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This study aims to explore the clinical efficacy of arthroscopic-assisted reduction combined with robot-navigated nail placement in the treatment of talar neck fractures. The clinical data of 13 patients with talar neck fracture in Xuzhou Benevolent Hospital from January 2018 to January 2021 were analyzed in the retrospective study. Among them, there were 9 males and 4 females, aged (36±12) years; there were 8 cases suffered on the right and 5 cases on the left. All patients were reset under arthroscopy and cannulated screws were placed in combination with three-dimensional navigation and positioning of orthopedic robot. The wounds and complications were observed in the postoperative follow-up. The activities of bilateral ankle dorsiflexion and plantar flexion were measured in the last follow-up. The visual analogue scale score (VAS) of pain in the affected feet before operation were compared with that at the last follow-up. The ankle and hind foot work energy scale of American Foot and Ankle Association (AOFAS) was used to assess the ankle function. The results showed that the wounds of 13 patients healed in one stage. The operation time was (95±45) min and the blood lose was (45±10) ml. All the patients were followed-up for (15.0±3.5) months. Two cases developed subtalar arthritis without talus necrosis and fracture nonunion. At the last follow-up, there was no significant difference in the dorsal extension and plantar flexion of the ankle between the affected side and the healthy side (25.8°±1.9° vs 26.2°±2.3°, 44.2°±2.7° vs 44.7°±2.8°, both为了探讨关节镜辅助复位结合机器人导航置钉对距骨颈骨折的疗效，回顾性分析2018年1月至2021年1月13例因距骨颈骨折在徐州仁慈医院治疗的患者的临床资料。其中，男9例，女4例，年龄（36±12）岁；右侧8例，左侧5例。患者均在关节镜下复位，结合骨科机器人三维导航定位置入空心螺钉。术后随访观察伤口及并发症，末次随访测量双侧踝关节背伸跖屈活动度，术前与末次随访患足疼痛视觉模拟评分（VAS）。采取美国足与踝关节协会（AOFAS）踝与后足功能量表进行踝关节功能评分。结果发现，13例患者伤口均一期愈合，手术时间（95±45）min，出血量（45±10）ml。患者获得（15.0±3.5）个月的随访。其中2例出现距下关节炎，未出现距骨坏死及骨折不愈合情况。末次随访测量双侧踝关节背伸活动度：患侧为25.8°±1.9°，与健侧（26.2°±2.3°）相比，差异无统计学意义（

Aluminum nitride with high thermal conductivity is an important packaging substrate material. The effects of Y2O3 and CaF2 on sintering properties, phase composition and microstructure for AlN ceramics were studied. The results show that the addition of Y2O3 and CaF2 improves the microstructure and density of ceramics. The bulk density and thermal conductivity of AlN ceramics with 1.8% Y2O3 and 1.2% CaF2 are 3.286 g/cm3 and 192 W/ (m·K) respectively. The microstructure analysis shows that the grain size of AlN is more homogeneous and less grain boundary phase which is distributed at the grain corner junction and independent of each other.

2019年底，武汉出现了由新型冠状病毒（2019-nCoV）引发的新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）。该疫情在短时间内迅速蔓延，严重威胁着公共卫生安全。目前，COVID-19尚无有效的治疗手段。血管紧张素转化酶2（ACE2）作为受体介导2019-nCoV进入细胞，是目前最有可能防治COVID-19的靶点之一。中老年人是COVID-19的易感人群，多伴有基础疾病，且大部分为心血管疾病，因此这部分人更容易发展为重症和危重症，造成严重的临床后果。ACE2是肾素-血管紧张素系统重要的组成部分，以此系统为靶点的ACE抑制剂和血管紧张素受体阻断剂等药物，是目前临床治疗高血压、心肌重构和心力衰竭等心血管疾病的最主要的药物之一。本文系统地介绍了COVID-19以及肾素-血管紧张素系统相关药物及其临床应用，并且分析了肾素-血管紧张素系统相关药物在COVID-19防治中的价值，以及并发心血管疾病的COVID-19患者用药方面需要注意的问题。.

Aiming to solve the crack problem at the connection between the metal diaphragm of the casting crane and the lower cover plate and web, a three-dimensional model of solid-shell coupling of a single main beam is established according to the design drawing of the casting crane, and the crack propagation was simulated using the expansion finite element method (XFEM). The results show that during the crack propagation process at the joint between the diaphragm and the web, the magnitude of the equivalent stress intensity factor ΔKeff is not much different from the magnitude of the type I crack stress intensity factor ΔKI during crack growth at the junction of diaphragm and web weld. The amplitudes of Type II and Type III stress intensity are smaller than those of Type I and equivalent stress intensity factors. In the process of fatigue cracking of the weld between the diaphragm and the web, the type I cracks dominate the role, and the type II and III cracking models have little effect on the connection between the diaphragm and the web.

A novel method based on filtering algorithm is proposed to predict fatigue crack growth life of metal structures under repeated loading. Three parts, including improvement of the two-parameter exponential formula, the improved two-parameter exponential formula parameter estimation and residual life prediction, are involved in the proposed method. The improved two-parameter exponential formula is discretized to establish a parameter estimation physical model of state space. Then, the uncertainty parameters α, β and crack length a in the state space physical model are determined according to the crack propagation data obtained by monitoring/detection and the filtering algorithm, to reduce the influence of uncertain factors such as environment and operation conditions on the prediction of fatigue crack growth life of in-service metal structures. Finally, the discretized improved two- parameter exponential formula are employed to predict the growth life of fatigue crack. An example is presented to test the validity of the proposed method. The result demonstrates that the proposed method is available to well deal with the uncertainty of fatigue parameters in the process of fatigue crack growth with the improved two-parameter exponential formula, and the particle filter algorithm can accurately predict the growth residual life of fatigue short crack.

Nitraria sibirica Pall. (Zygophyllaceae) are traditionally utilized as food or folk medicine in China. To provide the basis for exploiting Nitraria resources and developing a natural food antiseptic, we determined the in vitro radical scavenging activity and antimicrobial activities of N. sibirica fruits. For the radical scavenging activity study, fruits of N. sibirica were extracted by 70% acetone, ether, ethyl acetate and n-butanol successively. The DPPH and ABTS experiment showed that water phase extract had the highest radical scavenging activity. We have isolated isorhamnetin-3-O-β-L-rutinoside and isorhamnetin-3-O-rutinoside-7-O-glucoside from the water phase fraction, both of which are radical scavenging compounds. For antimicrobial activity study, fruits were extracted with 95% ethanol, petroleum ether, chloroform and n-butanol successively. Except n-butanol, all extracts exhibit antibacterial activity against three tested bacteria species (E. coli, B. subtilis, S. aureus). We have determined the MICs against the three bacterial species of ethyl acetate extract, which possessed the highest antibacterial activity.

In situ synchrotron X-ray measurements were performed on the isothermal annealed Zr48Cu36Al8Ag8 bulk metallic glass (BMG). The crystallisation behaviour and structural evolution during the isothermal annealing were investigated by pair distribution function (PDF) analyses. The results indicate that the crystallization behaviour of the samples annealing at 743 K can be well described by the PDF data. The crystallisation process starts from 12 min and finishes at 54 min, with a rapid transforming period within 24–42 min. Dramatic structural changes take place in short, medium and long atomic range during crystallization. It is found that atoms closely pack in short range, while loosely pack in medium range, indicating the short and medium range ordering in BMG. Furthermore, atoms pack more and more closely during crystallisation process, and finally form the closely packing shells.

To investigate the application effect of oncolytic herpes simplex virus Once Vex(GM-CSF) and adriamycin in malignant tumor.A total of 102 cases of malignant tumor were analyzed retrospectively from April 2013 to April 2015 of Cancer Treatment Center of Affiliated Hospital of Beihua University, and these cases were randomly divided into trial group (n=51) and control group (n=51). The control group was treated with adriamycin and the trial group patients received conditionally replicating adenoviruses on the basis of the control group.The adenovirus proliferation was analyzed via quantitative PCR to investigate the malignant tumor cell inhibitory action in two groups.Treatment group total effective rate (96.1%, 49/51) was significantly higher than the control group (78.4%, 40/51) (χ(2)=7.845, P=0.014). There were statistically significant difference of the killing capability between trial group (86.3%, 44/51) and control group (23.5%, 12/51) (χ(2)=7.859, P=0.013). Tumor shrinkage rate of trial group(76.5%, 39/51) was superior to that of the control group(19.6%, 10/51), the difference was statistically significant (χ(2)=7.654, P=0.019). There was statistically significant difference of the decrease of tumor marker CA125 between trial group (74.5%, 38/51) and control group (23.5%, 12/51) (χ(2)=7.342, P=0.023).Once Vex(GM-CSF) can effectively kill the tumor cells in the treatment of malignant tumor, and shrink the tumor significantly.

