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Abstract Purpose To summarize the outcomes of corneal sight rehabilitating surgery in Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS). Methods This is a retrospective analysis of a consecutive case series. Twenty-four eyes of 18 SJS patients were included in this study. The ocular parameters, surgical procedures, postoperative complications, and additional treatments of the cases were reviewed. Results A total of 29 corneal sight rehabilitating surgeries, which consists of 9 keratoplasties, 8 Keratolimbal allograft (KLAL) and 12 combined surgeries (keratoplasty and KLAL simultaneously) were performed on the 24 eyes. All patients were treated with glucocorticoid eyedrops and tacrolimus eyedrops for anti-rejection treatment without combining systemic immunosuppression, except two patients who were prescribed prednisone tablets for the management of systemic conditions. The mean follow-up period was 50.6 ± 28.1 months. The optimal visual acuity (VA) (0.74 ± 0.60 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution [logMAR]) and endpoint VA (1.06 ± 0.82 logMAR) were both significantly better than the preoperative VA (1.96 ± 0.43 logMAR) (95% CI, p = 0.000). 57.1% patients (8/14) were no longer in the low vision spectrum, and 88.9% patients (8/9) were no longer blind. The mean epithelialization time was 7.1 ± 7.6 weeks. The success rate was 86.7%. Additional treatments for improving epithelialization included administration of serum eyedrops (n = 10), contact lens (n = 15), amniotic membrane transplantation (n = 6), and tarsorrhaphy (n = 8). Complications included delayed epithelialization (n = 4, over 12 weeks), glaucoma (n = 11), and severe allograft opacity (n = 4). Only one graft rejection was observed. Conclusions Keratoplasty and KLAL can remarkably enhance VA and improve low vision or even eliminate blindness for ocular complications of SJS. The outcome of the surgeries was correlated with the preoperative ocular situation and choice of operative methods.

Within the Earth’s terrestrial environment, evapotranspiration significantly contributes to the hydrological cycle, accounting for around 80% of the precipitation on landmasses to be reintroduced into the atmosphere. This mechanism profoundly affects the distribution and availability of surface water resources throughout the ecosystem. Gaining insight into the factors influencing local evapotranspiration fluctuations in response to varying climatic and vegetative scenarios is crucial for effective water management strategies and rehabilitating ecosystem resilience. To this end, our study focuses on the Jing River Basin in the Loess Plateau, utilizing multi-source remote sensing data and climatic information to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of evapotranspiration from 1984 to 2018 through the application of the Priestley–Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PT-JPL) model. Our research results indicate a general ascending tendency in evapotranspiration across the investigated region, demonstrating a notably discernible escalation at a pace of approximately 3.11 mm/year (p < 0.01), with an annual vegetation ET volume reaching 533.88 mm. Across different vegetation types in the Jing River Basin between 1984 and 2018, the mean yearly ET was observed to be highest in forests (572.88 mm), followed by croplands (564.74 mm), shrublands (536.43 mm), and grasslands (503.42 mm). The leaf area index (LAI) demonstrated the strongest partial correlation with ET (r = 0.35) and contributed the most significantly to the variation in ET within the Jing River Basin (0.41 mm/year). Additionally, LAI indirectly influences ET through its impact on vapor pressure deficit (VPD), precipitation (Pre), and temperature (Temp). Radiation is found to govern most ET changes across the region, while radiation and precipitation notably affected ET by modulating air temperature. In summary, these radiant energy changes directly affect the evaporation rate and total evapotranspiration of surface water. It provides important support for understanding how evapotranspiration in the Jing River Basin is adjusting to climate change and increased vegetation cover. These findings serve as a theoretical foundation for devising sustainable vegetation restoration strategies to optimize water resource utilization within the region.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) presents an escalating global challenge as conventional antibiotic treatments become less effective. In response, photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT) have emerged as promising alternatives. While rooted in ancient practices, these methods have evolved with modern innovations, particularly through the integration of lasers, refining their efficacy. PDT harnesses photosensitizers to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are detrimental to microbial cells, whereas PTT relies on heat to induce cellular damage. The key to their effectiveness lies in the utilization of photosensitizers, especially when integrated into nano- or micron-scale supports, which amplify ROS production and enhance antimicrobial activity. Over the last decade, carbon dots (CDs) have emerged as a highly promising nanomaterial, attracting increasing attention owing to their distinctive properties and versatile applications, including PDT and PTT. They can not only function as photosensitizers, but also synergistically combine with other photosensitizers to enhance overall efficacy. This review explores the recent advancements in CDs, underscoring their significance and potential in reshaping advanced antimicrobial therapeutics.

