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Abstract Device-to-device (D2D) communications allow short-range communication devices to multiplex cellular-licensed spectrum to directly establish local connections for ultra-high number of terminal connections and greater system throughput. However, spectrum sharing also brings serious interference to the network. Therefore, a reliable and efficient resource allocation strategy is important to mitigate the interference and improve the system spectral efficiency. In this paper, we investigated spectrum access and power allocation in D2D communications underlay cellular networks based on deep reinforcement learning with the aim of finding a feasible resource allocation strategy to maximize data rate and system fairness. We proposed a value decomposition network-based resource allocation scheme for D2D communication networks. Our proposed scheme avoids frequent information exchanges among D2D users by centralized training, while allowing D2D users to make distributed joint resource allocation decisions. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme has stable convergence and good scalability, and can effectively improve the system capacity.

Ralstonia solanacearum usually infects the vascular bundle system through the roots of host plants, causing bacterial wilt and leading to irreversible wilting and death of plants. Bacterial wilt is a devastating soil-borne bacterial disease. At present, it has been one of the main diseases restricting the production of Solanaceae crops in China. Type Ⅲ secretion system (T3SS) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of R. solanacearum, using T3SS to inject large amounts of Type Ⅲ effectors (T3Es) into host cells to interfere with the immune response of the host. Scholars at home and abroad are committed to exploring how R. solanacearum interferes with host cells and regulates host immune function by identifying target proteins in the host. Therefore, the identification of host proteins that can be targeted by T3Es is helpful to understand the biological function of R. solanacearum T3Es, the pathogenic process of R. solanacearum, and to explore the R. solanacearum resistance-related proteins and their mechanism of action in hosts. Although most of the functions of T3Es are still unknown, so far, it has been reported that R. solanacearum T3Es can regulate host resistance to bacterial wilt by interfering with plant innate immunity, inducing plant hypersensitivity response and affecting plant metabolism and hormone signal transduction through a variety of molecular mechanisms. In this review, we summarize the current research progress on the characteristics and functional identification methods of T3Es of R. solanacearum, and its research progress in participating in the regulation of pathogenicity and plant immunity mechanism of R. solanacearum, which can provide an in-depth understanding of the pathogenic mechanism of R. solanacearum and the response mechanism of the host immune system. The mechanism of interaction between R. solanacearum T3Es and the host are prospected, which will provide an effective reference for the analysis of the host resistance mechanism induced by R. solanacearum and the prevention and control of bacterial wilt.

Lung cancer, which is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, frequently metastasizes to the bones, significantly diminishing patients’ quality of life and complicating treatment strategies. This study aims to develop an advanced 3D Mask R-CNN model, enhanced with the ConvNeXt-V2 backbone, for the automatic segmentation of bone tumors and identification of lung cancer metastasis to support personalized treatment planning. Data were collected from two hospitals: Center A (106 patients) and Center B (265 patients). The data from Center B were used for training, while Center A’s dataset served as an independent external validation set. High-resolution CT scans with 1 mm slice thickness and no inter-slice gaps were utilized, and the regions of interest (ROIs) were manually segmented and validated by two experienced radiologists. The 3D Mask R-CNN model achieved a Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) of 0.856, a sensitivity of 0.921, and a specificity of 0.961 on the training set. On the test set, it achieved a DSC of 0.849, a sensitivity of 0.911, and a specificity of 0.931. For the classification task, the model attained an AUC of 0.865, an accuracy of 0.866, a sensitivity of 0.875, and a specificity of 0.835 on the training set, while achieving an AUC of 0.842, an accuracy of 0.836, a sensitivity of 0.847, and a specificity of 0.819 on the test set. These results highlight the model’s potential in improving the accuracy of bone tumor segmentation and lung cancer metastasis detection, paving the way for enhanced diagnostic workflows and personalized treatment strategies in clinical oncology.

Enhancing the experience of virtual reality (VR) through haptic feedback could benefit applications from leisure to rehabilitation and training. Devices which provide more realistic kinesthetic (force) feedback appear to hold more promise than their simpler vibrotactile counterparts. However, our understanding of kinesthetic feedback on virtual embodiment is still limited due to the novelty of appropriate kinesthetic devices. To contribute to the line of this research, we constructed a wearable system with state-of-the-art kinesthetic gloves for avatar full-body control, and conducted a between-subjects study involving an avatar self-touch task. We found that providing a kinesthetic sense of touch substantially strengthened the embodiment illusion in VR. We further explored the ability of these kinesthetic gloves to present virtual objects haptically. The gloves were found to provide useful haptic cues about the basic 3D structure and stiffness of objects for a discrimination task. This is one of the first studies to explore virtual embodiment by employing state-of-the-art kinesthetic gloves in full-body VR.

Abstract Objectives To compare the efficacy of nadroparin and fondaparinux sodium for prevention of deep vein thromboembolism (DVT) in lower extremities after total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Methods A total of 592 patients were enrolled in the study. Clinical data of patients who underwent total hip arthroplasty (THA) and total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in our hospital from December 2021 to September 2022 were retrospectively collected, which mainly included patients’ general information, surgery-related information, and DVT-related information. The patients were categorized into the nadroparin group(n = 278) and the fondaparinux sodium group(n = 314) according to the types of anticoagulants used. Anticoagulant therapy began 12–24 h after operation and continued until discharge. DVT prevalence between two groups was compared. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 25 (SPSS, Armonk, NY, USA) was used for statistical analysis. Results The prevalence of DVT in the nadroparin group and the fondaparinux sodium group was 8.3% (23/278) and 15.0% (47/314), respectively(p = 0.012). Statistical analysis showed that nadroparin group showed a lower prevalence of thrombosis than fondaparinux group (OR = 1.952, P = 0.012). Subgroup analyses showed that nadroparin group had a lower prevalence of DVT than fondaparinux group in some special patients groups such as female patients (OR = 2.258, P = 0.007), patients who are 65–79 years old (OR = 2.796, P = 0.004), patients with hypertension (OR = 2.237, P = 0.042), patients who underwent TKA (OR = 2.091, P = 0.011), and patients who underwent combined spinal-epidural anesthesia (OR = 2.490, P = 0.003) (P

Central nervous system injuries have a high rate of resulting in disability and mortality; however, at present, effective treatments are lacking. Programmed cell death, which is a genetically determined form of active and ordered cell death with many types, has recently attracted increasing attention due to its functions in determining the fate of cell survival. A growing number of studies have suggested that programmed cell death is involved in central nervous system injuries and plays an important role in the progression of brain damage. In this review, we provide an overview of the role of programmed cell death in central nervous system injuries, including the pathways involved in mitophagy, pyroptosis, ferroptosis, and necroptosis, and the underlying mechanisms by which mitophagy regulates pyroptosis, ferroptosis, and necroptosis. We also discuss the new direction of therapeutic strategies targeting mitophagy for the treatment of central nervous system injuries, with the aim to determine the connection between programmed cell death and central nervous system injuries and to identify new therapies to modulate programmed cell death following central nervous system injury. In conclusion, based on these properties and effects, interventions targeting programmed cell death could be developed as potential therapeutic agents for central nervous system injury patients.

