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Purpose Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is an acute and critical disease among children and adults, and previous studies have shown that the administration of corticosteroids remains controversial. Therefore, a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was performed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of corticosteroids . Methods The RCTs investigating the safety and efficacy of corticosteroids in ARDS were searched from electronic databases (Embase, Medline, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials). The primary outcome was 28-day mortality. Heterogeneity was assessed using the Chi square test and I 2 with the inspection level of 0.1 and 50%, respectively. Results Fourteen RCTs (n = 1607) were included for analysis. Corticosteroids were found to reduce the risk of death in patients with ARDS (relative risk (RR) = 0.78, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.70–0.87; P  < 0.01). Moreover, no significant adverse events were observed, compared to placebo or standard support therapy. Further subgroup analysis showed that variables, such as adults (RR = 0.78; 95% CI: 0.70–0.88; P  < 0.01), non-COVID-19 (RR = 0.71; 95% CI: 0.62–0.83; P  < 0.01), methylprednisolone (RR = 0.70; 95% CI: 0.56–0.88; P  < 0.01), and hydrocortisone (RR = 0.79; 95% CI: 0.63–0.98; P  = 0.03) were associated with 28-day mortality among patients who used corticosteroids. However, no association was found, regarding children (RR = 0.21; 95% CI: 0.01–4.10; P  = 0.30). Conclusion The use of corticosteroids is an effective approach to reduce the risk of death in ARDS patients. However, this effect is associated with age, non-COVID-19 diseases, and methylprednisolone and hydrocortisone use. Therefore, evidence suggests patients with age ≥ 18 years and non-COVID-19 should be encouraged during the corticosteroid treatment. However, due to substantial differences in the use of corticosteroids among these studies, questions still remain regarding the dosage, optimal corticosteroid agent, and treatment duration in patients with ARDS.

The pathogenic role of inflammatory cytokine levels in children with septic shock has not been completely clarified. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between the early concentrations of inflammatory cytokines, pathogen classification, and 28-day mortality in children with septic shock. We retrospectively analyzed the early expression of cytokines in children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of a tertiary pediatric hospital due to septic shock between July 2019 and September 2024. A total of 189 children with septic shock were included and 68 died within 28 days of hospitalization. The plasma levels of IL-6 (P = 0.001), IL-10 (P < 0.001), IFN-γ (P = 0.002), and TNF-α (P = 0.014) were significantly higher in the nonsurvivor group than in the survivor group. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that the IL-6 level was an independent risk factor for 28-day mortality after controlling platelet count and lactate, lactate dehydrogenase, Hb, IFN-γ, and TNF-α levels. ROC analysis revealed the AUC values of the IL-6, IL-10, IFN-γ, and TNF-α levels were 0.64, 0.68, 0.64 and 0.61, respectively, and that the optimal cutoff values were 414.92 pg/ml, 29.66 pg/ml, 1.605 pg/ml and 0.725 pg/ml, respectively. According to these cutoff values, the survival curves of the groups with high levels of IL-6, IL-10, IFN-γ, and TNF-α differed significantly from those with low levels (p < 0.001, p < 0.001, p = 0.001, and p = 0.001, respectively). In children with positive fluid cultures, there was no statistically significant difference in cytokines levels between the gram-positive bacterial (G+) and gram-negative bacterial (G-) infection groups. However, in children with positive blood cultures, the levels of IL-6 (p = 0.005) and IL-10 (p = 0.003) were significantly higher in the G- group than in the G+ group. Elevated IL-6 and IL-10 levels are valuable for predicting 28-day mortality and identifying gram-negative bacteremia in pediatric patients with septic shock. IFN-γ and TNF-α levels also have significant value for predicting 28-day mortality. Moreover, the IL-6 level was an independent risk factor for 28-day mortality.