PurposeTo verify the International Chronic Ocular Graft-Versus-Host Disease (ICCGVHD) Group diagnostic criteria and establish an easy-to-use and reliable diagnosis model for quick identification of chronic oGVHD.MethodsThis study included 180 patients (355 eyes) who underwent allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) and visited the Peking University Third Hospital Cornea and Ocular Surface Disease Specialist Clinic from July 2020 to February 2021. The proportion of chronic oGVHD was 76.06% (279/355).ResultsFive complaints, including eye dryness, photophobia, foreign body sensation, eye redness, and burning sensation; six ophthalmic examinations, including Ocular Surface Disease Index (OSDI) score, corneal fluorescein staining (CFS), tear break-up time (TBUT), Schirmer’s test score without anesthesia, conjunctival score, tear meniscus height, and non-ocular GVHD-involved organs were significantly different between patients with chronic oGVHD and control group (p

Abstract Background In December 2019, many cases of COVID‐19 were reported in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. In the following 3 months, the disease out broke in China. Preisolation measures was used to screen out COVID‐19 patients in the pediatric respiratory ward of our hospital. Aims To investigate the new measures for screening COVID‐19 patients and to analyze the clinical features of children with suspicious COVID‐19. Methods A total of 50 preisolated children with suspicious COVID‐19 who were admitted to our hospital in Mianyang, China, between January 28 and March 5, 2020, were included. Patients presented with fever and cough or fever accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea. A detailed epidemiological history screening was performed. A real‐time reverse‐transcriptase–polymerase‐chain‐reaction (RT‐PCR) was used to detect SARS‐COV‐2 nucleic acid. Low‐dose chest computed tomography (CT) was applied when pneumonia was suspicious. Routine blood tests were performed to rule out COVID‐19. Patients' data were collected, and the basic clinical features, epidemiological history, clinical manifestations, auxiliary examination results, and outcomes were analyzed and summarized. Results No definite cases were detected, while two patients were suspected of having COVID‐19. The pathogenic results of the 50 patients mainly included Mycoplasma pneumoniae, followed by Epstein–Barr virus, and rotavirus. Thirty‐five patients suffered from bronchopneumonia. The preisolated patients had similar clinical and epidemiological characteristics as patients with fever, cough, vomiting, and diarrhea. Conclusions Preisolation measures combined with pathogen screening can minimize the risk of hospital‐acquired infections by preventing patients with suspicious COVID‐19 from contacting other patients before they are explicitly excluded. Clinical analysis of the patients was helpful for clinical nursing management.

Abstract Purpose To determine the role tear lymphotoxin-α (LT-α) in chronic ocular graft-versus-host disease (oGVHD). Methods Twenty-two chronic oGVHD and 17 control tear samples were collected, and commercial test strips were used to detect LT-α concentrations. Concentration differences between patients with and without oGVHD were determined via Mann-Whitney U test. The correlation between LT-α levels and ophthalmic parameters was analyzed using Spearman’s test. Results The concentration of LT-α was significantly lower in oGVHD patients than in controls. LT-α levels were significantly correlated with OSDI, NIH eye score, T-BUT, and CFS among all participants. ROC analysis revealed that the area under the curve of LT-α was 0.847, and the cutoff value for chronic oGVHD diagnosis was 0.203 ng/mL. Conclusion Our study revealed the significant decrease of tear LT-α in oGVHD, and suggested LT-α as a promising marker for chronic oGVHD diagnosis.

Studying eco-stoichiometric and salt ions characteristics of halophytes and soils is helpful to understand the distribution mechanism of nutrients and salts in halophytes and their adaptation strategies to salinized habitats. In this study, three different types of halophytes (Phragmites communis-salt repellent, Suaeda salsa-salt accumulating, and Aeluropus sinensis- salt secreting) and soils were selected to analyze the differences and correlations of C, N, P stoichiometry and salt accumulation. Results showed that: (1) the total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) contents of the three halophytes’ leaves were significantly higher than those of the roots and stems, and the C: N ratios were contrary to the difference mentioned above. The growth of P. communis and S. salsa was mainly limited by P, whereas A. sinensis was limited by both N and P. S. salsa had a stronger absorption capacity for Na+ and Mg2+ than P. communis and A. sinensis. The interrelationship between salt ions and C, N and P ecological stoichiometry of halophyte organs was influenced by the type of halophytes. (2) The TC, TN, and N: P contents of the three halophyte communities in the surface soil (0-20 cm) were significantly higher than the other soil layers, while P did not differ significantly among soil layers. The planting of different halophytes affected the TC, TN, C: N, N: P values and the content of seven ions in the surface soil. SO42-was positively correlated with soil TC, TN, N:P, and Na+ were positively correlated with soil TC in three halophytes. (3) The P. communis TC and A. sinensis TN contents were negatively correlated with soil TC, TN, C: P, and N: P, whereas TC contents of S. salsa were positively correlated with the aforementioned soil indicators. The P. communis and A. sinensis TC contents were negatively correlated with soil K+, while this correlation was opposite between S. salsa and soil. (4) The homeostasis of C, N, and P elements in all three halophytes showed that C > N > P, the homeostasis was strongest in A. sinensis and weakest in S. salsa. The results provide a theoretical basis for the restoration of saline land in the Yellow River Delta.

