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Abstract Low-grade heat is abundant and ubiquitous, but it is generally discarded due to the lack of cost-effective recovery technologies. Ion thermoelectric cells are an affordable and straightforward approach of converting low-grade heat into usable electricity for sustainable power. Despite their potential, ion thermoelectric cells face challenges such as limited Seebeck coefficient and required series integration. Here, we demonstrate that the N-type and P-type conversion of ion thermoelectric cells can be achieved through the phase transition of temperature-sensitive hydrogel containing the triiodide/iodide redox couple. Through the strong interaction between the hydrophobic region of the hydrogel and triiodide, the hydrophobic side selectively captures triiodide and the hydrophilic side repels triiodide, raising the concentration difference of triiodide and thereby increasing the Seebeck coefficient. Specifically, the Seebeck coefficient of the N-type ion thermoelectric cells is 7.7 mV K−1, and the Seebeck coefficient of P-type ion thermoelectric cells is −6.3 mV K−1 (ΔT = 15 K). By connecting 10 pairs of the N-type and P-type ion thermoelectric cells, we achieve a voltage of 1.8 V and an output power of 85 μW, surpassing the reported triiodide/iodide-based ion thermoelectric cells. Our work proposes a phase transition strategy for the N-P conversion of ion thermoelectric cells, and highlights the prospect of series integrated hydrogel ion thermoelectric cells for low-grade heat harvesting.

Abstract Background This study employs systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the incidence and characteristics of spinal cord injury (SCI) between 2000 and 2021, aiming to provide the most recent and comprehensive data support for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care of SCI. Methods Systematic searches were conducted on epidemiological studies of SCI published between January 1, 2000, and March 29, 2024. Meta-analysis, subgroup analysis, meta-regression, publication bias detection, and literature quality assessment were extensively utilized. Results The pooled results from 229 studies indicated that the overall incidence rate of SCI was 23.77 (95% CI, 21.50–26.15) per million people, with traumatic spinal cord injuries (TSCI) at a rate of 26.48 (95% CI, 24.15–28.93) per million people, and non-traumatic spinal cord injuries (NTSCI) at a rate of 17.93 (95% CI, 13.30-23.26) per million people. The incidence of TSCI exhibited a marked age-related increase and was significantly higher in community settings compared to hospital and database sources. Males experienced TSCI at a rate 3.2 times higher than females. Between 2000 and 2021, the incidence of TSCI remained consistently high, between 20 and 45 per million people, whereas NTSCI incidence has seen a steady rise since 2007, stabilizing at a high rate of 25–35 per million people. Additionally, the incidence of TSCI in developing countries was notably higher than that in developed countries. There were significant differences in the causes of injury, severity, injury segments, gender, and age distribution among the TSCI and NTSCI populations, but the proportion of male patients was much higher than that of female patients. Moreover, study quality, country type, and SCI type contributed to the heterogeneity in the meta-analysis. Conclusions The incidence rates of different types of SCI remain high, and the demographic distribution of SCI patients is changing, indicating a serious disease burden on healthcare systems and affected populations. These findings underscore the necessity of adopting targeted preventive, therapeutic, and rehabilitative measures based on the incidence and characteristics of SCI.

BackgroundThe relationship between serum uric acid (SUA) and osteoporosis (OP) has yielded conflicting results in observational studies. This Mendelian randomization (MR) study aims to elucidate the causal association between SUA and OP.MethodsA two-sample MR analysis was conducted using summary-level data from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Two sets of polygenic instruments strongly associated (p < 5 × 10-8) with SUA were extracted from the CKDGen consortium and UK biobank. Polygenic instruments associated with OP (p < 5 × 10-8) were derived from FinnGen biobank and UK biobank. Inverse variance weighting (IVW) was employed as the primary analysis method. Additionally, we utilized MR-Egger, weighted median, the simple mode method, and the weighted mode as complementary analyses. Cochran’s Q statistics were used to assess heterogeneity, with MR-Egger intercept testing and MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier (MR-PRESSO) to examine horizontal pleiotropy. Sensitivity analysis was performed using the leave-one-out method.ResultsThe IVW analysis conducted across four groups confirms no significant causal relationship between SUA concentration and OP: UKB-UKB (OR: 1.001, 95% CI: 0.999-1.003, p=0.464), CKD-UKB (OR: 1.001, 95% CI: 0.999-1.003, p=0.349), UKB-Fin (OR: 0.934, 95% CI: 0.747-1.168, p=0.549), CKD-Fin (OR: 1.041, 95%CI: 0.934-1.161, p=0.470). Furthermore, additional four MR analyses corroborated these findings. Upon excluding all outliers identified by the MR-PRESSO test, no significant directional pleiotropy was observed, except for some data heterogeneity noted in the UKB-UKB group (Q=50.65, P=0.002). Additionally, a leave-one-out analysis indicated that no single SNP exerted undue influence on the results.ConclusionThis MR analysis provides convincing genetic evidence that there is no causal association between SUA and OP, SUA is unlikely to increase or reduce the risk of OP.

Objective This study aims to assess the clinical efficacy and safety of combining high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) with ultrasound-guided suction curettage for the treatment of cesarean scar pregnancy (CSP) at different time intervals.Methods A total of 115 CSP patients were enrolled and divided into two groups based on the time between HIFU ablation and suction curettage. Group A (n = 50) underwent suction curettage 24-48 h after HIFU ablation, while Group B (n = 65) had suction curettage within 6 h of HIFU ablation. The study compared and analyzed the clinical characteristics, treatment success rates, and intraoperative hemorrhage during ultrasound-guided suction curettage.Results The demographic characteristics of the two groups were similar, with no statistically significant differences observed in HIFU parameters, treatment success rates, blood loss, the use of Foley catheter balloons, or hospital expenses (p > 0.05). Importantly, suction curettage performed within 6 h after HIFU ablation resulted in shorter hospitalization times compared to suction curettage performed 24-48 h after the ablation (p

Objectives To observe the therapeutic efficacy of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) combined with different pharmacological treatments for adenomyosis.Materials and methods A total of 126 patients with adenomyosis who underwent HIFU combined with pharmacological treatment were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were treated with either dienogest (DNG) (Group A, N = 38) or GnRH-a (Group B, N = 88) for three months after HIFU, and received levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine systems (LNG-IUS) at the end of the third month. Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Pictorial Blood Loss Assessment Chart (PBAC) scores were used for evaluating symptom improvement.Results After propensity score matching (1:2), 38 patients were included in Group A and 76 in Group B. All patients showed significant improvement in VAS and PBAC scores after HIFU, but the PBAC score of Group A was significantly higher than that of patients in Group B at 18 months [11.50 (1.00, 29.50) vs. 0.00 (0.00, 16.50), p

