Electron kinetic effects in atmospheric dielectric-barrier glow discharges

Large-volume atmospheric dielectric-barrier discharges (DBD) are particularly useful for processing applications when they operate in their homogeneous mode. A vast majority of their theoretical studies is currently based on the hydrodynamic treatment in which electrons are assumed to be in equilibrium with the local electric field. Recognizing that this assumption is incorrect in the sheath region, we report the development of an electron-hybrid model to treat electrons kinetically and all other particles hydrodynamically. Through numerical examples, it is shown that the mainstream hydrodynamic model underestimates gas ionization and discharge current. Using the hybrid model, it is demonstrated that variation in the amplitude of the applied voltage does not significantly alter sheath characteristics in terms of the electric field and the electron mean energy. Also gas ionization in atmospheric DBD is found to be significant only over a short timescale of 1 µs. Compared with dc atmospheric pressure glow discharges, atmospheric DBD are shown to have a smaller electron mean energy and a larger sheath thickness

Effectiveness of acupoint hot compress on early puerperal rehabilitation of parturients after natural childbirth: study protocol for a prospective, multi-center, randomized controlled clinical trial

Early puerperal rehabilitation can interfere with a woman's ability to care for herself and her infant. Acupoint hot compress, with a combination of acupoints and natural physical agent heat, has significant potential to alleviate symptoms experienced during early puerperium. Current evidence regarding the effects of acupoint hot compress therapy on early puerperal rehabilitation is insufficient. The aim of this study is to address this with a multi-center design and large sample size. This is a prospective, multi-center, and randomized controlled clinical trial. A total of 1400 nulliparous women with a singleton pregnancy experiencing natural childbirth from 14 hospitals will be enrolled and randomly allocated to either an intervention group or a control group in a 1:1 ratio. Subjects in the control group will only receive routine postpartum care. In addition to routine postpartum care, the subjects in the intervention group will be administered a 4-hour acupoint hot compress with a constant temperature of 45±2°C respectively within 30 minutes after delivery, 24 hours and 48 hours after delivery. The primary outcome will be the time elapsed from delivery to the first urination. The secondary outcomes will be postpartum uterine contraction pain intensity, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale for screening postpartum depression and the assessment of lactation including recording the lactation initiation time, postpartum diet, appetite, weight, neonatal weight. These results will provide evidence for obstetricians and parturients on considering nonpharmacologic and noninvasive intervention in early puerperal rehabilitation

Testing a Family Supportive End of Life Care Intervention in a Chinese Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Quasi-experimental Study With a Non-randomized Controlled Trial Design

Background: Neonatal death often occurs in tertiary Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs). In China, end-of-life-care (EOLC) does not always involve parents. Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate a parent support intervention to integrate parents at the end of life of their infant in the NICU. Methods: A quasi-experimental study using a non-randomized clinical trial design was conducted between May 2020 and September 2021. Participants were infants in an EOLC pathway in the NICU and their parents. Parents were allocated into a family supportive EOLC intervention group or a standard EOLC group based on their wishes. The primary outcomes depression (Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale for mothers; Hamilton Depression rating scale for fathers) and Satisfaction with Care were measured 1 week after infants' death. Student t-test for continuous variables and the Chi-square test categorical variables were used in the statistical analysis. Results: In the study period, 62 infants died and 45 infants and 90 parents were enrolled; intervention group 20 infants, standard EOLC group 25 infants. The most common causes of death in both groups were congenital abnormalities (n = 20, 44%). Mean gestational age of infants between the family supportive EOLC group and standard EOLC group was 31.45 vs. 33.8 weeks (p = 0.234). Parents between both groups did not differ in terms of age, delivery of infant, and economic status. In the family support group, higher education levels were observed among mother (p = 0.026) and fathers (p = 0.020). Both mothers and fathers in the family supportive EOLC group had less depression compared to the standard EOLC groups; mothers (mean 6.90 vs. 7.56; p = 0.017) and fathers (mean 20.7 vs. 23.1; p < 0.001). Parents reported higher satisfaction in the family supportive EOLC group (mean 88.9 vs. 86.6; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Supporting parents in EOLC in Chinese NICUs might decreased their depression and increase satisfaction after the death of their infant. Future research needs to focus on long-term effects and expand on larger populations with different cultural backgrounds. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT05270915

Relation of a New Interpretation of Stochastic Differential Equations to Ito Process

Stochastic differential equations (SDE) are widely used in modeling stochastic dynamics in literature. However, SDE alone is not enough to determine a unique process. A specified interpretation for stochastic integration is needed. Different interpretations specify different dynamics. Recently, a new interpretation of SDE is put forward by one of us. This interpretation has a built-in Boltzmann-Gibbs distribution and shows the existence of potential function for general processes, which reveals both local and global dynamics. Despite its powerful property, its relation with classical ones in arbitrary dimension remains obscure. In this paper, we will clarify such connection and derive the concise relation between the new interpretation and Ito process. We point out that the derived relation is experimentally testable.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure

A Topological Study of Chaotic Iterations. Application to Hash Functions

International audienceChaotic iterations, a tool formerly used in distributed computing, has recently revealed various interesting properties of disorder leading to its use in the computer science security field. In this paper, a comprehensive study of its topological behavior is proposed. It is stated that, in addition to being chaotic as defined in the Devaney's formulation, this tool possesses the property of topological mixing. Additionally, its level of sensibility, expansivity, and topological entropy are evaluated. All of these properties lead to a complete unpredictable behavior for the chaotic iterations. As it only manipulates binary digits or integers, we show that it is possible to use it to produce truly chaotic computer programs. As an application example, a truly chaotic hash function is proposed in two versions. In the second version, an artificial neural network is used, which can be stated as chaotic according to Devaney

Identifying cancer-related microRNAs based on gene expression data

Motivation: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs that play important roles in post-transcriptional regulations as well as other important biological processes. Recently, accumulating evidences indicate that miRNAs are extensively involved in cancer. However, it is a big challenge to identify which miRNAs are related to which cancer considering the complex processes involved in tumors, where one miRNA may target hundreds or even thousands of genes and one gene may regulate multiple miRNAs. Despite integrative analysis of matched gene and miRNA expression data can help identify cancer-associated miRNAs, such kind of data is not commonly available. On the other hand, there are huge amount of gene expression data that are publicly accessible. It will significantly improve the efficiency of characterizing miRNA’s function in cancer if we can identify cancer miRNAs directly from gene expression data. Results: We present a novel computational framework to identify the cancer-related miRNAs based solely on gene expression profiles without requiring either miRNA expression data or the matched gene and miRNA expression data. The results on multiple cancer datasets show that our proposed method can effectively identify cancer-related miRNAs with higher precision compared with other popular approaches. Furthermore, some of our novel predictions are validated by both differentially expressed miRNAs and evidences from literature, implying the predictive power of our proposed method. In addition, we construct a cancer-miRNA-pathway network, which can help explain how miRNAs are involved in cancer

Search for the Rare Decays J/Psi --> Ds- e+ nu_e, J/Psi --> D- e+ nu_e, and J/Psi --> D0bar e+ e-

We report on a search for the decays J/Psi --> Ds- e+ nu_e + c.c., J/Psi --> D- e+ nu_e + c.c., and J/Psi --> D0bar e+ e- + c.c. in a sample of 5.8 * 10^7 J/Psi events collected with the BESII detector at the BEPC. No excess of signal above background is observed, and 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fractions are set: B(J/Psi --> Ds- e+ nu_e + c.c.)<4.8*10^-5, B(J/Psi --> D- e+ nu_e + c.c.) D0bar e+ e- + c.c.)<1.1*10^-5Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Study of J/psi decays to Lambda Lambdabar and Sigma0 Sigma0bar

The branching ratios and Angular distributions for J/psi decays to Lambda Lambdabar and Sigma0 Sigma0bar are measured using BESII 58 million J/psi.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Measurements of the observed cross sections for e+e−→e^+e^-\to exclusive light hadrons containing π0π0\pi^0\pi^0 at s=3.773\sqrt s= 3.773, 3.650 and 3.6648 GeV

By analyzing the data sets of 17.3, 6.5 and 1.0 pb$^{-1}$ taken, respectively, at $\sqrt s= 3.773$, 3.650 and 3.6648 GeV with the BES-II detector at the BEPC collider, we measure the observed cross sections for $e^+e^-\to \pi^+\pi^-\pi^0\pi^0$, $K^+K^-\pi^0\pi^0$, $2(\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0)$, $K^+K^-\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0\pi^0$ and $3(\pi^+\pi^-)\pi^0\pi^0$ at the three energy points. Based on these cross sections we set the upper limits on the observed cross sections and the branching fractions for $\psi(3770)$ decay into these final states at 90% C.L..Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Direct Measurements of the Branching Fractions for D0→K−e+νeD^0 \to K^-e^+\nu_e and D0→π−e+νeD^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e and Determinations of the Form Factors f+K(0)f_{+}^{K}(0) and f+π(0)f^{\pi}_{+}(0)

The absolute branching fractions for the decays $D^0 \to K^-e ^+\nu_e$ and $D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e$ are determined using $7584\pm 198 \pm 341$ singly tagged $\bar D^0$ sample from the data collected around 3.773 GeV with the BES-II detector at the BEPC. In the system recoiling against the singly tagged $\bar D^0$ meson, $104.0\pm 10.9$ events for $D^0 \to K^-e ^+\nu_e$ and $9.0 \pm 3.6$ events for $D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e$ decays are observed. Those yield the absolute branching fractions to be $BF(D^0 \to K^-e^+\nu_e)=(3.82 \pm 0.40\pm 0.27)$ and $BF(D^0 \to \pi^-e^+\nu_e)=(0.33 \pm 0.13\pm 0.03)$. The vector form factors are determined to be $|f^K_+(0)| = 0.78 \pm 0.04 \pm 0.03$ and $|f^{\pi}_+(0)| = 0.73 \pm 0.14 \pm 0.06$. The ratio of the two form factors is measured to be $|f^{\pi}_+(0)/f^K_+(0)|= 0.93 \pm 0.19 \pm 0.07$.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure