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Background: Walk tests are common gait speed and endurance assessments. Shorter test versions could benefit adults with intellectual disability. Thus, the concurrent validity of shorter tests was studied. Methods: Thirty-five adults with mild to moderate intellectual disability, aged 21-64 years, were assessed with the 4-m walk test, 10-m walk test for gait speed, 2-min walk test, and 6-min walk test for endurance. Correlation and Bland--Altman plots analyses were used to establish concurrent validity between shorter and standard tests. Results: Strong positive relationships were found for gait speed tests, r = 0.94, p < 0.001, and endurance tests, r = 0.83, p < 0.001, and differences between shorter and standard tests were within limits of agreement. Conclusions: The concurrent validity of shorter walk tests was established in this study. This would mean that adults with intellectual disability with lower levels of fitness could be assessed.

A new species, Ulnaria shun-biseriata sp. nov., was found in the Shun River of Hunan Province, southern China, and its morphology was described based on light and scannning electron microscope obervations. Ulnaria shun-biseriata is characterized by its lanceolate valve outline, apiculate valve apices, slightly undulate valve margins, mostly biseriate striae, variable central area, and closed valvocopula. Many abnormal valves of U. shun-biseriata were observed in the samples investigated and the most frequent morphological abnormalities consisted of a lack of symmetry relative to the apical axis caused by a unilateral expansion in the middle part of the valve.

Abstract Background Patients with airway stenosis (AS) are associated with considerable morbidity and mortality after lung transplantation (LTx). This study aims to develop and validate machine learning (ML) models to predict AS requiring clinical intervention in patients after LTx. Methods Patients who underwent LTx between January 2017 and December 2019 were reviewed. The conventional logistic regression (LR) model was fitted by the independent risk factors which were determined by multivariate LR. The optimal ML model was determined based on 7 feature selection methods and 8 ML algorithms. Model performance was assessed by the area under the curve (AUC) and brier score, which were internally validated by the bootstrap method. Results A total of 381 LTx patients were included, and 40 (10.5%) patients developed AS. Multivariate analysis indicated that male, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and postoperative 6-min walking test were significantly associated with AS (all P

The effect of La treatment on the transformation of inclusions in H13 steel was investigated by subjecting H13 die steel to vacuum induction melting and subsequently treating the molten steel with La under an argon atmosphere protection.The results demonstrate that La has a beneficial effect on inclusions in H13 steel， the number of inclusions increases with the increase of La content， while the average size of inclusions initially decreases and then increases. The inclusions in H13 steel without the rare earth La additions are primarily Al₂O₃ and MnS. However， with a La content of 0.016% in H13 steel， the dominant inclusions shift to La2O2S. When the La content in H13 steel is 0.016%， the inclusions in the steel are mainly La2O2S；Furthermore， when the La content reaches 0.045% and 0.073%， the predominant inclusions in steel become LaP and La2O2S. Thermodynamic calculations show that the transformation process of La-treated inclusions is Al2O3→LaAlO3→La2O2S in molten steel at 1 600 ℃. During the solidification process， La2S3 is initially precipitated in the molten steel. As the temperature continues to decline， LaP begins to precipitate on the surface of La2S3 and La2O2S， ultimately forming the composite inclusions La2O2S-LaP and La2S3-LaP.

BackgroundShort videos have demonstrated huge potential in disseminating health information in recent years. However, to our knowledge, no study has examined information about colorectal polyps on short-video sharing platforms. ObjectiveThis study aimed to analyze the content and quality of colorectal polyps-related videos on short-video sharing platforms. MethodsThe terms “肠息肉” (intestinal polyps) or “结肠息肉” (colonic polyps) or “直肠息肉” (rectal polyps) or “结直肠息肉” (colorectal polyps) or “大肠息肉” (polyps of large intestine) were used to search in TikTok (ByteDance), WeChat (Tencent Holdings Limited), and Xiaohongshu (Xingyin Information Technology Limited) between May 26 and June 8, 2024, and then the top 100 videos for each search term on different platforms were included and recorded. The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) score, the Global Quality Scale (GQS), the modified DISCERN, and the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool (PEMAT) were used to evaluate the content and quality of selected videos by 2 independent researchers. SPSS (version 22.0; IBM Corp) and GraphPad Prism (version 9.0; Dotmatics) were used for analyzing the data. Descriptive statistics were generated, and the differences between groups were compared. Spearman correlation analysis was used to evaluate the relationship between quantitative variables. ResultsA total of 816 eligible videos were included for further analysis, which mainly conveyed disease-related knowledge (n=635, 77.8%). Most videos were uploaded by physicians (n=709, 86.9%). These videos had an average JAMA score of 2.0 (SD 0.6), GQS score of 2.5 (SD 0.8), modified DISCERN score of 2.5 (SD 0.8), understandability of 80.4% (SD 15.6%), and actionability of 42.2% (SD 36.1%). Videos uploaded by news agencies were of higher quality and received more likes and comments (all P

