW. The energy storage efficiency is above 97% and the overall charge efficiency can be maintained at 81.2%. This work provides a reliable strategy for TENG to store energy in LC, and has promising applications in energy storage, LC's life, and self‐powered systems.

This research addresses the limitations of existing autonomous vehicle path planning algorithms, notably their slow processing speeds and suboptimal route efficiency. We introduce an innovative path planning algorithm that synergizes the A* algorithm with the Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) approach. This hybrid model significantly enhances route timeliness and reliability, particularly in obstacle avoidance scenarios for driverless vehicles. Our methodology employs a 'two-level map' approach, where a lower-resolution grid map is derived from a high-resolution map. Utilizing the A* algorithm on this framework, we ascertain a preliminary 'coarse path' for the navigation target. The RRT algorithm, modified to reduce the traditional redundancy associated with random uniform sampling, is then applied for probabilistic sampling within this defined area. ovel aspect of our approach is the simultaneous generation of two trees, originating from both the start and end points, guided by a target-biased strategy and dual-direction theory. This method probabilistically expands towards the node of the opposite tree, thereby enhancing both the generation speed and trajectory viability. Further refinements are made through a pruning process, optimizing the path, and employing Bezier curves for smoothing, ensuring compliance with the dynamic constraints of Ackerman chassis vehicles. Comparative analysis in complex environments demonstrates the superiority of our proposed algorithm. It outperforms traditional methods with a 400 % increase in planning speed relative to the RRT-Connect algorithm, and a 30 % reduction in average path length. Additionally, the mean curvature of routes generated by our algorithm is 19 % lower than traditional routes, underscoring significant advancements in both the timeliness and viability of the planned routes.

To enhance the utilization of clean energy sources, such as wind power and photovoltaic within virtual power plants, and mitigate carbon emissions, this paper proposes a virtual power plant participation in the electricity carbon joint market optimization operation model based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition–improved bat algorithm (IBA)–Markov chain new energy output prediction. First, complementary set empirical mode decomposition is performed on historical data to construct a Markov chain based wind power and photovoltaic prediction model optimized by IBA. Second, this prediction model is used to predict the daily generation power of wind power and photovoltaic power. Finally, with the optimization goals of maximizing the benefits and minimizing the carbon costs of virtual power plants, a virtual power plant system participating in the electricity carbon joint market model based on wind power and photovoltaic output prediction results is constructed. At the same time, demand response factors are introduced and solved using the NSGA-II algorithm. Taking a certain park as an example for simulation analysis, the research results show that the combined effect of carbon market and demand response can achieve 99.82% of new energy consumption in virtual power plants without significantly reducing profits, basically achieving complete new energy consumption, demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed model in this paper.

Currently, multi-layer deep convolutional networks are mostly used for field weed recognition to extract and identify target features. However, in practical application scenarios, they still face challenges such as insufficient recognition accuracy, a large number of model parameters, and slow detection speed. In response to the above problems, using chickweed as the identification object, a weed identification model based on improved YOLOv5s was proposed. Firstly, the Squeeze-and-Excitation Module (SE) and Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) were added to the model’s feature extraction network to improve the model’s recognition accuracy; secondly, the Ghost convolution lightweight feature fusion network was introduced to effectively identify the volume, parameter amount, and calculation amount of the model, and make the model lightweight; finally, we replaced the loss function in the original target bounding box with the Efficient Intersection over Union (EloU) loss function to further improve the detection performance of the improved YOLOv5s model. After testing, the accuracy of the improved YOLOv5s model was 96.80%, the recall rate was 94.00%, the average precision was 93.20%, and the frame rate was 14.01 fps, which were improved by 6.6%, 4.4%, 1.0%, and 6.1%, respectively, compared to the original YOLOv5s model. The model volume was 9.6 MB, the calculation amount was 13.6 GB, and the parameter amount was 5.9 MB, which decreased by 29.4%, 14.5%, and 13.2% compared with the original YOLOv5s model, respectively. This model can effectively distinguish chickweed between crops. This research can provide theoretical and technical support for efficient identification of weeds in complex field environments.

To explore the deep geological structure of the Dongyang area in Fujian, China, gravity data from the area and its surroundings were collected and processed. Additionally, a high-precision magnetic survey was conducted in the Zhongxian region of this area, with subsequent analysis of the magnetic anomalies. Through the integration of regional geological data, a comprehensive analysis was carried out on the characteristics of gravity–magnetic anomalies and deep geological structures in the Dongyang area. The study indicates that the primary portion of the Dongyang area lies southwest of the expansive circular volcanic structure spanning Dehua to Yongtai. Two significant residual gravity anomalies were identified within the region, interpreted as the Xiaoban-Shuangqishan and Dongyang-Lingtouping residual gravity-positive anomalies. In the Zhongxian region, the magnetic field exhibits complexity with notable amplitude variations. Positive anomalies predominate in the western and northern sectors, while localized positive anomalies are prominent in the eastern region. The central area portrays a circular and disordered mix of positive and negative anomalies. Particularly distinctive are the band-shaped and fan-shaped negative anomalies curving from northeast to southeast through the central region. Various positive and negative anomalies of varying strengths, gradients, and orientations overlay both positive and negative magnetic backgrounds in specific locales. Moreover, the Dongyang area showcases well-developed fault structures, primarily oriented in northeast and northwest directions. Leveraging the regional magnetic attributes in conjunction with regional geological data, 39 faults were deduced in the Zhongxian region of the Dongyang area, delineating three promising mineralization zones.

