Design of polarization convert metasurface element with high angle stability.

This paper proposed a high angle stability polarization convert metasurface element. The element has one dielectric substrate with the bending lines on the top layer and metallic ground on the bottom layer. A method of priority optimize polarization conversion ratio(PCR) under oblique incident angle based on impedance analysis is proposed to realize high angle stability. And the proposed element can convert linear polarization to orthogonality polarization at 60° incident angle with 17.8% relative bandwidth with more resonances compared with normal incident. Both the PCR and bandwidth of the proposed element increase from 0° to 45° incident angle which different with traditional polarization convert elements. A metasurface with the high angle stability element is fabricated and the measured results are in good agreement with simulated results.

Effect of Chinese Medicine in Patients with COVID-19: A Multi-center Retrospective Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicine (CM) in the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China. METHODS: A multi-center retrospective cohort study was carried out, with cumulative CM treatment period of ⩾3 days during hospitalization as exposure. Data came from consecutive inpatients from December 19, 2019 to May 16, 2020 in 4 medical centers in Wuhan, China. After data extraction, verification and cleaning, confounding factors were adjusted by inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW), and the Cox proportional hazards regression model was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: A total of 2,272 COVID-19 patients were included. There were 1,684 patients in the CM group and 588 patients in the control group. Compared with the control group, the hazard ratio (HR) for the deterioration rate in the CM group was 0.52 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.41 to 0.64, P<0.001]. The results were consistent across patients of varying severity at admission, and the robustness of the results were confirmed by 3 sensitivity analyses. In addition, the HR for all-cause mortality in the CM group was 0.29 (95% CI: 0.19 to 0.44, P<0.001). Regarding of safety, the proportion of patients with abnormal liver function or renal function in the CM group was smaller. CONCLUSION: This real-world study indicates that the combination of a full-course CM therapy on the basic conventional treatment, may safely reduce the deterioration rate and all-cause mortality of COVID-19 patients. This result can provide the new evidence to support the current treatment of COVID-19. Additional prospective clinical trial is needed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of specific CM interventions. (Registration No. ChiCTR2200062917).

Creation of Wood-Based Hierarchical Superstructures via In Situ Growth of ZIF-8 for Enhancing Mechanical Strength and Electromagnetic Shielding Performance.

Given the escalating prevalence of electromagnetic pollution, there is an urgent need for the development of high-performance electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding materials. Herein, wood-based electromagnetic shielding materials have gained significant popularity due to their exceptional performance as building materials. In this study, a novel wood-based composite with electromagnetic shielding properties is developed. Through the in situ growth of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) crystals on wood fibers, coupled with uniform integration of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), a multifunctional composite named ZIF-8/Poplar-CNT composite is synthesized via a one-step thermoforming process. The incorporation of CNTs endows the composites with excellent EMI shielding effectiveness (EMI SE). Among these elements, despite ZIF-8 crystals not possessing intrinsic electromagnetic shielding functionality, their distinctive dodecahedral structure proves adept at scattering and reflecting electromagnetic waves within the composites, further improving the electromagnetic shielding effect. Hence, the ZIF-8/Poplar-CNT composite (56.95 dB) has ≈10 dB higher EMI SE compared to that of the composites without ZIF-8 crystals. Meanwhile, ZIF-8 crystals endow the materials with excellent tensile strength (54.84 MPa, enhanced by 4 times). Moreover, the introduction of Zn2+ provides superior antibacterial properties. The potential applications of ZIF-8/Poplar-CNT composites extend to diverse areas such as building decoration, electronic products, and medical equipment.

Involvement of CD44 and MAPK14-mediated ferroptosis in hemorrhagic shock.

