Search

The Kirkpatrick–Baez (KB) microscope is an effective instrument for x-ray imaging of hot spot. However, the non-uniform distribution of response efficiency in the field of view is a drawback of the KB microscope. A more accurate hot spot image requires the correction of the measured image by combining the hot spot position and the response efficiency distribution. Here, we describe a method to locate the position of the hot spot in the field of view during hot spot imaging with a KB microscope. The position of the hot spot in the field of view can be obtained by measuring the grazing incidence angle change during hot spot imaging. In the experiment of hot spot self-emission imaging with a four-channel KB microscope, the location of the hot spot with an accuracy of 15 μm was realized, and the intensity corrected hot spot image was obtained. This will solve the problem of the non-uniform distribution of the response efficiency of the KB microscope and enable quantitative measurement of hot spot radiation intensity.

Abstract Aims Recurrent heart failure hospitalization (HFH) is an important feature of the progression of heart failure (HF). In the Treatment of Preserved Cardiac Function Heart Failure with an Aldosterone Antagonist (TOPCAT) trial, we analysed risk factors for recurrent HFH events in HF patients with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and developed a risk prediction model for recurrent HFH. Methods and results This analysis focused on the subset of TOPCAT participants enrolled in the Americas (n = 1767). Recurrent HFH was defined as two or more hospitalizations for HF during the follow‐up period. Lasso regression and multivariate logistic regression were used to screen the risk factors, and the risk prediction model of recurrent HFH was established. During a median follow‐up period of 3.4 (95% confidence interval: 3.3–3.6) years, 72.2% (542 of 751 total hospitalizations) of HFH events occurred in 9.4% (n = 163) of patients with recurrent HFHs. Patients in the recurrent HFH group had higher cardiovascular mortality rate [6.2 per 100 patient‐years (PY) vs. 3.8 per 100 PY, P = 0.016] and all‐cause mortality rate (10.0 per 100 PY vs. 6.8 per 100 PY, P = 0.015) than those in the non‐recurrent HFH group. The model consisting of nine predictors has moderate predictive power for recurrent HFH events in patients with HFpEF (AUC = 0.75, Brier score = 0.08). Decision curve analysis showed a net clinical benefit from the application of the prediction model. Conclusions In patients with HFpEF, the majority of HFHs occur in a small proportion of patients with repeated hospitalizations, who typically have more comorbidities and are at higher risk of death. The predictive model developed in this study helps to identify patients at high risk of recurrent HFH.

Network performance evaluation is crucial in ensuring the effective operation of 5G wireless networks, offering valuable insights into evaluating network status and user experience. However, the complexity of network conditions, characterized by high dynamics and diverse user requirements across various vertical applications, presents a significant challenge for generating accurate and detailed evaluation results using existing algorithms. To provide a feasible solution for this issue, an artificial intelligence-enabled 5G network performance evaluation scheme for private 5G networks is proposed. First, the network performance evaluation at different granularities is modeled with the deployment of network performance evaluation introduced. Furthermore, an intelligent network performance evaluation architecture based on residual networks with the attention mechanism is introduced, which can generate evaluation scores based on key performance indicators of reliability, accessibility, utilization, integrity, mobility and retainability. Additionally, the corresponding training strategies for the intelligent model, catering to different evaluation granularity, are thoroughly designed. Finally, to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, comprehensive experiments are conducted using practical 5G network operation system data. The experimental results demonstrate the scheme’s ability to achieve highly accurate evaluations with fine spatial granularity. These findings establish the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed artificial intelligence-enabled scheme in enhancing 5G network performance evaluation.

ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the risk of dietary exposure and study the residues of β-receptor agonists in livestock meat and liver marketed in Tianjin City.MethodsA total of 583 samples of pig， beef， mutton， and liver were randomly collected from supermarkets， online stores， and farmers’ markets in Tianjin City from 2016 to 2021. The β-receptor agonists clenbuterol， ractopamine， salbutamol， and terbutaline were tested by the relevant standard operating procedures of Manual China National Food Contamination and Harmful Factors Risk Monitoring， combined with residents’ food consumption data， using the index of food safety （IFS） to assess the health risk.ResultsThe overall detection rate of the 583 samples was 13.89% （81/583）. The main β-receptor agonist detected was clenbuterol， which accounted for 98.77% （80/81） of all the detected samples. Only 1 sample was detected with salbutamol， and the other 2 β-receptor agonists were not detected. The top 3 food categories in terms of detection rate were beef liver， 33.96% （36/106）； mutton， 15.79% （18/114）； and beef， 13.22% （16/121）， while the detection rate of pork and pig liver was 1.19% （1/84） and 2.00% （1/50）， respectively； the difference between the detection rates of the different categories was statistically significant （χ2=56.11， P < 0.05）. The detection rate of β-receptor agonists in samples collected from farmers’ markets was significantly higher than that collected from supermarkets and online shops （χ2= 10.91， P < 0.05）. The exposure risk assessment showed that the average exposure of pork， beef， and mutton ranged from 0.000 1 to 0.000 4 μg/kg·BW. The IFS ranged from 0.022 0 to 0.095 0， and the IFS values were less than 1.ConclusionA certain detection degree of β-receptor agonists was observed in livestock meat and liver marketed in Tianjin City， but the average exposure risk of β-receptor agonists was low from the dietary exposure of pig， beef， and mutton.

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication of acute heart failure (HF) that can prolong hospitalization time and worsen the prognosis. The objectives of this research were to ascertain independent risk factors of AKI in hospitalized HF patients and validate a nomogram risk prediction model established using those factors. Methods: Finally, 967 patients hospitalized for HF were included. Patients were randomly assigned to the training set (n = 677) or test set (n = 290). Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression was performed for variable selection, and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to search for independent predictors of AKI in hospitalized HF patients. A nomogram prediction model was then developed based on the final identified predictors. The performance of the nomogram was assessed in terms of discriminability, as determined by the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC), and predictive accuracy, as determined by calibration plots. Results: The incidence of AKI in our cohort was 19%. After initial LASSO variable selection, multivariate logistic regression revealed that age, pneumonia, D-dimer, and albumin were independently associated with AKI in hospitalized HF patients. The nomogram prediction model based on these independent predictors had AUCs of 0.760 and 0.744 in the training and test sets, respectively. The calibration plots indicate a strong concordance between the estimated AKI probabilities and the observed probabilities. Conclusions: A nomogram prediction model based on pneumonia, age, D-dimer, and albumin can help clinicians predict the risk of AKI in HF patients with moderate discriminability.

Abstract In laser-driven inertial confinement fusion, driving pressure boosting and smoothing are major challenges. A proposed hybrid-drive (HD) scheme can offer such ideal HD pressure performing stable implosion and nonstagnation ignition. Here we report that in the hemispherical and planar ablator targets installed in the semicylindrical hohlraum scaled down from the spherical hohlraum of the designed ignition target, under indirect-drive (ID) laser energies of ~43–50 kJ, the peak radiation temperature of 200 ± 6 eV is achieved. And using only direct-drive (DD) laser energies of 3.6–4.0 kJ at an intensity of 1.8 × 1015 W/cm2, in the hemispherical and planar targets the boosted HD pressures reach 3.8–4.0 and 3.5–3.6 times the radiation ablation pressure respectively. In all the above experiments, significant HD pressure smoothing and the important phenomenon of how a symmetric strong HD shock suppresses the asymmetric ID shock pre-compressed fuel are demonstrated. The backscattering and hot-electron energy fractions both of which are about one-third of that in the DD scheme are also measured.

In this paper, a prototype network model is used for event extraction of antibiotic resistance and new anti-infection information, and also limited or small amount of labeled data is used to obtain a prediction model with excellent generalization performance. The Bi-LSTM framework for antibiotic resistance element detection is a mainstream sequence annotation framework that combines bidirectional long- and short-term memory networks, and its main idea is to obtain contextual information through bidirectional long- and short-term memory networks, and to fuse antibiotic as well as bacterial entity information, and trigger word information for the assignment of element roles. In the keyword co-occurrence analysis, combination therapy and phage had the highest frequency with a centrality of 0.57 and 0.59, respectively, indicating that phage-antibiotic therapy effectively treated patients with drug-resistant bacterial infections. There was a high correlation (r=0.57) between the number of days of ICU stay and the number of days of phage-antibiotic combination therapy, which was further analyzed to show that the number of days of fever, the number of days of indwelling urinary catheter, and the number of days of mechanical ventilation, phage-antibiotic combination days are more important influencing factors.

