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Background Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum, and the infection source is syphilis patients. This study aimed to estimate the incidence, mortality rate, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of syphilis to improve the understanding of the current global situation of syphilis. Methods This study collected data on syphilis incidence, mortality, and DALYs from the 2019 Global Burden of Disease database. Results The global number of incident cases and age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) increased from 8,845,220 (95% UI: 6,562,510–11,588,860) in 1990 to 14,114,110 (95% UI: 10,648,490–18,415,970) in 2019 and 160.03/100,000 persons (95% UI: 120.66–208.1) to 178.48/100,000 persons (95% UI: 134.94–232.34), respectively. The estimated annual percentage change (EAPC) in the ASIR was 0.16 (95% CI: 0.07–0.26). The EAPC in the ASIR associated with high and high-middle sociodemographic indices increased. The ASIR increased among males but decreased among females, and the incidence peaked among males and females between the ages of 20 and 30 years. The EAPCs in the age-standardized death rate and age-standardized DALY rate decreased. Conclusions The incidence and ASIR of syphilis increased worldwide from 1990 to 2019. Only the regions with high and high-middle sociodemographic indices showed an increase in the ASIR. Moreover, the ASIR increased among males but decreased among females. The age-standardized death rate and DALY rate both declined worldwide. The increase in the global ASIR of syphilis is a challenge.

This study aimed to compare the detection performance of [68 Ga]Ga-DOTA-FAPI-04 and [18F]FDG PET/CT in the patients with various oncological and non-oncological lesions. A total of 123 patients underwent contemporaneous [68 Ga]Ga-DOTA-FAPI-04 and [18F]FDG PET/CT were included in this prospective study. The maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax) was measured to compare oncological and non-oncological lesion uptake. The sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and accuracy of [18F]FDG and [68 Ga]Ga-DOTA-FAPI-04 PET/CT for detecting primary, metastatic, and non-oncological lesions were calculated and compared to evaluate the detection efficacy. The study subjects consisted of 123 patients (69 men and 54 women; mean age 56.11 ± 11.94 years). Among the 102 patients with either newly diagnosed (82 patients) or previously treated solid tumor (20 patients), a total of 88 solid primary malignant tumors in 84/102 patients were detected. Two patients had two primary tumors each and 1 patient had three primary tumors. Among them, 58/102 and 43/102 patients had nodal (376 lesions) and distant metastases (406 lesions), respectively. Eight patients had hematological neoplasm. No malignant oncological diseases were detected in the remaining 13 patients. A total of 145 non-oncological lesions and benign tumors in 52/123 patients were detected incidentally. [68 Ga]Ga-DOTA-FAPI-04 PET/CT demonstrated a significantly higher uptake and detection rate for the primary (SUVmax 10.98 ± 5.83 vs. 8.36 ± 6.43, p

A two-step strategy to improve the thermoplasticity of bamboo powder (BP) by the combination of hydrothermal pretreatment (BP-LHW) and propargyl modification (BP-PB/BP-LHW-PB) in a heterogeneous system was developed in this research. It was observed that the hydrothermal pretreatment has a positive impact on the alkyne-functionalized BP-LHW, resulting in substantial change including the etherification of BP-LHW with propargyl bromide, breaking of crystalline phase of the cellulose fraction. Besides, the modified sample is significantly changed in the apparent morphology and reduced in the thermal stability and glass transition temperature (Tg). The Tg is attributed to the increase of free volume due to the increase of propargyl concentration in the modified samples. These results revealed that the combination of propargyl group into pretreated BP is an efficacious way to ameliorate the thermoplasticity. Notably, the thermoplasticity of BP-LHW-PB with high concentration of propargyl is significantly enhanced compared to BP-PB, which is owed to the enhanced molecular mobility resulting from the reduced interaction forces between the cellulose molecular. Herein, the application way that the building a "clickable" alkyne platform in BP to obtain multifunctional materials will be broadened in bamboo-based materials. The bio-based material with improved thermoplasticity was prepared by grafting propargyl bromide onto bamboo powder.