The block H-59 in the Daqingzijing region was selected as a pilot site for the first stage of the CCS project in Jilin oilfield after an extensive assessment. This block is a light oil reservoir with a low permeability. The performance of water flooding after the primary oil recovery was very poor. Therefore, CO2 injection has been started since April 2008 for EOR associated with CO2 storage for environmental benefits. This paper is aimed at assessing the current CO2 storage capacity and distribution at different states in the oil reservoir after 6-year injection until April 2014. Based on various CO2 trapping mechanisms, an evaluation method of CO2 storage potential is established to calculate the theoretical and effective CO2 storage capacities in target oil reservoir the current amount of CO2 buried in the H-59 block was calculated according to the field data. The reservoir numerical simulation was used to analyze the distribution and existing state of CO2 underground. The assessment results show that the theoretical capacity of CO2 storage in the H-59 block is 72.32×104 t, and the effective capacity of CO2 storage is 26.37×104 t. The calculation of effective CO2 storage capacity in oil reservoir considers the engineering practice of field operation during project life. The coverage factor of well pattern (k1) and the sweep coefficient of CO2 within the well pattern (k2) have been introduced in the method. Meanwhile, the mineral trapping was neglected for short-term storage of CO2 based on a preliminary geochemical simulation analysis. There are 17.45×104 t CO2 which has been buried in the block until April 2014. The distribution of buried CO2 between the injection and production wells is mainly determined by the reservoir physical properties and the total amount of CO2 injected in each well. Reservoir simulations indicate that 61.0% of CO2 buried in the oil reservoir has been trapped at supercritical state, and the amounts of CO2 dissolved in oil and water account for 24.4% and 14.6% respectively. These proportions of CO2 at different states are very close to the calculation results of effective CO2 storage capacity. In comparison to the effective CO2 storage capacity, it is thought that the block H-59 still has a certain storage potential of 8.92×104 t at present. For the assessment methods, the parameters k1 and k2 for calculation of effective CO2 storage capacity deserve for further discussion. It should be also noted that the accuracy of CO2 distribution predicted by reservoir simulation greatly depends on the accuracy of geological model. It needs more efforts to improve the understanding of the target reservoir properties.

0.30 mm thick and 90 mm wide thin foils made of Fe-6.5wt.%Si alloy were successfully fabricated by traditional rolling. The as-rolled sheets had good shapes and shining metal luster. The effects of annealing temperature on the magnetic properties of the sheets were investigated. Excellent Dc properties (Hc: 11.55 A/m, µm: 23710, and Bs: 1.439 T) were obtained at an annealing temperature of 1453 K for 1.5 h. At low frequencies (≤ 1 kHz), heat treatment temperature has little effect on iron loss which remained at the level of 9.8 W/kg. Annealing at 1273 K for 1.5 h is optimum for frequencies above 5 kHz.

