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Purpose. To evaluate changes in corneal sensitivity and subbasal nerve density after pterygium excision. Methods. This prospective trial included 22 eyes with nasal primary pterygium and 18 controls. Corneal sensitivity was evaluated using a Cochet–Bonnet esthesiometer in the nasal, superior, temporal, inferior, and center quadrants of the cornea before surgery and 10 days, 1 month, and 3months after surgery. The central cornea was analyzed using in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) before surgery and 1 and 3 months after surgery. Subbasal nerve density and other nerve parameters were analyzed using NeuronJ. Nerve tortuosity was evaluated and graded in individual IVCM scans. The tear film break-up time (TBUT) test and Schirmer’s test were performed before surgery, as well as 1 and 3 months after surgery. All the same tests were performed in the controls. Results. All affected eyes showed a significant increase in corneal sensitivity in the nasal corneal quadrant after surgery when compared with preoperative data (F = 37.3; P<0.01). Compared with controls, pterygium patients demonstrated decreased corneal subbasal nerve density (P<0.01), fewer nerve trunks (P<0.01), and fewer nerve branches (P<0.05). However, an increased central corneal subbasal nerve density was observed 1 month after surgery compared with preoperative data, after which the density became stable (F = 9.62; P<0.01). Nerve tortuosity showed no difference between the two groups or across different time points in patients. Similarly, patients with pterygium demonstrated a decrease in TBUT (P<0.01) when compared with controls. A tendency toward increase was observed in the TBUT test after pterygium excision (F = 2.873; P=0.07). However, no difference was observed in Schirmer’s test. Conclusion. Pterygium patients demonstrated deteriorated corneal subbasal nerve fibers when compared with healthy controls in terms of nerve length, nerve trunks, and nerve branches. Therefore, pterygium excision improves corneal sensitivity and increases corneal subbasal nerve density.

A novel meta-material has been designed and implemented into a rotor blade to enhance aerodynamic efficiency by achieving a passive twist during rotation. The twist is induced by bend-twist coupling exhibited in the meta-material, which is created to possess anisotropic elastic properties at the bulk level. A concept design of a rectangular blade spar is proposed where the metamaterial is used as the core material to induce twist. Using finite element analysis(FEA) we demonstrate how the bend-twist property of the blade spar is governed by cell geometries of the core material. The twist is activated by a lagwise bending moment generated from a movable mass at the blade tip due to off-centre centrifugal forces. The relationship between the twist, mass location and rotational speed has been explored. Moreover, it was found that the bend-twist property achieved by the proposed blade spar is more effective compared to that of an anisotropic thin-walled composite beam.

Additional file 9: Table S1 Regression equation of the calibration curves for IAA, ABA, GA3 and zeatin.

Additional file 10: Table S2 Primers for the qRT-PCR analysis used in this study.

Background Angelica root is the dry root of the Umbelliferae plant Angelica sinensis (oliv) Diels. Angelica organic acid (OA) is the main active ingredient in Angelica sinensis, and it exerts potential anti-atherosclerotic effects by preventing Oxidized low-density lipoprotein (Ox-LDL) induced endothelial injury. To study the protective effects of OA on ox-LDL-induced HUVECs autophagic flux dysfunction and inflammatory injury. Methods OA were isolated by water extraction and alcohol precipitation, and then the content of ferulic acid (FA) in the OA was determined by high performance liquid chromatography. The ox-LDL-induced endothelial injury model was established. The effect of ferulic acid on the survival of Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HVUECs) was detected by CCK-8 assay. HUVECs were pretreated with different concentrations of OA (20 μmol/L, 40 μmol/L, and 80 μmol/L), and Western Blot was used to detect the expressions of LC3II, p62, MCP-1, VCAM-1 and LOX-1. The autophagosomes in HUVECs were observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Results 20 μmol/L OA could increase the expression of LC3II and decrease the expression of p62, MCP-1, VCAM-1 and LOX-1. The results of TEM showed that angelica organic acids promoted cell organelle degradation in autolysosomes. Conclusion OA could reduce inflammation, protect endothelial cells and play an anti-atherosclerotic role by enhancing the autophagy flux of damaged endothelial cells, in which FA the major active ingredient of OA played a major role.

