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This paper investigates Panasonic's strategies for its better competitive edge through environmental sustainability. The study analyzed the data collected from the company's websites, customers' personal experiences, and questionnaires. The surveys on customers' feedback on Panasonic products and services were carried out. This study's literature contribution value lies in its investigation of how Panasonic's environmental sustainability has led the company to a competitive advantage. The findings of this paper have significant importance since people today are more concerned about environmental sustainability. Strategies and practices that create a sustainable world economy were discussed.

RATIONALE Aerosolized albuterol is widely used, but its tolerability and efficacy in infants with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (sBPD) is not well established. OBJECTIVES To compare the tolerability and efficacy of two dose levels of aerosolized albuterol to saline placebo in infants with sBPD. METHODS Single-center, multiple-crossover trial in 24 ventilated very preterm infants with sBPD. Albuterol (1.25 mg, 2.5 mg) and 3 ml of normal saline were administered every 4 h during separate 24-h treatment periods assigned in random order with a 6-h washout phase between periods. The primary outcome was the absolute change (post and pretherapy) in expiratory flow at 75% of exhalation (EF75). Secondary endpoints were changes in ventilator parameters, vital signs, and heart arrhythmia. RESULTS Average within subject EF75 values improved with each therapy: saline placebo ( + 0.45 L/min ± 2.5, p = .04), 1.25 mg of albuterol ( + 0.70 L/min ± 2.4, p

Neonatal chylothorax (NCTx) and central lymphatic flow disorder (CLFD) are historically challenging neonatal disorders with high morbidity and mortality. METHODS We conducted a retrospective study of 35 neonates with pulmonary lymphatic abnormalities at our institution who underwent lymphatic evaluation between December 2015 and September 2018. Patients with only pulmonary lymphatic perfusion syndrome were classified as NCTx and those with multiple flow abnormalities were classified as CLFD. Demographics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes were compared using t-tests/Wilcoxon rank sum tests and Fisher's exact tests. RESULTS All 35 patients had intranodal MR lymphangiography and 14 (40%) also had conventional fluoroscopic lymphangiography. Fifteen (42.8%) patients were diagnosed with NCTx and 20 (57.1%) were diagnosed with CLFD. Thirty-four (97.1%) patients had pleural effusions. None of the NCTx group had ascites, anasarca, or dermal backflow compared to 17 (85%) (p

One challenge in shape decomposition is to capture correct boundaries between different parts and get piecewise constant results. Based on the good edge-preserving and sparsity properties of total variation regularization, this paper introduces a novel diffusion model by minimizing weighted total-variation energy with Dirichlet boundary constraints. By the total variation diffusion model, we propose an edge-preserving shape decomposition optimization model, which can be solved effectively by augmented Lagrangian method with each subproblem having closed form solution. A number of experiments display that our method can produce segmentation results with piecewise constant parts and feature-preserving boundaries for both meshes and 3D point clouds, especially for shapes with sharp features. In addition, for mesh segmentation, our results compare favorably to those obtained by several existing techniques when evaluated on the Princeton Segmentation Benchmark. Furthermore, the quantitative errors show that the algorithm is robust numerically and the computational costs are reasonable.

Human visual system (HVS) can perceive color under varying illumination conditions, and Retinex theory is precisely aimed to simulate and explain how the HVS perceives reflectance regardless of different illumination conditions. In this paper, we introduce a reflectance and illumination decomposition model for the Retinex problem via total generalized variation regularization and $$H^{1}$$ decomposition. The total generalized variation regularization ameliorates the staircasing artifacts that appear in the reflectance component of existing total variation-based models and $$H^{1}$$ norm guarantees smoother illumination. We analyze the existence and uniqueness of the proposed model and employ an alternating minimization scheme based on split Bregman iteration. We present numerous numerical experiments on both grayscale and color images to make comparisons with several state-of-the-art methods and demonstrate that our method is comparable both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia is a common disease of prematurity that presents along a wide spectrum of disease severity. Infants with high severity require prolonged hospitalizations and benefit from multidisciplinary care. We describe our approach to the evaluation of infants with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Important considerations include the phenotypic heterogeneity in clinical presentation that necessitates individualized care, the common presence of comorbidities and importance of a comprehensive multisystem evaluation, and the value of applying a chronic care model that prioritizes long-term respiratory and neurodevelopmental goals. Key features of the history, physical examination, and diagnostic studies are discussed with these considerations in mind.