The traditional half bridge sub-module (HBSM) cannot clear the DC side fault by itself. On the other hand, the clamp double sub-module (CDSM) has the ability to self-clear the fault current, but it can only output the negative level of the single capacitive voltage during reverse locking, which will affect the speed of fault removal. To address this issue, a three-level bidirectional switch sub-module (TLBSSM) based on the bidirectional switch and CDSM is proposed in this paper. The sub-module can output 3 levels when working normally and twice the negative level of the capacitive voltage when reverse locking, which greatly accelerates the fault current removal. In addition, compared with other common sub-module, TLBSSM has certain economic advantages and stronger DC fault clearing capability. Simulation results based on MATLAB/Simulink show that TLBSSM can quickly remove DC faults, and the sub-module capacitance voltage is stably near the rated voltage after the fault, which is conducive to the rapid restart of MMC. Finally, the effectiveness of TLBSSM and its DC fault clearing capability are validated by the experiment results.

BackgroundThe global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic had significantly altered the daily routines of people worldwide. This study aimed to compare how sleeptime and depression among Chinese residents had differed between periods during and outside the epidemic. Furthermore, it delved into the interactive effect of age in this relationship.MethodUtilizing data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) study in 2015 and the recently released data from 2020, which covered the pandemic period. Depression was assessed using Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10), considering a score of 10 or higher as indicative of depression. Participants were categorized based on age, specifically those aged 60 years and older. multivariate logistic regression and interaction analyses were employed to assess the interplay of age, supported by subgroup and sensitivity analyses to reinforce our findings.ResultsThe 2020 database comprised 19,331 participants, while the 2015 database had 10,507 participants. Our findings demonstrated a significant correlation between sleeptime and depression in both unadjusted models and models adjusted for all variables in both datasets (p

Abstract Highly effective and selective noble metal-free catalysts attract significant attention. Here, a single-atom iron catalyst is fabricated by saturated adsorption of trace iron onto zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) followed by pyrolysis. Its performance toward catalytic transfer hydrogenation of furfural is comparable to state-of-the-art catalysts and up to four orders higher than other Fe catalysts. Isotopic labeling experiments demonstrate an intermolecular hydride transfer mechanism. First principles simulations, spectroscopic calculations and experiments, and kinetic correlations reveal that the synthesis creates pyrrolic Fe(II)-plN3 as the active center whose flexibility manifested by being pulled out of the plane, enabled by defects, is crucial for collocating the reagents and allowing the chemistry to proceed. The catalyst catalyzes chemoselectively several substrates and possesses a unique trait whereby the chemistry is hindered for more acidic substrates than the hydrogen donors. This work paves the way toward noble-metal free single-atom catalysts for important chemical reactions.

In order to obtain the best extraction process of sulfated polysaccharides from Kappaphycus alvarezii and determine its antiallergic activity, the single factor experiments were carried out firstly. The polysaccharides yield of Kappaphycus alvarezii was chose as the investigation index, and the ratio of material to liquid, ultrasonic pretreatment time and extraction time were selected for Box-Behnken response surface design. Then the extracted crude polysaccharides was purified through the DEAE-52 cellulose chromatography column. The effects of the purified polysaccharides on RBL-2H3 cell viability, inhibition of cell degranulation and regulation of histamine release were measured by RBL-2H3 cell model method. The results showed that the optimum extraction condition of polysaccharides from Kappaphycus alvarezii was as follows: The ratio of material to liquid (w/v) was 1:92 g/mL, the ultrasonic pretreatment time was 40 min, and the extraction time was 4 h. Under the optimum extraction conditions, the extraction rate of polysaccharides from Kappaphycus alvarezii was 13.92%. The KSP（Kappaphycus alvarezii Sulfated Polysaccharides）, a component purified by DEAE-52 cellulose chromatography, had no significant inhibition on the activity of RBL-2H3 cells in the concentration range from 50 to 1200 μg/mL, and also had no cytotoxicity. The β-Hexosaminidase activity and histamine release inhibition rates of RBL-2H3 cells stimulated by 2,4-Dinitrophenyl-Bovine Serum Albumin (DNP-BSA) with 25, 50 and 100 μg/mL KSP were 36.3%, 37.0%, 51.7%, and 17.5%, 18.3%, 42.0% respectively. In conclusion, the process parameters obtained in this test are feasible, KSP had no obvious toxicity to RBL-2H3 cells and showed significant inhibition of degranulation and histamine release, with good in vitro anti-allergic activity. This study can provide a reference for the development of nutritional functional food with anti-allergic activity using Kappaphycus alvarezii as raw material.

Abstract In the context of extremely uneven sources and loads in China, several large‐scale power transmission systems have been established. Affected by the small equivalent impedance of the system, the increase of negative sequence currents during open‐phase operation has seriously threatened the stable operation of synchronous generators. The necessity of negative sequence current suppression is particularly prominent. To address the above issues, this paper analyzes the feasible negative sequence suppression capacity of the grid‐connected inverter under the principle of positive sequence priority. Using the geometric analysis method to determine the optimal suppression capacity. The none‐phase‐locked loop (PLL) control method is used to improve the response speed and form the negative sequence current suppression strategy adapted to the open‐phase operation period. A simulation model was built in PSCAD to verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The result shows that the suppression strategy has a faster response than the conventional PLL control. In scenarios with large negative sequence currents to be suppressed, a maximum suppression effect of approximately 63% can be achieved. Compared with the traditional suppression capacity selection, the strategy in this paper can reduce the residual of negative sequence current by about 10% at most. The negative sequence currents intruding into the generator can be effectively suppressed without additional devices.

As one of the principal protections of UHVDC transmission lines, pilot protection requires strict synchronization and small data flow by exchanging the current on both terminals under the limitation of DC protection action rapidity. To solve this problem, this paper finds that the DC voltage and current on both terminals of the line have different plane distribution characteristics when faults occur internally and externally in the system area, and then advances a novel pilot protection method for UHVDC transmission lines based on U-I characteristics. By setting up the U-I plane with DC voltage and current as variables, analyzing the dynamic trajectory of the real-time captured U-I plane, constructing protection criteria based on the U-I plane on the rectifier side and inverter side separately, and finally converting the judgment results into state information. Both terminals of the line identify the fault location by exchanging the longitudinal comparison of state information. This protection project only utilizes the instant tracks of voltage and current in the rectifier side and inverter side at the time of fault to judge. The principle is simple and can quickly locate faults. The state messages of the two terminals are not modified by the data asynchrony on both terminals. This protection method is convenient for setting, has high sensitivity, and can quickly identify interior and exterior faults. The results are testified by theoretical analysis and simulation verification.

