THE EFFECTS OF RARE EARTHS ON ACTIVITY AND SURFACE PROPERTIES OF Ru/γ-AL2O3 CATALYST FOR WATER GAS SHIFT REACTION

A series of Ru-RE/γ-AL2O3 (RE = Ce, Pr, La, Sm, Tb or Gd) and Ru/γ-AL2O3 catalysts were prepared by impregnation method. The influence of rare earths on the catalytic performance of Ru/γ-AL2O3 catalyst for the water gas shift reaction was studied. The catalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), temperature programmed reduction (TPR), temperature programmed desorption (TPD), and CO chemisorption. The results show that the addition of rare earths increases the catalytic activity of Ru based catalyst. Among these cerium is the most remarkably. The addition of cerium increases the active surface area, improves the dispersion of ruthenium, and weakens the interaction between ruthenium and the support. Cerium also affects the adsorption and reduction properties of Ru/γ-AL2O3 catalyst. KEY WORDS: Rare earths, Ruthenium-based catalyst, Water gas shift reaction Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2007, 21(3), 389-395

Visual and Textual Prior Guided Mask Assemble for Few-Shot Segmentation and Beyond

Few-shot segmentation (FSS) aims to segment the novel classes with a few annotated images. Due to CLIP's advantages of aligning visual and textual information, the integration of CLIP can enhance the generalization ability of FSS model. However, even with the CLIP model, the existing CLIP-based FSS methods are still subject to the biased prediction towards base classes, which is caused by the class-specific feature level interactions. To solve this issue, we propose a visual and textual Prior Guided Mask Assemble Network (PGMA-Net). It employs a class-agnostic mask assembly process to alleviate the bias, and formulates diverse tasks into a unified manner by assembling the prior through affinity. Specifically, the class-relevant textual and visual features are first transformed to class-agnostic prior in the form of probability map. Then, a Prior-Guided Mask Assemble Module (PGMAM) including multiple General Assemble Units (GAUs) is introduced. It considers diverse and plug-and-play interactions, such as visual-textual, inter- and intra-image, training-free, and high-order ones. Lastly, to ensure the class-agnostic ability, a Hierarchical Decoder with Channel-Drop Mechanism (HDCDM) is proposed to flexibly exploit the assembled masks and low-level features, without relying on any class-specific information. It achieves new state-of-the-art results in the FSS task, with mIoU of $77.6$ on $\text{PASCAL-}5^i$ and $59.4$ on $\text{COCO-}20^i$ in 1-shot scenario. Beyond this, we show that without extra re-training, the proposed PGMA-Net can solve bbox-level and cross-domain FSS, co-segmentation, zero-shot segmentation (ZSS) tasks, leading an any-shot segmentation framework

C-arm CT scanning combined with simple laser device-assisted puncture therapy for cerebellar hemorrhage

BackgroundCerebellar hemorrhage is a severe cerebrovascular disease. The small posterior fossa space can cause compression of surrounding brain tissue with even a small amount of bleeding, leading to increased intracranial pressure, disruption of blood supply to surrounding brain tissue, and exacerbation of brain function damage. The most common surgical approach currently is craniotomy for hematoma evacuation, inevitably causing damage to surrounding nerves and blood vessels. In this study, we introduced C-arm CT scanning combined with simple laser device technology to assist in puncture drainage for cerebellar hemorrhage, aiming to improve the accuracy of surgery and maximize the protection of patients’ brain function, providing a physiological basis for better clinical prognosis.Materials and methodsFrom January 2023 to February 2024, a total of 8 patients (6 males, 2 females) with cerebellar hemorrhage underwent C-arm CT-assisted puncture therapy combined with a simple laser device at the affiliated hospital of Binzhou Medical University. Statistical analysis was performed on operation time, number of punctures, impact on important structures and vessels, postoperative hematoma clearance, complications, and neurological function recovery.ResultsAll 8 patients underwent the surgery smoothly without causing damage to important structures or blood vessels. There was no rebleeding intraoperatively. Among the 8 patients, 5 were discharged smoothly, while 3 patients opted to discontinue treatment and requested discharge. At the 3-month follow-up, 3 patients showed no ataxia, while 2 patients had impaired cerebellar motor function.ConclusionC-arm CT scanning combined with a simple laser device technology can accurately locate the position of the hematoma, effectively avoid important structures and vessels, reduce damage to surrounding normal brain tissue, and maximize the protection of normal brain tissue function. Real-time navigation and dynamic adjustments during surgery allow immediate access to imaging data postoperatively. It also has the advantages of being minimally invasive, highly precise, easy to operate, and short operation time, demonstrating high practicality and feasibility