In this paper, we first introduce several new contractions by some auxiliary functions. Then we establish some φ-fixed point results for $(\gamma ,\psi ,\varphi ,\phi )$ ( γ , ψ , φ , ϕ ) contractions, rational-$(\gamma , \psi ,\varphi ,\phi )$ ( γ , ψ , φ , ϕ ) contractions and almost-$(\gamma ,\psi , \varphi ,\phi )$ ( γ , ψ , φ , ϕ ) contractions and φ-fixed disc results for $(\psi ,\varphi ,\phi )_{x_{0}}$ ( ψ , φ , ϕ ) x 0 type 1 contractions, $(\psi ,\varphi ,\phi )_{x_{0}}$ ( ψ , φ , ϕ ) x 0 type 2 contractions, and $(\psi ,\varphi ,\phi )_{x_{0}}$ ( ψ , φ , ϕ ) x 0 type 3 contractions in metric spaces. We generalize some existing φ-fixed point and φ-fixed circle results in the literature. Further, we give some examples to demonstrate the usefulness of our results and investigate the existence and uniqueness of solutions of nonlinear integral equations.

Natural chemicals obtained from the renewable resources were widely used in the modification of plant fibers. In this report, in order to develop thermoplasticity of materials, the bamboo powder (BP) after hydrothermal pretreatment (BP-LHW) was efficiently modified with natural rosin acid (BP-LHW-RA) by esterification reaction under heterogeneous condition. The results indicate that the modified BP-LHW-RA presents a strong peak at 1743 cm−1 in the FT-IR spectra, which attributed to the –C = O vibration of the ester group formed by the reaction between rosin acid and the BP-LHW, confirming that BP-LHW was successfully grafted with rosin acid. The C1/C3 ratio of BP-LHW-RA increased 1.35 times as compared with BP-LHW in XPS analysis. Meanwhile, the crystallization index of BP-LHW-RA decreased by 4.62%, and its surface became smooth and full. Moreover, the glass transition temperature of BP-LHW-RA was 200 °C. The work presents a green and feasible route to prepare bio-based materials with desired thermoplasticity by grafting natural rosin onto biomass substrate. The bio-based material with desired thermoplasticity was prepared by grafting natural rosin onto bamboo powder.

Facial nerve palsy (FNP) is extremely rare in Kawasaki disease (KD) and the incidence is just 0.9-1.3%. Our objective was to study the clinical features and prognosis of KD accompanied with FNP and to determine whether FNP indicated an increased risk of coronary artery lesions (CALs) in KD. An observational study was performed on 9 patients diagnosed as KD accompanied with FNP in Chengdu Women’s and Children’s Central Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China between September 2012 and December 2019. Patients were followed up from September 2012 till September 2020. Clinical features, laboratory and echocardiography findings, treatments, and prognosis were analyzed retrospectively. And the clinical data of patients with FNP (group A, n = 9) were compared to matched KD patients without FNP (group B, n = 27) in order to determine whether FNP indicated an increased risk of CALs in KD. The matching factors included sex, age, days of illness at the intravenous immunoglobulin use, and classic/incomplete KD forms. Clinical data of 9 patients were analyzed in this study. Patients tended to be younger than 24 months of age (88.9%) and 55.6% were under 12 months. Median onset of FNP was day 10 of illness. Eight patients (88.9%) showed unilateral FNP. The levels of laboratory inflammatory markers (White blood cells count, neutrophil percentage, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, etc.) were significantly increased in most cases. CALs were noted in 8 of 9 patients (88.9%). Coronary artery aneurysms occurred in 4 cases (44.4%) and the remaining 4 patients showed coronary artery dilation. All patients were given intravenous immunoglobulin therapy (2 g/kg), aspirin (30-50 mg/kg/day), and short-term dexamethasone. During follow-up, both FNP and CALs were completely recovered in all patients. The duration time of FNP ranged from 10 to 130 days. And the time for CALs to normal ranged from 12 to 282 days. The occurrence of CALs was significantly higher in patients with FNP than those without FNP (88.9% vs. 25.9%, P

