Design and Implementation of connected antenna array for ultra-wide applications.

An integrated eight-element antenna array has been proposed for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications. It consists of eight UWB antenna elements and an eight-way binary-tree modified Wilkinson power divider. Any two adjacent elements in the array are connected to each other and share a common side, thus leading to a connected antenna array. Moreover, this arrangement can be utilized to avoid grating lobe level at higher frequencies. Each antenna element comprises a square ring patch and is excited by a tapered balun to achieve low cross-polarization levels. In order to validate the design, a prototype has been fabricated and measured. Both simulated and measured results confirm that the proposed integrated antenna array achieves a good performance of a reflection coefficient below -10 dB from 2.9 GHz to 10.8 GHz, including stable radiation patterns with low side lobe and cross-polarization levels, thus the antenna is promising for applications in UWB imaging systems

Design and Investigation of Differential-Fed Ultra-Wideband Patch Antenna with Polarization Diversity

A novel single- or dual-polarized ultra-wideband (UWB) patch antenna fed by coupled feeding mechanism is proposed. The single-polarized antenna consists of a square ring patch and two ?-shaped patches which are coupled to the radiating patch. The vertical portions of the ?-shaped patches are connected to the microstrip lines which are printed on the bottom layer of the grounded FR4 substrate. To realize the differential feeding mechanism for enhancing the polarization purity, a tapered balun is employed to excite the antenna. Further to provide dual linear orthogonal polarizations, another pair of ?-shaped patches is added in the single-polarized UWB antenna. The dual-polarized UWB antenna prototype can achieve two orthogonal polarizations with an impedance bandwidth (?dB) of 113% and isolation of over 25?dB across the entire frequency band

Design of a low-profile wideband patch antenna with L-shaped feeding mechanism

This paper has presented the design of a novel low-profile wideband patch antenna. The antenna structure is formed of three layers of substrates with the radiating patches on the top, the grounded patches in the middle and the feeding portion at the bottom. The large operating frequency bandwidth has been obtained due to the L-shaped feeding technique. Moreover, the low cross-polarization level can also be achieved as the feeding structure can be regarded as the preferred differential feeding. The obtained results can confirm that the proposed antenna has achieved a wide impedance bandwidth (VSWR ≤ 2) of about 60% (3-5.5 GHz) and the whole height of the antenna is 6 mm (around 0.06λ l at the lowest operating frequency). The obtained cross-polarization level is less than-30dB compared with co-polarization

24-GHz Circularly Polarized Substrate Integrated Waveguide-Fed Patch Antenna

This paper has presented the design of a 24-GHz patch antenna with characteristics of good circular polarization, simple structure and easy fabrication. The printed antenna consists of two layers of substrates with the lower one for achieving a short-ended substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) and the upper one for supporting the rectangular radiating patch. The left-handed circularly polarized wave has been obtained by etching a 450 rotated cross-shaped slot on the broad wall of the SIW. The obtained results can confirm that the proposed antenna has achieved an impedance bandwidth (|S 11 | ≤-10 dB) of 23.1-25.3GHz and the 3-dB axial ratio bandwidth of 23.2-24.7GHz

Ambient air pollutants relate to hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Ganzhou, China

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relationship between ambient air pollutants and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in relatively low-polluted areas in China. METHODS Atmospheric pollutants levels and meteorological data were obtained from January 2016 to December 2020. The medical database including daily hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (ICD10: J44) was derived from the First Affiliated Hospital of Gannan Medical University. The generalized additive model was used to analyze the percentage change with 95% confidence interval in daily hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associated with a 10 µg/m3 increase in atmospheric pollutants levels. RESULTS In total, occurred 4,980 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions (not including emergency department visits) during 2016–2020. The mean concentrations of daily PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, O3, and CO were 37.5 μg/m3, 60.1 μg/m3, 18.7 μg/m3, 23.5 μg/m3, 70.0 μg/m3, and 1.2 mg/m3 in Ganzhou. Each 10 µg/m3 increment of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and O3 were significantly associated with 2.8% (95%CI: 1.0–4.7), 1.3% (95%CI: 0.3–2.4), 2.8% (95%CI: 0.4–5.4), and 1.5% (95%CI: 0.2–2.7) elevation in daily chronic obstructive pulmonary disease hospital admissions. The estimates of delayed effects of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and O3 were observed at lag6, lag6, lag8, lag1, respectively. The health effects of particulate pollutants (PM2.5 and PM10) may be independent of other pollutants. The adverse effects of air pollutants were more evident in the warm season (May–Oct) than in the cold season (Nov–Apr). CONCLUSION Our study demonstrated that elevated concentrations of atmospheric pollutant (PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and O3), especially particulate pollutants, can be associated with increased daily count of hospital admissions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , which may promote further understanding of the potential hazards of relatively low levels of air pollution on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other respiratory disorders

