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Observations of the discharge gap were conducted to investigate the discharge plasma motion in reciprocated traveling wire electrical discharge machining (RT-WEDM). It was found that the discharge plasma continuously slides on the surface of a workpiece. An oscillating moving heat source is proposed to better conform the characteristics of the discharge plasma motion. Based on the oscillating moving heat source, a novel thermal-fluid coupling model by adopting a level-set method was proposed to investigate the formation of a crater and the effects of machining parameters on the crater. Discharge plasma sliding, latent heat, and molten pool forces are comprehensively considered in the proposed model. Simulation and experimental results show that the sliding discharge plasma has a significant effect on a crater. At the end of a discharge, a considerable proportion of molten material remains in the molten pool. A high sliding speed of discharge plasma can lead to a low aspect ratio in a crater and a thin recast layer. Besides, due to the discharge plasma sliding, an increase in pulse duration can significantly increase the length of the crater and decrease the aspect ratio, while an increase in peak current can significantly increase the depth and volume of a crater. Simulation and experimental results also show that the morphologies of the simulated crater and experimental crater are consistent, verifying the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed simulation model in explaining the mechanisms of crater formation in RT-WEDM.

A rare cadmium-containing windmill-like heteropolyoxoniobate macrocycle has been successfully synthesized with stable 1-D cyclic cluster aggregates.

Introduction: The objective of this study was to define prehospital ultra-early neurological deterioration (UND) and to investigate the association with functional outcomes in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study of consecutive acute ICH patients. The stroke severity at onset and hospital admission was assessed using the Chongqing Stroke Scale (CQSS), and prehospital UND was defined as a CQSS increase of ≥2 points between symptoms onset and admission. Early neurological deterioration (END) was defined as the increase of ≥4 points in NIHSS score within the first 24 h after admission. Poor outcome was defined as a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) of 4–6 at 3 months. Results: Prehospital UND occurred in 29 of 169 patients (17.2%). Patients with prehospital UND had a median admission NIHSS score of 17.0 as opposed to those without prehospital UND with a median NIHSS score of 8.5. There were three patterns of neurological deterioration: prehospital UND only in 21 of 169 patients (12.4%), END but without prehospital UND in 20 of 169 patients (11.8%), and continuous neurological deterioration in both phases in 8 patients (4.7%). Prehospital UND was associated with worse 3-month outcomes (median mRS score, 4.0 vs. 2.0, p = 0.002). After adjusting for age, time from onset to admission, END, and systolic blood pressure, prehospital UND was an independent predictor of poor outcome (odds ratio [OR] 3.27, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.26–8.48, p = 0.015). Conclusion: Prehospital UND occurs in approximately 1 in 7 patients between symptom onset and admission and is associated with poor functional outcome in patients with ICH. Further research is needed to investigate the prehospital UND in the prehospital phase in the triage of patients with ICH.

The National Genomics Data Center (NGDC), part of the China National Center for Bioinformation (CNCB), provides a family of database resources to support global academic and industrial communities. With the explosive accumulation of multi-omics data generated at an unprecedented rate, CNCB-NGDC constantly expands and updates core database resources by big data archive, integrative analysis and value-added curation. In the past year, efforts have been devoted to integrating multiple omics data, synthesizing the growing knowledge, developing new resources and upgrading a set of major resources. Particularly, several database resources are newly developed for infectious diseases and microbiology (MPoxVR, KGCoV, ProPan), cancer-trait association (ASCancer Atlas, TWAS Atlas, Brain Catalog, CCAS) as well as tropical plants (TCOD). Importantly, given the global health threat caused by monkeypox virus and SARS-CoV-2, CNCB-NGDC has newly constructed the monkeypox virus resource, along with frequent updates of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences, variants as well as haplotypes. All the resources and services are publicly accessible at https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn.

Objectives This paper examines the longitudinal effects of changes in the association between loneliness and depressive symptoms during the pandemic among older adults (65+). Methods Baseline (2011–2015) and Follow-up 1 (2015–2018) from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), and the Baseline and Exit waves of the CLSA COVID-19 study (April–December, 2020) ( n = 12,469) were used. Loneliness was measured using the 3-item UCLA Loneliness Scale and depression using the CES_D- 9. Results Loneliness is associated with depressive symptoms pre-pandemic; and changes in level of loneliness between FUP1 and the COVID Exit survey, adjusting for covariates. No interaction between loneliness and caregiving, and with multimorbidity, on depressive symptoms were observed, and several covariates exhibited associations with depressive symptoms. Discussion Strong support is found for an association between loneliness on depressive symptoms among older adults during the pandemic. Public health approaches addressing loneliness could reduce the burden of depression on older populations.

The electricity production of a thermal generator is often constrained by the available fuel supply. These fuel constraints impose a maximum bound on the energy output over multiple time periods. Fuel constraints are increasingly important in electricity markets because of two main reasons. First, as more natural gas-fired generators join the deregulated market, there is often competition for natural gas supply from other sectors (e.g., residential and manufacturing heating). Second, as more environmental and emission regulations are being placed on fossil fuel-fired generators, fuel supply is becoming more limited. However, there are few studies that consider the fuel constraints in the unit commitment problem from the perspective of computational analysis. To address the challenge faced by an independent power producer with a limited fuel supply, we study a fuel-constrained self-scheduling unit commitment (FSUC) problem where the production decisions are coupled across multiple time periods. We provide a complexity analysis of the FSUC problem and conduct a comprehensive polyhedral study by deriving strong valid inequalities. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed inequalities as cutting planes in solving various multistage stochastic FSUC problems. History: Accepted by Pascal Van Hentenryck, Area Editor for Computational Modeling: Methods & Analysis. Funding: K. Pan was supported in part by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong [Grant 15501920]. F. Qiu was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Grid Modeling Program [Grant DE-OE0000875]. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplementary Information [ https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2022.1235 ] or is available from the IJOC GitHub software repository ( https://github.com/INFORMSJoC ) at [ http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6896199 ].

Introduction: The Healthy Caregiver Hypothesis (HCH) suggests that caregiving is associated with beneficial health impacts for family caregivers. However, mixed results have been reported, particularly when different levels of caregiving intensity were examined. This study analyzes the relationship between caregiving intensity and three health indicators (functional health, chronic illness, and self-rated general health) among Canadian older adults over 3 years. Methods: We drew upon a subsample of 11,344 participants aged 65 years and older from the Baseline and Follow-up 1 data of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging and used linear mixed models to test the hypothesis based on different levels of caregiving intensity. Results: Older adults who provided low-intensity care recently or continuously reported better functional health and self-rated health than noncaregivers. In contrast, older adults with low-intensity caregiving responsibility reported more chronic conditions over time compared to noncaregivers, but this association was not found for high-intensity caregivers. Discussion/Conclusion: This study elucidates the HCH by incorporating caregiving intensity to understand patterns of better functional health and perceived health but more chronic conditions. The findings yielded from different health indicators suggest the impact of caregiving on health may be domain specific.

The aim of this study was to examine the most effective delivery format of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) on insomnia in cancer patients.We searched five databases up to February 2021 for randomized clinical trials that compared CBT-I with inactive or active controls for insomnia in cancer patients. Outcomes were insomnia severity, sleep efficiency, sleep onset latency (SOL), wake after sleep onset (WASO), and total sleep time (TST). Pairwise meta-analyses and frequentist network meta-analyses with the random-effects model were applied for data analyses.Sixteen unique trials including 1523 participants met inclusion criteria. Compared with inactive control, CBT-I could significantly reduce insomnia severity (mean differences [MD] = -4.98 points, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -5.82 to -4.14), SOL (MD = -12.29 min, 95%CI: -16.48 to -8.09), and WASO (MD = -16.58 min, 95%CI: -22.00 to -11.15), while increasing sleep efficiency (MD = 7.62%, 95%CI: 5.82% to 9.41%) at postintervention. Compared with active control, CBT-I could significantly reduce insomnia severity (MD = -2.75 points, 95%CI: -4.28 to -1.21), SOL (MD = -13.56 min, 95%CI: -18.93 to -8.18), and WASO (MD = -6.99 min, 95%CI: -11.65 to -2.32) at postintervention. These effects diminished in short-term follow-up and almost disappeared in long-term follow-up. Most of the results were rated as "moderate" to "low" certainty of evidence. Network meta-analysis showed that group CBT-I had an increase in sleep efficiency of 10.61%, an increase in TST of 21.98 min, a reduction in SOL of 14.65 min, and a reduction in WASO of 24.30 min, compared with inactive control at postintervention, with effects sustained at short-term follow-up.CBT-I is effective for the management of insomnia in cancer patients postintervention, with diminished effects in short-term follow-up. Group CBT-I is the preferred choice based on postintervention and short-term effects. The low quality of evidence and limited sample size demonstrate the need for robust evidence from high-quality, large-scale trials providing long-term follow-up data.

