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Acromegaly is a chronic progressive endocrine disease that is often accompanied by joint and bone symptoms. The correlation between bone metabolism and acromegaly is still unclear. In this study, 31 patients with acromegaly at Peking Union Medical College Hospital were included. Bone metabolism indices, such as β-CTX, TP1NP, T-25OHD, 1,25(OH)2D3, and SAGIT score, which represent the severity of acromegaly, were examined before operation, and the patients were followed up for at least 3 months after operation. The results showed that β-CTX and TP1NP were significantly lower than those before surgery in the remission group (p 0.001). In the nonremission group, CTX (p = 0.226) and TP1NP (p = 0.326) did not show significant differences from those before operation. In Pearson correlation analysis, β-CTX was significantly correlated with SAGIT score (r = 0.356, p = 0.049). By multivariate linear regression analysis, it was found that β-CTX was an independent risk factor of SAGIT score (p = 0.001). In conclusion, indicators of bone metabolism are closely related to changes in acromegaly, and the β-CTX value can be used as an effective predictor for assessing acromegaly.

Improving the rock-breaking efficiency of hard rock formation has always been of concern in drilling. Compound impact drilling technology is a new method to achieve efficient crushing of hard rock by exerting axial and torsional impacts on the drilling bit. In this study, to investigate the dynamic rock-breaking process and mechanism under compound impact, a numerical model was developed based on cohesive elements. Dynamic impact tests on sandstone were conducted to verify the effectiveness of the method. Then, the dynamic rock-breaking process under compound impact was simulated using the proposed model. Finally, the effects of impact parameters and cyclic loading on the rock-breaking performance were systematically studied. The results indicate that the stereoscopic crushing effect of rock can be achieved under compound impact. The amount of broken rock increases with the increase in the impact load amplitude and impact loading times, whereas both the impact angle and duration have an optimal range. When the impact angle is 30°, the impact duration is 2.5 ms, the amount of broken rock is maximum. A novel compound impact drilling tool was designed based on the analysis of the rock-breaking mechanism, the laboratory and field tests were carried out and the parameters were optimized.

ZTM ceramics were successfully derived from coal gangue. The effect of zirconium source (ZrO2 and ZrOCl2∙8H2O) and content on properties of the ZTM ceramics has been studied. The phase composition, density, and microscopic morphology were characterized with X-ray diffraction (XRD), Archimedes method and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The influence of zirconium source, sintering temperature, zirconia content on flexural properties and fracture toughness was studied. The sample, with ZrOCl2∙8H2O added 12% zirconia (Z2TM12) sintered at 1475 °C for 3 h has the highest density of 2.83 g/cm3. Partially stable t-ZrO2 was present in samples with zirconium oxychloride (ZrOCl2∙8H2O) as the zirconium source, due to the constraints of mullite crystals. Therefore, Z2TM12 had both microcrack toughening and stress phase transformation toughening mechanisms. The flexural strength was increased from 162.40 MPa to 285.04 MPa, while the fracture toughness was improved to 3.55 MPa m1/2 from 2.38 MPa m1/2. Our achievement can be used as a reference to fabricate ZTM ceramics from coal gangue with high-value additions.

Palygorskite was coated with a thin layer of carbon by using a hydrothermal process with glucose, in order to form palygorskite/carbon (Pal/C) composites, which were then used as a template to load polyaniline through in-situ polymerization, thus obtaining dispersed spherical shell-shaped palygorskite/carbon/polyaniline (Pal/C/PANI) ternary composites. The Pal/C/PANI composites exhibit promising electromagnetic absorption performances, which can be optimized by adjusting the content of Pal/C. In this case, palygorskite acts as a skeleton and dispersion agent, which effectively prevents the agglomeration of carbon and polyaniline. Due to the improved impedance matching and increased dielectric loss, the Pal/C/PANI composites display an optimal reflection loss of −74 dB at 6.24 GHz, with a maximum effective absorption bandwidth of 4.96 GHz. Such composites could be candidates as high performance microwave absorbers.

