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Background: In the recent decade, there has been substantial progress in the technologies and philosophies associated with diagnosing and treating anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in China. The therapeutic efficacy of ACL reconstruction in re-establishing the stability of the knee joint has garnered widespread acknowledgment. However, the path toward standardizing diagnostic and treatment protocols remains to be further developed and refined. Objective: In this context, the Chinese Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons (CAOS) and the Chinese Society of Sports Medicine (CSSM) collaboratively developed an expert consensus on diagnosing and treating ACL injury, aiming to enhance medical quality through refining professional standards. Methods: The consensus drafting team invited experts across the Greater China region, including the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, to formulate and review the consensus using a modified Delphi method as a standardization approach. As members of the CSSM Lower Limb Study Group and the CAOS Arthroscopy and Sports Medicine Study Group, invited experts concentrated on two pivotal issues: “Graft Selection” and “Clinical Outcome Evaluation” during the second part of the consensus development. Results: This focused discussion ultimately led to a strong consensus on nine specific consensus terms. Conclusion: The consensus clearly states that ACL reconstruction has no definitive “gold standard” graft choice. Autografts have advantages in healing capability but are limited in availability and have potential donor site morbidities; allografts reduce surgical trauma but incur additional costs, and there are concerns about slow healing, quality control issues, and a higher failure rate in young athletes; synthetic ligaments allow for early rehabilitation and fast return to sport, but the surgery is technically demanding and incurs additional costs. When choosing a graft, one should comprehensively consider the graft's characteristics, the doctor's technical ability, and the patient's needs. When evaluating clinical outcomes, it is essential to ensure an adequate sample size and follow-up rate, and the research should include patient subjective scoring, joint function and stability, complications, surgical failure, and the return to sport results. Medium and long-term follow-ups should not overlook the assessment of knee osteoarthritis.

Abstract Background Despite the increasing focus on strengthening One Health capacity building on global level, challenges remain in devising and implementing real-world interventions particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Recognizing these gaps, the One Health Action Commission (OHAC) was established as an academic community for One Health action with an emphasis on research agenda setting to identify actions for highest impact. Main text This viewpoint describes the agenda of, and motivation for, the recently formed OHAC. Recognizing the urgent need for evidence to support the formulation of necessary action plans, OHAC advocates the adoption of both bottom-up and top-down approaches to identify the current gaps in combating zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance, addressing food safety, and to enhance capacity building for context-sensitive One Health implementation. Conclusions By promoting broader engagement and connection of multidisciplinary stakeholders, OHAC envisions a collaborative global platform for the generation of innovative One Health knowledge, distilled practical experience and actionable policy advice, guided by strong ethical principles of One Health. Graphical Abstract

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is widely spread around the world, which can cause serious harm to immunosuppressed patients. Currently, the commercial test kits are poor at assessing T. gondii infection and vaccine effectiveness, making an urgent need to exploit effective enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay with great performance to compensate for this deficiency. Here, the TgIMP1 recombinant protein was expressed in E. coli BL(21) cells. The TgIMP1 was purified with affinity chromatography and the reactivity was retained with anti-TgIMP1 antibodies. The TgIMP1 was then used to develop an indirect ELISA (IMP1-iELISA) and the reaction conditions of IMP1-iELISA were optimized. As a result, the cut-off value was determined to be 0.2833 by analyzing the OD450nm values of forty T. gondii-negative sera. The coefficient of variation of 6 T. gondii-positive sera within and between runs were both less than 10%. The IMP1-iELISA was non-cross-reactive with the sera of cytomegalovirus, herpes virus, rubella virus, Cryptosporidium spp., Theileria spp., Neospora spp. and Plasmodium spp.. Furthermore, the sensitivity and specificity of IMP1-iELISA were 98.9% and 96.7%, respectively, based on testing 150 serum samples. The results suggest that this IMP1-iELISA is specific, sensitive, repeatable and can be applied to the detection of T. gondii infections in the medical and health industries.

Background Chronic infection with the neurotropic parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) can cause anxiety and gut microbiota dysbiosis in hosts. However, the potential role of gut microbiota in anxiety induced by the parasite remains unclear.Methods C57BL/6J mice were infected with 10 cysts of T. gondii. Antibiotic depletion of gut microbiota and fecal microbiota transplantation experiments were utilized to investigate the causal relationship between gut microbiota and anxiety. Anxiety-like behaviors were examined by the elevated plus maze test and the open field test; blood, feces, colon and amygdala were collected to evaluate the profiles of serum endotoxin (Lipopolysaccharide, LPS) and serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT), gut microbiota composition, metabolomics, global transcriptome and neuroinflammation in the amygdala. Furthermore, the effects of Diethyl butylmalonate (DBM, an inhibitor of mitochondrial succinate transporter, which causes the accumulation of endogenous succinate) on the disorders of the gut-brain axis were evaluated.Results Here, we found that T. gondii chronic infection induced anxiety-like behaviors and disturbed the composition of the gut microbiota in mice. In the amygdala, T. gondii infection triggered the microglial activation and neuroinflammation. In the colon, T. gondii infection caused the intestinal dyshomeostasis including elevated colonic inflammation, enhanced bacterial endotoxin translocation to blood and compromised intestinal barrier. In the serum, T. gondii infection increased the LPS levels and decreased the 5-HT levels. Interestingly, antibiotics ablation of gut microbiota alleviated the anxiety-like behaviors induced by T. gondii infection. More importantly, transplantation of the fecal microbiota from T. gondii-infected mice resulted in anxiety and the transcriptomic alteration in the amygdala of the antibiotic-pretreated mice. Notably, the decreased abundance of succinate-producing bacteria and the decreased production of succinate were observed in the feces of the T. gondii-infected mice. Moreover, DBM administration ameliorated the anxiety and gut barrier impairment induced by T. gondii infection.Conclusions The present study uncovers a novel role of gut microbiota in mediating the anxiety-like behaviors induced by chronic T. gondii infection. Moreover, we show that DBM supplementation has a beneficial effect on anxiety. Overall, these findings provide new insights into the treatment of T. gondii-related mental disorders.

