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Ammonia borane hydrolysis is a promising strategy for developing sustainable hydrogen energy. However, this reaction is not kinetically feasible at ambient temperature, thus developing a proper catalyst is indispensable. In this work, Porous carbon is facilely prepared from cattail fibers by using K2CO3, and then used to stabilize Ru nanoparticles. The effects of different synthesis parameters for the biomass-derived carbon supports (e. g. K2CO3 dosage and calcination temperature) and various catalytic reaction conditions (e. g. the amounts of the catalysts, ammonia borane and NaOH, and reaction temperature) on the hydrolysis rate of ammonia borane are investigated. Benefitting from the interconnected hierarchical pores of the optimal porous carbon (p-C), which was prepared with a mass ratio of 6 : 1 for K2CO3 to cattail fibers and calcined at 873 K, and the high dispersion of Ru nanoparticles, the optimal Ru/p-C catalysts exhibit excellent catalytic performance. The corresponding apparent activation energy (28.8 kJ mol−1) and turnover frequency (744.7 min−1 in alkaline solution) are superior to many catalysts previously reported. This work offers a competitive catalyst for the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of chemical hydrogen storage materials.

It is a crucial and urgent task to develop high performance catalysts for the hydrolysis of ammonia borane (NH3¬BH3, AB), which is thought to be an effective strategy for the hydrogen generation at...

Objective: We aimed to explore the feasibility of evaluating the comparative effectiveness and safety of electroacupuncture (EA) relative to manual acupuncture (MA) for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Methods: A multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted in Beijing from September 2017 to January 2018. A total of 60 participants with KOA were randomly allocated to either EA ( n = 30) or MA ( n = 30) groups. Participants in the EA group were treated with EA at six to seven local traditional acupuncture points or ah shi points, and two to three distal points. Participants in the MA group had the same schedule as the EA group except that the electrical apparatus featured a working power indicator without actual current output, constituting a sham EA procedure, in order to blind participants. Both groups received 24 sessions over 8 weeks. The primary outcome was response rate, defined as a change of ⩾50% from baseline in the total scores of the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) after 8 weeks. Secondary outcomes included pain, stiffness, function, quality of life, and acupuncture-related adverse events (AEs) at 4 and 8 weeks. Results: Of 60 participants randomized, 53 (88%) completed the study. Response rates were 43% for the EA group and 30% for the MA group by the intention-to-treat analysis. Although significant differences were observed in WOMAC pain, stiffness, and function scores within both groups, between-group differences at 8 weeks did not reach statistical significance (odds ratio = 1.75 (95% confidence interval = 0.593–5.162)). Rates of AEs were low and similarly distributed between groups. Conclusion: Both EA and MA interventions in KOA were feasible and appeared safe. Whether or not EA may have a stronger impact on pain and function requires further evaluation through larger, adequately powered, randomized controlled trials. Trial registration number: NCT03274713.

A modified Stober method is applied to synthesize the magnetic core-shell Fe3O4@SiO2 particles, followed by compositing a series of porous glucose-derived carbon with ZnCl2 as etchant. Then, ultrafine Pd nanoparticles (NPs) are successfully anchored to the resulting Fe3O4@SiO2-PC composites with an in-situ reduction strategy. The particle sizes of Pd NPs are mainly centered in the range of 2.3–4.3 nm in the as-prepared Pd/Fe3O4@SiO2-PC catalysts, owning a hierarchical porous structure with high specific surface area (SBET = 626.0 m2 g−1) and large pore volume (Vp = 0.61 cm3 g−1). Their catalytic behavior for the hydrogen generation from ammonia borane (AB) hydrolysis is investigated in details. The corresponding apparent activation energy is as low as 28.4 kJ mol−1 and the reaction orders with AB and Pd concentrations are near zero and 1.10 under the present conditions, respectively. In addition, the magnetic catalysts, which could be easily separated out by a magnet, are still highly active even after nine runs, revealing their excellent reusability.

