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Dielectric polymer composites with conducting fillers would have great potential for diverse applications if their severe leakage loss could be addressed. In this regard, ternary composites using both ceramic and conducting materials as fillers might be an enabler for high dielectric constant and low dielectric loss. Herein, ternary composites with both Ti3C2Tx MXene conducting nanosheets and CaCu3Ti4O12 (CCTO) dielectric particles embedded in silicone rubber were studied. It was found that a ternary composite with 1.2 wt% (0.40 vol%) Ti3C2Tx MXene and 12 wt% (2.58 vol%) CCTO could provide an overall superior performance that include a high dielectric constant of 8.8, low dielectric loss of less than 0.0015, good thermal stability up to 450 °C, and excellent mechanical properties with tensile strength of 569 kPa, elastic module of 523 kPa and elongation at break of 333%. The outstanding performance is attributed to the improved uniform dispersion and good interfacial compatibility of mixed fillers in the polymer matrix, suggesting ternary composites might be a better option over their binary counterparts in preparing high performance dielectric composites.

Background: We intended to explore the potential immunological functions and prognostic value of Myeloid Ecotropic Viral Integration Site 1 (MEIS1) across 33 cancer types. Methods: The data were acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) and Gene expression omnibus (GEO) datasets. Bioinformatics was used to excavate the potential mechanisms of MEIS1 across different cancers. Results: MEIS1 was downregulated in most tumors, and it was linked to the immune infiltration level of cancer patients. MEIS1 expression was different in various immune subtypes including C2 (IFN-gamma dominant), C5 (immunologically quiet), C3 (inflammatory), C4 (lymphocyte depleted), C6 (TGF-b dominant) and C1 (wound healing) in various cancers. MEIS1 expression was correlated with Macrophages_M2, CD8+T cells, Macrophages_M1, Macrophages_M0 and neutrophils in many cancers. MEIS1 expression was negatively related to tumor mutational burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI) and neoantigen (NEO) in several cancers. Low MEIS1 expression predicts poor overall survival (OS) in adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC), head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), and kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) patients, while high MEIS1 expression predicts poor OS in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) and low grade glioma (LGG) patients. Conclusion: Our findings revealed that MEIS1 is likely to be a potential new target for immuno-oncology.

Ceramic/polymer composites have great potential to achieve the concomitant enhancement of both dielectric constant and breakdown field while maintaining other superior properties of the polymer matrix, ideal for elastomer sensors, actuators, capacitive energy storage, and many other applications. However, material incompatibility between the ceramic filler and the polymer matrix often leads to void formation, particle aggregation and phase separation, with significantly degraded performance. Herein, through surface modification, co-doped TiO2 particles were uniformly dispersed and bridged onto the silicone rubber matrix via a silane coupling agent for fabricating composites via mechanical mixing and hot-pressing. The synthesized composites exhibit enhanced dielectric constant, increased from 2.78 to 5.06 when 50 wt% co-doped TiO2 particles are incorporated. Their dielectric loss is less than 0.001 in a broad frequency range. Theoretical modelling and experimental results reveal that the morphology and dispersion state of co-doped TiO2 particles were crucial to the dielectric properties of the silicone rubber-based composites. Besides, the composites are thermally stable up to 400 °C. Significantly increased tensile strength (612 kPa) and elongation at break (330%) were obtained for the composite incorporated with 30 wt% co-doped TiO2 particles, accompanied by a moderate increased elastic module (540 kPa). Such composites have the potential for different applications.