Saponins from Camellia fascicularis leaves, which ultrasonic-assisted extraction process parameters were optimized with Box–Behnken design and antioxidant activities were assessed, were reported in this study. The highest yield of crude saponins was up to 3.68% when the optimal extraction conditions were ratio of solvent to solid of 52.1 mL/g, methanol concentration of 71.1%, and ultrasonic temperature of 50.3 °C. The crude saponins from C. fascicularis leaves were purified using HP-20 macroporous resin with methanol and three fractions (SCF-1, SCF-2 and SCF-3) were obtained. Subsequently, the in vitro scavenging activity assay showed that the fractions proved significant antioxidant capacities as dose-dependent manner on 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), hydroxyl radical and azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) diammonium salt (ABTS). SCF-1 possessed significantly higher antioxidant activity than that SCF-2 and SCF-3. Overall, ultrasonic-assisted extraction could be effectively used to extract C. fascicularis leaves saponins, which possessed potential antioxidant capabilities and is expected to be developed as food materials.

A novel adsorbent of magnetic graphene oxide/chitosan (MGOC) composite has been prepared via chemical cross-linking method, and exhibits an extraordinary sorption capacity (about 59.82 mg/g) towards cobalt ions. The batch experiments revealed that MGOC is weakly affected by ionic strength and pH-dependent for cobalt ions sorption. The sorption process is spontaneous and endothermic according to thermodynamic parameters, following the pseudo-second-order model. In view of low price, high adsorption capacity, great saturation magnetization and perfect reusability, the MGOC composite maybe has a potential value in treatment of radiocobalt-containing wastewater.

Ultrasonic-assisted ball burnishing (UABB) is a promising surface strengthening technology for improving the properties of components. This method superimposes ultrasonic vibration to the traditional deep rolling; it can improve the surface roughness of a material, enhance its surface hardness, and introduce a high compressive residual stress, thereby improving the fatigue performance of components. A mathematical model should be established to predict and analyze the relationship between the experimental process parameters and results and to predict the effect of UABB on surface roughness. In the present work, a mathematical model of surface roughness after UABB was established on the basis of Hertz contact theory, comprehensively considering the process parameters, dynamic vibration forces, and elastic rebound of the targets. UABB experiments were carried out to verify the correctness of the mathematical model. Results showed that UABB can significantly reduce the surface roughness of the material, and the values calculated from the derived mathematical model showed good agreement with the experimental findings. The surface roughness decreased with the burnishing force (50–250 N) and amplitude (4–10 μm) increased, whereas the feed rate decreased. The increases of radii of component and ball were detrimental to the improvement of the surface roughness. And elastic rebound was not conducive to roughness reduction and its influence was negligible. Finally, the derived surface roughness model can be used to predict the component values after UABB and understand the effects of machining parameters on the shaft targets during processing.

The ultrasonic-assisted burnishing process (UABP) is an effective surface finishing technology that obtains compressive residual stress and surface work hardening and decreases surface roughness. A three-dimensional explicit nonlinear finite element model (FEM) of the UABP on a shaft specimen was established and calibrated in this paper. A comparison of finite element (FE) simulation results with experimental data showed good agreement in terms of the predicted residual stress in both tangential and axial directions. The established FEM explores the influence of treatment parameters, such as ball diameters, static forces, spindle speeds, ultrasonic frequencies, vibration amplitudes, and friction coefficients, on the resultant profile of residual stress and equivalent plastic deformation. This dynamic explicit FE method is an effective approach to investigate the UABP, to relate the processing parameters with surface integrity, including the depth of residual stress and work hardening of objective surfaces, and to guide the design of the UABP parameters.

Despite the monotonically rising greenhouse gas emission, global warming rate changes again and again, especially the slowdown during 1998–2013, challenging the current global temperature change mechanisms. Recently, different-scale natural climate variabilities have been individually recognized as the potential causes of global warming rate change, particularly the recent warming slowdown, but disagreements still exist on their relative importance. Here we quantify the contribution of interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal variabilities (IAV, IDV and MDV) in modulating the global warming rate during the period 1850–2017 via decomposing the global mean temperature timeseries derived from 12 datasets into several quasi-periodic fluctuations and a monotonical secular trend (ST) using the ensemble empirical mode decomposition method. Our results show that the IAV, IDV and MDV dominate the global warming rate change together, rather than one-scale variability alone. For example, during 1998–2013 both the IAV and IDV present obvious negative trends and combine to cut 59 ± 22% of global mean surface temperature (GMST) and 65 ± 38% of sea surface temperature (SST) positive trends which are caused by the steadily warming ST and the warming phase of MDV, thus causing an apparent warming slowdown during this period. Furthermore, we illustrate that the IAV, IDV and MDV mainly originate from the El Nino-Southern oscillation (ENSO), Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), respectively. Our work partly reconciles the controversy over the importance of different-scale natural variabilities, and provides some insights for climate change attribution and prediction research.

