(Main Section: Community Planning)

Shenzhen is a Chinese city with a very fast-paced work and life environment. Because people there are often under high pressure, fitness and sports have great benefits for their health. In order to study the correlation between inhabitants’fitness and sports activities and the community environment, a questionnaire is designed based upon a review of the literature on fitness behavior and the community environment, and then 595 inhabitants of Shenzhen are surveyed in 2016. The survey involved the demographic information of the subjects, their fitness and sports activities, and the satisfaction of spaces for sports in urban communities. Through analysis of the questionnaire data by cross tabulation, patterns of how and where people like to do exercise have been found. Jogging and walking are the most popular individual activities, where the preferred places are neighborhood gardens, urban squares and parks. The most popular team sports are badminton, table tennis and tennis, where the preferred places are professional fitness clubs, urban squares or parks. Gender differences significantly determine the choice of sport. Males tend to cycle or run individually, and to play ball games as a team. Females prefer to do yoga or eight section brocade individually, and square dance as a team. The factors influencing the satisfaction of places for exercise are ordered as follows: accessibility, fresh air and a clean environment, and low cost. The main requests from locals for the improvement of the recreation environment are the supply of more kinds of sports facilities and fields and better maintenance and management of sports facilities. Some urban design strategies for enhancing the community’s sports environment are recommended

High-Qf value and temperature stable Zn2+-Mn4+ cooperated modified cordierite-based microwave and millimeter-wave dielectric ceramics

Cordierite-based dielectric ceramics with a lower dielectric constant would have significant application potential as dielectric resonator and filter materials for future ultra-low-latency 5G/6G millimeter-wave and terahertz communication. In this article, the phase structure, microstructure and microwave dielectric properties of Mg2Al4–2x(Mn0.5Zn0.5)2xSi5O18 (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.3) ceramics are studied by crystal structure refinement, scanning electron microscope (SEM), the theory of complex chemical bonds and infrared reflectance spectrum. Meanwhile, complex double-ions coordinated substitution and two-phase complex methods were used to improve its Q×f value and adjust its temperature coefficient. The Q×f values of Mg2Al4–2x(Mn0.5Zn0.5)2xSi5O18 single-phase ceramics are increased from 45,000 [email protected] GHz (x = 0) to 150,500 [email protected] GHz (x = 0.15) by replacing Al3+ with Zn2+-Mn4+. The positive frequency temperature coefficient additive TiO2 is used to prepare the temperature stable Mg2Al3.7(Mn0.5Zn0.5)0.3Si5O18-ywt%TiO2 composite ceramic. The composite ceramic of Mg2Al3.7(Mn0.5Zn0.5)0.3Si5O18-ywt%TiO2 (8.7 wt% ≤ y ≤ 10.6 wt%) presents the near-zero frequency temperature coefficient at 1225 °C sintering temperature: εr = 5.68, Q×f = 58,040 GHz, τf = −3.1 ppm/°C (y = 8.7 wt%) and εr = 5.82, Q×f = 47,020 GHz, τf = +2.4 ppm/°C (y = 10.6 wt%). These findings demonstrate promising application prospects for 5 G and future microwave and millimeter-wave wireless communication technologies

Rectifying interphases for preventing Li dendrite propagation in solid-state electrolytes

Solid-state electrolytes have emerged as the grail for safe and energy-dense Li metal batteries but still face significant challenges of Li dendrite propagation and interfacial incompatibility. In this work, an interface engineering approach is applied to introduce an electronic rectifying interphase between the solid-state electrolyte and Li metal anode. The rectifying behaviour restrains electron infiltration into the electrolyte, resulting in effective dendrite reduction. This interphase consists of a p-Si/n-TiO2 junction and an external Al layer, created using a multi-step sputter deposition technique on the surface of garnet pellets. The electronic rectifying behaviour is investigated via the asymmetric I-V responses of on-chip devices and further confirmed via the one-order of magnitude lower current response by electronic conductivity measurements on the pellets. The Al layer contributes to interface compatibility, which is verified from the lithiophilic surface and reduced interfacial impedance. Electrochemical measurements via Li symmetric cells show a significantly improved lifetime from dozens of hours to over two months. The reduction of the Li dendrite propagation behaviour is observed through 3D reconstructed morphologies of the solid-state electrolyte by X-ray computed tomography

Organ regeneration: integration application of cell encapsulation and 3D bioprinting

3D bioprinting has shown great promise in the field of tissue engineering, which offers a vital and significant platform for organ regeneration. Therefore, an increasing focus on 3D bioprinting, coupled with a growing knowledge of cell–cell interaction and cell encapsulation, has driven researchers to discover the preferable biomaterials that enable the greatest possible to reconstruct artificial organs with the different cells and hydrogel. One important challenge is to adapt materials selected to improve the cell survival rate. In this paper, we firstly summarise the fundamentals and the latest application of biomaterials that have significant characteristics such as porous, biodegradability, biological compatibility, and adaptability, and further describe formation mechanisms of droplet under the different cell encapsulation technologies, and finally highlight integration application of cell encapsulation and 3D bioprinting