The oscillation center may intrude into the generator group when out-of-step oscillation occurs in a large-scale power transmission base. This will lead to an “avalanche” generator tripping of the generator group and seriously affect the safety and stability of the system. Considering that the HVDC system has the advantages of large capacity and long transmission distance, it is often used as a parallel transmission corridor for large-scale power transmission bases. In addition, there is generally a certain reserve capacity in power plants. Starting from inputting reserve capacity and increasing the DC transmission power, a flexible extrapolation strategy of oscillation center based on energy rebalancing is proposed in this paper. The reserve energy at the sending system, the transfer energy in the transmission corridor, and the cut energy at the receiving end are counted. Then the energy transferred in the DC system is comprehensively predicted for complete extrapolation of the oscillation center, and the energy transfer constraints are formulated. The specific energy adjustment schemes of the sending system, power transmission corridor, and the receiving system are determined on the premise of meeting the stability of the system. Finally, the feasibility of this strategy is verified by simulation with the impedance trajectory of the generator and the change curve of power angle during the oscillation period.

BackgroundSevere fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging and life-threatening infectious disease caused by SFTS virus. Although recent studies have reported the use of nomograms based on demographic and laboratory data to predict the prognosis of SFTS, no study has included viral load, which is an important factor that influences the prognosis, when compared with other risk factors. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a model that predicts SFTS prognosis before it reaches the critical illness stage and to compare the predictive ability of groups with and without viral load.MethodsTwo hundred patients with SFTS were enrolled between June 2018 and August 2023. Data were sourced from the first laboratory results at admission, and two nomograms for mortality risk were developed using multivariate logistic regression to identify the risk variables for poor prognosis in these patients. We calculated the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for the two nomograms to assess their discrimination, and predictive abilities were compared using net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI).ResultsThe multivariate logistic regression analysis identified four independent risk factors: age, bleeding manifestations, prolonged activated partial thromboplastin time, and viral load. Based on these factors, a final nomogram predicting mortality risk in patients with SFTS was constructed; in addition, a simplified nomogram was constructed excluding the viral load. The AUC [0.926, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.882–0.970 vs. 0.882, 95% CI: 35 0.823–0.942], NRI (0.143, 95% CI, 0.036–0.285), and IDI (0.124, 95% CI, 0.061–0.186) were calculated and compared between the two models. The calibration curves of the two models showed excellent concordance, and decision curve analysis was used to quantify the net benefit at different threshold probabilities.ConclusionTwo critical risk nomograms were developed based on the indicators for early prediction of mortality risk in patients with SFTS, and enhanced predictive accuracy was observed in the model that incorporated the viral load. The models developed will provide frontline clinicians with a convenient tool for early identification of critically ill patients and initiation of a better personalized treatment in a timely manner.

Plate heat exchangers are widely used in the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) field. Cross-corrugated triangular ducts are commonly employed in plate heat exchangers. Inserting baffles into the cross-corrugated triangular ducts can improve the heat transfer performance of the plate heat exchangers. This study focuses on intricate interdependencies among the flow channel apex angle, the trapezoidal baffle inclination angle, baffle position, and Reynolds number (Re) on heat transfer and pressure drop using response surface methodology (RSM) and computational fluid dynamic (CFD). To identify the factors that maximize the Nusselt number (Nu) and minimize friction factor (f), the RSM is used to design factors, conduct numerical studies, and establish regression equations. The results show that the apex angle, baffle angle, X-direction position, and Re have significantly affected Nu and f. Compared to a non-baffled channel with the same apex angle and Re conditions, the optimized channel enhances heat transfer by 1.54 times and has an almost identical pressure drop. The inclined baffle significantly enhances comprehensive performance at low Re. The synergistic effect of the heat transfer and pressure drop is most optimal when the apex angle of the flow channel is 90°, the trapezoidal baffle inclination angle is 52.5°, and the Re is 1000, with the baffle position at 0.625H in the X-direction.

Abstract Despite the desirability of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as heterogeneous photocatalysts, current strategies available to enhance the performance of MOF photocatalysts are complicated and expensive. Herein, a simple strategy is presented for improving the activity of MOF photocatalysts by regulating the atomic interface structure of the metal active sites on the MOF. In this study, MOF (PCN‐222) is hybridized with cellulose acetate (CA@PCN‐222) through an optimized atomic interface strategy, which lowers the average valence state of Zr ions. The electronic metal‐support interaction mechanism of CA@PCN‐222 is revealed by evaluating the photocatalytic CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR). The experimental results suggested that the electron migration efficiency at the atomic interface of the MOFs strongly coupled with cellulose is significantly improved. In particular, the CO2RR to formate activity of CA@PCN‐222 photocatalyst greatly increased from 778.2 to 2816.0 µmol g−1 compared with pristine PCN‐222 without cellulose acetate. The findings suggest that the strongly coupled metal–ligand moiety at the atomic interface of MOFs may play a synergistic role in heterogeneous catalysts.

Tomato is an important vegetable crop in China, and its yield ranks the top among vegetables in the world. It has important nutritional value, with rich and varied tastes. Plant male sterility is caused by the abnormal development of stamens, which cannot produce pollen with normal function, while pistils develop normally and can be fertilized by foreign normal pollen. Tomato is a typical self-pollinated plant with obvious heterosis and strong disease resistance and stress resistance. At present, the production of tomato F1 hybrid seeds in China basically depends on artificial emasculation and pollination, therefore, a lot of manpower and material resources are needed in the process of seed production. In the use of tomato male sterile seed production, the seed production process can be simplified, costs be greatly reduced and and seed purity be improved, in this case, tomato yield and quality will be increased significantly. Therefore, the research and utilization of tomato male sterility is of great practical significance to tomato genetic breeding, and has always been an important research topic for the domestic and foreign scholars. This paper mainly outlines the current situation of male sterility of tomato in recent years, summarizes the types of tomato male sterility, the application of genetic engineering technology of tomato male sterility, the fine positioning and functional study of tomato male sterility gene, and the analysis of cell biological mechanism of tomato male sterility. The effect of temperature on tomato male sterility is expounded from the perspective of genetics, and the physiological and biochemical mechanism and the gene function and regulation mechanism in response temperature changes are discussed. Then, the heterosis of tomato male sterility and its utilization value in production and application are analyzed. On this basis, the problems existing in the current research work are put forward, and the innovation and basic research of tomato male sterility technology in the future are prospected.

