In this paper, a novel spectral-spatial adaptive sparse representation (SSASR) method is proposed for hyperspectral image (HSI) denoising. The proposed SSASR method aims at improving noise-free ...estimation for noisy HSI by making full use of highly correlated spectral information and highly similar spatial information via sparse representation, which consists of the following three steps. First, according to spectral correlation across bands, the HSI is partitioned into several nonoverlapping band subsets. Each band subset contains multiple continuous bands with highly similar spectral characteristics. Then, within each band subset, shape-adaptive local regions consisting of spatially similar pixels are searched in spatial domain. This way, spectral-spatial similar pixels can be grouped. Finally, the highly correlated and similar spectral-spatial information in each group is effectively used via the joint sparse coding, in order to generate better noise-free estimation. The proposed SSASR method is evaluated by different objective metrics in both real and simulated experiments. The numerical and visual comparison results demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed method.
We aimed to compare cardiovascular risks among participants with T2DM with and without subsequent HTN and participants with HTN with and without subsequent T2DM.
From January 1, 2000, to December 31, ...2018, we identified 16,236 matched pairs of T2DM participants with and without HTN (T2DM cohorts), 53,509 pairs of HTN participants with and without T2DM (HTN cohorts), and 21,158 pairs of comorbid HTN and T2DM participants with T2DM history or HTN history (comorbid cohorts) from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. Cox proportional-hazard models were used to calculate the risk of cardiovascular disease.
The mean follow-up time of this study was 6.75 years. Mean incident rates of coronary artery disease for T2DM cohorts, HTN cohorts, and comorbid cohorts were 16.80, 23.18, and 31.53 per 1000 person-years, respectively. The adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) (95% confidence intervals 95% CIs) for incident coronary artery disease, stroke, and heart failure in T2DM participants with versus without HTN were 2.22 (2.07-2.37), 1.19 (1.16-1.23), and 0.92 (0.82-1.02), respectively; the adjusted HRs for HTN participants with versus without T2DM were 1.69 (1.55-1.84), 1.25 (1.21-1.30), and 0.98 (0.93-1.05), respectively; the adjusted HRs for comorbid T2DM and HTN participants with previous T2DM versus previous HTN were 2.78 (2.37-3.27), 1.20 (1.13-1.28), and 0.95 (0.88-1.03), respectively.
This nationwide cohort study demonstrated that both T2DM with subsequent HTN and HTN with subsequent diabetes were associated with higher cardiovascular disease risks.
Aim
This study investigated the effectiveness of an instant message‐based lifestyle and stress management intervention delivered by nurses on cardiovascular disease risk reduction.
Methods
In this ...nonrandomized concurrent controlled trial conducted from March 2013 to September 2013, 164 eligible employees in two companies were assigned to the intervention (n = 83) and control (n = 81) groups based on their worksites. Only participants were blinded to group assignment. All participants received two education sessions during 1 month, and the intervention group also received an instant message‐based lifestyle and stress management intervention for 5 months. The primary outcome was the Framingham Risk Score, and the data were collected at the first month and the sixth month.
Results
The final analysis included 80 participants in the intervention group and 76 in the control group. After the intervention, significant intervention effects were found for the mean value and the changes of the Framingham Risk Score and the proportion of participants who improved their diet and exercise (P < 0.05). There were trends for improvement in the proportion of smoking and levels of stress, but statistically significant levels (P > 0.05) were not met.
Conclusion
An instant message‐based lifestyle and stress management intervention can reduce cardiovascular disease risk in high‐risk individuals.
Summary statement
What is already known about this topic?
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally and causes a heavy economic burden, while lifestyle changes and stress management are modifiable and cost‐effective ways to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in high‐risk individuals.
The widespread use of mobile phones facilitates the implementation of health education to improve lifestyle and is well adapted for use in the developing world.
Instant messaging tools are widely used for daily and work communication because of convenience and free access. These tools have also been used to improve health knowledge and self‐management.
What this paper adds?
More than half of participants had unhealthy diets and insufficient exercise, which contributed to abnormal body mass index and cholesterol levels.
Lifestyle‐related health education that provided tailored strategies for improving lifestyle and stress reduction, as well as timely feedback and peer support, can reduce cardiovascular disease risk in high‐risk individual.
