Anemia is a risk factor for rapid eGFR decline in type 2 diabetes

ObjectiveTo investigate the association between anemia and progression of diabetic kidney disease (DKD) in type 2 diabetes.MethodsThis was a retrospective study. A total of 2570 in-patients with type 2 diabetes hospitalized in Jinan branch of Huashan hospital from January 2013 to October 2017 were included, among whom 526 patients were hospitalized ≥ 2 times with a median follow-up period of 2.75 years. Annual rate of eGFR decline was calculated in patients with multiple admissions. A rate of eGFR decline exceeding -5 ml/min per 1.73 m2 per year was defined as rapid eGFR decline. The prevalence of DKD and clinical characteristics were compared between anemia and non-anemia patients. Correlation analysis was conducted between anemia and clinical parameters. Comparison of clinical features were carried out between rapid eGFR decline and slow eGFR decline groups. The risk factors for rapid DKD progression were analyzed using logistic regression analysis.ResultsThe prevalence of anemia was 28.2% among the 2570 diabetic patients, while in patients with DKD, the incidence of anemia was 37.8%. Patients with anemia had greater prevalence of DKD, higher levels of urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR), serum creatinine, BUN, urine α1-MG, urine β2-MG, urine NAG/Cr, hsCRP, Cystatin C, homocysteine and lower eGFR, as compared to the patients without anemia. Anemia was correlated with age, UACR, eGFR, urinary NAG/Cr, hsCRP and diabetic retinopathy (DR). Logistic regression analysis of 526 patients with type 2 diabetes during the follow-up period showed that anemia was an independent risk factor for rapid eGFR decline.ConclusionAnemia is associated with worse renal function and is an independent risk factor for rapid eGFR decline in type 2 diabetes

Sound insulation properties analysis of rubber filled composite sandwich panel

Both composite panels, one of which is the composite multilayer four-ligament chirality structure, the other of which is the four-ligament chirality composite sandwich panel, were employed to analyze the sound insulation properties by theoretical arithmetic and numerical simulation. The composite multilayer four-ligament chirality structure (Model 1) is made up of aluminum, the core fillings of which is the thermoplastic vulcanized rubber. The four-ligament chirality composite sandwich panel (Model 2) contains three layers. Two face sheets are made of carbon/glass hybrid fibre bonded to the hexagonal honeycombs or chiral aluminumstructure, and the filler is thermoplastic vulcanized rubber. The energy band structure of the four-ligament chirality cells can be obtained by Bloch theorem and finite element theory. Both composite panels were designed by determine the reasonable cellular geometric parameters. The simulation model were established to conduct the sound insulation analysis of both models. The sound insulation experiment was also carried out in the anechoic tank. A comparison results show that that the chirality structure possesses favorable sound insulation performance, and that the sandwich panel made up of composite materials outperforms the coating with the chirality structure in terms of sound insulation

Systemic threats to hypervisor non-control data

Hypervisors are becoming a widespread virtualisation layer in current computer systems. Recent successful attacks against hypervisors indicate that they face the similar integrity threats as traditional operating systems. Current approaches that secure hypervisors mainly focus on code or control-data integrity, without paying attention to non-control data integrity. In this study the authors construct attacks that target hypervisor non-control data to demonstrate which types of data within the Xen hypervisor are critical to system security. It shows privilege, resource utilisation and security policy related data are vulnerable to return-oriented programming or DMA attacks. By modifying their values from one to another, the whole system's performance will be affected. By discussing current approaches that secure hypervisors, which are not suitable for non-control data, the work is to motivate new innovation in this area to protect them.Hypervisors are becoming a widespread virtualisation layer in current computer systems. Recent successful attacks against hypervisors indicate that they face the similar integrity threats as traditional operating systems. Current approaches that secure hypervisors mainly focus on code or control-data integrity, without paying attention to non-control data integrity. In this study the authors construct attacks that target hypervisor non-control data to demonstrate which types of data within the Xen hypervisor are critical to system security. It shows privilege, resource utilisation and security policy related data are vulnerable to return-oriented programming or DMA attacks. By modifying their values from one to another, the whole system's performance will be affected. By discussing current approaches that secure hypervisors, which are not suitable for non-control data, the work is to motivate new innovation in this area to protect them