ObjectiveThis study aims to explore the law of the critical compression stress of stiffened panels under the influence of in-plane shear load, and whether in-plane shear load combined with lateral pressure will introduce a strong coupling effect. MethodTo this end, nonlinear finite element (FE) software ABAQUS is used to perform numerical simulation analysis under combined loads on a group of FE models. A limit state equation/curve is then derived from the dimensionless calculation results based on the minimum square error method. ResultsThe results show that the influence law of in-plane shear load on the critical compression stress of stiffened panels is clarified, and a limit state equation of stiffened panels that considers the effect of shear load is obtained. ConclusionThe limit state equation in this paper can provide references for modifying the ultimate strength of stiffened panels under the influence of in-plane shear load.

Background With the development of general medicine in China, the number of visits to community medical institutions has increased, and the phenomenon of intermittent and continuous frequent visits exists, while some of these visits are abnormally frequent, resulting in the irrational use of community medical resources. Objective To understand the current situation of intermittent and continuous frequent visits among community residents in Beijing, and to analyze the characteristics of people with continuous frequent visits and discover the causes of frequent visits. Methods Residents who visited the community health service stations in Sanlihe District 2, Beijing from January 2017 to December 2019 were retrospectively selected as the study subjects, and those who visited the top 10% of the community health service stations in a year (from January to December) were considered frequent patients, those who visited the top 10% of the community health service stations in each of the three years were considered continuously frequent visited patients, and those who visited the top 10% of the community health service stations in only one or two years were considered intermittent frequent patients. Patients' visits, basic information and illnesses were analyzed, and "face-to-face" interviews were conducted with five patients each from intermittent and frequent visitors to find out the reasons for their frequent visits. Results A total of 639 frequent patients were included in the study, divided into a continuous frequent group (92 patients) and an intermittent frequent group (547 patients) . There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of gender, age, marital status, education, proportion of overweight/obesity people, and proportion of people who have signed up with a family doctor (P>0.05) . The top 5 chronic diseases in both groups were hypertension, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia, coronary heart disease and stroke; there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, dyslipidaemia, coronary heart disease and stroke and the complexity of the diseases (P>0.05) . Further interviews revealed that the top three reasons for choosing to visit the community included obvious geographical advantages and short waiting time (n=9) , good doctor-patient relationship and basic satisfaction of daily medical needs (n=7) , and higher reimbursement rate than specialist hospitals (n=6) . The top three reasons for intermittent frequent visits included smooth disease control resulting in fewer visits (n=2) after improvement in follow-up behavior (normative medication behavior, change in visiting habits) , a transient increase in the number of visits due to acute episodes or changes in chronic conditions (n=2) , and recurrent visits due to periodic "emotional" distress (n=1) ; The top 3 reasons for continuous frequent visits included taking medicines in multiple visits per month due to mismatch between the number of doses available in a single box and the number of doses in the disease cycle (n=3) , repeated visits due to prefer the original drug and refusal of substitution (n=1) , and repeated community visits due to untimely referrals (n=1) . Conclusion The phenomenon of frequent visits exists among community-dwelling people in Beijing, and patients with continuous frequent visits take up a larger amount of health care resources, which is characteristically not much different from patients with intermittent frequent visits, but their occupancies on medical resources are quite different, and the attention should be intensified to patients with abnormal frequent visits in the daily diagnosis and treatment, and convert patients with continuous frequent visits into those with intermittent frequent visits to make efficient use of medical resources.

The unprecedented COVID‐19 pandemic required millions of people across the world to become remote workers. However, little is known about how to achieve effective remote working for organizations. This study investigates the types of employees that are more suited to accepting remote working by considering two determinants: gender and internet skills. Based on an official data set from China, this study reveals that females are more likely to accept remote working, as are those employees with advanced internet skills. This study further investigates the impacts of perceived benefits on employees’ acceptance of remote working. It appears that the preference of females for remote working is attributed to avoiding face-to-face interaction rather than free time planning. This study is among the first to reveal how skill matching matters in order to be successful remote workers. Meanwhile, this study indicates that it is gender-specific psychological differences rather than the division of labor in families that motivate females to accept remote working, an important observation which has been neglected so far. The findings are helpful for employers and employees in the post-pandemic era.