At present, the structural changes of extruded materials under thermal-mechanical stress during high-moisture extrusion are still unclear. In this study, the transglutaminase (TG) treatments on the structure of pea protein isolate (PPI) under conditions relevant to high-moisture extrusion processing (50 wt% PPI at 30°C, 120°C and heated to 120°C and subsequently cooled to 30°C) was studied by using a closed cavity rheometer. Strain and frequency sweeping were carried out under various temperature conditions, and the information obtained was drawn into a texture map. Lissajous curves combined with energy dissipation ratio were introduced to characterize the nonlinear response of the samples. The results showed that the storage modulus of PPI increased with the increase of TG concentration during heat treatment. After cooling to 30°C, PPI with 0.25–1%TG could enhance the elasticity, but treating by 2% TG could inhibit the formation of disulfide bonds, the uniform development of the protein network, thus showing the “tough” character. These findings can help to better understand the relationships of material-structure during the extrusion process, and also provide help for further optimization of the quality of meat substitutes.

The seasonal dynamic characteristics of C, N, and P stoichiometry and water use efficiency (WUE) of Messerschmidia sibirica and the soil in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) were studied. The correlations of stoichiometric characteristics and WUE between organs of M. sibirica and soil were analyzed. The results showed that: (1) the contents of C, N, and P and their stoichiometric ratios in various organs of M. sibirica varied with seasons. The seasonal dynamics of leaf N:P showed that the degree of nutrient restriction by N decreased in July and increased in September. (2) The contents of C, N, and P, as well as their stoichiometric ratio, showed a high correlation throughout the growing season, with N:P showing a significantly positive correlation among organs and the lowest stoichiometric correlation between leaf and root. (3) C13 stable isotope analysis showed that the WUE of M. sibirica in May was significantly higher than that of other months (July and September). The WUE had a significantly positive correlation with leaf C and N content and a significantly negative correlation with leaf C:N, indicating that M. sibirica can compensate for the decline in N use efficiency through the improvement of WUE. The structural equation model (SEM) showed that the leaf N and P contents were affected by the joint effect of season and WUE, and the leaf C content was mainly directly affected by WUE. (4) Redundancy analysis (RDA) analysis showed that soil P content and soil N:P were the main factors affecting the variation of stoichiometry and WUE in various organs of M. sibirica. This study is helpful to deeply understand the adaptive mechanism of plant nutrient and water use, which provides a theoretical basis for vegetation protection and restoration in the study area.

Lithium-ion batteries with solid electrolytes offer safety, higher energy density and higher long-term performance, which are promising alternatives to conventional liquid electrolyte batteries. Lithium aluminum titanium phosphate (LATP) is one potential solid electrolyte candidate due to its high Li-ion conductivity. To evaluate its performance, influences of the experimental factors on the materials design need to be investigated systematically. In this work, a materials design strategy based on machine learning (ML) is employed to design experimental conditions for the synthesis of LATP. In the variation of parameters, we focus on the tolerance against the possible deviations in the concentration of the precursors, as well as the influence of sintering temperature and holding time. Specifically, models built with different design selection strategies are compared based on the training data assembled from previous laboratory experiments. The best one is then chosen to design new experiment parameters, followed by measuring the corresponding properties of the newly synthesized samples. A previously unknown sample with ionic conductivity of 1.09 × 10−3 S cm−1 is discovered within several iterations. In order to further understand the mechanisms governing the high ionic conductivity of these samples, the resulting phase compositions and crystal structures are studied with X-ray diffraction, while the microstructures of sintered pellets are investigated by scanning electron microscopy. Our studies demonstrate the advantages of applying machine learning in designing experimental conditions by the synthesis of desired materials, which can effectively help researchers to reduce the number of required experiments.

