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Sodium (Na)-ion batteries have received widespread attention due to their low cost and good safety. The possibility of two-dimensional vanadium boride (V

Growing nonlinearity demands in mid-infrared applications place more outstanding requirements on fiber structure design. Chalcogenide suspended-core fibers (SCFs) are considered excellent candidates for mid-infrared applications due to their significant advantages in nonlinearity and dispersion management. However, traditional numerical methods for accurate modeling and optimization of SCFs often rely on the performance of computing devices and have many limitations when dealing with complex models. A machine learning algorithm is applied to calculate the optical properties of chalcogenide SCFs, including effective mode area, nonlinear coefficient, and dispersion. The established artificial neural network (ANN) model enables accurate prediction of the above optical properties of A s 2 S 3 SCF, for which in the wavelength range of 1.0 to 4.0 µm, the radius of the fiber core is 0.4 to 0.6 µm, and width of the cantilever is 0.06 to 0.09 µm. We demonstrate that this simple ANN model has considerable advantages over the traditional numerical calculation model in computational speed and resource utilization. In summary, the proposed model can quickly provide more accurate optical property predictions, providing a cost-effective solution for precise modeling and optimization of chalcogenide SCFs.

In this study, the formation mechanism and water quality of groundwater in the northwest of Nansi Lake Catchment (NNLC) were analyzed through mathematical statistics, hydrochemical analysis and entropy weighted water quality index (EWQI), and the human health risk of nitrate was also evaluated. To this end, 89 wells in the NNLC were sampled, and the groundwater samples were divided into three groups (I, II, and III) according to cluster analysis results and spatial distribution. The main results are as follows: Topographically, Groups I, II, and III correspond to the alluvial plains, apron plain, and low hills and its front margin, respectively. According to the Piper diagram, the hydrochemical types of Groups I and II groundwater are Na–SO4·Cl and Ca·Mg–HCO3, respectively, and that of Group III is more concentrated, mostly corresponding to the Ca–HCO3 type. Hydrochemical analysis indicated that the development of groundwater hydrochemistry is mainly attributable to water–rock interactions, with the primary process being the dissolution of minerals such as calcite, dolomite, gypsum, and albite. Evaporation exhibited an increasing trend from the northeast to the southwest. Groups I and III presented obvious effects of human activities, with Group I showing sulfate pollution and Group III mainly showing nitrate pollution. Analysis of the characteristics and causes of the groundwater hydrochemistry revealed the proposed approach has excellent performance for classification in areas with complex hydrogeological conditions. The results of EWQI showed that the overall water quality was good, following the order Group III > Group II > Group I. The overall human health risk of nitrate in groundwater was low, but the risk was slightly higher for children than for adults. Therefore, the effects of nitrate contamination should be considered when exploiting hilly and peri-urban groundwater for drinking water.

Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) is a precursor lesion of cervical cancer. Traditional treatments for CIN might have negative effects on cervical anatomical structure and physiological function. Topical 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (5-ALA PDT) is a novel, non-invasive targeted therapy for intraepithelial lesions. This study aims to evaluate and compare the efficacy and safety of 5-ALA PDT for different grades of CIN.A retrospective study of 183 patients aged 19-50 with histologically confirmed CIN and receiving ALA-PDT was conducted. ALA-PDT was performed with 20% ALA thermosensitive gel and irradiation at a wavelength of 635 nm and density of 80-100 J/cmThe HPV clearance rate was 71.0% (130/183) at the six-month follow-up and 84.5% (147/174) at the 12-month follow-up. The complete lesion remission (CR) rate was 90.2% (165/183). No statistically significant differences concerning the CR rate (P0.05) or HPV clearance rates (P0.05) were observed in CIN I, CIN II, and CIN III. In women with CIN III, gland involvement was revealed to be associated with a significantly lower HPV clearance rate (63.16% vs. 92.60%, P= 0.036) at the 12-month follow-up. Our study showed that the atypical vessels seemed to be a risk factor for HPV clearance rate in the CIN II group at six-month follow-up, although the difference was not statistically significant (P= 0.089). During the follow-up, 13 cases had persistent lesions (7.1%), four cases recurred (2.3%), and none of the patients progressed. The study also showed that the efficacy of PDT in the treatment of patients with CIN III involving glands was comparable to that of CKC (P0.05).ALA-PDT is an effective andsafe treatment for CIN, and responseis unaffected by the grade of lesions. However, for patients with atypical vessels and glandular involvement, the effect of PDT seems to be poorer.

For FPI sensor demodulation systems to be used in actual engineering measurement, they must have high performance, low cost, stability, and scalability. Excellent performance, however, necessitates expensive equipment and advanced algorithms. This research provides a new absolute demodulation system for FPI sensors that is high-performance and cost-effective. The reflected light from the sensor was demultiplexed into distinct channels using an array waveguide grating (AWG), with the interference spectrum features change translated as the variation of the transmitted intensity in each AWG channel. This data was fed into an end-to-end neural network model, which was utilized to interrogate multiple interference peaks’ absolute peak wavelengths simultaneously. This architecturally simple network model can achieve remarkable generalization capabilities without training large-scale datasets using an appropriate data augmentation strategy. Experiments show that in simultaneous multi-wavelength and cavity length interrogations, the proposed system has the precision of up to ± 14 pm and ± 0.07 µm, respectively. The interrogation resolution can theoretically reach the pm level benefit from the neural network method. Furthermore, the system’s outstanding demodulation repeatability and suitability were demonstrated. The system is expected to provide a high-performance and cost-effective, reliable solution for practical engineering applications.

Ever-increasing efforts have been made to develop rapid and practical conditioning methods of sludge dewatering. This study demonstrated an innovative combination of potassium permanganate (KMnO4) and peroxymonosulfate (PMS) for sludge dewatering. The combined use of KMnO4 and PMS (KMnO4/PMS) showed its superiority in improving sludge dewaterability over the separate use of KMnO4 or PMS. By dosing 4 mmol g−1 VSS KMnO4 and 3 mmol g−1 VSS PMS, the dewaterability of waste activated sludge (WAS) significantly enhanced as capillary suction time (CST) decreased from 73.65 s to 24.65 s while the water content of dewatered sludge cake (WC) decreased from 78.96% to 70.47%. Apart from CST and WC, the KMnO4/PMS process could also affect negative zeta potential, sludge flocs size and the concentrations of protein and polysaccharide in extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). The enhanced sludge dewaterability and changes of the physicochemical characteristics of the WAS samples during the KMnO4/PMS process were actually ascribed to sulfate radicals (SO4˙−) and hydroxyl radicals (HO˙) in situ generated via PMS activation by manganese oxides (MnOx) in the states of MnO2 and Mn3O4 transferred from KMnO4 oxidation, which was verified by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) techniques and radical scavenging experiments. Moreover, the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis further confirmed that the in situ generated SO4˙− and HO˙ could improve sludge dewaterability. Thus, the KMnO4/PMS process could be considered as a promising conditioning method of sludge dewatering.

There are various kinds of trace ions in water supply, such as Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and Cl-, SO(4)2-, CO(3)2- etc. 17O-NMR chemical shift and line-width of water were measured under different temperature and different concentrations of various salts in aqueous solutions containing those ions. The relationship of 17O-NMR chemical shift and line-width of water to water association and the effect of ions on water association were analyzed. Cations promoted water association and anions destroyed water association. Generally, the more the ionic charge and the larger the ionic radius, the larger was the effect of those ions on water association. Besides, the effect of ionic charge on water association was more significant than that of ionic radius.