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Background This study aims to evaluate the prognostic significance of preoperative paraspinal sarcopenia (PS) on long-term clinical outcomes in patients with intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) undergoing unilateral biportal endoscopy discectomy (UBED), and to identify independent risk factors of postoperative chronic low back pain. Methods A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 148 IDD patients who underwent UBED, classified into sarcopenia ( n  = 65) and non-sarcopenia ( n  = 83) groups based on psoas muscle index (PMI) thresholds. Radiographic parameters, including PMI, erector spinae muscle index (EMI), multifidus muscle index (MMI), multifidus fat infiltration (MFI), erector spinae fat infiltration (EFI), and multifidus muscle density (MMD), were assessed via CT/MRI. Clinical outcomes were evaluated using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) preoperatively and postoperatively at 1 month, 6 months, and final follow-up (≥ 12 months). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses identified risk factors for chronic low back pain. Results The sarcopenia group exhibited significantly lower muscle indices (PMI, EMI, MMI; all P  < 0.001) and higher fat infiltration (MFI, EFI; P  < 0.05) compared to the non-sarcopenia group. While both groups demonstrated improvements in VAS and ODI scores postoperatively, the sarcopenia group had higher VAS (3.21 ± 0.92 vs. 2.75 ± 0.72, P  < 0.001) and ODI (22.19 ± 4.37% vs. 19.08 ± 3.43%, P  < 0.001) at final follow-up. Elevated BMI, lower BMD, reduced muscle indices (PMI, EMI, MMI), and severe MFI were significant predictors of chronic low back pain ( P  < 0.05). Conclusions PS is a modifiable risk factor for postoperative chronic low back pain after UBED. Preoperative identification of high-risk patients and targeted interventions to improve muscle function may enhance clinical outcomes. These findings underscore the importance of integrating muscle health assessments into spine care pathways.

Polylactide‐block‐poly(butylene adipate) poly(ester‐urethane) (PLAEU) thermoplastic elastomer was obtained by melt chain extending reaction with polylactide‐block‐poly(butylene adipate)‐block‐polylactide (PBLA) and hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI). PBLA was previously prepared with L‐lactide and poly(butylene adipate) diol (PBA diol). Experimental parameters including feed ratio, polymerization temperature, and time were optimized. The weight average molecular weight (Mw) of PLAEU surpassed 105 g/mol. In contrast to corresponding PBLA, the crystallinity and melt temperature (Tm) of PLAEU decreased, whereas its glass transition (Tg) shifted to high temperature due to the “pseudoextension” structure of polylactide (PLA) block. Additionally, the crystallinity and Tm of PLAEU were subject to crystallization method and molecular weight. The tensile strength of PLAEU varied from 6.61 to 24.41 MPa and elongation from 190% to 780%. Therefore, the mechanical properties of PLAEU can be regulated by altering the length ratio of PLA to PBA block. The high elasticity of PLAEU can be explained with phase separation mechanism. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2011. © 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) were melt-blended in the presence of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) by twin-screw extrusion. The physical properties, phase morphology, thermal properties, and melt rheological behavior of the blends were investigated by tensile tests, Charpy impact tests, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and advanced rheology expended system (ARES). With 2 or 5 wt% GMA, the tensile toughness of the PLA/PBAT blend was greatly increased without severe loss in tensile strength. The impact strength of the blend was also significantly improved at 1 wt% of GMA addition but ultimately trended to be saturated with increasing GMA. SEM micrographs revealed that better miscibility and more shear yielding mechanism were involved in the toughening of the blend. DSC results indicated that the blend is still a two-phase system in the presence of reaction agent and the addition of GMA was found to enhance the interfacial adhesion between PLA and PBAT. Rheological results revealed that the addition of T-GMA increased the storage moduli ( G ′), loss moduli ( G ′′) and complex viscosity of the blends at nearly all frequencies. The decreased shear-thinning tendency of the blends in the presence of T-GMA also implied improved melt stability during processing.