With the development of precision sensing instruments and data storage devices, the fusion of multi-sensor data in gearbox fault diagnosis has attracted much attention. However, existing methods have difficulty in capturing the local temporal dependencies of multi-sensor monitoring information, and the inescapable noise severely decreases the accuracy of multi-sensor information fusion diagnosis. To address these issues, this paper proposes a fault diagnosis method based on dynamic graph convolutional neural networks and hard threshold denoising. Firstly, considering that the relationships between monitoring data from different sensors change over time, a dynamic graph structure is adopted to model the temporal dependencies of multi-sensor data, and, further, a graph convolutional neural network is constructed to achieve the interaction and feature extraction of temporal information from multi-sensor data. Secondly, to avoid the influence of noise in practical engineering, a hard threshold denoising strategy is designed, and a learnable hard threshold denoising layer is embedded into the graph neural network. Experimental fault datasets from two typical gearbox fault test benches under environmental noise are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method in gearbox fault diagnosis. The experimental results show that the proposed DDGCN method achieves an average diagnostic accuracy of up to 99.7% under different levels of environmental noise, demonstrating good noise resistance.

The automatic segmentation of cardiac computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) plays a pivotal role in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In this study, we propose an efficient network based on the multi-scale, multi-head self-attention (MSMHSA) mechanism. The incorporation of this mechanism enables us to achieve larger receptive fields, facilitating the accurate segmentation of whole heart structures in both CT and MRI images. Within this network, features extracted from the shallow feature extraction network undergo a MHSA mechanism that closely aligns with human vision, resulting in the extraction of contextual semantic information more comprehensively and accurately. To improve the precision of cardiac substructure segmentation across varying sizes, our proposed method introduces three MHSA networks at distinct scales. This approach allows for fine-tuning the accuracy of micro-object segmentation by adapting the size of the segmented images. The efficacy of our method is rigorously validated on the Multi-Modality Whole Heart Segmentation (MM-WHS) Challenge 2017 dataset, demonstrating competitive results and the accurate segmentation of seven cardiac substructures in both cardiac CT and MRI images. Through comparative experiments with advanced transformer-based models, our study provides compelling evidence that despite the remarkable achievements of transformer-based models, the fusion of CNN models and self-attention remains a simple yet highly effective approach for dual-modality whole heart segmentation.

Field emission is an important work mode for electron sources, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been extensively studied for their good emission properties. It is well known that the parameters of the grid deeply influence the field emission performance of CNTs, a relationship that requires further elucidation. Therefore, in this study, the relationship between the grid aperture ratio and electron transmittance was studied through simulations and experiments. This study’s results indicate that the electron transmittance improved as the grid aperture ratio increased. Meanwhile, electron beam spot simulations and imaging experiments indicate that an increased grid aperture ratio will expand the cathode electron divergence, leading to a larger electron beam spot size. These results demonstrate that there is a trade-off in maintaining the grid aperture ratio between high electron transmittance and relatively small electron beam spot size, and the optimum grid aperture ratio is between 75% and 85%. These results will provide a reference for the design and optimization of X-ray tubes and other electron sources.

Deer bone in traditional Chinese medicine is valued for its unique biomimetic bone matrix components. Icariin (Ica), which is claimed by Chinese medicine as a bone-repairing agent, is also widely accepted. In this report, a novel Icaencapsulated PLGA/nano deer bone meal (Ica@PLGA/nBM) biomimetic microsphere was fabricated. The Ica could be released from microspheres in a controlled manner. In vitro results showed that the microsphere had good biocompatibility due to the addition of nBM and the MC3T3-E1 cells could adhere to and grow well on the microspheres. Moreover, Ica and nBM in microspheres could synergically promote the ALP activity of MC3T3-E1 cells significantly (p < 0.05), which indicated the acceleration of osteogenic differentiation. The RT-PCR results showed that the expression levels of bone matrix proteins (Col1 & OPN) were enhanced by the composite (p < 0.05). In addition, Ica and nBM in microspheres also obviously promoted the expression of RUNX2 and BMP-2, respectively (p < 0.05). The in vivo results demonstrated the effective promotion of Ica@PLGA/nBM on complete bony connection to cover the defect site and the bone defect repair. And the Ica(M)@PLGA/nBM microspheres provided the best repair results. All the results confirmed that the Ica@PLGA/nBM composite biomimetic microsphere has the potential for clinical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]