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Background: Requirements of blood transfusions rise rapidly in China. Improving the efficiency of blood donation could help maintaining sufficient blood supplement. We conducted a pilot research to investigate the reliability and safety of collecting more units of red blood cell by apheresis. Methods: Thirty‐two healthy male volunteers were randomized into two groups: red blood cell apheresis (RA) (n = 16) and whole blood (WB) donation (n = 16). RA group donated individualized RBC volumes by apheresis according to the volunteers' basal total blood volumes and haematocrit levels, WB group donated 400 mL whole blood. All volunteers were scheduled seven visit times in 8 weeks' study period. The cardiovascular functions were assessed by laboratory examinations, echocardiography and cardiopulmonary functional tests. All results were compared between groups at the same visit time and compared between visit 1(before donation) and other visit times within the same group. Results: The average donated RBC volume in RA group and in WB group was 627.25 ± 109.74 mL and 175.28 ± 8.85 mL, respectively(p < 0.05); the RBC, haemoglobin and haematocrit levels changed significantly between times and between groups (p < 0.05). Cardiac biomarker levels such as NT‐proBNP, hs‐TnT and CK‐MB did not change significantly between times or between groups (p > 0.05). The echocardiographic and cardiopulmonary results did not change significantly between times or between groups during the whole study period(p > 0.05). Conclusions: We provided an efficient and secure method for RBC apheresis. By harvesting more RBC volumes at one single‐time, the cardiovascular functions did not change significantly compared with traditional whole blood donation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Music intervention can reduce anxiety. This study analyzed the physiological changes from using music intervention after cardiothoracic surgery. Methods: Subjects were randomly assigned to the music group or the control group. The maximal inspiratory pressure/maximal expiratory pressure (MIP/MEP), pulse oximeter oxygen saturation (SpO2), visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were compared. Results: Compared to the control group (n = 9), the music group (n = 9) had higher MIP and MEP during the overall test (p < 0.05), with significant differences in the changes and time (p < 0.001). However, only MEP was significant in terms of the interaction between music intervention and time (p < 0.001). In terms of the groups, SpO2 and VAS were significant (p < 0.05). SBP, SpO2, and VAS over time showed significant differences between the two groups (p < 0.05). In terms of the interaction between music intervention and time, only SpO2 was significant (p < 0.05). The STAI-S scale decreased by −5.7 ± 5.8 in the music group vs. −0.47 ± 9.37 in control group and the STAI-T scale increased by 4.17 ± 12.31 in the music group vs. 1.9 ± 9.29 in the control group, but showed no significance. Conclusions: Music intervention with nature sounds has a positive physiological impact and can reduce postoperative pain and anxiety in cardiothoracic surgery patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large number of instability cases and laboratory tests of expansive soil slopes show that its shallow layer destruction happens because of the insufficient shear strength under the usual action of low stress and repeated dry-wet cycles. We can obtain the strength nonlinear distribution law fitted by generalized power function based on a series of shear strength tests of expansive soil considering low stress and can construct the numerical model considering the nonlinear strength distribution by FISH, to realize the shear strength dynamic distribution with the vertical stress. Based on the numerical model, the whole-process contrastive analysis has been conducted on the stress field, the slip surface depth, and the seepage field of plain soil and reinforced expansive soil cut slope under different rainfall conditions. Besides, the mechanics characteristic of the geogrid under various design schemes has been compared and analyzed. A further explanation has been given for the expansive soil cut slope prone to shallow layer failure after rainfall and on the effect of geogrid reinforcement. The numerical results provide a reference for slope stability analysis in rainy expansive soil areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, a highly efficient CaO-based catalyst was synthesized by using abalone shell as a precursor and ethanol as a modification agent for biodiesel production. The physico/chemical properties of the catalysts, which could be tailored by altering the ethanol-treatment temperature (room temperature, 100 °C and 160 °C), were monitored by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analysis and Hammett indicator. Once treated with ethanol, the modified CaO (M-CaO) catalyst exhibited an increased catalytic activity mainly due to the high surface area, increased specific basicity and decreased crystalline size compared to the unmodified CaO (U-CaO) catalyst. Particularly, when the ethanol treatment temperature was 100 °C, the maximal yield of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) for the M-CaO catalyst could reach 96.2% (87.5% for the U-CaO catalyst). Furthermore, the M-CaO catalyst exhibited good reusability, having a superior catalytic activity compared to the