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is an acquired, developmental chronic lung disease that is a consequence of premature birth. In the most severe form of the disease, infants may require prolonged periods of positive pressure ventilation. BPD is a heterogeneous disease with lung mechanics that differ from those in respiratory distress syndrome; strategies to manage the respiratory support in infants with severe BPD should take this into consideration. When caring for these infants, practitioners need to shift from the acute care ventilation strategies that use frequent blood gases and support adjustments designed to minimize exposure to positive pressure. Infants with severe BPD benefit from a chronic care model that uses less frequent ventilator adjustments and provides the level of positive support that will achieve the longer-term goal of ongoing lung growth and repair.

High efficiency and stability have long been the key issues faced by perovskite solar cells (PSCs). It is found that the CsPbIBr

Key Points Question What are the care practices and outcomes for very preterm infants in Chinese neonatal intensive care units? Findings In this cohort study of 9552 very preterm infants from 57 tertiary neonatal intensive care units throughout China in 2019, 86% received complete care, among whom 95% survived and 57% survived without major morbidities. Only 76% of the infants received antenatal corticosteroids, and 12% of the infants received delivery room continuous positive airway pressure. Meaning The findings of this study suggest that survival and survival without major morbidity of very preterm infants in Chinese neonatal intensive care units remain lower than in high-income countries and clinical quality improvement as well as systems and health services reorganization are needed to improve outcomes., Importance The Chinese Neonatal Network was established in 2018 and maintains a standardized national clinical database of very preterm or very low-birth-weight infants in tertiary neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) throughout China. National-level data on outcomes and care practices of very preterm infants (VPIs) in China are lacking. Objective To assess the care practices in NICUs and outcomes among VPIs in China. Design, Setting, and Participants A cohort study was conducted comprising 57 tertiary hospitals from 25 provinces throughout China. All infants with gestational age (GA) less than 32 weeks who were admitted to the 57 NICUs between January 1 and December 31, 2019, were included. Main Outcomes and Measures Care practices, morbidities, and survival were the primary outcomes of the study. Major morbidities included bronchopulmonary dysplasia, severe intraventricular hemorrhage (grade ≥3) and/or periventricular leukomalacia, necrotizing enterocolitis (stage ≥2), sepsis, and severe retinopathy of prematurity (stage ≥3). Results A total of 9552 VPIs were included, with mean (SD) GA of 29.5 (1.7) weeks and mean (SD) birth weight of 1321 (321) g; 5404 infants (56.6%) were male. Antenatal corticosteroids were used in 75.6% (6505 of 8601) of VPIs, and 54.8% (5211 of 9503)were born through cesarean delivery. In the delivery room, 12.1% of VPIs received continuous positive airway pressure and 26.7% (2378 or 8923) were intubated. Surfactant was prescribed for 52.7% of the infants, and postnatal dexamethasone was prescribed to 9.5% (636 of 6675) of the infants. A total of 85.5% (8171) of the infants received complete care, and 14.5% (1381) were discharged against medical advice. The incidences of the major morbidities were bronchopulmonary dysplasia, 29.2% (2379 of 8148); severe intraventricular hemorrhage and/or periventricular leukomalacia, 10.4% (745 of 7189); necrotizing enterocolitis, 4.9% (403 of 8171 ); sepsis, 9.4% (764 of 8171); and severe retinopathy of prematurity, 4.3% (296 of 6851) among infants who received complete care. Among VPIs with complete care, 95.4% (7792 of 8171) survived: 65.6% (155 of 236) at 25 weeks’ or less GA, 89.0% (880 of 988) at 26 to 27 weeks’ GA, 94.9% (2635 of 2755)at 28 to 29 weeks’ GA, and 98.3% (4122 of 4192) at 30 to 31 weeks’ GA. Only 57.2% (4677 of 8171) of infants survived without major morbidity: 10.5% (25 of 236) at 25 weeks’ or less GA, 26.8% (48 of 179) at 26 to 27 weeks’ GA, 51.1% (1409 of 2755) at 28 to 29 weeks’ GA, and 69.3% (2904 of 4192) at 30 to 31 weeks’ GA. Among all infants admitted, the survival rate was 87.6% (8370 of 9552)and survival without major morbidities was 51.8% (4947 of 9552). Conclusions and Relevance The findings of this study suggest that survival and survival without major morbidity of VPIs in Chinese NICUs have improved but remain lower than in high-income countries. Comprehensive and targeted quality improvement efforts are needed to provide complete care for all VPIs, optimize obstetrical and neonatal care practices, and improve outcomes., This cohort study evaluates the care practices used for as well as the survival and major morbidities among very preterm infants hospitalized in neonatal intensive care units in China.