In this work, a sol-gel method was used to synthesize nanometer-sized rutile (La + Nb) co-doped TiO2 powders, which were employed to prepare (La + Nb) co-doped TiO2 ceramics. The average grain size of the (La + Nb) co-doped TiO2 ceramics was less than 200 nm, which is much smaller than that of conventionally prepared co-doped TiO2 ceramics generally having micron-sized grains. The effect of the (La + Nb) co-doping concentration on the microstructures and dielectric properties of the obtained ceramics was studied in detail. For a 2% co-doping concentration, it was found that the (La + Nb) co-doped TiO2 ceramic had dielectric permittivity (eʹ) higher than 2 × 104 for frequency up to 1 MHz and the lowest dielectric loss (tanδ) was 0.019 at 1 kHz. The electron hopping and electron-pinned defect-dipole effect was considered as the main reasons for colossal permittivity and low tanδ. This work provides a technique for the synthesis of co-doped TiO2 nanoparticles and preparation of submicron-grain-sized co-doped TiO2 ceramics with good dielectric properties.

Based on basic concept of symbolic logic and set theory, this paper focuses on judgments and attempts to provide a new method for the study of logic. It establishes the formal language of the extension of judgment J*, and formally describes a, e, i, o judgment, and thus gives set theory representation and graphical representation that can distinguish between universal judgments and particular judgments. According to the content of non-modal deductive reasoning in formal logic, it gives weakening theorem, strengthening theorem and a number of typical graphical representation theorem (graphic theorem), where graphic deduction is carried out. Graphic deduction will be beneficial to the research of artificial intelligence, which is closely related to judgment and deduction in logic.

Guoping Du,1,&ast; Chao Li,2,&ast; Yangyang Liu,3,&ast; Fulai Tu,3 Ruizhe Yang,4 Rui Li,3 Hongbing Shen,2 Wei Li5 1Department of General Practice, Southeast University Hospital, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Epidemiology, Center for Global Health, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 3Key Laboratory of Environmental Medicine Engineering, Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Prevention and Health Care, Children’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Quality Management, Children’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Wei Li, Department of Quality Management, Children’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86 025 52862911, Email weili126@126.com Hongbing Shen, Department of Epidemiology, Center for Global Health, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China, Tel/Fax +86 025 86868409, Email hbshen@njmu.edu.cnBackground: Adolescents aged from 19 to 22 are the main high-risk population of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). This study aimed to understand the current status of knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) about TB among freshmen from Jiangsu colleges and universities. Analyze its influencing factors and explore the interrelationships of KAP. This provides a basis for building a reversing mechanism for health education on tuberculosis prevention and treatment in middle and high schools.Methods: A multistage randomly was used to select freshmen to conduct this online survey. The χ2 test was used to compare the rates. Construct linear regression model, logistic regression model, decision tree model and random forest model, use grid search to adjust the parameters of the model, and use multiple models to explore the influencing factors of the overall awareness rate of students’ core knowledge of tuberculosis.Results: A total of 6980 freshmen in colleges and universities were investigated. The total awareness rate was 89.02%, and the awareness rate of all core knowledge about TB was 58.94%. It is characterized by general demographic data, and all core knowledge is known as a label to establish a model, based on the f1- of the four models The score believes that the random forest model has the best fitting effect, and the ranking of the influencing factors included in the model is school type (0.72) >father’s education (0.15) >family monthly income (0.03) >mother’s education, gender, region (0.02); a structural equation model is established, and the modified knowledge and attitude path coefficient is 0.29 (P< 0.05); the attitude and behavior path coefficient is 0.64 (P< 0.05).Conclusion: The total awareness rate of core knowledge of Jiangsu college freshmen reaches the national requirements, but the overall awareness rate is low. It is necessary to strengthen the health education of tuberculosis for those with identified risk factors.Keywords: knowledge, attitudes and practices, tuberculosis, freshmen

The aim of this study was to improve the mechanical properties of Al 2 O 3 ceramics by the addition of Y 2 O 3 -stabilized ZrO 2 whiskers (designated as Al 2 O 3 /YSZ W composite) through the flux method and hot-pressing technology. The effect of YSZ W content on their microstructure , phase composition and transformability, mechanical properties, and wear resistance was systematically investigated. The Al 2 O 3 /YSZ W composites containing 10 wt% YSZ W exhibited the best mechanical performance, including the highest content of YSZ W tetragonal phase and transformability as well as the largest values in their relative density (99.5%), hardness (1969 HV), fracture toughness (9.57 MPa m 1/2 ) and flexural strength (855 MPa). The strengthening and toughening of the Al 2 O 3 /YSZ W composites were attributed to the YSZ W tetragonal-monoclinic phase transformation as well as the whiskers reinforcing effect. Furthermore, the Al 2 O 3 /YSZ W composites also showed the highest friction and wearing properties.

