Multiband superconductivity and a deep gap minimum evidenced by specific heat in KCa2_2(Fe1−x_{1-x}Nix_x)4_4As4_4F2_2

Specific heat can explore low-energy quasiparticle excitations of superconductors, so it is a powerful tool for bulk measurement on the superconducting gap structure and pairing symmetry. Here, we report an in-depth investigation on the specific heat of the multiband superconductors KCa$_2$(Fe$_{1-x}$Ni$_x$)$_4$As$_4$F$_2$ ($x$ = 0, 0.05, 0.13) single crystals and the overdoped non-superconducting one with $x$ = 0.17. For the samples with $x$ = 0 and $x$ = 0.05, the magnetic field induced specific heat coefficient $\Delta\gamma(H)$ in the low temperature limit increases rapidly below 2 T, then it rises slowly above 2 T. Using the non-superconducting sample with $x$ = 0.17 as a reference, and applying a mixed model that combines Debye and Einstein modes, the specific heat of phonon background for various superconducting samples can be fitted and the detailed information of the electronic specific heat is obtained. Through comparative analyses, it is found that the energy gap structure including two $s$-wave gaps and an extended $s$-wave gap with large anisotropy can reasonably describe the electronic specific heat data. According to these results, we suggest that at least one anisotropic superconducting gap with a deep gap minimum should exist in this multiband system. With the doping of Ni, the $T_c$ of the sample decreases along with the decrease of the large $s$-wave gap, but the extended $s$-wave gap increases due to the enlarged electron pockets via adding more electrons. Despite these changes, the general properties of the gap structure remain unchanged versus doping Ni. In addition, the calculation of condensation energy of the parent and doped samples shows the rough consistency with the correlation of $U_0 \propto {T_c}^n$ with $n$ = 3-4, which is beyond the understanding of the BCS theory

Burden of carbon monoxide poisoning in China, 1990–2019: A systematic analysis of data from the global burden of disease study 2019

BackgroundCarbon monoxide (CO) poisoning is one of the most common toxic occupational diseases, but related data in China are scarce. A better understanding of the burden of CO poisoning is essential for improving its management.MethodsA systematic analysis of data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 was conducted. Following the general analytical strategy used in the GBD Study 2019, the sex- and age-specific incidence and mortality rates of CO poisoning and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to CO poisoning in China were analyzed. Estimated average annual percentage changes (AAPCs) in age-standardized rates were calculated by joinpoint regression analysis. The effects of age, period and cohort on the incidence of CO poisoning and DALYs due to CO poisoning were estimated by an age-period-cohort model.ResultsThe age-standardized incidence and mortality rates as well as DALYs of CO poisoning per 100,000 population were estimated to be 21.82 [95% uncertainty interval (UI): 15.05–29.98], 0.93 (95% UI: 0.63–1.11), and 40.92 (95% UI: 28.43–47.85), respectively, in 2019. From 1990 to 2019, the AAPCs in the age-standardized incidence significantly increased in both males and females, while the age-standardized mortality rates and DALYs significantly decreased in both males and females. The incidence of CO poisoning peaked in individuals aged 15–19 years. Males had a higher burden of CO poisoning than females. The age effect showed that the relative risks (RRs) of incident CO poisoning decreased with age among males and females and that individuals aged 15–24 years had the highest RRs. The RRs of incident CO poisoning increased with time. The cohort effect showed that the incidence increased in successive birth cohorts.ConclusionsThe incidence of CO poisoning in China increased from 1990 to 2019. More attention should be given to improving the burden of CO poisoning in Chinese adolescents. The results of this study can be used by health authorities to inform preventative measures to reduce the burden of CO poisoning

Efficient refinements on YOLOv3 for real-time detection and assessment of diabetic foot Wagner grades