Partial liquid ventilation is proposed as an alternative ventilation strategy to reduce surface tension, increase alveolar recruitment, and decrease inflammation. Studied in acute respiratory distress and other indications, liquid ventilation is being revisited for infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Perfluorooctyl bromide used for liquid ventilation is radiopaque, allowing radiographic visualization of lung liquid ventilation patterns that may provide additional insight into pulmonary pathophysiology. Current protocols utilize reduced liquid dosing, resulting in unique imaging features. We discuss optimal radiographic technique and report initial ultrasound evaluation results. With renewed interest in partial liquid ventilation, it may be helpful for pediatric radiologists to familiarize themselves with the clinical use and radiographic appearance of liquid ventilation material.

Rationale Infants with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (sBPD) and airway obstruction may develop dynamic hyperinflation and intrinsic positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEPi ), which impairs patient/ventilator synchrony. Objectives To determine if PEEPi is present in infants with sBPD during spontaneous breathing and if adjusting ventilator PEEP improves patient/ventilator synchrony and comfort. Methods Interventional study in infants with sBPD. PEEPi measured by esophageal pressure (Pes) and pneumotachometer, during pressure-supported breaths. PEEP i defined as the difference between Pes at start of the inspiratory effort minus Pes at onset of inspiratory flow. The set PEEP was adjusted to minimize PEEP i . "Best PEEP" was the setting with minimal wasted efforts (WE), an inspiratory effort seen on the Pes waveform without a corresponding ventilator breath. FiO 2 and SpO 2 measured pre- and post-PEEP adjustment. Sedation requirements evaluated 72 hours preprocedure and postprocedure. Results Twelve infants were assessed (gestational age, 24.9 ± 1.4 weeks; study age, 48.8 ± 1.5 weeks, postmenstrual age). Mean baseline ventilator PEEP was 16.4 cm H2 O (14-20 cm H 2 O). Eight infants required an increase, one, a reduction, and three, no change in the set PEEP. For the eight infants requiring an increase in set PEEP, there was an 18.9% reduction in WE and a reduction in FiO 2 (0.084 ± 0.058) requirements in the subsequent 24 hours. Conditional sedation was reduced in five infants postprocedure. No adverse events occurred during testing. Conclusion PEEPi is measurable in infants with sBPD with concurrent esophageal manometry and flow-time tracings without the need for pharmacological paralysis. In those with PEEP i , increasing ventilator PEEP to offset PEEP i improves synchrony.

Objective To assess parents' views of their children's health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and the association between neonatal morbidities and HRQoL in children with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) who survived to 18-36 months of corrected age. Study Design Study population included infants born Results Seventy children (67% male, gestational age 26.1 ± 2.0 weeks, and birth weight 797 ± 318g) were enrolled at 27.1 ± 5.8 months of corrected age. Mean PHY-QoL and PS-QoL were 78.0 ± 21.9 and 75.3 ± 17.9, respectively, both significantly lower than reported means for term and preterm cohorts, with the exception of emotional QoL. Adjusted postnatal composite morbidity score was cumulatively associated with poorer PHY-QoL (P = .002) and poorer PS-QoL (P = .015). Presence of each additional neonatal morbidity was associated with a 4.4-point decrease in PHY-QoL and 2.8-point decrease in PS-QoL. Conclusions In this cohort, parental perceived HRQoL for their child with severe BPD was lower than expected for term and preterm populations. Neonatal morbidities had an additive association with poorer parental assessment of PHY-QoL and PS-QoL. These findings may aid in care of children with severe BPD and their families, both in the intensive care nursery and postdischarge.

Background: Premature infants with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (sBPD) are at risk of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Serum brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is used to predict disease severity in adult PH. Its diagnostic utility in sBPD-associated PH is unknown. Objective: The aim of this paper was to determine the accuracy of BNP, against echocardiogram (echo), to diagnose PH in infants born Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all infants with sBPD with an echo and BNP within a 24-h period, at ≥36 weeks postmenstrual age. PH was defined as: right ventricular pressure >½ systemic blood pressure estimated from tricuspid regurgitant jet or patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) velocity, bidirectional or right-to left-PDA, and/or flat/bowing ventricular septum at end-systole. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed to test the diagnostic accuracy of BNP. Results:Of 128 infants, 68 (53%) had echo evidence of PH. BNP was higher among the infants with PH (median [interquartile range]: 127 pg/mL [39–290] vs. 35 [20–76], p < 0.001). The area under the ROC curve for diagnosing PH using BNP was 0.74 (95% CI 0.66–0.83). At an optimal cutpoint of 130 pg/mL, BNP correctly classified the presence or absence of PH in 70% of the infants (specificity: 92, sensitivity: 50%). Conclusions: BNP, relative to concurrent echo, demonstrated moderate accuracy for diagnosing PH in this cohort of preterm infants with sBPD. BNP may help rule in PH in this population but has low utility to rule out the disease.