The ecosystem carbon (C) balance in permafrost regions, which has a global significance in understanding the terrestrial C-climate feedback, is significantly regulated by nitrogen (N) dynamics. However, our knowledge on temporal changes in vegetation N limitation (i.e., the supply of N relative to plant N demand) in permafrost ecosystems is still limited. Based on the combination of isotopic observations derived from a re-sampling campaign along a ~3000 km transect and simulations obtained from a process-based biogeochemical model, here we detect changes in ecosystem N cycle across the Tibetan alpine permafrost region over the past decade. We find that vegetation N limitation becomes stronger despite the increased available N production. The enhanced N limitation on vegetation growth is driven by the joint effects of elevated plant N demand and gaseous N loss. These findings suggest that N would constrain the future trajectory of ecosystem C cycle in this alpine permafrost region., Massive stores of carbon and nutrients in permafrost could be released by global warming. Here the authors show that though warming across the Tibetan alpine permafrost region accelerates nitrogen liberation, contrary to expectations the elevated nutrients do not alleviate plant nitrogen limitation.

Soil aggregate mechanical characteristics can significantly affect soil strength and are important soil properties to predict soil erodibility. However, in most research, the aggregate mechanical strength is always measured under air-dried condition, and limited information is available about the mechanical strength of aggregates and soil blocks with different water contents. This study evaluated the effects of water content, bulk density, and aggregate size on mechanical properties of soil blocks and aggregates. Shear strength (τ) parameters (φ and c) of soil blocks in different states (undisturbed and remoulded) and tensile strength (TS) of aggregates were determined in the laboratory on two soils derived from Quaternary red clay (Q) and shale (S) with variations in water content, bulk density, and aggregate size. The results indicated that the φ values were higher in drier and denser soil and showed no obvious variation with varying aggregate size. The c values increased first and then decreased with increasing water content and decreasing aggregate size and increased with increasing bulk density. The water content corresponding to the rapid decrease of the c value appeared to be related to soil properties. Tensile strength increased with decreasing water content in all sizes of aggregates. It decreased with increasing aggregate size at a relative low water content (3.2–7.3 %), but increased with increasing aggregate size at a relative high water content (10.6–14.8 %). The effect of soil moisture on soil strength varied with soil states. Thus, water content, bulk density, and aggregate size have significant effects on the mechanical properties of the soil blocks and aggregates. The result from this research may contribute to a better understanding of the soil erosion resistance of Aquults from the perspective of soil mechanics.

The concentration and temporal trend of PBDEs in farmland soil during a circle of crop rotation period within an e-waste dismantling area of South China were investigated. The averaged current concentration of total PBDEs in the farmland soil was averaged 19.1 ± 20.7 ng/g dry weight, which was much lower than the PBDE level in roadside soil and in topsoil near e-waste dismantling sites. Spatial distribution of total PBDEs concentration in the study area showed higher level at the field near e-waste workshops and lower at the distanced farmland area. Soil organic carbon content was significantly correlated with concentration of BDE209 (r = 0.704, p 0.01), but not related with the sum concentration of other PBDE compounds (r = 0.097, p 0.1). During the whole crop rotation circle, the temporal concentration of PBDEs in the farmland soil was highest (25.3 ± 11.4 ng/g dry wt.) in April when early paddy had been transplanted for 1 or 2 weeks. When the crop rotated to autumn peanut in August and the land is turning dry, the PBDEs concentration in farmland soil reached the lowest level which was 8.1 ± 1.2 ng/g dry wt. The temporal trend of PBDEs in farmland soil was not consistent with that of atmospheric PBDEs and soil total organic carbon (TOC) content during the rotation cycle. It was concluded that the dynamics of PBDEs in the farmland soil is influenced by multiple, interacting factors, and not clearly related to neither the atmospheric deposition nor the organic carbon content of the soil, but possibly related to the micro-environmental conditions changed by crop rotation process.