We consider the initial boundary value problem of pseudo-parabolic equation with singular potential. We obtain global existence, asymptotic behavior and blowup of solutions with initial energy J ( u 0 ) ≤ d . Moreover, we estimate the upper bound of the blowup time for J ( u 0 ) 0 and 0 J ( u 0 ) d respectively. Finally, we prove the finite time blowup and estimate the upper bound of the blowup time for the high energy level, i.e., J ( u 0 ) > 0 .

Low cycle fatigue tests on the hydrogenated welding seam of Zr–Sn–Nb alloy at room temperature and 360 °C had been carried out by using the funnel-shaped flat specimens. The relationships between nominal stress & strain directly measured across the funnel and local stress & strain at the root of the funnel are given by considering cyclic plasticity correction. The results show that the fatigue resistance of welding seam at room temperature is only slightly better than that at 360 °C. Probabilistic fatigue life curves are obtained by using a two-parameter power function.

We consider the incompressible flow of the active hydrodynamics of liquid crystals with inhomogeneous density in the Beris-Edwards hydrodynamics framework. The Landau-de Gennes Q-tensor order parameter is used to describe the liquid crystalline ordering. Faedo-Galerkin's method is adopted to construct the solutions for the initial-boundary value problem. Two levels of approximations are used and the weak convergence is obtained through compactness estimates by new techniques due to the active terms. The existence of global weak solutions in dimension two and three is established in a bounded domain.

To elucidate the sleep quality characteristics and factors related to either good or poor sleep quality in acromegaly patients before surgery and to explore sleep quality changes after transsphenoidal surgery and the factors related to these changes.We prospectively enrolled 39 acromegaly patients and 78 patients with nonfunctioning pituitary adenomas. Scales for anxiety, depression, disease stigma and nasal condition were evaluated. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) questionnaire was administered before surgery as well as one month and three months after surgery.A higher percentage of acromegaly patients had poor sleep quality compared to controls (35.9% vs. 5.1%, p 0.001). In addition, acromegaly patients experienced worse subjective sleep quality, extended sleep latency, increased sleep disturbance and decreased daytime functioning. Higher scores for anxiety, disease stigma and sinonasal outcomes were correlated with worse sleep quality in acromegaly patients. At one month after transsphenoidal surgery, we found worse subjective sleep quality, extended sleep latency, shortened sleep duration, impaired sleep efficiency and increased sleep disturbance in acromegaly patients. At three months postoperatively, most impaired PSQI domains in acromegaly patients recovered to preoperative levels. The use of soluble gauze was related to decreased sleep quality at one month after surgery and severe anxiety and depression were related to improved sleep quality at three months after surgery.Sleep quality was reduced in acromegaly patients. Moreover, sleep quality initially worsened after surgery but later recovered. Emotional problems and the use of soluble gauze were related factors.None.

Face image synthesis with facial feature and identity preserving is one of the key challenges in computer vision. Recently, outstanding performances in image translation and synthesis have been reported in CycleGAN. However, for the task of face image synthesis, there are still several remaining issues (e.g., poor-visual-quality facial feature, changed face identity, unstable model optimization). In order to solve the above issues, in this paper we propose a novel model of triple translation GAN (TTGAN) with multi-layer sparse representation. We design a multi-layer sparse representation model, in which L1-norm representation constraint is integrated into the image generation to enhance the ability of identity preserving and the robustness of the generated facial images to reconstruction error. Moreover, in order to improve the stability of the model optimization, we propose a triple translation consistence loss, including a designed third image translation from a reconstructed original input to a desired output. The face synthesis experimental results on the benchmark face databases clearly shows the superior performance over the competing methods.

