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Maintenance therapy with pemetrexed has shown survival benefit in patients with advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The recommended dose schedule is 500 mg/m 2 in 21-day cycles. Prolonged treatment with maintenance pemetrexed can result in cumulative toxicities. We sought to compare treatment outcomes in patients receiving an alternate maintenance schedule in realworld practice.This single-center, retrospective study investigated patients with advanced stage (IIIB and IV) NSCLC receiving at least two doses of maintenance pemetrexed from May 1, 2011 to June 30, 2016. The objective was to compare time on treatment with maintenance pemetrexed therapy initiated at a standard schedule (q3 weeks) versus an alternate schedule (q4 weeks or longer). Also evaluated were progressionfree survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) differences between the two groups.129 patients were included, of whom 40 started the alternate schedule no later than cycle 3 of treatment (29 of 40 patients initiated maintenance treatment on the alternate schedule). Average time on maintenance treatment for patients appeared to be longer in the patients who received the alternate schedule regimen (195 vs 263 days, p =0.008). OS trended towards better survival among patients receiving the alternate schedule regimen (11.9 vs 18.1 months, p =0.3). Limiting the analysis to ALK wildtype, the patients showed a similar trend, with median PFS (7.6 vs 11.5 months, p =0.46) and OS (11.9 vs 17.6 months, p =0.38), still favoring the alternate schedule.The alternate dosing schedule of maintenance pemetrexed (q4 weeks or longer) is feasible and not detrimental to OS. Future investigations evaluating the optimal administration schedule of maintenance pemetrexed is warranted.

Internet of Things (IoTs) are increasingly widespread in the field of health care, smart city and smart home application, industrial and agricultural monitoring, automation, etc. With its growing scale of networks, there are a large amount of data in IoTs needing to be sensed, transmitted, and processed. Resource-limited Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) as a perceptual layer of IoTs are hard to handle massive uncompressed sensing data. Compressive data gathering (CDG), which applies compressive sensing theory to data gathering, is a perfectly matching method for data compressing and gathering in WSNs. This promising method has attracted lots of researchers’ attention. In this paper, we attempt to survey substantial references about CDG in WSNs. According to their technology schemes, we classify the published references into three categories, i.e., routing protocol of CDG, clustering scheme of CDG, and CDG combined with other technologies. The merits and defects of each method are highlighted. Our work aims to provide an insight into CDG and promote improvements of this technology.

With the continuous advancement of science and technology and the rapid development of robotics, it has become an inevitable trend for domestic robots to enter thousands of households. In order to solve the inconvenience problem of the elderly and people with special needs, because the elderly and other people in need may need the help of domestic robots due to inconvenient legs and feet, the research of the robot target position based on monocular stereo vision and the understanding of the robot NAO are very important. Research and experiments are carried out on the target recognition and positioning in the process of NAO robot grasping. This paper proposes a recognition algorithm corresponding to quantitative component statistical information. First, extract the area of interest that contains the purpose from the image. After that, to eliminate interference in various fields and achieve target recognition, the robot cameras have almost no common field of view and can only use one camera at the same time. Therefore, this article uses the monocular vision principle to locate the target, and the detection algorithm is based on the structure of the robot head material, establishes the relationship between the height change of the machine head and the tilt angle, and improves the monocular vision NAO robot detection algorithm. According to experiments, the accuracy of the robot at close range can be controlled below 1 cm. This article completes the robot’s grasping and transmission of the target. About 80% of the external information that humans can perceive comes from vision. In addition, there are advantages such as high efficiency and good stability.

Three acceptor–donor–acceptor type fused-ring non-fullerene acceptors of FOR-IN, FOR-1F and FOR-2F, were synthesized with the same pyran-composed backbone but different terminals, affording over 15% efficiency in organic solar cells.

A low band gap acceptor F-ThBr is designed for the front cell and CH1007 is selected for the rear cell. Using the two acceptors, a tandem OSC is fabricated and offers an efficiency of 18.67%.

An asymmetric acceptor NQF is designed to minimize the nonradiative loss. Using this acceptor, a binary OSC is fabricated and offers an efficiency of 17.57% with a low nonradiative energy loss (ΔEnr) of 0.177 eV.