Soil microorganisms play the important role in driving biogeochemical cycles. However, it is still unclear on soil microbial community characteristics and microbial driving mechanism in rhizosphere and bulk soils of different halophyte species. In this study, we analyzed bacterial communities in the rhizosphere and bulk soils of three typical halophytes in the Yellow River Delta, i.e., Phragmites communis, Suaeda salsa, and Aeluropus sinensis, by high-throughput sequencing. The contents of total carbon, total nitrogen, and available phosphorus in rhizosphere soils of the three halophytes were significantly higher than those in bulk soils, which suggested a nutrient enrichment effect of the rhizosphere. Rhizosphere soil bacterial α-diversity of P. communis was higher than that in bulk soil, whereas bacterial α-diversity in rhizosphere soil of S. salsa and A. sinensis was lower than those in bulk soil. The dominant bacterial phyla were Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, and Bacteroidetes, which accounted for 31, 20.5, 16.3, and 10.3%, respectively. LDA effect size (LEfSe) analysis showed that the bacterial species with significant differences in expression abundance was obviously different in the rhizosphere and bulk soil of three halophytes. The principal component analysis (PCoA) showed that bacterial community composition was greatly different between rhizosphere and bulk soils of P. communis and S. salsa, while no difference in A. sinensis. Changed bacterial community composition was mainly ascribed to salinity in rhizosphere and bulk soils. Additionally, salinity was positively correlated with Bacteroidetes and negatively correlated with Actinobacteria and Acidobacteria. Our study clarified the variation in bacterial community structure between rhizosphere and bulk soils with soil physicochemical properties, which proved a biological reference to indicate the characteristics of saline and alkaline land.

The concepts and current developments of a research data infrastructure for materials science are presented, extending and combining the features of an electronic lab notebook and a repository. The objective of this infrastructure is to incorporate the possibility of structured data storage and data exchange with documented and reproducible data analysis and visualization, which finally leads to the publication of the data. This way, researchers can be supported throughout the entire research process. The software is being developed as a web-based and desktop-based system, offering both a graphical user interface and a programmatic interface. The focus of the development is on the integration of technologies and systems based on both established as well as new concepts. Due to the heterogeneous nature of materials science data, the current features are kept mostly generic, and the structuring of the data is largely left to the users. As a result, an extension of the research data infrastructure to other disciplines is possible in the future. The source code of the project is publicly available under a permissive Apache 2.0 license.

Purpose: To evaluate corneal epithelial changes and related factors in chronic ocular graft-versus-host disease (oGVHD) patients. Methods: 21 patients (35 eyes) with chronic oGVHD and 8 patients (12 eyes) without oGVHD after bone marrow transplantation were recruited for assessment involving in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) analysis, ocular surface parameter determination and tear cytokine level analysis. The IVCM corneal epithelial scoring system was used to evaluate corneal epithelial changes. Results: There was a significant difference in the corneal epithelial score (p = .001) between the two groups. The corneal epithelial scores were significantly correlated with the corneal fluorescein staining scores (CFS, r = 0.463, p < .001), Schirmer's test (r = 0.389, p = .009) and tear cytokine levels of EGF (r = 0.491, p < .001) and APRIL (r = 0.318, p = .030). Conclusions: The depth of corneal epithelial defects can be estimated by the CFS. Corneal epithelial changes of chronic oGVHD are considered to be associated with lacrimal deficiency and a lack of EGF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the one-dimensional single crystal array nanostructure and large surface area ratio, the TiO2 nanowire arrays and Cu2S nanorod arrays are prepared to be used as the photoanodes and counter electrodes in the quantum dot sensitized solar cells. It is observed that the diameters of TiO2 nanowire and Cu2S nanorod are 80 nm and 100-150 nm, respectively. The optical absorption of TiO2 photoanodes are obviously enhanced after the quantum dots deposition. The incident photon to current conversion efficiency spectra and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy indicate high electron transfer rate of TiO2 nanowire arrays and good electrocatalytic activity for polysulfide reduction and charge transfer of Cu2S nanorod arrays. Incorporating the TiO2 nanowire arrays photoanode and Cu2S nanorod arrays counter electrode, the CuInS2/CdS quantum dot sensitized solar cell achieves a photovoltaic power conversion efficiency of 4.13% under one-sunlight illumination, which is higher than that of the device based on TiO2 and Cu2S nanoparticle films (3.53%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]