Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a common adverse drug reaction leading to the interruption of tuberculosis (TB) therapy. We aimed to identify whether the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection would increase the risk of DILI during first-line TB treatment. A meta-analysis of cohort studies searched in PubMed, Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure was conducted. Effect sizes were reported as risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and calculated by R software. Sixteen studies with 3960 TB patients were eligible for analysis. The risk of DILI appeared to be higher in TB patients co-infected with HBV (RR 2.66; 95% CI 2.13–3.32) than those without HBV infection. Moreover, patients with positive hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) were more likely to develop DILI (RR 3.42; 95% CI 1.95–5.98) compared to those with negative HBeAg (RR 2.30; 95% CI 1.66–3.18). Co-infection with HBV was not associated with a higher rate of anti-TB DILI in latent TB patients (RR 4.48; 95% CI 0.80–24.99). The effect of HBV infection on aggravating anti-TB DILI was independent of study participants, whether they were newly diagnosed with TB or not. Besides, TB and HBV co-infection patients had a longer duration of recovery from DILI compared to non-co-infected patients (SMD 2.26; 95% CI 1.87–2.66). To conclude, the results demonstrate that HBV infection would increase the risk of DILI during TB therapy, especially in patients with positive HBeAg, and close liver function monitoring is needed for TB and HBV co-infection patients.

The accurate prediction of turbulent mixing induced by Rayleigh–Taylor (R–T), Richtmyer–Meshkov (R–M) and Kelvin–Helmholtz (K–H) instabilities is very important in understanding natural phenomena and improving engineering applications. In applications, the prediction of mixing with the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equation remains the most widely used method. The RANS method involves two aspects, i.e. physical modelling and model coefficients. Generally, the latter is determined empirically; thus, there is a lack of universality. In this paper, inspired by the well-known Reynolds decomposition, we propose a methodology to determine the model coefficients with the following three steps: (i) preset a set of analytical RANS solutions by fully using the knowledge of mixing evolutions; (ii) simplify the differential RANS equations to algebraic equations by imposing the preset solutions to RANS equations; (iii) solve the algebraic equations approximately to give the values of the entire model coefficients. The specific application of this methodology in the widely used K–L mixing model shows that, using the same set of model coefficients determined from the current methodology, the K–L model successfully predicts the mixing evolutions in terms of different physical quantities (e.g. temporal scalings and spatial profiles), density ratios and problems (e.g. R–T, R–M, K–H and reshocked R–M mixings). It is possible to extend this methodology to other turbulence models characterised with self-similar evolutions, such as K- $\epsilon$ mixing models.

The Ginzburg–Landau equation (GLE) can phenomenologically model several key features of non-equilibrium systems including those in fluid mechanics. Its validity in real flows, however, remains questionable. Here, we show that the linear GLE can be formulated such that it has the same Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) approximation as for the linear global stability problem in open shear flows. We use the GLE to model the linear global modes of three different wakes and find that it can accurately capture the linear growth rate and frequency to first order in the WKB approximation. Furthermore, we find that it can also provide the shapes of the direct and adjoint eigenvectors and the regions of maximal structural sensitivity. The proposed model requires only the basic flow as input, but gives robust predictions and is computationally inexpensive. As well as opening up new possibilities for GLE-based control strategies, the proposed model makes accurate stability calculations possible, even for some computationally intractable open shear flows.

Southern China is affected by multi-stage tectonic activities, with strong fold deformation, complex fault systems and poor shale gas preservation conditions. Here, we used shale samples from the lower Silurian Longmaxi shale in the complex tectonic area of Southern China, to study the relationship between differential structural deformation, and pore structure and adsorption capacity. According to the deformation mechanism of the shale, it is further divided into brittle-slip rheological deformation (BD) and ductile-slip rheological deformation (DD). The results show that all micro-fractures can be observed under scanning electron microscopy in deformed shale samples, but in shale samples with different types of rheological deformation, the micro-fractures have large differences in scale, fracture length and lateral connectivity. The micro-fractures developed in DD shales are small in scale and short in fracture length, but have strong local connectivity. In contrast, brittle minerals are more developed in BD shales, and interlayer shearing has formed micro-fractures with large fracture length and good lateral connectivity, which is beneficial for later fracturing. In these two types of deformed shales, pores in organic matter are rare, and sporadic organic pores have small pore size and poor connectivity. The total pore volume (1.8–2.4 × 10−2 cm3 g–1) of BD shale samples is higher than that of DD shale samples (0.8–1.6 × 10−2 cm3 g–1). There is a positive correlation between total pore volume and quartz content. In addition, the specific surface area (12–18 m2 g–1) of DD shale samples is larger than that of BD shale samples (6–12 m2 g–1).

To improve speech emotion recognition, a U-acoustic words emotion dictionary (AWED) features model is proposed based on an AWED. The method models emotional information from acoustic words level in different emotion classes. The top-list words in each emotion are selected to generate the AWED vector. Then, the U-AWED model is constructed by combining utterance-level acoustic features with the AWED features. Support vector machine and convolutional neural network are employed as the classifiers in our experiment. The results show that our proposed method in four tasks of emotion classification all provides significant improvement in unweighted average recall.

