Elemental analysis of particulate matter in a metal workshop and of biological samples from exposed workers

During metal welding and cutting, large amounts of particulate matter (PM) are produced that might represent a significant health risk for the exposed workers. In the present pilot study, we performed an elemental analysis of fine PM collected in a metal workshop. Also, elemental analysis of the hair and nail samples collected from workers exposed to the workshop dust and control group was done. Concentrations of 15 elements in PM were measured with X‐Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Particle Induced X‐ray Emission (PIXE), whereas inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS) was used to determine 12 elements in hair and nail samples. Mean 8‐hr concentrations of PM_2.5, Fe, and Mn in the vicinity of welders were up to 1803, 860, and 30 μg/m³, respectively, whereas in the nearby city, daily PM_2.5 concentrations are on average 11 μg/m³. We found that several elements, especially Fe and Mn, had substantially higher concentrations in hair and nail samples of exposed workers than in the control group, which indicates the accumulation of metals in workers' tissues, although limit values were not exceeded.     

砂土串囊式充气锚杆承载力的研究

在砂土地层中,串囊式充气锚杆的研究还比较少,其承载特性及受力机理尚不明确。本文基于莫尔-库仑模型和Vesic圆孔扩张理论法,分别对圆柱体、球体、组合体、椭球体假设下的串囊式充气锚杆的扩大段进行计算分析。并将计算结果与试验得到的实测值进行对比。结果表明:四种形状假设中椭球体的形状假设理论值与实测值的误差最小,仅为8.35%。通过拟合试验数据,并引入与端阻力和侧摩阻力有关的两个系数对承载力公式进行修正,得到了抗拔承载力的经验公式。     

基于电子病历的乳腺癌群组与治疗方案可视分析

乳腺癌是当前最常见的恶性肿瘤之一，其电子病历数据可用于挖掘隐含规律，对治疗与预后分析有重要意义。通过与乳腺科医生合作，选择合适的预测模型和可视化方法，搭建了一个基于电子病历的乳腺癌群组和治疗方案可视分析系统。首先，对具有高维属性的病人进行降维和聚类处理，形成病人群组，并采用南丁格尔图、词云和时间轴可视化方法，直观展示病人群组间特征的差异；然后，用支持向量机（support vector machine，SVM）模型预测治疗方案，用平行坐标、矩阵热力图和分类图分别展示属性相关性、训练后的特征权重和预测结果；最后，用真实案例验证了系统在群组分析、治疗方案及病人属性关联分析中的有效性，从而较好地帮助医生选择合适的治疗方案。     

Development of an improved divergence‐free‐condition compensated coupled framework to solve flow problems with time‐varying geometries

In this article a coupled version of the improved divergence‐free‐condition compensated method will be proposed to simulate time‐varying geometries by direct forcing immersed boundary method. The proposed method can be seen as a quasi‐multi‐moment framework due to the fact that the momentum equations are discretized by both cell‐centered and cell‐face velocity. For simulating time‐varying geometries, a semi‐implicit iterative method is proposed for calculating the direct forcing terms. Treatments for suppressing spurious force oscillations, calculating drag/lift forces, and evaluating velocity and pressure for freshly cells will also be addressed. In order to show the applicability and accuracy, analytical as well as benchmark problems will be investigated by the present framework and compared with other numerical and experimental results.     

Synthesis of molybdenum disulfide/graphene oxide composites for effective removal of U (VI) from aqueous solutions

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - In this study, a novel adsorbents, molybdenum disulfide-graphene oxide (MoS2–GO) composites, is prepared by one-step hydrothermal method and...     