IntroductionThe objective of the Chinese Neonatal Network (CHNN) is to provide a platform for collaborative research, outcomes evaluation and quality improvement for preterm infants with gestational age less than 32 weeks in China. The CHNN is the first national neonatal network and has the largest geographically representative cohort from neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in China.Methods and analysisIndividual-level data from participating NICUs will be collected using a unique database developed by the CHNN on an ongoing basis from January 2019. Data will be prospectively collected from all infants Ethics and disseminationThis study was approved by the ethics review board of Children’s Hospital of Fudan University, which was recognised by all participating hospitals. Waiver of consent were granted at all sites. Only non-identifiable patient level data will be transmitted and only aggregate data will be reported in CHNN reports and publications.

To describe the findings, resulting changes in management, and safety profile of flexible bronchoscopy in the neonates with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia. This was a retrospective case series of twenty-seven neonates with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia who underwent flexible bronchoscopy in the neonatal intensive care unit. Flexible bronchoscopy revealed airway pathology in 20/27 (74%) patients. Tracheomalacia 13/27 (48%), bronchomalacia 11/27 (40.7%), and airway edema 13/27 (48%) were the most common findings. Bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) was performed in 17 patients. BAL culture revealed a microorganism in 12/17 (70.5%) cases. Findings from bronchoscopy resulted in change in clinical management in 17/27 (63%) patients. Common interventions included initiation of antibiotics (37%) and treatment of tracheobronchomalacia with bethanechol (22.2%), atrovent (18.5%), and PEEP titration (18.5%). Bronchoscopy was performed without significant complication in 26/27 (97%) patients. Flexible bronchoscopy can be a safe and useful tool for the management of neonates with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia.

OBJECTIVES: Immunizations provide important protection from serious childhood illnesses. Infant chronic lung disease (CLD) is a serious complication of prematurity and predisposes premature infants to respiratory morbidity, rehospitalization, and mortality. This high-risk group is especially vulnerable to infections, such as invasive pneumococcal disease, influenza, and bronchiolitis. Our purpose for this project was to increase 2-, 4-, and 6-month immunization rates in eligible infants with CLD in the NICU by 30% through December 2016. METHODS: A multidisciplinary team developed weekly targeted rounds to identify eligible patients with outstanding immunizations. Exclusion criteria included the following: (1) a fraction of inspired oxygen requirement of >80%, (2) pulmonary hypertensive crisis, (3) positive blood culture results or if within 48 hours of a sepsis evaluation, (4) if within 5 days of a surgical or interventional procedure, (5) receiving steroid treatment (not including a physiologic hydrocortisone dose for adrenal insufficiency), (6) a CLD team consensus of contraindication, and (7) parental refusal. RESULTS: The project managed 60 patients from March 2016 to December 2016. Immunization of eligible patients increased from 44% to 75% and was sustained for the next 6 months. The average number of days from admission to immunization record review decreased from 71 days at baseline to 27 days. CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of (1) an in-hospital immunization record review, (2) an e-mail reminder, (3) a weekly multidisciplinary eligibility discussion, and (4) an updated rounding tool was successful in increasing and sustaining immunization rates in this population of infants with CLD. The multidisciplinary CLD meeting was a novel opportunity to discuss immunization eligibility and safety monitoring.

