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Thiadiazole compounds and their derivatives have good carrying capacity and lubricating properties. Herein, polydopamine can be in situ self-assembled onto gallium-based liquid metal (GLM) nanoparticles via ultrasound treatment of bulk GLM nanoparticles in dopamine-containing Tris aqueous solution followed by covalent bonding with a thiadiazole dimer (DMCT) through Michael addition reactions. The as-prepared thiadiazole dimer-functionalized liquid metal (GLM-DMCT) nanoparticles, with an average particle size of 380 nm, can be used as nanoadditives in the base oil (500SN). The tribological properties of GLM-DMCT as additives were evaluated under various loads, temperatures, and frequencies, and the results showed that GLM-DMCT additives have improved anti-friction and anti-wear performances of 500SN. The coefficient of friction can be reduced to 0.092 from 0.147 after adding 2 wt % GLM-DMCT, the wear volume reduces by 89.7%, and the load-carrying capacity is increased from 150 to 1050 N. The improved tribological performance is credited to the formation of a stable, protective layer on the friction pair via the complex tribo-chemical reaction of Ga, In, and S elements of GLM-DMCT. Furthermore, the as-prepared GLM-DMCT exhibits good anti-corrosion performance, which is attributed to the breaking of the disulfide bond of DMCT, releasing the corrosion inhibitor DMTD during the corrosion process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: The difficulty of pelvic operation is greatly affected by anatomical constraints. Defining this difficulty and assessing it based on conventional methods has some limitations. Artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled rapid advances in surgery, but its role in assessing the difficulty of laparoscopic rectal surgery is unclear. This study aimed to establish a difficulty grading system to assess the difficulty of laparoscopic rectal surgery, as well as utilize this system to evaluate the reliability of pelvis-induced difficulties described by MRI-based AI. (2) Methods: Patients who underwent laparoscopic rectal surgery from March 2019 to October 2022 were included, and were divided into a non-difficult group and difficult group. This study was divided into two stages. In the first stage, a difficulty grading system was developed and proposed to assess the surgical difficulty caused by the pelvis. In the second stage, AI was used to build a model, and the ability of the model to stratify the difficulty of surgery was evaluated at this stage, based on the results of the first stage; (3) Results: Among the 108 enrolled patients, 53 patients (49.1%) were in the difficult group. Compared to the non-difficult group, there were longer operation times, more blood loss, higher rates of anastomotic leaks, and poorer specimen quality in the difficult group. In the second stage, after training and testing, the average accuracy of the four-fold cross validation models on the test set was 0.830, and the accuracy of the merged AI model was 0.800, the precision was 0.786, the specificity was 0.750, the recall was 0.846, the F1-score was 0.815, the area under the receiver operating curve was 0.78 and the average precision was 0.69; (4) Conclusions: This study successfully proposed a feasible grading system for surgery difficulty and developed a predictive model with reasonable accuracy using AI, which can assist surgeons in determining surgical difficulty and in choosing the optimal surgical approach for rectal cancer patients with a structurally difficult pelvis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the direct intercalation of gemini ionic liquids (ILs) with different alkyl chains into the bentonite (BT) interlayer as a high-performance lubricating additive for base oil 500SN was investigated. The purpose of modifying BT with an IL is to improve the dispersion stability and lubricity of BT in lubricating oil. The dispersibility and tribological properties of IL—BT as oil-based additives for 500SN depend on the increase in interlamellar space in BT and improve as the chain length is increased. More importantly, the IL—BT nanomaterial outperforms individual BT in improving wear resistance, owing to its sheet layers were deformed and sprawled in furrows along the metal surface, thereby resulting in low surface adhesion. Because of its excellent lubrication performance, IL-modified BT is a potential candidate for the main component of drilling fluid. It can be used as a lubricating additive in oil drilling and oil well construction to reduce equipment damage and ensure the normal operation of equipments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]