Extensive use of organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) in crop protection has aroused worldwidely great concern about safety and the detection of OPs is of great significance to food safety and human health. In this work, peptides attached with tetraphenylethylene (TPE) molecule were synthesized to from an aggregation-induced emission fluorescent probe (TPE-Peptide) for the determination of OPs. The working mechanism was as follows: in presence of OPs, OPs would react with active site serine in the peptide sequence via covalent bond and adducts were formed between OPs and the peptides; once formed, the adducts accelerated the aggregation of peptides, thus inducing strong emission of TPE-Peptide probe. So the adducts formation and the enhanced emission of the TPE-Peptide probe were the key factors for the OPs' sensing. Herein, the adducts formed between OPs and TPE-Peptide probe, the aggregated peptide fibrils were characterized by fluorescence, mass spectrometry, transmission electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering, atomic force microscopy, circular dichroism spectra and confocal fluorescence microscopy etc. This TPE-Peptide probe displayed highly sensitive fluorescence response where OPs' concentrations ranged from 1 to 100 μM with the limit of detection 0.6 μM and also showed selectivity.

Importance Hyperglycemia during acute ischemic stroke is common and is associated with worse outcomes. The efficacy of intensive treatment of hyperglycemia in this setting remains unknown. Objectives To determine the efficacy of intensive treatment of hyperglycemia during acute ischemic stroke. Design, Setting, and Participants The Stroke Hyperglycemia Insulin Network Effort (SHINE) randomized clinical trial included adult patients with hyperglycemia (glucose concentration of >110 mg/dL if had diabetes or ≥150 mg/dL if did not have diabetes) and acute ischemic stroke who were enrolled within 12 hours from stroke onset at 63 US sites between April 2012 and August 2018; follow-up ended in November 2018. The trial included 1151 patients who met eligibility criteria. Interventions Patients were randomized to receive continuous intravenous insulin using a computerized decision support tool (target blood glucose concentration of 80-130 mg/dL [4.4-7.2 mmol/L]; intensive treatment group: n = 581) or insulin on a sliding scale that was administered subcutaneously (target blood glucose concentration of 80-179 mg/dL [4.4-9.9 mmol/L]; standard treatment group: n = 570) for up to 72 hours. Main Outcomes and Measures The primary efficacy outcome was the proportion of patients with a favorable outcome based on the 90-day modified Rankin Scale score (a global stroke disability scale ranging from 0 [no symptoms or completely recovered] to 6 [death]) that was adjusted for baseline stroke severity. Results Among 1151 patients who were randomized (mean age, 66 years [SD, 13.1 years]; 524 [46%] women, 923 [80%] with diabetes), 1118 (97%) completed the trial. Enrollment was stopped for futility based on prespecified interim analysis criteria. During treatment, the mean blood glucose level was 118 mg/dL (6.6 mmol/L) in the intensive treatment group and 179 mg/dL (9.9 mmol/L) in the standard treatment group. A favorable outcome occurred in 119 of 581 patients (20.5%) in the intensive treatment group and in 123 of 570 patients (21.6%) in the standard treatment group (adjusted relative risk, 0.97 [95% CI, 0.87 to 1.08],P = .55; unadjusted risk difference, −0.83% [95% CI, −5.72% to 4.06%]). Treatment was stopped early for hypoglycemia or other adverse events in 65 of 581 patients (11.2%) in the intensive treatment group and in 18 of 570 patients (3.2%) in the standard treatment group. Severe hypoglycemia occurred only among patients in the intensive treatment group (15/581 [2.6%]; risk difference, 2.58% [95% CI, 1.29% to 3.87%]). Conclusions and Relevance Among patients with acute ischemic stroke and hyperglycemia, treatment with intensive vs standard glucose control for up to 72 hours did not result in a significant difference in favorable functional outcome at 90 days. These findings do not support using intensive glucose control in this setting. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:NCT01369069

ObjectiveTo assess the added value of neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) compared with conventional diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and anatomical MRI to detect changes in presymptomatic carriers of chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72) mutation.MethodsThe PREV-DEMALS (Predict to Prevent Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) study is a prospective, multicentre, observational study of first-degree relatives of individuals carrying the C9orf72 mutation. Sixty-seven participants (38 presymptomatic C9orf72 mutation carriers (C9+) and 29 non-carriers (C9−)) were included in the present cross-sectional study. Each participant underwent one single-shell, multishell diffusion MRI and three-dimensional T1-weighted MRI. Volumetric measures, DTI and NODDI metrics were calculated within regions of interest. Differences in white matter integrity, grey matter volume and free water fraction between C9+ and C9− individuals were assessed using linear mixed-effects models.ResultsCompared with C9−, C9+ demonstrated white matter abnormalities in 10 tracts with neurite density index and only 5 tracts with DTI metrics. Effect size was significantly higher for the neurite density index than for DTI metrics in two tracts. No tract had a significantly higher effect size for DTI than for NODDI. For grey matter cortical analysis, free water fraction was increased in 13 regions in C9+, whereas 11 regions displayed volumetric atrophy.ConclusionsNODDI provides higher sensitivity and greater tissue specificity compared with conventional DTI for identifying white matter abnormalities in the presymptomatic C9orf72 carriers. Our results encourage the use of neurite density as a biomarker of the preclinical phase.Trial registration numberNCT02590276.