Boundary conditions with adjustable slip length for the lattice Boltzmann simulation of liquid flow

The phenomenon of liquid slip has been studied by many researchers using the lattice Boltzmann method. However, boundary conditions for the lattice Boltzmann simulation of liquid flow are far from perfect and how to specify the boundary conditions for liquid flow with slip accurately is still a challenge. In this work, we introduce four widely used slip boundary conditions in gaseous flow into the simulation of liquid flow, two half-way schemes and two modified schemes. Theoretical analysis shows that all half-way schemes are equivalent in principle, so are the modified schemes. According to the equivalence of these schemes, these slip boundary conditions are improved by expanding the range of the combination parameters from [0,1] to [0,2] to surmount the barrier of limited simulated slip length. And the relations between the combination parameters and the slip length are deduced strictly in theory. The specified combination parameter is decided by the given slip length and the relaxation time. The discrete effects of these slip boundary conditions are analysed. If the grid is fine enough, the discrete effects can be ignorable and the local flow at the wall can be approximated as flow with linear velocity gradient. The accuracy and reliability of our method have been verified by the simulations of the Couette flow, the Poiseuille flow and the unsteady Womersley flow. The cylindrical Couette flow is also implemented to explore the possibility of simulating liquid flows with curved boundary

Electrospun Gelatin Fibers Surface Loaded ZnO Particles as a Potential Biodegradable Antibacterial Wound Dressing

Traditional wound dressings require frequent replacement, are prone to bacterial growth and cause a lot of environmental pollution. Therefore, biodegradable and antibacterial dressings are eagerly desired. In this paper, gelatin/ZnO fibers were first prepared by side-by-side electrospinning for potential wound dressing materials. The morphology, composition, cytotoxicity and antibacterial activity were characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), particle size analyzer (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), thermogravimetry (TGA) and Incucyte™ Zoom system. The results show that ZnO particles are uniformly dispersed on the surface of gelatin fibers and have no cytotoxicity. In addition, the gelatin/ZnO fibers exhibit excellent antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Escherichia coli (E. coli) with a significant reduction of bacteria to more than 90%. Therefore, such a biodegradable, nontoxic and antibacterial fiber has excellent application prospects in wound dressing

Synthesis, Characterization and Photocatalytic Activity of Nanocrystalline First Transition-Metal (Ti, Mn, Co, Ni and Zn) Oxisde Nanofibers by Electrospinning

In this work, five nanocrystalline first transition-metal (Ti, Mn, Co, Ni and Zn) oxide nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning and controlled calcination. The morphology, crystal structure, pore size distribution and specific surface area were systematically studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), surface and pore analysis, and thermo gravimetric analyzer (TGA). The results reveal that the obtained nanofibers have a continuously twisted three-dimensional scaffold structure and are composed of neat nanocrystals with a necklace-like arrangement. All the samples possess high specific surface areas, which follow the order of NiO nanofiber (393.645 m2/g) > TiO2 nanofiber (121.445 m2/g) > ZnO nanofiber (57.219 m2/g) > Co3O4 nanofiber (52.717 m2/g) > Mn2O3 nanofiber (18.600 m2/g). Moreover, the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) in aqueous solution was investigated in detail by employing the five kinds of metal oxide nanofibers as photocatalysts under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation separately. The results show that ZnO, TiO2 and NiO nanofibers exhibit excellent photocatalytic efficiency and high cycling ability to MB, which may be ascribed to unique porous structures and the highly efficient separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. In brief, this paper aims to provide a feasible approach to achieve five first transition-metal oxide nanofibers with excellent performance, which is important for practical applications

Modeling Sediment Yields and Stream Stability Due to Sediment-Related Disaster in Shihmen Reservoir Watershed in Taiwan

