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Transition metal oxides (TMOs) with high theoretical capacities are promising anode candidates for sodium ion batteries (SIBs), which yet suffers from inferior cycling stability and rate capability due to large volume change and sluggish transport kinetics during the sodiation/desodiation processes. Herein, a general strategy is developed to fabricate ultrafine TMOs nanoparticles encapsulated in nitrogen-doped carbon nanofibers (uf-TMOs@N-CNFs, M = Fe, Mn, Zn, etc.) as advanced anodes for SIBs. The uf-TMOs@N-CNFs are facilely synthesized via an in-situ electrospinning and subsequent carbonization strategy, among which polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) is employed as an effective dispersant to suppress metal agglomeration and control the size of TMOs. Benefiting from the intimate interaction between ultrafine TMOs and conductive N-CNFs substrates, the uf-TMOs@N-CNFs can efficiently mitigate the aggregation and pulverization of TMOs, facilitate electron/ion transfer, and boost pseudocapacitive charge storage, leading to superior sodium storage performance, including satisfactory reversible capacity, excellent rate capability, and durable cycling stability. Interestingly, the obtained uf-TMOs@N-CNFs membranes also exhibit excellent flexibility to serve as self-supported and flexible electrodes, demonstrating great potential for flexible SIBs. The present work provides a general and feasible method to construct robust and flexible electrodes for energy storage devices.

AIM: To evaluate the two-year outcomes of patients treated for diabetic macular edema (DME) with intravitreal Conbercept (IVC). METHODS: The clinical data of 30 DME patients (36 eyes) were retrospectively reviewed. The patients were treated with IVC for 3mo. Additional IVC was given at subsequent monthly visits, if needed (3+PRN). The patients were followed up for 24mo. RESULTS: The best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at 24mo significantly increased (66.7±15.3 letters) in comparison with the baseline (54.4±15.4 letters, P

Because of their capability of rapid lithium uptake/release and robust capacitive energy storage, hierarchically porous carbon frameworks are widely regarded as promising electrode materials for lithium-ion capacitors. The current technologies for their syntheses involve either a heavily corrosive KOH activation or harsh template-removing processes exerting heavy environmental burdens. To surmount these drawbacks, we, herein, report the production of such an architecture by simply carbonizing petroleum asphalt with KHCO3 contributing to hierarchically porous frameworks with high specific surface area in a non-corrosive condition. The microporous carbon nanosheets are curved to give mesopores and interconnected for macropores. Because of these structural merits, the rate-capable lithium storage is realized and the capacitive performance is three-times higher than that of widely used activated carbon cathodes. Furthermore, the lithium-ion capacitors simultaneously using these materials as the anode and cathode can deliver a high energy density of 112 Wh kg-1 at a power density of 260 W kg− and present an energy density of 48 Wh kg−1 at a high-power density of 52 kW kg-1. The versatile capabilities provided by the mild and low-cost carbon materials may find an alternative strategy for the real application of lithium-ion capacitors and other hybrid devices.

Deep learning (DL)-based models can achieve satisfactory performance in bearing and gear fault diagnosis relying on sufficient fault vibration signals. However, it is difficult to acquire adequate machine fault data in industrial applications. Generally, data collected in the healthy condition are massive, but rare fault samples are available. To address the diagnostic problem with few fault data, this article proposes a method, namely, multilabel cycle translating adversarial network (MCTAN). The architecture can translate healthy vibration data into auxiliary fault data. Signal-to-signal translation enables auxiliary data to be acquired based on few fault data and adequate healthy data. Then, the auxiliary data are utilized to improve the performance of DL-based fault classification approaches. Experimental results and comparative analysis indicate the superiority and robustness of the proposed method for bearing and gear fault diagnosis on widely used XJTU-SY, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Jiangnan University (JNU), and Southeast University (SEU) datasets. Even if the ratio of healthy data to fault data ranges from 50:1 to 300:1, the proposed MCTAN succeeds in raising the diagnosis accuracy by up to 25.87% and outperforms other comparative methods.

