Electrochemical performance of different carbon fuels on a hybrid direct carbon fuel cell

The authors acknowledge the financial support of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for a RSE BP Hutton Prize in Energy Innovation and EPSRC Platform grant, EP/K015540/1.In this work, three processed carbon fuels including activated carbon, carbon black and graphite have been employed to investigate influence of the chemical and physical properties of carbon on the HDCFC performance in different anode atmospheres at 650–800 °C. The results reveal that the electrochemical activity is strongly dependent on crystalline structure, thermal stability and textural properties of carbon fuels. The activated carbon samples demonstrate a better performance with a peak power density of 326 mW cm−2 in CO2 at 750 °C, compared to 147 and 59 mW cm−2 with carbon black and graphite samples, respectively. Compared to the ohmic resistance, the polarization resistance plays a more dominated role in the cell performance. When replacing N2 by CO2 purge gas, the power density is the strongly temperature dependent due to the Boudouard reaction.PostprintPeer reviewe

Effects of V4c-ICL Implantation on Myopic Patients’ Vision-Related Daily Activities

The new type implantable Collamer lens with a central hole (V4c-ICL) is widely used to treat myopia. However, halos occur in some patients after surgery. The aim is to evaluate the effect of V4c-ICL implantation on vision-related daily activities. This retrospective study included 42 patients. Uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA), best corrected visual acuity (BCVA), intraocular pressure (IOP), endothelial cell density (ECD), and vault were recorded and vision-related daily activities were evaluated at 3 months after operation. The average spherical equivalent was -0.12±0.33 D at 3 months after operation. UCVA equal to or better than preoperative BCVA occurred in 98% of eyes. The average BCVA at 3 months after operation was -0.03±0.07 LogMAR, which was significantly better than preoperative BCVA (0.08±0.10 LogMAR) (P=0.029). Apart from one patient (2.4%) who had difficulty reading computer screens, all patients had satisfactory or very satisfactory results. During the early postoperation, halos occurred in 23 patients (54.8%). However there were no significant differences in the scores of visual functions between patients with and without halos (P>0.05). Patients were very satisfied with their vision-related daily activities at 3 months after operation. The central hole of V4c-ICL does not affect patients’ vision-related daily activities

Retroperitoneal schwannoma mimicking a metastatic lymph node of renal clear cell carcinoma: a case report

Schwannomas are usually benign tumors typically found in the head, neck, and extremities, with approximately 3% originating in the retroperitoneum. In this case, a young male presented with incidental masses in the left kidney and retroperitoneum. Abdominal pelvic enhanced computerized tomography (CT) revealed a tumor apparently originating from the left kidney, along with a retroperitoneal mass suspected to be a metastatic lymph node. Subsequently, a radical nephrectomy of the left kidney and retroperitoneal mass resection was performed. Pathological examination confirmed the left kidney mass as renal clear cell carcinoma and the retroperitoneal mass as schwannoma. The patient recovered uneventfully and was discharged from the hospital. A 6-month postoperative follow-up showed no evidence of recurrence. Preoperative diagnosis of schwannomas concurrent with other concurrent malignancies in rare sites, such as the retroperitoneum, is challenging due to their rare and non-specific radiological features. Although retroperitoneal schwannomas are rare, they should be considered in the differential diagnosis during CT examinations for renal cancer. Additionally, the advantages of a multidisciplinary team approach should be utilized in tumor management

Evaluation of the quality and reliability of anal cancer and its precancerous lesions-related content on YouTube: a cross-sectional study

Objectives This research aims at evaluating the quality of anal cancer and its precancerous lesions-related videos on YouTube.Design Cross-sectional survey design.Setting USA.Participants The top 150 videos on YouTube were selected for analysis based on three search terms. The duplicate, irrelevant, commercial, operation-related and audio-free videos were excluded. Finally, 105 relevant videos were included.Methods We assessed the completeness of video content from six dimensions and marked the men having sex with men (MSM)-related videos. To measure the video quality, DISCERN, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Benchmark Criteria, Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) and Global Quality Scale (GQS) were used. The correlation between DISCERN classification and duration, JAMA, PEMAT and GQS scores were recorded.Results The video content was mainly about the management of the disease (mean score 1.086). Overall, the quality of videos uploaded by the non-profit organisation was relatively high. A correlation existed between each other of the JAMA, DISCERN and GQS scores (p<0.001). Moreover, they were positively correlated with video duration and PEMAT scores (p<0.001).Conclusions Although the overall quality of information about anal cancer and its precancerous lesions videos on YouTube is acceptable, it might not fully meet the health information needs of patients. Therefore, they should exercise caution when using YouTube as a source of anal cancer-related information, especially the MSM population