The integration density of silicon photonic integrated circuit (PIC) is ultimately constrained by various crosstalk mechanisms on the chip. Among them, the most prominent limiting factor is the thermal crosstalk due to the wide use of the thermo-optic effect. High-density silicon PICs strongly demand an advanced structure with better thermal crosstalk suppression ability than the traditional air isolation trench. Inspired by the thermal-metamaterial based on the scattering-cancellation method, we demonstrate a closed heat shield (CHS) structure on a silicon PIC chip, which can manipulate the thermal flux to bypass the temperature-sensitive silicon photonics components. The on-chip CHS structure is a bilayer cylindrical shell fabricated by the standard silicon photonics processing flow. Its outer and inner shell layers are formed by a 6-μm-wide interconnection metal and 4-μm-wide air trench, respectively. Plenty of temperature-sensitive micro-ring resonators inside the CHS are used to probe the temperature profile. The measurement results show that the CHS can reduce the local temperatures by 50%/44%/36% at the locations 29/41/83 μm away from the external heater. In contrast, the conventional air trench of the same dimension reduces the local temperatures by 32%/28%/21% at the same positions. In addition, the response time of the thermal field inside the CHS is around one-half of that in the conventional air trench. Furthermore, the simulation result indicates that if the outer shell of the CHS can contact with the silicon substrate by utilizing the through-silicon-via structure, the thermal crosstalk suppression ability can be improved significantly.

Abstract Human norovirus (HuNoV) is the leading cause of nonbacterial acute gastroenteritis, which is highly infectious, rapidly evolving, and easily transmitted through feces. The accurate and early detection of HuNoV subtypes is essential for effective treatment, early surveillance, risk assessment, and disease prevention. In this study, a portable multiplex HuNoV detection platform that combines integrated microfluidics and cascade isothermal amplification, using a streamlined protocol for clinical fecal‐based diagnosis is presented. To overcome the problems of carryover contamination and the incompatibility between recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) and loop‐mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), a Dynamic confined‐space‐implemented One‐pot RPA‐LAMP colorimetric detection system (DORLA) is developed by creating a hydrogen bond network. The DORLA system exhibits excellent sensitivity, with detection limits of 10 copies µL−1 and 1 copy µL−1 for HuNoV GI and GII, respectively. In addition, a portable diagnostic platform consisting of a thermostatic control module and an integrated 3D‐printed microfluidic chip for specific HuNoV capture, nucleic acid pretreatment, and DORLA detection, which enables simultaneous diagnosis of HuNoV GI and GII is developed. A DORLA‐based microfluidic platform exhibits satisfactory performance with high sensitivity and portability, and has high potential for the rapid point‐of‐care detection of HuNoV in clinical fecal samples, particularly in resource‐limited settings.

Background: In the 21st century, as globalization accelerates and global public health crises occur, the One Health approach, guided by the holistic thinking of human-animal-environment and emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration to address global health issues, has been strongly advocated by the international community. An immediate requirement exists for the creation of an assessment tool to foster One Health initiatives on both global and national scales. Methods: Built upon extensive expert consultations and dialogues, this follow-up study enhances the 2022 global One Health index (GOHI) indicator system. The GOHI framework is enriched by covering three indices, e.g. external drivers index (EDI), intrinsic drivers index (IDI), and core drivers index (CDI). The comprehensive indicator system incorporates 13 key indicators, 50 indicators, and 170 sub I-indicators, utilizing a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to ascertain the weight for each indicator. Weighted and summed, the EDI, IDI, and CDI scores contribute to the computation of the overall GOHI 2022 score. By comparing the ranking and the overall scores among the seven regions and across 160 countries/territories, we have not only derived an overall profile of the GOHI 2022 scores, but also assessed the GOHI framework. We also compared rankings of indicators and sub I-indicators to provide greater clarity on the strengths and weaknesses of each region within the One Health domains. Results: The GOHI 2022 performance reveals significant disparities between countries/territories ranged from 39.03 to 70.61. The global average score of the GOHI 2022 is 54.82. The average score for EDI, IDI, and CDI are 46.57, 58.01, and 57.25, respectively. In terms of global rankings, countries from North America, Europe and Central Asia, East Asia and Pacific present higher scores. In terms of One Health domains of CDI, the lowest scores are observed in antimicrobial resistance (median: 43.09), followed by food security (median: 53.78), governance (median: 54.77), climate change (median: 64.12) and zoonotic diseases (median: 69.23). Globally, the scores of GOHI vary spatially, with the highest score in North America while lowest in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, evidence shows associations between the socio–demographic profile of countries/territories and their GOHI performance in certain One Health scenarios. Conclusion: The objective of GOHI is to guide impactful strategies for enhancing capacity building in One Health. With advanced technology and an annually updated database, intensifying efforts to refine GOHI's data-mining methodologies become imperative. The goal is to offer profound insights into disparities and progressions in practical One Health implementation, particularly in anticipation of future pandemics.

Abstract Background One Health approach is crucial to tackling complex global public health threats at the interface of humans, animals, and the environment. As outlined in the One Health Joint Plan of Action, the international One Health community includes stakeholders from different sectors. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an academic community for One Health action has been proposed with the aim of promoting the understanding and real-world implementation of One Health approach and contribution towards the Sustainable Development Goals for a healthy planet. Main text The proposed academic community would contribute to generating high-quality scientific evidence, distilling local experiences as well as fostering an interconnected One Health culture and mindset, among various stakeholders on different levels and in all sectors. The major scope of the community covers One Health governance, zoonotic diseases, food security, antimicrobial resistance, and climate change along with the research agenda to be developed. The academic community will be supported by two committees, including a strategic consultancy committee and a scientific steering committee, composed of influential scientists selected from the One Health information database. A workplan containing activities under six objectives is proposed to provide research support, strengthen local capacity, and enhance global participation. Conclusions The proposed academic community for One Health action is a crucial step towards enhancing communication, coordination, collaboration, and capacity building for the implementation of One Health. By bringing eminent global experts together, the academic community possesses the potential to generate scientific evidence and provide advice to local governments and international organizations, enabling the pursuit of common goals, collaborative policies, and solutions to misaligned interests. Graphical Abstract

Summary: Background: Malaria, a widespread parasitic disease caused by Plasmodium species, remains a significant global health concern. Rapid and accurate detection, as well as species genotyping, are critical for effective malaria control. Methods: We have developed a Flexible, Robust, Equipment-free Microfluidic (FREM) platform, which integrates recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) and clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-based detection, enabling simultaneous malaria infection screening and Plasmodium species genotyping. The microfluidic chip enabled the parallel detection of multiple Plasmodium species, each amplified by universal RPA primers and genotyped by specific crRNAs. The inclusion of a sucrose solution effectively created spatial separation between the RPA and CRISPR assays within a one-pot system, effectively resolving compatibility issues. Findings: Clinical assessment of DNA extracts from patients with suspected malaria demonstrates the FREM platform's superior sensitivity (98.41%) and specificity (92.86%), yielding consistent results with PCR-sequencing for malaria detection, which achieved a positive predictive agreement of 98.41% and a negative predictive agreement of 92.86%. Additionally, the accuracy of species genotyping was validated through concordance rates of 90.91% between the FREM platform and PCR-sequencing. Interpretation: The FREM platform offers a promising solution for point-of-care malaria screening and Plasmodium species genotyping. It highlights the possibility of improving malaria control efforts and expanding its applicability to address other infectious diseases. Funding: This work was financially supported by International Joint Laboratory on Tropical Diseases Control in Greater Mekong Subregion, National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and National Research and Development Plan of China.