Early detection of delay or impairment in motor function is important to guide clinical management and inform prognosis during a critical window for the development of motor control in children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ability of biomechanical measures of early postural control to distinguish infants with future impairment in motor control from their typically developing peers.We recorded postural control from infants lying in supine in several conditions. We compared various center of pressure metrics between infants grouped by birth status (preterm and full term) and by future motor outcome (impaired motor control and typical motor control).One of the seven postural control metrics-path length-was consistently different between groups for both group classifications and for the majority of conditions.Quantitative measures of early spontaneous infant movement may have promise to distinguish early in life between infants who are at risk for motor impairment or physical disability and those who will demonstrate typical motor control. Our observation that center of pressure path length may be a potential early marker of postural instability and motor control impairment needs further confirmation and further investigation to elucidate the responsible neuromotor mechanisms.The key message of this article is that quantitative measures of infant postural control in supine may have promise to distinguish between infants who will demonstrate future motor impairment and those who will demonstrate typical motor control. One of seven postural control metrics-path length-was consistently different between groups. This metric may be an early marker of postural instability in infants at risk for physical disability.

Precise identity recognition is a pre-condition for robots to enter the human living environment. Most of the existed face identification methods cannot work on the non-frontal face since the severe texture loss. In this paper, we propose a novel system to deal with multi-angle face identification in video sequence based on frontal face generation, which replaces the process of detection, alignment in the typical face identification system. To solve the problem of face texture loss in large pose variation, we creatively combine generative adversarial networks (GAN) with the state-of-the-art facial landmark localization method. The proposed system was tested on video database containing multi-angle faces, and the experimental results indicate that our system can recognize more faces in the frames, and improve the accuracy of identification for multi-angle face by 130%.

IntroductionDespite the increase in the survival rate of high-risk infants (HRIs) worldwide, the prevalence of motor and neurodevelopmental sequelae in such newborns has not shown concomitant improvement. Meanwhile, there are few cohorts that explore factors related to the development of HRIs in China. Therefore, the Guangzhou High-Risk Infant Cohort (GHRIC) has been designed to examine the complex relationships among a myriad of factors influencing growth and development in such children.Methods and analysisThe GHRIC study is a prospective cohort study that by the year 2023 will enrol an estimated total of 3000 HRIs from Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center (GWCMC) in Guangzhou, China. This study is designed to assess the growth and cognitive characteristics of HRIs and the risk factors affecting their development and prognoses. Data on risk factors, neurodevelopmental and cognitive-function evaluations, laboratory results, and specimens will be collected and analysed. Information on perinatal and clinical interventions for these infants will also be recorded during regular follow-up visits until age 6.Ethics and disseminationThe protocol for this study has been approved by the Research Ethics Committee of GWCMC, which accepted responsibility for supervising all of the aspects of the study (No. 2017102712). Study outcomes will be disseminated through conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications, the Internet and social media.Trial registration numberChiCTR-EOC-17013236

Determining appropriate farming management practices to adapt to climate change with lower environmental costs is important for sustainable agricultural production. In this study, a long-term experiment (1985–2019) was conducted under different management practices combining fertilization rate (no, low and high N fertilizer, N0, N1 and N2), straw additions (no, low and high addition, S0, S1 and S2) with conservation tillage (no-tillage, NT) in the North China Plain (NCP). The Denitrification-Decomposition (DNDC) model was firstly evaluated using the experimental data, and then applied to simulate the changes of crop yields, soil organic carbon (SOC), and N2O emissions under different management practices combined with climate change scenarios, under low and high emission scenarios of societal development pathways (SSP245 and SSP585, respectively) with climate projections from 2031 to 2100. Under the low emission scenario (SSP245), wheat yields were the highest with the NT-N1-S2 treatment (a 23% increase relative to the baseline (1981–2010)). For maize yields, the NT-N1-S1 treatment increased 46% relative to baseline under the SSP585, whereas, the yields increased less in all treatments under SSP245–2040s. The SOC was predicted to increase by 6–60% by 2100 under SSP245. Straw addition and tillage were the main factors influencing SOC. N fertilizer was the most important driver for wheat and maize yields, however, N2O emissions from soil increased with increased application of N fertilizer. Therefore, the no-tillage method under low N fertilizer and high straw addition (NT-N1-S2) is recommended to promote crop yields and substantially increase SOC under SSP245 and SSP585. Conservation agriculture practices can potentially offset crop yield reductions, increase soil quality, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the NCP, and ensure crop production to meet the growing demand for food under future climate change.

Most of the existed Simultaneous Localization and Mapping solutions cannot work in dynamic environments since the dynamic objects lead to wrong uncertain feature associations. In this paper, we involved a learning-based object classification front end to recognize and remove the dynamic object, and thereby ensure our ego-motion estimator’s robustness in high dynamic environments. The static backgrounds are used for static environment reconstruction, the extracted dynamic human objects are used for human object tracking and reconstruction. Experimental results show that the proposed approach can provide not only accurate environment maps but also well-reconstructed moving humans.

