The Research on Operation of Obstructed Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Connection in Neonates

Objectives. Total anomalous pulmonary venous connection (TAPVC) is a rare congenital heart disease. This study aimed to evaluate the outcomes of TAPVC repair in neonates, controlling for anatomic subtypes and surgical techniques. Methods. Between 1997 and 2013, 88 patients (median age: 16 days) underwent repair for supracardiac (31), cardiac (18), infracardiac (36), or mixed (3) TAPVC. All the patients underwent emergency operation due to obstructed drainage. Supracardiac and infracardiac TAPVC repair included a side-to-side anastomosis between the pulmonary venous confluence and left atrium. Coronary sinus unroofing was preferred for cardiac TAPVC repair. Results. The early mortality rate was 2.3% (2/88 patients). The echocardiogram showed no obstruction in the pulmonary vein anastomosis, and flow rate was 1.1–1.42 m/s in the 3-year follow-up period. Conclusions. The accurate preoperative diagnosis, improved protection of heart function, use of pulmonary vein tissue to anastomose and avoid damage of the pulmonary vein, and delayed sternum closure can reduce the risk of mortality. The preoperative severity of pulmonary vein obstruction, the timing of the emergency operation, and infracardiac or mixed-type TAPVC can affect prognosis. Using our surgical technique, the TAPVC mortality among our patients was gradually reduced with remarkable results. However, careful monitoring of the patient with pulmonary vein restenosis and the timing and method of reoperation should also be given importance

Data Driven Prediction Architecture for Autonomous Driving and its Application on Apollo Platform

Autonomous Driving vehicles (ADV) are on road with large scales. For safe and efficient operations, ADVs must be able to predict the future states and iterative with road entities in complex, real-world driving scenarios. How to migrate a well-trained prediction model from one geo-fenced area to another is essential in scaling the ADV operation and is difficult most of the time since the terrains, traffic rules, entities distributions, driving/walking patterns would be largely different in different geo-fenced operation areas. In this paper, we introduce a highly automated learning-based prediction model pipeline, which has been deployed on Baidu Apollo self-driving platform, to support different prediction learning sub-modules' data annotation, feature extraction, model training/tuning and deployment. This pipeline is completely automatic without any human intervention and shows an up to 400\% efficiency increase in parameter tuning, when deployed at scale in different scenarios across nations.Comment: Accepted by the 31st IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (2020

Domain size and charge defects on the polarization switching of antiferroelectric domains

The switching behavior of antiferroelectric domain structures under the applied electric field is not fully understood. In this work, by using the phase field simulation, we have studied the polarization switching property of antiferroelectric domains. Our results indicate that the ferroelectric domains nucleate preferably at the boundaries of the antiferroelectric domains, and antiferroelectrics with larger initial domain sizes possess a higher coercive electric field as demonstrated by hysteresis loops. Moreover, we introduced charge defects into the sample and numerically investigated their influence. It is also shown that charge defects can induce local ferroelectric domains, which could suppress the saturation polarization and narrow the enclosed area of the hysteresis loop. Our results give insights into understanding antiferroelectric phase transformation and optimizing the energy storage property in experiments

On the strengthening and embrittlement mechanisms of an additively manufactured Nickel-base superalloy

The γ′ phase strengthened Nickel-base superalloy is one of the most significant dual-phase alloy systems for high-temperature engineering applications. The tensile properties of laser powder-bed-fused IN738LC superalloy in the as-built state have been shown to have both good strength and ductility compared with its post-thermal treated state. A microstructural hierarchy composed of weak texture, sub-micron cellular structures and dislocation cellular walls was promoted in the as-built sample. After post-thermal treatment, the secondary phase γ′ precipitated with various size and fraction depending on heat treatment process. For room-temperature tensile tests, the dominated deformation mechanism is planar slip of dislocations in the as-built sample while dislocations bypassing the precipitates via Orowan looping in the γ′ strengthened samples. The extraordinary strengthening effect due to the dislocation substructure in the as-built sample provides an addition of 372 MPa in yield strength. The results of our calculation are in agreement with experimental yield strength for all the three different conditions investigated. Strikingly, the γ′ strengthened samples have higher work hardening rate than as-built sample but encounter premature failure. Experimental evidence shows that the embrittlement mechanism in the γ′ strengthened samples is caused by the high dislocation hardening of the grain interior region, which reduces the ability to accommodate further plastic strain and leads to premature intergranular cracking. On the basis of these results, the strengthening micromechanism and double-edge effect of strength and ductility of Nickel-base superalloy is discussed in detail

Cyclic Deformation Behavior of Additive-Manufactured IN738LC Superalloys from Virgin and Reused Powders

In laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF), most powders are not melted in the chamber and collected after the printing process. Powder reuse is appreciable without sacrificing the mechanical properties of target components. To understand the influences of powder reuse on mechanical performance, a nickel-based superalloy, IN738LC, was investigated. Powder morphology, microstructure and chemical compositions of virgin and reused powders were characterized. An increase in oxygen content, generally metallic oxides, was located on the surface of powders. Monotonic tensile and cyclic fatigue were tested. Negligible deterioration in strength and tensile ductility were found, while scattered fatigue performance with regard to fatigue life was shown. Deformation and fatigue crack propagation mechanisms were discussed for describing the powder degradation effects

Using polysaccharides for the enhancement of functionality of foods: A review

peer-reviewedBackground: Flavor, taste and functional ingredients are important ingredients of food, but they are easily lost or react during heating and are not stable. Carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions (CCIs) and carbohydrate-protein interactions (CPIs) are involved in a variety of regulatory biological processes in nature, including cell differentiation, proliferation, adhesion, inflammation and immune responses. Polysaccharides have high molecular weights and many intramolecular hydrogen bonds, can be easily modified chemically and biochemically to enhance bioadhesive and biostability of tissues. Therefore, polysaccharides are the foundation for building complex and stable biosystems that are non-toxic with highydrophilicity and easily biodegradable. Scope and approach: In this review, we summarize the principles and applications of polysaccharide delivery systems in a variety of foods. Key findings and conclusions: This review focuses on the self-assembly of carbohydrates with complex structures and discusses the latest advances in self-assembly systems. The host-guest complexes formed by polyvalent sugar conjugates have the potential to provide, control or target delivery or release systems. They can also extend the shelf life of food and prevent oxidation and isomerization during food storage. Moreover, very few studies have outlined a comprehensive overview of the use of various types of food polysaccharide matrixes for the assembly and protection of food ingredients, which is a very important area for further study