With powerful storage and computation capability, vehicular edge computing is considered as a promising paradigm to enhance the safety and quality-of-service of vehicles in intelligent transportation systems. In this work, we investigate a joint road side units (RSUs) selection and resource allocation problem, with the objective of minimizing the total task offloading delay subject to the bandwidth and computation resources constraints, in non-collaborative and collaborative RSU scenarios. For the former, as the formulated problem is a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem, we re-formulate the original problem into a convex one and then decompose it into a distributed manner. By utilizing the alternating direction method of multipliers, we propose a joint RSUs selection and resource allocation (JRSRA) algorithm. For the collaborative RSU scenarios, we transform the problem into a convex optimization problem by linearization, and propose a joint resource allocation based branch and bound (JRABB) algorithm to solve the total task offloading delay minimization problem. Simulation results show that the proposed JRSRA and JRABB algorithms can reduce the total task offloading delay compared with other benchmark methods.

In the Internet of Things (IoT) for smart healthcare applications, sensors collect a vast amount of healthcare data, while coverage significantly affects the Quality of Service (QoS). In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the QoS as well as the network lifetime are dramatically degraded with the increment of coverage holes, especially in large-scale hybrid WSNs (LS-HWSNs) where big data are collected by thousands of sensors distributed in a wide monitored area. In a LS-HWSN, two crucial problems, i.e., covering the wide area without coverage holes and designing an energy-efficient manner for dispatching mobile sensors to repair coverage holes, need to be solved. We study the problems from the cutting point of confident information coverage hole repairing (CICHR). To this end, based on the confident information coverage (CIC) model, a CIC hole predicting (CICHP) algorithm, centralized energy-efficient repairing (CEER) algorithm, and distributed energy-efficient repairing (DEER) algorithm are developed. The CICHP algorithm can predict the prior information of CIC holes (CICHs) by using the period-by-period energy consumption information of sensor nodes. Based on the prior information of CICHs, two repairing algorithms: 1) CEER and 2) DEER can schedule mobile sensors to repair CICHs beforehand. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can significantly improve the QoS and extend the network lifetime of LS-HWSNs.

Xi-Yu Yao,1,* Yan Zhou,2,* Shun-Jin Chen,1 Yu Wu,1 Cong Bian,1 Hongbin Chen,1 Hui Liu1 1Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Fujian Cancer Hospital & Fujian Medical University Cancer Hospital, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350011, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Epidemiology, Fujian Cancer Hospital & Fujian Medical University Cancer Hospital, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350011, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Hui LiuDepartment of Head and Neck Surgery, Fujian Cancer Hospital & Fujian Medical University Cancer Hospital, Fuzhou, Fujian, 350011, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 138 0506 9511Email liuhuifj@sina.comPurpose: To investigate whether there is a pattern of recovery of parathyroid function after thyroid cancer surgery.Patients and Methods: The study included 183 patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) who underwent “total thyroidectomy (TT)” plus “unilateral central lymph node dissection (UCLND)” or “bilateral central lymph node dissection (BCLND)”. The intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) and serum calcium (sCa) were analyzed several times within 1 month after surgery to explore the recovery pattern of parathyroid gland function. Then, these 183 cases were divided into group A (97 cases) with UCLND and group B (86 cases) with BCLND to analyze whether the impairment and recovery of parathyroid function were different between the two subgroups.Results: Postoperative hypoparathyroidism was seen in 115 out of 183 cases. iPTH values decreased significantly on postoperative day (POD) 1 compared with preoperative values, dropped to the lowest point on POD 3, showed an increasing trend on POD 5 and 14, and increased to 85.0% of preoperative values at POD30, whereas changes in sCa differ from changes in iPTH, which showed the lowest sCa value on POD1, and rebounded on the POD3 with the intervention of calcium supplementation, and continued to rise on the POD5 and POD14, and the sCa value reached 96.6% of the preoperative level at POD30. Subgroup analysis showed that temporary hypoparathyroidism was more pronounced in group B than in group A. SCa and iPTH levels in both subgroups showed the same trend of first decrease and then increase.Conclusion: The recovery of hypocalcemia and hypo-iPTHemia in the first month after thyroid cancer surgery shows a trend of decreasing and then increasing, and knowing the recovery of parathyroid function at different time points is of great value to surgeons and patients alike.Keywords: hypoparathyroidism, hypocalcaemia, parathyroid hormone, thyroid carcinoma, thyroidectomy, lymph node dissection

A predictor–corrector compact finite difference scheme is proposed for a nonlinear partial integro-differential equation. In our method, the time direction is approximated by backward Euler scheme and the Riemann–Liouville (R–L) fractional integral term is treated by means of first order convolution quadrature suggested by Lubich. Meanwhile, a two-step predictor–corrector (P–C) algorithm called MacCormack method is used. A fully discrete scheme is constructed with space discretization by compact finite difference method. Numerical experiment presents the scheme is in good agreement with the theoretical analysis.