Currently, the screening of Wagner grades of diabetic feet (DF) still relies on professional podiatrists. However, in less-developed countries, podiatrists are scarce, which led to the majority of undiagnosed patients. In this study, we proposed the real-time detection and location method for Wagner grades of DF based on refinements on YOLOv3. We collected 2,688 data samples and implemented several methods, such as a visual coherent image mixup, label smoothing, and training scheduler revamping, based on the ablation study. The experimental results suggested that the refinements on YOLOv3 achieved an accuracy of 91.95% and the inference speed of a single picture reaches 31ms with the NVIDIA Tesla V100. To test the performance of the model on a smartphone, we deployed the refinements on YOLOv3 models on an Android 9 system smartphone. This work has the potential to lead to a paradigm shift for clinical treatment of the DF in the future, to provide an effective healthcare solution for DF tissue analysis and healing status.Comment: 11 pages with 11 figure

Gestational TSH and FT4 Reference Intervals in Chinese Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: Serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and free thyroxine (FT4) change dynamically during pregnancy. Differences in geographic regions, populations, and manufacturer's methodologies can affect the reference intervals for thyroid function tests. The 2017 guidelines of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) recommended 4.0 mU/L as the cut-off point for the upper limit of serum TSH in early pregnancy. A systematic review is called for to establish practical, gestational-specific TSH and FT4 reference intervals for pregnant Chinese women and to explore whether the criteria are suitable for China.Methods: English and Chinese articles published from inception to Aug 2017 were searched in the PubMed, EMBASE, and SCIE English-language databases and the CNKI, WanFang, and CQVIP Chinese databases. The relative descent or ascent rates of serum TSH and FT4 were calculated, after which Comprehensive Meta-Analysis V2.0 software was used to analyze the data.Results: Eleven studies (6 in English and 5 in Chinese), five kits and 11,629 Chinese women from nine cities were considered in this meta-analysis. Compared with the reference ranges provided by manufacturers, serum TSH decreased in the first trimester, with the upper limit declining by 21.7% (5.0–36.6%), to a value close to 4.0 mU/L, and the lower limit declining by 85.7% (73.5–97.1%). It continued decreasing in the second trimester, with the upper limit declining by 24.0% (6.4–40.9%) and the lower limit declining by 40.7% (9.0–85.7%). For FT4, the upper limit fluctuated slightly, and the lower limit increased by 6.8% (1.0–14.6%) in the first trimester. Serum FT4 dropped gradually, with the upper limit declining by 21.8% (2.5–31.8%) and the lower limit declining by 12.7% (2.6–19.6%) in the second trimester. During the third trimester, the upper limit decreased by 25.1% (12.7–35.0%), while the lower limit decreased by 20.9% (14.8–27.3%).Conclusions: Various regions, kits and test methods affect the gestational TSH and FT4 levels. The non-pregnant serum TSH upper limit minus 22% is very close to 4.0 mU/L, which can be used as a sub-optimal approach to represent the cut-off value for pregnant Chinese women in the first trimester

FDTD analysis of transient fault induced travelling-wave propagation for multi-branch distribution networks

Many methods are available to analyze the process of the travelling-wave propagation. Among these methods, the Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method has a distinct advantage in calculating dynamic process of the travelling wave propagation in the time domain and is thus applied to the field of power system protection for researching transient fault induced travelling-wave propagation. The novelty of this paper is that the attenuation law of the traveling wave signal affected by the fork junction in the multi-branch distribution network is summarized and the cause of failure in the fault location based on the incipient travelling wave front method in distribution networks is found

Molecular Characterization of a Chrysovirus Isolated From the Citrus Pathogen Penicillium crustosum and Related Fungicide Resistance Analysis

Penicillium sp. are damaging to a range of foods and fruits including citrus. To date, double-stranded (ds)RNA viruses have been reported in most Penicillium species but not in citrus pathogen P. crustosum. Here we report a novel dsRNA virus, designated as Penicillium crustosum chrysovirus 1 (PcCV1) and isolated from P. crustosum strain HS-CQ15. PcCV1 genome comprises four dsRNA segments, referred to as dsRNA1, dsRNA2, dsRNA3, and dsRNA4, which are 3600, 3177, 3078, and 2808 bp in length, respectively. Sequence analysis revealed the presence of four open reading frames (ORFs) in the PcCV1 genome. ORF1 in dsRNA1 encodes a putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and ORF2 in dsRNA2 encodes a putative coat protein (CP). The two remaining ORFs, ORF3 in dsRNA3 and ORF4 in dsRNA4, encode proteins of unknown function. Phylogenetic analysis based on RdRp sequences showed that PcCV1 clusters with other members of the genus Chrysovirus, family Chrysoviridae. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis revealed that the PcCV1 visions are approximately 40 nm in diameter. Regarding biological effects of PcCV1, HS-CQ15 harboring the chrysovirus exhibited no obvious difference in colony morphology under fungicide-free conditions but decreased resistance to demethylation inhibitor (DMI)-fungicide prochloraz, as compared to PcCV1-cured strain. Here we provide the first evidence of a virus present in citrus pathogenic fungus P. crustosum and the chrysovirus-induced change in fungicide-resistance of its host fungus