Construction of Smart Construction Course Groups Driven by Interdisciplinary Integration

This study explores the innovation in smart construction course groups driven by interdisciplinary integration, aiming to construct a smart construction course group centered on interdisciplinary fusion. Addressing the challenges in developing a smart construction curriculum system under the context of higher education and industry-academia collaboration, this study proposes breaking disciplinary boundaries and integrating civil engineering, automation technology, computer science, and other fields to establish a curriculum system tailored to the cultivation of new engineering talents. The findings indicate that the proposed course group significantly enhances students’ ability to integrate interdisciplinary knowledge, apply innovative practices, and collaborate effectively in teams within the field of smart construction. This research provides a systematic approach to curriculum design for smart construction education and offers theoretical support and practical insights for the promotion and application of interdisciplinary education models within the new engineering education framework

Longitudinal Imaging of Injured Spinal Cord Myelin and White Matter with 3D Ultrashort Echo Time Magnetization Transfer (UTE-MT) and Diffusion MRI

Quantitative MRI techniques could be helpful to noninvasively and longitudinally monitor dynamic changes in spinal cord white matter following injury, but imaging and postprocessing techniques in small animals remain lacking. Unilateral C5 hemisection lesions were created in a rat model, and ultrashort echo time magnetization transfer (UTE-MT) and diffusion-weighted sequences were used for imaging following injury. Magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) measurements and preferential diffusion along the longitudinal axis of the spinal cord were calculated as fractional anisotropy or an apparent diffusion coefficient ratio over transverse directions. The area of myelinated white matter was obtained by thresholding the spinal cord using mean MTR or diffusion ratio values from the contralesional side of the spinal cord. A decrease in white matter areas was observed on the ipsilesional side caudal to the lesions, which is consistent with known myelin and axonal changes following spinal cord injury. The myelinated white matter area obtained through the UTE-MT technique and the white matter area obtained through diffusion imaging techniques showed better performance to distinguish evolution after injury (AUCs > 0.94, p < 0.001) than the mean MTR (AUC = 0.74, p = 0.01) or ADC ratio (AUC = 0.68, p = 0.05) values themselves. Immunostaining for myelin basic protein (MBP) and neurofilament protein NF200 (NF200) showed atrophy and axonal degeneration, confirming the MRI results. These compositional and microstructural MRI techniques may be used to detect demyelination or remyelination in the spinal cord after spinal cord injury

Metabolic Profiling Study of Yang Deficiency Syndrome in Hepatocellular Carcinoma by H

This study proposes a 1H NMR-based metabonomic approach to explore the biochemical characteristics of Yang deficiency syndrome in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) based on serum metabolic profiling. Serum samples from 21 cases of Yang deficiency syndrome HCC patients (YDS-HCC) and 21 cases of non-Yang deficiency syndrome HCC patients (NYDS-HCC) were analyzed using 1H NMR spectroscopy and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was applied to visualize the variation patterns in metabolic profiling of sera from different groups. The differential metabolites were identified and the biochemical characteristics were analyzed. We found that the intensities of six metabolites (LDL/VLDL, isoleucine, lactate, lipids, choline, and glucose/sugars) in serum of Yang deficiency syndrome patients were lower than those of non-Yang deficiency syndrome patients. It implies that multiple metabolisms, mainly including lipid, amino acid, and energy metabolisms, are unbalanced or weakened in Yang deficiency syndrome patients with HCC. The decreased intensities of metabolites including LDL/VLDL, isoleucine, lactate, lipids, choline, and glucose/sugars in serum may be the distinctive metabolic variations of Yang deficiency syndrome patients with HCC. And these metabolites may be potential biomarkers for diagnosis of Yang deficiency syndrome in HCC