Keratin has the potential to improve biocompatibility and bioactivity of polymeric nanofibers. However, the addition of keratin into the blend nanofiber would decrease the mechanical properties of nanofibers due to the poor spinnability of keratin, and caused inhomogeneous distribution of keratin inside the nanofibers. Therefore, polymeric nanofibers surface-modified with keratin nanoparticles would improve the hydrophility and mechanical property. In this study, keratose (oxidative keratin, KOS) nanoparticles-coating PVA nanofibers (KNPs/PVA) were fabricated by electrospray deposition after electrospinning and acted on neural cells. The chemical conformation, mechanical properties and wettability of KNPs/PVA nanofibers were characterized. The KNPs/PVA nanofibers provided better wettability and stronger mechanical properties compared to KOS/PVA blend nanofibers at the same mass ratio of KOS to PVA. Furthermore, KNPs/PVA nanofibers displayed better cyto-biocompatibility in terms of cell morphology, adhesion and proliferation compared with PVA nanofibers and KOS/PVA blend nanofibers. These results suggested that polymeric nanofibers surface-modified with KOS nanoparticles can provide superior wettability, mechanical properties and biocompatibility by comparison with the blend nanofibers.

Pharmaceutically active compounds in wastewater released from human consumption have received considerable attention because of their possible risks for aquatic environments. In this study, the occurrence and removal of 10 pharmaceuticals in three municipal wastewater treatment plants in southern China were investigated and the environmental risks they posed were assessed. Nifedipine, atenolol, metoprolol, valsartan and pravastatin were detected in the influent wastewater. The highest average concentration in the influents was observed for metoprolol (164.6 ng/L), followed by valsartan (120.3 ng/L) in August, while median concentrations were higher in November than in August. The total average daily mass loadings of the pharmaceuticals in the three plants were 289.52 mg/d/person, 430.46 mg/d/person and 368.67 mg/d/person, respectively. Elimination in the treatment plants studied was incomplete, with metoprolol levels increasing during biological treatment. Biological treatment was the most effective step for PhACs removal in all of the plants studied. Moreover, the removal of PhACs was observed with higher efficiencies in August than in November. The WWTP equipped with an Unitank process exhibited similar removals of most PhACs as other WWTPs equipped with an anoxic/oxic (A/O) process or various anaerobic-anoxic-oxic (A2/O) process. The environmental risk assessment concluded that all of the single PhAC in the effluents displayed a low risk (RQ

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) play important roles in cellular stress resistance. Previous reports had already suggested that HSP27 played multiple roles in preventing doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. Although HSP25 might have biological functions similar to its human homolog HSP27, the mechanism of HSP25 is still unclear in doxorubicin-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis. To investigate HSP25 biological function on doxorubicin-induced apoptosis, flow cytometry was employed to analyze cell apoptosis in over-expressing HSP25 H9c2 cells in presence of doxorubicin. Unexpectedly, the H9c2 cells of over-expressing HSP25 have no protective effect on doxorubicin-induced apoptosis. Moreover, no detectable interactions were detected by coimmunoprecipitation between HSP25 and cytochrome c, and HSP25 over-expression failed in preventing cytochrome c release induced by doxorubicin. However, down-regulation of endogenous HSP25 by a specific small hairpin RNA aggravates apoptosis in H9c2 cells. Subsequent studies found that HSP25, but not HSP90, HSP70, and HSP20, interacted with SIRT1. Knockdown of HSP25 decreased the interaction between SIRT1 and p53, leading to increased p53 acetylation on K379, up-regulated pro-apoptotic Bax protein expression, induced cytochrome c release, and triggered caspase-3 and caspase-9 activation. These findings indicated a novel mechanism by which HSP25 regulated p53 acetylation through dissociation of SIRT1 from p53 in doxorubicin-induced H9c2 cell apoptosis.

Chitosan–clinoptilolite composite was prepared and tested for removing radiocobalt from aqueous solution. The composite was characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray analysis. The sorption of Co(II) on chitosan–clinoptilolite composite was pH-dependent and ionic strength-independent. The kinetic sorption was fitted well by a pseudo-second-order rate equation. The thermodynamic parameters (ΔH 0, ΔS 0, ΔG 0) revealed that the sorption of Co(II) on chitosan–clinoptilolite composite was spontaneous and endothermic. The study showed that chitosan–clinoptilolite composite had excellent potential for the treatment of wastewater containing radiocobalt.