Background: Acupuncture is a widely used treatment for knee osteoarthritis, but evidence of its effectiveness from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is contradictory. Objective: To systematically review RCTs to determine whether the effect of acupuncture is dose dependent for symptom management in knee osteoarthritis. Methods: Seven English/Chinese databases were searched through January 2017. Study quality was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration tool. Slavin’s qualitative best-evidence synthesis approach was used to provide methodological rigour. Included RCTs were separated into three categories according to the dose of acupuncture treatment: high dosage (HD), medium dosage (MD) and low dosage (LD). Correlation between dose and effect of treatment was analysed. Results: Eight RCTs with a total of 2106 subjects met the eligibility criteria. Numbers of studies using the various doses of acupuncture were 1 for LD, 1 for MD and 6 for HD, respectively. Compared with LD and MD acupuncture treatments, strong evidence showed that there was a positive correlation between HD acupuncture treatment and positive outcomes. Conclusion: The effect of acupuncture may be associated with dose of acupuncture, with a higher dosage related to better treatment outcomes in terms of relief of pain and dysfunction in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

Background: Evidence for treating postprandial distress syndrome with acupuncture is limited. Aim: We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of verum acupuncture versus sham acupuncture in patients with postprandial distress syndrome. Methods: A total of 42 eligible patients were randomly allocated to either verum acupuncture or sham acupuncture groups in a 1:1 ratio. Each patient received 12 sessions over 4 weeks. The primary outcome was the response rate based on the overall treatment effect (OTE) 4 weeks after randomization. Secondary outcomes included dyspepsia symptom severity and adverse events. Results: In each group, 19 patients (91.5%) completed the study. Thirteen patients receiving verum acupuncture and seven patients receiving sham acupuncture were classified as responders according to OTE (61.9% vs 33.3%; rate difference 28.6%; p = 0.06). Dyspepsia symptom severity at the end of treatment also differed significantly between verum acupuncture and sham acupuncture groups (5.9 units vs 3.7 units; between-group difference 2.2 (95% CI, 0.2–4.2); p = 0.04). No serious adverse events occurred. Conclusion: Four weeks of acupuncture may represent a potential treatment for postprandial distress syndrome. The treatment protocol and outcome measures used in this trial were feasible. Since this was a pilot study, the efficacy of acupuncture still needs to be determined by a larger, adequately powered trial.

The hydrolysis of solid storage compounds including ammonia borane (NH3BH3) is promising for the upcoming hydrogen economy. So, developing highly efficient heterogeneous catalysts for the hydrolysis of ammonia borane is one of the key issues since this reaction is not kinetically feasible at room temperature. In this work, a facile adsorption-in situ reduction method is adopted to stabilize the ultrafine bimetallic RuPd nanoparticles on an ultrathin porous graphite carbon nitride. Due to the synergistic alloying effect, most of the resultant bimetallic Ru1-xPdx/g-C3N4 catalysts possess much higher catalytic activity than the monometallic Ru/g-C3N4 and Pd/g-C3N4 in the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of ammonia borane. Catalyzed by the optimal Ru0.85Pd0.15/g-C3N4, the turnover frequency and the apparent activation energy are 948.2 mol H 2 ·mol Cat -1 ·min - 1 and 24.2 kJ mol−1, respectively, which are much superior to many catalysts previously reported. The high catalytic activity and satisfactory durability endow Ru0.85Pd0.15/g-C3N4 desirable potential in the hydrogen generation from the hydrolysis of chemical storage materials.

Ammonia borane (NH3BH3, AB) hydrolysis is an effective strategy to utilize hydrogen energy. In this work, the hierarchical porous CuNi bimetal-organic frameworks (CuNi-MOFs) are fabricated through a facile solvothermal method and characterized by various techniques. The CuNi-MOFs display outstanding catalytic activity and remarkable durability for the hydrolytic dehydrogenation of AB. The corresponding turnover frequency reaches 40.85 molH2 · molMetal−1 · min−1 and the apparent activation energy (28.99 kJ mol−1) is lower than those of many catalysts previously reported. The results verify the resultant CuNi-MOFs are promising for the hydrolysis of hydrogen storage materials.

