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Malignant hyperthermia (MH) is an inherited skeletal muscle disorder caused primarily by a genetic mutation, usually in the calcium channel gene of the muscle. This mutation can lead to muscle hypersensitivity to volatile anesthetics (such as sevoflurane) and the depolarizing muscle relaxant succinylcholine, resulting in hyperthermia, muscle stiffness, metabolic disturbances, and other severe physiological reactions. This condition may prove fatal unless it is recognized in its early stages and treatment is administered promptly and aggressively. We report a 13-year-old adolescent who underwent laparoscopic appendectomy and developed MH after the use of inhalational anesthetics, manifested by unremitting hyperthermia with a maximum temperature of 44.2°C, muscle rigidity, tachycardia, hypercapnia; and malignant arrhythmias, cardiogenic shock, hyperkalemia, metabolic, and respiratory acidosis. After early and timely recognition, multidisciplinary management and administration of dantrolene, the case was successfully treated. Exome sequencing revealed a point mutation (amino acid change) on the RYR1 gene: c.12700G>C(p.Val4234Leu). Due to the lack of ready-made dantrolene in our hospital, the patient in this case received dantrolene treatment only 6 h after the first observation of high body temperature. We review the development of the disease and summarize the success of treatment and what can be done to improve the chances of saving the patient’s life if dantrolene is not available in time.

Condenser titanium tubes are easily to generate many defects in nuclear power plants, such as corrosion, damage, and wall thickness thinning. Eddy current technology is the main method of condenser titanium tubes in-service inspection, but manual operation has the problem of low efficiency. This article designed one new titanium tube eddy current inspection system based on automatic push-puller, and successfully applied in the nuclear power plant in China. The results show that this system can realize eddy current inspection in the condenser tubes with push-puller machine.

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is an important half-reaction in rechargeable metal–air batteries and water splitting devices, and it suffers from slow kinetics due to the multiple step proton-electron coupled process. Therefore, the major challenge for the OER is to develop durable and low-cost electrocatalysts with high catalytic performance. Herein, a ternary metal CoNiFe subacetate nano prism (CoNiFe NP) was synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal method, with the aim of accelerating the water dissociation and improving the reaction rate using the synergy of the ternary metal. The results show that the electrocatalytic performance of the ternary metal CoNiFe layered double hydroxide is significantly improved compared with the binary metal and single metal catalysts. In particular, the overpotential of the prepared CoNiFe NP for the OER at 10 mA cm−2 is as low as 292 mV, and the Tafel slope is 75.6 mV dec−1. This work provides a new platform for the design of medium-entropy electrocatalysts using the interaction of polymetallic components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study endeavored to investigate the role of DOCK8 in modulating the immune function triggered by sepsis. Methods: Expression of DOCK8 in the whole blood of sepsis patients and its enrichment pathways were assayed by bioinformatics. Pearson analysis was used to predict the relationship between glycolytic signaling pathway and its relevance to neutrophil function in sepsis. A sepsis mouse model was then built by performing cecal ligation and puncture treatment on male mice. Neutrophils were isolated, and their purity was tested by flow cytometry. Neutrophils were then stimulated by lipopolysaccharide to build a sepsis cell model. Next, quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and CCK‐8 were applied to test the expression of DOCK8 and cell viability, western blot to assay the expression of HK‐2, PKM2, and LDHA proteins, ELISA to measure the concentrations of TNF‐α, IL‐1β, and IL‐6, Transwell to detect the chemotaxis of neutrophils and flow cytometry to detect the phagocytic activity of neutrophils. Finally, in different treatment groups, we used Seahorse XF 96 to analyze the extracellular acidification rate (ECAR) of sepsis cells and used enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay to detect the contents of pyruvic acid, lactic acid, and ATP in sepsis cells. Results: DOCK8 was downregulated in sepsis blood and activated neutrophils. Aerobic glycolysis was positively correlated with sepsis. Activated neutrophils promoted the expression of inflammatory factors TNF‐α, IL‐1β, and IL‐6. Low expression of DOCK8 facilitated the proliferation, chemotaxis, and phagocytic activity of sepsis cells and promoted the expression of inflammatory factors. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that DOCK8 was enriched in the glycolytic signaling pathway. Low expression of DOCK8 induced ECAR, promoted the protein expression of HK‐2, PKM2 and LDHA, and favored the increase of pyruvate, lactate, and ATP contents. While 2‐DG treatment could restore these effects. Conclusion: DOCK8 may inhibit sepsis‐induced neutrophil immune function by regulating aerobic glycolysis and causing excessive inflammation, which helps to explore potential therapeutic targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to estimate the soil moisture (SM) in all-sky agriculture areas using fully polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) Gaofen-3 (GF-3) data. The radar vegetation index (RVI) is obtained using the radar SAR data, which overcomes the difficulty that the optical data cannot construct the vegetation index in cloud-covered areas. The RVI is introduced into the water cloud model (WCM) to remove the contribution of vegetation to the total radar backscatter σ 0 and obtain the soil backscattering coefficients σ soil 0 with HH and VV polarization. Subsequently, σ soil 0 and radar frequency data are introduced into the Chen model, and a semi-empirical model of SM estimation is established. The main findings of this study are as follows: (1) Compared with the σ 0 , the σ soil 0 obtained by the WCM has a stronger correlation with the SM. (2) In the cloud covered area, the accuracy of the estimated SM by synergistically using the WCM and the Chen model is ideal. An RMSE of 0.05 and a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.69 are achieved. In this study, the SM estimation method is not affected by clouds, and it shows many advantages for sustainable development, monitoring soil drought degree, and other related research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Longchuan River Basin is located in Chuxiong (central Yunnan province, China) that is subject to severe drought. Agriculture is critical to local economy, which can lead to intense agricultural activity. Accordingly, delineating groundwater potential zones and developing usable groundwater resources are required to meet potable and irrigating water demands in the zone. Remote sensing (RS), geographic information system (GIS) and improved fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) were adopted to delineate the groundwater potential zones to assess the groundwater availability in Longchuan River Basin. The surveys of China geological map, Landsat 8 OLI and GDEM Aster satellite images were employed to generate eight thematic layers, i.e., lithology, land use/land cover (LULC), lineaments density, rainfall, slope, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), drainage density and elevation; subsequently, the mentioned layers were converted into raster data in ArcGIS. According to the ability of thematic layer to impact groundwater potential, the mentioned criteria were weighted differently by improved FAHP. Next, a map based on weighted linear combination (WLC) model was generated. Lastly, the groundwater potential zones of study area fell into 'poor' zone, 'moderate' zone and 'good' zone. As revealed from the results of the study, nearly 31.22% of the area exhibited 'good' groundwater potential, approximately 36.46% was terrain exhibiting 'moderate' groundwater potential, and the residual 32.23% were considered to exhibit 'poor' groundwater potential. The results provide more insights, and the groundwater potential zones map can be exploited by local governments for groundwater resources management and exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the spectrum measurement experiment, the roughness of the object surface is an essential factor that cannot be ignored. In this experiment, a group of mixed pixel samples with different mixing ratios were designed, and these samples were printed on four kinds of papers with different roughness. The spectral characteristics of mixed pixels with different roughness are quantitatively analyzed by using the measured spectral data. The linear spectral mixture model is used for spectral decomposition, and the effect of roughness on the unmixing precision of mixed pixels was studied. The surface roughness will affect the reflectivity of the mixed pixel. Specifically, the higher the roughness is, the higher the reflectivity of the sample is. This phenomenon is more noticeable when the proportion of white endmember (PWE) is large, and as the white area ratio decreases, the reflectance difference gradually decreases. When the surface roughness of the sample is less than 3.339 μm, the spectral decomposition is performed using a linear spectral mixing model in the visible light band. The average error of the unmixing is less than 0.53%, which is lower than the conventional standard spectral measurement error. In other words, when the surface roughness of the sample is controlled within a specific range, the effect of roughness on the unmixing accuracy of the mixed pixels is small, and this effect can be almost ignored. Multiple scattering within the pixels is the key to model selection and unmixing accuracy, when using the ASD FieldSpec3 spectrometer to perform spectral reflectance measurement and linear spectral unmixing experiments. If the surface roughness of the sample to be measured is less than the maximum wavelength of the spectrometer, the experimental results believe that the photon energy is mainly mirror reflection on the surface of the object and diffuse reflection. At this time, it is still a better choice to use a linear spectral mixing model to decompose the mixed pixels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A kind of Ti–Fe–Ni–C compound powder was prepared by a novel precursor pyrolysis process using ferro-titanium, carbonyl nickel powder and sucrose as raw materials. The powder had a very compact structure and was uniform in particle size. The TiC–Fe36Ni composite coatings were simultaneously in-situ synthesized by Reactive Detonation-gun Spraying (RDS) using these Ti-Fe-Ni-C compound powders. The coatings presented typical morphology of thermal spraying coatings with two different areas: one was the area of TiC distribution where the round fine TiC particles (from 300nm to 1μm) were dispersed in the Fe36Ni alloy matrix; the other was the area of TiC accumulation (from 2 to 4μm). The surface hardness of the composite coating reached about 94 ± 2(HR15N). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]