Based on published literature and typical profiles from the Nankai University source library, a total of 3326 chemical profiles of the main primary sources of ambient particulate matter (PM) across China from 1987 to 2017 are investigated and reviewed to trace the evolution of their main components and identify the main influencing factors concerning their evolution. In general, the source chemical profiles are varied with respect to their sources and are influenced by different sampling methods. The most complicated profiles are likely attributed to coal combustion (CC) and industrial emissions (IE). The profiles of vehicle emissions (VE) are dominated by organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC), and vary due to the changing standards of sulfur and additives in gasoline and diesel as well as the sampling methods used. In addition to the sampling methods used, the profiles of biomass burning (BB) and cooking emissions (CE) are also impacted by the different biofuel categories and cooking types, respectively. The variations of the chemical profiles of different sources, and the homogeneity of the subtype source profiles within the same source category are examined using uncertainty analysis and cluster analysis. As a result, a relatively large variation is found in the source profiles of CC, VE, IE, and BB, indicating that these sources urgently require the establishment of local profiles due to their high uncertainties. The results presented highlight the need for further investigation of more specific markers (e.g., isotopes, organic compounds, and gaseous precursors), in addition to routinely measured components, in order to properly discriminate sources. Although the chemical profiles of the main sources have been previously reported in the literature, it should be noted that some of these chemical profiles are currently out of date and need to be updated immediately. Additionally, in the future, specific focus should be placed on the source profile subtypes, especially with respect to local IE in China.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a promising method to prepare scaffolds for tissue regeneration. Collagen and chitosan composites are superior materials for tissue engineering scaffold but rarely printed due to their poor printability. Here, we prepared a series of tunable hybrid collagen/chitosan bioinks with significantly improved printability through hydrogen bond interaction and printed them into scaffolds by carefully controlling the temperature. Rheological tests proved the printable bioinks had sound shear thinning behavior, dramatical viscosity variation with temperature, and the gelation temperature from 7 to 10 °C. Chitosan could decrease the swelling ratio of the printed scaffolds, while their degradation rate increased with collagen proportion and the values of Young's modulus and tensile strength increased with chitosan proportion. Moreover, the scaffolds containing 2% (m/v) collagen and 2% (m/v) chitosan had a homogeneous and compact honeycomb-like structure, demonstrating the strengthening effect of chitosan. Cell viability assay presented vigorous cell growth on the surface of scaffolds, meanwhile, live cells were also found inside and at the bottom of the scaffolds, indicating the migration of cells. Therefore, chitosan can improve the printability of collagen and the hybrid collagen/chitosan bioinks can be printed into scaffolds with regulated properties, thus can fit different applications in tissue engineering.

Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) remains a highly desirable synthetic fluid for industries like aerospace and special machinery lubricants owing to its excellent chemical constancy, radiation and corrosion resistance, lubricating properties. However, like most phenomenal substances, even PFPE exhibits some shortcomings like low surface tension, which produces creeping and leakage from friction interface while in use. This manuscript reports a new method to rectify the creeping demonstrated by the PFPE lubricant, which is deemed to utilize the confinement effect of the supramolecular gel. A novel fluorine-functionalized gelator (BHD) which can gelatinize PFPE, was successfully synthesized. The results of molecular dynamics and experiment reveal that BHD compound self-assembles into spherical by interactions among the gelators and PFPE. The event of thermocapillary migration and creep behavior of the PFPE gel lubricants acting on the steel, while employing temperature gradients and exposure to the irradiation of Atomic Oxygen (AO) and Ultraviolet (UV) for 4 h was thoroughly investigated. The results reveal that the gelation of PFPE oils minimizes the thermocapillary migration of PFPE and averts the creeping from occurring at the sliding interface. The tribological representations of supramolecular gels ensure excellent lubricity and anti-wear performances under some critical environments, including ranging from high to low temperatures and irradiation in vacuum conditions. Furthermore, the supramolecular gels register that the PFPE oils are slow-release lubricants enabled by their complicated reassembling network, manifesting stronger anti-irradiation properties. These deductions make a strong case for this gel lubricant to replace PFPE lubricants administered for the lubrication of aerospace machinery components.

A novel and simple method for the preparation of two-component gel lubricant and some evaluation of its physicochemical and lubricating properties are reported. The addition of two-component gelator including bis(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate and cholesterol to white oil can result in self-assembly to form a gel. The gelation mechanism was characterized by the combination of atomistic molecular dynamics simulation and experiment. It not only has excellent thermal stability, but also possesses thermal reversibility, creep recovery and thixotropic properties. Noticeably, the gel can significantly enhance lubricous and AW performances of base oil. Obtained by FIB-TEM, EDS, XPS and QCM characterization, we speculate that the gelator forms an effective adsorption and tribochemical reaction film, so it can protect the contact surface from being worn.