Building structural type (BST) information is vital for seismic risk and vulnerability modeling. However, obtaining this kind of information is not a trivial task. The conventional method involves a labor-intensive and inefficient manual inspection process for each building. Nowadays, a few methods have explored to use remote sensing images and some building-related knowledge (BRK) to realize automated BST recognition. However, these methods have many limitations, such as insufficient mining of multimodal information and difficulty obtaining BRK, which hinders their promotion and practical use. To alleviate the shortcomings above, we propose a deep multimodal fusion model, which combines satellite optical remote sensing image, aerial synthetic aperture radar image, and BRK (roof type, color, and group pattern) obtained by domain experts to achieve accurate automatic reasoning of BSTs. Specifically, first, we use a pseudo-siamese network to extract the image feature. Second, a knowledge graph (KG) based on the BRK is constructed, and then, we use a graph attention network to extract the semantic feature from the KG. Third, we propose a novel multistage gated fusion mechanism to fuse the image and semantic feature. Our method's best overall accuracy and kappa coefficient on the dataset collected in the study area are 90.35% and 0.83, which outperforms a series of existing methods. Through our model, high-precision BST information can be obtained for earthquake disaster prevention, reduction, and emergency decision making.

The traditional support vector machine (SVM) requires manual feature extraction to improve classification performance and relies on the expressive power of manually extracted features. However, this characteristic poses limitations in complex Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) environments. Traditional manual feature extraction may fail to capture all relevant information, thereby restricting the application effectiveness of SVM in IIoT settings. CNN-RNN, as a deep learning network capable of simultaneously extracting spatial and temporal features, can alleviate researchers’ burden. In this paper, we propose a novel intrusion detection system (IDS) framework based on anomalies, called CRSF. The framework’s pre-training part employs a dimension transformation function to process input data into two-dimensional images. Two-dimensional convolutional kernels are then employed to extract spatial features, and the feature sequences are passed to an RNN to capture richer temporal features. After sufficient pre-training, SVM is used as a classifier to map the pre-training data from the feature space to a high-dimensional space and learn nonlinear decision boundaries, enabling the framework to accurately differentiate feature representations of different classes. Simulation experiments on the TON_IoT-Datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the CRSF framework in intrusion detection. When using the “linear” kernel function in SVM, the framework achieves an accuracy, F1-score, and AUC of 0.9959, 0.9959, and 0.9977, respectively, indicating its capability and superiority in intrusion detection.

Taking soybean mixed allergens as the target, a sandwich-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay and an indirect competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the rapid and convenient detection of soybean allergens were established. The two methods were compared through the recovery experiment of actual processed samples, the recovery experiment of spiked food and the detection of real food samples, and their respective application scopes were determined. Sandwich ELISA method, the standard concentration was in the range of 0.0078~30 μg/mL, showing a good linear relationship, the curve equation was y=0.2333x+0.0692 with coefficient of determination R2=0.995. The detection range of the competitive ELISA method was 10~100000 ng/mL, and the lowest detection limit was 10 ng/mL. The recovery rate of orange juice after sandwich ELISA was higher than that after competitive ELISA, reaching more than 100%. For chocolate, beef sauce, bread and cake with complex ingredients and processing methods, the recovery rate after competitive ELISA was higher than that after double-antibody sandwich ELISA. In the detection of soybean allergens in fermented foods, the concentration detected by competitive ELISA was higher than that detected by sandwich ELISA, while in the detection of simple ingredients such as sesame paste and soy milk, the concentration detected by sandwich ELISA was slightly higher than that detected by competitive ELISA. In general, the competitive ELISA method was more suitable for the food with complex food matrix and deeply processed, while the sandwich ELISA method was more suitable for the food with simple food ingredients and lightly processed food, both of the two methods can achieve more accurate detection in their respective application scope.

Abstract High-quality-factor (high-Q-factor) electromagnetic resonance plays an important role in sensor applications. Previously proposed gas refractive index sensors are often limited by the large cavity length or microscale fabrication process in practical applications. Recently, ultra-high Q factor resonance based on the bound state in the continuum (BIC) has provided a feasible approach to solve these problems. In this paper, we propose a metasurface structure consisting of a single size tetramer cylinder. It supports dual band toroidal dipole (TD) resonances driven by BIC. The physical mechanism of double TD resonances is clarified by the multipole decomposition of the metasurface band structure and far-field scattering power. The sensor structure based on this achieves a sensitivity of 518.3 MHz/RIU, and the maximum line width does not exceed 680 kHz. The high-Q-factor electromagnetic resonance has the advantages of polarization independence and simplicity to manufacture. These findings will open up an avenue to develop the ultrasensitive sensor in the gigahertz regime.

Electrochemical water splitting is one of the most efficient strategies to generate clean energy H2. Herein, a novel hollow Co3S4/CuS@CoNi-LDH nanocomposite was designed. This hollow Co3S4/CuS@CoNi-LDH achieved OER overpotential of 220 mV, HER overpotential of 136 mV, respectively, at the current density of 10 mA cm−2. Notably, the hollow Co3S4/CuS@CoNi-LDH serving as both anode and cathode is assembled into a two-electrode water splitting device, and the potential of no more than 1.74 V is required to achieve the overall water splitting efficiency of 10 mA cm−2. This work provides a promising bifunctional catalyst for overall electrochemical water splitting.

The traditional current protection uses the RMS value of the current to compare with a setting-value to identify faults, which is the typical protection scheme for the transmission lines of the power distribution systems. The current is calculated by the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. As the calculation of the RMS current requires a long time, the speed of the current quick break protection is reduced. In this regard, a fast current protection algorithm based on the discrete setting value is presented in this paper to solve this problem. The main emphasis is placed on the construction of the discrete sequence of setting-value and the protection criterion. The protection startup criterion and action criterion are constructed based on comparisons between discrete sequence of setting-value and sampling values of the current fault component. The operation characteristics and reliability of the fast current protection are analyzed. The performance of the novel fast current protection algorithm is compared with that of the conventional current protection through simulations based on PSCAD/EMTDC. The results verified that the novel fast current protection algorithm has good operation characteristics under different fault conditions.

Introduction: The complex and multidimensional nature of pain poses a major challenge in clinical pain assessments. In this study, we aimed to evaluate a novel approach combining quantitative sensory testing (QST) with event-related potential measurements for assessment of experimental pain in healthy individuals.Methods: QST was performed with a commercial device (PainVision, PS-2100), and numeric rating scale (NRS) scores after exposure to different sensory stimuli were reported by the participants. Resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) was simultaneously performed to capture the cortical responses to peripheral stimulation.Results: Pain scores increased with the intensity of stimuli, with mean NRS scores of 2.7 ± 1.0 after mild stimuli and 5.6 ± 1.0 after moderate stimuli. A reproducible, significant P2-N2 complex was evoked by both mild and moderately painful stimuli, but not by non-painful stimuli. The latency of pain-related potentials was not significantly different between stimuli. The amplitudes of both P2 and N2 components significantly increased when intense nociception was applied, and the increments mainly originated from theta oscillations.Conclusion: The combination of QST with EEG was feasible for subjective and objective pain assessment. Distinct patterns of brain potentials were associated with the phenotype of the peripheral stimuli (e.g., noxious versus. innoxious, high versus. low pain intensity).