Instant messaging tools provide a cost‐effective and feasible platform for health education on prevention of cardiovascular disease.
The implications of this paper:
Improving unhealthy diet and levels of exercise, which can decrease the prevalence of obesity and dyslipidemia, are two main aspects for prevention of cardiovascular disease that require continued focus.
Using instant messaging tools as a platform to deliver health education, nurses can more easily manage high CVD risk individuals and provide guidance on healthy lifestyle. These tools should be used more widely, especially in developing countries with limited resources and heavy economic burdens.
ABSTRACT
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are mysterious radio bursts with a time-scale of approximately milliseconds. Two populations of FRB, namely repeating and non-repeating FRBs, are observationally ...identified. However, the differences between these two and their origins are still cloaked in mystery. Here we show the time-integrated luminosity–duration (Lν–wint, rest) relations and luminosity functions (LFs) of repeating and non-repeating FRBs in the FRB Catalogue project. These two populations are obviously separated in the Lν-wint, rest plane with distinct LFs, i.e. repeating FRBs have relatively fainter Lν and longer wint, rest with a much lower LF. In contrast with non-repeating FRBs, repeating FRBs do not show any clear correlation between Lν and wint, rest. These results suggest essentially different physical origins of the two. The faint ends of the LFs of repeating and non-repeating FRBs are higher than volumetric occurrence rates of neutron star (NS) mergers and accretion-induced collapse (AIC) of white dwarfs (WDs), and are consistent with those of soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs), Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), magnetars, and WD mergers. This indicates two possibilities: either (i) faint non-repeating FRBs originate in NS mergers or AIC and are actually repeating during the lifetime of the progenitor, or (ii) faint non-repeating FRBs originate in any of SGRs, SNe Ia, magnetars, and WD mergers. The bright ends of LFs of repeating and non-repeating FRBs are lower than any candidates of progenitors, suggesting that bright FRBs are produced from a very small fraction of the progenitors regardless of the repetition. Otherwise, they might originate in unknown progenitors.
Zinc‐ion batteries, in which zinc ions and protons do intercalation and de‐intercalation during battery cycling with various proposed mechanisms under debate, have been studied. Recently, ...electrolytic zinc‐manganese batteries, exhibiting the pure dissolution‐deposition behavior with a large charge capacity, have been accomplished through using electrolytes with Lewis acid. However, the complicated chemical environment and mixed products hinder the investigation though it is crucial to understand the detailed mechanism. Here, cyclic voltammetry coupled electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM) and ultraviolet‐visible spectrophotometry (UV–Vis) are respectively, for the very first time, used to study the transition from zinc‐ion batteries to zinc electrolytic batteries by the continuous addition of acetate ions. These complementary techniques operando trace the mass and the composition evolution. The observed formation and dissolution of zinc hydroxide sulfate (ZHS) and manganese oxides evince the effect of acetate ions on zinc‐manganese batteries from an alternative perspective. Both the amount of acetate and the pH value have large impacts on the capacity and Coulombic efficiency of the MnO2 electrode, and thus they should be optimized when constructing a full zinc‐manganese battery with high rate capability and reversibility.
Acetate effects: Operando electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance and ultraviolet‐visible spectrophotometry coupled cyclic voltammetry are used to examine the behaviours change in the electrolytes with or without acetates. By identifying the mass‐charge ratio and absorbance change, the mechanistic change from mixed reactions to pure deposition/dissolution when exposed to acetates is revealed.
Rational fabrication and structure design of anode materials with high specific capacity and excellent cycling stability are of significant importance for the development of high-performance ...lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). In this paper, a zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) with a unique polyhedral morphology and large size (about 2 μm) was successfully synthesized through a facile co-precipitation method. After successive carbonization and sulfidation, ZnS nanoparticles decorated on nitrogen-doped porous carbon polyhedra (ZnS/NPC) were obtained. When applied as the anode material for LIBs, the ZnS/NPC hybrid displays the highest reversible specific capacity for ZnS-based electrodes reported so far (1067.4 mA h g −1 at 0.1 A g −1 after 200 cycles), excellent rate capability (364.6 mA h g −1 at 4 A g −1 ), and robust long-term cycling performance (856.8 mA h g −1 at 1 A g −1 after 1000 cycles). As for SIBs, the resultant ZnS/NPC also exhibits a desirable capacity of 370.6 mA h g −1 after 100 cycles at 0.1 A g −1 and 289.2 mA h g −1 after 1000 cycles at 1 A g −1 . Such superior lithium and sodium storage performances should be attributed to the distinctive structure advantages inherited from ZIF-8, where the Zn ions were in situ converted to ZnS with high reactivity upon electrochemical cycling and the organic linkers were pyrolyzed to nitrogen-doped porous carbon polyhedra to enhance the conductivity of the hybrid and keep the structure stability during cycling.
