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Purpose Early improvement in major depressive disorder is defined as a reduction of ≥20% in the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D-17) score at the second week after initiation of treatment, predicting long-term treatment response. However, there remains no effective strategy for switching medications when a patient fails to reach early improvement at the second week. This study focused on the predictive value of early symptom changes in each item of the HAM-D-17 scale for treatment response to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) monotherapy and to provide a reference for switching antidepressants to enhance early treatment efficacy. Patients and methods Our study was an observational, real-world study that enrolled 90 treatment-naive patients experiencing their first episode of major depressive disorder in the outpatient department of Huashan Hospital. Patients who did not achieve the threshold of early improvement in the second week after starting treatment were switched to alternative SSRI monotherapy. Patient follow-up occurred at 2, 4, 8, and 12 weeks after the initiation of treatment. We analyzed the relationship between the change in each symptom on the HAM-D-17 scale and treatment efficacy. Results Early improvement predicted the treatment response at 12 weeks (χ2=19.249, P 999.999); treatment-emergent headache and tremor were associated with treatment efficacy (t=-9.521, P

The beard method is used for sampling cotton fibers to generate fibrograms from which length parameters can be obtained. It is the sampling method used by the Uster High Volume Instrument (HVI™). A fundamental issue of this sampling method is its bias since the mathematical computation to obtain length parameters is quite different. There have been different assumptions regarding the bias of the beard sampling method. In our experiments, we have seen discrepancies in measurements that cannot be explained as length‐biased or unbiased, especially in the short fiber region. We report a fundamental research, including experimental and theoretical analysis, and computer simulations, that reveals the bias due to this sampling method. We find that the beard sampling method as used in HVI is not completely length‐biased; fibers sampled by using this method are similar to the original fibers except in the short fiber region. Short fiber content (SFC) of the sampled fiber is lower than that of the original fiber, a...

Dynamic electrostatic generation and dissipation on polymer surfaces are of great importance for materials such as yarns and films. To support fundamental research in this area, innovative devices and experimental techniques that can lead to a better understanding of these phenomena are of obvious academic and industrial interest. This paper reports the development of devices for testing the electrostatic generation/dissipation properties of polymer surfaces. These devices include a tester for assessing moving yarns, a high-resistance system to measure the yarn's linear resistance, a tester for evaluating stationary fabrics or films while rubbing against a moving surface and a contact charge tester for investigating charge generated by contacting of two surfaces. These devices enable the study of the influences of relative moving speed, yarn tension, electrostatic charge properties of yarns, as well as contact pressure, rubbing speed, number of rubbings or contacts on the static charge properties of films.

We developed a system to align fibres by using electrostatic forces to form fibreweb with desired fibre orientation. The purpose of developing such a system is to investigate an innovative mechanism of forming disc shape fibrewebs with engineered fibre orientation for the industrial fields such as carbon fibre reinforced brake discs and abrasive wheels for metal surface finishing. We provide computer models for simulating the process of transporting fibres in electrostatic field and laying them down to a fibre-collecting surface. The model reveals the effects of electrostatic field properties such as voltage and electrodes geometry on fibre orientation distribution. We also developed visualisation programmes to help display and analyse resultant data. Our experimental results and theoretical simulations are in a good agreement and show that the development of a new generation of non-woven fabrics with engineered fibre orientation distribution is achievable with the correct levels of the independent parame...