To elucidate the induction of ferroptotic pathways and the transcriptional modulation of pivotal genes in the context of hemorrhagic shock. The R software was used to analyze the GSE64711 dataset, isolating genes relevant to ferroptosis. Enrichment analyses and protein interaction networks were assembled. Using WGCNA hub genes were identified and intersected with ferroptosis-related genes, highlighting hub genes CD44 and MAPK14. In a rat hemorrhagic shock model, cardiac ROS, Fe2+, MDA, and GSH levels were assessed. Key ferroptotic proteins (SLC7A11/GPX4) in myocardial tissues were examined via western blot. Hub genes, CD44 and MAPK14, expressions were confirmed through immunohistochemistry. Analyzing the GSE64711 dataset revealed 337 differentially expressed genes, including 12 linked to ferroptosis. Enrichment analysis highlighted pathways closely related to ferroptosis. Using Genemania, we found these genes mainly affect ROS metabolism and oxidative stress response. WGCNA identified CD44 and MAPK14 as hub genes. Rat myocardial tissue validation showed significant cardiac damage and elevated ROS and MDA levels, and decreased GSH levels in the hemorrhagic shock model. The ferroptotic pathway SLC7A11/GPX4 was activated, and immunohistochemistry showed a significant increase in the expression levels of CD44 and MAPK14 in the hemorrhagic shock rat model. We demonstrated the presence of tissue ferroptosis in hemorrhagic shock by combining bioinformatics analysis with in vivo experimentation. Specifically, we observed the activation of the SLC7A11/GPX4 ferroptotic pathway. Further, CD44 and MAPK14 were identified as hub genes in hemorrhagic shock.

An Antisweat Interference and Highly Sensitive Temperature Sensor Based on Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-Poly(styrenesulfonate) Fiber Coated with Polyurethane/Graphene for Real-Time Monitoring of Body Temperature.

Body temperature is an important indicator of human health. The traditional mercury and medical electronic thermometers have a slow response (≥1 min) and can not be worn for long to achieve continuous temperature monitoring due to their rigidity. In this work, we prepared a skin-core structure polyurethane (PU)/graphene encapsulated poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) temperature-sensitive fiber in one step by combining wet spinning technology with impregnation technology. The composite fiber has high sensitivity (-1.72%/°C), super-resolution (0.1 °C), fast time response (17 s), antisweat interference, and high linearity (R2 = 0.98) in the temperature sensing range of 30-50 °C. The fiber is strong enough to be braided into the temperature-sensitive fabric with commercial cotton yarns. The fabric with good comfort and durability can be arranged in the armpit position of the cloth to realize real-time body temperature monitoring without interruption during daily activities. Through Bluetooth wireless transmission, body temperature can be monitored in real-time and displayed on mobile phones to the parents or guardians. Overall, the fiber-based temperature sensor will significantly improve the practical applications of wearable temperature sensors in intelligent medical treatment due to its sensing stability, comfort, and durability.

Articles on hemorrhagic shock published between 2000 and 2021: A CiteSpace-Based bibliometric analysis.

Objective: To conduct a bibliometric analysis of literature on hemorrhagic shock published between 2000 and 2021 with the help of Citespace to explore the current status, hotspots and research trends in this regard, with the results presented in a visualized manner. Methods: The data over the past 22 years were retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection database and downloaded as the "Full Record and Cited References". Cooperative analysis, cluster analysis, co-citation analysis, and burst analysis were performed based on the data on countries/regions, institutions, journals, authors, and keywords through Citespace. Results: A total of 2027 articles were retrieved. The number of annual publications fluctuated but was generally on an upward trend. The United States stands out as the most productive country (989 articles), the University of Pittsburgh the most productive publishing institution (109 articles), SHOCK the most cited journal (1486 articles), TAO LI the most productive author (40 articles), DEITCH EA the most cited author (261 times of citation), hemorrhagic shock the most frequent keyword (725 times of occurrence), and "traumatic brain injury" the most covered article in keyword clustering (29 articles). The burst analysis revealed Harvard University as the institution with the highest strength value and the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery the most important journal. It was also concluded that HASAN B ALAM, AARON M WILLIAMS, and LIMIN ZHANG may continue to publish high-quality articles in the future. In the meanwhile, both "protect" and "transfusion" were considered the hotspots and trends in current research. Conclusions: The United States has been a major contributor to the publication of the articles over the past 22 years, with the most productive publishing institution, the most cited journal, and the most cited author all coming from the US. Hemorrhagic shock, injury, resuscitation, trauma, models, activation, expression, fluid resuscitation, rats, and nitric oxide are hot topics in relevant research. According to the keyword burst analysis, the areas related to "protect" and "transfusion" may rise as the research directions in the future. However, since the hotspots in the research of hemorrhagic shock are short-lived and fast-changing, the researchers should pay more attention to the development trend in this field.