Abstract Aims Predicting the risk of malignant arrhythmias (MA) in hospitalized patients with heart failure (HF) is challenging. Machine learning (ML) can handle a large volume of complex data more effectively than traditional statistical methods. This study explored the feasibility of ML methods for predicting the risk of MA in hospitalized HF patients. Methods and results We evaluated the baseline data and MA events of 2794 hospitalized HF patients in the HF cohort in Anhui Province and randomly divided the study population into training and validation sets in a 7:3 ratio. The Lasso‐logistic regression, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), classification and regression tree (CART), random forest (RF), and eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) algorithms were used to construct risk prediction models in the training set, and model performance was verified in the validation set. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and Brier score were employed to evaluate the discrimination and calibration of the model, respectively. Clinical utility of the Lasso‐logistic regression model was analysed using decision curve analysis (DCA). The median (Q1, Q3) age of the study population was 70 (61, 77) years, and 39.5% were female. MA events occurred in 117 patients (4.2%) during hospitalization. In the training set (n = 1964), the AUC of the XGBoost model was 0.998 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.997–1.000], which was higher than the other models (all P 0.05], which were higher than that of CART model [AUC: 0.743 (95% CI 0.661–0.824); all P

Abstract In inertial confinement fusion, quantitative and high-spatial resolution ( $$< 10\,\upmu $$ < 10 μ m) measurements of the X-rays self-emitted by the hotspot are critical for studying the physical processes of the implosion stagnation stage. Herein, the 8 ± 0.39-keV monochromatic X-ray distribution from the entire hotspot is quantitatively observed in 5- $$\upmu $$ μ m spatial resolution using a Kirkpatrick–Baez microscope, with impacts from the responses of the diagnosis system removed, for the first time, in implosion experiments at the 100 kJ laser facility in China. Two-dimensional calculations along with 2.5% P2 drive asymmetry and 0.3 ablator self-emission are congruent with the experimental results, especially for the photon number distribution, hotspot profile, and neutron yield. Theoretical calculations enabled a better understanding of the experimental results. Furthermore, the origins of the 17.81% contour profile of the deuterium-deuterium hotspot and the accurate Gaussian source approximation of the core emission area in the implosion capsule are clarified in detail. This work is significant for quantitatively exploring the physical conditions of the hotspot and updating the theoretical model of capsule implosion.

Abstract Background Shortages of qualified health workers have been a global concern, especially in developing countries. China also faces this dilemma, which hinders the development of public health services. Senior high school students are a group who are considering their college majors and careers after graduation. They are also a potential and basic talent reserve for the health sector. This survey focused on senior high school students’ intention to learn clinical medicine and explored potential influencing factors. Methods An anonymous questionnaire containing 20 items was distributed to 5344 senior high school students. The questions covered the following topics: students’ intention to learn clinical medicine, personal and family information, understanding of medical education, cognition of doctors’ working conditions, and doctor-patient relationships. Logistic regression and the chi-square test were used to compare students with and without a clear intention to learn clinical medicine to explore influencing factors. Results Only 5.6% of senior high school students had a clear intention to learn medicine (CILCM). Personal and family information had distinct impacts. Interest and anatomy course were also associated with students’ choice. There was a positive correlation between understanding of medical education and students’ intention Meanwhile, students’ cognition of doctors, career prospects, and social status had significant impacts. The more optimistic students were about doctors’ working conditions and doctor-patient relationships, the more likely they were to have a CILCM. Conclusion To some extent, this survey reflects the shortage of medical talent in China and provides possible clues for solving this problem. In addition, these findings may provide a perspective for understanding the development of health services in developing countries.

Abstract Aims This study aims to investigate the current status of biventricular pacemaker and defibrillator implantation in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients with indications for primary prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in China and the effects of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT)‐pacemaker (P) and CRT‐defibrillator (D) implantation on the clinical prognosis of CHF among patients undergoing CRT. Methods and results Overall, 798 consecutive patients who had devices implanted (implantable cardioverter defibrillator: 199, CRT‐D: 362, and CRT‐P: 237) from May 2012 to July 2013 in POSCD‐China, a multicentric prospective cohort study, were enrolled. The primary endpoint was all‐cause death, and the secondary endpoint was SCD. In total, 71.3% of patients had non‐ischaemic CHF. The mean follow‐up time was 27.7 ± 12.0 months, and death occurred in 158 cases, with 35 cases of SCD. CHF was the main cause of death (68.4%), followed by sudden death (22.2%). In the CRT‐P group, the SCD rate was 8.0%, which was much higher than that in the CRT‐D (3.3%) and implantable cardioverter defibrillator (2.0%) groups. No significant differences were identified in the all‐cause death rate between the CRT‐D and CRT‐P groups (CRT‐D vs. CRT‐P, 20.4% vs. 19.4%, P = 0.840). Conclusions In China, among CHF patients with indications for primary prevention of SCD who received device implantation, non‐ischaemic CHF was the main aetiology, and the most important cause of death was heart failure. No differences in all‐cause death were observed between the CRT‐D and CRT‐P groups, but the CRT‐D group had a lower SCD rate than the CRT‐P group.