A systematic investigation of the transport of 125I in compacted GMZ bentonite containing Fe-Oxides, Fe-minerals or Cu2O additive was carried out by through-diffusion method. The obtained results indicate that all of the additives have positive effects on retarding the 125I diffusion in compacted GMZ bentonite. Especially for the Cu2O additive, the corresponding effective diffusion coefficient is greatly reduced. It is mainly attributed to the particular interactions between the metal ions introduced by additives and iodide ions.

The ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge is a benchmark in object category classification and detection on hundreds of object categories and millions of images. The challenge has been run annually from 2010 to present, attracting participation from more than fifty institutions. This paper describes the creation of this benchmark dataset and the advances in object recognition that have been possible as a result. We discuss the challenges of collecting large-scale ground truth annotation, highlight key breakthroughs in categorical object recognition, provide a detailed analysis of the current state of the field of large-scale image classification and object detection, and compare the state-of-the-art computer vision accuracy with human accuracy. We conclude with lessons learned in the five years of the challenge, and propose future directions and improvements., Comment: 43 pages, 16 figures. v3 includes additional comparisons with PASCAL VOC (per-category comparisons in Table 3, distribution of localization difficulty in Fig 16), a list of queries used for obtaining object detection images (Appendix C), and some additional references

Entry-level categories--the labels people use to name an object--were originally defined and studied by psychologists in the 1970s and 1980s. In this paper we extend these ideas to study entry-level categories at a larger scale and to learn models that can automatically predict entry-level categories for images. Our models combine visual recognition predictions with linguistic resources like WordNet and proxies for word "naturalness" mined from the enormous amount of text on the web. We demonstrate the usefulness of our models for predicting nouns (entry-level words) associated with images by people, and for learning mappings between concepts predicted by existing visual recognition systems and entry-level concepts. In this work we make use of recent successful efforts on convolutional network models for visual recognition by training classifiers for 7404 object categories on ConvNet activation features. Results for category mapping and entry-level category prediction for images show promise for producing more natural human-like labels. We also demonstrate the potential applicability of our results to the task of image description generation.

Dendrocalamus sinicus, which is the largest bamboo species in the world, has broad prospects in the fields of bioenergy and biorefinery application. In this study, dewaxed D. sinicus samples were sequentially treated with 80 % ethanol containing 0.025 M HCl, 80 % ethanol containing 0.5 % NaOH, and aqueous alkaline solutions (containing 2.0, 5.0, and 8.0 % NaOH, respectively) at 75 °C for 4 h, in which 9.63, 8.71, 21.83, 21.09, and 13.09 % of the original lignin were isolated, respectively. The lignin fractions obtained were comparatively characterized by chemical composition, molecular weights, and structural features by wet chemical and instrumental analysis methods. It was found that the bamboo lignin fractions isolated by ethanol had lower weight-average molecular weights (1,360–1,380 g mol−1) and contained much higher amounts of associated hemicelluloses, while the lignin fractions isolated by aqueous alkaline solutions had higher weight-average molecular weights (5,300–6,040 g mol−1) and contained lower amounts of associated hemicelluloses. Spectroscopy analyses indicated that the bamboo lignin was a typical grass lignin, consisting of p-hydroxyphenyl (H), guaiacyl (G), and syringyl (S) units. A small percentage of the lignin side-chain was found to be acetylated at the γ-carbon, predominantly at syringyl units. The major interunit linkages present in the bamboo lignin obtained were β-O-4′ aryl ether linkages, together with lower amounts of β-β′, β-5′, and β-1′ linkages.

Background and aims Knowledge on nitrous oxide (N2O) and nitric oxide (NO) emissions from typical cropping systems in the Tai-Lake region is important for estimating regional inventory and proposing effective N2O and NO mitigation options. This study aimed at a) characterizing the seasonal and annual emissions of both gases from the major cropping systems, and b) determining their direct emission factors (EFds) as the key parameters for inventory compilation.

