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Engineered cardiac tissues (ECTs) derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are viable alternatives for cardiac repair, patient‐specific disease modeling, and drug discovery. However, the immature state of ECTs limits their clinical utility. The microenvironment fabricated using 3D scaffolds can affect cell fate, and is crucial for the maturation of ECTs. Herein, the authors demonstrate an electric‐field‐driven (EFD) printed 3D highly ordered microstructure with cell feature size to promote the maturation of ECTs. The simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the EFD jet microscale 3D printing overcomes the jet repulsion without any prior requirements for both conductive and insulating substrates. Furthermore, the 3D highly ordered microstructures with a fiber diameter of 10–20 µm and spacing of 60–80 µm have been fabricated by maintaining a vertical jet, achieving the largest ratio of fiber diameter/spacing of 0.29. The hiPSCs‐derived cardiomyocytes formed ordered ECTs with their sarcomere growth along the fiber and developed synchronous functional ECTs inside the 3D‐printed scaffold with matured calcium handling compared to the 2D coverslip. Therefore, the EFD jet 3D microscale printing process facilitates the fabrication of scaffolds providing a suitable microenvironment to promote the maturation of ECTs, thereby showing great potential for cardiac tissue engineering. A simple, and efficient strategy using electric‐field‐driven jet microscale 3D printing to fabricate 3D highly ordered microstructures with both the fiber width and fiber spacing that match myocardial feature sizes is first developed to build engineered cardiac tissues (ECTs) with hiPSC‐CMs. The myocardial feature‐sized structure promoted the maturation of ECTs, thereby showing great potential for cardiac tissue engineering.

Background Congenital biliary dilatation (CBD) represents a prevalent congenital anomaly in pediatric surgery, with concurrent choledocholithiasis observed in a notable subset of pediatric patients. Improper management of such cases can compromise early diagnosis of CBD and adversely impact outcomes of radical surgery. This retrospective study evaluated the safety and efficacy of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) in pediatric patients with common bile duct dilatation complicated by choledocholithiasis, aiming to refine clinical strategies for diagnosis and preoperative management to mitigate long-term complications. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on pediatric patients diagnosed with common bile duct dilatation and stones who underwent therapeutic ERCP at Wuhan Children’s Hospital from August 2019 to July 2024. Clinical data, including demographic characteristics, laboratory tests, imaging findings, and ERCP-related parameters, were reviewed. Further subgroup analyses were performed based on the presence of postoperative adverse events and the coexistence of pancreaticobiliary maljunction (PBM). Results A total of 58 children with common bile duct dilatation and stones underwent 58 ERCP procedures, achieving a 100% procedural success rate. After ERCP, liver transaminase and bilirubin levels significantly decreased ( P  < 0.01). Postoperative follow-up showed a choledochal diameter of < 10 mm in 43 patients, with an overall effectiveness rate of 74.1% ( n  = 43/58). Among patients who did not undergo radical surgery ( n  = 48), the prognosis during follow-up (mean duration: 29.9 months) was favorable, and Likert scores were not associated with the presence of PBM ( P  > 0.05). The incidence of postoperative adverse events ( n  = 11/58, 19.0%) was significantly correlated with cannulation duration ( P  < 0.01). Patients in the PBM group ( n  = 21/58, 36.2%) were more likely to be female, younger, and have lower height and weight, with no differences found in other characteristics. Conclusion ERCP is a safe and effective treatment for pediatric common bile duct dilatation with stones. Regardless of whether radical surgery was performed or the presence of PBM, patients showed improved laboratory parameters and symptom relief following ERCP. The effectiveness and incidence of adverse events were not related to PBM, but postoperative adverse events were associated with cannulation duration. Beyond its diagnostic utility in CBD and PBM, ERCP serves as a safe bridging therapy prior to radical surgery.