Background: Due to emerging issues such as global climate change and zoonotic disease pandemics, the One Health approach has gained more attention since the turn of the 21st century. Although One Health thinking has deep roots and early applications in Chinese history, significant gaps exist in China's real-world implementation at the complex interface of the human-animal-environment. Methods: We abstracted the data from the global One Health index study and analysed China's performance in selected fields based on Structure-Process-Outcome model. By comparing China to the Belt & Road and G20 countries, the advances and gaps in China's One Health performance were determined and analysed. Findings: For the selected scientific fields, China generally performs better in ensuring food security and controlling antimicrobial resistance and worse in addressing climate change. Based on the SPO model, the “structure” indicators have the highest proportion (80.00%) of high ranking and the “outcome” indicators have the highest proportion (20.00%) of low ranking. When compared with Belt and Road countries, China scores above the median in almost all indicators (16 out of 18) under the selected scientific fields. When compared with G20 countries, China ranks highest in food security (scores 72.56 and ranks 6th), and lowest in climate change (48.74, 11th). Conclusion: Our results indicate that while China has made significant efforts to enhance the application of the One Health approach in national policies, it still faces challenges in translating policies into practical measures. It is recommended that a holistic One Health action framework be established for China in accordance with diverse social and cultural contexts, with a particular emphasis on overcoming data barriers and mobilizing stakeholders both domestically and globally. Implementation mechanisms, with clarified stakeholder responsibilities and incentives, should be improved along with top-level design.

Abstract Background Anxiety and depression are common psychological comorbidities in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP). There is still a lack of epidemiological studies on anxiety and depression in Chinese CP patients. This study aimed to identify the incidence and related factor of anxiety and depression among East Chinese CP patients and explore the relationship between anxiety, depression, and coping styles. Methods This prospective observational study was conducted from June 1, 2019 to March 31, 2021 in Shanghai, China. Patient diagnosed with CP were interviewed using the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics questionnaire, Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS), and Coping Style Questionnaire (CSQ). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify the related factors of anxiety and depression. Correlation test was preformed to analyze the correlation between anxiety, depression, and coping styles. Results The incidence of anxiety and depression in East Chinese CP patients was 22.64% and 38.61%, respectively. Patients’ previous health status, level of disease coping, frequency of abdominal pain episodes, and pain severity were significantly associated with anxiety and depression. Mature coping styles (Problem solving, Seeking for help) had a positive impact on anxiety and depression, while immature coping styles (Self-blame, Fantasy, Repression, Rationalization) had negative effects on anxiety and depression. Conclusion Anxiety and depression were common in patients with CP in China. The factors identified in this study may provide references for the management of anxiety and depression in CP patients.

Gene expression of cells is a heterogeneous and dynamic program involved in various biological processes. Here, authors develop Well-TEMPseq, a high-throughput, cost-effective, and accurate method for massively parallel profiling of the temporal dynamics of single-cell gene expression.

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is an opportunistic parasite that can infect the central nervous system (CNS), causing severe toxoplasmosis and behavioral cognitive impairment. Mortality is high in immunocompromised individuals with toxoplasmosis, most commonly due to reactivation of infection in the CNS. There are still no effective vaccines and drugs for the prevention and treatment of toxoplasmosis. There are five developmental stages for T. gondii to complete life cycle, of which the tachyzoite and bradyzoite stages are the key to the acute and chronic infection. In this study, to better understanding of how T. gondii interacts with the host CNS at different stages of infection, we constructed acute and chronic infection models of T. gondii in astrocytes, and used label-free proteomics to detect the proteome changes before and after infection, respectively. A total of 4676 proteins were identified, among which 163 differentially expressed proteins (fold change ≥ 1.5 or ≤ 0.67 and p-value ≤ 0.05) including 109 up-regulated proteins and 54 down-regulated proteins in C8-TA vs C8 group, and 719 differentially expressed proteins including 495 up-regulated proteins and 224 down-regulated proteins in C8-BR vs C8-TA group. After T. gondii tachyzoites infected astrocytes, differentially expressed proteins were enriched in immune-related biological processes to promote the formation of bradyzoites and maintain the balance of T. gondii, CNS and brain. After T. gondii bradyzoites infected astrocytes, the differentially expressed proteins up-regulated the host's glucose metabolism, and some up-regulated proteins were strongly associated with neurodegenerative diseases. These findings not only provide new insights into the psychiatric pathogenesis of T. gondii, but also provide potential targets for the treatment of acute and chronic Toxoplasmosis.

BackgroundMobility restriction was one of the primary measures used to restrain the spread of COVID-19 globally. Governments implemented and relaxed various mobility restriction measures in the absence of evidence for almost 3 years, which caused severe adverse outcomes in terms of health, society, and economy. ObjectiveThis study aimed to quantify the impact of mobility reduction on COVID-19 transmission according to mobility distance, location, and demographic factors in order to identify hotspots of transmission and guide public health policies. MethodsLarge volumes of anonymized aggregated mobile phone position data between January 1 and February 24, 2020, were collected for 9 megacities in the Greater Bay Area, China. A generalized linear model (GLM) was established to test the association between mobility volume (number of trips) and COVID-19 transmission. Subgroup analysis was also performed for sex, age, travel location, and travel distance. Statistical interaction terms were included in a variety of models that express different relations between involved variables. ResultsThe GLM analysis demonstrated a significant association between the COVID-19 growth rate ratio (GR) and mobility volume. A stratification analysis revealed a higher effect of mobility volume on the COVID-19 GR among people aged 50-59 years (GR decrease of 13.17% per 10% reduction in mobility volume; P

Advanced liquid crystal-based light engines and planar optical components play pivotal roles for systematically improving the image quality and formfactor of the augmented reality and virtual reality displays.