This study developed nanocapsules by complex coacervation between gelatin (G) and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) for the encapsulation of zeaxanthin extracted from Lycium barbarum L. The optimum pH and G-CMC mass mixing ratio were determined by analysis of the zeta potential, turbidity, morphology, particle size distribution, complex coacervate yield, emulsification stability index (ESI) and emulsification activity index (EAI). The formation mechanism of the G-CMC coacervates was examined by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. Moreover, the morphology, particle size distribution, thermal properties and in vitro simulated gastrointestinal digestion of zeaxanthin nanocapsules were investigated. The results showed that the optimum mass mixing ratio of G-CMC was 9:1 (w/w) with an optimum pH of 4.50. FTIR analysis confirmed the electrostatic interaction between the –NH3+ of G and the -COO- of CMC in the formation of G-CMC complex coacervates. Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that nanoencapsulation could enhance the thermal stability of zeaxanthin. In vitro simulated gastrointestinal digestion experiments showed that zeaxanthin had good sustained release performance in simulated gastric fluid (SGF) and large amounts of zeaxanthin were released in simulated intestinal fluid (SIF).

Seven MgB2 bulk superconductors with good superconductivity and crystallinity were prepared under the pressure of 50 MPa at 950 °C and different sintering durations (15 ∼ 240 min) by spark plasma sintering (SPS), with the onset critical temperature (T c,onset) around 37.5 K. The superconducting properties and microstructure measured from the facets perpendicular (PeF) and parallel (PaF) to the compression direction of the SPSed MgB2 bulk samples were also analyzed to investigate the effect of the sintering duration on the MgB2 bulks and the discrepancy between the PeF and the PaF. The optimum performance was obtained from the sample prepared for 45 min for both facets, and the critical current density (J c) measured from the PeF and the PaF are 364 kA cm−2 and 344 kA cm−2 in self field at 20 K, respectively. The PeF exhibits better Jc performance than the PaF at low fields and the PaF exhibits better J c performance than the PeF at high fields. It can be concluded that the sintering duration affects the properties of the PeF mainly by changing their crystallite size. While for the PaF, the sintering duration mainly affects the microstructural defects, such as cracks, pores and secondary phase particles, thus further affecting their J c performances. In terms of the flux pinning mechanism of the SPSed MgB2 bulk samples, the PaF is less susceptible to sintering duration than the PeF, and the better J c performance of the PaF at high fields is due to the stronger grain boundary pinning. It can be also found that the point pinning being stronger at higher temperature is the result of the decreasing anisotropy of MgB2 bulk samples with the temperature.

Background and Study Aim Vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy (V-PDT) has been used for several benign vascular diseases. The aim of this pilot study was to demonstrate the potential benefits of VPDT in the treatment of gastric antral vascular ectasia (GAVE). Patients and Methods Data from patients with GAVE (n = 5) who underwent endoscopic V-PDT were analyzed retrospectively. Pre- and post-V-PDT clinical and endoscopic features, hemoglobin levels, and transfusion requirement were compared. Results The five GAVE patients received one to four sessions of V-PDT. The hemoglobin levels of all five patients increased steadily following V-PDT. Within 6–48 months of follow-up, gastrointestinal bleeding and melena disappeared in all five patients and none of the patients needed a transfusion. Endoscopy examinations showed that the dilated vessels had disappeared without scar formation. No significant side effects or adverse reactions were reported. Conclusion This preliminary study indicates the good selectivity, safety, and efficacy of V-PDT in the treatment of patients with GAVE. Larger prospective studies are needed to further confirm the feasibility of using V-PDT to treat patients with GAVE.

A series of novel polycyclic spiro-fused carbocyclicoxindoles were synthesized and investigated for their in vitro antiproliferative activities against nine human cancer cell lines. Five compounds (10i, 10l, 10n, 10p, and 10r) demonstrated anticancer activities against A2780s cells with IC50 values of less than 30 μM. In particular, compound 10i showed anticancer activities against seven cancer cell lines and stronger activities than cisplatin in A2780s, A2780T, CT26, and HCT116 cells. Further studies illustrated that compound 10i arrested cell cycle in G1 phase and induced apoptosis of HCT116 cells. This compound also effectively increased the protein levels of cleaved caspase-3, p53, and MDM2. Molecular docking results revealed that compound 10i could bind well to the p53-binding site on MDM2, indicating that it might work by blocking the MDM2-p53 interactions.