Precise angle estimation of capsule robot in ultrasound using heatmap guided two-stage network.

PURPOSE: A capsule robot can be controlled inside gastrointestinal (GI) tract by an external permanent magnet outside of human body for finishing non-invasive diagnosis and treatment. Locomotion control of capsule robot relies on the precise angle feedback that can be achieved by ultrasound imaging. However, ultrasound-based angle estimation of capsule robot is interfered by gastric wall tissue and the mixture of air, water, and digestive matter existing in the stomach. METHODS: To tackle these issues, we introduce a heatmap guided two-stage network to detect the position and estimate the angle of the capsule robot in ultrasound images. Specifically, this network proposes the probability distribution module and skeleton extraction-based angle calculation to obtain accurate capsule robot position and angle estimation. RESULTS: Extensive experiments were finished on the ultrasound image dataset of capsule robot within porcine stomach. Empirical results showed that our method obtained small position center error of 0.48 mm and high angle estimation accuracy of 96.32%. CONCLUSION: Our method can provide precise angle feedback for locomotion control of capsule robot.

[Exploration and example interpretation of real-world herbal prescription classification based on similarity matching algorithm].

In observational studies, herbal prescriptions are usually studied in the form of "similar prescriptions". At present, the classification of prescriptions is mainly based on clinical experience judgment, but there are some problems in manual judgment, such as lack of unified criteria, labor consumption, and difficulty in verification. In the construction of a database of integrated traditional Chinese and western medicine for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19), our research group tried to classify real-world herbal prescriptions using a similarity matching algorithm. The main steps include 78 target prescriptions are determined in advance; four levels of importance labeling shall be carried out for the drugs of each target prescription; the combination, format conversion, and standardization of drug names of the prescriptions to be identified in the herbal medicine database; calculate the similarity between the prescriptions to be identified and each target prescription one by one; prescription discrimination is performed based on the preset criteria; remove the name of the prescriptions with "large prescriptions cover the small". Through the similarity matching algorithm, 87.49% of the real prescriptions in the herbal medicine database of this study can be identified, which preliminarily proves that this method can complete the classification of herbal prescriptions. However, this method does not consider the influence of herbal dosage on the results, and there is no recognized standard for the weight of drug importance and criteria, so there are some limitations, which need to be further explored and improved in future research.

Engineering PEDOT:PSS/PEG Fibers with a Textured Surface toward Comprehensive Personal Thermal Management.

The wild environment is unpredictable where soaring or plummeting temperatures in extreme weather events can pose serious threats to human lives. Incorporating passive evaporative cooling and controllable electric heating into clothing could effectively protect human beings from such harsh environments. In this work, poly(3,4-ethylene dioxy thiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate)/poly(ethylene glycol) (PPP) fibers with the core-shell structure and attractively textured surface have been successfully prepared via a single-nozzle wet-spinning technique. Results show that the fibers possess fascinating specific surface area (184.8 m2·g-1), electrical conductivity (50 S·cm-1), and stretchability (>100%) because of the novel preparation method and hierarchical morphological design. Through simple textile manufacturing routes, PPP fibers can be woven into fabrics easily, which exhibit desirable breathability, washability, and mechanical strength for smart textiles while maintaining favorable hygroscopicity. Benefiting from the textured structure with large specific surface area, PPP fabric exhibits attractile evaporative cooling rate. Practical application tests have demonstrated that under direct sunlight, the surface temperature of the PPP fabric is ∼5.2 and ∼10.8 °C lower than commercial cotton and polyester fabrics, respectively. Meanwhile, as conductive fibers, the resultant PPP fabric can heat under low-power electricity, therefore achieving the effect of "warmth in winter and coolness in summer". The facile fabrication process and elevated performance of PPP fibers present significant advantages for applications in intelligent garments and textiles, as well as comprehensive personal thermal management, which opens a new avenue for future design in these fields.