An easy and scalable synthetic route was proposed for synthesis of a high-energy stable anode material composed of carbon-coated Si nanoparticles (NPs, 80 nm) confined in a three-dimensional (3D) network-structured conductive carbon nanotube (CNT) matrix (Si/CNT@C). The Si/CNT@C composite was fabricated via in situ polymerization of resorcinol formaldehyde (RF) resin in the co-existence of Si NPs and CNTs, followed by carbonization at 700 °C. The RF resin-derived carbon shell (~10 nm) was wrapped on the Si NPs and CNTs surface, welding the Si NPs to the sidewall of the interconnected CNTs matrix to avoid Si NP agglomeration. The unique 3D architecture provides a highway for Li+ ion diffusion and electron transportation to allow the fast lithiation/delithiation of the Si NPs; buffers the volume fluctuation of Si NPs; and stabilizes solid–electrolyte interphase film. As expected, the obtained Si/CNT@C hybrid exhibited excellent lithium storage performances. An initial discharge capacity of 1925 mAh g−1 was achieved at 0.1 A g−1 and retained as 1106 mAh g−1 after 200 cycles at 0.1 A g−1. The reversible capacity was retained at 827 mAh g−1 when the current density was increased to 1 A g−1. The Si/CNT@C possessed a high Si content of 62.8 wt%, facilitating its commercial application. Accordingly, this work provides a promising exploration of Si-based anode materials for high-energy stable lithium-ion batteries.

BackgroundFew studies investigated the concordance in hypertension status and antihypertensive treatment recommendations between the 2018 Chinese Hypertension League (CHL) guidelines and the 2017 American College of Cardiology (ACC)/American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines and assessed the change of premature mortality risk with hypertension defined by the ACC/AHA guidelines.MethodsWe used the baseline data of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to estimate the population impact on hypertension management between CHL and ACC/AHA guidelines. Mortality risk from hypertension was estimated using the data from China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and their 95% confidence intervals(CIs).ResultsAmong 13,704 participants analyzed from the nationally representative data of CHARLS, 42.64% (95% CI: 40.35, 44.96) of Chinese adults were diagnosed by both CHL and ACC/AHA guidelines. 41.25% (39.17, 43.36) did not have hypertension according to either guideline. Overall, the concordance in hypertension status was 83.89% (81.69, 85.57). A high percentage of agreement was also found for recommendation to initiate treatment among untreated subjects (87.62% [86.67, 88.51]) and blood pressure (BP) above the goal among treated subjects (71.68% [68.16, 74.95]). Among 23,063 adults from CHNS, subjects with hypertension by CHL had a higher risk of premature mortality (1.75 [1.50, 2.04]) compared with those without hypertension. The association diminished for hypertension by ACC/AHA (1.46 [1.07, 1.30]). Moreover, the excess risk was not significant for the newly defined Grade 1 hypertension by ACC/AHA (1.15 [0.95, 1.38]) when compared with BP

To achieve ignition in a laboratory via inertial confinement fusion, a spherical capsule containing a frozen layer of deuterium and tritium (DT) fuel will be imploded on an MJ-class laser facility. However, if pure deuterium fuel can be used in place of DT fuel for tuning shots, we may speed up the process of ignition experiments while maintaining the surrogacy by significantly reducing the level of radioactivity. Unfortunately, it has long been assumed that neither the approach of symmetrical infrared irradiation used in the Omega direct-drive experiments nor the method of beta-layering used in the NIF experiments can be used to smooth the D layered capsule in cylindrical hohlraums. The difficulty in smoothing the D ice layer prevents us from taking advantage of cryogenic D-layered capsules in indirect-drive experiments. In this work, we established a procedure to form a uniform D-ice layer for capsules held in cylindrical hohlraums and carried out indirect-drive cryogenic D-layered implosion experiments using a squared laser pulse on the Shenguang Laser Facility in China. The quality of the D ice layer is characterized by phase-contrast imaging. The root-mean-square of the power spectrum in modes 2–100 is about 2.2 μ m. The implosion performance of the D-layered capsules is close to the prediction of one-dimensional simulations. The measured neutron yield and areal fuel density are 1.2 × 10 ^11 and 80 mg cm ^−2 , respectively.