AIM: This review examined how applicable national and regional clinical practice guidelines and recommendations for managing neonates born to mothers with COVID-19 mothers were to the evolving pandemic. METHODS: A systematic search and review identified 20 guidelines and recommendations that had been published by May 25, 2020. We analysed documents from 17 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the United States. RESULTS: The documents were based on expert consensus with limited evidence and were of variable, low methodological rigour. Most did not provide recommendations for delivery methods or managing symptomatic infants. None provided recommendations for post-discharge assimilation of potentially infected infants into the community. The majority encouraged keeping mothers and infants together, subject to infection control measures, but one-third recommended separation. Although breastfeeding or using breastmilk was widely encouraged, two countries specifically prohibited this. CONCLUSION: The guidelines and recommendations for managing infants affected by COVID-19 were of low, variable quality and may be unsustainable. It is important that transmission risks are not increased when new information is incorporated into clinical recommendations. Practice guidelines should emphasise the extent of uncertainty and clearly define gaps in the evidence.

Most of the existed visual odometry methods cannot work in dynamic environments since the dynamic objects lead to wrong uncertain feature associations. In this paper, we involved a learning-based object classification front end to recognize and remove the dynamic object, and thereby ensure our ego-motion estimator's robustness in high dynamic environments. Moreover, we newly classify the environmental objects into static, movable and dynamic three classes. This processing not only enables the ego-motion estimation in the dynamic environment but also leads to clean and complete map-ping results. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method outperformed the other state-of-the-art SLAM solutions in both dynamic and static indoor environments.

* Abbreviations: ARDS: : acute respiratory distress syndrome BPD: : bronchopulmonary dysplasia CHOP: : Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia ECLS: : extracorporeal life support FDA: : Food and Drug Administration FRC: : functional residual capacity HFOV: : high-frequency oscillatory ventilation PEEP: : positive end-expiratory pressure PFC: : perfluorocarbon PFOB: : perfluorooctyl bromide PLV: : partial liquid ventilation RDS: : respiratory distress syndrome TLV: : total (tidal) liquid ventilation Survival rates in extremely premature infants are increasing as are rates of bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Current therapeutic options are not sufficient to prevent or treat bronchopulmonary dysplasia in many infants. This presents a large cost, both human and economic. Perfluorocarbon liquids have been studied since the 1960s for various biomedical applications. After some promising studies in the 1990s, work in this field was halted. Despite considerable attention, including significant amounts of published data, the temporal gap has seen a generation of physicians who may not know about this potentially valuable therapy. This article will reintroduce partial liquid ventilation, a promising therapeutic option in acute and chronically ill infants, to clinicians by examining the history and presenting new data. After completing this article, readers should be able to: 1. Identify the physiologic function of perfluorocarbon liquid in the human lung. 2. Describe the historical development of partial liquid ventilation and contextualize the published literature. 3. Explain the limitations of partial liquid ventilation and roadblocks in the past. In their 1962 article entitled, “Of mice as fish,” Kylstra and colleagues wrote with excitement about the implications of a newfound mode of ventilation. In liquid ventilation using oxygenated saline solutions, these investigators saw a sort of reverse engineering of evolution—mammals regressing to their supposed piscine origins. Kylstra et al envisioned a world in which pool water, titrated to have an adequate saline concentration, would allow for more efficacious resuscitation from drowning. (1) In its most essential form, liquid ventilation involves filling the lungs of an animal with some kind of liquid. That liquid, at varying doses, may be cycled in and out of the lungs with the assistance of a ventilator. In 1966, Clark and Gollan first described the use of perfluorocarbons (PFCs) in liquid ventilation toward a similar end as did Kylstra and colleagues—undersea survival and …

We report epidemiological and clinical investigations on ten pediatric SARS-CoV-2 infection cases confirmed by real-time reverse transcription PCR assay of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Symptoms in these cases were nonspecific and no children required respiratory support or intensive care. Chest X-rays lacked definite signs of pneumonia, a defining feature of the infection in adult cases. Notably, eight children persistently tested positive on rectal swabs even after nasopharyngeal testing was negative, raising the possibility of fecal-oral transmission.