Alterations in the gut microbiome and metabolome profiles of septic mice treated with Shen FuHuang formula.

Sepsis has a high mortality rate, and treating sepsis remains a significant challenge worldwide. In former studies, our group found that traditional Chinese medicine, Shen FuHuang formula (SFH), is a promising medicine in treating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients with the septic syndrome. However, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. In the present study, we first investigated the therapeutic effects of SFH on septic mice. To investigate the mechanisms of SFH-treated sepsis, we identified the gut microbiome profile and exploited untargeted metabolomics analyses. The results demonstrated that SFH significantly enhanced the mice's 7-day survival rate and hindered the release of inflammatory mediators, i.e., TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1ß. 16S rDNA sequencing further deciphered that SFH decreased the proportion of Campylobacterota and Proteobacteria at the phylum level. LEfSe analysis revealed that the treatment of SFH enriched Blautia while decreased Escherichia_Shigella. Furthermore, serum untargeted metabolomics analysis indicated that SFH could regulate the glucagon signaling pathway, PPAR signaling pathway, galactose metabolism, and pyrimidine metabolism. Finally, we found the relative abundance of Bacteroides, Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group, Escherichia_Shigella, Blautia, Ruminococcus, and Prevotella were closely related to the enrichment of the metabolic signaling pathways, including L-tryptophan, uracil, glucuronic acid, protocatechuic acid, and gamma-Glutamylcysteine. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that SFH alleviated sepsis by suppressing the inflammatory response and hence reduced mortality. The mechanism of SFH for treating sepsis may be ascribed to the enrichment of beneficial gut flora and modulation in glucagon signaling pathway, PPAR signaling pathway, galactose metabolism, and pyrimidine metabolism. To sum up, these findings provide a new scientific perspective for the clinical application of SFH in treating sepsis.

Recent catalytic applications of MXene-based layered nanomaterials.

The urgent issues related to the catalytic processes and energy applications have accelerated the development of hybrid and smart materials. MXenes are a new family of atomic layered nanostructured materials that require considerable research. Tailorable morphologies, strong electrical conductivity, great chemical stability, large surface-to-volume ratios, tunable structures, among others are some significant characteristics that make MXenes appropriate for various electrochemical reactions, including dry reforming of methane, hydrogen evolution reaction, methanol oxidation reaction, sulfur reduction reaction, Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction, water-gas shift reaction, and so forth. MXenes, on the other hand, have a fundamental drawback of agglomeration, as well as poor long-term recyclability and stability. One possibility for overcoming the restrictions is the fusion of nanosheets or nanoparticles with MXenes. Herein, the relevant literature on the synthesis, catalytic stability and reusability, and applications of several MXene-based nanocatalysts are deliberated including the merits and cons of the newer MXene-based catalysts.

Transforming municipal cotton waste into a multilayer fibre biocomposite with high strength.

We analyzed the problematic textile fiber waste as potential precursor material to produce multilayer cotton fiber biocomposite. The properties of the products were better than the current dry bearing type particleboards and ordinary dry medium-density fiberboard in terms of the static bending strength (67.86 MPa), internal bonding strength (1.52 MPa) and water expansion rate (9.57%). The three-layer, four-layer and five-layer waste cotton fiber composite (WCFC) were tried in the experiment, the mechanical properties of the three-layer WCFC are insufficient, the five-layer WCFC is too thick and the four-layer WCFC had the best comprehensive performance. The cross-section morphology of the four-layer WCFC shows a dense structure with a high number of adhesives attached to the fiber. The hardness and stiffness of the four-layer cotton fiber composite enhanced by the high crystallinity of cellulose content, and several chemical bondings were presence in the composites. Minimum mass loss (30%) and thermal weight loss rate (0.70%/°C) was found for the four-layer WCFC. Overall, our findings suggested that the use of waste cotton fiber (WCF) to prepare biocomposite with desirable physical and chemical properties is feasible, and which can potentially be used as building material, furniture and automotive applications.