α-Azidoketones are valuable and versatile building blocks in the synthesis of various bioactive small molecules. Herein, we describe an environmentally friendly and efficient electrochemical vicinal oxyazidation protocol of α-arylvinyl acetates to afford diverse α-azidoketones in good yields without the use of a stoichiometric amount of chemical oxidant. A range of functionality is shown to be compatible with this transformation, and further applications are demonstrated.

Vascular endothelial cells and oxidation reduction system play an important role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis (AS). If these conditions are disordered, it will inevitably lead to plaque formation and even rupture. Astragaloside IV (AsIV) and salvianolic acid B (Sal B) are the main active ingredients of Astragalus membranaceus and Salvia miltiorrhiza, respectively, and found to ameliorate vascular endothelial dysfunction and protect against oxidative stress in recent studies. However, it is still unknown if the combination of AsIV and Sal B (AsIV + Sal B) can inhibit the development of plaque through amplifying the protective effect of vascular endothelial cells and anti-oxidative stress effect. To clarify the role of AsIV + Sal B in AS, we observed the efficacy of each group (Control, Model, AsIV, Sal B, and AsIV + Sal B) by biomolecular assays, such as observing the pathological morphology of the aorta by oil red O staining, evaluating the level of oxidative stress and endothelial cells in the serum by the Elisa test, and analyzing the changes of all small molecule metabolites in liver tissue by UPLC-QTOF-MS. Results showed that AsIV, Sal B and AsIV + Sal B decreased the deposition of lipid in the arterial wall, so as to exert the effect of anti-oxidant stress and vascular endothelial protection, where the inhibitory effect of AsIV + Sal B was the most obvious. Metabonomics analysis showed that Sal B regulated the metabolic pathways of arginine and proline. AsIV regulated glycerol metabolism and saturated fatty acid biosynthesis metabolism. AsIV + Sal B is mainly related to the regulation of the citrate cycle (TCA cycle), alanine, aspartic acid, and glutamate metabolism, cysteine, and methionine metabolism. Succinic acid and methionine are synergistic metabolites that exert an enhancing effect when AsIV and Sal B were used in combination. In conclusion, we demonstrated that AsIV acompanied with Sal B can be successfully used for anti-oxidative stress and vascular endothelial protection of AS, and succinic acid and methionine are the synergistic metabolites.

Background. China has been promoting sharing of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) data for several years. However, only a few studies have explored the views of Chinese residents on sharing personal health data, and the factors that affect sharing of EHRs have not been fully elucidated. This study sought to explore public attitudes toward sharing EHRs and the factors that affect sharing of personal health data among Chinese residents. Methods. A multi-stage stratified sampling design was adopted in this survey to select residents in Hunan province, resulting in 932 responses randomly. The investigation was carried out with the administration of a 19-item questionnaire. The measure includes items on demographics, willingness to share EHRs, experiences on EHRs, public acknowledgment of the benefits of sharing EHRs, and public awareness of potential risks of sharing EHRs. Results. The score of general willingness to share EHRs was 5.784 ± 2.031. Concerning the domain scores for the willingness, the willingness to share EHRs for research was 2.060 ± 0.942, whereas sharing anonymization EHRs for other nonmedical services was only 1.805 ± 0.877. Multiple linear regression showed that general willingness to share EHRs was related to job-related healthcare (β = 0.520), experiences on EHRs (β = 0.192), public awareness of potential risks of sharing EHRs (β = −0.130), and public acknowledgment of the benefits of sharing EHRs (β = 0.290). Conclusion. The willingness to share EHRs data with Chinese residents was not high. The willingness of Chinese residents towards data sharing in EHRs is influenced by several factors, primarily job-related to healthcare, experiences on EHRs, public acknowledgment of the benefits of sharing EHRs, and public awareness of potential risks of sharing EHRs. The results provide a basis for related research and provide information for designing public health strategies such as formulating policies to improve public acceptance of sharing EHRs and promoting EHRs-based public health services.