Wearing personal safety protective equipment (PSPE) plays a key role in reducing electrical injuries to electrical workers. However, substation employees often ignore this regulation due to lack of safety awareness and discomfortable feeling of wearing PSPE. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a detection algorithm for PSPE and workers to build real-time video surveillance systems in power substations. In this paper, a wear-enhanced YOLOv3 method for real-time detection of PSPE and substation workers is proposed. The gamma correction is first applied as the preprocessing method to highlight the details of the operators and data augmentation is performed. Next, K-means++ algorithm replaces K-means in wear-enhanced YOLOv3 method to derive the most suitable prior bounding box size and lift the detection speed. Then, the proposed method can be quickly and effectively trained based on transfer learning. Finally, extensive experiments are carried out on a dataset of images about usage of safety helmets, insulating gloves and boots. Using the proposed method, the mean average precision is improved by over 2% and the frames per second is the highest compared with other typical object detection methods, which illustrates the effectiveness of the wear-enhanced YOLOv3 method for PSPE and workers detection.

Urinary metabolomics is a useful non-invasive tool for large-scale screening of disease-related metabolites. However, no comprehensive urinary metabolomic analysis of vitiligo is presently available. To investigate the urine metabolic pattern of vitiligo patients, we conducted a combined cross-sectional and prospective self-control cohort study and an untargeted urinary metabolomic analysis. In the cross-sectional study, 295 vitiligo patients and 192 age‐ and sex‐matched controls were enrolled, and 71 differential metabolites between two groups were identified. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed that drug metabolism-cytochrome P450, biopterin metabolism, vitamin B9 (folate) metabolism, selenoamino acid metabolism, and methionine and cysteine metabolism showed significant enrichment in vitiligo patients compared with the status in healthy controls. In the self-control cohort, 46 active vitiligo patients were recruited to analyse the urinary metabolic signatures after treatment. All of these patients were asked to undertake follow-up visits every 2 months three times after first consulting and the disease stage was evaluated compared with that at the last visit. Folate metabolism, linoleate metabolism, leukotriene metabolism, alkaloid biosynthesis, and tyrosine metabolism were predicted to be involved in vitiligo activity. Our study is the first attempt to reveal urinary metabolic signatures of vitiligo patients and provides new insights into the metabolic mechanisms of vitiligo.

This study proposes a cooperative secondary voltage and frequency control strategy to reduce the number of controller updates by using an event-triggered approach. The proposed approach is applied to the secondary control that will offset primary control deviations in islanded microgrids with limited computation resources. The controller updating mechanism considered here is event-triggered which judges whether a certain measurement error has reached the event-triggered condition (ETC) associated with the norm of a function with a standard state. We consider two secondary control options to form an ETC, which include a centralized strategy in which an auxiliary controller would collect all agents’ states, and a distributed control strategy which only require the neighboring agents information. The corresponding stability and convergence analyses are presented and simulation results for an islanded microgrid test system consisting of four distributed generators (DGs) are provided. The simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies and show that the proposed strategies based on an event-triggered approach can dramatically reduce controller updates.

Some G-quadruplex (G4) forming sequences are able to form multimers under physiological conditions, which limits the structure-activity study of G4s. Here we report an in-gel visual method to probe the conformational polymorphism of the derivatives of a parallel G4-forming sequence, c-Myc by flanking with different A/T bases and typical intermolecular G4-forming sequences. Fluorescence and circular dichroism (CD) spectra showed that the interaction of c-Myc derivatives with Thioflavin T (ThT) caused different fluorescence enhancements of ThT, and intermolecular parallel G4s caused higher fluorescence enhancement of ThT than that of intramolecular parallel and intermolecular antiparallel G4s. These DNA sequences were separated on native gels and stained by ThT for G4 and then by Stains-all (dye) for all DNA structures. Most of the sequences adopted parallel G4 multimers and intramolecular G4s in the presence of K+, meanwhile only a part of them formed G4 multimers and intramolecular structures in the presence of Na+. The optical density (OD) ratio of DNA bands stained by ThT and Stains-all were derived by ImageJ, and the ratios of G4 multimers were higher than 1.0, intramolecular parallel G4s were about 0.5, and non-G4s were near 0. Furthermore, the flanking nucleotides were favorable to the formation of multimers of c-Myc in K+ solutions, especially those flanking with T; while in Na+ solutions, only those sequences flanking with two or more A preferred to form G4 multimers. Our results suggest that the current strategy holds the potential for polymorphic study of G4s.