Abstract Background Endometriosis (EMs) is a chronic and progressive disease that, if diagnosed late, can lead to infertility and deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE). Dysmenorrhea is the most prominent symptom of EMs. However, limited research exists on the specific correlation between dysmenorrhea patterns and EMs. Early prevention of EMs is essential to effectively manage the progression of the disease, and is best detected during adolescence. Our objective was to associate the development of EMs with dysmenorrhea patterns during adolescence and quantify the risk of adult EMs for adolescent girls, with the aim of supporting primary intervention strategy planning. Methods This case–control study examined predictors for adult EMs based on dysmenorrhea patterns in adolescents. We collected 1,287 cases of 641 EMs and 646 healthy females regarding their basic demographic information, adolescent menstrual characteristics, adolescent dysmenorrheal patterns, and adolescent lifestyles. Age-matching (1-to-1) was employed to control for the confounding effect of age between the groups. Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) and logistic regression models were utilized to identify predictors for adult EMs. The predictive value of the model was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and the C-index, while Hosmer–Lemeshow Test assessed the goodness of fit of the model. Data from one additional cohort in Shenzhen hospitalized with EMs were used to external validation were analyzed. Results Individuals who always experienced dysmenorrhea had a risk of adult endometriosis 18.874 (OR = 18.874; 95%CI = 10.309–34.555) times higher than those occasional dysmenorrhea, The risk of developing EMs was 5.257 times higher in those who experienced dysmenorrhea more than 12 months after menarche than in those who experienced dysmenorrhea less than 6 months after menarche (OR = 5.257, 95% CI = 3.343–8.266), AUC in the external validation cohort was 0.794(95%CI: 0.741–0.847). We further found that high-intensity physical activity and sun-sensitive skin of burning were influential factors in high-frequency dysmenorrhea. The AUC value for the internal evaluation of the model was 0.812 and the AUC value for the external validation was 0.794. Conclusion Our findings revealed that the frequency of dysmenorrhea during adolescence contributed to the development of adult endometriosis. The frequency and onset of dysmenorrhea in adolescence were promising predictors for adult EMs. Both internal and external validation proved the model's good predictive ability. Trial registration http://www.chictr.org.cn/ , TRN: ChicTR2200060429, date of registration: 2022/06/01, retrospectively registered.

The purpose of this experiment was to use a single-factor design to investigate the effects of different supplementation levels of plant essential oil/palygorskite composite (EPO-Pal) on growth performance, blood parameters, and intestinal morphology of broiler chicken. A total of 960 one-day-old chicks were randomly assigned into 4 treatments with 6 replicates of 40 chicks each. The broilers were fed the basal diet supplemented with 0, 500, 750, and 1000 mg/kg EPO-Pal for 42 days, respectively. The results showed that the 500 or 750 mg/kg groups significantly increased the body weight, average daily feed intake and average daily gain of the broilers at 28 and 42 days (p

To suppress the adverse effect of the gear windage phenomenon in the high-speed aeronautic industry, a shroud as an effective alternative strategy is usually to enclose gears to reduce the windage behaviors of high-speed gears. To deeply understand these no-load power losses, this paper proposes a new simulation methodology based on the Lattice Boltzmann method to study the windage losses of a shrouded spur gear and conducts a series of numerical studies. The models reproduce a shroud spur gear varying radial and axial clearances to evaluate the influence of casing walls on windage losses. The simulation results were then compared with experimental values, showing a satisfactory agreement. Furthermore, a torque containment factor integrating the air compressibility at high Mach numbers is introduced to represent the reduction in torque (windage power losses) for the shrouded gear compared to the free case, and the theoretical formulae for predicting windage power losses are further improved for better applicability as the tight shroud approaches the gear during the preliminary design stage.

Multi-scalar multiplication (MSM) is an important building block in most of elliptic-curve-based zero-knowledge proof systems, such as Groth16 and PLONK. Recently, Lu et al. proposed cuZK, a new parallel MSM algorithm on GPUs. In this paper, we revisit this scheme and present a new GPU-based implementation to further improve the performance of MSM algorithm. First, we propose a novel method for mapping scalars into Pippenger’s bucket indices, largely reducing the number of buckets compared to the original Pippenger algorithm. Second, in the case that memory is sufficient, we develop a new efficient algorithm based on homogeneous coordinates in the bucket accumulation phase. Moreover, our accumulation phase is load-balanced, which means the parallel speedup ratio is almost linear growth as the number of device threads increases. Finally, we also propose a parallel layered reduction algorithm for the bucket aggregation phase, whose time complexity remains at the logarithmic level of the number of buckets. The implementation results over the BLS12-381 curve on the V100 graphics card show that our proposed algorithm achieves up to 1.998x, 1.821x and 1.818x speedup compared to cuZK at scales of 221, 222, and 223, respectively.

When subjected to complicated thermal alternation, the low thermal conductivity (k) of polymerbonded explosives (PBXs) will induce high thermal stress, which will undermine the safety and reliability of the explosives by causing cracks or damage. However, it has been proven to be a challenge to efficiently increase the k of PBXs due to the high interfacial thermal resistance (ITR) and intrinsic defects of their conductive nanofillers. By introducing AgNWs with a high aspect ratio into graphene, this study constructed a novel multi-dimensional high-k nanofiller composed of one-dimensional (1D) silver nanowires (AgNWs) and two-dimensional (2D) graphene, namely gra@AgNWs. The AgNWs decorated could remedy the intrinsic defects of graphene by passing through the interspaces within graphene nanosheets to form connections as bridges. Consequently, the k of energetic polymer composites increased significantly by 89% from 0.425 ​W ​m−1 ​K−1 to 0.805 ​W ​m−1 ​K−1 at ultralow filler loading of 0.5 ​wt%. Furthermore, the temperature gradients and thermal stress in the composite cylinder decreased significantly under complicated thermal changes owing to the enhanced k. As quantitatively demonstrated through the fitting of experimental data using a theoretical model, AgNWs significantly decreased the ITR, paving highways” for phonon transfer between adjacent graphene nanosheets. Hence an expected synergistic effect of heat transfer was produced in the composites. This study provides new insights into the design and preparation of highly thermally conductive composites.

Realizing effective enhancement to the structure of interface region between explosive crystals and polymer binder plays a key role in improving the mechanical properties of the current polymer bonded explosives (PBXs). Herein, inspired by the structure of natural nacre which possesses outstanding mechanical performance, a kind of nacre-like structural layer is constructed in the interface region of PBXs composites, making use of two-dimensional graphene sheets and one-dimensional bio-macromolecules of cellulose as inorganic and organic building blocks, respectively. Our results reveal that the constructed nacre-like structural layer can effectively improve the interfacial strength and then endow the PBXs composites with significantly enhanced mechanical properties involving of creep resistance, Brazilian strength and fracture toughness, demonstrating the obvious advantage of such bioinspired interface structure design strategy. In addition, the thermal conduction performance of PBXs composites also exhibits noticeable enhancement due to the remarkable phonon transport capability endowed by the as-designed nacre-like structural layer. We believe this work provides a novel design route to conquer the issue of weak interfacial strength in PBXs composites and greatly increase the comprehensive properties for better meeting the higher requirements proposed to the explosive part of weapon equipment in new era.