Abstract Super high molecular weight copolymers of AM/NaA/AMPS were prepared by oxidation–reduction [OR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS)] and controlled radical polymerization [CR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS)]. The resulting copolymers were fully characterized, and the reaction conditions for their preparation were optimized. OR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS), CR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS), and conventional partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide (HPAM) in brine solution were comprehensively characterized by thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and dynamic light scattering. OR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS) and CR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS) containing AMPS monomer showed better salt resistance, temperature tolerance, and viscosification property than the conventional HPAM polymer, making them more promising for enhanced oil recovery. Through comprehensive comparison and analysis, it was found that OR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS) was more conducive for high-temperature condition due to the existence of xanthone in OR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS). On the other hand, CR-P(AM/NaA/AMPS) was more suitable for high-mineral atmosphere, which could be attributed to its higher intrinsic viscosity.

A unique electrode architecture consisting of Ni3Se2 nanosheet-on-Ni3Se2-nanoforests grown on nickel foam was obtained by a simple one-step solvothermal method, which subsequently used as a free-standing electrode for supercapacitor. The Ni3Se2 exhibited a high capacity of up to 600 μAh cm−2 at 3 mA cm−2, excellent rate capability and cycling stability at high cycling rates. Impressively, the optimized hybrid supercapacitor containing Ni3Se2 cathode still released 94.4% of initial capacity for 505 μAh cm−2 after 6000 cycles at 20 mA cm−2. The results suggest that the Ni3Se2 nanoforests developed electrode has great potential for practical applications in hybrid supercapacitors.

Enhancement of x-ray sources from laser-produced plasmas is significant in wide-ranging applications. Solid and foam TiO2 targets were both used to generate bright x-ray sources at the Shenguang-III prototype laser facility, with a total laser power of 3.2 TW. The new foam targets were with an ultra-low initial density of 8.1 mg/cm3 and a high Ti fraction of 33 sat. %. By absolute measurements, the multi-keV x rays of the 4 keV–7 keV band and 1.6 keV–4.4 keV band and the total x rays above 0.1 keV of the foam target have simultaneously shown conversion enhancements of 1.4, 3.1, and 2.3 times, respectively, compared with the solid target. A much larger emission volume and an average electron temperature of 3.2 keV by moving the foci of laser beams inner were obtained for the foam target, providing a good condition for multi-keV x-ray production.

Peripheral nerve injury is a common and complicated traumatic disease in clinical neurosurgery. With the rapid advancement and development of medical technologies, novel tissue engineering provides alternative therapies such as nerve conduit transplantation. It has achieved significant outcomes. The scaffold surface modification is vital to the reconstruction of a pro-healing interface. Polydopamine has high chemical activity, adhesion, hydrophilicity, hygroscopicity, stability, biocompatibility, and other properties. It is often used in the surface modification of biomaterials, especially in the peripheral nerve regeneration. The present review discusses that polydopamine can promote the adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation of neural stem cells and the growth of neuronal processes. Polydopamine is widely used in the surface modification of nerve conduits and has a potential application prospect of repairing peripheral nerve injury. Polydopamine-modified scaffolds are promising in the peripheral nerve tissue engineering.

The commercial graphite anode material in lithium-ion batteries has been limited by the low capacity and safety issue own to its low Li-intercalation potential. Spinel transition metal oxides have attracted tremendous attention because their high specific capacity and relatively high Li-intercalation potential. Herein, we investigated the influence of micro-structure on the ion transport properties of NiCo2O4 and their electronic conductivity. The optimized material with nano-cluster constructed macro-sphere demonstrates weak crystal structure and improved electrical conductivity when surrounded with amorphous carbon. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) combined with CV results give more clear explanation of the improved charge transfer resistance and ion transfer properties, which suggests the readjustment of microstructure is an important route for improving electrical conductivity and ion transfer behavior of NiCo2O4 anode.