Propagation of an electromagnetic (EM) pulse in an underdense plasma can either generate a wakefield or excite soliton wave, which depends on the competition between the linear dispersion and nonlinear self-modulation of the wave. Here, we study the interaction of the EM pulse and relativistic hot plasma analytically and numerically and reveal the physical mechanism of the transition from wakefield generation to soliton excitation in terms of soliton stability and modulation instability (MI) of a plane wave. Starting from the relativistic hot fluid-Maxwell model, a nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) governing the amplitude of scalar potential is obtained by using a multi-scale perturbation technique. The bright and dark soliton solutions of the NLSE are obtained analytically. The stability phase diagram of solitons is given numerically. Furthermore, the MI of the plane wave is studied, and the stability phase diagram of MI is obtained. The results indicate that, when the plasma density increases, the propagation of the EM pulse in the plasma experiences wakefield–soliton transition, which depends on the thermal effect. Our results provide theoretical evidence for deep understanding of high-power laser plasma interaction.

Persistent eruption occurs in a subset of patients with adult-onset Still's disease. In our experience, a considerable proportion of these patients present with peripheral eosinophilia. The aims of this study were to summarize the clinical and histological features of patients with adult-onset Still's disease with persistent eruption in the current study cohort, and to assess the association between peripheral eosinophil levels and disease characteristics. A total of 21 patients with adult-onset Still's disease with persistent eruption were included in this retrospective study. Koebner signs, an important diagnostic clue, were found in 85.7% of patients. The proportion of patients presenting with eosinophilia within the disease course was 57.1%. Skin histology revealed infiltration of eosinophils in 90.5% of patients. Peripheral eosinophil levels were positively associated with involved body surface area. Patients with normal peripheral eosinophil counts were more likely to achieve complete remission than those with abnormal peripheral eosinophil counts. Eosinophils may be involved in the pathogenesis of skin eruption. Abnormal peripheral eosinophil counts in these patients may indicate a more refractory disease course.

BackgroundPerioperative chemotherapy has been accepted as one of the most common approaches for locally advanced gastric cancer. However, the efficacy of chemotherapy varies among patients, and there is no effective method to predict the chemotherapy efficacy currently. We previously established the first larval zebrafish patient-derived xenografts (zPDXs) of gastric cancer as a platform for the translational research and personalized treatment. The objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of screening individualized chemotherapeutics using the zPDXs.MethodsWe further optimized this zPDXs platform including administration route, drug dosing, and rhythm to develop a stable and reliable protocol for chemotherapeutics screening. Using the novel platform, we investigated the chemosensitivity of 5-fluorouracil, cisplatin, docetaxel, and doxorubicin for gastric cancer patients.ResultsWe showed that the engrafted zebrafish retained the original prominent cell components of the corresponding human tumor tissues, and we successfully obtained the results of chemosensitivity of 5-fluorouracil, cisplatin, docetaxel, and doxorubicin for 28 patients with locally advanced gastric cancer. These patients underwent radical gastrectomy for curative intent and 27 cases received postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy. We revealed that the chemosensitivity obtained from zPDXs was consistent with the clinical responses in these patients (P = 0.029). More importantly, the responder drug(s) from zPDXs used or not was the only risk factor for early-stage recurrence in these 27 patients (P = 0.003).ConclusionOur study with the largest sample size so far suggests that larval zPDXs help to predict the chemotherapeutics response and to achieve precise chemotherapy for gastric cancer.

Hierarchical carbon architectures offer superb advantages for energy storage, but their general synthesis requires tedious template methods and subsequent activation processes employing highly corrosive potassium hydroxide as the activation agent. Herein, we report a green and scalable production of the nanosheet-assembled hierarchical carbon architecture using potassium citrate as a green activation agent as well as an in-situ template and petroleum asphalt as the precursor. The replacing potassium hydroxide with potassium citrate can not only reduce the adverse impact on environment during the industrially scalable production but also eliminate the necessity of extra templates in traditional strategies. Meanwhile, the employment of petroleum asphalt as the carbon precursor can increase the yield of carbon, thus reducing the cost for constructing such structures. The as-prepared carbon architecture shows large specific surface area and hierarchical porosity. Besides, the porous carbon nanosheet facilitates efficient electrons/ions transfer which permits high-power handling. Because of these structure merits, the porous carbon nanosheet-assembled hierarchical architecture affords outstanding performance in terms of large specific capacitance, extraordinary rate capability, and long cyclic stability. The strategy demonstrated here may open up new possibilities for creating novel carbon nanostructures for energy-related application in cost-effective manners.

Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) has a mean survival time of 6 months and accounts for 1-2% of all thyroid tumors. Understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis and progression in ATC would contribute to the identification of novel therapeutic targets. A previous study revealed that microRNA (miR)-599 was associated with tumor initiation and development in certain types of cancer. However, the specific functions and mechanisms of miR-599 in ATC are poorly understood. The objective of the present study was to identify its expression, function and molecular mechanism in ATC. The expression levels of miR-599 in 10 pairs of surgical specimens and human ATC cell lines were examined by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Function assays illustrated that miR-599 overexpression not only suppressed KAT-18 cell viability, proliferation and metastasis in vitro and decreased tumor growth in the tumor xenograft model but also induced cell apoptosis. Furthermore, T-cell intracellular antigen (TIA1), a tumor suppressor, was confirmed as a direct target of miR-599. It was demonstrated that TIA1 silencing rescued the inhibitory effect of migration and invasion induced by the overexpression of miR-599 in KAT-18 cells. In conclusion, the present study revealed that miR-599 inhibited ATC cell growth and metastasis via activation of TIA1. Therefore miR-599 may be a novel molecular therapeutic target for ATC.

To evaluate the clinical value of aquaporin-4 (AQP-4) in hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) and to evaluate therapeutic efficacy of magnesium sulfate (MgSO4) and its effect on AQP-4 expression. Children with HFMD were divided into a common group, a severe group and a critical group according to Chinese guidelines; children in the critical group were further divided into two subgroups: routine treatment group and MgSO4 group. Outcome measures included systolic blood pressure (SBP), Heart rate (HR), the levels of AQP-4, interleukin-6 (IL-6), norepinephrine (NE), and neuron-specific enolase (NSE). Serum AQP-4, IL-6, NE, and NSE levels varied significantly among the critical, severe, and common groups before and after treatment. There were no significant differences in AQP-4 levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) between the critical and severe groups before and after treatment; however, CSF AQP-4 levels in these two groups were higher than those in the common group before treatment. Serum and CSF AQP-4 levels in convalescence decreased significantly in the critical and severe groups. SBP, HR and serum AQP-4, IL-6, NE, NSE levels, but not CSF AQP-4 levels, were significantly lower in MgSO4 group than in the routine treatment group. AQP-4 in serum, but not in CSF, is a candidate biomarker for evaluating the severity and prognosis of HFMD; MgSO4 can provide protection on children with critical HFMD.

The load capacity of oil-immersed transformers affects the safety of power system operation. In order to fully exploit and utilize the load capacity of transformer, a novel improved model is proposed based on the principle of thermal- electric analogy. Firstly, solar radiation is introduced as a new heat source, and the thermal conductance is modified by considering the effect of temperature on oil viscosity. Then, a transformer load capacity evaluation model based on the thermal-electric analogy principle is proposed under the constraint conditions of top-oil temperature, hot-spot temperature, relative life loss, and auxiliary equipment capacity level. Finally, a 50 MVA transformer is carried out for oil temperature and load capacity. The results demonstrate that compared with Tang-model and the transformer guidelines, the error of the top-oil temperature and the hot-spot temperature of the new model is smaller. In addition, for periodic loads, transformer load capacity also represents different characteristics, which provides a guide for exploiting the load potential of power transformers.

At present, the transient overvoltages in o shore wind farms caused by faults or frequent operations of electrical equipment are particularly severe. The quick and accurate classi cation of transient overvoltages is important for protecting electrical equipment from damage. In order to classify the internal transient overvoltages in o shore wind farms, this research rstly proposes a feature extraction method based on mathematical morphology, which proposes a new morphological structure element and utilizes a multi-scale mathematical morphology to extract the high/low-frequency components of transient overvoltages. Then a high-frequency feature and a high/low-frequency energy ratio feature are constructed as identi cation features. Finally, based on the constructed features, a support vector machine is employed to identify di erent types of internal transient overvoltages. Extensive simulations and experiments are performed to verify the superiority of the proposed feature extraction method based on mathematical morphology, which is also compared with the widely used conventional wavelet algorithms. Results show the proposed mathematical morphology feature extraction method is capable of classifying and discriminating among various types of internal transient overvoltages with a simple procedure and an improved accuracy. The proposed method provides a valuable reference for the protection and insulation coordination of electrical equipment in o shore wind farm substations.