This paper presents comparable sets of the no-load power loss as a product of windage and churning behaviors of a family of various rotating parts (i.e., disc, spur gear, straight bevel gear, and orthogonal face gear). Experimental measurements were carried out under pure air only and under partial immersion in oil to qualify and quantify the windage and churning effects of no-load power losses of a family of spur, bevel, and face gears along with a representative disc as the baseline. Aiming at exploring the influence of gear teeth on the total no-load power losses, two different theoretical analytical approaches are introduced to account for the churning contributions, by which the total power losses are estimated. Both analytical approaches compare well with the experimental findings. Furthermore, a spatial intersecting cross-axis gear (e.g., straight bevel gear and orthogonal face gear) results in higher no-load power losses than that of a representative disc or a parallel-axes gear. The significance of gear teeth (gear vs. disc) on windage behavior is presented, as well as the gear windage effects on the churning phenomenon in a high-speed splash-lubricated gear.

The pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass such as Miscanthus grown on marginal agricultural land is very challenging and requires severe conditions to fractionate cell wall polymers for further valorization. The current study aimed to determine organic acid-based mild conditions to pretreat contrasting lignocellulosic Miscanthus genotypes for the efficient fractionation of cell wall components, with special focus on hemicellulose extraction. In doing so, five Miscanthus genotypes were subjected to four different acid treatments (sulfuric acid, oxalic acid, malonic acid, and citric acid) in a vertical high-pressure steam sterilizer. The results demonstrated that, among the organic acids, oxalic acid was identified as the most effective pretreatment solvent for hemicellulose separation, whereas citric acid yielded the highest amount of galacturonic acid, varying from 15 to 17 mg mL−1 across genotypes. One best performing genotype was selected for the enzymatic hydrolysis. Overall, M. floridulus genotypes exhibited the optimal quality traits for efficient bioconversion with second best in terms of ethanol production potential.

In recent years, the clinical cases of ENTV-2 infection have increased and become prevalent in several provinces of China. In this study, we reported the occurrence of ENTV-2 in one goat farm in Chongqing, southwest China. The complete genome of an emerged ENTV-2 isolate (designated as CQ2) was sequenced with 7468 bp in length. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that ENTV-2 consisted of two main lineages. Lineage 1 was composed of Chinese strains and could be subdivided into five sublineages. CQ2 and the other six recent isolates from China were clustered in sublineage 1.5; however, CQ2 was significantly different from the other six isolates. Furthermore, recombination analysis suggested that CQ2 might be a recombinant variant derived from sublineage 1.5 and sublineage 1.2 strains, with the recombination region in areas of pro and pol genes. In conclusion, we sequenced and analyzed the complete genome of a potential ENTV-2 recombinant, which may contribute to our understanding of the genetic variation and evolution of ENTV-2 in China.

Abstract Background With advances in science and technology, the application of artificial intelligence in medicine has significantly progressed. The purpose of this study is to explore whether the k-nearest neighbors (KNN) machine learning method can identify three milling states based on vibration signals: cancellous bone (CCB), ventral cortical bone (VCB), and penetration (PT) in robot-assisted cervical laminectomy. Methods Cervical laminectomies were performed on the cervical segments of eight pigs using a robot. First, the bilateral dorsal cortical bone and part of the CCB were milled with a 5 mm blade and then the bilateral laminae were milled to penetration with a 2 mm blade. During the milling process using the 2 mm blade, the vibration signals were collected by the acceleration sensor, and the harmonic components were extracted using fast Fourier transform. The feature vectors were constructed with vibration signal amplitudes of 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 kHz and the KNN was then trained by the features vector to predict the milling states. Results The amplitudes of the vibration signals between VCB and PT were statistically different at 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 kHz (P

IntroductionInternet addiction disorder (IAD) has grown into public health concern of global proportions. Previous studies have indicated that individuals with IAD may exhibit altered levels of serotonin and dopamine, which are known to play crucial roles in depression, anxiety, impulsivity, and addiction. Therefore, polymorphisms in the receptors that mediate the effects of serotonin and dopamine and affect their functional states as well as their activities are suspect. In this study, we aimed to investigate the association between IAD and rs6313 (T102C) polymorphism in the serotonin 2A receptor (5-HT2A) gene, (HTR2A).MethodsTwenty patients with IAD and twenty healthy controls (HCs) were included in this study. Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, Self-Rating Depression Scale, Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), Barratt Impulse Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) were used to assess the severity of internet addiction, mental status, impulsive traits, sleep quality, and social support. Genotyping was performed to identify rs6313 polymorphisms in the HTR2A gene of all participants.ResultsThe frequencies of the C and T alleles of HTR2A T102C were 28% and 72% in the IAD group and 53% and 47% in the HCs group, respectively, indicating that the differences between these two groups were significant. No significant difference was observed in the distribution of the CC, CT, and TT genotypes of HTR2A gene T102C between the IAD and the HCs groups. Additionally, there was no difference in the distribution of the frequencies of the HTR2A gene T102C CC and CT+TT genotypes between the two groups. However, the distribution between the TT and CC+CT genotypes showed an apparent statistical difference in the HTR2A gene T102C between the two groups. Correlation analysis indicated that the IAT score was positively correlated with the Y-BOCS and BIS scores for the CC+CT genotype in patients with IAD. Moreover, the IAT score was positively correlated with the PSQI score in patients with IAD carrying the TT genotype.ConclusionThe present study demonstrates that rs6313 in HTR2A is associated with IAD, and that the T allele of rs6313 in HTR2A may be a risk factor for IAD.

In the double-cone ignition scheme of inertial confinement fusion, the head-on collision of two compressed fuel jets from the cone-tips forms an isochoric plasma, which is then heated suddenly by a MeV relativistic electron beam produced by ultra-intense picosecond laser pulses. This fast-heating process was studied experimentally at the Shenguang II upgrade laser facility. By observing temporal-resolved X-ray emission and the spatial-resolved X-ray spectrum, the colliding process and heating process are carefully studied. The colliding plasma was imaged to have dimensions of approximately 86 μm in the implosion direction and approximately 120 μm in the heating direction. By comparing the simulated plasma X-ray spectrum with experimental data, the electron temperature of the heated plasma was found to rapidly increase to 600 ± 50 eV, almost doubling the temperature achieved before the heating laser incidence.