Volatile compounds from bone soup of yak (YBS) and yellow cattle (CBS) were investigated by combining gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS) fingerprinting with principal component analysis (PCA). A total of 40 and 43 compounds were identified by GC-MS of YBS and CBS, respectively. Nonanal was used as the “reference peak” to calculate the relative retention time and relative peak area of the other compounds in the chromatogram. A total of 16 and 35 common peaks were determined as the characteristic substances of YBS and CBS, respectively. Subsequently, eight and seven unique compounds were selected to evaluate the fingerprints of YBS and CBS, respectively, based on PCA. Our findings confirmed the 8 and 7 substances among the 16 and 35 substances, respectively, as described above. Therefore, the established fingerprinting of volatile compounds for bone soup by combining GC-MS with PCA was a simple and reliable method. This method could provide references for category identification.

At present, the globalization of the world economy continues to intensify, and the pace of technological modernization is accelerating. Artificial intelligence methods such as big data and financial sharing are gradually replacing traditional working methods in all walks of life, and the accounting industry is no exception. Under the dual impact of globalization and the development of artificial intelligence, the demand for training international compound accounting professionals is large and increasing, "CPA examination system" as one of the most authoritative examinations in the field of accounting, its matching with the current environment is particularly important. Starting from the current status of CPA examination, the author has made an in-depth investigation and study on the CPA examination systems in many countries including China, the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany and Australia by consulting a large number of relevant literature. Meanwhile, they systematically analyzed the CPA examination systems in various countries from four dimensions: examination organization, examination threshold, examination cycle and examination subjects, explored the similarities and differences of CPA examination systems in the world's mainstream countries, and summarized the common problems and the advantages that can be used for reference, which has practical significance for the design and update of the CPA examination system in China. At the same time, it provides reference significance for improving the professional quality of accounting personnel and accelerating the pace of changing the functions of accounting personnel.

Enriching terminology base (TB) is an important and continuous process, since formal term can be renamed and new term alias emerges all the time. As a potential supplementary for TB enrichment, electronic health record (EHR) is a fundamental source for clinical research and practise. The task to align the set of external terms in EHRs to TB can be regarded as entity alignment without structure information. Conventional approaches mainly use internal structural information of multiple knowledge bases (KBs) to map entities and their counterparts among KBs. However, the external terms in EHRs are independent clinical terms, which lack of interrelations. To achieve entity alignment in this case, we proposed a novel automatic TB enrichment approach, named semantic & structure embeddings-based relevancy prediction (S2ERP). To obtain the semantic embedding of external terms, we fed them with formal entity into a pre-trained language model. Meanwhile, a graph convolutional network was used to obtain the structure embeddings of the synonyms and hyponyms in TB. Afterwards, S2ERP combines both embeddings to measure the relevancy. Experimental results on clinical indicator TB, collected from 38 top-class hospitals of Shanghai Hospital Development Center, showed that the proposed approach outperforms baseline methods by 14.16% in Hits@1.

The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan have affected more than 250 countries and regions worldwide. However, most of the clinical studies have been focused on Wuhan, and little is known about the disease outside of Wuhan in China. In this retrospective cohort study, we report the early clinical features of 80 patients with COVID-19 admitted to the hospital in Beijing. The results show that 27 (33.8%) patients had severe illness. Six (7.5%) patients were admitted to the ICU, and 3 (3.8%) patients died. Forty-eight percent (39/80) of the patients had a history of living/traveling in Wuhan. Patients with severe- illness were significantly older (average age, 71 years old vs 44 years old) and had a high incidence of expectoration (59.3% vs 34.0%), shortness of breath (92.6% vs 9.4%), anorexia (51.9% vs 18.9%) and confusion(18.5% vs 0%) compared with nonsevere patients. The systolic blood pressure (median, 130 mmHg vs 120 mmHg) was higher and the oxygen saturation (median, 98.3% vs 92.0%) was significantly lower in severe patients than nonsevere patients. In addition, myoglobin (median, 56.0 ng/mL vs 35.0 ng/mL), troponin I (median, 0.02 pg/mL vs 0.01 pg/mL), C-reactive protein (median, 69.7 mg/L vs 12.9 mg/L) and neutrophils (median, 3.3×109/L vs 2.2×109/L) were significantly increased, while lymphocytes (median, 0.8×109/L vs 1.2×109/L), albumin (mean, 32.8 g/L vs 36.8 g/L) and the creatinine clearance rate (median, 91.2 vs 108.2 ml/min/1.73m2) were significantly decreased among severe patients. Our study revealed that older patients with high levels of C-reactive protein, myoglobin, troponin I, and neutrophil and high systolic blood pressure as well as low levels of lymphocytes, and albumin and a low creatinine clearance rate and oxygen saturation were more likely to have severe disease.

Additional file 1. Other data tables and figure.

