Abstract Objective To test in a prospective randomized study the hypothesis that use of thromboelastography (TEG) decreases blood transfusion during major surgery. Material and Methods Twenty-eight ...patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation were recruited over 2 years. Patients were randomized into 2 groups: those monitored during surgery using point-of-care TEG analysis, and those monitored using standard laboratory measures of blood coagulation. Specific trigger points for transfusion were established in each group. Results In patients monitored via TEG, significantly less fresh-frozen plasma was used (mean SD, 12.8 7.0 units vs 21.5 12.7 units). There was a trend toward less blood loss in the TEG-monitored patients; however, the difference was not significant. There were no differences in total fluid administration and 3-year survival. Conclusion Thromboelastography-guided transfusion decreases transfusion of fresh- frozen plasma in patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation, but does not affect 3-year survival.
Since December 2019, when coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) emerged in Wuhan city and rapidly spread throughout China, data have been needed on the clinical characteristics of the affected ...patients.
We extracted data regarding 1099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 from 552 hospitals in 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in mainland China through January 29, 2020. The primary composite end point was admission to an intensive care unit (ICU), the use of mechanical ventilation, or death.
The median age of the patients was 47 years; 41.9% of the patients were female. The primary composite end point occurred in 67 patients (6.1%), including 5.0% who were admitted to the ICU, 2.3% who underwent invasive mechanical ventilation, and 1.4% who died. Only 1.9% of the patients had a history of direct contact with wildlife. Among nonresidents of Wuhan, 72.3% had contact with residents of Wuhan, including 31.3% who had visited the city. The most common symptoms were fever (43.8% on admission and 88.7% during hospitalization) and cough (67.8%). Diarrhea was uncommon (3.8%). The median incubation period was 4 days (interquartile range, 2 to 7). On admission, ground-glass opacity was the most common radiologic finding on chest computed tomography (CT) (56.4%). No radiographic or CT abnormality was found in 157 of 877 patients (17.9%) with nonsevere disease and in 5 of 173 patients (2.9%) with severe disease. Lymphocytopenia was present in 83.2% of the patients on admission.
During the first 2 months of the current outbreak, Covid-19 spread rapidly throughout China and caused varying degrees of illness. Patients often presented without fever, and many did not have abnormal radiologic findings. (Funded by the National Health Commission of China and others.).
By combining angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and quantum oscillation measurements, we performed a comprehensive investigation on the electronic structure of LaSb, which exhibits ...near-quadratic extremely large magnetoresistance (XMR) without any sign of saturation at magnetic fields as high as 40 T. We clearly resolve one spherical and one intersecting-ellipsoidal hole Fermi surfaces (FSs) at the Brillouin zone (BZ) center Γ and one ellipsoidal electron FS at the BZ boundary X. The hole and electron carriers calculated from the enclosed FS volumes are perfectly compensated, and the carrier compensation is unaffected by temperature. We further reveal that LaSb is topologically trivial but shares many similarities with the Weyl semimetal TaAs family in the bulk electronic structure. Based on these results, we have examined the mechanisms that have been proposed so far to explain the near-quadratic XMR in semimetals.
Background
The prevalence of allergic rhinitis (AR) has increased worldwide in recent decades. This study was conducted to investigate the prevalence of self‐reported AR and profiles of AR‐related ...comorbidities in the adult population of China over time.
Methods
This study surveyed residents of 18 major cities in mainland China. Telephone interviews were conducted with study participants after sampling target telephone numbers by random digit dialing. The questions asked during telephone interviews were based on those included in validated questionnaires and focused on topics regarding AR, nonallergic rhinitis (NAR), acute/chronic rhinosinusitis (ARS/CRS), asthma, and atopic dermatitis (AD).
Results
During 2011, a total of 47 216 telephone interviews were conducted, and the overall response rate was 77.5%. When compared with the AR prevalence in 11 cities surveyed in 2005, there was a significant increase in self‐reported adult AR in eight of those cities (P < 0.01). In 2011, the standardized prevalence of self‐reported adult AR in the 18 cities was 17.6%. The concentration of SO2 was positively correlated with the prevalence of AR (r = 0.504, P = 0.033). A multiple regression model showed that the absolute change in household yearly income was significantly associated with the change in the prevalence of AR (R2 = 0.68), after adjusting for PM10, SO2, NO2, temperature, and humidity. The overall prevalences of NAR, ARS, CRS, asthma, and AD in the general population were 16.4%, 5.4%, 2.1%, 5.8%, and 14%, respectively.
Conclusion
During a 6‐year period, there was a significant increase in the prevalence of self‐reported AR in the general Chinese adult population. The incidence of AR being accompanied by rhinosinusitis, asthma, or AD was significantly higher among individuals having self‐reported AR compared with the general population.
Abstract
The stoichiometric photocatalytic reaction of CO
2
with H
2
O is one of the great challenges in photocatalysis. Here, we construct a Cu
2
O-Pt/SiC/IrO
x
composite by a controlled ...photodeposition and then an artificial photosynthetic system with Nafion membrane as diaphragm separating reduction and oxidation half-reactions. The artificial system exhibits excellent photocatalytic performance for CO
2
reduction to HCOOH and H
2
O oxidation to O
2
under visible light irradiation. The yields of HCOOH and O
2
meet almost stoichiometric ratio and are as high as 896.7 and 440.7 μmol g
−1
h
−1
, respectively. The high efficiencies of CO
2
reduction and H
2
O oxidation in the artificial system are attributed to both the direct Z-scheme electronic structure of Cu
2
O-Pt/SiC/IrO
x
and the indirect Z-scheme spatially separated reduction and oxidation units, which greatly prolong lifetime of photogenerated electrons and holes and prevent the backward reaction of products. This work provides an effective and feasible strategy to increase the efficiency of artificial photosynthesis.