The active substances derived from plants have received increasing attention owing to their wide range of pharmacological applications, including anti-tumor, anti-allergic, anti-viral, and anti-oxidative activities. The allergy epidemic is a growing global public health problem that threatens human health and safety. Polyphenols from plants have significant anti-allergic effects and are an important source of anti-allergic drug research and development. Here, we describe recent advances in the anti-allergic efficacy of plant polyphenols, including their comprehensive effects on cellular or animal models. The current issues and directions for future development in this field are discussed to provide a theoretical basis for the development and utilization of these active substances as anti-allergic products.

Accurate and timely urban boundaries can effectively quantify the spatial characteristics of urban evolution and are essential for understanding the impacts of urbanization processes and land-use changes on the environment and biodiversity. Currently, there is a lack of long time-series, high-resolution, nationally consistent Chinese urban boundary data for urban research. In this study, the city clustering algorithm was used to generate urban settlement boundaries in China based on the local density, size, and spatial relationships of impervious surfaces. The results showed that both the area and the number of urban settlements in China revealed an upward trend from 1985 to 2020, with East China (EC) being much higher than other regions and South China showing the most significant growth rate. The average area ratio of urban green space in China was 41.68%, with the average area ratio in EC being higher than in other regions. Meanwhile, Zipf’s law was used to verify the universality of urban settlement rank–size; the changes in the Zipf index from 1985 to 2020 also revealed that China’s urban size tended to be concentrated, and the development of large urban settlements was relatively prominent. The urban definition method we propose in this study can divide urban boundaries efficiently and accurately, identify urban expansion hotspots, and promote research on farmland loss and ecological land degradation, further exploring the impacts of urbanization on food security, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration. By coupling big data such as economy, energy, and population with urban evolution patterns, urban managers can analyze current and future problems in urban development, thereby providing scientific decision-making for urban sustainability.

The wind abandonment phenomenon of cogeneration units in regional integrated energy systems (RIES) under the operation mode of “heat for electricity” and the improvement in the operation efficiency of the energy storage system under a low-temperature environment are problems that need to be solved urgently. To this end, a regional integrated energy system optimization scheduling method based on fine energy storage and wind power consumption is proposed in the paper. First, a fine energy storage model more adapted to a low-temperature environment is established on the power side to accurately simulate the actual working state of the energy storage components and quantify the uncertainty of the wind power output using the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) theory. Then, a combined heat and power demand response mechanism is introduced on the load side to reduce the peak-to-valley difference in the heat and power loads, it is realized to promote the system’s consumption of wind power without increasing the transmission power of the contact line. Finally, the example is solved on the MATLAB platform with the objective of minimizing the total cost of the RIES optimal dispatch. The simulation results show that the proposed model is not only more adaptable to a low-temperature environment compared with the traditional model but also reduces the overall cost of the system by 2.58% while realizing the complete consumption of wind power. This innovative study provides a feasible and efficient solution to improve the performance of integrated energy systems, especially the operation capability in extreme environments.

Coagulation and sedimentation process is one of the most popular processes in drinking water treatment. Hydrodynamic breakage has a significant impact on the evolution of floc characteristics and the efficiency of turbidity removal. In this work, the effects of hydrodynamic breakage on floc size, fractal dimension, and floc morphology were investigated with an in-situ recognition system. The experiments were conducted in a continuous flocculation and sedimentation reactor equipped with perforated plates to provide different hydrodynamic breakage conditions. The experimental results indicated that the hydrodynamic conditions significantly influenced the floc destabilization and restructuring processes. A low hydrodynamic shear force provided by P1 led to the increase of both bigger sized flocs but accompanied with small particles (0–10 μm). Excessive velocity gradient provided by P3 produced smaller and looser flocs. An appropriate velocity gradient (i.e., the flow velocity through the perforated plate P2 at 18.9 × 10−3m s−1) was conducive for the formation of larger and more compact structures, with higher average floc size and fractal dimension. This flocculation condition in turn resulted in effective improvements in the turbidity removal efficiency. Floc evolution models were described based on the mechanism of the breakage and restructuring process. HIGHLIGHTS Hydrodynamic effects on flocs properties were revealed in a flocculation and sedimentation reactor.; Evolutions of flocs was recorded by an in-situ recognition system.; Moderate breakage (G = 69 s−1) promoted the generation of larger flocs.; Moderate breakage helped to increase the settleability of flocs.;

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) causes high rates of worldwide mortality and morbidity due to the complex secondary injury cascade. Recently, circular ribonucleic acids (circRNAs) have attracted significant attention in a variety of diseases. However, their expression characteristics in human TBI are still unclear. In this study, we examined brain injury tissues from six severe TBI patients in Jinling Hospital. The TBI tissues and adjacent brain contusion tissues were used to analyze differential expression signatures of circRNAs through full-length transcriptome sequencing, Gene Ontology (GO) analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis, and ceRNA network construction. Our results found that there were 126 differently expressed circRNAs in TBI. Among them, 64 circRNAs were up-regulated and 62 circRNAs were down-regulated. Moreover, GO and KEGG analyses revealed that the aberrantly expressed circRNAs participated in many pathophysiological processes of TBI, especially regarding microglial cell activation, protein transport, protein processing and inflammation. Furthermore, the ceRNA (circRNA-miRNA-mRNA) network predicted that there existed strong relationship among circRNA, miRNA and mRNA. Taken together, our results indicated for the first time that the expression profiles of circRNAs were different after human TBI. In addition, we found the signaling pathways that were related to circRNAs and predicted a ceRNA network, which provided new insight of circRNAs in human TBI.

For the problem that the conventional oil pipeline detection system cannot effectively detect the leakage of the two-phase flow pipelines, a leakage identification method based on the acoustic emission signal was proposed for the gasliquid two-phase flow pipelines. According to the basic principles of acoustic emission detection technology, the leakage detection tests were carried out for the three flow patterns of laminar flow, slug flow and annular flow at a gas pressure of 0.1 to 0.4 MPa in three different orientations of leak holes with two different diameters. The main signal components extracted by wavelet packet decomposition combined with local mean decomposition were taken as the input of pattern recognition, and the BP artificial neural network pattern recognition was also performed. The test results show that the average accuracy of the leakage identification of the three two-phase flow pipelines of laminar flow, slug flow and annular flow is 83.5%, which is high in accuracy. Further, the proposed method has a reference value for the leakage detection of gas-liquid twophase flow pipelines.