One major concern in the development of intelligent vehicles is to improve the driving safety. It is also an essential issue for future autonomous driving and intelligent transportation. In this ...paper, we present a vision-based system for driving assistance. A front and a rear on-board camera are adopted for visual sensing and environment perception. The purpose is to avoid potential traffic accidents due to forward collision and vehicle overtaking, and assist the drivers or self-driving cars to perform safe lane change operations. The proposed techniques consist of lane change detection, forward collision warning, and overtaking vehicle identification. A new cumulative density function (CDF)-based symmetry verification method is proposed for the detection of front vehicles. The motion cue obtained from optical flow is used for overtaking detection. It is further combined with a convolutional neural network to remove repetitive patterns for more accurate overtaking vehicle identification. Our approach is able to adapt to a variety of highway and urban scenarios under different illumination conditions. The experiments and performance evaluation carried out on real scene images have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed techniques.
The direct modification of azole skeletons enables access to drug‐like molecules. The development of a highly compatible reaction platform for this pursuit still remains challenging. Herein, we ...report the use of sulfite as the single electron transfer (SET) reducing agent for the activation of functionalized bromoalkanes, elemental sulfur, and imidazoliniums for the transition metal‐free and base‐free N‐alkylation and thioketonization of azoles. Excellent functional group tolerance and high synthetic efficiency proved particularly advantageous for the rapid assembly of a large array of pharmaceutically‐oriented azole thiones, many of which contain synthetically and biologically useful functional groups. The direct transformation of drug molecules (such as Ketoconazole, Econazole, and Fluconazole) into their corresponding azole thiones has also been successfully achieved. Reactions with selenium also proceeded smoothly under the optimized conditions. Successful gram‐scale reactions demonstrate the good applicability of this methodology.
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•Polysaccharides isolated from artificially cultivated mushroom in Malaysia.•The extracted polysaccharides have been thoroughly characterized.•Antioxidant activity of extracted ...polysaccharides has been checked.•The efficiency of ultrasonic extraction was compared with conventional methods.•Ultrasonic conditions provide better environment for isolating bioactive compounds.•Ultrasonic cavitation influenced the extraction of (1-3; 1-6)-β-d-glucans.
Ganoderma mushroom cultivated recently in Malaysia to produce chemically different nutritional fibers has attracted the attention of the local market. The extraction methods, molecular weight and degree of branching of (1-3; 1-6)-β-d-glucan polysaccharides is of prime importance to determine its antioxidant bioactivity. Therefore three extraction methods i.e. hot water extraction (HWE), soxhlet extraction (SE) and ultrasound assisted extraction (US) were employed to study the total content of (1-3; 1-6)-β-d-glucans, degree of branching, structural characteristics, monosaccharides composition, as well as the total yield of polysaccharides that could be obtained from the artificially cultivated Ganoderma. The physical characteristics by HPAEC-PAD, HPGPC and FTIR, as well as the antioxidant in vitro assays of DPPH scavenging activity and ferric reducing power (FRAP) indicated that (1-3; 1-6)-β-d-glucans of Malaysian mushroom have better antioxidant activity, higher molecular weight and optimal degree of branching when extracted by US in comparison with conventional methods.
Porous carbon polyhedra (PCP) were prepared through direct carbonization of zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 and used as an electrode material for capacitive deionization. The results show that PCP ...treated at 1200 °C exhibit the highest electrosorption capacity of 13.86 mg g(-1) when the initial NaCl concentration is 500 mg l(-1), due to their high accessible surface area and low charge transfer resistance.
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