Abstract Background A One Health approach has been increasingly mainstreamed by the international community, as it provides for holistic thinking in recognizing the close links and inter-dependence of the health of humans, animals and the environment. However, the dearth of real-world evidence has hampered application of a One Health approach in shaping policies and practice. This study proposes the development of a potential evaluation tool for One Health performance, in order to contribute to the scientific measurement of One Health approach and the identification of gaps where One Health capacity building is most urgently needed. Methods We describe five steps towards a global One Health index (GOHI), including (i) framework formulation; (ii) indicator selection; (iii) database building; (iv) weight determination; and (v) GOHI scores calculation. A cell-like framework for GOHI is proposed, which comprises an external drivers index (EDI), an intrinsic drivers index (IDI) and a core drivers index (CDI). We construct the indicator scheme for GOHI based on this framework after multiple rounds of panel discussions with our expert advisory committee. A fuzzy analytical hierarchy process is adopted to determine the weights for each of the indicators. Results The weighted indicator scheme of GOHI comprises three first-level indicators, 13 second-level indicators, and 57 third-level indicators. According to the pilot analysis based on the data from more than 200 countries/territories the GOHI scores overall are far from ideal (the highest score of 65.0 out of a maximum score of 100), and we found considerable variations among different countries/territories (31.8–65.0). The results from the pilot analysis are consistent with the results from a literature review, which suggests that a GOHI as a potential tool for the assessment of One Health performance might be feasible. Conclusions GOHI—subject to rigorous validation—would represent the world’s first evaluation tool that constructs the conceptual framework from a holistic perspective of One Health. Future application of GOHI might promote a common understanding of a strong One Health approach and provide reference for promoting effective measures to strengthen One Health capacity building. With further adaptations under various scenarios, GOHI, along with its technical protocols and databases, will be updated regularly to address current technical limitations, and capture new knowledge. Graphical Abstract

In recent years, the Internet has shown rapid development, and network security issue has gradually become the focus of research by scholars and enterprises. Network security time series is a reliable source to obtain future network security situation, so as to develop network security defense strategy by exploring the correlation of time series. The network security time series is a reliable source to obtain the future network security situation, and it is the main direction of current network security defense by exploring the correlation of time series, and analyzing the future network security situation so as to formulate network security defense strategies. This is the main direction of network security defense. The existing research focuses on the short-term prediction of network attacks, and the robustness and accuracy of long-term prediction still have big problems. To fuse the information from different data sources and capture the correlation between sequences, we design a data source selection module based on the similarity of measurement curves. We then model the network security situation prediction based on deep learning models and propose a situation prediction model based on Temporal Convolutional Network (TCN)-combined Transformer, which focuses on the time series long-term prediction problem, combining the network condition and attack situation to obtain the future network security situation. Our proposed model is divided into three parts, which are the information encoding module, the information synthesis module, and situation value calculation and prediction accuracy evaluation module. The selected multi-dimensional situations element data are used as model input, and the TCN-combined Transformer is employed as the network security situational data processing unit to complete the information fusion and prediction tasks. Finally, the role of data source selection on prediction accuracy is evaluated using an ablation study. We experimented and evaluated the model at different prediction horizon lengths using five existing baseline models and three performance metrics. The experimental results show that our proposed prediction model has better robustness and accuracy in most of the metrics.

Recently, the massive increase in network users has dramatically increased network traffic, making it more difficult to maintain network security. The task of network security situation element extraction is to detect and classify network traffic. The detection rate of minority class samples is low in existing network traffic feature extraction classification methods, and most of the network threat data have seen extreme sample imbalance, which further affects the detection accuracy of minority class samples. To solve these problems, this paper proposes a network security situation element extraction method using conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) and Transformer. Here, CGAN is applied to solve the sample imbalance problem in the data and improve the detection accuracy of minority samples. Transformer, as an effective feature learning method in natural language direction, has excellent long-distance feature extraction ability. By combining CGAN with Transformer, the detection accuracy of network traffic can be effectively improved. Also, validation was performed using the UNSW-NB15 and KDDcup99 datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that the method using a combination of CGAN and Transformer improved the detection rate for minority samples compared with other advanced-feature extraction classification methods, thereby improving the overall accuracy, F1-score, and specificity. The results are 89.38 % and 93.07 %, 89.75 % and 93.68 %, 87.65 % and 98.20 %, respectively.

With the popularity of wireless networks, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have advanced rapidly, and their flexibility and ease of deployment have resulted in more security concerns, making it critical to research network intrusion prevention for WSNs. Denial of service (DoS) is a common network attack, achieving its goal by bringing down the target network. A DoS attack on WSNs devices with limited resources would be fatal. This paper proposes a method based on principal component analysis (PCA) and a deep convolution neural network (DCNN) for DoS traffic anomaly detection in WSNs, based on the vulnerability of WSNs to attacks and the limited storage space of their devices. Compared with the conventional deep learning structure, the proposed model has a lightweight structure and more effective feature extraction capability, which can effectively detect network abnormal traffic in WSNs devices with limited storage capacity. To assure the effectiveness of the proposed model, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, various classification metrics, and confusion matrices are used to verify the classification results of the model. Through experimental comparison, the proposed model, with small model size, outperforms other mainstream abnormal traffic detection models in terms of classification effect.

Escherichia coli O157:H7 ( E. coli O157:H7) can induce severe diseases in animals and humans that result in significant public health problems. Therefore, the development of rapid and visual detection methods to diagnose E. coli O157:H7 infections and monitor its prevalence is critical for the prevention and control purposes. A colorimetric loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay was utilized to detect E. coli O157:H7. A DNA extraction kit and Flinders Technology Associates (FTA) cards were used to extract nucleic acid in conjunction with colorimetric LAMP detection. The method developed effectively distinguished E. coli O157:H7 from other pathogens with a detection limit of 25 CFU/mL in spiked stool samples. In addition, the nucleic acid of these samples was easily extracted and transported with an FTA card at room temperature. The entire detection process was completed within 35 min using simple constant-temperature equipment. The colorimetric LAMP method with FTA card-based nucleic acid purification was shown to rapidly detect E. coli O157:H7 with sensitivity and specificity. This visual method is expected to be widely used to control E. coli O157:H7 infections, particularly in resource-limited settings.