Enhancing the thermal conductivity of polymers is important for their critical applications in all heat exchangers and electronic packaging. However, owing to the existence of interfacial thermal resistance (ITR), the overall thermal conductivity of the polymer composites cannot meet the requirements of the electronics industry. Here, we propose an approach to decreasing the ITR by both improving the contact area and the interconnection between fillers. An increase in out-of-plane thermal conductivity (0.804 W m−1 K−1) is observed in the silver nanoparticles (AgNPs)-boron nitride nanosheet (BNNS)/silver nanowires (Ag NW)/epoxy composites, which is 2.4 times higher than that of the BNNS/epoxy composites. Fitting the measured thermal conductivity of composites with Foygel model indicates that ITR can be reduced effectively when the contact and the interactions of the fillers is optimized. The proposed design methodology here potentially paves the way for designing and preparing higher thermal conductive materials in the future.

Hexagonal boron nitride and silicone rubber (h-BN/SR) composites were prepared by the mechanical stirring method, and their crystal morphology, chemical structure, thermal properties, and compression stress–strain performance were investigated. The experimental results suggest that silicone rubber combined with h-BN exhibits better thermal conductivity and mechanical properties. When the proportion of h-BN is 30 wt%, the thermal conductivity of the h-BN/SR composite material is 0.58 W/m∙K, which is 3.4 times that of pure silicone rubber. At the same time, the compressive strength of h-BN/SR is 4.27 MPa, which is 6.7 times that of pure silicone rubber. Furthermore, the finite element model was employed to numerically analyze the thermal behavior of a battery with a h-BN/SR composite as the thermal interface material. The analytical results show that the highest temperature of the battery decreased when using h-BN/SR as the thermal interface material in the battery thermal management system. The h-BN/SR composite can thus effectively improve the safety properties of batteries.

Additional file 4. Comparison of overall survival probability between patients with or without ATRX mutation in non-GC cohorts with ATRX mutation frequency over 10% from TCGA database.

Additional file 2. The differences of ATRX mutation frequency between female and male tumor patients

Additional file 5. Comparison of the TMB and anticancer immunity scores between female and male GC patients. a. Boxplot showing the TMB and anticancer immunity scores between female and male GC patients. Only TMB showed the significantly differences between female and male. b. The differences of TMB between female and male GC patients disappeared when excluding the TMB of ATRX mutant female patients.

Additional file 6. Comparison of the expression of DDR-related core genes between four subgroups. Sub1: female patients with ATRX mutation; Sub2: female patients without ATRX mutation; Sub3: male patients with ATRX mutation; Sub4: male patients without ATRX mutation

