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Background: Low anterior resection syndrome (LARS) is a bowel dysfunction following sphincter-sparing proctectomy. The occurrence of LARS may affect a patient's overall quality of life (QoL) after surgery. Current research was aimed to investigate related factors of LARS and major LARS in total mesorectal excision (TME) and its relationship with QoL. Methods: This study included patients who underwent TME at authors' institutes. LARS was evaluated with an LARS score. QoL was identified using the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer QLQ-C30 questionnaire, version 3.0. Appropriate statistical methods were used to ascertain risk factors for LARS and major LARS and to analyze the relationships between QoL and LARS. The primary objective was to identify related factors of LARS and major LARS. The secondary objective was to examine the relationships between QoL and LARS. Results: Multivariable analysis identified neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (odds ratio [OR] 4.923, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.335–10.379, P < .001), local anal distance from the lower edge of the tumor (OR 6.199, 95% CI 2.701–14.266, P < .001), and anastomotic leakage (OR 5.624, 95% CI 1.463–21.614, P = .012) as independent predictors for development of LARS. Meanwhile, neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (OR 4.693, 95% CI 1.368–16.107, P = .014) and local anal distance from the lower edge of the tumor (OR 4.935, 95% CI 1.332–18.285, P = .017) were dramatically correlated with development of major LARS in a multivariable analysis. In the major LARS group, statistically significant differences (P < .05) were ascertained, include physical functioning, role functioning, emotional functioning, social functioning, and global health. In addition, pain and diarrhea were evidently higher. Conclusions: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy, local anal distance from the lower edge of the tumor, and anastomotic leakage correlated strongly with development of LARS, and neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and local anal distance from the lower edge of the tumor correlated strongly with development of major LARS. Meanwhile, the QoL of patients with major LARS was lower than that of patients with no/minor LARS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practical applications of lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) are challenged by safety concerns using liquid electrolytes (LEs). The gel polymer electrolytes (GPEs) are considered as a promising candidate to solve this safety issue. In addition, using high‐mass loading electrodes is essential to achieve high energy density. However, poor interfacial contact between electrode and electrolyte remains a challenging issue, particularly for the high‐mass‐loading electrode. Here, porous channels are constructed in electrodes with high active material loading using the melamine formaldehyde sponge, and then the GPE is penetrated into porous channels of electrodes through an in‐situ thermal induced polymerization. The porous electrode structure with sufficient surface area improves electrolyte percolation and fast ion diffusion kinetics, which enables a uniform distribution of Li‐ion flux and effectively homogenizes the local current density to realize uniform Li deposition. The half cells and anode‐free full cells using the integration of porous electrodes and in‐situ polymerized GPEs exhibit excellent discharge capacity and cycle stability. This integration method is applicable for fabricating batteries with high energy density and safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To lessen users' feelings of unease and stress after icons are updated, this study investigates icon recognition and discrimination in terms of icon color and location under different working memory (WM) loads. At low WM load, changing the color or position of the icons has little effect on icon recognition. The icon color update will affect the user's accuracy when less information is presented, but it will not affect participants' reaction time. As for position updates, it is better to update icons' positions within the same row rather than across rows. At high WM load, although subjects responded faster to color than location, subjects were more accurate with location than with color. It can be concluded that color updates are preferred for entertaining user interfaces that demand quick responses, while location updates are preferable for human–computer interfaces that focus on accuracy. From the results of high WM load, subjects are more sensitive to color brightness. The more drastic the color difference, especially if the change level was at levels of 20% or 40%, the subjects' responses would be more obvious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User decision-making concerning critical operations is very important to nuclear power plant (NPP) safety. The NPP interface is the main information source that guides decision-making; thus, a good interface design is essential. Among the interface design factors such as interface complexity, layout and colour, interface complexity (the amount of information in the interface) has the greatest impact on NPP operator decision-making. This paper used the event-related potential (ERP) to evaluate the impact of interface complexity on user decision-making and found interface complexity has a specific range suitable for decision-making. Based on this important finding, a fast and economical method of evaluating NPP interfaces in all design phases was proposed. This method compensates for the shortcomings of traditional methods, such as heuristic evaluation and experimental evaluation, which are inconvenient for evaluating interfaces in initial design phase; it can also be applied to interfaces with similar features in other industrial fields. Practitioner summary: Evaluation of the impact of NPP interface complexity on user decision-making through an ERP experiment revealed a specific range of interface complexity that facilitates user decision-making. Based on this finding, a new, fast and inexpensive interface evaluation method was proposed. Abbreviations: NPP: nuclear power plant, it is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor; ERP: event-related potential, it is the measured brain response that is the direct result of a specific cognitive, or motor event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]