Abstract Background Persistent synovial hyperplasia with inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis is one of the main pathogeneses of refractory rheumatoid arthritis (RRA). Photodynamic therapy (PDT) causes less trauma than steroid injections or arthroscopic synovectomy while providing stronger targeting and more durable curative effects. The aim of this trial was to evaluate the short-, medium-, and long-term clinical efficacy of PDT when applied as a treatment for RRA synovial hyperplasia and synovitis. Methods and analysis This protocol is for a single-center, randomized, double-blind, blank-controlled prospective trial. A sample of 126 RRA patients will be randomly divided into 3 groups: the control group, the “PDT once” group, and the “PDT twice” group, with 42 participants per group. The trial will be conducted by the Rheumatology and Immunology Department of the Integrated Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Southern Medical University. The Ultrasound Compound Score of Synovitis (UCSS) has been selected as the primary outcome measure. The secondary outcome measures include knee joint clinical assessments, ratio of relapse, duration of remission, Disease Activity Score in 28 joints (DAS28), inflammation indexes, serum concentrations of specific antibodies, and changes in articular structures as detected by X-ray scans in the 48th week. The improvement ratios of the UCSS at the 8th, 24th, and 48th weeks (compared with baseline) reflect short-, medium-, and long-term time frames, respectively. Ethics and dissemination The protocol was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Integrated Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Southern Medical University, China (Approval No. granted by the ethics committee: NFZXYEC-2017-005) and then entered in the Chinese Clinical Trials Registry under registration number ChiCTR1800014918 (approval date: February 21, 2018). All procedures are in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations and with the Declaration of Helsinki by the World Medical Association (WMA). Any modifications of this protocol during execution will need additional approval from the Ethics Committee of our hospital. Trial registration number ChiCTR1800014918 .

Abstract Mitigating the spread of global infectious diseases requires rapid and accurate diagnostic tools. Conventional diagnostic techniques for infectious diseases typically require sophisticated equipment and are time consuming. Emerging clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR‐associated proteins (Cas) detection systems have shown remarkable potential as next‐generation diagnostic tools to achieve rapid, sensitive, specific, and field‐deployable diagnoses of infectious diseases, based on state‐of‐the‐art microfluidic platforms. Therefore, a review of recent advances in CRISPR‐based microfluidic systems for infectious diseases diagnosis is urgently required. This review highlights the mechanisms of CRISPR/Cas biosensing and cutting‐edge microfluidic devices including paper, digital, and integrated wearable platforms. Strategies to simplify sample pretreatment, improve diagnostic performance, and achieve integrated detection are discussed. Current challenges and future perspectives contributing to the development of more effective CRISPR‐based microfluidic diagnostic systems are also proposed.

Thoracic aortic dissection (TAD) is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death associated with aortic diseases. The age of TAD victims in forensic studies is significantly younger than hospitalized patients with TAD, while only a few studies have been conducted on autopsy-diagnosed TAD deceased. A retrospective study was conducted at the Medicolegal Center of Sun Yat-sen University from 1999 to 2019 to address the characteristics of TAD victims. A total of 200 deceased from spontaneous rupture of TAD were assessed, with 165 (82.5%) males and 175 (87.5%) Stanford type A deceased. Our main results showed that compared with patients with TAD diagnosed during their lifetime, individuals diagnosed with TAD until an autopsy showed an earlier onset (43.80 years old) and less accompanied hypertension (

The effect of dissolved organic matter (DOM) on metal bioavailability and toxicity is a complex process. Effluents from galvanizing plants containing large amounts of DOM and Zn were selected to investigate the potential influence and mechanism of DOM on Zn bioavailability and its role in inducing thyroid hormone disrupting effects. Thyroid hormone disrupting effects were evaluated using a recombinant thyroid hormone receptor β gene yeast assay. The results suggest that Zn could be the main metal contributor to the toxic effects. Then, Zn-binding characteristics with different fluorescent components of DOM were analyzed using three-dimensional excitation emission matrix fluorescence spectroscopy (3DEEM) and revealed that Zn was more susceptible to interactions with fulvic-like materials. Furthermore, DOM altered the cellular biouptake and compartmentalization processes of Zn by downregulating Zn transmembrane transport-related genes (ZRT1, ZRT2 and ZAP1) and upregulating detoxification-related genes (COT1 and ZRC1), thus altering thyroid toxicity. These results provide comprehensive insights into the influence and mechanism of DOM on bioavailability and thyroid toxicity of Zn and suggest that the influence is associated with complex physical, chemical and biological processes, indicating that more refined medium constraints along with subtle biological reactions should be considered when predicting the bioavailability and toxicity of Zn in environmental water samples.

The miniaturization of optical switches is a promising prospect with the use of phase-change materials (PCMs), and exploring various strategies to effectively integrate PCMs with integrated optical waveguides represents an intriguing research question. In this study, an ultra-compact integrated optical switch based on PCM is proposed. This device consists of a Ge2Sb2Te5 nano-disk and an inverse-designed pixelated sub-wavelength structure. The pixelated sub-wavelength structure offers customized refractive indices that conventional materials or structures cannot achieve, leading to an improved insertion loss (IL) and extinction ratio (ER) performance of the device. Furthermore, this structure enhances the interaction between the optical field and GST, resulting in a reduction of the device size and the inserted GST footprint. With an ultra-compact device footprint of 0.9 µm × 1.5 µm, the simulation results exhibit a low IL of 0.45 dB, and a high ER of 18.0 dB at 1550 nm. Additionally, relevant studies show that this device is able to perform reliably despite minor variations in the manufacturing process.

A cascaded liquid crystal polymer-based miniature angle magnifier is demonstrated to enable high-efficiency, wide-range, and high-precision beam steering for light detection and ranging (LiDAR) applications.

Electron accelerators are essential equipment in science and industry. However, their large footprint, ranging in length up to kilometers, limits their availability. Hence, compact solution to this problem is one of the major trends in advance accelerators. In this paper, a design of micro-scale electron accelerator based on surface plasmons is proposed. Due to the near-field enhancement effect of plasmons, this structure establishes extremely strong field for acceleration within less than 1μm. Simulation results shows that driven by infrared laser, the designed accelerator with 5 GV/m peak field deliver more than 0.39 keV energy to electrons. Cascaded in chain, this structure can realize fully electron acceleration, and has the potential of becoming the critical element of future integrated free electron light source lab on chip.