Additional file 1. The gene list of ssGSEA

Additional file 3. The impact of ATRX missense mutation on protein structure

Background: Genetic alterations have been proven to be the promising biomarkers for ICI response. However, sex biases in genetic alterations have been often ignored in the field of immunotherapy, which might specially influence the anticancer immunity and immunotherapy efficacy in male or female patients. Here, we have systematically evaluated the effect of the sex biases in somatic mutation of gastric cancer (GC) patients on the anticancer immunity and clinical benefit to immunotherapy. Methods: Genomic and transcriptomic data of gastric cancer were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). We also obtained the genomic and clinical data of a MSKCC ICI-treated cohort from cbioportal database. GC male and female-derived tumor somatic mutation profiles were compared by maftools R package. Single sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) was conducted to calculate the score of the anticancer immunity indicators including IFN-γ signaling, cytolytic activity (CYT) and antigen presenting machinery (APM). Results: ATRX was found to mutate more frequently in female GC patients compared to male patients (FDR = 0.0108). Female GC patients with ATRX mutation manifested significantly more MSI-high subtypes, increased TMB and PDL1 expression as well as higher scores of IFN-γ signaling, CYT and APM. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) has shown that ATRX mutation might enhance the immunogenicity and anticancer immunity through affecting DNA damage repair pathways. In the ICI-treated cohort from MSKCC, GC patients with ATRX mutation were associated with prolonged overall survival. When stratifying the entire ICI-treated cohort by sex, female patients with ATRX mutation obtained significantly better survival benefits than that of ATRX mutant male patients (Female patients, HR of ATRX MT vs WT = 0.636, 95%CI = 0.455-0.890, P = 0.023; Male patients, HR of ATRX MT vs WT = 0.929, 95%CI = 0.596-1.362, P = 0.712). Conclusions: ATRX mutation might serve as a potential predictive biomarker for favorable clinical benefit to ICI in female GC patients. ATRX mutation could be applied in combination with other biomarkers of ICI response to better identify the female GC patients who will derive greater benefits from ICI therapy.

In this work, expanded graphite/paraffin/silicone rubber composite phase-change materials (PCMs) were prepared by blending the expanded graphite (EG), paraffin wax (PW) and silicone rubber (SR) matrix. It has been shown that PW fully penetrates into the three dimensional (3D) pores of EG to form the EG/PW particles, which are sealed by SR and evenly embedded in the SR matrix. As a result of the excellent thermal stability of SR and the capillary force from the 3D pores of EG, the EG/PW/SR PCMs are found to have good shape stability and high reliability. After being baked in an oven at 150 &deg, C for 24 h, the shape of the EG/PW/SR PCMs is virtually unchanged, and their weight loss and latent heat drop are only 7.91 wt % and 11.3 J/g, respectively. The latent heat of the EG/PW/SR composites can reach up to 43.6 and 41.8 J/g for the melting and crystallizing processes, respectively. The super cooling of PW decreased from 4.2 to 2.4 due to the heterogeneous nucleation on the large surface of EG and the sealing effect of the SR. Meanwhile, the thermal conductivity of the EG/PW/SR PCMs reaches 0.56 W&middot, m&minus, 1&middot, K&minus, 1, which is about 2.8 times and 3.73 times of pure PW and pristine SR, respectively. The novel EG/PW/SR PCMs with superior shape and thermal stabilities will have a potential application in heat energy storage and thermal interface materials (TIM) for electronic devices.

The formal language of a logical system usually contains several types of symbols. In infix notation, two different kinds of symbols are used to construct compound formula and to indicate the order of combination. The logical constants such as Ø, Ú are used to construct compound formula, and auxiliary symbols such as ( ) are used to indicate the order of a combination. In Polish notation, there is no need for auxiliary symbols such as ( ), and only one class of symbols, N, C, K, etc., is used as a conjunction to make it function as a parenthesis. Contrary to Polish notation, a new parenthesis notation is put forward in this paper. Parenthesis notation uses only parentheses, and empowers them the function of connectives. More importantly, it is proved in this paper that we can define logical constants such as propositional connectives, quantifiers, modal operators and temporal operators in the same formula by using only parenthesis, which can greatly simplify the initial connectives needed to construct the formal system.

Developing polymer composites with high thermal conductivity is a must to improve the thermal-management ability for modern electronic applications, in which power densities rapidly increase. Boron nitride nanotubes are one of the most promising fillers due to their high thermal conductivity and electrical insulator, but the overall thermal conductivity of the obtained polymer composites is limited by high interfacial thermal resistances. Here, we present an approach to reduce the interfacial thermal resistance between adjacent boron nitride nanotubes through low-melting effect of nanoscale silver particles. A sharp increase in thermal conductivity (20.9 Wm−1K−1) is observed in cellulose nanofibers (CNFs)/boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) composites, which is approximately 14.3 times larger than that of conventional polymers. The underlying mechanism is understood through Foygel model, and demonstrated that the interfacial thermal resistances play key role in the thermal conductivity. This strategy can become a quotable method for design and prepared of highly thermal conductivity materials in the future.