In this paper, the effect of various parameters of a specific rotor blade cross-section on the effectiveness of a twist morphing concept is investigated. Then, by considering different constraints, a cross-section consistent with this morphing concept with high lag-twist coupling and low extension-twist, is developed. This lag bending-torsion coupling is used to change the twist of the blade during the flight, while the high values of extension-twist coupling is avoided. To this end, a concentrated mass is added to the blade, where its chordwise location varies in flight. When the mass moves in the chordwise direction, a local lag bending is introduced into the blade. This in-plane bending moment then changes the blade twist distribution through lag-twist coupling induced through stiffness tailoring in the blade cross-section. Therefore, this coupling plays an important role in this morphing concept. The one-dimensional dynamics of the blade is modelled by using the geometrically exact fully intrinsic bean equations while the 2D cross-sectional stiffness values are determined by using the VABS software. First, a blade which resembles the BO-105 main rotor blade in the fundamental frequencies is designed. Then, the effect of various parameters of the cross-section on the fundamental frequencies, the lag-twist coupling, and the extension-twist coupling are determined. It is found that the skin of the spar has the highest contribution to both the extension-twist and the lag-twist coupling. Finally, a cross-section compatible with the proposed morphing concept is designed and it is demonstrated that the twist of the blade may be changed significantly.

Supplemental material, Supporting_information_1 for Study on syngas methanation mechanism over Ni4/MCM-41 catalyst based on the density functional theory by Jiaying Zhang in Progress in Reaction Kinetics and Mechanism

Increasing evidence shows that ambient temperature has extensive effects on reproductive health outcomes, including hypertensive disorders, preterm birth, and childhood health. In this chapter, related studies published in Chinese or in English were searched from electronic sources and references lists of identified sources, to obtain a whole picture on the updated association between ambient temperature exposure and reproductive health outcomes in Chinese population.

Gravity wharf is a common structure form in port engineering, and it is appropriate for rock foundation or the area of shallow buried bearing stratum. In this paper, stability analysis of gravity wharf and breakwater structure under seismic load in Fujian is studied, the potential factors of instability and corresponding repairing measures are put forward. These results have important significance to ensure the port operation safety and economize investment.

In this paper, a new concept for morphing composite blades is proposed, and how this concept changes the twist distribution of the blade is explained. A change in the blade twist is obtained by add...

The energy balancing concept seeks to reduce actuation requirements for a morphing structure by strategically locating negative stiffness devices to tailor the required deployment forces and moments. One such device is the spiral pulley negative stiffness mechanism. This uses a cable connected with a pre-tension spring to convert the decreasing spring force into the increasing balanced torque. The kinematics of the spiral pulley is first developed for bidirectional actuation, and its geometry is then optimized by employing an energy conversion efficiency function. The performance of the optimized bidirectional spiral pulley is then evaluated through the net torque, the total required energy, and energy conversion efficiency. Then, an additional test rig tests the bidirectional negative stiffness property and compares the characteristics with the corresponding analytical result. Exploiting the negative stiffness mechanism is of significant interest not only in the field of morphing aircraft but also in many other energy and power reduction applications.

A new concept of an integrated bidirectional torsional negative stiffness mechanism is introduced which allows for passive energy balancing of mechanical systems by reducing actuation requirements and improving energy efficiency. This novel design is a modular device, is bidirectional and is easily integrated and customised for different applications. The energy balance concept is achieved by employing a negative stiffness system to couple with a positive stiffness system of the mechanical system to create a zero stiffness system which can be driven with lower energy requirements. The bidirectional torsional negative stiffness mechanism proposed here uses a series of pre-compressed springs around a bidirectional torque shaft to convert decreasing force in the springs into increasing torque output through geometric reconfiguration to generate the negative stiffness characteristic. The kinematics of the negative stiffness mechanism were derived and a physical model was assembled from LEGO® components for validation. An analytical model was developed for prediction and the numerical results showed that a satisfactory performance can be generated to match the torque requirements. An experimental demonstrator was then built and tested to verify the predictions from the analysis. To show the impact of the energy balancing concept on actuator efficiency, a representative case study is made of a tendon-driven morphing active camber mechanism. The performance of the optimised bidirectional negative stiffness device is investigated to shows an improvement by the kinematics tailoring.

Inkjet printing technology is widely used in the manufacture of conformal structures, such as load-bearing antennas or frequency-selective surface radomes. It is particularly promising for preparing conductive patterns on non-developable surfaces. Existing printing technologies employ a single nozzle and a five-axis linkage technique for printing, which is time-consuming. In this study, a conformal plane printing technology based on the arrayed nozzle was developed to prepare conductive patterns on a non-developable surface. The technique actualizes fast printing of passive circuits on a conformal surface, such as a microstrip antenna. Compared to printing techniques employing a single nozzle, the proposed method greatly improves the printing efficiency on conformal surfaces. Specifically, we first developed a model for the driver waveforms and the printing injection parameters via simulation. Subsequently, the accuracy of the computational fluid dynamic simulation results was validated by comparing them with the experimental measurements of droplet trajectory captured using a camera. Next, a droplet spreading model was established, considering energy conservation principles. Finally, a conformal surface printing technology using arrayed nozzles was developed based on the injection parameter and droplet spreading models. The effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed printing method were further validated via simulation and experimental tests of return loss.