Nickel nanoparticles supported on boehmite were prepared by a modified electroless nickel-plating method and a direct reduction method. We mainly studied the catalyst synthesized by the direct reduction method. The as-prepared nickel catalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. The catalytic behavior in selective hydrogenation of p-nitrophenol to p-aminophenol and p-chloronitrobenzene to p-chloroaniline was studied and compared with Ni–B/γ-Al2O3 catalyst prepared by incipient-wetness impregnation and Ni–B/Al2O3·xH2O catalyst synthesized by a coprecipitation method. The Ni–B/boehmite catalysts were found to be more reactive than the Ni–B/γ-Al2O3 and Ni–B/Al2O3·xH2O catalysts. The superior activity of the Ni–B/boehmite catalyst was attributed to the small Ni–B particles and large amount of structural water, which enhanced the hydrophilicity of the catalyst. The Ni–B/boehmite sample was prepared by a direct reduction method. Compared with boehmite (a), the black spheres in b represent Ni–B cluster, the Ni–B cluster is about 20 nm in diameter.

An efficient and direct protocol for the preparation of 12-aryl-8,9,10,12-tetrahydro-benzo[a]xanthen-11-one derivatives employing a three-component one-pot reaction of aryl aldehydes, 2-naphthol and cyclic 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds in the presence of a catalytic amount of cyanuric chloride (2,4,6-trichloro-1,3,5-triazine, TCT) under solvent-free conditions is described. The desired products are obtained in high yields with short reaction times.

Though the total lymphocyte density has been implicated in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC), the clinical implications of lymphocyte subsets in CRC patients remain unclear yet. In this study, we used tissue microarrays and immunohistochemistry to evaluate the density of tumor-infiltrating CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells as well as CD20(+) B cells in the central region and the invasive margin (IM) of tumor tissue from 67 CRC patients and then analyzed the clinical implications. We found that the subsets of tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte had no relationship with patients' age, tumor size, N category, and tumor stage. However, the density of B cells in the tumor center (TC) of colorectal patients in T1/T2 category was much higher than that of patients in T3/T4 category (P = 0.008). In addition, patients in M0 category had a higher density of CD8(+) T cells in the IM but not in the TC compared to patients in M1 category (P = 0.03). Results in this study demonstrate that higher CD8(+) T cell density in the IM of tumor is associated with lower tumor metastasis and higher B cell density in TC is associated with lower tumor T category. The results also suggest that the analysis of infiltrating lymphocyte subsets is important for understanding the detailed mechanisms of tumor pathogenesis and exploring potential interventions for the tumor.

Background Miliary tuberculosis (TB) is an uncommon cause of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) with a high mortality. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical characteristics, predictors and outcome of patients with ARDS caused by miliary TB. Methods A retrospective study was conducted among patients with a diagnosis of ARDS with miliary TB in four hospitals from 2006 to 2010. Medical records and laboratory examinations of these patients were taken during the first 24 h of admission. Results Eighty-five patients with miliary TB developed ARDS, 45 of whom survived (52.9%). The median age was 36.6 ± 12.5 years with 38 males (44.7%). Diabetes mellitus (DM) was the most common underlying disease (18.8%).ICU mortality was 47.1%. The time from admission to anti-tuberculosis therapy was 4.5 ± 2.0 days. Mean duration of mechanical ventilation was 8.5 ± 3.0 days in all patients. Duration of time to diagnosis, time from diagnosis to mechanical ventilation, and time to anti-tuberculosis therapy were significantly shorter in survivors than those in non-survivors. Diabetes mellitus (OR 5.431, 95%CI 1.471-20.049; P = 0.005), ALT (70-100U/L, OR 10.029, 95%CI 2.764-36.389; P = 0.001), AST (>94U/L,OR 8.034, 95%CI 2.200-29.341; P = 0.002), D-dimer (>1.6mg/L, OR 3.167, 95%CI 0.896-11.187; P = 0.042), hemoglobin ( Conclusions Accurate diagnosis, early initiation of anti-tuberculosis therapy and mechanical ventilation are important for the outcome of patients with ARDS caused by miliary TB. DM, ALT, AST, D-dimer, hemoglobin, and albumin are independent predictors of ARDS development in patients with miliary TB.