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Abstract To achieve high-efficiency combustion of heavy fuel oil (HFO), this study investigated the combustion characteristics of methanol/HFO droplets with methanol content from 10 to 30% using the suspension method under ambient temperature from 923 to 1023 K. The combustion of methanol/HFO droplets was summarized as a two-phase process consisting of six typical stages, emphasizing liquid phase. Especially, the fluctuation evaporation stage, induced by frequent and intense puffing, was identified as prominent character. Both the ignition delay and lifetime of HFO and methanol/HFO droplets decreased with increasing ambient temperatures. For the methanol/HFO droplet, the ignition delay and droplet lifetime increased with the increasing methanol content. Prominently, compared to HFO, HM10 had the most significant reduction in droplet lifetime and TINL under the same operating conditions, which indicated that the addition of 10% methanol accelerated the combustion process and reduced soot generation. Additionally, the thermos-dynamic characteristics of methanol/HFO droplets were investigated. Puffing was primarily attributed to superheating of methanol and pyrolysis of heavy components in HFO, which resulted in active and passive rupture of bubbles. Similarity and maximum deformation were employed to qualitatively distinguish between them. The obtained findings aimed to develop a promising alternative fuel to reduce emissions and preserve energy.

Abstract Purpose To use artificial intelligence to establish an automatic diagnosis system for corneal endothelium diseases (CEDs). Methods We develop an automatic system for detecting multiple common CEDs involving an enhanced compact convolutional transformer (ECCT). Specifically, we introduce a cross-head relative position encoding scheme into a standard self-attention module to capture contextual information among different regions and employ a token-attention feed-forward network to place greater focus on valuable abnormal regions. Results A total of 2723 images from CED patients are used to train our system. It achieves an accuracy of 89.53%, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) is 0.958 (95% CI 0.943–0.971) on images from multiple centres. Conclusions Our system is the first artificial intelligence-based system for diagnosing CEDs worldwide. Images can be uploaded to a specified website, and automatic diagnoses can be obtained; this system can be particularly helpful under pandemic conditions, such as those seen during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

AIM: To compare the surgical outcomes of glaucoma drainage device implantation (GDI) and trans-scleral neodymium:YAG cyclophotocoagulation (CPC) in the management of refractory glaucoma after Descemet-stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK). METHODS: This retrospective study on observational case series enrolled 29 patients who underwent DSAEK and posterior anti-glaucoma surgery (15 with GDI and 14 with CPC). The main outcome measures were intraocular pressure (IOP), glaucoma surgery success rate (defined as IOP of 6–21 mm Hg without additional anti-glaucoma operation), number of glaucoma medications, endothelial graft status, and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA). RESULTS: The mean follow-up time was 34.1 and 21.0mo for DSAEK or glaucoma surgeries, both for the GDI and CPC groups. Both groups showed significant IOP reduction after glaucoma surgery. The GDI group presented a significantly higher success rate in IOP control than the CPC group (60% vs 21.4%, P=0.03). Both procedures significantly decreased the number of glaucoma medications (P=0.03). Forty percent and 57% of cases in the GDI and the CPC group, respectively, experienced endothelial graft failure during follow-up (P=0.36). Significantly worse BCVA after surgery was observed in the CPC group but not in the GDI group. CONCLUSION: Both GDI and CPC significantly decrease IOP in eyes with glaucoma after DSAEK. GDI is preferable to CPC in refractory glaucoma cases after DSAEK, as it manifests a significantly higher success rate for IOP control, similar endothelial graft failure rate, and relatively preserves BCVA than CPC.

Objectives To find out the prevalence rate of pre-myopia among primary school students in the Mianyang Science City Area, analyze its related risk factors, and thus provide a reference for local authorities to formulate policies on the prevention and control of myopia for primary school students. Methods October 2022, Cluster sampling was adopted by our research group to obtain the vision levels of 2278 primary school students employing a diopter test in the Science City Area. In addition, questionnaires were distributed to help us find the risk factors associated with pre-myopia. Results The prevalence rate of pre-myopia among primary school students in the Science City Area was 45.27%, of which 43.82% were boys and 46.92% were girls, with no statistically significant difference in the prevalence rate of myopia between boys and girls (c2 =2.171, P=0.141). Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that the main risk factors for pre-myopia were having at least one parent with severe myopia, spending less than 2 hours a day outdoors, lack of sleep looking at electronic screens for more than 1 hours, and having an improper reading and writing posture. Outdoor activity time less than 2 hours per day, lack of sleep, looking at the electronic screen for more than 1 hour per day, and incorrect reading and writing posture were all positively associated with the pre-myopia (P values < 0.05). Conclusion The Science City Area has a high prevalence rate of pre-myopia among primary school students. It is proposed that students, schools, families, and local authorities work together to increase the time spent outdoors, get adequate sleep, reduce the time spent staring at digital screens and develop scientific use of eye habits.