Background and objectiveOrofacial pain, in particular, chronic orofacial pain remains a great challenge in clinical practice. To better understand the underlying mechanism of disease, it is essential to apply a feasible and stable preclinical measurement of facial pain. Here, we introduced a novel electrical noxious stimulator in freely behavioral rodents and examined its validation in both naïve and chronic orofacial pain animals.MethodsOne subcutaneous device of electrical stimulator was implanted in the facial region for delivery of the nociceptive input. The sensory component of orofacial pain was assessed by response scoring tool, and conditioned place aversion (CPA) paradigm for pain affect respectively. To confirm its usage in chronic pain state, the chronic constriction injury of the infraorbital nerve (ION-CCI) model was then applied.ResultsWe found that responsive scores increased with stimulation intensity, and acted in a dosage-dependent manner, which can be attenuated by the administration of morphine intraperitoneally. Naïve rats displayed significant aversive reaction to the noxious electrical stimulation (25V) in the CPA testing. In addition, an obvious sensory hypersensitivity to electrical stimulation was confirmed by the increased response scores in ION-CCI rats. Furthermore, ION-CCI animal showed significant avoidance to electrical stimulation at relatively low intensity (10V), which was innoxious to naïve rats.ConclusionOur findings may provide an alternative pre-clinical measurement of orofacial pain, to quantitively assess both sensory and affective component of orofacial pain.

Tropomyosin (TM) is a heat-stable protein that plays a crucial role as a major pan-allergen in crustacean shellfish. Despite the high thermal stability of the TM structure, its IgG/IgE binding ability, immunodetection, and in vitro digestibility can be negatively influenced by glycation during food processing, and the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In this study, TM was subjected to glycosylation using various sugars and temperatures. The resulting effects on IgG/IgE-binding capacity, immunodetection, and in vitro digestibility were analyzed, meanwhile, the structural alterations and modifications using spectroscopic and LC-MS/MS analysis were determined. Obtained results suggested that the IgG/IgE binding capacity of glycosylated TM, immunodetection recovery, and in vitro digestibility were significantly reduced depending on the degree of glycosylation, with the greatest reduction occurring in Rib-TM. These changes may be attributable to structural alterations and modifications that occur during glycosylation processing, which could mask or shield antigenic epitopes of TM (E3: 61–81, E5b: 142–162, and E5c: 157–183), subsequently reducing the immunodetection recognition and digestive enzyme degradation. Overall, these findings shed light on the detrimental impact of glycation on TMs potential allergenicity and digestibility immunodetection and provide insights into the structural changes and modifications induced by thermal processing.

The photodissociation dynamics of small molecules in the vacuum ultraviolet range can have key implications for astrochemical modelling, but revealing such dynamical details is a challenging task. Here the authors, combining high resolution experimental techniques, provide a detailed description of the fragmentation dynamics of selected rotational levels of a predissociated Rydberg state of H2S.

Abstract Fault section location of a single-phase grounding fault is affected by the neutral grounding mode of the system, transition resistance, and the blind zone. A fault section locating method based on an amplitude feature and an intelligent distance algorithm is proposed to eliminate the influence of the above factors. By analyzing and comparing the amplitude characteristics of the zero-sequence current transient components at both ends of the healthy section and the faulty section, a distance algorithm with strong abnormal data immune capability is introduced in this paper. The matching degree of the amplitude characteristics at both ends of the feeder section are used as the criterion and by comparing with the set threshold, the faulty section is effectively determined. Finally, simulations using Matlab/Simulink and PSCAD/EMTDC show that the proposed section locating method can locate the faulty section accurately, and is not affected by grounding mode, grounding resistance, or the blind zone.

Hypoxia is a major regulator of tumor aggressiveness and metastasis in cancer progression. Exosomes (exos) play an important role in the communication between lung cancer and hypoxic microenvironment. However, the underlying mechanisms are largely undefined. Exos were isolated from A549 cells under hypoxia conditions. Transmission electron microscopy and nanoparticle tracking analysis were carried out to characterize exos. CCK-8 assay, flow cytometry, Western blot, wound healing, and transwell assays were performed to assess the proliferation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion of A549 cells, respectively. The M2 polarization of macrophages was evaluated by RT-qPCR and Western blot analysis. In vivo nude mice model was established to determine the regulatory effect of hypoxia/exos on the progression of lung cancer. Hypoxic A549 cell-derived exos (hypoxia/exos) promoted the proliferation and migration, and inhibited the apoptosis in A549 cells. The expression of PKM2 was significantly upregulated in hypoxia/exos. Hypoxic exosomal PKM2 induced M2 polarization of macrophages by activating AMPK pathway. Co-culture with hypoxia/exos-treated macrophages enhanced the migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in A549 cells. Moreover, treatment with hypoxia/exos facilitated the tumor growth and lung metastasis of A549 cells. Our findings reveal that hypoxic exosomal PKM2 induces M2 macrophage polarization via AMPK pathway, and thus exerts a simulative effect on the growth and metastasis of lung carcinoma.

With the deepening of the “source-load-storage” interaction and the development of demand response technology, the emergence of prosumers has led to new vitality and potential for the optimal operation of microgrids. By implementing a demand response mechanism for prosumers, peak shaving and valley filling are realized, and load fluctuations are balanced. However, the high costs of investing and operating energy storage system (ESS) restrict their ability to participate in the scheduling of microgrids. In this paper, for the objectives of obtaining the lowest comprehensive costs and the smallest load fluctuations, an INSGA-II (Improved Fast Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm) algorithm is proposed for the multiobjective configuration optimization model of a prosumer's ESS. To ensure the diversity of the population and improve the search ability of the algorithm in space, based on the original NSGA-II algorithm, the proportion factor set in the selection strategy is improved. The normal distribution crossover operator is introduced in the crossover process, and the local chaotic search strategy is added after the formation of the next generation of the population. An example of a science and technology park with five users is simulated and analyzed. Upon comparison with various typical intelligent algorithms, the results show that the performance of the improved NSGA-II algorithm is the best. At the same time, multiple calculation results show that the improved NSGA-II algorithm has strong algorithmic stability.

Food allergy is a serious health risk and severely affects the quality of life in individuals all over the globe. In recent years, there has been an evident increase in the number of food allergy cases due to the consumption of sesame. Hence, to develop a robust and reliable detection method for sesame allergen has become a high priority. In this research, a sandwich ELISA method was established to detect sesame allergens using rat and rabbit antiserums. The limit of detection for sandwich ELISA was estimated at 1 ng/mL, revealing high sensitivity. At the same time, it was found that the most suitable pre-treatment extract for this method was 0.1 M, pH 9.6 Na2CO3-NaHCO3 containing 0.5% SDS. This sandwich ELISA method can sensitively and efficiently detect foods containing sesame ingredients, which can protect the sensitive individuals from the exposure to sesame allergenic foods.

Metamaterial perfect absorbers (MPAs) have been widely studied due to their distinctive tunable electromagnetic properties. Conventional MPAs mostly focus on realizing perfect absorption in a single direction, which leads to their limitations for various practical applications. We propose a bidirectional MPA with the ability of switching the ultra-wideband and dual-narrowband absorption. An inversion algorithm is applied to extract the normalized impedance of the absorber for explaining the physical mechanism. Simulation results clearly manifest that the average absorptivity of 93.8% and 99.5% could be achieved both over an ultra-wide spectral range of 1200 nm and at the specific wavelengths of 589 nm and 1097 nm with polarization independence and angle insensitiveness, which are led by the multiple excitations of different resonance modes induced by the metal–insulator-metal (MIM) Fabry-Perot (F-P) cavities. Our results are desirable for the integration of multiple optical applications such as energy harvesting, thermal emission, perfect cloaking and nanoparticle detecting.