A Review of Vision-Laser-Based Civil Infrastructure Inspection and Monitoring

Structural health and construction security are important problems in civil engineering. Regular infrastructure inspection and monitoring methods are mostly performed manually. Early automatic structural health monitoring techniques were mostly based on contact sensors, which usually are difficult to maintain in complex infrastructure environments. Therefore, non-contact infrastructure inspection and monitoring techniques received increasing interest in recent years, and they are widely used in all aspects of infrastructure life, owing to their convenience and non-destructive properties. This paper provides an overview of vision-based inspection and vision–laser-based monitoring techniques and applications. The inspection part includes image-processing algorithms, object detection, and semantic segmentation. In particular, infrastructure monitoring involves not only visual technologies but also different fusion methods of vision and lasers. Furthermore, the most important challenges for future automatic non-contact inspections and monitoring are discussed and the paper correspondingly concludes with state-of-the-art algorithms and applications to resolve these challenges

3D Printing of Artificial Blood Vessel: Study on Multi-Parameter Optimization Design for Vascular Molding Effect in Alginate and Gelatin

3D printing has emerged as one of the modern tissue engineering techniques that could potentially form scaffolds (with or without cells), which is useful in treating cardiovascular diseases. This technology has attracted extensive attention due to its possibility of curing disease in tissue engineering and organ regeneration. In this paper, we have developed a novel rotary forming device, prepared an alginate–gelatin solution for the fabrication of vessel-like structures, and further proposed a theoretical model to analyze the parameters of motion synchronization. Using this rotary forming device, we firstly establish a theoretical model to analyze the thickness under the different nozzle extrusion speeds, nozzle speeds, and servo motor speeds. Secondly, the experiments with alginate–gelatin solution are carried out to construct the vessel-like structures under all sorts of conditions. The experiment results show that the thickness cannot be adequately predicted by the theoretical model and the thickness can be controlled by changing the parameters. Finally, the optimized parameters of thickness have been adjusted to estimate the real thickness in 3D printing

The Prognostic Role of Prothrombin Time and Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma

Purpose. To evaluate the prognostic role of prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM). Methods. We retrospectively analyzed 354 patients with newly diagnosed MM who received primary treatment in our center. The propensity score matching technique was used to reduce the bias between groups. Results. Among 354 patients, lengthened PT or APTT was observed in 154 (43.5%) patients and 200 (56.5%) patients had normal PT and APTT. Patients with lengthened PT or APTT had significantly shorter median overall survival (OS) (37.5 vs. 73.8 months, p<0.001) and progression-free survival (PFS) (23.1 vs. 31.6 months, p=0.001) than those with normal PT and APTT. Univariate Cox proportional hazards regression analyses showed that lengthened PT or APTT was associated with shorter OS (HR=2.100, 95% CI: 1.525-2.893, p<0.001). Lengthened PT or APTT was also a poor prognostic factor for OS (HR=3.183, 95% CI: 1.803-5.617, p<0.001) in multivariable analyses. The poor effect of lengthened PT or APTT on PFS was confirmed in univariate analysis (HR=1.715, 95% CI: 1.244-2.365, p=0.001), but it had no impact on PFS in multivariate analysis (p=0.197). In the propensity score matching analysis, 154 patients, 77 in each group, were identified. Among 154 matched patients, the OS of patients with lengthened PT or APTT was shorter (38.4 vs. 51.0 months, p=0.030), but PFS was similar (29.0 vs. 35.0 months, p=0.248). Conclusion. These results demonstrated that lengthened PT or APTT was an independent poor prognostic factor for patients with newly diagnosed MM

Phosphorylation of GntR reduces Streptococcus suis oxidative stress resistance and virulence by inhibiting NADH oxidase transcription.

GntR transcription factor of Streptococcus suis serotype 2 (SS2) is a potential substrate protein of STK, but the regulation mechanisms of GntR phosphorylation are still unclear. This study confirmed that STK phosphorylated GntR in vivo, and in vitro phosphorylation experiments showed that STK phosphorylated GntR at Ser-41. The phosphomimetic strain (GntR-S41E) had significantly reduced lethality in mice and reduced bacterial load in the blood, lung, liver, spleen, and brain of infected mice compared to wild-type (WT) SS2. Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) experiments demonstrated that the promoter of nox was bound by GntR. The phosphomimetic protein GntR-S41E cannot bind to the promoter of nox, and the nox transcription levels were significantly reduced in the GntR-S41E mutant compared to WT SS2. The virulence in mice and the ability to resist oxidative stress of the GntR-S41E strain were restored by complementing transcript levels of nox. NOX is an NADH oxidase that catalyzes the oxidation of NADH to NAD+ with the reduction of oxygen to water. We found that NADH is likely accumulated under oxidative stress in the GntR-S41E strain, and higher NADH levels resulted in increased amplified ROS killing. In total, we report GntR phosphorylation could inhibit the transcription of nox, which impaired the ability of SS2 to resist oxidative stress and virulence