A face-centered cubic Mo2N film is successfully prepared on Cu foil by reactive DC magnetron sputtering. The thickness of Mo2N film is about 1.5 μm with porous and nano-column array. The Mo2N film can be directly used as anode electrode for lithium ion batteries (LIBs) without additional conductive agent and binder. Electrochemical tests including cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge-discharge circulation and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) show that the Mo2N film electrode exhibits high reversible capacity of 127 μAh/cm2 at a high current density of 1000 μA/cm2 and low charge transfer resistance due to the porous nano-column array. Keywords: Mo2N, Magnetron sputtering, Porous nano-column array, Lithium ion batteries, Energy storage and conversion

Background: The influence of different right ventricular lead locations on ventricular arrhythmias (VTA) in patients with a cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is not clear. This study aimed to evaluate the influence on VTA in patients with a CRT when right ventricular lead was positioned at the right ventricular middle septum (RVMS) and the right ventricular apical (RVA). Methods: A total of 352 patients implanted with a CRT-defibrillator (CRT-D) between May 2012 and July 2016 in the Department of Cardiology of Anhui Provincial Hospital were included. Two-year clinical and pacemaker follow-up data were collected to evaluate the influence of the right ventricular lead location on VTA. Patients were divided into the RVMS group (n = 155) and the RVA group (n = 197) based on the right ventricular lead position. The VTA were compared between these two groups using a Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox multivariate analysis. Results: When the left ventricular lead location was not considered, RVMS and RVA locations did not affect VTA. However, the subgroup analysis results showed that when the left ventricular lead was positioned at the anterolateral cardiac vein (ALCV), the RVMS group had an increased risk of ventricular arrhythmias and appropriate defibrillation (hazard ratio [HR] = 3.29, P = 0.01 and HR = 4.33, P < 0.01, respectively); when the left ventricular lead was at the posterolateral cardiac vein (PLCV), these risks in the RVMS group decreased (HR = 0.45, P = 0.02 and HR = 0.33, P < 0.01, respectively), and when the left ventricular lead was at the lateral cardiac vein, there was no difference between the two groups. In regard to inappropriate defibrillation, there was no significant difference among all these groups. Conclusions: When the left ventricular lead was positioned at ALCV or PLCV, the right ventricular lead location was associated with VTA and appropriate defibrillation after CRT. Greater distances between leads not only improved cardiac function but also may reduce the risk of VTA.

Dragon fruit tree-like hierarchical NiCo2O4 was grown on carbon cloth by one-pot solvothermal reaction with the help of surfactant at a relatively low temperature. XRD results showed that all diffraction peaks from the spinel structure of NiCo2O4 can be found in the NiCo2O4/carbon cloth with weak diffraction intensity in compared with the carbon diffraction peaks of carbon cloth. SEM observation shows the unique dragon fruit tree-like NiCo2O4 was uniformly coated on carbon cloth. Electrochemical characterization shows the specific capacitance of NiCo2O4/carbon cloth electrode reaches 815 F g−1 at 2 A g−1 and maintains 600 F g−1 at 20 A g−1. An asymmetric supercapacitor delivers 54.8 F g−1 at 5 A g−1 and keeps capacitance retention almost 100% after 10,000 cycles, demonstrating a promising route to prepare high performance NiCo2O4 free-standing electrode. Keywords: NiCo2O4 materials, Carbon cloth, Hierarchical structure, Supercapacitors

In this work, NiCo2O4 nanoparticles with enhanced supercapacitive performance have been successfully synthesized via a facile sol-gel method and subsequent calcination in air. The morphology and composition of as-prepared samples were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray dif­fraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy (Raman). The electrochemical per­formances of NiCo2O4 nanoparticles as supercapacitor electrode materials were evalu­ated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charge/discharge (GCD) tests in 3 mol L-1 KOH aqueous solution. The results show that as-prepared NiCo2O4 nanoparticles have diameters of about 20-30 nm with uniform distribution. There are some interspaces between nanoparticles observed, which could increase the effective contact area with the electrolyte and provide fast path for the insertion and extraction of electrolyte ions. The electrochemical tests show that the prepared NiCo2O4 nanoparticles for supercapacitors exhibit excellent electrochemical performance with high specific capacitance and good cycle stability. The specific capacitance of NiCo2O4 electrode has been found as high as 1080, 800, 651, and 574 F g-1 at current densities of 1, 4, 7, and 10 A g-1, respectively. Notably, the capacitance retention rate (compared with 1 A g-1) is up to 74.1 %, 60.3 %, and 53.1 % at current densities of 4, 7, and 10 A g-1, respectively. After 100 cycles, higher capacitance retention rate is also achieved. Therefore, the results indicate that NiCo2O4 material is the potential electrode material for supercapacitors.