The existing semantic segmentation networks mostly focus on extracting and expressing deep image features. But none of them could adequately aggregate contextual information, or utilize features on different scales or layers. To improve prediction results, this paper proposes a multiscale attention fusion network for semantic segmentation (MAF-DeepLab), which highlights important features, and aggregates multi-scale features well. Firstly, the high-level semantic features and low-level texture features were captured by a lightweight feature extraction network. Secondly, cascaded spatial pyramidal pooling (CSPP) were employed to fuse feature extraction branches with different receptive fields, enhancing the correlation between multi-scale features. Finally, a bottom-up attention fusion module was adopted to guide the cascading aggregation of high-level and low-level features, producing detailed saliency maps. MAF-DeepLab achieved an excellent effect of semantic segmentation on two benchmark datasets: CamVid (74.8%) and Cityscapes (83.4%).

Emergy analysis is effective for analyzing ecological economic systems. However, the accuracy of the approach is af- fected by the diversity of economic level, meteorological and hydrological parameters in different regions. The present study evalu- ated the economic benefits, environmental impact, and sustainability of indoor, semi-intensive and extensive farming systems of sea cucumber （Apostichopus japonicus） in the same region. The results showed that A. japonicus indoor farming system was high in input and output （yield） whereas pond extensive farming system was low in input and output. The output/input ratio of indoor fann- ing system was lower than that of pond extensive farming system, and the output/input ratio of semi-intensive farming system fell in between them. The environmental loading ratio of A.japonicus extensive fanning system was lower than that of indoor farming sys- tem. In addition, the emergy yield and emergy exchange ratios, and emergy sustainability and emergy indexes for sustainable devel- opment were higher in extensive farming system than those in indoor farming system. These results indicated that the current exten- sive farming system exerted fewer negative influences on the environment, made more efficient use of available resources, and met more sustainable development requirements than the indoor farming system. A. japonicus farming systems showed more emergy benefits than fish fanning systems. The pond fanning systems ofA. japonicus exploited more free local environmental resources for production, caused less potential pressure on the local environment, and achieved higher sustainability than indoor farming system.

The dynamic characteristics of drilling shaft in deep hole drilling influenced by minimal quantity lubrication (MQL) is investigated. According to the features of the compressible fluid Reynolds equation in oil/air feature, a time-dependent mathematical model is established to describe the pressure distribution of cutting fluid with nonlinearity in MQL deep hole drilling. By introducing the differential transformation approach, the time-dependent pressure equation arising from cutting fluid is solved by the use of direct integral method. The influences of the rotational speed, the transverse displacement ratio, and radial clearance on the hydrodynamic pressure distribution of cutting fluid are obtained. The advantage of this method is to overcome much of the computational cost and has its rapid convergence rate. Furthermore, the nonlinear responses of drilling shaft influenced by MQL are analyzed, and the instability rotational speeds of drilling tool are discussed while the design parameters of drilling shaft system changing.

