Treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compressive fractures with percutaneous kyphoplasty and oral Zishengukang

AbstractObjectiveTo observe the therapeutic effect of percutaneous kyphoplasty (PKP) and oral Zishengukang (ZSGK) for the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs).MethodsSeventy patients were randomly divided into a control group (PKP group) and an experimental group (PKP plus ZSGK group). The 35 patients in the experimental group were prescribed 6 g oral ZSGK three times a day for 90 days after PKP. Visual analog pain scale (VAS), Oswestry functional score, vertebral height and Cobb's angle were recorded and compared before treatment and at one week, one month and three months after treatment.ResultsVertebral height and Cobb's angle significantly improved and VAS and Oswestry functional score were significantly lower in both groups after PKP than pre-operatively (P<0.01). Three months after treatment, VAS and Oswestry functional score in the experimental group were lower than controls (P<0.05), even though vertebral height and Cobb's angle were comparable (P>0.05).ConclusionPKP combined with oral ZSGK provide superior short-term and long-term symptom control after OVCF than PKP alone

Simulating broken PT\cal PT-symmetric Hamiltonian systems by weak measurement

By embedding a $\cal PT$-symmetric (pseudo-Hermitian) system into a large Hermitian one, we disclose the relations between $\cal{PT}$-symmetric Hamiltonians and weak measurement theory. We show that the amplification effect in weak measurement on a conventional quantum system can be used to effectively simulate a local broken $\cal PT$-symmetric Hamiltonian system, with the pre-selected state in the $\cal PT$-symmetric Hamiltonian system and its post-selected state resident in the dilated Hamiltonian system.Comment: 4 pages; with Supplemental Materia

Planning and coordinated response mechanism of economic and ecological services in urban expansion

Against the backdrop of urban sustainable development around the world, how to coordinate both economic growth and ecological benefits in urban space becomes an important problem. Therefore, this study simulated and predicted the spatiotemporal changes in urban economy and ecosystem service value (E.S.V.) equivalent ratio under the current policies by 2030, and analysed how adjusting planning policies influences economy and ecology. This process was based on the future land use simulation (F.L.U.S.) model of coupled neural network, and on methods assessing the spatial changes in ecosystem services and land economy. This study aims to analyse urban land economy and E.S.V., and assess how China’s land spatial planning guides and promotes high-quality urban economic development. Results show that artificial intelligence (A.I.) simulation can forecast the results of spatial planning policies of national lands, to make policy-making more forwardlooking. The guidance of planning policies on urban expansion accelerates the increase in economic value of urban residential and commercial lands, thereby promoting the economic growth. However, adjusted planning policies may lead to ecological destruction. So, this study provides model verifications and path guidance to realise coordinated sustainable development between economy and ecology, serving as an important reference to formulating proper policies for urban development

Stator Design Aspects for Permanent Magnet Super-conducting Wind Power Generators

This paper presents an electromagnetic design of a permanent magnet superconducting wind power generator with different stator teeth structures and armature winding arrangements. The main contribution of this paper is that a novel stator configuration is proposed, which is beneficial for superconducting machines. The topology of tapering poles makes it possible for the machine to carry larger current without severe magnetic saturation in the stator teeth. Meantime, the distributed arrangement of wires in the stator slot can reduce the ac loss in the same output power condition. Finite element analysis with commercial software is used to support these results

PSO-GA Based Resource AllocationStrategy for Cloud-Based SoftwareServices with Workload-Time Windows

Cloud-based software services necessitate adaptive resource allocation with the promise of dynamic resource adjustment for guaranteeing the Quality-of-Service (QoS) and reducing resource costs. However, it is challenging to achieve adaptive resource allocation for software services in complex cloud environments with dynamic workloads. To address this essential problem, we propose an adaptive resource allocation strategy for cloud-based software services with workload-time windows. Based on the QoS prediction, the proposed strategy first brings the current and future workloads into the process of calculating resource allocation plans. Next, the particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithm (PSO-GA) is proposed to make run time decisions for exploring the objective resource allocation plan. Using the RUBiS benchmark, the extensive simulation experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy on improving the performance of resource allocation for cloud-based software services.The simulation results show that the proposed strategy can obtain a better trade-off between the QoS and resource costs than two classic resource allocation methods.publishedVersio

Comparison of electromagnetic performance of scpm wind power generators with different topologies

This paper focuses on the comparison of electromagnetic performance of the superconducting permanent magnet (SCPM) generators with two different topologies. The torque capabilities of the two generators are first investigated. The peak torque is largely restricted by the material characteristics of the superconducting (SC) and the permanent magnet. The SCPM generators with iron-cored rotor and iron-cored stator topology (IRIST) is superior to the one with iron-cored rotor and air-cored stator topology in terms of torque capability. Furthermore, the flux density, line electromotive force, torque and its torque ripple, and the efficiency of the designed generators are evaluated by using numerical model. The simulation results confirm that IRIST has higher output torque and efficiency with the penalty of higher harmonics and torque ripples

Bifacial dye-sensitized solar cells : a strategy to enhance overall efficiency based on transparent polyaniline electrode

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a promising solution to global energy and environmental problems because of its clean, low-cost, high efficiency, good durability, and easy fabrication. However, enhancing the efficiency of the DSSC still is an important issue. Here we devise a bifacial DSSC based on a transparent polyaniline (PANI) counter electrode (CE). Owing to the sunlight irradiation simultaneously from the front and the rear sides, more dye molecules are excited and more carriers are generated, which results in the enhancement of short-circuit current density and therefore overall conversion efficiency. The photoelectric properties of PANI can be improved by modifying with 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP). The bifacial DSSC with 4-ATP/PANI CE achieves a light-to-electric energy conversion efficiency of 8.35%, which is increased by ,24.6% compared to the DSSC irradiated from the front only. This new concept along with promising results provides a new approach for enhancing the photovoltaic performances of solar cells.The authors acknowledge the financial joint support by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (No. 2009AA03Z217), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 90922028, U1205112, 51002053, 61306077), Seed Fund from Ocean University of China, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (201313001)

A Novel SAGE Algorithm for Estimating Parameters of Wideband Spatial Nonstationary Wireless Channels with Antenna Polarization

In this article, a novel space-alternating generalized expectation-maximization (SAGE) algorithm is proposed for parameter estimations of wideband spatial nonstationary wireless channels with antenna polarization (SAGE-WSNSAP). Compared with the traditional SAGE algorithm, the proposed SAGE-WSNSAP algorithm adds spatial nonstationarity by introducing birth-death coefficients at both transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) sides into the parametric model. To reduce the complexity of the SAGE-WSNSAP algorithm, a coarse-to-fine search method is adopted in the initialization step. In addition, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel measurements are conducted to validate the proposed algorithm. The measurement results of the angle-delay power spectral density (PSD) and average delay PSD are compared with those estimated by the far-field SAGE algorithm, the near-field SAGE algorithm, and the proposed algorithm. It is found that the estimation results using the proposed SAGE-WSNSAP algorithm show higher similarity to measurement results than using the other two SAGE algorithms. In comparison to the far-field and near-field SAGE algorithms, the SAGE-WSNSAP algorithm can extract more effective multipath components (MPCs) and improve the power extraction ratios.</p