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This paper investigates the thermo-mechanical volume change behavior of municipal solid waste (MSW) by conducting drained heating-cooling tests at constant stresses and isothermal consolidation tests using a temperature- controlled triaxial apparatus. The experimental results show that the compression and swelling indexes of MSW specimen were temperature independent, and the heating-induced volumetric contraction was partially reversible upon cooling. Different from conventional soils, the thermally induced reversible and irreversible volumetric strains of MSW were much larger and stress level dependent. Apart from the experimental study, an isotropic thermo-elastoplastic constitutive model was developed in the framework of existing modified Cam-clay model, which allows the prediction of thermally induced volume changes of MSW. An important feature in this model was the derivation of thermally induced plastic volumetric strain based on the concept of equivalent stress. The capability of the proposed model was validated against the experimental results and showed good predictions. This paper serves as the first attempt to study the thermo-mechanical volume change behavior of MSW, and has provided additional data for the serviceability evaluation of existing pipes as well as settlement and capacity estimation of MSW landfills at elevated temperatures. Key words: Municipal solid waste, temperature, volume change, constitutive model, thermo-mechanical, 1. Introduction Elevated temperatures (ETs) caused by biochemical degradation of organic wastes within municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are widely observed and reported, which are usually featured with long periods [...]

This article studies the fault‐tolerant consensus issue of a class of nonlinear two‐time‐scale‐agent systems with heterogeneous sensor faults and external disturbances. First, the decentralized proportional integral (PI) observer for each agent is constructed to estimate the states and sensor faults simultaneously. Then, a distributed adaptive protocol based on the decentralized PI observer is designed to guarantee the consensus of the underlying systems. Some sufficient existence conditions are given in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) for the decentralized PI observer and the fault tolerant consensus protocol. Note that H∞$$ {H}_{\infty } $$ performance index is employed to attenuate the influence of sensor faults and disturbances on state estimation and the consensus of the underlying systems. Finally, the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method are demonstrated by an application example and a numerical example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To guide clinical blood transfusion practices for pediatric patients, the National Health Commission has issued the health standard "Guideline for pediatric transfusion" (WS/T 795-2022). Blood transfusion for children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is highly complex and challenging. This guideline provides recommendations on transfusion thresholds and the selection of blood components for these children. This article presents the evidence and interpretation of the transfusion provisions for children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, with the aim of enhancing the understanding and implementation of the "Guideline for pediatric transfusion".

To guide clinical blood transfusion practices for pediatric patients, the National Health Commission has issued the health standard "Guideline for pediatric transfusion" (WS/T 795-2022). Blood transfusion is one of the most commonly used supportive treatments for children with hematological diseases. This guideline provides guidance and recommendations for blood transfusions in children with aplastic anemia, thalassemia, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, acute leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. This article presents the evidence and interpretation of the blood transfusion provisions for children with hematological diseases in the "Guideline for pediatric transfusion", aiming to assist in the understanding and implementing the blood transfusion section of this guideline.

In order to guide clinical blood transfusion practices for pediatric patients, the National Health Commission has released the health standard "Guideline for pediatric transfusion" (WS/T 795-2022). Considering the physiological particularities of the neonatal period, blood transfusion practices for neonates are more complex than those for other children, the guidelines include a separate chapter dedicated to neonatal blood transfusion. This paper interprets the background and evidence for the compilation of the neonatal blood transfusion provisions, hoping to aid in the understanding and implementation of the neonatal blood transfusion section of the guidelines.

Background: Accurate preoperative evaluation of microvascular invasion (MVI) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is crucial for surgeons to make informed decisions regarding appropriate treatment strategies. However, it continues to pose a significant challenge for radiologists. The integration of computer-aided diagnosis utilizing deep learning technology emerges as a promising approach to enhance the prediction accuracy. Methods: This experiment incorporated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans with six different sequences. After a cross-sequence registration preprocess, a deep neural network was employed for the segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma. The final prediction model was constructed by combining radiomics features with clinical features. The selection of clinical features for the final model was determined through univariate analysis. Results: In this study, we analyzed MRI scans obtained from a cohort of 420 patients diagnosed with HCC. Among them, 140 cases exhibited MVI, while the remaining 280 cases comprised the non-MVI group. The radiomics features demonstrated strong predictive capability for MVI. By extracting radiomic features from each MRI sequence and subsequently integrating them, we achieved the highest area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.794±0.033. Specifically, for tumor sizes ranging from 3 to 5 cm, the AUC reached 0.860±0.065. Conclusions: In this study, we present a fully automatic system for predicting MVI in HCC based on preoperative MRI. Our approach leverages the fusion of radiomics and clinical features to achieve accurate MVI prediction. The system demonstrates robust performance in predicting MVI, particularly in the 3-5 cm tumor group., Competing Interests: Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists., (© The author(s).)