The recent upsurge of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has caused scarcity of network resources, such as spectrum and computation resources. Moreover, mobile devices ordinarily join or leave networks for their own convenience, resulting in high network dynamics. As a result, developing advanced technologies based on the concepts of cooperation, sharing, and reusing becomes necessary for wireless networks. As one of the promising solutions, online truthful mechanism design has been introduced in wireless networks in order to motivate the participation of more mobile users under a dynamic environment. This article first introduces the origination and some basic concepts of the online truthful mechanism, and then provides an exhibition of several online truthful mechanism design methods, which have been widely applied in wireless networks. We primarily present two types of online truthful mechanisms, that is, primal-dual based and time slotted online mechanisms, and then briefly summarize other classes, including Myerson-based, random-based, and matching-based ones.

Smoking indoors generally exists in daily life, and highlighting the importance of reducing the hazard from smoke particles to non-smoking occupants is crucial. To quantitatively investigate the flow characteristics in a ventilated room, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is used to assess the velocity, concentration, and inhalation levels of indoor particles using a manikin with a realistic upper respiratory tract. It realizes smoke particles’ diffusion simulation from room scale to human upper respiratory tract scale. An experiment is also performed to measure PM2.5 concentrations. With the increase of a high air change rate per hour (ACH) from zero to 12.32 and 17.14, the indoor particle concentration reduces by 58.5% and 67.9%, the number of inhaled particles decreases by 22.9% and 43.8%, and the particle concentration around the occupant decreases by 10.3% and 17.5%, respectively. It shows that indoor ventilation has a drastic effect on flow characteristics, particle concentrations, and particle outcomes. ACH of 17.14 is found to significantly reduce the particle concentration around the occupant and decrease the number of smoke particles inhaled and remaining indoors. It indicates that the ventilation equipment can reduce the number of smoke particles in the room. There are still 41.3% and 31.9% particles remaining in the room when the ACH is 12.32 and 17.14, which does harm to human health.

The occurrence and infestations of chlorine-resistant invertebrates in drinking water distributions have attracted concerns on water quality in China, making effective deactivation imperative. This study presents a novel strategy for nematode (Caenorhabditis elegans) deactivation using peroxymonosulfate (PMS)/UV-C. The results indicated that 100% deactivation efficiency was obtained under optimal conditions. An acidic pH and 0.25 mg/L Fe(II) were beneficial to the PMS/UV-C-triggered deactivation of nematodes. A mechanism study demonstrated that $$ {\mathrm{HSO}}_5^{-} $$ was activated by UV-C to produce ·OH and $$ \cdotp {\mathrm{SO}}_4^{-} $$ , which resulted in oxidative stress and stimulated the occurrence of cell apoptosis, leading to nematode deactivation. The results reveal PMS/UV-C as an alternative to chlorination in water treatment plants (WTP) or an emergency application when chlorine-resistant invertebrates breed in a second-supply water tank is a promising strategy for disinfection. This approach possessed the advantages of avoiding the production of chlorine disinfection by-products (DBP) and greater efficacy of nematode deactivation. This work will provide ideas for on-going research efforts into chlorine-resistant invertebrate deactivation and eventually achieve the direct drinking of municipal tap water.

The paper is devoted to the qualitative properties of positive solutions to a semilinear elliptic equation in a planar sub-spherical sector. Under certain range of amplitudes, we prove some monotonicity properties via the method of moving planes. The symmetry properties follow from the uniqueness of the corresponding over-determined problem by Farina and Valdinoci (2013 Am. J. Math.).