BackgroundThe immune response and the complement system are associated with cognitive impairment and diabetes mellitus, respectively. Activation of the complement system in these diseases occurs mainly through either the classical pathway or the alternative pathway. However, the specific complement proteins involved in the development of the type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and cognitive impairment are still unclear. Here, we investigated complement proteins in serum from patients with T2DM, cognitive impairment, or both T2DM and cognitive impairment.ObjectiveTo investigate the levels of serum immune complement proteins in patients with T2DM, cognitive impairment, or T2DM combined with cognitive impairment and the associations between these complement proteins and risk factors for T2DM or cognitive impairment.MethodsClinical markers were collected from blood samples of 264 participants. Luminex multiplex assays were used to detect serum complement proteins. All statistical analyses were performed using Prism or R studio.ResultsThere was a difference in serum levels of the complement proteins C1q, C3, C3b, and FH between the three different groups. Hyperglycemia was significantly correlated with elevated C3b or reduced C3, C1q, and FH. In addition, hyperlipidemia was positively correlated with elevated levels of C3, C4, C1q, and FH proteins. There was an association between C1q, C3, C4, and FH and β-pancreas cell function, whereas only FH was associated with insulin resistance. Higher serum C1q was significantly associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment.ConclusionSerum levels of complement proteins were closely associated with hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia. We found that classical complement pathway activation mainly occurred in the cognitive impairment only group, whereas the alternative pathway may reflect T2DM and T2DM with cognitive impairment.

Acute central nervous system (CNS) injuries, including ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury (SCI) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), are the most common cause of death and disability around the world. As a kind of non-coding ribonucleic acids (RNAs) with endogenous and conserve, circular RNAs (circRNAs) have recently attracted great attentions due to their functions in diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. A large number of studies have suggested that circRNAs played an important role in brain development and involved in many neurological disorders, particularly in acute CNS injuries. It has been proposed that regulation of circRNAs could improve cognition function, promote angiogenesis, inhibit apoptosis, suppress inflammation, regulate autophagy and protect blood brain barrier (BBB) in acute CNS injuries via different molecules and pathways including microRNA (miRNA), nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-κB), ph1osphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate 3-kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/AKT), Notch1 and ten-eleven translocation (TET). Therefore, circRNAs showed great promise as potential targets in acute CNS injuries. In this article, we present a review highlighting the roles of circRNAs in acute CNS injuries. Hence, on the basis of these properties and effects, circRNAs may be developed as therapeutic agents for acute CNS injury patients.

Objective To compare medial pivot (MP) prostheses to two types of posterior‐stabilized (PS) prostheses (NexGen and NRG) in terms of patient satisfaction, causes of dissatisfaction, and risk factors for dissatisfaction after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Methods A total of 453 patients who underwent primary TKA by one senior surgeon from August 2016 to August 2018 were investigated in a retrospective study, including 121, 219, and 113 patients in the MP, NexGen, and NRG groups, respectively. The mean age and follow‐up time of patients were 70.82 ± 7.06 years and 20.64 ± 3.88 months. A survey was designed and responses were collected by telephone, WeChat, and outpatient follow up. Patient satisfaction, causes of dissatisfaction, post‐TKA pain on a numeric rating scale (NRS), and range of motion (ROM) were compared among groups, and risk factors were investigated. Patient satisfaction included a five‐level satisfaction rating (very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied), with five options for causes of dissatisfaction (persistent pain, limited ROM, knee instability, asthenia, and/or other factors). Results Overall, 89.84% of patients were satisfied with the results of primary TKA. There were no significant differences among the three groups regarding the side of the operation, the length of hospitalization in days, or the average follow‐up time. Patient satisfaction was similar among the MP (87.38%), NexGen (89.89%), and NRG groups (90.32%). Persistent pain after TKA was the major cause of dissatisfaction (32/40), but no difference in the frequency of this complaint was found among the groups (P = 0.663). The NRS score (P = 0.598) and the ROM (P = 0.959) of the MP group were not significantly different from those of the NexGen and NRG groups. Gender, length of hospitalization, and follow‐up time were all uncorrelated with patient satisfaction, but age showed a very weak correlation with patient satisfaction (r = 0.110, P = 0.033). Moreover, the NRS score (r = 0.459, P < 0.000) and the ROM (r = −0.175, P = 0.001) were significantly correlated with patient dissatisfaction. The odds ratio of dissatisfaction was 6.37 (P

Abstract Background Inflammatory mediators in the synovial fluid (SF) play critical roles in the initiation and development of pain in knee osteoarthritis (KOA). However, data for inflammatory marker expression are conflicting, and the role of SF inflammatory mediators in neuropathic pain is not clear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify SF inflammatory mediators associated with nociceptive and neuropathic pain in KOA. Methods Levels of IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, macrophage colony-stimulating factor, MMP-3, MMP-13, metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs 5, calcitonin gene-related peptide, neuropeptide Y, substance P and bradykinin were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays in 86 patients. Nociceptive pain was assessed using the numeric rating scale (NRS), visual analog scale (VAS) and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain score. Neuropathic pain was determined using the PainDETECT questionnaire. Moreover, knee function was evaluated by the WOMAC score and range of motion (ROM) assessments. Radiological grade was defined using the Kellgren-Lawrence (K-L) grading scale. Results Pain scores measured using different methods correlated highly with each other. A worse K-L grade and knee function were associated with worse pain. Expression of IL-1β and IL-6 was increased in the early stage compared with the late stage. The NRS score correlated positively with age, K-L grade, and the WOMAC score and negatively with ROM and TNF-α expression. The VAS correlated positively with age, K-L grade, and the WOMAC score but negatively with ROM and levels of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α. The WOMAC pain score did not correlate with any of the inflammatory mediators measured; it correlated only with ROM. The PainDETECT score correlated only with the WOMAC score. Expression of other inflammatory mediators did not correlate with any of the pain scores. Conclusions IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α play critical roles in pain in the early stage of KOA and correlate with pain. The catabolic enzymes and neuropeptides measured do not correlate with nociceptive and neuropathic pain. New biomarkers related to pain in the late stage need to be further investigated.

When the single-phase reclosing of the high-voltage circuit, there will be tremendous negative sequence current generation. The connection of inverter-type new energy sources may increase the negative sequence current of the power system. The risks will be greatly increased if a large negative sequence current invades the generator, and it will cause the general stator damaged and offline. Based on the chain STATCOM compensation, a new strategy of negative sequence current coordinated control protection on the generator extremity is put forward. This strategy can predict the operation time of inverse time negative sequence current protection by monitoring the negative sequence current on the generator extremity. Once it is determined that the negative sequence current has an effect on the power system, according to the relationship between the STATCOM capacity and the magnitude of negative sequence current, two schemes of full compensation and incomplete compensation are proposed. The negative sequence current output by STATCOM suppresses the magnitude of the negative sequence current invading the generator. It eliminates or prolongs the operation time of the negative sequence current protection and gets more time for power system security and stability control. Finally, the simulation results verify the correctness and feasibility of the proposed strategy.