Infectious diseases contribute significantly to the global disease burden. Sensitive and accurate screening methods are some of the most effective means of identifying sources of infection and controlling infectivity. Conventional detecting strategies such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), DNA sequencing, and mass spectrometry typically require bulky equipment and well-trained personnel. Therefore, mass screening of a large population using conventional strategies during pandemic periods often requires additional manpower, resources, and time, which cannot be guaranteed in resource-limited settings. Recently, emerging microfluidic technologies have shown the potential to replace conventional methods in performing point-of-care detection because they are automated, miniaturized, and integrated. By exploiting the spatial separation of detection sites, microfluidic platforms can enable the multiplex detection of infectious diseases to reduce the possibility of misdiagnosis and incomplete diagnosis of infectious diseases with similar symptoms. This review presents the recent advances in microfluidic platforms used for multiplex detection of infectious diseases, including microfluidic immunosensors and microfluidic nucleic acid sensors. As representative microfluidic platforms, lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) platforms, polymer-based chips, paper-based devices, and droplet-based devices will be discussed in detail. In addition, the current challenges, commercialization, and prospects are proposed to promote the application of microfluidic platforms in infectious disease detection.

Toxoplasma gondii is known to have a complex life cycle and infect almost all kinds of warm-blooded animals around the world. The brain of the host could be persistently infected by cerebral cysts, and a variety of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and suicide have been reported to be related with latent toxoplasmosis. The infected animals showed fear reduction and a tendency to be preyed upon. However, the mechanism of this “parasites manipulation” effects have not been elucidated. Here, we reviewed the recent infection prevalence of toxoplasmosis and the evidence of mental and behavioral disorders induced by T. gondii and discussed the related physiological basis including dopamine dysregulation and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) pathway and the controversial opinion of the necessity for cerebral cysts existence. Based on the recent advances, we speculated that the neuroendocrine programs and neurotransmitter imbalance may play a key role in this process. Simultaneously, studies in the evaluation of the expression pattern of related genes, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), and mRNAs of the host provides a new point for understanding the mechanism of neurotransmitter dysfunction induced by parasite manipulation. Therefore, we summarized the animal models, T. gondii strains, and behavioral tests used in the related epigenetic studies and the responsible epigenetic processes; pinpointed opportunities and challenges in future research including the causality evidence of human psychiatric disorders, the statistical analysis for rodent-infected host to be more vulnerable preyed upon; and identified responsible genes and drug targets through epigenetics.

Direct liquid fuel cells (DLFCs) are promising clean energy conversion devices for their high energy density, low environmental pollution, and convenient transportation and storage. However, the commercialization of DLFCs is still limited by the lack of highly active and stable catalysts for the anodic oxidation of liquid fuels. Herein, a new class of ultrathin PtRu nanowires (NWs) with a diameter of 1.1 nm was synthesized via a colloidal chemistry strategy. The as-made ultrathin PtRu NWs can not only expose large active sites but also enhance the kinetics of methanol oxidation reaction, which was confirmed by the in situ Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Consequently, ultrathin PtRu NWs exhibit greatly boosted activity and stability for methanol and ethanol oxidation reactions in an alkaline medium.

Rapid and early detection of SARS-CoV-2 will aid intervention to stop disease spread. Here the authors present a one-pot CRISPR-based rapid detection system with visual readout.

Studies regarding sport-related sudden cardiac death (SCD) mainly focus on competitive athletes; similar data are rare in the general population, especially in China. We conducted a retrospective study (from September 1998 to August 2013) to investigate the aetiological distribution and epidemiological features of sport-related SCD in Southern China. Selections of cases are based on details, and two subgroups were established: one was the sport-related SCD group, and the other was the disease-free accident victims group which was matched with the sport-related SCD group in gender, age and year of death. Among the 3770 sudden-death cases, 1656 cases were SCD cases. A total of 65 cases (57 males) out of 1 656 SCD cases were sport-related. The age range of the 65 sport-related SCD cases was from 12 to 68 years old with a mean (35.92 ± 14.23) years old. Only two of these cases were competitive athletes. The most common circumstances of the 65 sport-related SCD cases were heavy physical labour (46.15%) and running (30.77%). The three leading forensic diagnoses were the coronary atherosclerotic disease (CAD, 28 cases), cardiomyopathy (CM, 14 cases) and sudden unexplained death (7 cases). CM was the most common forensic diagnosis in those ≤35 years old, while CAD was the most common one in those >35 years old. Left anterior descending in which atherosclerotic plaques was most commonly found was the principal artery branch associated with sport-related SCD. There was a statistically significant difference in the weight of hearts between the 65 sport-related SCD cases and 65 diseases-free accidental cases. This study highlights the need to attract public attention to sport-related SCD and to issue a prevention strategy to the public, and to make the SCD-related genetic sequencing a routine tool in both forensic pathological examination and clinic screening.

Toxoplasma gondii, a representative model organism belonging to the phylum Apicomplexa, can infect almost all warm-blooded organisms, including humans. The invasion of host cells via host–parasite interaction is the key step for T. gondii to complete its life cycle. Herein we performed tandem mass tag analysis to investigate global proteomic changes in host cells (human foreskin fibroblasts, HFFs) [HFFs infected with T. gondii (HT) vs. HFFs (H)] and T. gondii [HT vs. T. gondii (T)] during intracellular infection. Overall, 3477 and 1434 proteins were quantified, of which 375 and 1099 proteins were differentially expressed (adjusted p-value < 0.05 and >1.5 or

Reverse circulation down-the-hole (RC-DTH) air hammers have been widely used in construction and mining activities owing to their high drilling efficiency and good dust control performance. This paper presents a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach with the dynamic mesh method for evaluating the performance of RC-DTH air hammers. Nine stages of operating conditions of the RC-DTH air hammer are described herein to better understand the operating mechanism of the RC-DTH air hammer. Dynamic layering, sliding interfaces, as well as user-defined functions were employed to update the mesh in dynamic mesh modelling. The influences of rebound coefficient, input air pressure, and piston mass on the performance of RC-DTH air hammers were studied. It was found that increasing the rebound coefficient and input air pressure can improve the impact performance of RC-DTH air hammers, whereas increasing input air pressure can reduce energy efficiency and increase energy consumption. In addition, simulation results indicate that increasing the input air pressure may increase the stroke of the piston; the piston mass should be optimally selected to match the designed geometric parameters to avoid a significant drop in performance. The CFD approach with the dynamic mesh method shows superiority in evaluating the performance of RC-DTH air hammers. Keywords: RC-DTH air hammer, Drilling, Computational fluid dynamics, Dynamic mesh

Abstract Reverse circulation down‐the‐hole (RC‐DTH) air hammer drilling is a fast and cost‐effective method for hard rock drilling. As the air RC drill bit is the heart for RC‐DTH air hammer drilling system to form the reverse circulation, a large‐diameter RC drill bit was innovatively designed and numerically optimized with respect to the suction ability. Results show that increasing the suction‐nozzle elevation angle and deflection angle can improve the drill bit suction ability. The drill bit performance reaches its optimal state when the air flow rate was about 1.205 kg/s, thereafter it exhibits a reverse variation trend with the increase in air mass flow rate. The optimum diameter of the suction nozzles is 20 mm for the drill bit studied in this work. The RC drill bit with outer diameter of 665 mm and RC‐DTH air hammer with outer diameter of 400 mm were manufactured and a field trial was conducted. Field test results show that the penetration rate using the RC‐DTH air hammer drilling method is more than twice the conventional rotary drilling method. This drilling approach poses a great potential for the large‐diameter hard rock drilling applied in the upper portions of a well bore above the potential producing reservoir formation for land oil and gas drilling, geothermal drilling and relevant field drilling operations.