Nanofibrous/biopolymeric membrane a sustainable approach to remove organic micropollutants: A review.

Aquifers are severely polluted with organic and inorganic pollutants, posing a serious threat to the global ecological system's balance. While various traditional methods are available, the development of innovative methods for effluent treatment and reuse is critical. Polymers have recently been widely used in a variety of industry sectors due to their unique properties. Biopolymers are a biodegradable material that is also a viable alternative to synthetic polymers. Biopolymers are preferably obtained from cellulose and carrageenan molecules from various biological sources. While compared with conventional non-biodegradable polymeric materials, the biopolymer possesses unique characteristics such as renewability, cost-effectiveness, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. The improvements towards the biopolymeric (natural) membranes have also been thoroughly discussed. The use of nanofillers to stabilise and improve the effectiveness of biopolymeric membranes in the elimination of organic pollutants is one of the most recent developments. This was discovered that the majority of biopolymeric membranes technology consolidated on organic pollutants. More research should be directed toward against emerging organic/persistent organic pollutants (POP) and micropollutants. Furthermore, processes for regenerating and reusing utilized biopolymer-based carbon - based materials are emphasized.

Innovative Conversion of Pretreated Buxus sinica into High-Performance Biocomposites for Potential Use as Furniture Material.

Traditional wood-based panels are usually made from large-diameter trees and rely on adhesives for compactness, which negatively impacts the environment and human health. However, the widely distributed small-diameter shrubs are good raw materials for wood-based panels with abundant fibers, but are often under-exploited. This research reports the preparation of self-bonding biocomposites from Buxus sinica by an innovative combined approach of extraction, alkali treatment, and hot molding. The resulted biocomposites show better mechanical properties in which the flexural modulus (7.79 GPa) and the tensile modulus (4.33 GPa) were 5 times and 1.7 times higher than the conventional fiberboard, respectively, and also demonstrated better hydrophobicity than fiberboard, which could be due to the layer of lignin that formed on its surface preventing the infiltration of water. To sum up, the biocomposites prepared from small-diameter shrubs meet the requirement of the furniture and architectural decoration materials, suggesting that the proposed approach can be used to produce high-performance biocomposites.

Qin-Qiao-Xiao-Du formula alleviate influenza virus infectious pneumonia through regulation gut microbiota and metabolomics.

Qin-Qiao-Xiao-Du (QQXD), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula, has been used in the clinical treatment of influenza virus pneumonia. However, the effects and mechanisms of QQXD on influenza virus pneumonia remain unknown. Therefore, this study explores the mechanisms of QQXD in the treatment of influenza virus pneumonia from the point of view of intestinal flora and metabolism. The results showed that QQXD was able to reduce mortality, weight loss, lung viral load, lung index, and lung injury in influenza virus mice. A cytokine array found that the QQXD attenuated the expression of serum IL-1α, IL-4, IL-12(P70), and TNF-α. Subsequently, 16s rRNA gene sequencing showed that QQXD could increase the relative abundances of Gemmiger, Anaerofustis, Adlercreutzia, and Streptococcus and decrease those of Dehalobacteriu, Burkholderia, Prevotella, Butyrimimonas, Delftia, and others. Meanwhile, targeted metabolic profiling analysis showed that QQXD could regulate nitrogen metabolism, phenylalanine metabolism, valine, leucine, and isoleucine biosynthesis. Correlation analysis demonstrated that the regulatory effect of QQXD on the cyanoamino acid metabolism pathway was associated with changes in the abundance of Parabacteroides, Pediococcus, and Clostridium in influenza mice. In conclusion, our study revealed that QQXD can inhibit influenza virus replication, suppress cytokine storms, and protect mice from influenza virus infection pneumonia. The mechanisms are likely to be related to improved gut microbiota dysbiosis, increased intestinal carbohydrate metabolism, and up-regulated cyanoamino acid metabolism pathways.