Assessing equity of healthcare utilization in rural China: results from nationally representative surveys from 1993 to 2008

Background: The phenomenon of inequitable healthcare utilization in rural China interests policymakers and researchers; however, the inequity has not been actually measured to present the magnitude and trend using nationally representative data. Methods: Based on the National Health Service Survey (NHSS) in 1993, 1998, 2003, and 2008, the Probit model with the probability of outpatient visit and the probability of inpatient visit as the dependent variables is applied to estimate need-predicted healthcare utilization. Furthermore, need-standardized healthcare utilization is assessed through indirect standardization method. Concentration index is measured to reflect income-related inequity of healthcare utilization. Results: The concentration index of need-standardized outpatient utilization is 0.0486[95% confidence interval (0.0399, 0.0574)], 0.0310[95% confidence interval (0.0229, 0.0390)], 0.0167[95% confidence interval (0.0069, 0.0264)] and −0.0108[95% confidence interval (−0.0213, -0.0004)] in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008, respectively. For inpatient service, the concentration index is 0.0529[95% confidence interval (0.0349, 0.0709)], 0.1543[95% confidence interval (0.1356, 0.1730)], 0.2325[95% confidence interval (0.2132, 0.2518)] and 0.1313[95% confidence interval (0.1174, 0.1451)] in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008, respectively. Conclusions: Utilization of both outpatient and inpatient services was pro-rich in rural China with the exception of outpatient service in 2008. With the same needs for healthcare, rich rural residents utilized more healthcare service than poor rural residents. Compared to utilization of outpatient service, utilization of inpatient service was more inequitable. Inequity of utilization of outpatient service reduced gradually from 1993 to 2008; meanwhile, inequity of inpatient service utilization increased dramatically from 1993 to 2003 and decreased significantly from 2003 to 2008. Recent attempts in China to increase coverage of insurance and primary healthcare could be a contributing factor to counteract the inequity of outpatient utilization, but better benefit packages and delivery strategies still need to be tested and scaled up to reduce future inequity in inpatient utilization in rural China

Efficient removal of tetracycline from aqueous solution by K2CO3 activated penicillin fermentation residue biochar

In this study, biochar was prepared using penicillin fermentation residue (PR) as the raw material by different methods. The adsorption behavior and adsorption mechanism of biochar on tetracycline (TC) in an aqueous environment were investigated. The results showed that K2CO3 as an activator could effectively make porous structures, and that biochar with mesoporous or microporous could be prepared in a controlled manner with two kinds of different activation methods, the dry mixing method and the impregnation method. The dry mixing method could create more mesopores, while the impregnation method could prepare more micropores. Microporous biochar (IKBCH) with a high specific surface area could be prepared by the impregnation method combined with HCl soaking, which has an excellent adsorption effect on tetracycline. When the concentration of tetracycline was 200 mg/L, the removal rate of 99.91% could be achieved with the dosage of microporous biochar at 1 g/L. The adsorption process was in accordance with the Langmuir model and the pseudo-second-order model, respectively. The maximum adsorption capacity of IKBCH was 268.55 mg/g (25°C). The adsorption mechanisms were pore filling, π-π interaction, electrostatic adsorption, and hydrogen bond. Its stable and wide applicability adsorption process does not cause ecological pollution in the aqueous environment, and it is a promising biochar adsorbent