Pisha sandstone is a kind of special rock widely distributed in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, which is composed of sand shale and argillaceous sandstone. Due to the low diagenetic degree, the poor cementation between sand grains, the low structural strength, and containing a large number of clay minerals, its anti-weathering ability is weak. Pisha sandstone becomes sand when encountering wind and becomes mud when encountering water, which is an important source of "sediment delivery into the Yellow River". Based on microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) technology, the weathered Pisha sandstone soil was improved and reinforced. Aiming to obtain good strength of improved soil samples and combine with the analysis of physical properties and pore structure, the optimal scheme design of improvement for the soils containing many fine-grained soils was carried out. Under 12 working conditions, the artificial control with crystal forms, crystal morphology, and crystal size were carried out through three experimental control factors: the concentration of the bacterial solution, the dosage ratio of bacterial solution to calcium source solution, and the molar ratio of calcium to urea. The results show that when the urea consumption was 0.4 mol, using the test scheme that the bacterial solution concentration OD600 was 1.2, the ratio of bacterial solution to calcium source solution was 1:20, and the ratio of calcium to urea was 1:1, it is found that the calcium carbonate crystal induced by microorganisms was deposited in the form of "20?30 μm calcite-vaterite aggregates". These aggregates were filled in the pores of the weathered Pisha sandstone soil to increase the soil compactness, and therefore the sample porosity was reduced by 62.4%, enhancing the corrosion resistance. The improved soil also showed good strength characteristics with 1 MPa of unconfined compressive strength. Due to the filling and cementation of this calcium carbonate crystal, the strength remained 43.6% after being saturated with water, which solved the problem of the soil collapsing in water. The research results expand the application of MICP technology in the reinforcement of mixed soil with a large amount of fine-grained soil and provide a theoretical and experimental basis for the engineering application of the improvement of weathered Pisha sandstone soil.

Aims/Introduction: Regulatory T cells (Tregs) have protected against many cardiovascular diseases. This study was intended to explore the effect of Tregs on diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) using a db/db mouse model. Materials and methods: Eight‐week‐old male db/db mice were randomly divided into four groups: the control group, administered 200 μL phosphate‐buffered saline; the small‐dose Treg group, administered 105 Tregs; the large‐dose Treg group, administered 106 Tregs; and the PC group, administered 100 μg anti‐CD25 specific antibody (PC61) and 106 Tregs. After 12 weeks, mice were euthanized. Transthoracic echocardiography was carried out at the beginning and end of the experiment. Relevant basic experiments to evaluate the effects of Tregs on DCM were carried out. Results: Echocardiography showed that the impaired diastolic and systolic functions were significantly improved in mice administered large‐dose Tregs. Large‐dose Tregs significantly ameliorated myocardial hypertrophy and fibrosis, and decreased hypertrophic gene expression and collagen deposition. The protective effects of Tregs on diabetic hearts were associated with decreased oxidative stress, inflammatory response and apoptosis. In addition, Tregs promoted the activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase–protein kinase B signaling pathway, whereas they inhibited extracellular signal‐regulated kinase 1/2 and Jun N‐terminal kinase phosphorylation, which might be responsible for the cardioprotective role of Tregs against DCM. Conclusions: Tregs ameliorated myocardial hypertrophy and fibrosis, improved cardiac dysfunction, and protected against DCM progression in db/db mice. The mechanisms involved a decrease of inflammatory response, oxidative stress and apoptosis, which might be mediated by phosphatidylinositol 3‐kinase–protein kinase B and mitogen‐activated protein kinase pathways. Hence, Tregs might serve as a promising therapeutic approach for DCM treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]