Introduction: Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid extracted from Berberis vulgaris, which possesses a variety of pharmacological activities. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a complex disease with multiple pathologic factors, with cognitive decline being the main manifestation of AD. The neuroprotective effects of berberine in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have been widely reported, exhibiting protective effects against risk factors associated with AD. In this study, we summarize and evaluate the effects of berberine on cognitive function and β-amyloid precursor protein in animal models of AD.Material and methods: Eligible studies were retrieved from PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases up to 1 June 2023. Risk of bias was assessed by the Systematic Review Center for Laboratory Animal Experiments (SYRCLE). Statistical analyses were performed using STATA 14.0 and Review Manger 5.4 software to calculate weighted standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), Morris water maze (MWM) test and β-amyloid precursor protein as outcome measures. Heterogeneity was tested using the I2 test. Sensitivity analysis and publication bias were also assessed.Results: 19 studies involving 360 animals met the inclusion criteria, and the results of the meta-analysis showed that berberine decreased escape latency (SMD = −2.19, 95% CI: (−2.50, −1.88), p < 0.00001), increased the number of platform crossings (SMD = 4.27, 95% CI (3.38, 5.17), p < 0.00001), time in the target quadrant (SMD = 5.92, 95% CI (4.43, 7.41), p < 0.00001) and APP expression (SMD = 0.73, 95% CI: (0.25, 1.21), p = 0.003).Conclusion: Berberine can regulate APP expression and improve cognitive function in animal models of AD, and the mechanism may be related to the involvement of berberine in APP processing and influence the expression of its related factors.Systematic review registration: PROSPERO, CRD42023437445

The velocity interferometer system for any reflector (VISAR) coupled with a streaked optical pyrometer (SOP) system is used as a diagnostic tool in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments involving equations of state and shock timing. To validate the process of adiabatically compressing the fuel shell through precise tuning of shocks in experimental campaigns for the double-cone ignition (DCI) scheme of ICF, a compact line-imaging VISAR with an SOP system is designed and implemented at the Shenguang-II upgrade laser facility. The temporal and spatial resolutions of the system are better than 30 ps and 7 μm, respectively. An illumination lens is used to adjust the lighting spot size matching with the target size. A polarization beam splitter and λ/4 waveplate are used to increase the transmission efficiency of our system. The VISAR and SOP work at 660 and 450 nm, respectively, to differentiate the signals from the scattered lights of the drive lasers. The VISAR can measure the shock velocity. At the same time, the SOP system can give the shock timing and relative strength. This system has been used in different DCI campaigns, where the generation and propagation processes of multi-shock are carefully diagnosed.

AbstractObjectives To investigate the menstruation recovery after two therapeutic regimens, high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) or uterine artery embolization (UAE) combined with ultrasound-guided suction curettage, for premenopausal women with cesarean scar pregnancy (CSP).Materials and methods Seventy patients with CSP treated with HIFU followed by ultrasound-guided suction curettage and 63 patients with CSP treated with UAE followed by ultrasound-guided suction curettage in our hospital were retrospectively reviewed. The treatment parameters and the menstrual blood loss (MBL) volume at 6 months after the two therapeutic regimens were compared between the two groups.Results There was no significant difference in treatment results between the two groups. With regard to postoperative MBL volume, 5 out of 70 patients in the HIFU group and 22 out of 63 patients in UAE group exhibited a reduction in MBL, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that hypomenorrhea was more likely to occur in the UAE group than in the HIFU group (UAE group vs. HIFU group; OR 11.328, 95% CI 3.158–55.871; p

Abstract Purpose Morphological analysis of permanent anterior dentition is essential for achieving an ideal treatment outcome and avoiding unnecessary failure. This study aimed to analyze the morphologies of anterior teeth in the Chinese population in depth. Methods In this retrospective study, 4309 anterior teeth from 401 Chinese patients were investigated using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) from 2019–2021. We summarized the morphological characteristics of the anterior teeth in terms of the root length, cementoenamel junction curvature (CEJ-C), root furcation and canal variations. Results We found that the root lengths of the maxillary anterior incisors were similar (13.3 mm), while the root lengths of the mandibular central (12.2 mm) and lateral incisors (13.4 mm) varied significantly (p

Due to CPU and memory limitations, mobile IoT devices face challenges in handling delay-sensitive and computationally intensive tasks. Mobile edge computing addresses this issue by offloading tasks to the wireless network edge, reducing latency and energy consumption. UAVs serve as auxiliary edge clouds, providing flexible deployment and reliable wireless communication. To minimize latency and energy consumption, considering the limited resources and computing capabilities of UAVs, a multi-UAV and multi-edge cloud system was deployed for task offloading and UAV trajectory optimization. A joint optimization model for computing task offloading and UAV trajectory was proposed. During model training, a UAV communication mechanism was introduced to address potential coverage issues for mobile user devices through multiple UAVs or complete coverage. Considering the fact that decisions made by UAVs during trajectory planning may lead to collisions, a MADDPG algorithm with an integrated safety layer was adopted to obtain the safest actions closest to the joint UAV actions under safety constraints, thereby avoiding collisions between UAVs. Numerical simulation results demonstrate that the optimization method based on safety reinforcement learning considering communication cost outperforms other optimization methods. Communication between UAVs effectively addresses the issue of redundant or incomplete coverage for mobile user devices, reducing computation latency and energy consumption for task offloading. Additionally, the introduction of safety reinforcement learning effectively avoids collisions between UAVs.

Abstract Background Internet addiction (IA), recognized as a behavioral addiction, is emerging as a global public health problem. Acupuncture has been demonstrated to be effective in alleviating IA; however, the mechanism is not yet clear. To fill this knowledge gap, our study aimed to investigate the modulatory effects of acupuncture on the functional interactions among the addiction‐related networks in adolescents with IA. Methods Thirty individuals with IA and thirty age‐ and sex‐matched healthy control subjects (HCs) were recruited. Subjects with IA were given a 40‐day acupuncture treatment, and resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected before and after acupuncture sessions. HCs received no treatment and underwent one fMRI scan after enrollment. The intergroup differences in functional connectivity (FC) among the subcortical nucleus (SN) and fronto‐parietal network (FPN) were compared between HCs and subjects with IA at baseline. Then, the intragroup FC differences between the pre‐ and post‐treatment were analyzed in the IA group. A multiple linear regression model was further employed to fit the FC changes to symptom relief in the IA group. Results In comparison to HCs, subjects with IA exhibited significantly heightened FC within and between the SN and FPN at baseline. After 40 days of acupuncture treatment, the FC within the FPN and between the SN and FPN were significantly decreased in individuals with IA. Symptom improvement in subjects with IA was well fitted by the decrease in FC between the left midbrain and ventral prefrontal cortex and between the left thalamus and ventral anterior prefrontal cortex. Conclusion These findings confirmed the modulatory effects of acupuncture on the aberrant functional interactions among the SN and FPN, which may partly reflect the neurophysiological mechanism of acupuncture for IA.