In this work, we developed a facile method to prepare FeOOH directly deposited on the Ni foam through one-pot hydrothermal route. The as-prepared FeOOH/Ni foams (FN) were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Electrochemical performances of the as-prepared FN as electrodes were also evaluated using cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) and electrochemical impedance spectrometry (EIS) in 1 M KOH aqueous solution. The results indicate that the flocculent amorphous FeOOH flakes homogeneously grown on the surface of Ni foams construct a three-dimensional (3D) porous structure, which not only provides easy penetration of liquid electrolyte, facilitating fast electron transfer and ion diffusion, but also alleviates the volume change of FN electrodes during the charge-discharge process. The optimized FN electrode exhibits a high specific capacitance of 1300 F/g at a current density of 2 A/g, and excellent capacitance retention of 91% after 2000 cycle tests at a current density of 4 A/g. This work would open an avenue for designing high-performance amorphous electrode materials for supercapacitors.

Clinical value and safety of the use of gastroscopy as oral choledochoscopy in the treatment of biliary diseases was explored. Clinical data of 55 patients with biliary diseases who underwent gastroscopy were retrospectively analyzed. The types of gastroscopy, size of duodenal papilla incision, balloon dilatation, the success rate of gastroscopy entry, depth of gastroscopy entering into bile duct, endoscopic diagnosis and postoperative complications were recorded. Simple insertion-by-hand was performed, and insertion into common bile duct was successfully achieved in 53 cases, and the overall technical success rate was 96.4%. Residual bile duct stones in 25 patients (45.5%) after endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP) were removed through endoscopy. Nine cases of benign stenosis and 2 cases of malignant stenosis were confirmed as 'cholangiocarcinoma' or 'duodenal papilla well-differentiated adenocarcinoma' by biopsy. Balloon oppression under intraoperative endoscopy was performed for 2 cases (3.6%) with biliary hemorrhage, and argon ion coagulation was successfully performed. No obvious abnormalities were found in 13 cases (23.6%) through gastroscopic biliary exploration. Complications occurred in 15 patients with a complication rate of 27.3%, including 2 cases of cholecystitis (3.6%), 8 cases of amyloidosis (14.6%) and 4 cases of acute pancreatitis (7.3%), and all those complications were cured. One case (1.8%) had perforation of biliary tract and was discharged after conservative treatment. The use of gastroscopy as oral choledochoscopy is safe as effective. However, this technique causes some rare and serious complications. Therefore, further studies are needed to improve this technique.

Effects of Ni 2+ doping at A and B sites of BaTiO 3 ceramics on the crystal structures, microstructures, chemical bonding characteristics and dielectric and ferroelectric properties were studied. Both the A-site doped Ba 1−x Ni x TiO 3 and B-site doped BaTi 1−x Ni x O 3 ceramics ( x = 0, 0.01, 0.03, 0.05, 0.08 and 0.10) were prepared using the solid state reaction method at 1300 °C. For Ni 2+ doping at A sites, no change in the crystal structure of Ba 1−x Ni x TiO 3 was observed. The Ba 1−x Ni x TiO 3 ceramics remained to be of tetragonal structure, but their tetragonality consistently decreased with x . For Ni 2+ doping at B sites, a change in the crystal structure from tetragonal to hexagonal was observed for the BaTi 1−x Ni x O 3 ceramics. The hexagonal structure started to appear when x = 0.03, and BaTi 1−x Ni x O 3 ceramics completely transformed from tetragonal to hexagonal structure when x =0.08. Ni 2+ doping introduced more oxygen vacancies to Ba 1−x Ni x TiO 3 and BaTi 1−x Ni x O 3 , and the latter had higher concentration of oxygen vacancies. It was found that Ni 2+ doping, either at A or B sites, strongly decreased their dielectric and ferroelectric properties. The Ba 1−x Ni x TiO 3 ceramics remained to be ferroelectric for x up to 0.10, although it was weak, while the BaTi 1−x Ni x O 3 ceramics became paraelectric when x = 0.03. The Ba 1−x Ni x TiO 3 ceramics exhibited higher dielectric constant than the BaTi 1−x Ni x O 3 .