Abstract Background Rhoptry protein 18 (ROP18) is a key virulence factor of Toxoplasma gondii. The host’s immune responses mediated by immune-related GTPases (IRGs) could be blocked by ROP18’s kinase activity. ROP18 also interacts with various substrates, such as activating transcription factor 6 beta (ATF6β) and affects multiple physiological functions within host cells, thereby inducing intense virulence. In this study, competitive inhibitors targeted to ROP18 were subjected to virtual screening based on the principle of structure-based drug design (SBDD). Methods The preparation of the ROP18 structure was conducted using the “Structure Prepare” function of Molecular Operating Environment (MOE) software. The ATP-binding pocket was selected as the starting point for virtual screening. Construction of the pharmacophore model used Extended Hückel Theory (EHT) half-quantitative measurement and construction, as well as the characteristics of Type I kinase inhibitors. The pharmacophore model of ROP18 was imported into the Specs database for small molecule similarity screening using EHT pharmacophore measurement. Hit compounds were selected using the functions of London dG and generalized-born volume integral/weighted surface area (GBVI/WSA) scoring. The top 100 hits were analyzed by molecular docking and structure activity relationships (SAR) analysis. Results The final pharmacophore comprised three typical characteristics: three hydrogen bond acceptors/donors, two ring aromatic features occupying the hydrophobic core, and one cation group feature targeted to the terminus of ATP. A total of 1314 hit compounds analogous to ROP18 pharmacophore were passed through the Specs. After two rounds of docking, 25 out of 100 hits were identified as belonging to two main scaffold types: phthalimide ring structure, thiazole ring and styrene structure. Additionally, the screen also identified 13 inhibitors with distinct scaffold types. The docking models and SAR analysis demonstrated that these hits could engage in multiple hydrogen bonds, salt bridges halogen bonds, and hydrophobic interactions with ROP18, and para-position halo substituents on the benzene ring may enhance their affinity scoring. Conclusions A pharmacophore against the ROP18 ATP-binding pocket was successfully constructed, and 25 representative inhibitors from 15 scaffold clusters were screened using the Specs database. Our results provide useful scaffold types for the chemical inhibition of ROP18 or alternative conformations to develop new anti-toxoplasmosis drug leads.

Holographic optical elements (HOEs) exhibit several unique properties in arbitrary wavefront recording and extraction. Versatile recording mechanisms and material availabilities further expand their design flexibilities. Augmented reality (AR) displays are emerging and transforming daily life. Applications of HOEs in AR have harvested numerous fruitful evolutionary and revolutionary progresses. Herein, the basic operation principles of HOEs are elucidated, recent advances in AR systems are reviewed, and their future perspectives are discussed.

The “Patterned-Liquid-Crystal for Novel Displays” is a Special Issue focused on new insights and explorations in the field of liquid crystals arranged in a periodic patterned way [...]

Summary: As one of the most promising candidates for next-generation mobile platform, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have potential to revolutionize the ways we perceive and interact with various digital information. In the meantime, recent advances in display and optical technologies, together with the rapidly developing digital processers, offer new development directions to advancing the near-eye display systems further. In this perspective paper, we start by analyzing the optical requirements in near-eye displays poised by the human visual system and then compare it against the specifications of state-of-the-art devices, which reasonably shows the main challenges in near-eye displays at the present stage. Afterward, potential solutions to address these challenges in both AR and VR displays are presented case by case, including the most recent optical research and development, which are already or have the potential to be industrialized for extended reality displays.

Summary: A clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-like “mimivirus virophage resistance element” (MIMIVIRE) system, which contains specific cascade genes and a CRISPR array against virophages, was reported in mimiviruses. An essential component of the MIMIVIRE system is R354, encoding a nuclease and a likely functional homolog of Cas4. Here we show that R354 is a dual nuclease with both exonuclease and endonuclease activities. Structural analysis revealed that the catalytic core domain of R354 is similar to those of Cas4 and λ exonuclease despite their low sequence identity. R354 forms a homodimer that is important for its exonuclease but not endonuclease activity. Structural comparisons between the active and semi-active states of R354 demonstrated that an activation loop adjacent to the catalytic site is critical for enzymatic activity. Overall, the results suggest that R354 belongs to a novel MIMIVIRE system involved in innate virus immunity and provides a template for the identification of new CRISPR systems in other species. : Virology; Structural Biology; Protein Structure Aspects Subject Areas: Virology, Structural Biology, Protein Structure Aspects

Tick species are considered the second leading vector of human diseases. Different ticks can transmit a variety of pathogens that cause various tick-borne diseases (TBD), such as Lyme disease. Currently, it remains a challenge to diagnose Lyme disease because of its non-specific symptoms. Rapid and accurate identification of tick species plays an important role in predicting potential disease risk for tick-bitten patients, and ensuring timely and effective treatment. Here, we developed, optimized, and tested a smartphone-based deep learning algorithm (termed “TickPhone app”) for tick identification. The deep learning model was trained by more than 2000 tick images and optimized by different parameters, including normal sizes of images, deep learning architectures, image styles, and training–testing dataset distributions. The optimized deep learning model achieved a training accuracy of ~90% and a validation accuracy of ~85%. The TickPhone app was used to identify 31 independent tick species and achieved an accuracy of 95.69%. Such a simple and easy-to-use TickPhone app showed great potential to estimate epidemiology and risk of tick-borne disease, help health care providers better predict potential disease risk for tick-bitten patients, and ultimately enable timely and effective medical treatment for patients.