This paper examines the longitudinal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on older adults (65+) with multimorbidity on levels of depression, anxiety, and perceived global impact on their lives.Baseline (2011-2015) and Follow-up 1 (2015-2018) data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), and the Baseline and Exit waves of the CLSA COVID-19 study (April-December, 2020) (n = 18,099). Multimorbidity was measured using: a) an additive scale of chronic conditions; and b) six chronic disease clusters. Linear Mixed Models were employed to test hypotheses.Number of chronic conditions pre-pandemic was associated with pandemic levels of depression (estimate = 0.40, 95% CI: [0.37,0.44]); anxiety (estimate = 0.20, 95% CI: [0.18, 0.23]); and perceived negative impact of the pandemic (OR = 1.04, 95% CI: [1.02, 1.06]). The associations between multimorbidity and anxiety decreased during the period of the COVID-19 surveys (estimate = -0.02, 95% CI: [-0.05, -0.01]); whereas the multimorbidity association with perceived impact increased (OR = 1.03, 95% CI: [1.01, 1.05]).This study demonstrates that pre-pandemic multimorbidity conditions are associated with worsening mental health.Clinicians treating mental health of older adults need to consider the joint effects of multimorbidity conditions and pandemic experiences to tailor counseling and other treatment protocols.

Psoriasis is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease that is prone to recurrence, and the proinflammatory factor, cysteine-rich protein 61 (Cyr61), is important in its pathophysiology. Long-term clinical practice has shown that Sancao Formula (SC), a Chinese herbal compound, is effective in the treatment of psoriasis, but the precise mechanism remains unknown. In this study, we investigate the mechanism by which SC extract alleviates imiquimod (IMQ)-induced psoriasis.The expression of Cyr61 in psoriatic lesions and normal healthy skin was detected using immunohistochemical analysis to investigate the biological role of Cyr61 in models of psoriatic inflammation. A psoriatic mouse model was established by topical application of IMQ, and the effect of topical application of SC extract was evaluated using the psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) score, hematoxylin-eosin staining, and histopathological features of the skin. Next, a HaCaT cell inflammation model was established using interferon-γ (IFN-γ), and the effect of SC extract on the mRNA and protein levels of Cyr61 and intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) was confirmed using Western blot and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction analyses.Immunohistochemical staining showed that the expression of Cyr61 in psoriatic lesions was higher than that in normal skin samples (78.26% vs 41.18%, P 0.05), and the number of Cyr61-positive cells in psoriatic lesions was also significantly higher than in normal skin (18.66 ± 2.51 vs 4.33 ± 1.52, P 0.05). Treatment in mice with IMQ-induced psoriasis showed that SC extract could significantly improve the inflammatory phenotype, PASI score (10.875 ± 0.744 vs 3.875 ± 0.582, P 0.05), and pathological features compared with those in IMQ model group; SC treatment was also associated with decreased levels of Cyr61 and ICAM-1. In the IFN-γ-induced inflammatory cell model, the mRNA and protein levels of Cyr61 and ICAM-1 were upregulated, while the SC extract downregulated the levels of Cyr61 and ICAM-1.The results provide a theoretical basis for the involvement of Cyr61 in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, and suggest that SC should be used to target Cyr61 for the prevention of psoriasis recurrence.

In the docking process of aeroengine rotor parts, docking accuracy that indicates the gaps between the end faces is strictly required. A key issue is improving docking accuracy using automated docking equipment. In this paper, a systematic study is carried out on the error modeling and compensation of a novel six-degrees-of-freedom (6-DOF) docking equipment for aeroengine rotors. First, a new model for indicating the main indexes of docking accuracy is proposed. Then, the error model of a specially designed 6-DOF docking equipment is established based on a modified Denavit Hartenberg method with five parameters. Subsequently, two error compensation methods are proposed. Based on the above models, a docking accuracy simulation algorithm is proposed using the Monte Carlo method. Finally, verification experiments are conducted. The results show that, for the maximum values and standard deviations of the gaps between the rotor end-faces in the actual and target positions and attitudes, i.e., main indexes that represent docking accuracy, the deviation rates between the simulation and experimental results are less than 20%. The modeling methods have referential significance. The decline rates of these values are 50–65% when using the two proposed compensation methods. The compensation methods significantly improve the docking accuracy.

Objectives Older adults (65 years and older) are increasingly providing care for their spouses, family members, and non-kin others (e.g., friends and neighbours). However, available knowledge of older caregivers is limited to spousal caregivers and their psychological outcomes. Other caregiver role types or social outcomes among older caregivers are less well studied. Thus, this study examines the social participation and social support among older caregivers by comparing three types of older caregivers, including spousal caregivers, non-spouse family caregivers, and non-kin caregivers. Methods Participants for this study were drawn from the Baseline and Follow-up 1 data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. A total of 3,789 older adults became caregivers during the two data collection timepoints. Linear mixed models were applied to examine the change of social participation and social support among the three caregiver role types over the course of survey. Results The study finds that after transitioning into the caregiving role, spousal caregivers and non-kin caregivers experienced a decline in social participation, and spousal caregivers also received less social support over time. When comparing the three caregiver role types, spousal caregivers reported the greatest decline in social participation and social support. Discussion This study adds to the relatively limited knowledge on older caregivers by presenting the changes of social participation and social support after transitioning into three types of caregiver roles. The results indicate the need to provide support for caregivers, particularly spousal and non-kin caregivers, to help them maintain social relationships and networks for participation and support.