Calcium sulfate whiskers (CSWs) are fibrous crystals with uniform cross-section, well-defined morphology, and dense structure. Due to their low toxicity and low cost, CSWs have wide applications as additives in composite materials. In this work, CSWs prepared from desulfurized gypsum were used as raw materials. The mechanism of stearic acid (SA) surface modification of CSWs was investigated, and the influence of SA-modified CSWs on the mechanical properties of rubber was evaluated. Results show that SA effectively modifies CSW surfaces through a synergistic mechanism involving chemical bonding and physical adsorption. At lower SA concentrations, surface modification is primarily governed by chemical bonding, whereas physical adsorption becomes increasingly dominant at higher SA concentrations. Consequently, both the activation index and contact angle of modified CSWs initially increase but then decrease with rising SA content, peaking at a 4 wt.% SA dosage. At this optimal concentration, maximum values of 0.636 (activation index) and 110° (contact angle) were achieved. Furthermore, both unmodified and modified CSWs could improve the hardness, tensile strength, and elongation at break of the rubber. The optimal performance was achieved with 4 wt.% SA-modified CSWs, resulting in a hardness of 67°, a tensile strength of 21.92 MPa, and an elongation at break of 619%.

The reliability of ex-situ methodologies in characterizing pore networks within thermally stimulated low-maturity oil shale remains debated due to potential cooling-induced artifacts. This work integrates in-situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with high-precision thermal control to systematically evaluate pore evolution during heating (25 °C→500 °C) and subsequent cooling (500 °C→25 °C). Results reveal that thermal upgrading at 500 °C enhances pore development (11% and 111.5% increase in total pore area for two samples). However, the cooling process further amplifies pore network complexity, inducing matrix shrinkage that generates additional macropores (up to 72% pore count increase), thereby distorting ex-situ measurements. While small pores (< 0.05 μm²) dominate across thermal stages and pore aspect ratios remain stable—supporting ex-situ validity for morphological trends—the cooling artifact systematically overestimates macropore abundance, a critical parameter for flow capacity assessment. These findings challenge conventional ex-situ techniques (e.g., gas adsorption, NMR) in replicating in-situ reservoir conditions during thermal recovery. The work proposes integrating in-situ imaging (e.g., heating-stage SEM) as a standard for high-temperature studies, developing cooling-effect calibration protocols for legacy data, and redesigning porosimetry systems with thermal controls. By resolving discrepancies between laboratory measurements and subsurface realities, this research advances predictive models for shale oil mobility and informs optimization of in-situ conversion technologies, ultimately supporting sustainable exploitation of low-maturity shale oil resources.

In aluminum deoxidized medium manganese steel, spinel inclusions are easily to form during refining, and such inclusions will deteriorate the toughness of the medium manganese steel. Rare earth inclusions have a smaller hardness, and their thermal expansion coefficients are similar to that of steel. They can avoid large stress concentrations around inclusions during the heat treatment of steel, which is beneficial for improving the toughness of steel. Therefore, rare earth Ce is usually used to modify spinel inclusions in steel. In order to clarify the modification mechanism of spinel inclusions in medium manganese steel with Ce treatment, high-temperature simulation experiments were carried out. Samples were taken step by step during the experimental steel smelting process, and the inclusions in the samples were analyzed by SEM-EDS. Finally, the experimental results were discussed and analyzed in combination with thermodynamic calculations. The results show that after Ce treatment, the amount of inclusions decrease, the inclusion size is basically less than 5 μm, and the spinel inclusions are transformed into rare earth inclusions. After Ce addition, Mn and Mg in the spinel inclusions are first replaced by Ce, and the spinel structure is destroyed to form CeAlO3. When the O content in the steel is low, S in the steel will replace the O in the inclusion, and CeAlO3 and spinel inclusions will be transformed into Ce2O2S. By measuring the total oxygen content of the steel, the total Ce content required for complete modification of spinel inclusions can be obtained. Finally, the critical conditions for the formation and transformation of inclusions in the Fe-Mn-Al-Mg-Ce-O-S system at 1873K were obtained according to thermodynamic calculations.

Ce-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by hydrothermal method at different pH. The relationship between the pH of the solution and the morphology, structure and electrochemical stability of the prepared Ce-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles was investigated by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscope, Fourier transform infrared, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, electrochemical methods and saltwater immersion experiment. The results showed that the Ce-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles prepared at pH = 4 and pH = 6 had surface defects structure, and the Ce-doped α-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles prepared at pH = 8 had adhesion structures, which were CeO 2 nanoparticles adhered to the α-Fe 2 O 3 nanoparticles’ surface. The fact that Ce ions could be readily doped into the α-Fe 2 O 3 lattice, causing lattice distortion and increasing the binding energy of Fe 3+ in the lattice, thereby enhancing the stability of Fe–O bonds correspondingly. At the same time, the surface defect structure is produced, which has the effect of promoting the compactness of the coating. The surface defects structure of α-Fe 2 O 3 has stronger electrochemical stability than the adhesion structure of α-Fe 2 O 3 and Bayer α-Fe 2 O 3 . It was found that waterborne acrylic coatings prepared from of α-Fe 2 O 3 with surface defects structure had a stronger hindering effect on the diffusion of charged ions.