Alkaline-earth dihalide nanocrystals (NCs) such as SrFCl, owing to their high chemical stability and low phonon energy, are excellent host materials for lanthanide (Ln3+) doping to achieve desirable optical properties for various bioapplications. Herein, we report a novel strategy for the synthesis of sub-10 nm Ln3+-doped SrFCl NCs with efficient upconverting and downshifting luminescence through a facile one-step hot-injection method. Utilizing the temperature-dependent upconverting luminescence (UCL) from the thermally coupled 2H11/2 and 4S3/2 levels of Er3+, we showed the potential of SrFCl:Yb,Er NCs as sensitive UCL nanoprobes for non-contact thermal sensing with a maximum detection sensitivity of 0.0066 K–1, which is among the highest values for thermal sensing based on Er3+-activated UCL nanoprobes. Furthermore, by employing the intense downshifting luminescence from Tb3+ and Eu3+, we demonstrated the successful use of biotinylated SrFCl:Ce,Tb and SrFCl:Eu3+ nanoprobes for biotin receptor-targeted cancer cell imaging, thus revealing the great promise of SrFCl:Ln3+ nanoprobes for versatile bioapplications.

The main goal of this work is to investigate the initial boundary value problem of fourth order wave equation with nonlinear strain and logarithmic nonlinearity at three different initial energy levels, i.e., subcritical energy E ( 0 ) d , critical initial energy E ( 0 ) = d and arbitrary high energy E ( 0 ) > d . First, we prove the local existence of weak solution by Galerkin method. In the framework of potential well, we obtain the global existence and infinite time blow up of the solution with sub-critical initial energy. Moreover by the scaling technique, we obtain global existence and infinite time blow up of the solution with critical initial energy. Also, a high energy infinite time blow up result is established.

In this paper we consider the semilinear wave equation with logarithmic nonlinearity. By modifying and using potential well combined with logarithmic Sobolev inequality, we derive the global existence and infinite time blow up of the solution at low energy level E ( 0 ) d . Then these results are extended in parallel to the critical case E ( 0 ) = d . Besides, with additional assumptions on initial data, the infinite time blow up result is given with arbitrary positive initial energy E ( 0 ) > 0 .

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics of delayed remission (DR) of growth hormone (GH)-secreting pituitary adenoma after transsphenoidal adenectomy and inform follow-up treatments. Methods We retrospectively reviewed 87 patients who had undergone transsphenoidal surgery for acromegaly. Demographic, radiological, and endocrinological data were reviewed before, immediately after, 3 months after, and in the long term (2.4 ± 1.1 years) after surgery. The definition of DR was that patients did not achieve GH remission immediately, 3 months, or later after surgery, but did so in the long term without any additional postoperative treatment. Results Fifty-one patients (58.6%) achieved long-term GH remission. There were 24 (27.6%) DR patients immediately postoperatively and 9 (10.3%) DR patients 3 months postoperatively. On average, the 24 DR patients achieved remission at 10.2 (range, 3–32) months. Immediate postoperative random and nadir GH after an oral glucose load were significantly lower in the DR group than in the nonremission group (2.73 ± 3.17 and 2.03 ± 2.59 vs. 8.05 ± 10.35 and 5.55 ± 5.91 μg/L, respectively). Three-month postoperative nadir GH was significantly lower in the DR group than in the nonremission group (1.63 ± 2.82 vs. 3.48 ± 4.25 μg/L, P = 0.007). Immediate postoperative random GH effectively predicted long-term remission (Spearman's ρ = 0.513, area under the curve = 0.905 > 0.90). However, the best predictor of long-term remission was 3-month postoperative nadir GH (Spearman's ρ = 0.728, area under the curve = 0.944 > 0.90), with 76.5% sensitivity and 97.2% specificity. Conclusions For certain groups of patients likely to achieve DR, additional treatments should not be performed early after surgery. Prolonged follow-up and close observation could help determine the therapeutic effect of surgery and guide postoperative treatments.