Twenty-four 21-d-old Arbor Acres (AA) broilers with similar BW were randomly assigned into 4 groups to investigate the effects of stress on the absorption of glucose in the intestine of broilers and its mechanisms. In this study, dexamethasone (DEX), an analog to glucocorticoid secreted when animals suffer from stress, was chosen to simulate the effects of glucocorticoid. Broilers were injected subcutaneously with 0, 0.1, 1, or 5 mg of DEX/kg of BW into the abdomen for 7 d. To explain the nonspecific regulation of glucocorticoid on glucose transport of the jejunum in broilers, the effects of DEX on the jejunum mucosa morphology and disaccharidase activities in broilers were investigated. The results showed that DEX restrained the growth of broilers, and the extent of restraint increased with the increase of the dose of DEX (P0.05). However, the activities of sucrase and maltase in the jejunum of the broilers injected with DEX were not different from those of the control broilers (P0.05). In addition, DEX increased the crypt depth of jejunum in broilers, and decreased the villus height, absorption area, and villus height/crypt depth ratio significantly (P0.05), whereas DEX had no significant effect on villus width and the thickness of mucosa lamina propria (P0.05). To clarify the specific regulation of glucocorticoid on the glucose transport of jejunum in broilers, the absorption of glucose by jejunum brush border membrane vesicles (BBMV) was investigated, and the expression of Na+-dependent glucose transporter (SGLT1) mRNA was detected by real-time PCR. The results showed that DEX significantly inhibited the glucose absorption of jejunum BBMV (P0.05), and the extent of inhibition depended on the dose of DEX. In addition, DEX decreased the expression of SGLT1 mRNA significantly (P0.05). According to these data, we concluded that DEX restrains the glucose transport of jejunum in broilers through nonspecific and specific regulations.

The dynamic expression of genes for oil and protein contents of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) was carried out with time-dependent measures by using the developmental genetic models for quantitative traits in diploid plant. The unconditional and conditional analysis showed that the accumulated genetic effects or net genetic effects from diploid embryo nuclear genes, cytoplasmic genes and diploid maternal plant nuclear genes were all important for the performance of both nutrient quality traits at most developmental times/stages. Results from the conditional analysis further revealed that the activation of quantitative genes was gradually carried through the developmental process with maternal genes playing more active role at most developmental stages. Additive effects from embryo and maternal plant were found more important than the dominant effects at most developmental times/stages for both traits, and especially for protein content of rapeseed. Heritability analysis confirmed that the maternal heritability for protein contents were considerably stronger throughout developmental period except for the developmental time at 22 days, while for oil content the heritability components were dynamic and time dependent. The differences of genetic relationships from various genetic systems were found for oil and protein contents among the developmental times or between the two quality traits.

Spot weld fatigue performance of dual phase steels is of great interest to worldwide automotive manufacturers due to their expanding use in automotive industry. Given that the majority of the fatigue life is spent propagating the crack through the microstructure, changes in microstructure of welding steels could result in significant changes in spot weld fatigue life compared to that of low carbon steel spot weld. In the present study, tensile shear spot welds of DP600GI, DP780GI with different thickness were used for fatigue test under various amplitude tensile loads. For comparison tensile shear fatigue test was also conducted for spot welds of low carbon steel. Microhardness was measured for spot weld of dual phase steels to study the hardness change across the weld nugget. Failure mechanism and crack propagation path of dual phase steel spot weld was studied. For spot welds of low thickness, the fatigue strength of dual phase steel spot weld is higher than that of low carbon steel specimen in ...

Glass formation and glass-forming ability (GFA) in the La(100−x)[Al0.412(Cu,Ni)0.588]x (x = 30–44.6 at.%) system were studied in detail, and effectiveness of the phenomenological GFA indicator γ, defined as Tx/(Tg + Tl) (Tx onset crystallization temperature, Tg glass transition temperature and Tl liquidus temperature), is also discussed. Our experimental data indicate that γ is generally reliable in estimating the GFA of the current alloy system. Based on the framework of phase competition and crystallization kinetics, composition effects on GFA and its indicator γ in both simple regular and irregular eutectic systems were further analyzed. It was confirmed that γ is capable of representing the GFA of most alloys in both eutectic systems but might be less accurate in assessing the GFA of the compositions whose decisive competing crystalline phase during cooling is different from that upon devitrification. In the latter cases, the measured Tx value upon devitrification is not sufficient to indicate the crystallization resistance of the real competing phase during cooling.

Galvanised sheet steels are now widely used to be the substrate for body in white (BIW) construction in the automotive industry. Weldability of galvanised sheet steels much worsened compared to spot welding of low carbon steels. The present paper develops a 2D axisymmetric model and employs an incremental coupled thermal–electrical–mechanical analysis to predict the nugget development during resistance spot welding (RSW) of galvanised sheet steels. Temperature dependent contact resistance for faying surfaces was determined to take into account of the influence of zinc coat for spot welding galvanised sheet steels. The effect of dynamic contact radii on temperature distribution was studied and compared with results under constant contact area assumption. The predicted nugget shape and size agreed well with the experimental data. Higher current and longer welding time should be applied for galvanised sheet steels compared to low carbon steel spot welding. The proposed model can be applied to predict...