The 220-GHz continuous wave (CW) folded waveguide (FWG) traveling wave tube (TWT) is presented as the high-power amplifier for the terahertz (THz) communication system in this article. This tube is designed and fabricated including FWG circuit, electron gun, periodical permanent magnet system, coupling window, and thermal management structure. The test results show that with the pencil beam of 20.5 kV and 52.4 mA, the output power is 16 W and the corresponding bandwidth is 7 GHz from 213 to 220 GHz, and the maximum power and the corresponding gain are 30 W and 31.2 dB at the frequency of 217 GHz.

Halogenation of terminal of acceptors has been shown to give dramatic improvements in power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells (OSCs). Similar significant results could be expected from the halogenation of the central units of state-of-the-art Y-series acceptors. Herein, a pair of acceptors, termed CH6 and CH4, featuring a conjugation-extended phenazine central unit with and without fluorination, have been synthesized. The fluorinated CH6 has enhanced molecular interactions and crystallinity, superior fibrillar network morphology and improved charge generation and transport in blend films, thus affording a higher PCE of 18.33 % for CH6-based binary OSCs compared to 16.49 % for the non-fluorinated CH4. The new central site offers further opportunities for structural optimization of Y-series molecules to afford better-performed OSCs and reveals the effectiveness of fluorination on central units.

Chunjiang Zhao, Shuo Yang, Feifei Zhang, Zhanwei Wang, Yawei Zhang, Xiaojuan Wang, Henan Li, Hongbin Chen, Hui Wang Department of Clinical Laboratory, Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Hui Wang, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Peking University People’s Hospital, No. 11, Xizhimen South Street, Xicheng District, Beijing, 100044, People’s Republic of China, Email whuibj@163.comBackground: Emergence of antimicrobial resistance poses new challenges in the management of community acquired respiratory tract infections (CARTIs). Therefore, surveillance on the antimicrobial susceptibilities of common respiratory pathogens is valuable and guides empirical therapeutic choices in management of CARTIs.Objective: The objective of the current study is to summarize the antimicrobial resistance trends in common respiratory tract pathogens isolated from patients with CARTIs in China, over a 10-year period (2009– 2018).Methods: Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis strains were collected from multicenter, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed in the research central laboratory of each study period from 2009– 2018. The pathogens that accounted for CARTIs in the adult population was considered and summarized.Results: From 2009– 2018 a total of 3750 isolates were collected from 22 cities located across different regions of China. Among these the most common bacterial isolates include S. pneumoniae (53.7%) followed by H. influenza (32.4%), M. catarrhalis (13.9%). S. pneumoniae exhibited reduction in susceptibility and increase in resistance to penicillin, cephalosporins (cefaclor, cefuroxime, ceftriaxone) during the surveillance period. Invasive and noninvasive S. pneumoniae showed similar resistance. In the case of H. influenzae susceptibility to β-lactam and β-lactamase inhibitors (ampicillin, amoxicillin and AMC), SXT, clarithromycin and cephalosporins (cefuroxime, cefaclor, ceftazidime) was reduced over the past 10 years with an exception of ceftriaxone. Overall, moxifloxacin and levofloxacin have the highest susceptibility rates against S. pneumoniae (> 95%) and H. influenza (> 90%). M. catarrhalis exhibited susceptibility to almost all the tested antimicrobials.Conclusion: In China the 10-year trends showed a substantial increase in resistance to β-lactam drugs and reduction in sensitivity. However, certain antimicrobial agents namely fluoroquinolones including moxifloxacin and levofloxacin maintained low resistance rates with better susceptibility. Further, with few exceptions decline in susceptibility rates to macrolides and cephalosporins was observed among the tested pathogens.Keywords: Community-acquired respiratory tract infections, antimicrobial resistance, susceptibility, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis

Over 270 million people have been infected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the past two years, resulting in 5 million deaths. The virus primarily transmitted through droplets or aerosols produced by coughing, sneezing, and talking. A full-scale isolation ward in Wuhan Pulmonary Hospital is modeled in this work, and water droplet diffusion is simulated using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach. In an isolation ward, a local exhaust ventilation system is intended to avoid cross-infection. The existence of a local exhaust system increases turbulent movement, leading to a complete breakup of the droplet cluster and improved droplet dispersion inside the ward. When outlet negative pressure is 4.5 Pa, the number of moving droplets in the ward decreases by approximately 30% compared to the original ward. The local exhaust system could minimize the number of droplets evaporated in the ward; however, the formation of aerosols cannot be avoided. Furthermore, in six different scenarios there are 60.83%, 62.04%, 61.03%, 60.22%, 62.97% and 61.52% droplets produced by cough deposited on the surface of the patient. However, the local exhaust ventilation system has no apparent influence on the control of surface contamination. This study provides several suggestions for the optimization of ventilation in the wards, and scientific evidence to ensure the air quality of hospital isolation wards.