U-CaO catalyst after recycling for more than five cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, rice husk ash (RHA, a solid waste from agriculture) was served as the support for loading calcined eggshell (another material derived from waste source) to prepare solid base catalyst. This catalyst was then applied for catalytically converting palm oil into biodiesel. The effects of catalyst preparation conditions (such as rice husk treatment temperature, the loading of calcined eggshell on the RHA, and the calcination temperature of eggshell-loaded RHA), reaction conditions (such as reaction time, methanol-to-oil molar ratio and catalyst loading) and the catalyst reusability were carefully studied. The experimental results revealed that 30% RHA 800 -800 exhibited the highest catalytic activity. More specifically, when the reaction was carried out with a reaction time of 4 h, methanol-to-oil molar ratio of 9:1, and catalyst loading of 7 wt.%, the biodiesel yield could reach 91.5%. Besides, after reused for more than 8 cycles, the catalyst could still possess a rather high biodiesel yield (above 80%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corn straw is an important non-grain feed resource, which is not suitable for feeding animals directly because of its high crude fiber content. Biological fermentation technology can reduce the content of anti-nutrient factors in corn stalk, improve its nutritional value and feeding value, and is widely used in the chemical production in corn stalk feed because of its simple operation and green environmental protection. The bio-fermented corn stalk plays a significant role in regulating animal health and has a broad application prospect in animal breeding. The nutritional characteristics of corn stalk before and after biological fermentation, the methods of biological fermentation of corn stalk and its application in animal feed were reviewed in this paper to provide a reference for the rational application of corn stalk in animal production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a dynamic 3D trajectory design of multiple cache-enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in a wireless device-to-device (D2D) caching network with the goal of maximizing the long-term network throughput. By storing popular content at the nearby mobile user devices, D2D caching is an efficient method to improve network throughput and alleviate backhaul burden. With the attractive features of high mobility and flexible deployment, UAVs have recently attracted significant attention as cache-enabled flying base stations. The use of cache-enabled UAVs opens up the possibility of tracking the mobility pattern of the corresponding users and serving them under limited cache storage capacity. However, it is challenging to determine the optimal UAV trajectory due to the dynamic environment with frequently changing network topology and the coexistence of aerial and terrestrial caching nodes. In response, we propose a novel multi-agent reinforcement learning based framework to determine the optimal 3D trajectory of each UAV in a distributed manner without a central coordinator. In the proposed method, multiple UAVs can cooperatively make flight decisions by sharing the gained experiences within a certain proximity to each other. Simulation results reveal that our algorithm outperforms the traditional single- and multi-agent Q-learning algorithms. This work confirms the feasibility and effectiveness of cache-enabled UAVs which serve as an important complement to terrestrial D2D caching nodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Infection and inflammation leading to injury or death of pre-oligodendrocytes (preOLs) is one of the principal initiating mechanisms in the pathogenesis of preterm periventricular leukomalacia (PVL). The present study explores the possible protective effect of curcumin against the toxicity of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated microglia on preOLs in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, preOLs in coculture with microglia exhibited increased apoptosis after exposure to LPS. LPS also induced significantly increased expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and NADPH oxidase (NOX) subunits, p67-phox and gp91-phox in microglia. Our results suggest that iNOS and NOX contribute to the apoptosis of preOLs by activated microglia. The potential anti-inflammatory effects of curcumin were tested to determine if they could help to minimize microglia-mediated damage. Curcumin (10µg/ml) was found to significantly inhibit the apoptosis of preOL and expression of either iNOS or NOX in the LPS-activated microglia. In vivo, curcumin was administered (50mg/kg/day, i.p.) to two-day-old neonatal Sprague–Dawley rats subjected to intracerebral injection of LPS. Treatment with curcumin either 1h before or immediately after LPS injection significantly ameliorated white matter injury and loss of preOLs, decreased activated microglia, and inhibited microglial expression of iNOS and translocation of p67phox and gp91phox to the microglial cell membranes in neonatal rat brains following LPS injection. These results suggest that curcumin has a protective effect on infection-driven white matter injury, which is associated with suppression of iNOS and NOX activation. Consequently, curcumin may have potential as a protective agent against immature white matter injury. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]