Abstract Aim The aim of this study was to explore the factors that are associated with posttraumatic growth among spouses of women diagnosed with gynaecological cancer. Design A cross‐sectional descriptive study. Methods A convenience sample of 312 spouses of women diagnosed with gynaecological cancer was recruited from two comprehensive hospitals in China, from March 2018 to March 2020. Demographic characteristics, cancer‐related characteristics, posttraumatic growth, perceived social support and coping were assessed using self‐reported questionnaires. Descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis were performed. The methods were guided by the STROBE checklist. Results The mean score of posttraumatic growth was 46.7 (standard deviation = 16.7). The associated factors of posttraumatic growth were spouses' age, perceived social support, problem‐focused coping, dysfunctional coping (e.g. denial) and cancer treatment received by partners, which accounted for 34% of total posttraumatic growth score. Patient or public contribution All participants contributed to the conducting of this study by completing self‐reported questionnaires.

Abstract Background Obesity has been identified as an independent risk factor for cholelithiasis. As a treatment for obesity, bariatric surgery may increase the incidence of cholelithiasis. The risk factors for cholelithiasis after bariatric surgery remain uncertain. The purpose of this study was to explore the risk factors for postoperative cholelithiasis after weight-loss surgery and propose suggestions for clinical decision making. Methods Four databases, PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science and Cochrane, were systematically searched for all reports about cholelithiasis after bariatric surgery, and literature screening was performed following prespecified inclusion criteria. The included studies were all evaluated for quality according to the NOS scale. Data extraction was followed by analysis using Reviewer Manager 5.4 and StataSE 15. Results A total of 19 articles were included in this meta-analysis, and all studies were of high quality. A total of 20,553 patients were included in this study. Sex [OR = 0.62, 95% CI (0.55, 0.71), P

Abstract Aim Care dependence has been scarcely investigated in coronary heart disease patients after percutaneous coronary intervention. This study aimed to investigate the association between frailty, self‐efficacy, combined effects of frailty and self‐efficacy, mental health, and care dependence in coronary heart disease patients after percutaneous coronary intervention. Design Cross‐sectional study. Methods Data from 400 patients after percutaneous coronary intervention were collected from 2017–2020. Logistic regression model and mediating analysis were used to identify the association between frailty, self‐efficacy, combined effects of frailty and self‐efficacy, and care dependence. Results Patients with frailty and self‐efficacy tended to have severe care dependence symptoms. There was no correlation between frailty symptoms, self‐efficacy, and care dependence in patients without symptoms of anxiety or depression. But in patients with anxiety or depression symptoms, there is a strong correlation between frailty symptoms, lower self‐efficacy, and care dependence. Mental health played an inhibitory effect on frailty and care dependence.

Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) combined with ultrasound-guided suction curettage in patients with type I/II/III cesarean scar pregnancy (CSP).Methods A total of 153 patients with CSP were enrolled and classified according to the type of CSP. All of them were treated by HIFU combined with ultrasound-guided suction curettage. When active uterine bleeding was observed after curettage, a Foley balloon was used for hemostasis by compression. Baseline characteristics, technical parameters of HIFU, intraoperative blood loss in suction curettage, the time for serum β-HCG to return to normal levels, reproductive outcomes, and adverse effects were recorded and analyzed.Results 152 patients completed one session of HIFU combined with suction curettage except one patient transferred to surgery. Total energy used for ablation and the time for serum β-HCG return to normal level in type II and III were significantly higher than type I (p < .05). The treatment time and sonication time of HIFU in type III were significantly longer than type I (p < .05). Vaginal bleeding after curettage and the rate of using Foley catheter balloon in type III was larger than type I and II.Conclusions HIFU combined with ultrasound-guided suction curettage is a safe and effective treatment option for patients with type I/II/III CSP and desire for fertility. Patients with type III CSP were more dependent on Foley catheter balloon compression therapy than the other two types after HIFU combined with curettage.

Background Abdominal wall endometriosis（AWE）is an unusual extra-pelvic endometriosis. Currently, multiple treatment modalities are available, but no clear guidelines exist for the management of large AWE.Materials and methods We present a 36-year-old female patient with a large AWE lesion who underwent cesarean section due to abnormal fetal position 8 years ago. The mass lesion of AWE located in rectus muscle fascia and rectus muscle with a size of 61 × 25 × 49mm.Results HIFU treatment was completed in one session. One day post-HIFU MRI showed the mass was completely ablated. After HIFU treatment, the cyclical abdominal pain disappeared. The mass lesion shrank during follow-up period and disappeared in 1 year after HIFU. No complication was observed after HIFU.Conclusion Surgical resection of AWE remains the standard of care. In patients with large AWE lesion located in rectus muscle fascia and rectus muscle where the muscle and fascia must be excised, HIFU treatment should be considered to avoid mesh implantation.

Objectives Traditional manual drilling during hip fracture fixation can easily lead to unstable fixation and vascular damage. This study aimed to investigate a safe and easy‐to‐use robot‐assisted method to automatically drill bone and distinguish critical bone drilling states with high accuracy in real‐time for the bone hole‐making process during hip fracture fixation. Methods A bone‐drilling robotic system was designed to automatically create holes in the femoral neck. Four fresh pig femurs were drilled at the posterosuperior femoral neck using three modes: “all‐in” (AI), “in‐out‐in” (IOI), and “percutaneous fixation” (PF). A high‐frequency accelerometer captured the generated vibrations of the drill handle, which were then transferred to a personal computer using a data acquisition card. Five bone drilling states are defined, including: “drill idling,” “initial drilling,” “in the cancellous bone,” “out the femoral neck,” and “in the cortical bone.” The harmonic distribution of the vibration signal was extracted by fast Fourier transform (FFT) and used as a critical feature to identify different drilling states. To prove the difference in the harmonic distribution at different drilling states, an independent sample t‐test was used to compare the percentage of the first harmonic amplitude in the first 10 harmonics at each drilling state. A neural network classifier was trained with the frequency spectrum as the input and the drilled state as the output to distinguish the critical bone drilling states with high accuracy in real‐time. The classifier was trained and tested on four specimens to ensure that the surgical robot could accurately identify the five drilling states. Results In each specimen, the harmonic distributions of the drilling vibration at different drilling modes were significantly different (p

Abstract SnTe possesses a single- to double-valley transition in the conduction band minimum when a compressive strain is applied. Through a tight-binding analysis, it is shown that the variation of the band structure is attributed to the strain-induced delocalization of both the Sn-5s orbitals and Te-5p orbitals with different angular momenta. This effect can largely increase the electron density of states near the band edge and thus keep the Fermi level of the compressed SnTe closer to it, where the electrons have lower scattering rates. The strain-induced double valleys lead to simultaneous increases in the electrical conductivity and the Seebeck coefficient and thereby nearly four times the enhancement of the power factor at the doping concentration of 5×1019 cm–3. This work suggests a feasible concept that can be employed to promote the power factor of a Dirac semiconductor via manipulating the valley degeneracy in the conduction band minimum.