Despite much progress in organic solar cells (OSCs), higher efficiency is still the most desirable goal and can indeed be obtained through rational design of active layer materials and device optimization according to the theoretical prediction. Herein, under the guidance of a semi-empirical model, two new non-fullerene small molecule acceptors (NF-SMAs) with an acceptor-donor-acceptor (A-D-A) architecture, namely, 6T-OFIC and 5T-OFIC, have been designed and synthesized. 6T-OFIC exhibits wider absorption spectrum and a red-shifted absorption onset (λonset) of 946 nm due to its extended conjugation central unit. In contrast, 5T-OFIC with five-thiophene-fused backbone has an absorption with the λonset of 927 nm, which is closer to the predicted absorption range for the best single junction cells based on the semi-empirical model. Consequently, the device based on 5T-OFIC yields a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.43% compared with 12.35% of the 6T-OFIC-based device. Furthermore, an impressive PCE of 15.45% was achieved for the 5T-OFIC-based device when using F-2Cl as the third component. 5T-OFIC offers one of a few acceptor cases with efficiencies over 15% other than Y6 derivatives.

A complete 28-GHz/50-kW gyrotron system was developed by the Institute of Applied Electronics, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang, China, as a plasma heating source for the EXL50 fusion device, a compact spherical tokamak constructed by the ENN Group in 2019. The gyrotron employs a triode magnetron injection gun, a TE02-mode cylindrical cavity, a built-in quasi-optical mode converter, a single-stage depressed collector, and a single-disk boron nitride window. The gyrotron system features a match optical unit, a superconducting magnet, a calorimetric dummy load, a high-voltage power supply system, and other auxiliary components, was delivered to the EXL50 site. In the acceptance test, five successive shots of each power over 50 kW were generated for 30 s at 28 GHz. An average power of 51 kW, a maximum power of 55 kW, and 46% overall efficiency were obtained. The gyrotron system was assembled in the EXL50 and applied to a plasma discharge experiment. The gyrotron is the first practical domestic gyrotron produced for fusion applications in China. The design and test results of this instrument are presented in this article.

The solar-powered marine unmanned surface vehicle (USV) developed by the USV team of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics is a rugged, long-duration, and autonomous navigation vessel designed for the collection of long-range, continuous, real-time, meteorological and oceanographic measurements, especially under extreme sea conditions (sea state 6–7). These solar-powered USVs completed a long-term continuous navigation observation test over 26 days. During this time, they coordinated double-USV observations and actively navigated into the path of Typhoon Sinlaku (2020) before collecting data very close to its center during the 2020 USV South China Sea Typhoon Observation Experiment. Detailed high temporal resolution (1 min) real-time observations collected by the USV on the typhoon were used for operational typhoon forecasting and warning for the first time. As a mobile meteorological and oceanographic observation station capable of reliable, automated deployment, data collection, and transmission, such solar-powered USVs can replace traditional observation platforms to provide valuable real-time data for research, forecasting, and early warnings for potential marine meteorological disasters.

A high-power 28 GHz gyrotron has been successfully developed at the Institute of Applied Electronics, China Academy of Engineering Physics. This gyrotron was designed for electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH) in the spherical tokamak XL-50. A diode magnetron injection gun was designed to produce the required gyrating electron beam. The gyrotron operates in the TE8,3 mode in a cylindrical open cavity. An internal quasi-optical mode converter was designed to convert the operating mode into a fundamental Gaussian wave beam and separate the spent electron beam from the outgoing microwave power. A tube has been built and successfully tested. The operational frequency of the tube is 28.1 GHz. For beam parameters at an accelerating voltage of 71 kV and beam current of 16 A, the gyrotron has delivered an output power of 400 kW, with a pulse length of 5 s. The output efficiency is about 50% with a single-stage depressed collector. The gyrotron has been installed on the XL-50 and has played an important role in the ECRH experiments.