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We report the creation of a nanoscale electrochemical device inside a transmission electron microscope--consisting of a single tin dioxide (SnO₂) nanowire anode, an ionic liquid electrolyte, and a bulk lithium cobalt dioxide (LiCoO₂) cathode--and the in situ observation of the lithiation of the SnO₂ nanowire during electrochemical charging. Upon charging, a reaction front propagated progressively along the nanowire, causing the nanowire to swell, elongate, and spiral. The reaction front is a \"Medusa zone\" containing a high density of mobile dislocations, which are continuously nucleated and absorbed at the moving front. This dislocation cloud indicates large in-plane misfit stresses and is a structural precursor to electrochemically driven solid-state amorphization. Because lithiation-induced volume expansion, plasticity, and pulverization of electrode materials are the major mechanical effects that plague the performance and lifetime of high-capacity anodes in lithium-ion batteries, our observations provide important mechanistic insight for the design of advanced batteries.

Person reidentification rate has become a challenging research topic in the field of computer vision due to the fact that person appearance is easily affected by lighting, posture and perspective. In order to make full use of the continuity of video data on the time line and the unstructured relationship of features, a video person reidentification algorithm combining the neural ordinary differential equation with the graph convolution network is proposed in this paper. First, a continuous time model is constructed by using the ordinary differential equation (ODE) network so as to capture hidden information between video frames. By simulating the hidden space of the hidden variables with the hidden time series model, the hidden information between frames that may be ignored in the discrete model can be obtained. Then, the features of the generated video frames are given to the graph convolution network to reconstruct them. Finally, weak supervision is used to classify the features. Experiments on PRID2011 datasets show that the proposed algorithm can significantly improve person reidentification performance.

The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the microbial community structures of eubacteria and archaea in the pit mud of Chinese Luzhou-flavor liquor from the wall (Cw) and bottom (Cb) of cellar through nested PCR–denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE). The Shannon–Wiener index (H) calculated from the DGGE profiles showed that the community diversities of eubacteria and archaea in samples from Cb were almost higher than that from Cw. In addition, cluster analysis of the DGGE profiles revealed that some differences were found in the microbial community structure in samples from different locations. The closely relative microorganisms of all eubacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences fell into four phyla (Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Actinobacteria), including 12 genera and 2 uncultured eubacteria. Moreover, 37.1 % eubacteria were affiliated with Clostridium. Particularly, genus Acinetobacter was absent in all samples from Cb but present in all samples from Cw. The closely relative microorganisms of all archaeal 16S rRNA gene sequences fell into four genera, which included Methanobrevibacter, Methanoculleus, Methanobacterium and Methanosaeta, while the dominant archaea in samples from Cw and Cb were similar. Results presented in this study provide further understanding of the spatial differences in microbial community structure in the pit mud, and is of great importance for the production and quality improvement of Luzhou-flavor liquor.

With the swift advancement of renewable energy and escalating demands for energy storage, potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) are increasingly recognized as a potent energy storage technology. Various carbon anode materials have been utilized for PIBs anodes owing to their superior K + storage capacity, outstanding cycling performance, elevated capacity, and cost-effectiveness. Therefore, it is imperative to explore and improve carbon anode materials. This review meticulously encapsulates the recent scholarly advancements in carbon anode materials for PIBs. It elucidates the operational mechanisms of carbon anode for PIBs, provides a synopsis of diverse carbon materials, and deliberates on the prevalent challenges, including cycling stability and potassium-ion diffusion rates. Although soft and hard carbon augmented potassium-ion capacities, the expansive surface areas coupled with the large ionic radius of K + pose substantial challenges to their structural design and optimization. Consequently, this review outlines strategic approaches to the design of carbon materials for excellent potassium storage performance, including the expansion of interlayer spacing, modification of morphology, heteroatom doping, structural defect regulation, incorporation of porous structures, and development of carbon–carbon composites. Finally, the challenges and prospective solutions of carbon anode materials for PIBs with superior energy density and cycling stability were proposed, providing a reasonable guidance for regulation design of carbon materials. Graphical abstract

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) syndrome are highly prevalent respiratory conditions. Their coexistence is referred to as the overlap syndrome. They are both related to pulmonary hypertension (PH) development. This study investigated the effects of OSA on PH in patients with COPD and the associated factors. Consecutive patients with stable COPD were recruited for an observational cross-sectional study from September 2016 to May 2018 at Peking University Third Hospital. In total, 106 patients with COPD were enrolled and performed home portable monitoring and echocardiography. OSA was defined by an apnea hypopnea index (AHI) ≥10 events/h. Based on OSA absence or presence, patients were divided into the COPD with OSA and COPD without OSA groups. Factors affecting pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) and PH were identified using univariate analysis and logistic regression models. In the 106 patients with COPD, the mean age was 69.52 years, 91.5% were men, and the mean forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) percentage of predicted was 56.15%. Fifty-six (52.8%) patients with COPD were diagnosed with OSA, and 24 (22.6%) patients with COPD were diagnosed as PH. Compared with COPD without OSA group, the median PAP in COPD with severe OSA group increased by 5 mmHg (36.00 [26.00-50.00] mmHg vs. 31.00 [24.00-34.00] mmHg, P = 0.036). COPD with percent of night-time spent with oxygen saturation below 90% (T90) > 10% group had higher PAP than COPD with T90 ≤ 1% group (36.00 [29.00-50.00)] mmHg vs. 29.00 [25.50-34.00] mmHg, F = 7.889, P = 0.007). Univariate analysis revealed age, FEV1% predicted, T90, and Charlson index had statistically significant effects on PH. Multiple regression analysis showed a significant and independent effect of both FEV1% predicted (odds ratio [OR] = 3.46; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.15-10.46; P = 0.028) and AHI (OR = 3.20; 95% CI: 1.09-19.35; P = 0.034) on PH. Patients with COPD with OSA are more susceptible to PH, which is associated with declining lung function and increased severity of OSA. Thus, nocturnal hypoxemia and OSA in elderly patients with COPD should be identified and treated.