Pairing-friendly curves with odd prime embedding degrees at the 128-bit security level, such as BW13-310 and BW19-286, sparked interest in the field of public-key cryptography as small sizes of the prime fields. However, compared to mainstream pairing-friendly curves at the same security level, i.e., BN446 and BLS12-446, the performance of pairing computations on BW13-310 and BW19-286 is usually considered inefficient. In this paper we investigate high performance software implementations of pairing computation on BW13-310 and corresponding building blocks used in pairing-based protocols, including hashing, group exponentiations and membership testings. Firstly, we propose efficient explicit formulas for pairing computation on this curve. Moreover, we also exploit the state-of-art techniques to implement hashing in G1 and G2, group exponentiations and membership testings. In particular, for exponentiations in G2 and GT , we present new optimizations to speed up computational efficiency. Our implementation results on a 64-bit processor show that the gap in the performance of pairing computation between BW13-310 and BN446 (resp. BLS12-446) is only up to 4.9% (resp. 26%). More importantly, compared to BN446 and BLS12-446, BW13-310 is about 109.1% − 227.3%, 100% − 192.6%, 24.5%−108.5% and 68.2%−145.5% faster in terms of hashing to G1, exponentiations in G1 and GT , and membership testing for GT , respectively. These results reveal that BW13-310 would be an interesting candidate in pairing-based cryptographic protocols.

Various mechanisms have been proposed to promote cooperation in evolutionary games, including aspiration and social influence. However, the joint effects of aspiration and social influence have so far been ignored in the literature. Thus, we discuss the joint effects of aspiration and social influence on promoting cooperation in the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game (PDG). We introduce different aspiration tags as different aspirations and different types of neighborhoods as different social influences to reveal how the level of cooperation changes in four heterogeneous micro-environments composed of diverse aspirations and social influences. The Fermi function is adopted as the priority strategy updating rule. Simulation results show that aspiration and social influence mechanisms are jointly effective at improving cooperation in the PDG. More precisely, the aspiration mechanism promotes cooperation unconditionally, but that the social influence mechanism promotes it conditionally.

Microorganisms play a pivotal role in transforming and making phosphorus (P) available in soil through various mechanisms. However, their specific contributions to alleviating P limitation and enhancing P utilization efficiency in plants within the context of a P-deficient karst ecosystem remains unclear. In this study, eco-stoichiometric methods were employed to evaluate the P utilization efficiency of plants grown in the surveyed karst forest located in Guizhou Province, China. Metagenomic sequencing was utilized to further explore the functional genes and microorganisms involved in soil P cycling. The N:P ratio for 18 out of the 20 surveyed plants exceeded 16, indicating widespread P limitation in karst plants. Among them, plants with high P utilization efficiencies (Nandina domestica Thunb.; Mahonia bodinieri Gagnep.; Pyracantha fortuneana (Maxim.) Li) exhibited higher relative abundances of genes involved in soil P cycling compared to plants with low P utilization efficiencies (Tirpitzia sinensis (Hemsl.) Hallier f.; Albizia kalkora (Roxb.) Prain; Morella rubra Lour.), indicating greater potentials within their rhizosphere microbiomes for soil P transformation. The relative abundance of these functional genes had a significant and positive effect on plant P utilization efficiencies. Structural equation modeling further indicated that microbial P cycling gene abundance directly drove the increase in plant P utilization efficiencies. Specifically, genes involved in soil organic P mineralization (G6PD, suhB, phoD, ppx) and the P uptake and transform system (pstS, pstA, pstB, pstC) contributed to the enhancement of plant P utilization efficiencies. Soil microbial communities involved in P cycling were predominately attributed to Proteobacteria (45.16%–60.02%), Actinobacteria (9.45%–25.23%), and Acidobacteria (5.90%–9.85%), although their contributions varied among different plants. The rhizosphere functional microbial community can thus alleviate P limitation in karst plants, thereby enhancing plant P utilization efficiencies. This study investigated the strong synergism between karst plants and rhizosphere microorganisms and their associated underlying mechanisms from genetic and microbial perspectives.

As one of the basic energy dissipations for one orthogonal face gear running partially submerged in an oil bath, there is no open literature concerned on the churning power losses of the face gear. This paper proposed a series of formulas to predict the churning losses for one orthogonal face gear running partially submerged in an oil bath. The analytical model of churning drag forces is based on fluid mechanics and boundary layer theory which enables quantitatively calculating the influences of the rotating speed, fluid attributes, and gear geometric construction with the minimum effort. Then, an ad hoc test bench was set up to carry out the specific splash lubrication tests for single face gear at different rotating speeds and initial immersion depth. Finally, considering both the churning and windage effects, a physical-based model adopting the real-time immersion depth instead of the static immersion depth is developed to calculate the total load-independent losses of a splash lubricated face gear. From this, the theoretical results are compared well with sets of directly measured experimental findings. Meanwhile, the model is also exploited to quantitate the contributions of each part in the total load-independent losses for one face gear under splash lubrication condition.

Different interacting contexts influence the decision-making process, as revealed by the computational modeling. Through four studies, we investigated how smartphone addiction and anxiety influenced impulsive behaviors, along with the underlying psychological mechanisms and dynamic decision-making processes. In the first and second studies, we found no significant correlation between smartphone addiction and impulsive behavior. However, in the third study, we found that smartphone separation increased impulsive decision-making and purchases, and state anxiety, but not trait anxiety, mediated this effect. We explored the dynamic decision-making process using a multi-attribute drift diffusion model (DDM). The results showed that anxiety triggered by smartphone separation changed the trade-offs between decision weights for the fundamental components of the dynamic choice process. In the fourth study, we investigated why smartphone addiction led to increased anxiety and found that extended-self was a mediating factor. Our findings show that smartphone addiction was not correlated with impulsive behaviors, but was correlated with state anxiety in the context of smartphone separation. Further, this study shows how emotional states triggered by different interacting contexts affect the dynamic decision-making process and consumer behaviors.