Diagnosing the layered cryogenic DT implosions with traditional absorption based x-ray backlight radiography in inertial confinement fusion is a challenge because of the low opacity of the cold fuel. Refraction enhanced x-ray phase-contrast imaging was proposed for diagnosing optically opaque material. In this paper, A Monte Carlo tool based on Geant4 is employed to model the x-ray phase-contrast imaging for diagnosing cold fuel layer in cryogenic implosions. This model can successfully explain the x-ray phase-contrast imaging experimental results on a micro focus x-ray tube with triple-layer ablator capsules. Furthermore, the radiographs of ignition-scale capsule target is calculated. The fuel layer of DT ice can be observed with the phase contrast imaging and the image is faded using absorption imaging only. Our simulations show that the shape of cold fuel and implosion velocity can be inferred directly with the phase contrast imaging in inertial confinement fusion(ICF).

Two neutron time-of-flight (nToF) detectors have been employed to measure the neutron time-of-flight spectrum in different lines-of-sight, i.e., at the equator plane and the south pole, on Shenguang-III (SG-III) laser facility. The contribution of scattered neutrons has been calculated with the Monte Carlo code JMCT for each nToF detector. The results show that the scattered neutron spectrum is dominated by neutrons scattered on materials in the experiment hall, including the vacuum chamber. The shape of the scattered neutron spectrum depends on the view line, which has been observed with nToF detectors located in the experiment hall of the SG-III laser facility. A method based on the convolution of the calculated neutron time-of-flight spectrum and the instrument response function has been developed for the ion temperature determination. The calculated neutron spectra with the contribution of scattered neutrons can fit the measured results. No obvious ion temperature anisotropy has been observed on the SG-III laser facility at present.

Phosphorization of metal oxides/hydoxides to promote electronic conductivity as a promising strategy has attracted enormous attention for improving the electrochemical properties of anode material in lithium ion batteries. For this article, selective phosphorization from NiCo2O4 to NiO/Ni2Co4P3 microspheres was realized as an efficient route to enhance the electrochemical lithium storage properties of bimetal Ni-Co based anode materials. The results show that varying phosphorizaed reagent amount can significantly affect the transformation of crystalline structure from NiCo2O4 to intermediate NiO, hybrid NiO/Ni2Co4P3, and, finally, to Ni2Co4P3, during which alterated sphere morphology, shifted surface valance, and enhanced lithium-ion storage behavior are detected. The optimized phosphorization with 1:3 reagent mass ratio can maintain the spherical architecture, hold hybrid crystal structure, and improve the reversibly electrochemical lithium-ion storage properties. A specific capacity of 415 mAh g−1 is achieved at 100 mA g−1 specific current and maintains at 106 mAh g−1 when the specific current increases to 5000 mA g−1. Even after 200 cycles at 500 mA g−1, the optimized electrode still delivers 224 mAh g−1 of specific capacity, exhibiting desirable cycling stability. We believe that understanding of such selective phosphorization can further evoke a particular research enthusiasm for anode materials in lithium ion battery with high performances.

Vibrio fischeri bioluminescence inhibition has been widely used to test acute toxicities of metals and organics contaminants. However, the differences of metals and organics acute toxicities to V. fischeri have not been compared. Here, four heavy metals (Zn2+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Cr6+) and five organics (phenol, benzoic acid, p-hydroxy benzoic acid, nitro-benzene and benzene) acute toxicities to V. fischeri were investigated. Heavy metals toxicities to V. fischeri were increased along with the reaction time, while the organics toxicities kept the same level in different reaction times. In order to explain the difference, the relative cell death rate of V. fischeri was detected. In metals toxicities tests, the bioluminescence inhibition rate of V. fischeri was found to be significantly higher than the relative cell death rate (P

In order to comprehensively evaluate the air pollution control status of bulk terminals, the atmospheric environment control measures and effects of Qingdao port Qiangang company in Shandong Province were studied. By means of field survey, monitoring and data analysis, the present situation of atmospheric environment of the research object was analyzed quantitatively, and compared with the national standards. The research results show that the atmospheric environment and main characteristic pollutants at the boundary of the terminal operation area meet the standard requirements under the premise of using spray, cover, windbreak and other management measures during the monitoring period.