PurposeWe sought to unravel the role of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in the development of hypertension in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).MethodsThe study sample included 80 patients with OSA and 45 healthy controls. All subjects underwent measurement of blood pressure (BP) and serum H2S level in the morning. Twentynine of the 39 patients with OSA and concomitant hypertension and 23 of the 41 patients with OSA but no concomitant hypertension received continuous positive alveolar pressure (CPAP) therapy for 4 weeks. Twenty-four-hour ambulatory BP and serum H2S were determined before and after CPAP. Respiratory indices including apnea hypopnea index (AHI), lowest oxygen saturation (SaO2), and length of time < 90% saturated (T90) were determined by polysomnography.ResultsAssociations between H2S, BP, respiratory indices, and changes with CPAP were analyzed. OSA patients had significantly higher systolic BP (p = 0.003) and diastolic BP (p = 0.009) and lower H2S levels (p = 0.02) compared to healthy controls. H2S negatively correlated with AHI (p = 0.005), T90 (p = 0.009), morning systolic BP (p = 0.02), and morning diastolic BP (p = 0.03). All respiratory indices were significantly improved (p < 0.05) after CPAP in OSA patients with or without hypertension. BP was significantly reduced and H2S significantly increased after CPAP in OSA patients with hypertension (p < 0.05) but not in OSA patients without hypertension (p > 0.05).ConclusionMultivariate linear regression analysis demonstrated that 24h systolic BP and 24h diastolic BP correlated with H2S as well as their changes after CPAP treatment. Reduction in H2S may play a role in the pathogenesis of hypertension in patients with OSA.

In view of the problem of unstable recognition effect and low robustness of a traditional iris location algorithm, an iris location algorithm based on union-find-set and block search is proposed. Firstly, the inner circle of the iris is roughly positioned by the method of retrieval, and then, the Hough transform is used to accurately locate the pupil. After that, the convolution operation is used to roughly locate the outer circle, and then, the original image is partitioned to search. And the grayscale change in the gray histogram of the screenshot is observed to accurately locate the outer circle. The obtained iris and the iris obtained by the traditional localization algorithm are processed by the same iris recognition algorithm. The results show that the proposed image is more effective in image recognition and has good robustness.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has received considerable attention as a potential risk factor for depressive symptoms. The systematic review was conducted to confirm the dose‒response connection between OSA severity and depression risk. A systematic literature search of English and Chinese articles published in PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and SinoMed databases from their inception to 28 August 2023 was conducted. An evaluation using the Newcastle‒Ottawa Scale was performed. A meta-analysis was used to evaluate the impact of OSA severity. A random-effects dose‒response model was conducted to evaluate the linear and nonlinear dose‒response connections. We evaluated publication bias by funnel plots, and symmetry by Egger’s test. We identified 18 cross-sectional researches. 3143 participants which were involved in the dose‒response meta-analysis. Contrasted with mild OSA, individuals with severe OSA had a higher adjusted risk of depression (rate ratio: 1.34, 95% confidence interval = 1.05–1.70), with substantial heterogeneity (I2 = 70.9%, Pheterogeneity<0.001). There is a significant linear connection between OSA severity and depression risk. The depression risk increased by 0.4% for every 1 event per hour increase in the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI). The protocol for this unfunded research was drafted and registered at PROSPERO (ID CRD42023474097).

The traditional space-invariant isotropic kernel utilized by a bilateral filter (BF) frequently leads to blurry edges and gradient reversal artifacts due to the existence of a large amount of outliers in the local averaging window. However, the efficient and accurate estimation of space-variant kernels which adapt to image structures, and the fast realization of the corresponding space-variant bilateral filtering are challenging problems. To address these problems, we present a space-variant BF (SVBF), and its linear time and error-bounded acceleration method. First, we accurately estimate spacevariant anisotropic kernels that vary with image structures in linear time through structure tensor and minimum spanning tree. Second, we perform SVBF in linear time using two error-bounded approximation methods, namely, low-rank tensor approximation via higher-order singular value decomposition and exponential sum approximation. Therefore, the proposed SVBF can efficiently achieve good edge-preserving results. We validate the advantages of the proposed filter in applications including: image denoising, image enhancement, and image focus editing. Experimental results demonstrate that our fast and error-bounded SVBF is superior to state-of-the-art methods.

The existence and phase structures of high Ti-bearing blast furnace slag at a high temperature are the key issue to flow performance and reaction temperature. It is essential to evaluate the physical-chemical properties, such as viscosity and melting point In this work, a new method of online research of B2O3 on crystal behavior of high Ti-bearing blast furnace slag is proposed. By ultrahigh-temperature confocal laser scanning microscope and area scanning analysis, it can be concluded that the effect of B2O3 additives on the viscosity has a more obvious effect among the low-temperature region of the slag. Compared to the samples without B2O3 additives, the liquid phase of Ti-bearing slag with B2O3 additives appears earlier at the same experimental temperature, and the solid particles floating on the surface of liquid slag become less. Moreover, the B2O3 additives can promote the migration of titanium elements from the high melting point phase to the low melting point phase, and the transferring quantity increases with the addition of the amount of B2O3 additives. These results demonstrate that B2O3 additives can restrain the appearance of the perovskite phase, decrease the apparent viscosity, and promote the metallurgical properties of Ti-bearing blast furnace slag.