A sub-cycling algorithm presented by Belytschko and Mullen (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Engng 1978; 12(10):1575–1586) has been successfully applied in the finite element method. However, the problem of how to apply the sub-cycling to flexible multi-body dynamics (FMD) still lacks investigation. This paper presents a Newmark-based sub-cycling, which is suitable for solving condensed FMD models. Common-step update formulae and sub-step update formula for the sub-cycling are established based on the original Newmark integration algorithm. Stability of the procedure is validated by means of energy balance checking during the integral process. Numerical examples indicate that the sub-cycling is able to enhance the computational efficiency without dropping accuracy greatly. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The gas and solid dual phase atomisation technology has been developed with a high velocity gas jet stream containing solid particles as the atomisation medium. Particles of NaCl, Al–20Si alloy and SiC are adopted as the alternative atomisation medium to produce fine powders of stainless steel, Al–20Si alloy and 6061Al alloy respectively. Metal and alloy powders with a finer particle size, a narrower size distribution, a higher cooling rate and a better sphericity than those of the conventional gas atomisation technology have been produced by this technique. The influences of the three atomisation media on the particle size and shape of the as prepared powders are thoroughly analysed and their advantages are outlined. Owing to high solubility in water, NaCl particles entrapped in metallic powders can be completely cleared away by water washing and thus, have no negative effect on the as prepared powders. Because SiC particles can be integrated into 6061Al alloy as the reinforcement, no impurities ...

Numerical stability is an important issue for any integral procedure. Since sub-cycling algorithm has been presented by Belytschko et al. (Comput Methods Appl Mech Eng 17/18: 259–275, 1979), various kinds of these integral procedures were developed in later 20 years and their stability were widely studied. However, on how to apply the sub-cycling to flexible multi-body dynamics (FMD) is still a lack of investigation up to now. A particular sub-cycling algorithm for the FMD based on the central difference method was introduced in detail in part I (Miao et al. in Comp Mech doi: 10.1007/s00466-007-0183-9) of this paper. Adopting an integral approximation operator method, stability of the presented algorithm is transformed to a generalized eigenvalue problem in the paper and is discussed by solving the problem later. Numerical examples are performed to verify the availability and efficiency of the algorithm further.

Resistance spot welding is one of the major joining techniques widely used for car body assembly. Weld quality may significantly influence the durability and reliability of the automobile body. Automotive manufacturers often rely on destructive testing and monitoring variables which indirectly reflected weld quality to assess the weld quality and control the welding process. However, these approaches have inherent limitations and are difficult to be implemented in plant environments. Therefore, it is imperative to develop an online inspection method to evaluate weld quality. In the present study, a method of producing a series of substantially uniform spot welds between two metal parts using a servomotor driven movable electrode and an axially opposing fixed electrode is proposed. The indentation in the workpiece surface is suitably measured by the displacement of the movable electrode as it applies an electrode force and welding current is passed through the weld site of the workpiece. The optim...

A sub-cycling integration algorithm (or named multi-time-steps integration algorithm), which has been successfully applied to FEM dynamical analysis, was firstly presented by Belytschko et al. (Comput Methods Appl Mech Eng 17/18:259–275, 1979). However, the problem of how to apply this type of algorithm to flexible multi-body dynamics (FMD) problems still lacks investigation up to now. Similar to the region-partitioning method used in FEM, this paper presents a central-difference-based sub-cycling integral method by decomposing the variables of an FMD equation into several groups and adopting different integral step sizes to each group of the variables. Based on the condensed form of an FMD equation, a group of common update formulae and a sub-step update formula, which constitute the sub-cycling together, are established in the paper. Furthermore, an implementation flowchart of the sub-cycling is presented. Stability of the sub-cycling will be analyzed and numerical examples will be performed to verify availability and precision of the sub-cycling in part II of the paper.