Low temperature preparation of CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics with large permittivity is of practical interest for cofired multilayer ceramic capacitors. Although CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics have been prepared at low temperatures as previously reported, they have rather low permittivity. This work demonstrates that CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics can not only be prepared at low temperatures, but they also have large permittivity. Herein, CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics were prepared by the solid state reaction method using B 2 O 3 as the doping substance. It has been shown that B 2 O 3 dopant can considerably lower the calcination and sintering temperatures to 870 °C and 920 °C, respectively. The relative permittivity of the low temperature prepared CaCu 3 Ti 4−x B x O 12 ceramics is about 5 times larger than the previously reported results in the literature. Furthermore, the dielectric loss of the CaCu 3 Ti 4−x B x O 12 ceramics is found to be as low as 0.03. This work provides a beneficial base for the future commercial applications of CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics with large permittivity for the cofired multilayer ceramic capacitors.

Although the CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics have colossal dielectric constants, their relative high dielectric losses are one of the limiting factors for commercial applications. Various doping elements and additive compounds have been extensively used to reduce their dielectric losses with only limited success. Instead of using such doping elements, this work shows that a facile air quenching technique can considerably reduce the dielectric losses of the CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics over a wide frequency range. In the meantime, their colossal dielectric constants can be simultaneously enhanced. It was found that the dielectric loss of the air-quenched CaCu 3 Ti 4 O 12 ceramics is as low as 0.03 at 12 kHz, and the dielectric constant is over 1×10 4 across the frequency range up to 1 MHz.

Health literacy (HL) has become an important public health issue and received growing attention in recent years. However, knowledge about the HL of adolescents and young adults is limited.[1] This study aimed to investigate the awareness rate of HL and its related factors among college freshmen in Jiangsu, China. And the results were used to support the promotion intervention to improve the HL of at-risk groups among this population. A total of 25,272 freshmen were surveyed through multi-stage stratified random sampling from 20 colleges and universities in Jiangsu province between 2016 to 2018. Data were obtained using the “Chinese Citizen Health Literacy Questionnaire” (2013 edition). Multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the factors influencing HL levels. The awareness rate of HL of college freshmen in Jiangsu province was 26.6% among the 25,272 subjects. The awareness rate of HL tended to increase from 2016 to 2018, which was 17.9%, 21.5%, and 39.6%, respectively (P

For many optoelectronic applications, it is desirable for the lanthanide-doped phosphors to have broad excitation spectrum. The excitation mechanism of the lanthanide-doped YVO4, a high quantum efficient lasing material, primarily originates from the energy transfer process from the host VO43&minus, complexes to the lanthanide ions, which has an excitation spectral bandwidth range of 230&ndash, 330 nm. For applications in silicon solar cells, such phosphors can convert ultraviolet light to visible light for more efficient power generation, but this spectral range is still not broad enough to cover the entire ultraviolet spectrum of solar light. In this work, a novel core-shell and inorganic&ndash, organic hybridization strategy has been employed to fabricate Eu3+-doped YVO4 nanoparticles to broaden their photoluminescence excitation spectral bandwidth to the range of 230&ndash, 415 nm, covering the entire ultraviolet spectrum of solar light and enabling their potential applications in silicon solar cells.