Accurate and reliable estimates of sediment yields from a watershed and identification of unstable stream reaches due to sediment-related disaster are crucial for watershed management, disaster prevention, and hazard mitigation purposes. In this study, we added hydrodynamic and sediment transport modules in a recently developed model to estimate sediment yields and identify the unstable stream reaches in a large-scale watershed (> 100km2). The calibrated and verified models can well reproduce the flow discharge and sediment discharge at the study site, the Shihmen Reservoir Watershed in Taiwan, during several typhoon events. For the scenario applications, the results revealed that the contribution (> 96%) of landslides on sediment supply is much more significant than compared to soil erosion (< 4%). The sediment contribution from the upstream of the hydrological station-Yufeng is approximately 36⁻55% of the total sediment supply for the rainfall events of 25, 50, 100, and 200 years return period. It also indicates that 22⁻52% of sediment still remain at foot of the slope and the streams, which become a potential source for sediment hazards in the future. Combining with the bed erosion and deposition depths, flow-induced shear stress from the SRH-2D model, and probability of slope failure within 250 m of stream reaches, the relatively stability of stream reaches can be identified. The results could provide the water resource authorities for reference to take precautionary measures in advance on the stream reaches with high-degree instability

Environmentally Friendly Gelatin/β-Cyclodextrin Composite Fiber Adsorbents for the Efficient Removal of Dyes from Wastewater

In this paper, environmentally friendly gelatin/β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) composite fiber adsorbents prepared by electrospinning were used for the removal of dyes from wastewater. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and a universal materials tester were employed to characterize the internal structures, surface morphologies and mechanical strength of the composite fiber adsorbents. Additionally, the fiber was evaluated as an adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue (MB) from aqueous solution. The effects of the raw material ratio, pH, temperature, concentration and adsorption time were studied. The results show that the gelatin/β-CD composite fiber adsorbents possess excellent mechanical strength and high adsorption efficiency for MB. The adsorption equilibrium and adsorption kinetics are well-described by the Langmuir isotherm model and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, respectively. The theoretical maximum adsorption capacity is 47.4 mg·g−1. Additionally, after nine successive desorption-adsorption cycles, the removal rate is still over 70%. Moreover, the gelatin/β-CD composite fiber adsorbents exhibit excellent adsorption capability for basic fuchsin, gentian violet, brilliant blue R and malachite green dyes. Therefore, owing to the characteristics of degradability, low cost and high-efficiency, the gelatin/β-CD composite fiber can be used as an efficient adsorbent for the removal of dyes from wastewater

Image contrast enhancement using weighted uniform histogram for maximum information

Contrast enhancement is a fundamental and important process in image based applications, which often require the image to provide the viewer with the maximum amount of details from the captured scene. This objective can be accomplished by maximizing the information content of the image. Instead of modifying the image histogram as in most equalization methods, we propose to firstly process the image intensity to follow an exact uniform distribution for information maximization. Then this intermediate image is combined with the original input in a weighted sum to preserve the features. A resultant image of high information content, while maintaining the original features, can then be produced. Experimental results had shown the effectiveness of our developed method with regard to maximizing the information content

Dynamic Characteristic Analysis and Clutch Engagement Test of HMCVT in the High-Power Tractor

Hydromechanical continuously variable transmission (HMCVT) is capable of bearing large torque and has wide transmission range, which is suitable for high-power tractors. Dynamic characteristics could influence the tractor life, especially in a high-power tractor. Wet clutch is the crucial component in the HMCVT, which could smooth and soft power transmission. Therefore, it is important to study the dynamic characteristics and implement the wet clutch test of HMCVT. In this paper, AMESim is used to establish virtual models of gearbox, pump-controlled hydraulic motor system, and shifting hydraulic system. Then, a simulation study of tractor operation under working condition is carried out. The internal and external meshing forces of the planetary row are analyzed. Finally, the wet clutch engagement process of HMCVT  in the high-power tractor is tested to verify the oil pressure. The simulation results show that the values of internal and external meshing force become larger as the throttle opening increases. At the moment of shifting change, the meshing forces of the planetary gear have great impact. The clutch test shows that the trend of the oil filling curve obtained from the bench test is similar to that obtained from the theoretical curve, which verifies the simulation results