Background/Aims: It is well documented that myocardial hypertrophy is associated with low ambient temperature. Atorvastatin (Atv) has been shown to protect against atherosclerosis, cardiac fibrosis, ischemia/reperfusion injury, etc. In this study, we aim to determine whether atorvastatin is effective in the treatment of myocardial hypertrophy induced by cold exposure and to shed light on underlying mechanism. Methods: The mice aged 4-week were randomized to Control (Ctl) group (raised at room temperature), Cold group (raised at 3-5ºC) and Atv treatment group (raised at 3-5ºC followed by 10mg/kg/day Atv infusion). Echocardiography (ECG), HE, TUNEL and Masson’s trichrome staining, and Transmission electronic microscopy were performed to analyze cardiac function, myocardial hypertrophy, cardiac fibrosis, apoptosis and cardiomyocyte ultrastructure, respectively. Western blot was carried out to determine the involvement of MAPK and apoptosis pathways. Results: Exposure of mice to low temperature induced myocardial hypertrophic growth characterized by the elevation of heart/body weight index and heart weight /tibia length index, compared with control mice. Atv treatment attenuated cardiac hypertrophy induced by cold exposure; Atv also attenuated the increase of cross-sectional area of cardiomyocytes and cardiac collagen content fraction in mice exposed to cold. ECG showed that the decline of cardiac functions including the elevated left ventricular systolic/diastolic internal dimension (LVIDs/d) and fractional shortening (FS) in mice with cold exposure was also inhibited by Atv treatment. Transmission electronic microscopy uncovered that Atv attenuated mitochondrial injury induced by cold exposure in mice. In addition, systolic blood pressure was gradually increased in mice exposed to cold temperature, and Atv treatment significantly inhibited the elevation of blood pressure in cold-treated mice. Mechanistically, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signal was not altered in mice exposed to cold, and Atv did not affect MAPK signal in cold-treated mice. But Atv mitigated the reduction of Bcl-2/Bax level in heart of cold-treated mice. Conclusion: Atv attenuated myocardial hypertrophy induced by cold exposure through inhibiting the downregulation of Bcl-2 in heart. It may provide a novel strategy for low temperature-induced myocardial hypertrophy treatment.

NrnC from Agrobacterium tumefaciens (At_NrnC, UniProt accession number A9CG28) is a nuclease containing a single DEDDy domain. Here, we determined the structures of both the apo and metal-ion-bound forms of At_NrnC. Although the overall structure of the At_NrnC protomer is similar to that of the RNase D exonuclease domain, nuclease assays unexpectedly revealed that At_NrnC possesses remarkably different substrate specificity. In contrast to RNase D, which degrades both single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), At_NrnC hydrolyses ssRNA, single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), and double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) with high efficiency but does not degrade dsRNA. Crystal packing analysis and biochemical data indicated that At_NrnC forms an octameric hollow cylindrical structure that allows ssRNA, ssDNA, and dsDNA, but not dsRNA, to enter the central tunnel where the multiple active sites perform hydrolysis. This novel structural feature confers a high processivity and is responsible for the preference of At_NrnC for longer dsDNA substrates.

The Maxwellian view offers a promising approach to overcome the vergence-accommodation conflict in near-eye displays, however, its pinhole-like imaging naturally limits the eyebox size. Here, a liquid crystal polymer-based Dammann grating with evenly distributed energy among different diffraction orders is developed to enlarge the eyebox of Maxwellian view displays via pupil replication. In the experiment, a 3-by-3 Dammann grating is designed and fabricated, which exhibits good efficiency and high brightness uniformity. We further construct a proof-of-concept Maxwellian view display breadboard by inserting the Dammann grating into the optical system. The prototype successfully demonstrates the enlarged eyebox and full-color operation. Our work provides a promising route of eyebox expansion in Maxwellian view displays while maintaining full-color operation, simple system configuration, compactness, and lightweight.

Due to some drawbacks of conventional drilling methods and drilling tools, the application of hydraulic hammers with a fluidic amplifier have been extensively popularized since its emergence in recent years. However, the performance life of a fluidic amplifier is still unsatisfactory in oil and gas wells drilling, especially the heavy wear or erosion of the fluidic amplifier leads to the reduction of service life time of hydraulic hammers, which is derived from the incision of drilling muds with high speed and pressure. In order to investigate the influence of drilling muds, such as particle size, solid content and jet velocity, on the antierosion property of a fluidic amplifier, several groups of drilling muds with different performance parameters have been utilized to numerical simulation on basis of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Simulation results have shown that the jet nozzle of fluidic amplifiers is primarily abraded, afterwards are the lateral plates and the wedge of the fluidic amplifier, which shows extraordinary agreement with the actual cases of fluidic amplifier in drilling process. It can be concluded that particle size, solid content and jet velocity have a great influence on the anti-erosion property of a fluidic amplifier, and the erosion rate linearly varies with the particle size of drilling muds, nevertheless exponentially varies with solid content and jet velocity of drilling muds. As to improve the service life time of a fluidic amplifier, the mud purification system or low solid clay-free mud system is suggested in the operation of directional well drilling

Liquid crystal-based reflective polarization volume grating (PVG), also known as a linear Bragg–Berry phase optical element or a member of volume Bragg gratings (VBGs), is a functional planar structure with patterned orientation of optical axis. Due to the strong polarization selectivity, nearly 100% diffraction efficiency, large diffraction angle, and simple fabrication process, PVGs have found potential applications in novel photonic devices and emerging near-eye displays. In this review paper, we describe the operation principles, discuss the optical properties, present the fabrication methods, and provide promising applications of PVGs for near-eye displays and novel photonic devices.

Widely accessible, inexpensive, easy-to-use consumer 3D printers, such as desktop stereolithography (SLA) and fused-deposition modeling (FDM) systems are increasingly employed in prototyping and customizing miniaturized fluidic systems for diagnostics and research. However, these 3D printers are generally limited to printing parts made of only one material type, which limits the functionality of the microfluidic devices without additional assembly and bonding steps. Moreover, mating of different materials requires good sealing in such microfluidic devices. Here, we report methods to print hybrid structures comprising a hard, rigid component (clear polymethacrylate polymer) printed by a low-cost SLA printer, and where the first printed part is accurately mated and adhered to a second, soft, flexible component (thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer) printed by an FDM printer. The prescribed mounting and alignment of the first-printed SLA-printed hard component, and its pre-treatment and heating during the second FDM step, can produce leak-free bonds at material interfaces. To demonstrate the utility of such hybrid 3D-printing, we prototype and test three components: i) finger-actuated pump, ii) quick-connect fluid coupler, and iii) nucleic acid amplification test device with screw-type twist sealing for sample introduction.