Pneumothorax (PTX) represents accumulation of the air in the pleural space. A large or tension pneumothorax can collapse the lung and cause hemodynamic compromise, a life-threatening disorder. Traditionally, neonatal pneumothorax diagnosis has been based on clinical images, auscultation, transillumination, and chest X-ray findings. This approach may potentially lead to a delay in both diagnosis and treatment. The use of lung US in diagnosis of PTX together with US-guided thoracentesis results in earlier and more precise management. The recommendations presented in this publication are aimed at improving the application of lung US in guiding neonatal PTX diagnosis and management.

Dynamic environments are challenging for visual SLAM since the moving objects occlude the static environment features and lead to wrong camera motion estimation. In this paper, we present a novel dense RGB-D SLAM solution that simultaneously accomplishes the dynamic/static segmentation and camera ego-motion estimation as well as the static background reconstructions. Our novelty is using optical flow residuals to highlight the dynamic semantics in the RGB-D point clouds and provide more accurate and efficient dynamic/static segmentation for camera tracking and background reconstruction. The dense reconstruction results on public datasets and real dynamic scenes indicate that the proposed approach achieved accurate and efficient performances in both dynamic and static environments compared to state-of-the-art approaches., To be published in ICRA2020

Neonatal chylothorax (NCTx) and central lymphatic flow disorder (CLFD) are historically challenging neonatal disorders with high morbidity and mortality.We conducted a retrospective study of 35 neonates with pulmonary lymphatic abnormalities at our institution who underwent lymphatic evaluation between December 2015 and September 2018. Patients with only pulmonary lymphatic perfusion syndrome were classified as NCTx and those with multiple flow abnormalities were classified as CLFD. Demographics, clinical characteristics, and outcomes were compared using t-tests/Wilcoxon rank sum tests and Fisher's exact tests.All 35 patients had intranodal MR lymphangiography and 14 (40%) also had conventional fluoroscopic lymphangiography. Fifteen (42.8%) patients were diagnosed with NCTx and 20 (57.1%) were diagnosed with CLFD. Thirty-four (97.1%) patients had pleural effusions. None of the NCTx group had ascites, anasarca, or dermal backflow compared to 17 (85%) (p 0.001), 8 (42.1%) (p: 0.004), and 20 (100%) (p 0.001) of the CLFD group, respectively. In the NCTx group, 11 (73.3%) had ethiodized oil embolization and 4 (26.7%) received conservative therapy. Ten (50%) of the CLFD patients had an intervention; of those, two (10%) had ethiodized oil-only embolization. Eight had non-ethiodized oil embolizations (two (25%) had embolization with glue, three (37.5%) underwent surgical lymphovenous anastomosis, two (25%) underwent thoracic duct (TD) externalization, and one (12.5%) had a non-TD lymphatic channel drain placed). Complete resolution of pleural effusions was achieved in all 15 NCTx patients, whereas 9 (45%) of 20 CLFD patients had resolution of chylothorax (p: 0.001).Establishing a diagnosis of NCTx or CLFD is paramount in selecting treatment options and providing prognostic information. Development of lymphatic interventions represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of neonatal lymphatic flow disorders and may be associated with improved survival.

Background: COVID-19 has spread to virtually all countries, and is still increasing rapidly However, pediatric cases are uncommon and their epidemiological and

OBJECTIVES: This study tested the hypothesis that longer duration of any type of respiratory support is associated with an increased rate of death or neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI) at 18–22 months. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study using the Generic Database of NICHD Neonatal Research Network from 2006 to 2010. Infants were born at

In this paper, we propose a distributed teleoperation system for controlling heterogeneous robots, which improve the problem of the communication of different kinds of robots based on the robot operating system (ROS). The system includes modules for massive data management and multi-level communication, which improves the reuse rate of software code and the flexibility of the robot hardware system by adjusting the overall architecture of the system and decoupling of software and hardware. In our experiments, the distributed control system of the heterogeneous robot was used on the distributed communication and control of the wheeled mobile robot and the humanoid robot, and the remote operation of the heterogeneous robot in the wireless network was successfully realized through the keyboard.