Background. Submucosal tumors (SMTs) are primarily benign tumors, but some may have a malignant potential. Endoscopic submucosal dissection that has been used for removing esophageal SMTs could cause perforation. Submucosal tunnel endoscopic resection (STER) is an improved and an effective technique for treating esophageal SMTs.Aims. This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of STER for treating esophageal SMTs.Methods. A retrospective study design was adopted to analyze the baseline characteristics, clinical outcomes, and follow-up data of patients with esophageal SMTs, which originated from the muscularis propria layer and were treated with STER from September 2011 to May 2018.Results. A total of 119 lesions were included from 115 patients who were successfully treated with STER. The mean age of the patients was 49.7 ± 10.7 years. The lesions were primarily located in the middle and lower esophagus. The mean size of the lesions was 19.4 ± 10.0 mm. The mean operation duration was 46.7 ± 25.6 min, and the mean duration of hospitalization was 5.9 ± 2.8 days. The total en bloc resection rate and the complete resection rate were 97.5% and 100%, respectively. Regarding complications, there were 9 (7.8%) cases of perforation, 2 (1.7%) cases of pneumothorax, and 9 (7.8%) cases of subcutaneous emphysema. Histopathological results revealed 113 (95.0%) cases of leiomyoma, 5 (4.2%) cases of gastrointestinal stromal tumors, and 1 (0.8%) case of a granular cell tumor. During the mean 15-month follow-up, there were no cases of recurrence and distant metastasis.Conclusions. STER is a safe and feasible technique for treating esophageal SMTs originating from the muscularis propria layer.

Insulating materials for electronic packaging should ideally have high strength and thermal conductivity. Ceramic/polymer composite is one of the candidates for such materials. In this work, Al2O3/epoxy composites with very high flexural strength and thermal conductivity were prepared using a new processing technique consisting of the gelcasting, sintering and vacuum infiltration methods. Al2O3 green bodies were first formed by gelcasting. After being degreased at 600 °C, the green bodies were sintered at different temperatures from 1200 °C to 1500 °C, and porous Al2O3 ceramic skeletons with different porosity were resulted. The porosity was readily controlled by the sintering temperature. Higher sintering temperature resulted in lower porosity and larger average grain size in the Al2O3 ceramic skeletons. Epoxy was vacuum infiltrated into the sintered porous Al2O3 ceramic skeletons to form Al2O3/epoxy composites by curing. High Al2O3 loadings up to 70 vol.% in the composites were achieved. The flexural strength and thermal conductivity of the Al2O3/epoxy composites were found to reach 305 MPa and 13.46 W m−1 K−1, respectively. These results are remarkably higher than those previously reported in the literature. This work provides an effective approach for fabricating high performance ceramic/polymer composites for electronic packaging.

First-principles calculation, quasi-harmonic approximation and thermal electronic excitation have been combined to examine ideal strengths and thermodynamic properties of W and W-Re alloys. It is found that the ideal tensile and shear strengths of W are decreased due to Re alloying, with the easy cleavage plane of both W and W-Re alloys found in (100) plane. Moreover, the derived temperature-dependent elastic properties explain the “Re softening effect”, and provide a deep understanding of the ductility of W-Re alloys as a function of the temperature. The results also reveal that Re alloying significantly increases the ductility of W, which is rare at low temperature in the temperature range 0−2000 K. The calculated results agree well with similar experimental observations in the literatures, and could explore their fundamental properties as well as various potential applications.

Al0.3CoCrFeNi high-entropy alloy (HEA) prepared by mechanical alloying was used as a metal binder for the Ti(C,N)-based cermets by hot-pressing sintering. Room-temperature microstructure and high-temperature oxidation resistance, mechanical and wear resistance properties of the Ti(C,N)-based cermets with HEA metal binder (cermets TA) were comprehensively investigated and compared with the Ti(C,N)-based cermets containing the conventional Ni–Co metal binder (cermets TN). Different from the Ni–Co binder, the HEA metal binder not only largely enhanced the hardness and fracture toughness of Ti(C,N)-based cermets at room temperature, but also retained notably higher hardness (Vickers hardness 1137 HV), fracture toughness (6.46 MPa m1/2) and flexural strength (761 MPa) at 1000 °C. The mechanism for such an excellent retention of mechanical properties at high-temperature by the cermets TA is attributed to the hindrance of their slip systems and the higher oxidation resistance of HEA metal binder. Furthermore, the hardened cermets TA exhibited better friction and wearing properties at high-temperature.