There is a lot of red clay along the Yuzhan expressway. In order to use local materials, improve the efficiency of economy and protect the environment, it is proposed to use red clay of Guangxi as roadbed material. Through the experiments, the influence of different mix amount of sand and lime on red clay properties, feasibility of soil improvement is demonstrated and the influence regularities of strength index are analyzed. The results provide important reference for design and construction of expressway.

With the increasingly serious environmental pollution and energy issues, water-based lubricating materials will gradually replace oil-based lubricating materials in some specific applications, which has become a trend. As a water-soluble lubricating additive, the synthesized proton-type ionic liquids (PILs) have the advantages of simple synthesis, good solubility stability, and excellent corrosion resistance properties, providing a method to better solve the problems of traditional water-based additives. The physical-chemical properties and lubrication functions of additives were characterized by foam corrosion test and tribological trials, with the detailed exploration of their lubricating mechanism obtained from QCM, TEM, TOF-SIMS, XPS and MD analysis. The results show that PILs display excellent friction-reducing and anti-wear performances, and improve the carrying capacity for water, which is mainly attributed to the formed tribofilm on the friction surface. The tribofilm is probably triggered by ions pair adsorption on the substrate surfaces, equipping with a typical bilayer structure self-assembly between two convexs. When it worked on the interface, a double layer structure is formed by the way of self-assembly, resulting in the formation of a continuous boundary protective film induced by tribochemical reaction, which can effectively reduce the shear damping during friction. Torque testing system results show that PILs have the smaller torque values, indicating their better lubricating performance in the small-scale platform test, which can make it to be used as a potential additive with excellent properties in water-based cutting fluids.

There is a large amount of red clay along a highway under construction in Southwest China. The red clay has high plasticity and small CBR which don’t meet the specification. This paper studied on red clay improvement by adding sand at foot of mountain. Research results show that the dry density of the improved red clay increases with the increase of the sand when the moisture content is the same. The optimum moisture content of improved red clay decreases with the increase of the sand. The maximum dry density increases with the increase of the sand. Liquid limit and plasticity index decrease after adding the sand. The CBR increases after adding the sand. The sand mixing ratio 4:6 was recommended to use in actual construction. And properties of improved red clay filler with the recommended ratio in actual construction meet the specification. Project implementation effect is very good.

OBJECTIVE: To observe the role of myeloperoxidase(MPO)and eosinophilic cationic protein(ECP)in the airway inflammation and their correlation with clinical feature in asthma-COPD overlap (ACO) patients. METHODS: Twenty patients with COPD, 20 with asthma, 20 with ACO and 20 control subjects underwent pulmonary function test for measurement of forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV(1)), forced vital capacity (FVC), peak expiratory flow (PEF), and maximum midexpiratory flow (MMF(25/75)). COPD assessment test (CAT) was used to evaluate the clinical symptoms of the patients with COPD and ACO. The asthma control test (ACT) was used to evaluate the asthma control in the patients with asthma and ACO. Induced sputum samples were collected from the subjects for analysis of neutrophil and eosinophil ratios, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to determine the expression levels of MPO and ECP in the sputum. RESULTS: No significant difference was observed in the CAT scores between ACO group and COPD group (P> 0.05). Compared with the asthma group, the patients with ACO had significantly lower ACT scores and lower FEV(1), PEF and MMF(25/75) (P < 0.05). The patients with ACO had significantly higher FVC and sputum eosinophil ratio than those with COPD (P < 0.05), and a higher sputum neutrophil ratio than those with asthma (P < 0.01). In ACO group, the MPO level in sputum was significantly higher than that in the asthma group (P < 0.05), while sputum ECP level was significantly higher than that in both the asthma group and COPD group (P < 0.05 or 0.01). In ACO group, sputum MPO level was positively correlated with sputum neutrophil ratio (r=0.8358, P < 0.01) but was not correlated with CAT score or FEV(1) (P> 0.05); sputum ECP level was positively correlated with sputum eosinophil ratio (r=0.4666, P < 0.05) and was inversely correlated with ACT score (r=-0.4966, P < 0.05) and FEV(1) (r=-0.4610, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Both neutrophilic and eosinophilic inflammations occur in the airway of patients with ACO, and their sputum ECP level is negatively correlated with asthma control and obstructive airflow limitation.