BackgroundMinimally invasive techniques, such as percutaneous low-power laser discectomy (PLLD) and low-temperature plasma radiofrequency ablation (coblation) can be applied to treat degenerative cervical radiculopathy. However, less evidence supports the superiority of distinct minimally-invasive therapy. Our study aimed to evaluate the clinical and radiological characteristics of the PLLD and coblation for cervical radiculopathy.MethodsThis was a prospective, multicenter, cohort study (ChiCTR-ONC-17010356). The modified Macnab criteria was performed to assess the clinical improvement pre- and post-surgery. To evaluate the radiological effect, the Pfirrmann grading system and disk herniation index were applied with MRI.ResultsIn this study, 28 patients were enrolled in the coblation group and 30 patients in the PLLD group. The mean good-excellent rate at 3-month follow-up was 82.1% for PLLD group, and 66.7% for coblation group, respectively (p = 0.179). The PLLD group achieved higher good-excellent rate 6 and 12 months after discharge (92.9 vs. 70.0%, p = 0.026). Radiological data revealed that PLLD but not coblation treatment achieved significant reduction of disk herniation index (p < 0.0001). Coblation treatment did not change the Pfirrmann grades of cervical radiculopathy patients (n = 18), and 7 out of 17 (41.2%) patients achieved improvement after PLLD therapy. None obvious adverse event was observed in this study.ConclusionBoth PLLD and coblation are effective and safe option for patients with cervical radiculopathy. Better long-term clinical outcomes may be potentially associated with the improvement of disk degeneration after PLLD treatment.

Kinesthetic interaction is an important interaction method for virtual reality. Current kinesthetic interaction using a grounded force-feedback device, however, is still considered difficult and time-consuming because of the interaction difficulty in a three-dimensional space. Velocity-oriented dynamic control–display (CD) gain has been used to improve user task performance with pointing devices, such as the mouse. In this study, we extended the application of this technique to kinesthetic interaction and examined its effects on interaction speed, positioning accuracy and touch perception. The results showed that using this technique could improve interaction speed without affecting positioning accuracy in kinesthetic interaction. Velocity-oriented dynamic CD gain could negatively affect touch perception in softness while using large gains. However, it is promising and particularly suitable for kinesthetic tasks that do not require high accuracy in touch perception.

Membrane-based total heat exchanger with cross-corrugated triangular ducts is a new structure, and the changing-section channels in the heat exchanger would make fluid undergo periodic contraction and expansion, which provides an effective approach for strengthening convective heat and mass transfer. Numerous studies proved that the geometric structure have great influence on performance of this type of heat exchanger core, whereas studies about structure optimization considering both thermal irreversibility and economic benefits are rare. In the present study, the total economic return and total entropy generation rate are analyzed as two objective functions simultaneously to evaluate thermal economic and thermal irreversibility performance respectively. A global sensitivity analysis was conducted to select the more sensitive paraments from the six key geometric design parameters: the channel height H, apex angle θ, channel number of each layer on fresh air side nf, channel number of each layer on exhaust air side ne, and the total number of plates nh. They are optimized by the multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm by taking into account entropy generation minimization (EGM) and economic return maximization. The convergence and stability analysis of the algorithm is proposed and the result informs a good application. The optimal geometric design scheme is obtained from the Pareto set according to the normalization method. A parameters analysis was also conducted to study the influence of geometric parameters on the thermal irreversibility and thermal economy performance of the heat exchanger.

Target-based drug design, a high-efficiency strategy used to guide the development of novel pesticide candidates, has attracted widespread attention. Herein, various natural-derived ferulic acid derivatives incorporating substituted isopropanolamine moieties were designed to target the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) helicase. Bioassays demonstrating the optimized A19, A20, A29, and A31 displayed excellent in vivo antiviral curative abilities, affording corresponding EC50 values of 251.1, 336.2, 347.1, and 385.5 μg/mL, which visibly surpassed those of commercial ribavirin (655.0 μg/mL). Moreover, configurational analysis shows that the R-forms of target compounds were more beneficial to aggrandize antiviral profiles. Mechanism studies indicate that R-A19 had a strong affinity (Kd = 5.4 μM) to the TMV helicase and inhibited its ability to hydrolyze ATP (50.61% at 200 μM). Meanwhile, A19 could down-regulate the expression of the TMV helicase gene in the host to attenuate viral replication. These results illustrate the excellent inhibitory activity of A19 towards the TMV helicase. Additionally, docking simulations uncovered that R-A19 formed more hydrogen bonds with the TMV helicase in the binding pocket. Recent studies have unambiguously manifested that these designed derivatives could be considered as promising potential helicase-based inhibitors for plant disease control.

BackgroundLumbosacral radicular pain (LSRP) can be caused by disc herniation, spinal stenosis, and failed back surgery syndrome. The clinical effect of pulsed-radiofrequency (PRF) combined with transforaminal epidural steroid injection (TESI) for radiating pain in different population remains unclear.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed the medical recordings of patients with LSRP caused by different etiologies, who underwent PRF and TESI treatment. The primary clinical outcome was assessed by a 10-point Visual Analog Scale (VAS) pre- and post-treatment.ResultsA total of 34 LSRP patients were identified and classified into 3 subgroups (disc herniation, spinal stenosis, and failed back surgery syndrome). The overall immediate pain reduction was 4.4 ± 1.1 after procedure. After a median follow-up of 9.5 months, the VAS decreased from 6.5 ± 1.0 to 2.4 ± 1.9 at the last follow-up.ConclusionPRF combined with TESI is an effective approach to treat persistent LSRP in distinct population.

Summary: As a major greenhouse gas, the continuous increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has caused serious environmental problems, although CO2 is also an abundant, inexpensive, and nontoxic carbon source. Here, we use metal-organic framework (MOF) with highly ordered hierarchical structure as adsorbent and catalyst for chemical fixation of CO2 at atmospheric pressure, and the CO2 can be converted to the formate in excellent yields. Meanwhile, we have successfully integrated highly ordered macroporous and mesoporous structures into MOFs, and the macro-, meso-, and microporous structures have all been presented in one framework. Based on the unique hierarchical pores, high surface area (592 m2/g), and high CO2 adsorption capacity (49.51 cm3/g), the ordered macroporous-mesoporous MOFs possess high activity for chemical fixation of CO2 (yield of 77%). These results provide a promising route of chemical CO2 fixation through MOF materials. : Chemical Reactions in Materials Science; Chemical Synthesis; Materials Characterization Techniques Subject Areas: Chemical Reactions in Materials Science, Chemical Synthesis, Materials Characterization Techniques