The life cycle assessment was employed to evaluate the environmental impacts of three farming systems（indoor intensive, semi-intensive and extensive systems） of sea cucumber living near Qingdao, China, which can effectively overcome the interference of inaccurate background parameters caused by the diversity of economic level and environment in different regions. Six indicators entailing global warming potential（1.86 E ＋ 04, 3.45 E ＋ 03, 2.36 E ＋ 02）, eutrophication potential（6.65 E ＋ 01,-1.24 E ＋ 02,-1.65 E ＋ 02）, acidification potential（1.93 E ＋ 02, 4.33 E ＋ 01, 1.30 E ＋ 00）, photochemical oxidant formation potential（2.35E-01, 5.46E-02, 2.53E-03）, human toxicity potential（2.47 E ＋ 00, 6.08E-01, 4.91 E ＋ 00） and energy use（3.36 E ＋ 05, 1.27 E ＋ 04, 1.48 E ＋ 03） were introduced in the current study. It was found that all environmental indicators in the indoor intensive farming system were much higher than those in semi-intensive and extensive farming systems because of the dominant role of energy input, while energy input also contributed as the leading cause factor for most of the indicators in the semi-intensive farming system. Yet in the extensive farming system, infrastructure materials played a major role. Through a comprehensive comparison of the three farming systems, it was concluded that income per unit area of indoor intensive farming system was much higher than those of semi-intensive and extensive farming systems. However, the extensive farming system was the most sustainable one. Moreover, adequate measures were proposed, respectively, to improve the environmental sustainability of each farming system in the present study.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been widely applied and recognized in the treatment of brain injury; however, the correlation between the protective effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy and changes of metabolites in the brain remains unclear. To investigate the effect and potential mechanism of hy- perbaric oxygen therapy on cognitive functioning in rats, we established traumatic brain injury models using Feeney＇s free falling method. We treated rat models with hyperbaric oxygen therapy at 0.2 MPa for 60 minutes per day. The Morris water maze test for spatial navigation showed that the average escape latency was significantly prolonged and cognitive function decreased in rats with brain injury. After treatment with hyperbaric oxygen therapy for 1 and 2 weeks, the rats＇ spatial learning and memory abilities were improved. Hydrogen proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy analysis showed that the N-acetylaspartate/creatine ratio in the hippocampal CA3 region was sig- nificantly increased at 1 week, and the N-acetylaspartate/choline ratio was significantly increased at 2 weeks after hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Nissl staining and immunohistochemical staining showed that the number of nerve cells and Nissl bodies in the hippocampal CA3 region was significantly increased, and glial fibrillary acidic protein positive cells were decreased after a 2-week hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment. Our findings indicate that hyperbaric oxygen therapy significantly im- proves cognitive functioning in rats with traumatic brain injury, and the potential mechanism is me- diated by metabolic changes and nerve cell restoration in the hippocampal CA3 region.

The exceptionally large individual growth variation has been previously recognized in several sea cucumber cohorts. However, there is a lack of information regarding the mechanism of such individual differences. In this study, the sea cucumber Apostichopusjaponicus （Selenka） was reared individually in order to eliminate possible effects of social interaction, stocking density, etc. The results showed that there were substantial differences in growth among the sea cucumber individuals during the 100-day experiment. The special growth rate of the sea cucumber individuals differed by up to three folds （from 0.40% to 1.01%）, and the coefficient of variation in body weight increased from 12.04% to 40.51%. The final wet body weight, food intake and food conversion efficiency for each sea cucumber were generally positively correlated with their initial wet body weight （P〈0.05）. Energy budget of the animals showed that the food energy spent on respiration was much greater （about four folds） but energy deposited for growth was much less for （initially） smaller than for larger A. japonicus. The present result implies that there are obvious genetic differences among the sea cucumber individuals, largely accounting for the individual growth variation of the cohort sea cucumber. These results will provide some basic data for promoting selective breeding and fanning of the sea cucumber.

Monoculture of sea cucumber（pond S） and polyculture of shrimp with sea cucumber（pond SS） were established to evaluate the effect of shrimp on the environmental conditions of sea cucumber farming pond. Contributions of sediment organic matter（SOM2） resuspended from benthic sediment and the suspended particulate organic matter（SPOM） deposited from the water column to the precipitated organic matter（SOM1） collected with sediment traps were estimated with carbon stable isotope analysis. The results showed that the levels of SPOM and SOM2 in pond SS significantly decreased in comparison with those in pond S at the end of experiment（P 〈 0.05）, indicating that co-culturing shrimp in sea cucumber farming pond could purify the farming water. Carbon stable isotope analysis showed that the proportion of SOM2 in SOM1 in pond SS（84.97% ± 0.38%） was significantly lower than that in pond S（95.20% ± 0.30%）（P 〈 0.05）, suggesting that the resuspension of organic matter from benthic sediment into overlying water was reduced in polyculture pond. In contrast, the proportion of SPOM in SOM1 in pond SS（15.03% ± 0.38%） was significantly higher than that in pond S（4.80% ± 0.30%）（P 〈 0.05）, indicating that the sedimentation of SPOM from water column was enhanced in pond SS owing to the biodeposition effect of shrimp.