Hierarchical porous g-C3N4 nanosheets are prepared from melamine using NH4Cl as dynamic gas templates to anchor the ultrafine Ru nanoparticles (NPs) with a facile adsorption-in situ reduction strategy. The results reveal that 1: 3 is the optimal mass ratio for melamine to NH4Cl and the Ru NPs are evenly dispersed in the porous network of g-C3N4 in the corresponding catalysts. Remarkably, the porous catalysts exhibit superior catalytic activity and satisfactory recyclability for ammonia borane (NH3-BH3, AB) hydrolysis. The corresponding turnover frequency is as high as 122.2 × 103 mL H 2 · g Ru -1 · min -1 and the apparent activation energy (35.6 kJ mol−1) is competitive. AB hydrolysis is of 1.17-order and near zero-order with respect to the Ru and AB concentrations, respectively. The results demonstrate that the Ru/g-C3N4 catalysts are promising in developing an alternative clean and environmentally friendly energy carrier from the hydrogen storage materials.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture for pain relief and function improvement in patients with knee osteoarthritis and to determine the feasibility of an eight-week acupuncture intervention. Design: Pilot randomized controlled trial. Setting: Three teaching hospitals in China. Subjects: Patients with knee osteoarthritis (Kellgren grade II or III). Interventions: Patients were randomly assigned to an eight-week (three sessions per week) intervention of either traditional Chinese acupuncture or sham acupuncture. Main measures: The primary outcome was response rate—the proportion of patients achieving score ⩾36% decrease in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) pain and function at week 8 compared with baseline. Secondary outcomes included pain, function and quality of life. Results: Of 42 patients randomized, 36 (85.7%) completed the study. There was no significant difference in response rate between the traditional Chinese acupuncture and control groups: 61.9% (13 of 21) versus 42.9% (9 of 21) achieved score ⩾36% decrease in WOMAC pain and function at week 8 ( P = 0.217). The sum of WOMAC pain and function scores at week 8 was 11.6 (9.1) in the traditional Chinese acupuncture group compared with 16.3 (10.9) in the control group ( P = 0.183). There was no significant difference between groups. Three adverse events were recorded and were classified as mild. Conclusion: It showed that three sessions per week acupuncture intervention of knee osteoarthritis was feasible and safe. No difference was observed between groups due to small sample size. Larger (sample size ⩾ 296) randomized controlled trials of this intervention appear justified.

Tourette's syndrome is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder, characterized by tics. Bilateral globus pallidus internus (GPi) deep brain stimulation (DBS) has been considered to be an effective treatment for refractory Tourette's syndrome. Postoperative outcomes are described after 12 months’ follow-up in a 41-year-old male patient and a 22-year-old male patient with Tourette's syndrome, both of whom underwent unilateral electrode implantations into the right GPi for DBS. These patients were diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome in childhood and, despite long-term therapy with a range of antipsychotic medications, continued to experience disabling tics in adulthood. Improvements in tic severity of 58.5% and 53.1% were observed at 12 months in the older and younger patient, respectively; improvements were determined by the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale. Both patients also experienced reductions in tic frequency and reported improvements in their health-related quality of life. Improvements in tics were similar to previous reports involving patients who underwent bilateral GPi DBS. These cases suggest that unilateral DBS of the right GPi is effective and might be a viable surgical choice for some patients with Tourette's syndrome.

Sparse decompression is a new theory for signal processing, having the advantage in that the base (dictionary) used in this theory is over-complete, and can reflect the nature of signa1. So the sparse decompression of signal can get sparse representation, which is very important in data compression. In this paper, a novel ECG compression method for multi-channel ECG signals was introduced based on the Simultaneous Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (S-OMP). The proposed method decomposes multi-channel ECG signals simultaneously into different linear expansions of the same atoms that are selected from a redundant dictionary, which is constructed by Hermite fuctions and Gobar functions in order to the best match the characteristic of the ECG waveform. Compression performance has been tested using a subset of multi-channel ECG records from the St.-Petersburg Institute of Cardiological Technics database, the results demonstrate that much less atoms are selected to present signals and the compression ratio of Multi-channel ECG can achieve better performance in comparison to Simultaneous Matching Pursuit (SMP).

Introduction Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders. Acupuncture is a popular form of complementary medicine for musculoskeletal conditions, although the evidence is inconclusive. Our objective is to evaluate the efficacy of traditional Chinese acupuncture for pain relief and function improvement in mild-to-moderate knee osteoarthritis (TCAKOA) participants. Methods/analysis 42 patients will be recruited who have been diagnosed with mild-to-moderate KOA and randomly allocated in equal proportions to traditional Chinese acupuncture or minimal acupuncture. They will receive acupuncture for 24 sessions over 8 weeks. The primary end point is success rate, which will be calculated according to a change from baseline in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index pain and function scores at 8 weeks. Secondary end points include pain and function measurement, global change, the quality of life and the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (Celebrex, Pfizer) at 8, 16 and 26 weeks. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval of this study has been granted by the Research Ethical Committee of Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Affiliated to Capital Medical University (permission number: 2016BL-010-02). Written informed consent will be obtained from all participants. Outcomes of the trial will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications. Trial registration number ISRCTN14016893; Pre-results.