Action recognition is one significant yet challenging task in computer vision. Recent methods mainly model an end-to-end one-stage non-deep or deep learning networks to distinguish different action categories. In this paper we introduce one novel hierarchical action classification framework: Unlike existing one-stage recognition models, the proposed work improves the recognition accuracy by: 1) developing a hierarchical coarse-to-fine action classification framework by dividing the recognition processing into two stages: coarse- grained classification and fine-grained classification, and 2) representing actions in different stages with different granularity features representation: global features are utilized for coarse classifiers while more body parts patterns for fine-grained classifiers are aggregated. Experiments on two widely-tested benchmark datasets show that our method can achieve state-of-the-art or competitive performance compared with existing results using one-stage models, with advantages regarding the recognition accuracy and robustness.

Based on the published literatures and typical profiles from the source library of Nankai University, a total of 3244 chemical profiles of the main primary sources of ambient particulate matter across China from 1987 to 2017, including coal combustion, industrial emissions, vehicle emissions, fugitive dust, biomass burning, and cooking emissions, were investigated and reviewed to trace the evolution of their main components and identify the main influencing factors to the evolution. As a result, the most complicated profiles are likely attributed to coal combustion and industrial emissions, which are evidently influenced by the decontamination processes and sampling techniques as well as the coal nature and the boiler types. The profiles of vehicle emissions are dominated by OC and EC, and varied with the changing standard of sulfur and additives in the gasoline and diesel as well as the sampling methods. The profiles of fugitive dust, such as soil dust and road dust, are dominated by the crustal materials and influenced by the sampling methods to some extent. The profiles of biomass burning is impacted mainly by the biomass categories and sampling methods. As expected, the profiles of cooking emissions is impacted mainly by the cooking types and materials. The uncertainty analysis and cluster analysis of all these source profiles are conducted to reveal the variations of the different source profiles in the same source category and evaluate the differences between source categories. A relatively large variation has been founded in the source profiles of coal combustion, vehicle emissions, industry emissions and biomass burning, indicating that it is necessary to establish the local profiles for these sources due to their high uncertainties. While the profiles of road dust and soil dust present a less variation with the stable chemical characteristics among the different profiles in the same category, suggesting that the profiles of these sources could be referenced for the cities in China when such local profiles are not available. The presented results highlight the need for increased investigation of more specific markers beyond routine measured components (e.g., isotopes, organic compounds and gaseous precursors) to discriminate sources. Additionally, specific focus should be placed on the sub-type of source profiles in the future, especially for local industrial emissions and geographical areas in China, to support the air quality research communities in their efforts to develop high resolution source apportionment for making a more effective control strategies.

International audience; A cantilever-based sensor of magnetic force is a potential tool for magnetic susceptibility imaging in bulky materials. To solve the limitations of the previously reported sensors, in this study, a Hall device is employed to measure the magnetic field variation caused by the displacement of sensing magnet attached to the free end of the cantilever. The improved sensor has the smaller size and the higher lateral resolution and the adopted permanent magnet can be attached onto the cantilever’s free end to improve its sensitivity to the magnetic susceptibility. Based on the improved sensor configuration, two types of sensors are presented and their performances are experimentally investigated. Type-1 sensor with the cylindrical sensing magnet with a diameter of 5 mm is capable of detecting a cubic impurity (with a side length of 1 mm) of 304 stainless steel or aluminum with a depth of 1 mm in a photosensitive resin block. Type-2 sensor employs a sensing magnet with a diameter of 1.2 mm and possesses higher lateral resolution than Type-1 sensor. The estimated sensitivity of Type-2 sensor is about one third of that of Type-1 sensor. Although the impurity of aluminum and even resin cannot be distinguished from the air background in the magnetic susceptibility imaging results obtained by Type-2 sensor, the cubic impurity of 304 stainless steel can be successfully detected by Type-2 sensor.

Since the coherent noise in the interferometric system, the method of rotated diffuser would reduce the coherence of the light beam to suppress the noise of the interference image. By analyzing the coherent noise reduction characteristics of rotated diffuser with different surface roughness, the relationship between surface roughness and the noise contrast under different rotation speeds was simulated, and the effective roughness range with noise reduction effect would be selected. It would build a noise reduction system based on Fizeau interference, and collected and calculated the noise contrast of the interference image. The effective range of σh/λ was 0.2~0.5 when the rotation speed was 10r/s, while the effective range of σh/λ was 0.4~0.6 when the rotation speed is 100r/s. The experimental results showed that the surface roughness and wavelength ratio σh/λ of rotated diffuser increased when the noise contrast tended to 1, but the effective range of surface roughness decreases with the increase of the rotational speed of the diffuser.

International audience