Rail inspection is one of the most important tasks to guarantee the safety of a railway transportation system, and it requires advanced information technologies (e.g. cyber–physical system and cyber–physical–social system) to build intelligent inspection systems. This paper presents a cyber-enabled visual inspection system for rail corrugation, which includes an on-board image acquisition subsystem and a corrugation identification subsystem. In the corrugation identification subsystem, a track image captured by the on-board image acquisition subsystem is first segmented by the rail locating algorithm based on weighted projection profile (briefly as RLWP). And then each column of the segmented rail image is represented by local frequency features and identified as corrugation line or not by a support vector machine (SVM). Lastly, the rail image is judged as corrugation by integrating the recognized corrugation lines. The experiment results show that RLWP is robust and accurate to localize rail region even for uneven or abominable illumination. Moreover, the precision and recall of the proposed corrugation detection system are 98.47% and 96.50%, respectively. They are 25% and 1% higher than those of traditional methods. At the same time, the detection speed is doubly faster than that of the traditional approach. c

Decline in soil organic carbon (SOC) is one of the most important causes of agricultural ecosystem degradation and food insecurity. Multiple agricultural management practices, such as fertilization and straw additions, affect cropland SOC; however, long-term effects of these practices remain ambiguous. In this study, we evaluated how mineral fertilizers, straw additions, and different tillage methods affected SOC and crop yields in a long-term field experiment (1985–2017) in the North China Plain (NCP). Nine treatments consisting of different tillage methods (CT:conventional tillage; NT: no-tillage) combined with applications of inorganic N (N0, N1 and N2: 0 kg, 225 kg and 375 kg urea-N ha−1 yr−1), inorganic P (P0, P1 and P2: 0 kg, 75 kg and 150 kg P2O5 ha−1 yr−1) and straw (S0, S1 and S2: 0 kg, 2250 kg, and 4500 kg ha−1 yr−1) were established. CT-N0-P0-S0 was the control treatment. In all treatments, the SOC content increased rapidly over the first 15 years, which was mainly due to the fact that these plots were wastelands before. The SOC content of treatments with straw additions generally increased faster than treatments without straw additions. Nutrient additions and conventional tillage increased crop yields whereas straw additions had variable effects, with highest crop yields in the CT-N2-P2-S2 treatment. Long-term applications of mineral fertilizer and straw significantly affected SOC and yields (P

Partitioning a mesh surface into several semantic components is a fundamental task in geometry processing. This paper presents a new stable and effective segmentation method, which contains two stages. The first stage is a spectral clustering procedure, while the second stage is a variational refining procedure. For spectral clustering, we construct a new Laplacian matrix which reflects more semantic information than classical Laplacian matrices. By this new Laplacian, we introduce a simple and fast spectral clustering method, which gives quite satisfying segmentation results for most surfaces and provides a good initialization for the second stage. In the second stage, we propose a variational refining procedure by a new discretization of the classical non-convex Mumford---Shah model. The variational problem is solved by efficient iterative algorithms based on alternating minimization and alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). The first stage provides a good initialization for the second stage, while the second stage refines the result of the first stage well. Experiments demonstrated that our method is very stable and effective compared to existing approaches. It outperforms competitive segmentation methods when evaluated on the Princeton Segmentation Benchmark.

Objective We compared the accuracy of serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and phosphate (phos) levels for diagnosing severe metabolic bone disease (MBD) in very low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Study Design Retrospective analysis of VLBW infants with severe BPD admitted between 2010 and 2012 and with ≥ 1 iPTH, ALP, and phos level collected within a similar 72-hour period. MBD severity was classified by serial radiography. Results Laboratory values were available for 65 infants, of whom 24 (36.9%) developed severe MBD. A maximum ALP > 660 IU/L was the most accurate for diagnosing severe MBD (area under the curve: 88.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 77.2–94.5%). Maximum iPTH was the least accurate (optimal cut point > 130 pg/mL; area under the curve: 70.5%; 95% CI: 58.2–81.4). Conclusion Maximum ALP was more accurate than iPTH or phos for diagnosing severe MBD among preterm infants with severe BPD.

Climbing stairs is an important ability for humanoid robots. This paper proposes a target location and gait planning method for humanoid robot climbing stairs. Target location enables the humanoid robot to accurately locate the stair position, and the gait planning algorithm makes the humanoid robot to climb the stairs. In order to enable the humanoid robot to climb multiple stairs, this paper proposes control strategy of motion for humanoid robot. The effectiveness of our proposed method was confirmed by experiments. The experimental results show that this method improves the accuracy of target location, and enables the humanoid robot Nao to climb a staircase with 2.928 cm steps.

Traffic Sign Recognition (TSR) is a key technology in safe driving assistance systems. This paper works on a traffic sign detection and recognition system. First, traffic sign images under natural conditions are collected to establish a traffic sign image database. And then the areas containing traffic signs in the images can be detected using the color and shape based method. Finally, the traffic signs can be recognized by using the template matching method. This system can realize real-time online detection and recognition of traffic signs. And the method used in the system has been proved effective by the experiments.