Objectives Limited data exists on endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) for children with common bile duct microdilation (CBDM). We evaluate the benefits of ERCP applications in CBDM, with or without pancreaticobiliary maljunction (PBM). Methods Retrospective analysis of 36 children with CBDM undergoing therapeutic ERCP. Patients were stratified by the presence (PBM group, n  = 15) or absence (non-PBM group, n  = 21) of PBM. Data included demographics, clinical/imaging/endoscopic findings, and post-ERCP outcomes. Results A total of 36 children underwent therapeutic ERCP procedures with a success rate of 100%. In the non-PBM group ( n  = 21), ERCP significantly reduced liver enzyme and bilirubin levels, and the bile duct diameter decreased significantly at 1 week and 3 months postoperatively. In the PBM group ( n  = 15), ERCP significantly reduced liver enzyme levels. During follow-up, most children showed improvement in general condition after ERCP regardless of PBM presence, with an overall treatment effectiveness rate of 77.8% (28/36). Both the frequency and severity of abdominal pain significantly decreased. The postoperative complication rate of ERCP was 19.4% (7/36). In the non-PBM group, 1 child (4.8%) underwent laparoscopic hepaticojejunostomy (LH) due to recurrent pancreatitis and new common bile duct stones after ERCP, while in the PBM group, 6 children (40%) underwent LH due to recurrent pancreatitis, bile duct stones, and bile duct dilation exceeding 10 mm. Conclusion ERCP is an effective primary treatment for CBDM children without PBM and serves as a beneficial transitional intervention for those with concomitant PBM. Children with CBDM, regardless of PBM, can derive clinical benefit from ERCP.

To tackle the common issue of imbalanced data classes in the fault diagnosis of avionics equipment, this study proposes a method that integrates the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) with Boosting (SMOTEWB) and the Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM). Initially, SMOTEWB is refined through a “successive one-vs-many balancing strategy,” which effectively addresses multiclass sample balance issues. The enhanced data is then employed for pattern recognition and classification using LGBM. Additionally, this study utilizes the Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (TPE) method and five-fold cross-validation to optimize the model’s hyperparameters, thus improving diagnostic accuracy. Experimental validation using University of California Irvine (UCI) public datasets and real-world avionics equipment fault data shows that the proposed SMOTEWB-LGBM method outperforms other common methods in handling multiclass imbalanced datasets. This new approach not only enhances fault diagnosis efficiency but also offers a potent solution for similar multiclass imbalance challenges.

A distributed optical fiber sensor with the capability of simultaneously measuring temperature and strain is proposed using a large effective area non-zero dispersion shifted fiber (LEAF) with sub-meter spatial resolution. The Brillouin frequency shift is measured using Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) with differential pulse-width pair technique, while the spectrum shift of the Rayleigh backscatter is measured using optical frequency-domain reflectometry (OFDR). These shifts are the functions of both temperature and strain, and can be used as two independent parameters for the discrimination of temperature and strain. A 92 m measurable range with the spatial resolution of 50 cm is demonstrated experimentally, and accuracies of ±1.2 °C in temperature and ±15 με in strain could be achieved.

In geotechnical engineering, when the natural soil fails to meet the requirements of engineering projects, the soil is often treated by means of compaction and chemical stabilization. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of cement, making the use of cement highly cost-effective. A large number of studies on cement-stabilized soil have proven that it has good engineering properties. When using cement stabilization to reinforce soil, compaction is often combined to achieve better results. This paper directly proposes that changes in compaction energy will affect the optimum moisture content (OMC) and maximum dry density (MDD) of cement-stabilized soil. From the perspective of changes in cement content and compaction energy, three levels of compaction energy and five levels of cement content are set to systematically analyze the variation trends of liquid limit, plastic limit, and compaction characteristics of stabilized soil under the combined action of cement stabilization and traditional compaction. The results show that with the increase in the cement content, the modified soil exhibits plasticity over a wide range of moisture content due to an increased liquid limit. When the cement content is high, and the compaction energies is low, the soil shows an uncompacted state. This state will decrease significantly with the increase in compaction energy. Both the OMC and the MDD change with the variation of the compaction energies and the cement content.