Anti-fibrosis attributes: UHPLC-MS/MS-based pharmacokinetics profiling of a novel autotaxin inhibitor with excellent in vivo efficacy in rat

3,4-Difluorobenzyl(1-ethyl-5-(4-((4-hydroxypiperidin-1-yl)-methyl)thiazol-2-yl)-1H-indol-3-yl)carbamate (NAI59), a small molecule with outstanding therapeutic effectiveness to anti-pulmonary fibrosis, was developed as an autotaxin inhibitor candidate compound. To evaluate the pharmacokinetics and plasma protein binding of NAI59, a UPLC–MS/MS method was developed to quantify NAI59 in plasma and phosphate-buffered saline. The calibration curve linearity ranged from 9.95 to 1990.00 ng/mL in plasma. The accuracy was −6.8 to 5.9%, and the intra- and inter-day precision was within 15%. The matrix effect and recovery, as well as dilution integrity, were within the criteria. The chromatographic and mass spectrometric conditions were also feasible to determine phosphate-buffered saline samples, and it has been proved that this method exhibits good precision and accuracy in the range of 9.95–497.50 ng/mL in phosphate-buffered saline. This study is the first to determine the pharmacokinetics, absolute bioavailability, and plasma protein binding of NAI59 in rats using this established method. Therefore, the pharmacokinetic profiles of NAI59 showed a dose-dependent relationship after oral administration, and the absolute bioavailability in rats was 6.3%. In addition, the results of protein binding showed that the combining capacity of NAI59 with plasma protein attained 90% and increased with the increase in drug concentration.     

Systematic Modulation of Thiol Functionalities in Inexpensive Porous Polymers for Effective Mercury Removal

Through accumulation, mercury contamination in aquatic systems still poses serious health risks despite the strict regulations on drinking water and industrial discharge. One effective strategy against this is adsorptive removal, in which a suitably functionalized porous material is added to water treatment protocols. Thiol (SH) group-grafted structures perform commendably; however, insufficient attention is paid to the cost, scalability, and reusability or how the arrangement of sulfur atoms could affect the Hg^II binding strength. We used an inexpensive and scalable porous covalent organic polymer (COP-130) to systematically introduce thiol functional groups with precise chain lengths and sulfur content. Thiol-functionalized COP-130 demonstrates enhanced wettability and excellent Hg^II uptake of up to 936 mg g⁻¹, with fast kinetics and exceptionally high selectivity. These Hg adsorbents are easily regenerated with HCl and can be used at least six times without loss of capacity even after treatment with strong acid, a rare performance in the domain of Hg-removal research.     

Synthesis and Structural Characterization of a Di-nuclear Uranyl Complex with Quinoline-6-carboxylate

Crystallography Reports - A di-nuclear uranyl complex with the formula of [(UO2)2(L)4(H2O)2]?4H2O (1) (HL = quinoline-6-carboxylic acid) was synthesized hydrothermally and characterized by...     

Effective suppression of beta oscillation in Parkinsonian state via a noisy direct delayed feedback control scheme

This work explores the function of the noisy direct delayed feedback(NDDF)control strategy in suppressing the pathological oscillations in the basal ganglia(BG)with Parkinson’s disease(PD).Deep brain stimulation(DBS)alleviates the PD state fantastically.However,due to its unclear mechanism and open-loop characteristic,it is challenging to further improve its effects with lower energy expenditure.The noise stimulus performs competitively in alleviating the PD state theoretically,but it cannot adapt to the neural condition timely and automatically due to its open-loop control scheme.The direct delayed feedback(DDF)control strategy is able to disturb excessive synchronous effectively.Therefore,the NDDF control strategy is proposed and researched based on a BG computational model,which can reflect the intrinsic properties of the BG neurons and their connections with thalamic neurons.Simulation results show that the NDDF control strategy with optimal parameters is effective in removing the pathological beta oscillations.By comparison,we find the NDDF control strategy performs more excellent than DDF in alleviating PD state.Additionally,we define the multiple-NDDF control strategy and find that the multiple-NDDF with appropriate parameters performs better than NDDF.The obtained results contribute to the cure for PD symptoms by optimizing the noise-induced improvement of the BG dysfunction.