Criteria for evaluating the glass forming ability of La–Al–(Cu,Ni) alloys, e.g., the extent of the supercooled liquid region ΔTx (ΔTx = Tx − Tg, Tg is glass transition temperature, and Tx is the onset temperature of the first crystallization event), the reduced glass transition temperature Trg (Trg = Tg/Tl, Tl is the liquidus temperature), the apparent activation energy of the first crystallization peak Ep1, and γ ( γ = T x / ( T g + T l ) ) etc., were studied. The criteria were categorized into Tl related and Tl not related ones. The Tl related criteria, such as Trg and γ, etc., generally use the values of Tl measured by DSC (or DTA) heating. They will be depressed to different extent with varying compositions during non-equilibrium cooling, especially for bulk glass forming alloys. This paper suggests to use the solidification temperature Ts instead of Tl.

An investigation was conducted to determine the cause of weld cracking in laser Be/Al weldments. In agreement with earlier studies, features consistent with hot shortness cracking on the fracture surfaces were observed. Closer examinations of the fusion zone crack regions reveal that the cracking was a result of thermal stress, shape of weld roots and impurities segregation. The defects are related to the weld parameters. The cracks easily nucleate at conduction mode weld and blowholes easily appear at keyhole mode weld.

Spot welds are used extensively by automobile manufacturers as an efficient method for joining sheet steel. The quality of them can be tested non-destructively by using ultrasound. But when spot weld defect happens, the current ultrasonic inspection methods of weld quality are difficult to achieve an ideal result especially for the stick weld defect which is one of the most important types of spot weld defects in the automotive body. At first, this paper detailedly analyses the echo characteristics of ultrasonic curves which can reflect different spot welding joint defects. After echo characteristics qualitative analysis of different spot weld defects, a peak value marking algorithm is developed to identify the joint defects especially the stick weld defect rapidly and efficiently through selecting and confirming many optimal characteristic parameters. Finally, a lot of experiments are performed to verify the proposed methods. The results indicate that this fast identification method is credible a...

As a new kind of lightweight structure, hydroformed tubes are now widely used in vehicle bodies. The single sided spot welding (SSSW) is a variation of resistance welding used in joining hydroformed closed tubular parts and vehicle structures. During the process of SSSW, large deformation and complex contact status of the workpieces occur because there is no inside support. The time variation of the contact region and pressure distribution changes the flow paths for electric current timely and brings a fierce shunting at the position far away from the axis line, which prevents the heat concentration at the faying surface of workpieces. The characteristics of SSSW different from those of classical resistance welding mentioned above make it difficult to determine rational welding processing parameters for SSSW. In the present paper, a comprehensive structural–thermoelectric model is established. Using the incrementally coupled analysis of finite element analysis, the electrical, thermal and mechanic...

Magnesite and dolomite are two salt‐type minerals. They show similar flotation behavior due to the same crystal structure, similar chemical composition, and high solubility. It is difficult to achieve effective flotation of magnesite from dolomite in a single stage. The present study was performed to develop a new and better flotation scheme for magnesite from dolomite. The flotation tests show that there exists a significant difference in flotability between magnesite and dolomite when dodecyl phosphate synthesized with dodecanol, phosphorus oxychloride, and other chemicals is used as collector. Modifiers are necessary to improve flotation selectivity. It was found that sodium silicate selectively depressed magnesite at a pH of 4.5 to 7.5. The flotation mechanism was investigated by characterizing surface electrical properties and measuring the adsorption density of the reagents on magnesite and dolomite.

A statistical Box-Behnken design (BBD) of experiments was performed to evaluate effects of individual operating variables and their interactions on the wear rate of grinding ball mills used in the phosphate industry. The wear tests were conducted using a specially designed grinding mill. The variables examined in this study included grinding time, solution pH, rotation speed, mill crop load, and solids percentage. The most significant variables and optimum conditions were identified from a statistical analysis of the experimental results using response surface methodology. Experimental results show that solution pH has the most significant effect on the wear rate for both Type 1018 (UNS G10180) carbon steel (CS) and a high-chromium alloy. The optimum process parameters for minimum wear rate were solution pH at 7.36, rotation speed at 70.31 rpm, a solid percentage at 75.50, and a crop load at 71.94% for Type 1018 CS; for the high-chromium alloys, they include a solution pH at 8.69, rotation speed ...