Abstract Background The influence of environmental factors, especially temperature, on sex ratio is of great significance to elucidate the mechanism of sex determination. However, the molecular mechanisms by which temperature affects sex determination remains unclear, although a few candidate genes have been found to play a role in the process. In this study, we conducted transcriptome analysis of the effects induced by high temperature on zebrafish during gonad differentiation period. Results Totals of 1171, 1022 and 2921 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between high temperature and normal temperature were identified at 35, 45 and 60 days post-fertilization (dpf) respectively, revealing that heat shock proteins (HSPs) and DNA methyltransferases (DNMTs) were involved in the heat-exposed sex reversal. The Gene Ontology (GO) terms and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway that were enriched in individuals after heat treatment included Fanconi anemia (FA) pathway, cell cycle, oocyte meiosis and homologous recombination. Conclusions Our study provides the results of comparative transcriptome analyses between high temperature and normal temperature, and reveals that the molecular mechanism of heat-induced masculinization in zebrafish is strongly related to the expression of HSPs and DNMTs and FA pathway during gonad differentiation.

Abstract Coherent optical control of the magnetization in ferromagnetic (FM) mediums using ultrafast nonthermal effect paves a promising avenue to improve the speed and repetition rate of the magnetization manipulation. Whereas previously, only heat‐induced or helicity‐dependent magnetization dynamics are demonstrated in metallic ferromagnets. Here, the linearly‐polarized light control of magnetization is demonstrated in FM Co coupled with ferroelectric (FE) BiFeO3 by tuning the light polarization direction. It is revealed that in the Co/BiFeO3 heterostructure excited by femtosecond laser pulses, the magnetization precession amplitude follows a sinusoidal dependence on the laser polarization direction. This nonthermal control of coherent magnetization rotation is attributed to the optical rectification effect in the BiFeO3 layer, which yields a FE polarization depending on the light polarization, and the subsequent modulation of magnetic energy in Co by the electrostriction‐induced strain. This work demonstrates an effective route to nonthermally manipulate the ultrafast magnetization dynamics in metallic ferromagnets.

Objectives To investigate the real‐time sensitive feedback parameter of the motor bur milling state in cervical spine posterior decompression surgery, to possibly improve the safety of cervical spine posterior decompression and robot‐assisted spinal surgeries. Methods In this study, the cervical spine of three healthy male and three healthy female pigs were randomly selected. Six porcine cervical spine specimens were fixed to the vibration isolation system. The milling state of the motor bur was defined as the lamina cancellous bone (CA), lamina ventral corticalbone (VCO), and penetrating ventral cortical bone (PVCO). A 5‐mm bur milled the CA and VCO, and a 2‐mm bur milled the VCO and PVCO. A miniature microphone was used to collect the sound signal (SS) of milling lamina which was then extracted using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). When using 5‐mm and 2‐mm bur to mill, the CA, VCO, and PVCO of each specimen were continuously collected at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 kHz frequencies for SS magnitudes. The study randomly selected the SS magnitudes of the CA and VCO continuously for 2 s at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 kHz frequencies for statistical analyses. When milling the VCO to the PVCO, we randomly collected the SS magnitudes of the VCO for consecutive 2 s and the SS magnitudes of continuous 2 s in the penetrating state at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 kHz frequencies for statistical analyses. The independent sample t‐test was used to compare the SS magnitudes of different milling states extracted from the FFT to determine the motor bur milling state. Results The SS magnitudes of the CA and VCO of all specimens extracted from the FFT at 1, 2, and 3 kHz were statistically different (P

Nanozymes are a class of nanomaterials with enzyme-like catalytic properties, which have environmental tolerance and long-term stability. Improving catalytic activity and expanding the variety of nanozymes are the prerequisites to complement or even replace natural enzymes. The assembly of organic monolayer containing catalytic site on the surface of inorganic nanoparticles is a very effective strategy to improve catalytic activity and expand the variety of nanozymes. Here, we discuss how to construct organic monolayer on the surface of gold nanoparticles, classify the types of organic monolayer, and introduce their applications in nucleic acid hydrolysis and sensing. It is hoped to further promote the research progress of hydrolytic nanozymes.

It is still a challenge for lithium–sulfur (Li-S) batteries to possess high sulfur utilization and excellent electrochemical performances due to the low electrical conductivity and dissolution of polysulfides. To resolve these issues, a free-standing sulfur host composed of hierarchically porous carbon nanofibers (HPCNFs) has been synthesized via electrospinning technology. The HPCNFs with an interconnected and porous structure can facilitate electron transfer and electrolyte penetration. The mesopores in HPCNFs can provide high levels of sulfur loading, and the micropores can inhibit shuttle effects of the sulfur cathode during discharge and charge processes. After encapsulating a high mass of sulfur (76.4 wt%, HPCNFs@S), the electrode was directly applied as a cathode for the Li-S battery, which exhibited a high specific discharge capacity of 1,145 mA h g−1 at 0.1 C (1 C = 1,675 mA g−1) and maintained 787 mA h g−1 after 150 charge/discharge cycles. This work provides a new insight into optimizing the electrochemical performance of Li-S batteries.

The anti-scuffing bearing capacity of gears is a significant issue for their service lives, especially for the cases with heavy loads or high speeds. Generally, the anti-scuffing bearing capacity is evaluated according to the surface contact temperature that can be calculated with either analytical methods or finite element analysis (FEA) methods. The analytical methods usually apply the theory of Blok to efficiently obtain the results by simplifying some actual physical conditions, which are well considered in the FEA methods with accurate results but more computation time. Conversely, a new efficient and accurate analytical method is proposed by introducing the actual lubricant film thickness and continuous heat transfer for the theory of Blok. These two physical conditions are the key issues for the calculation of the two parts of surface contact temperature, flash temperature and bulk temperature, respectively. For the calculation of flash temperature, elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) is introduced to consider the lubricant film thickness for the theory of Blok, and the result is obtained by solving the Reynolds equation efficiently with the finite difference method. For the bulk temperature, the result for a contacting point on the gear tooth surface is directly obtained according the theory of Blok, and the continuous heat transfer among the adjacent contacting points is considered with Gaussian heat morphology, which can accurately construct the bulk temperature field distribution in the contact region. The proposed method is validated as in good agreement with the FEA method and with less computation time.