Superelastic conducting fibers with improved properties and functionalities are needed for diverse applications. Here we report the fabrication of highly stretchable (up to 1320%) sheath-core ...conducting fibers created by wrapping carbon nanotube sheets oriented in the fiber direction on stretched rubber fiber cores. The resulting structure exhibited distinct short- and long-period sheath buckling that occurred reversibly out of phase in the axial and belt directions, enabling a resistance change of less than 5% for a 1000% stretch. By including other rubber and carbon nanotube sheath layers, we demonstrated strain sensors generating an 860% capacitance change and electrically powered torsional muscles operating reversibly by a coupled tension-to-torsion actuation mechanism. Using theory, we quantitatively explain the complementary effects of an increase in muscle length and a large positive Poisson's ratio on torsional actuation and electronic properties.
The optical design and performance of the recently opened 13A biological small‐angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS) beamline at the 3.0 GeV Taiwan Photon Source of the National Synchrotron Radiation ...Research Center are reported. The beamline is designed for studies of biological structures and kinetics in a wide range of length and time scales, from angstrom to micrometre and from microsecond to minutes. A 4 m IU24 undulator of the beamline provides high‐flux X‐rays in the energy range 4.0–23.0 keV. MoB4C double‐multilayer and Si(111) double‐crystal monochromators (DMM/DCM) are combined on the same rotating platform for a smooth rotation transition from a high‐flux beam of ∼4 × 1014 photons s−1 to a high‐energy‐resolution beam of ΔE/E ≃ 1.5 × 10−4; both modes share a constant beam exit. With a set of Kirkpatrick–Baez (KB) mirrors, the X‐ray beam is focused to the farthest SAXS detector position, 52 m from the source. A downstream four‐bounce crystal collimator, comprising two sets of Si(311) double crystals arranged in a dispersive configuration, optionally collimate the DCM (vertically diffracted) beam in the horizontal direction for ultra‐SAXS with a minimum scattering vector q down to 0.0004 Å−1, which allows resolving ordered d‐spacing up to 1 µm. A microbeam, of 10–50 µm beam size, is tailored by a combined set of high‐heat‐load slits followed by micrometre‐precision slits situated at the front‐end 15.5 m position. The second set of KB mirrors then focus the beam to the 40 m sample position, with a demagnification ratio of ∼1.5. A detecting system comprising two in‐vacuum X‐ray pixel detectors is installed to perform synchronized small‐ and wide‐angle X‐ray scattering data collections. The observed beamline performance proves the feasibility of having compound features of high flux, microbeam and ultra‐SAXS in one beamline.
The optical design and performance of the BioSAXS beamline at the Taiwan Photon Source are reported
Occurrences of devastating wildfires have been increasing in the United States for the past decades. While some environmental controls, including weather, climate, and fuels, are known to play ...important roles in controlling wildfires, the interrelationships between these factors and wildfires are highly complex and may not be well represented by traditional parametric regressions. Here we develop a model consisting of multiple machine learning algorithms to predict 0.5∘×0.5∘ gridded monthly wildfire burned area over the south central United States during 2002–2015 and then use this model to identify the relative importance of the environmental drivers on the burned area for both the winter–spring and summer fire seasons of that region. The developed model alleviates the issue of unevenly distributed burned-area data, predicts burned grids with area under the curve (AUC) of 0.82 and 0.83 for the two seasons, and achieves temporal correlations larger than 0.5 for more than 70 % of the grids and spatial correlations larger than 0.5 (p<0.01) for more than 60 % of the months. For the total burned area over the study domain, the model can explain 50 % and 79 % of the observed interannual variability for the winter–spring and summer fire season, respectively. Variable importance measures indicate that relative humidity (RH) anomalies and preceding months' drought severity are the two most important predictor variables controlling the spatial and temporal variation in gridded burned area for both fire seasons. The model represents the effect of climate variability by climate-anomaly variables, and these variables are found to contribute the most to the magnitude of the total burned area across the whole domain for both fire seasons. In addition, antecedent fuel amounts and conditions are found to outweigh the weather effects on the amount of total burned area in the winter–spring fire season, while fire weather is more important for the summer fire season likely due to relatively sufficient vegetation in this season.
In superconductors, electrons are paired and condensed into the ground state. An impurity can break the electron pairs into quasiparticles with energy states inside the superconducting gap. The ...characteristics of such in-gap states reflect accordingly the properties of the superconducting ground state. A zero-energy in-gap state is particularly noteworthy, because it can be the consequence of non-trivial pairing symmetry or topology. Here we use scanning tunnelling microscopy/spectroscopy to demonstrate that an isotropic zero-energy bound state with a decay length of ∼10 Å emerges at each interstitial iron impurity in superconducting Fe(Te,Se). More noticeably, this zero-energy bound state is robust against a magnetic field up to 8 T, as well as perturbations by neighbouring impurities. Such a spectroscopic feature has no natural explanation in terms of impurity states in superconductors with s-wave symmetry, but bears all the characteristics of the Majorana bound state proposed for topological superconductors, indicating that the superconducting state and the scattering mechanism of the interstitial iron impurities in Fe(Te,Se) are highly unconventional.
PDF