New Poplar-Derived Biocomposites via Single-Step Thermoforming Assisted by Phosphoric Acid Pretreatment.

One-step thermoforming represents an effective approach to preparing glue-free biocomposites. This study aimed to produce glue-free biocomposites with high-temperature resistance and mechanical properties using phosphoric acid pretreatments combined with thermoforming. Due to the hot-moulding process, the cell wall was destroyed, which allowed the fibres to adhere closely together. Most hemicelluloses were hydrolysed through pretreatment with phosphoric acid, and the contact area between the cellulose and lignin was significantly increased. The biocomposites prepared by ball milling demonstrated remarkable flexural strength (49.03 MPa) and tensile strength (148.23 MPa). Moreover, they had excellent thermal stability, with the maximum temperature for pyrolysis rate at 374 °C, which was much higher than that of poplar (337 °C). In addition, the material released no formaldehyde during the preparation process, which is in line with the concept of green production.

Multilayered Nanocomposites Prepared through Quadruple-Layering Approach towards Enhanced Mechanical Performance.

Multilayered materials are widely studied due to their special structures and great properties, such as their mechanical ones. In this paper a novel and effective technique, a quadruple-layering approach, was used to fabricate multilayered materials. This approach increases the number of layers rapidly via simple operations. Materials with 4, 16, and 64 layers with alternating layers of polypropylene and nanocomposites were fabricated using this approach, and their film morphology and mechanical properties were studied. The influence of the number of layers on the mechanical properties of the materials and the relationship between the mechanical properties of each material were investigated. The results illustrated that the tensile modulus and strength were enhanced and elongation at the break increased when the layer numbers of the multilayered materials increased. However, this approach has a defect in that as the layer number increases, the layer thickness was not uniform, thus restricting the improvement of properties. This may need to be further studied in future work.

Bio-based composites fabricated from wood fibers through self-bonding technology.

Green composite processing technology of wood fibers is an inevitable choice for global sustainable development. In this research, waste poplar powder with different particle sizes was used to prepare glue-free biocomposites with good mechanical and waterproof properties by hot-molding. The biocomposites made of larger size wood powder had better tensile strength (40.3 MPa) and the biocomposites made of smaller size wood powder had the greater bending strength (50.5 MPa). The thickness swelling rate of the biocomposites was only 4.26% after soaking in water for 24 h. The cross-section morphology of the biocomposites showed that the cell wall collapses enhanced the interfacial bonding. Chemical analysis showed that lignin repolymerized with cellulose and hemicellulose for the vitrification transition. In addition, the biocomposites with excellent mechanical properties had no formaldehyde release, which can replace the traditional density boards made of adhesives and applied as furniture materials and in line with the concept of cleaner production.

TypeSeg: A type-aware encoder-decoder network for multi-type ultrasound images co-segmentation.

PURPOSE: As a portable and radiation-free imaging modality, ultrasound can be easily used to image various types of tissue structures. It is important to develop a method which supports the multi-type ultrasound images co-segmentation. However, state-of-the-art ultrasound segmentation methods commonly only focus on the single type images or ignore the type-aware information. METHODS: To solve the above problem, this work proposes a novel type-aware encoder-decoder network (TypeSeg) for the multi-type ultrasound images co-segmentation. First, we develop a type-aware metric learning module to find an optimum latent feature space where the ultrasound images of the same types are close and that of the different types are separated by a certain margin. Second, depending on the extracted features, a decision module decides whether the input ultrasound images have the common tissue type or not, and the encoder-decoder network produces a segmentation mask accordingly. RESULTS: We evaluate the performance of the proposed TypeSeg model on the ultrasound dataset that contains four types of tissues. The proposed TypeSeg model achieves the overall best results with the mean IOU score of 87.51% ± 3.93% for the multi-type ultrasound images. CONCLUSION: The experimental results indicate that the proposed method outperforms all the compared state-of-the-art algorithms for the multi-type ultrasound images co-segmentation task.