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to observe the efficacy of electroacupuncture (EA) and psychotherapy (PT) effect on the mental status, sleep quality and impulsive trait in patients with pathological internet use, and to observe the changes of Monoamine oxidase type A (MAOA) messenger Ribonucleic acid (mRNA) levels in each group.MethodsA total of 60 PIU patients were included for the present study. These patients were randomly divided into two groups: EA group and PT group. Baihui, Sishencong, Hegu, Neiguan, Shenmen, Taichong, Sanyinjiao and Xuanzhong were selected for acupuncture in the EA group, while group psychotherapy combined with individual psychotherapy was used for intervention in patients in the PT group. Young’s Internet addiction Test (IAT), Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), Barratt Impulse Scale (BIS-11) and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used to observe the severity of Internet addiction, mental status, sleep quality and impulsive trait of all patients at baseline and 40th days of treatment; and MAOA mRNA data were collected at baseline and 40th days of treatment.ResultsElectroacupuncture and psychological intervention effectively reduced IAT, SAS, SDS, Y-BOCS, BIS and PSQI scores of PIU patients. After 40 days treatment, the MAOA expression of the PT group was increased, and there was no significant change in EA group. The correlation analysis indicated that IAT scores were positively correlated with SAS, SDS, Y-BOCS, BIS and PSQI at baseline. In addition, after treatment the EA group showed that the change in IAT scores was positively correlated with the change in Y-BOCS and BIS scores, and the PT group showed that the change in IAT scores was positively correlated with the change in SDS, BIS and PSQI scores.ConclusionThe present study showed that electroacupuncture and psychological intervention can improve severity of Internet addiction, mental status, sleep quality and impulsive trait of PIU patients. Simultaneously, neurobiological changes may be the underlying mechanisms of psychotherapy for internet additcion.

Potassium ion battery (PIB) is one of the promising substitutes for lithium ion battery. Developing new anode materials is still one of the key factors to promote the electrochemical performances of PIB. Electrospun carbon nanofibers based binder-free electrodes have received widely researches because multi-advantages of good conductivity, large surface areas and structural stability. In this review, the latest research progress in enhancing the potassium ion storage properties based on electrospun carbon nanofibers through introducing porous structure, doping heteroatoms and preparing composites have been summarized. The effects of pore structure, heteroatom types and non-metal/metal loading on specific surface area, conductivity, lattice distance and potassium storage performance of the electrospun carbon nanofiber electrode were emphatically discussed. In addition, several suggestions for industrial application of electrospun carbon nanofiber electrodes for potassium ion storage were proposed in this review.

Abstract Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) has rapidly become the most common cause of chronic liver diseases. We aimed to explore the incidence and distribution characteristics of NASH by sex, region and sociodemographic index (SDI). We collected data, including sex and region, on NASH-related liver cirrhosis from the 2017 GBD study. The age-standardized incidence rates (ASRs) and estimated annual percentage changes (EAPCs) were used to estimate the incidence trend and distribution characteristics. Globally, the incidence of liver cirrhosis caused by NASH increased from 178,430 cases in 1990 to 367,780 cases in 2017, an increase of approximately 105.56%. The ASR of NASH increased by an average of 1.35% per year (95% CI 1.28–1.42). Meanwhile, large differences in the ASR and the EAPC were observed across regions. The middle-high SDI region had the highest increase among all five SDI regions, followed by middle SDI region. In addition, Eastern Europe, Andean Latin America and Central Asia showed a more significant growth trend of ASR. In contrast, the high SDI region demonstrated the slowest increasing trend of ASR, and the high-income Asia Pacific demonstrated a decreasing trend among the 21 regions. Liver cirrhosis has caused a huge and rising health burden in many countries and regions. In addition, with the growth of obesity, population and aging, NASH might replace viral hepatitis as the most important cause of liver cirrhosis in the near future. Therefore, appropriate interventions are needed in coming decades to realize early diagnosis and prevention of NASH-related liver cirrhosis.

Idioms are a unique class of words in the Chinese language that can be challenging for Chinese machine reading comprehension due to their formal simplicity and the potential mismatch between their literal and figurative meanings. To address this issue, this paper adopted the “2 + 2” structure as the representation model for idiom structure feature extraction. According to the linguistic theory of idioms, to enhance the model’s learning ability for idiom semantics, we propose a two-stage semantic expansion method that leverages semantic knowledge during the pre-training stage and extracts idiom interpretation information during the fine-tuning stage to improve the model’s understanding of idioms. Moreover, with the consideration of the inferential interaction between global and local information during context fusion, which is neglected by all current works, we propose a method that utilizes a multi-headed attention mechanism to fully extract global and local information by selecting three attention patterns in the fine-tuning stage. This enables the fusion of semantic information extracted by the model at different granularities, leading to improved accuracy. The experimental results demonstrated that our proposed BERT-IDM model outperformed the baseline BERT model by achieving a 4.1% accuracy improvement.

The adsorption, dissociation and penetration processes of N2 on the surface of ZrMnFe(110) were investigated using the first-principles calculation method in this paper. The results indicate that the vacancy Hollow 1 composed of 4Zr1Fe on the surface of ZrMnFe(110) is the best adsorption site for the N2 molecule and N atom, and the adsorption energies are 10.215 eV and 6.057 eV, respectively. Electron structure analysis indicates that the N2 molecule and N atoms adsorbed mainly interact with Zr atoms on the surface. The transition state calculation shows that the maximum energy barriers to be overcome for the N2 molecule and N atom on the ZrMnFe(110) surface were 1.129 eV and 0.766 eV, respectively. This study provides fundamental insight into the nitriding mechanism of nitrogen molecules in ZrMnFe.

Knowledge Graph Question-Answering (KGQA) has gained popularity as an effective approach for information retrieval systems. However, answering complex questions involving multiple topic entities and multi-hop relations presents a significant challenge for model training. Moreover, existing KGQA models face difficulties in extracting constraint information from complex questions, leading to reduced accuracy. To overcome these challenges, we propose a three-part pipelined framework comprising question decomposition, constraint extraction, and question reasoning. Our approach employs a novel question decomposition model that uses dual encoders and attention mechanisms to enhance question representation. We define temporal, spatial, and numerical constraint types and propose a constraint extraction model to mitigate the impact of constraint interference on downstream question reasoning. The question reasoning model uses beam search to reduce computational effort and enhance exploration, facilitating the identification of the optimal path. Experimental results on the ComplexWebQuestions dataset demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed model, achieving an F1 score of 72.0% and highlighting the effectiveness of our approach in decomposing complex questions into simple subsets and improving the accuracy of question reasoning.

Objective To investigate the clinical effect of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation combined with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist (GnRH-a) and levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS) in the treatment of adenomyosis patients who failed to respond to drug therapies. Study design A total of 47 patients with adenomyosis who had failed to respond to drug therapies and had no fertility desires were treated with HIFU combined with GnRH-a and LNG-IUS. The score of dysmenorrhea and menstrual volume were measured at pre and 6-, 12-, 18-, 24-month post-HIFU. Results All patients completed HIFU ablation without major postoperative complications. Compared with the symptom scores before the HIFU treatment, the score of dysmenorrhea and menstrual volume decreased significantly at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months after HIFU treatment (p 0.05). The clinical success rate was 100%, 100%, 95.7% and 93.6% respectively at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months after the combined treatment. Conclusion The combined therapeutic regimen of HIFU, GnRH-a and LNS-IUS is safe and effective, which can be an alternative treatment option for patients with adenomyosis who failed to respond to drug therapies to avoid adenomyomectomy or hysterectomy.