Patients with locally advanced (stage III) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) demonstrate broad anatomic heterogeneity with modest survival benefits. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have shown survival benefit in metastatic NSCLC. We conducted this study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant nivolumab in combination with chemotherapy in the treatment of this population. We retrospectively evaluated patients with locally advanced NSCLC receiving neoadjuvant nivolumab and chemotherapy (paclitaxel with carboplatin) followed by surgery at our institution from January 2019 to January 2020. A total of 46 eligible patients, 26 males, and 20 females were diagnosed with NSCLC in a stage IIIA (30 cases) and IIIB (16 cases) to receive neoadjuvant treatment. The treatment was well tolerated with just 7 (15.2%) typical immune-related adverse events (hyperthyroidism, hyperglycemia, and rash) recorded. A total of 45 patients underwent surgical resection, and 43 (95.6%) of them achieved a R0 resection. No major surgical complications were observed. There was a complete response (CR), partial response (PR), stable disease (SD), and progressive disease (PD) in 2 (4.3%), 26 (56.5%), 17 (37.0%), 6 (26.1%), and 1 (2.2%) patients. Eight patients resulted in a major pathological response (MPR) (17.4%) and 24 patients had a pathological complete response (pCR) (52.2%). At the time of data cutoff (June 1, 2021), the median follow-up period was 15.5 months (IQR 3.9-29) and 27 (60%) of 45 patients who had tumor resection were progression free. At 24 months, progression-free survival was 45.8% and overall survival was 79.9%. Nivolumab plus paclitaxel and carboplatin could be a potential neoadjuvant regimen for patients with locally advanced NSCLC, rendering a potentially lethal disease to one that is curable.

Existing 3D printing techniques are still facing the challenge of low resolution for fabricating polymer matrix composites, inhibiting the wide engineering applications for the biomedical engineering (biomimetic scaffolds), micro fuel cells, and micro-electronics. In order to achieve high resolution fabrication of polylactic acid (PLA)/multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composites, this paper presents an electric-field-driven (EFD) fusion jetting 3D printing method by combining the mixing effect and material feeding of the micro-screw and the necking effect of Taylor cone by the EFD. The effects of main process parameters (the carbon loading, the voltage, the screw speed, and the printing speed) on the line width and the printing quality were studied and optimized. To demonstrate the printing capability of this proposed method, meshes with line width of 30 µm to 100 μm and 1 wt.% to 5 wt.% MWCNT for the application of conductive biomimetic scaffold and the anisotropic flexible meshes were prepared. The electrical properties were investigated to present the frequency dependence of the alternating current conductivity and the dielectric loss (tanδ), and the microstructures of printed structures demonstrated the uniformly dispersed MWCNT in PLA matrix. Therefore, it provides a new solution to fabricate micro-scale structures of composite materials, especially the 3D conductive biomimetic scaffolds.

In order to comprehensively evaluate the properties of rock-filled concrete (RFC) with the strength of C15, lab experimental test and in-situ test are applied to explore the mechanical, hydraulic, ultrasonic characteristics of RFC in Hantang reservoir dam. Four types of defects within RFC are shown from the appearance of borehole cores specimens: (1) large sized voids existing in interfacial transition zone (ITZ) between self-compacting concrete (SCC) and rock block (RB); (2) bad cohesion in ITZ; (3) joints within rock block; (4) voids within SCC. For hydraulic aspects, the average porosity of RFC is 14.10%; the permeability rate of RFC ranges from 2.41 Lu to 10.41 Lu, with the average of 11.32 Lu, occasionally more than 25.52 Lu due to interconnected defects. For ultrasonic aspects, the ultrasonic velocity of RFC conforms to lognormal distribution, with the average of 2993.3 m/s and standard deviation of 650.5 m/s. For mechanical aspects, the average cubic compressive strength of RFC is 22.55 Mpa, with the standard deviation of 4.09 Mp. Thus the data shows a relatively great dispersion due to uneven distribution of some defects in RFC, which deteriorate the quality of RFC. Through the experimental investigation, it is shown that the quality of massive RFC in the Hantang dam is obviously non-homogeneous, mainly influenced by construction technology.