A geostatistical approach to upscale soil moisture with unequal precision observations

Upscaling ground-based moisture observations to satellite footprint-scale estimates is an important problem in remote sensing soil-moisture product validation. The reliability of validation is sensitive to the quality of input observation data and the upscaling strategy. This letter proposes a model-based geostatistical approach to scale up soil moisture with observations of unequal precision. It incorporates unequal precision in the spatial covariance structure and uses Monte Carlo simulation in combination with a block kriging (BK) upscaling strategy. The approach is illustrated with a real-world application for upscaling soil moisture in the Heihe Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research experiment. The results show that BK with unequal precision observations can consider both random ground-based measurement errors and upscaling model error to achieve more reliable estimates. We conclude that this approach is appropriate to quantify upscaling uncertainties and to investigate the error propagation process in soil-moisture upscaling. © 2004-2012 IEEE

A Spatial Heterogeneity-Based Segmentation Model for Analyzing Road Deterioration Network Data in Multi-Scale Infrastructure Systems

Road network conditions and road quality are directly linked with the performance of an entire infrastructure system. As sensor monitoring of road deteriorations has rapidly increased, road infrastructure performance can now be assessed using multiple measures. However, more effective and accurate quantitative analysis methods are increasingly required. This research explores road infrastructure performance using road deterioration network data in the Mid West Gascoyne region, Australia. A spatial heterogeneity-based segmentation (SHS) model is developed for redefining road segments across the network in terms of sensor monitoring data, and for both project-level and network-level infrastructure systems management. To evaluate the model effectiveness and accuracy, an evaluation system is proposed from four aspects: segment number, homogeneity within segments, heterogeneity among segments, and segment morphology. The SHS model is compared with two widely used road network segmentation methods. The results show that the SHS model can use fewer segments to ensure higher homogeneity within segments and heterogeneity among segments across the network. Meanwhile, the segment lengths are more uniformly distributed as compared with results from other methods. The developed model and findings from this research can significantly improve the utilization of sensor monitoring network data and support multi-scale infrastructure systems management

Characterization of Damage Progress in the Defective Grouted Sleeve Connection Using Combined Acoustic Emission and Ultrasonics

The grouted sleeve connection is one of the most widely used connections for prefabricated buildings (PBs). Usually, its quality can have a significant impact on the safety of the whole PB, especially for the internal flaws that form during sleeve grouting. It is directly related to the mechanical performance and failure behavior of the grouted sleeve. Therefore, it is essential to understand the damage progression of the defective grouted sleeve connection. However, destructive testing is the mainstream measure to evaluate the grout sleeves, which is not applicable for in situ inspection. Therefore, this paper proposes a combined acoustic emission (AE) and ultrasonic testing (UT) method to characterize the damage progress of a grouted sleeve with different degrees of internal flaws under tensile loading. The UT was conducted before loading to evaluate the internal flaws. Additionally, the AE was used as the processing monitoring technique during the tensile testing. Two damage modes were identified: (i) brittle mode associated with the rebar pullout; (ii) ductile mode associated with the rapture of the rebar. The UT energy ratio was selected as the most sensitive feature to the internal flaws, both numerically and experimentally. The AE signatures of different damage phases and different damage modes were determined and characterized. For the brittle and ductile damage modes, two and three phases appeared in the AE activities, respectively. The proposed combined AE and UT method can provide a reliable and convenient nondestructive evaluation of grouted sleeves with internal flaws. Moreover, it can also characterize the damage progress of the grouted sleeve connections in real-time