We describe the impact of post-annealing on ferroelectric-domain structures in arrays of BiFeO3 (BFO) epitaxial nanoislands, which exhibit a domain evolution from an initial 71° stripe/vortex domains to center-convergent topological domains. These results suggest that the increase and redistribution of charged defects, e.g., oxygen vacancies, in BFO nanoislands play a crucial role in driving the formation of center-type domain structures. The observation of defect-driven domain evolution in BFO nanoislands provides a path for further exploring their formation mechanism, topological properties, novel functionalities, and potential applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Emergent phenomena such as two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) and interfacial superconductivity and ferromagnetism are generally built on the interface between insulating oxide thin films and substrates, e.g., LaAlO3/SrTiO3, where the 2D profiles of these electronic states are precisely confined at the interface of two insulators. Herein we report a high-mobility electron gas state with unusual symmetry at the interface of the Sr2CrMoO6/SrTiO3 (110) heterostructures, the fermiology of which follows the cubic crystallographic symmetry rather than the two-dimensional interface itself, resulting in the identical Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations with applied magnetic field along all the twelve equivalent [110] crystallographic directions of SrTiO3, distinctly different from the 2D nature of the electron gas reported previously. Neutron diffraction verifies the predicted ferrimagnetic ordering between Cr and Mo moments. This, together with the magnetic hysteresis loops and negative magnetoresistance in low-field region, suggests possible spin polarization of itinerant electrons. Therefore, a quasi-3D profile, high mobility (up to 104 cm2 V−1 s−1) and possibly spin polarized electronic state is observed in the double-perovskite-based oxide heterostructures. This finding of the electronic properties in Sr2CrMoO6/SrTiO3 (110) heterostructure expands the knowledge of interfacial physics, as well as shines light on oxide-based electronics and spintronics research.

Flexoelectric and photo-flexoelectricity are scientifically intriguing and hold considerable potential for various applications such as soft strain sensing, photovoltaics, energy harvesting, etc. Among flexoelectric materials, freestanding ferroelectric thin films are believed to have huge flexoelectricity and tunability due to their excellent lattice regulatory freedom and sustainability to larger strain gradients. In this work, we demonstrated a freestanding BiFeO3(BFO) thin film-based soft strain sensor and explored their flexoelectric coefficient and flexoelectric photovoltaic effect under different strain gradients. Under different bending scales, the photocurrent of the thin film exhibits a step-like variation, indicating that the sensor can measure strain gradient with high sensitivity. These results show the potential application of freestanding ferroelectric films in flexible devices.

The advent of automated vehicles (AVs) and connected automated vehicles (CAVs) creates significant uncertainties in infrastructure planning due to many unknowns, such as performance variability and user adaptation. As technologies are still emerging with low market penetration, limited observational data hinder validation and escalate prediction uncertainty. This study addresses these gaps by employing diverse vehicle models and wide performance ranges in Aimsun microsimulations. It involved three AV/CAV car-following models with the default Gipps human-driven vehicle (HDV) model. We evaluated the performance of a mixed fleet in three well-calibrated real-world corridor models, including two highways and one freeway. Vehicle parameters in Aimsun are commonly drawn from a corresponding truncated normal distribution with fixed mean, min, and max values. However, to account for future uncertainty and heterogeneity, our AV/CAV models were given truncated normal distributions with variable means for important parameters to incorporate broader performance ranges. The variable means are drawn from intervals with uniform probability, and some of the interval extended below HDV values to account for scenarios where riders opt for smoother rides at the cost of traffic flow. Recognizing that precise future prediction is unattainable, we aimed to establish traffic performance boundaries that define best- and worst-case scenarios in a mixed-fleet environment. Enumerating all possible combinations is impractical, so a refined optimization algorithm was employed to expedite solution discovery. Our findings suggest that AVs/CAVs, even with conservative performance parameters, can improve traffic operations by reducing peak delays and enhancing travel time reliability. Freeways benefited more than arterial roads, especially with full CAV penetration, although the authors speculate this could create bottlenecks at off-ramps. The added capacity may induce traffic demand that is difficult to estimate. Instead, we conducted a demand sensitivity analysis to gauge additional traffic accommodation without worsening delays. Compared to point predictions, establishing the range of possibilities can help us future-proof infrastructure by considering uncertainties in the planning process. Our framework can be adopted to test alternative models or scenarios as more data becomes available., Author(s): Yuchao Sun (corresponding author) [1]; Liam Cummins [1]; Yan Ji [1]; Thomas Stemler [2]; Nicholas Pritchard [1] 1. Introduction 1.1. Background and Motivation As AVs (autonomous vehicles or automated [...]

The Kirkpatrick–Baez (KB) microscope is an effective instrument for x-ray imaging of hot spot. However, the non-uniform distribution of response efficiency in the field of view is a drawback of the KB microscope. A more accurate hot spot image requires the correction of the measured image by combining the hot spot position and the response efficiency distribution. Here, we describe a method to locate the position of the hot spot in the field of view during hot spot imaging with a KB microscope. The position of the hot spot in the field of view can be obtained by measuring the grazing incidence angle change during hot spot imaging. In the experiment of hot spot self-emission imaging with a four-channel KB microscope, the location of the hot spot with an accuracy of 15 μm was realized, and the intensity corrected hot spot image was obtained. This will solve the problem of the non-uniform distribution of the response efficiency of the KB microscope and enable quantitative measurement of hot spot radiation intensity.