Aerobic exercises could improve the sperm motility of obese individuals. However, the underlying mechanism has not been fully elucidated, especially the possible involvement of the epididymis in which sperm acquire their fertilizing capacity. This study aims to investigate the benefit effect of aerobic exercises on the epididymal luminal milieu of obese rats. Sprague–Dawley male rats were fed on a normal or high-fat diet (HFD) for ten weeks and then subjected to aerobic exercises for 12 weeks. We verified that TRPA1 was located in the epididymal epithelium. Notably, aerobic exercises reversed the down-regulated TRPA1 in the epididymis of HFD-induced obese rats, thus improving sperm fertilizing capacity and Cl− concentration in epididymal milieu. Ussing chamber experiments showed that cinnamaldehyd (CIN), agonist of TRPA1, stimulated an increase of the short-circuit current (ISC) in rat cauda epididymal epithelium, which was subsequently abolished by removing the ambient Cl− and HCO3−. In vivo data revealed that aerobic exercises increased the CIN-stimulated Cl− secretion rate of epididymal epithelium in obese rats. Pharmacological experiments revealed that blocking cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (CFTR) and Ca2+-activated Cl− channel (CaCC) suppressed the CIN-stimulated anion secretion. Moreover, CIN application in rat cauda epididymal epithelial cells elevated intracellular Ca2+ level, and thus activate CACC. Interfering with the PGHS2-PGE2-EP2/EP4-cAMP pathway suppressed CFTR-mediated anion secretion. This study demonstrates that TRPA1 activation can stimulate anion secretion via CFTR and CaCC, which potentially forming an appropriate microenvironment essential for sperm maturation, and aerobic exercises can reverse the down-regulation of TRPA1 in the epididymal epithelium of obese rats.

Haplotype networks are graphs used to represent evolutionary relationships between a set of taxa and are characterized by intuitiveness in analyzing genealogical relationships of closely related genomes. We here propose a novel algorithm termed McAN that considers mutation spectrum history (mutations in ancestry haplotype should be contained in descendant haplotype), node size (corresponding to sample count for a given node) and sampling time when constructing haplotype network. We show that McAN is two orders of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art algorithms without losing accuracy, making it suitable for analysis of a large number of sequences. Based on our algorithm, we developed an online web server and offline tool for haplotype network construction, community lineage determination, and interactive network visualization. We demonstrate that McAN is highly suitable for analyzing and visualizing massive genomic data and is helpful to enhance the understanding of genome evolution. Availability: Source code is written in C/C++ and available at https://github.com/Theory-Lun/McAN and https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/biocode/tools/BT007301 under the MIT license. Web server is available at https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/bit/hapnet/. SARS-CoV-2 dataset are available at https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/ncov/. Contact: songshh@big.ac.cn (Song S), zhaowm@big.ac.cn (Zhao W), baoym@big.ac.cn (Bao Y), zhangzhang@big.ac.cn (Zhang Z), ybxue@big.ac.cn (Xue Y).

Purpose Little attention has been given to the effects of returnee entrepreneurs on external and internal corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study aims to investigate whether returnee entrepreneurs engage in more external or internal CSR and to further explore the contingency effects of foreign market embeddedness and local government endorsement. Design/methodology/approach This study uses 11,967 startups in China to examine the relationship between returnee entrepreneurs and external and internal CSR. The authors use an ordinary least square regression and propensity scoring matching approach to analyze the data. Findings The empirical results show that returnee entrepreneurs are more likely to undertake external CSR but less likely to undertake internal CSR. Foreign market embeddedness and local government endorsement have opposite moderating effects on these relationships. Practical implications This study has important implications for returnee entrepreneurs’ strategic choice between external and internal CSR and also provides theoretical support for policymakers to make effective and enforceable CSR policies. Originality/value This study discusses how returnee entrepreneurs implement external or internal CSR in China, answering the call to distinguish between external and internal CSR. Drawing on a legitimacy perspective, the authors find interesting and seemingly counterintuitive effects of returnees on external and internal CSR, which also necessitates distinguishing between these two types of CSR. In addition, the authors find different moderating roles of foreign market embeddedness and local government endorsement.