The efficiency and electrical characteristics of GaN-based high-voltage light-emitting diodes (HV-LEDs) are investigated in detail. The spatial distribution of light output and simulation results showed that 100-V HV-LED with smaller microchips had superior current spreading. As a result, under 1-W operation, the luminous efficiency of 100-V HV-LED with smaller microchips was enhanced by 7.8% compared to that of 50-V HV-LED, while the efficiency droop behaviors were reduced from 28% in 50-V HV-LED to 25.8% in 100-V HV-LED. Moreover, smaller microchips exhibited lower series resistance and forward voltage, leading to higher wall-plug efficiency.

This study aimed to disclose the potential causality of low bilirubin in patients with nephrotic syndrome (NS). Correlation analysis was carried out on total bilirubin (TBIL) to serum albumin (ALB), urine protein (Upr), and urinary microalbumin/creatinine (Umalb/cr) for three groups in a case-control study. P < 0.001 was observed for TBIL, ALB, Umalb/cr, and Upr between the NS and chronic nephritis (CN) groups, and P values of 0.0001, 1.000, 0.0001, and 0.0001 were observed for TBIL, ALB, Umalb/cr, and Upr, respectively, between the postoperative gastroparesis (PGS) and CN groups. The values of r and P in correlation to TBIL were 0.549 and 0.000 for ALB, -0.405 and 0.000 for Umalb/cr, and -0.448 and 0.000 for Upr in the NS group; -0.007 and 0.959 for ALB, 0.213 and 0.091 for Umalb/cr, and -0.082 and 0.519 for Upr in the PGS group; and 0.509 and 0.000 for ALB, -0.431 and 0.000 for Umalb/cr, and -0.362 and 0.002 for Upr in the CN group. A probable causality is implied between the low level of blood bilirubin and its loss in urine in NS patients. This conclusion may provide a theoretical basis for the feasibility of therapies against oxidative stress in NS patients.

In this paper, tricobalt tetraoxide (Co3O4) catalyst was coated on the polydimethylsiloxane microchannel by the plasma-enhanced metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technology. The obtained Co3O4 film was characterized by SEM, XRD, XPS, and TEM, and the results show that the as-deposited Co3O4 film was initially composed of many cauliflowers-shaped microclusters. Also, the microcauliflower was transformed from an amorphous phase to a crystal phase when the Co3O4 film was treated by Ar and O2 plasma for more than 20 min, and the crystal lattice line occurred on the surface of nano-sized-Co3O4 particles. Meanwhile, the interface of Co3O4 particles with diameter between 3 and 12 nm became obvious and some nano-catkin structures were also formed on the Co3O4 film. The ratio of Co3+/Co2+ in the spinel-type Co3O4 was nearly 2, and the nano-particles predominantly expose their {311}, {111}, and {220} planes. These morphologies and structure characteristics were found to be ideal for increasing the catalytic activity efficiency of Co3O4 for CO oxidation, and the catalytic stability of Co3O4 coated on the organic microreactor lasted nearly 85 h for trace CO oxidation at room temperature.

Ti(250 A)/Al(2200 A)/Pd(600 A)/Au(1600 A) contact on aqua-regia surface treated n-GaN (Si∼1.0×1019 cm−3) has yielded a minimum specific contact resistance (ρc) of 4.21×10−8 Ω cm2, achieved after thermal annealing at 500 °C for 8 min. This is superior to the most common n-GaN contact, Ti/Al, which has also been studied in the current work and produced a lowest ρc of 4.63×10−6 Ω cm2, obtained after annealing at 700 °C for 2 min. The long-term thermal stability analysis has also revealed that the Ti/Al/Pd/Au contact is more stable than Ti/Al on n-GaN. The projected mean time to 50% increase in ρc(μ50) at 150 °C for the former is 1.22×1012 h, which is higher by about three orders of magnitude than that of the latter at 3.54×109 h. Pd(200 A)/Ni(300 A)/Au(2000 A) contact on boiling aqua-regia surface treated p-GaN (Mg∼1.0×1018 cm−3) has also been investigated and demonstrated a reasonable ohmic behavior with a ρc of 5.03×10−4 Ω cm2 after thermal annealing at 450 °C for 2 min. However, its thermal stability is mediocre with μ50 at 150 °C of only 1.49×103 h.