Abstract This study aimed to identify the role of chromothripsis as a novel biomarker in the prognosis and differentiation diagnosis of pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (pNENs). We conducted next‐generation gene sequencing in a cohort of 30 patients with high‐grade (G3) pNENs. As a reference, a similar analysis was also performed on 25 patients with low‐grade (G1/G2) pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs). Chromothripsis and its relationship with clinicopathological features and prognosis were investigated. The results showed that DNA damage response and repair gene alteration and TP53 mutation were found in 29 and 11 patients, respectively. A total of 14 out of 55 patients had chromothripsis involving different chromosomes. Chromothripsis had a close relationship with TP53 alteration and higher grade. In the entire cohort, chromothripsis was associated with a higher risk of distant metastasis; both chromothripsis and metastasis (ENETS Stage IV) suggested a significantly shorter overall survival (OS). Importantly, in the high‐grade pNENs group, chromothripsis was the only independent prognostic indicator significantly associated with a shorter OS, other than TP53 alteration or pathological pancreatic neuroendocrine carcinomas (pNECs) diagnosis. Chromothripsis can guide worse prognosis in pNENs, and help differentiate pNECs from high‐grade (G3) pNETs.

BackgroundExtramammary Paget’s disease (EMPD) is a rare epithelial malignancy, and approximately 30%–40% of EMPD patients overexpress human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her-2). Currently, there are no established standard treatments for advanced EMPD while anti–Her-2 therapy is recommended for Her-2–positive cases.Case presentationHere, we report a 51-year-old male diagnosed with advanced Her-2–positive EMPD, presenting with numerous lymph node metastases. This patient received disitamab vedotin (an antibody-drug conjugate, targeting Her-2) combined with serplulimab as first-line treatment. After seven cycles of combination therapy, the patient tolerated the treatment well and the lymph node lesions continued to shrink. However, the patient developed immunotherapy-related pneumonia following the eighth treatment. Hormone therapy was administered while all the anti-tumor therapies were halted. After the pneumonia improved, the patient underwent positron emission tomography-computed tomography, revealing a complete response to his tumor. To consolidate the effect, he received another five cycles of disitamab vedotin monotherapy as maintenance therapy, without experiencing any adverse events. To date, the patient has remained in good health without any recurrence 10 months after drug discontinuance.ConclusionDisitamab vedotin combined with immunotherapy demonstrated a long-term clinical benefit in advanced Her-2–positive EMPD. For rare solid tumors with Her-2 overexpression, disitamab vedotin combined with immunotherapy might offer a viable therapeutic choice.

BackgroundPatients with resectable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) receiving neoadjuvant immunotherapy (NIT) display variable treatment responses. The purpose of this study is to establish and validate a radiomics based on enhanced computed tomography (CT) and combined with clinical data to predict the major pathological response to NIT in ESCC patients.MethodsThis retrospective study included 82 ESCC patients who were randomly divided into the training group (n = 57) and the validation group (n = 25). Radiomic features were derived from the tumor region in enhanced CT images obtained before treatment. After feature reduction and screening, radiomics was established. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to select clinical variables. The predictive model integrating radiomics and clinical data was constructed and presented as a nomogram. Area under curve (AUC) was applied to evaluate the predictive ability of the models, and decision curve analysis (DCA) and calibration curves were performed to test the application of the models.ResultsOne clinical data (radiotherapy) and 10 radiomic features were identified and applied for the predictive model. The radiomics integrated with clinical data could achieve excellent predictive performance, with AUC values of 0.93 (95% CI 0.87–0.99) and 0.85 (95% CI 0.69–1.00) in the training group and the validation group, respectively. DCA and calibration curves demonstrated a good clinical feasibility and utility of this model.ConclusionEnhanced CT image-based radiomics could predict the response of ESCC patients to NIT with high accuracy and robustness. The developed predictive model offers a valuable tool for assessing treatment efficacy prior to initiating therapy, thus providing individualized treatment regimens for patients.

Abstract Lead‐free polycrystalline manganese telluride holds great potential in the development of waste heat recovery due to its fascinating physical properties. However, the poor thermoelectric (TE) performance in the p‐type MnTe alloys always results from their inferior carrier concentration, leading to low power factor and high thermal conductivity which restrict the overall thermoelectric performance. In this work, the problem is solved by decoupling its electrical and thermal transports through the hole donor Ge‐deficiency in MnTe + x mol.% GeTe (0 ≤ x ≤ 4) compounds. Intrinsically, extra GeTe in MnTe + x mol.% GeTe compound offers free charge carriers due to a narrow bandgap comparatively, realizing not only a full assessment of stimulated electrical performance but also an enhanced power factor. Moreover, benefiting from the nano‐precipitates and tweed microstructures, the lattice thermal conductivity effectively reduces due to the intensive phonon scattering accordingly. Ultimately, a maximum ZT of ≈1.2 at 873 K in the 3 mol.% GeTe doped MnTe sample is realized.