An analytical study of mechanical behavior of polypropylene/calcium carbonate composites under uniaxial tension and three-point bending

Analytic solutions of test curve are beneficial to analyze mechanical properties and to understand the reason behind mechanical behaviors of materials. Herein, two relationships about both average true strain and average true stress on necking were obtained. Further, the homogenizing constitutive equation was obtained according to the linear viscoelastic constitutive equation becoming the foundation of solving analytic solutions of material behavior. The applicability of analytic solutions in the entire test range was discussed and improved by experimental results of both uniaxial tension and three-point bending. Analytic solutions of test curve in this work conform well to the experiments. The moduli and strengths of polypropylene calcium carbonate composites were predicted according to this model. This mathematical model indicates that mechanical behavior of linear viscoelastic material was the outcome of competition between stress-increasing of extension and stress-decreasing of relaxation. It is hoped that the empirical formulae of two routine test curves can bring convenience for an analytical study of mechanical behavior of linear viscoelastic materials. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Large-Scale Place Recognition Based on Camera-LiDAR Fused Descriptor

In the field of autonomous driving, carriers are equipped with a variety of sensors, including cameras and LiDARs. However, the camera suffers from problems of illumination and occlusion, and the LiDAR encounters motion distortion, degenerate environment and limited ranging distance. Therefore, fusing the information from these two sensors deserves to be explored. In this paper, we propose a fusion network which robustly captures both the image and point cloud descriptors to solve the place recognition problem. Our contribution can be summarized as: (1) applying the trimmed strategy in the point cloud global feature aggregation to improve the recognition performance, (2) building a compact fusion framework which captures both the robust representation of the image and 3D point cloud, and (3) learning a proper metric to describe the similarity of our fused global feature. The experiments on KITTI and KAIST datasets show that the proposed fused descriptor is more robust and discriminative than the single sensor descriptor

The Clinical Characteristics and Prognostic Factors of Primary Extramammary Paget’s Disease Treated with Surgery in Anogenital Regions: A Large Population Study from the SEER Database and Our Centre

Background: Extramammary Paget’s disease (EMPD) is a rare malignant cutaneous tumour that is commonly located in anogenital regions. The diagnosis of the disease is always delayed, and treatment is usually troublesome. This study aims to summarise the clinicopathological characteristics and the risk factors of prognosis for EMPD in anogenital regions, potentially providing evidence for the diagnosis and treatment of anogenital EMPD. Methods: 688 patients were sourced from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program between 1992 and 2021. In total, 176 participants from our centre from between 2011 and 2021 were included to investigate the characteristics and prognosis for EMPD in anogenital regions. Results: From the SEER program data, patient age of 65 years or older, metastasis of lymph nodes, Spanish-Hispanic-Latino race, diameter exceeding 10cm and lesions located anally were revealed as independent risk factors for shorter cancer-specific survival (CSS). However, the data from our centre highlighted that metastasis of lymph nodes and tumours extending through the epidermis are independent risk factors of shortened progression-free survival (PFS) and CSS of anogenital EMPD. Conclusion: This synthesised study revealed that some characteristics are regarded as risk factors for poor clinical prognosis, which have potential value in formulating more normative and effective strategies for patients with EMPD in anogenital regions

Enhanced thermal and mechanical properties of epoxy composites by mixing noncovalently functionalized graphene sheets

In this study, a novel thermotropic liquid crystal perylene bisimides polyurethane (LCPU) was synthesized using 3,4,9,10-perylenetetracarboxylic acid anhydride (PTCDA), hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI), diglycolamine (DGA) and polyethylene glycol-200 (PEG-200) as raw materials. Based on the unique domain structure of pi-pi conjugate in perylenetetracarboxylic derivatives (PBIs), we modified the reduced graphene oxide (RGO) with LCPU. The graphene-based liquid crystal perylene bisimides polyurethane (LCPU/RGO) was prepared via pi-pi stacking interactions of RGO with LCPU. LCPU and LCPU/RGO were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polarizing microscope (POM), wide-angle X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). LCPU/RGO was used to modify epoxy resins. The mechanical and thermal properties of the composites were systematically investigated. The results showed that the thermal and mechanical properties of the composites were enhanced effectively by the addition of LCPU/RGO. When the LCPU content was 0.7 wt%, the impact strength and bending modulus of composite were increased by 68.8 and 48.5 %, respectively, compared with neat epoxy. Its thermal decomposition temperature was 31 A degrees C higher than that of neat epoxy