We perform direct numerical simulations of flows over unswept finite-aspect-ratio NACA 0015 wings at $Re=400$ over a range of angles of attack (from $0^{\circ }$ to $30^{\circ }$ ) and (semi) aspect ratios (from 1 to 6) to characterize the tip effects on separation and wake dynamics. This study focuses on the development of three-dimensional separated flow over the wing. We discuss the flow structures formed on the wing surface as well as in the far-field wake. Vorticity is introduced from the wing surface into the flow in a predominantly two-dimensional manner. The vortex sheet from the wing tip rolls up around the free end to form the tip vortex. At its inception, the tip vortex is weak and its effect is spatially confined. As the flow around the tip separates, the tip effects extend farther in the spanwise direction, generating noticeable three dimensionality in the wake. For low-aspect-ratio wings ( $sAR\approx 1$ ), the wake remains stable due to the strong tip-vortex induced downwash over the entire span. Increasing the aspect ratio allows unsteady vortical flow to emerge away from the tip at sufficiently high angles of attack. These unsteady vortices shed and form closed vortical loops. For higher-aspect-ratio wings ( $sAR\gtrsim 4$ ), the tip effects retard the near-tip shedding process, which desynchronizes from the two-dimensional shedding over the midspan region, yielding vortex dislocation. At high angles of attack, the tip vortex exhibits noticeable undulations due to the strong interaction with the unsteady shedding vortices. The spanwise distribution of force coefficients is found to be related to the three-dimensional wake dynamics and the tip effects. Vortical elements in the wake that are responsible for the generation of lift and drag forces are identified through the force element analysis. We note that at high angles of attack, a stationary vortical structure forms at the leading edge near the tip, giving rise to locally high lift and drag forces. The analysis performed in this paper reveals how the vortical flow around the tip influences the separation physics, the global wake dynamics, and the spanwise force distributions.

Prion diseases, or Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs), are a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders associated with a conformational transformation of the cellular prion protein (PrPC) into a self-feplicating and proteinase K (PK)-resistant conformer, scrapie PrP (PrPSc). Aggregates of PrPSc around neurons lead to neuropathologyical change including neuronal loss, astrogliosis, spongiform degeneration and deposition of amyloid plaques. Currently no effective treatment for prion disease exists. The development of novel therapeutic strategies against prion diseases has become a priority. Several reports have demonstrated that passive and active immune-based therapy can significantly prolong the incubation period of prionoses in vivo, and also some anti-PrP monoclonal can prevent PrP peptide toxicity in vitro. In this study, we have first time identified and purified anti-PrP antibodies from human intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) by using PrP peptide affinity chromatography column. The ratio of anti-PrP antibody and IVIG is about 1:1200. In vitro study indicates these anti-PrP antibodies strongly block PrP A117V peptide fibril formation and disrupt formation of fibrillar structures. Furthermore, these antibodies almost completely prevented neurotoxicity of PrP A117V peptide in cultured rat cerebellar granule neuron cultures (CGN). In contrast, immunoglobulins depleted of anti-PrP antibodies had little effect on PrP fibril formation or protection of neuronal cells. Our study suggests that human anti-PrP antibodies may interfere with the pathogenesis of prion disease and these purified antibodies may be a potential therapeutic agent to prevent or slow prion disease progression.

To study when a paratopological group becomes a topological group, Arhangel’skii et al. [‘Topological games and topologies on groups’, Math. Maced. 8 (2010), 1–19] introduced the class of $(\,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD},G_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}})$ -unfavourable spaces. We show that every $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$ -complete (or normal) $(\,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD},G_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}})$ -unfavourable semitopological group is a topological group. We prove that the product of a $(\,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD},G_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}})$ -unfavourable space and a strongly Fréchet $(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC},G_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}})$ -favourable space is $(\,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD},G_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}})$ -unfavourable. We also show that continuous closed irreducible mappings preserve the $(\,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD},G_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6F1}})$ -unfavourableness in both directions.

Rational construction of Z-scheme photocatalysts and exploration of the Z-scheme charge transfer mechanism have drawn much attention in the field of CO2 reduction because of its great potential to alleviate energy crisis and environmental problems. In this study, a series of Z-scheme CdS/BiOI composites were constructed by depositing CdS nanoparticles on the surface of BiOI nanosheets. The synthesized materials were characterized comprehensively, and their photoreduction CO2 activities were evaluated. The results show that the composites exhibit higher photoreduction CO2 activity under visible light irradiation (λ > 400 nm) than pure CdS and BiOI. The yields of CO and CH4 for the optimal composite after 3 h irradiation are 3.32 and 0.54 μmol/g, respectively. The improved photocatalytic activity is attributed to Z-scheme transfer mode of the photogenerated charges in the composites. The mechanism of CO2 reduction is proposed and verified experimentally.

The primary aim of the Guangzhou Twin Eye Study (GTES) is to explore the impact that genes and environmental influences have on common eye diseases. Since 2006, approximately 1300 pairs of twins, aged 7–15 years, were enrolled at baseline. Progressive phenotypes, such as cycloplegic refraction, axial length, height and weight, have been collected annually. Nonprogressive phenotypes such as parental refraction, corneal thickness, fundus photo, intraocular pressure and DNA were collected once at baseline. We are collaborating with fellow international twin researchers and psychologists to further explore links with general medical conditions. In this article, we review the history, major findings and future research directions for the GTES.