The slag-metal-gas multiphase system in converters is crucial for smelting effectiveness and process stability during steelmaking. However, as a key course of the multiphase interaction, slag foaming was not the focus in previous studies due to its complexity. Therefore, we designed a modeling method of slag foaming. Using this method, this article investigated the effects of top blowing impingement and bottom blowing agitation on slag foaming in a combined top and bottom blowing converter. The experimental results indicated that foamed slag, primarily caused by the slag-metal reaction releasing gas, is a significant part of the multiphase system. The maximum height of foamed slag was reduced with increasing bottom blowing gas flowrate as the result of the acceleration of gas escaping. The top blowing gas presented a suppression effect on the foamed slag, which was strengthened by a decrease in top blowing lance height and increase in top blowing gas flowrate.

Chromium plays a vital role in stainless steel due to its ability to improve the corrosion resistance of the latter. However, the release of chromium from stainless steel slag (SSS) during SSS stockpiling causes detrimental environmental issues. To prevent chromium pollution, the effects of iron oxide on crystallization behavior and spatial distribution of spinel were investigated in this work. The results revealed that FeO was more conducive to the growth of spinels compared with Fe 2 O 3 and Fe 3 O 4 . Spinels were found to be mainly distributed at the top and bottom of slag. The amount of spinel phase at the bottom decreased with the increasing FeO content, while that at the top increased. The average particle size of spinel in the slag with 18wt% FeO content was 12.8 µm. Meanwhile, no notable structural changes were observed with a further increase in FeO content. In other words, the spatial distribution of spinel changed when the content of iron oxide varied in the range of 8wt% to 18wt%. Finally, less spinel was found at the bottom of slag with a FeO content of 23wt%.

CaO-Al2O3-Ce2O3 is a potential new-type basic metallurgical slag system for rare earth steel. To investigate the effects of CaF2 on the melting point and equilibrium phase types of this slag system, the phase equilibrium relationships and extent of the liquid phase region of CaO-Al2O3-Ce2O3-CaF2 slag system at 1300 °C, 1400 °C, and 1500 °C in C/CO were determined by the high-temperature phase equilibrium experiment, Scanning Electron Microscope-Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometer (SEM-EDX) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD), and the isothermal phase diagram was plotted. The experimental results show that within the composition range in this study, the slag system has five, seven, and six liquid–solid equilibrium coexistence regions at 1300 °C, 1400 °C, and 1500 °C. The involved multiphase equilibrium regions include five two-phase regions (i.e., Liquid + CaO, Liquid + CaO·2Al2O3, Liquid + 2CaO·Al2O3·Ce2O3, Liquid + 2CaO·3Al2O3·Ce2O3, Liquid + 11CaO·7Al2O3·CaF2), 4 three-phase regions (i.e., Liquid + CaO + 2CaO·Al2O3·Ce2O3, Liquid + 11CaO·7Al2O3·CaF2 + 2CaO·Al2O3·Ce2O3, Liquid + CaO·2Al2O3 + 2CaO·3Al2O3·Ce2O3, Liquid + 11CaO·7Al2O3·CaF2 + 2CaO·3Al2O3·Ce2O3), and 1 four-phase region (i.e., Liquid + CaO + 11CaO·7Al2O3·CaF2 + 2CaO·Al2O3·Ce2O3). Meanwhile, based on liquid phase compositions under liquid–solid multiphase equilibrium, the slag system’s liquid phase ranges at the experimental temperatures were determined as follows: at 1300 °C: w(CaO)/w(Al2O3) = 0.42~0.92, w(Ce2O3) = 1.63%~8.02%, w(CaF2) = 9.17%~21.46%; 1400 °C: 0.28~1.18, 0.9%~12.62%, 1.04%~23.34%, respectively; 1500 °C: 0.23~1.21, 0~14.42%, 0~26.32%, respectively.