Long-term fertilization has an important effect on soil fertility and soil microbial activity. In order to explore the effects of long-term fertilization on soil extracellular enzyme activities and nutrient characteristics in a terrace on the Loess Plateau, we based our investigation on the long-term nutrient localization plot of Ansai Soil and Water Conservation Experimental Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences. We measured the soil physicochemical properties, microbial biomass, and extracellular enzyme activities of six fertilization treatments, which included no fertilization (CK); manure and nitrogen fertilization (MN); manure and phosphate fertilization (MP); manure, nitrogen, and phosphate fertilization (MNP); manure (M); and nitrogen and phosphate fertilization (NP). The results showed that all fertilization treatments significantly increased soil nutrient content and soil extracellular enzyme activities compared with that in CK. Correlation analysis showed that extracellular enzyme activity and soil physicochemical properties had an extremely significant correlation. The redundancy analysis indicated that soil nutrient and soil microbial biomass could explain 79.66% and 74.87% of the variation in soil extracellular enzyme activity and its stoichiometric ratio, respectively. Thus, the effects of fertilization on soil fertility were primarily through influencing soil extracellular enzyme activities indirectly. M, MN, MP, and MNP significantly improved soil organic carbon (SOC); soil total nitrogen (STN); and carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) source enzyme content; however, MNP changed the soil pH, which had an inhibitory effect on microbial activities. Vector analysis showed that the microbial communities of all treatments were in the condition of P limitation. Although MNP could alleviate the extent of P limitation, there was no significant difference between M and MP. Our study indicated that long-term application of manure[7500 kg·(hm 2 ·a) -1 ]could meet the nutrient requirements of dryland crop growth, and long-term application of manure combined with phosphorus fertilization could alleviate the resource constraints faced by microorganisms. Consequently, our results provide a new insight into improving regional nitrogen excess.

In order to explore how water stress affects the stoichiometric characteristics in leaves, stems, very fine roots (0-1 mm), fine roots (1-2 mm) and thick roots (>2 mm) of three shrub species, we studied the effects of three water treatments [(75±5)%, (55±5)% and (35±5)% of field water capacity (FC)] on the stoichiometric characteristics of different organs of Syringa oblata , Rosa xanthina and Forsythia suspensa in a pot experiment. The results showed that there were significant differences in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) contents, C:N, C:P and N:P of the same organ among the three species. With the intensification of drought stress, there was no significant change of C content in all organs of the three species. The N content increased in leaves, but decreased gradually in stems. The N content in very fine roots and fine roots increased first and then decreased. The P content decreased in leaves and stems, while increased first and then decreased in very fine roots and fine roots. Under drought stress, leaf C:N decreased, C:P and N:P of leaf and stem increased. There was the strongest effect of drought stress on the C:N of very fine roots and C:P and N:P of leaves. There was the least effect of drought stress on C:N, N:P of thick roots and C:P of very fine roots. There was no significant correlation between the contents of C, N in soil and the contents of C, N and P in shrub organs, but soil P content was significantly correlated with the contents of C, N and P in leaves and roots. It was concluded that the relative P limitation in soil was the most important factor affecting the stoichiometric characteristics of shrub organs. Drought had different effects on the stoichiometry of different organs in different shrub species. The stoichio-metry of leaves and very fine roots was more sensitive to drought stress than that of other organs. Drought might affect the stoichiometric characteristics especially related to P in different organs of shrubs, mainly by affecting plant absorption of soil P and its distribution in different organs.

A greenhouse study on the effects of soil covering on pepper (Capsicum anmuum L.) water use efficiency and soil nitrate and available phosphorus contents showed that straw mulch + plastic film mulch could get the highest pepper yield water use efficiency (33.04 kg . m(-3)) and economic water use efficiency (50.22 yuan . m(-3)), followed by plastic film mulch, with the two parameters being 18.81 kg . m(-3) and 28.57 yuan . m(-3), respectively. Significant differences of nitrate N content in 0-20 cm soil layer were observed among different treatments. The control had the highest nitrate N content (50.33 mg . kg(-1)), followed by straw mulch (31.98 mg . kg(-1)) and straw + plastic film mulch (31.96 mg . kg(-1)), and plastic film mulch and applying water preserving agent. Compared with the control, soil covering could increase the nitrate N use efficiency of pepper, and decrease the accumulation of nitrate N in plough layer. In 0-20 cm soil layer, treatment plastic film mulch had the lowest available phosphorus content (0.72 mg . kg(-3)), and the second (0. 92 mg . kg(-1)) was the treatment straw + plastic film mulch. Treatments straw + plastic film mulch and plastic film mulch could increase pepper fruit yield and fertilizer use efficiency, and decrease fertilizer loss.