Abnormalities in the zona pellucida (ZP) adversely affect oocyte maturation, embryo development and pregnancy outcomes. However, the assessment of severity is challenging. To evaluate the effects of different degrees of ZP abnormalities on embryo development and clinical outcomes, in total, 590 retrieval cycles were scored and divided into four categories (control, mild, moderate and severe) based on three parameters: perivitelline space, percentage of immature oocytes and percentage of oocytes with abnormal morphology. As the severity of abnormal ZP increased, both the number of retrieved oocytes and mature oocytes decreased. The fertilization rate did not differ significantly among groups. The rates of embryo cleavage and day-3 high-quality embryos in the mild group and the moderate group did not vary significantly between the two groups but were significantly higher than those in the severe group. The blastulation rates of the abnormal ZP groups were similar; however, they were lower than those of the control group. Moreover, the cycle cancellation rate of the severe abnormal ZP group was as high as 66.20%, which was significantly higher than that of the other three groups. Although the rates of cumulative clinical pregnancy and live births were lower than those in the control group, they were comparable among the abnormal ZP groups. There were no differences in the neonatal outcomes of the different groups. Together, ZP abnormalities show various degrees of severity, and in all patients regardless of the degree of ZP abnormalities who achieve available embryos, there will be an opportunity to eventually give birth.

Linear models, based on stochastically forced linearized equations, are deployed for spectral linear stochastic estimation (SLSE) of the velocity and temperature fluctuations in compressible turbulent channel flows with a bulk Mach number of 1.5. Through comparison with the direct numerical simulation (DNS) data, an eddy-viscosity-enhanced model (eLNS) outperforms the one not enhanced (LNS) in computing the coherence and amplitude ratio of streamwise velocity at different wall-normal heights, but they both largely deviate from DNS regarding the temperature prediction. For further investigation, the eigenspectra and pseudospectra of the linear operators are scrutinized. The eddy viscosity is shown to stabilize the eigenmodes and decrease the non-normality of the vortical modes. Consequently, the relative importance of acoustic and entropy modes increases, and they can contribute 20 % to 55 % of the response growth, which is not supported by DNS. Hence, it is an intrinsic defect of the eLNS model introduced by turbulence modelling. After a procedure of cospectrum decomposition, the contributions of acoustic and entropy components are filtered out. The resulting SLSE quantities for velocity, temperature and their coupling are basically agreeable with DNS, demonstrating that the coherent temperature fluctuation is dominated by advection and other vortical motions, instead of the compressibility effects. Moreover, a parameter study of Reynolds and Mach numbers (from 0.3 to 4) is conducted. The semi-local units are shown to well collapse the velocity SLSE quantities to the incompressible case for streamwise-elongated structures of high coherence.

Aspergillosis is a rising concern worldwide; however, its prevalence is not well documented in China. This retrospective study determined Aspergillus’s epidemiology and antifungal susceptibilities at Meizhou People’s Hospital, South China. From 2017 to 2022, the demographic, clinical, and laboratory data about aspergillosis were collected from the hospital’s records and analysed using descriptive statistics, chi-square test, and ANOVA. Of 474 aspergillosis cases, A. fumigatus (75.32%) was the most common, followed by A. niger (9.92%), A. flavus (8.86%), and A. terreus (5.91%). A 5.94-fold increase in aspergillosis occurred during the study duration, with the highest cases reported from the intensive care unit (52.74%) – chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (79.1%) and isolated from sputum (62.93%). Only 38 (8.02%) patients used immunosuppressant drugs, while gastroenteritis (5.7%), haematologic malignancy (4.22%), and cardiovascular disease (4.22%) were the most prevalent underlying illnesses. In A. fumigatus, the wild-type (WT) isolates against amphotericin B (99.1%) were higher than triazoles (97–98%), whereas, in non-fumigatus Aspergillus species, the triazole (95–100%) WT proportion was greater than amphotericin B (91–95%). Additionally, there were significantly fewer WT A. fumigatus isolates for itraconazole and posaconazole in outpatients than inpatients. These findings may aid in better understanding and management of aspergillosis in the region.

Banks’ information technology (IT) capabilities affect their ability to serve customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, which generates an unexpected and unprecedented shock that shifts banking services from in-person to digital. Amid mobility restrictions, banks with better IT experience larger reductions in physical branch visits and larger increases in website traffic, implying a larger shift to digital banking. Stronger IT banks are able to originate more Paycheck Protection Program loans to small business borrowers, especially in areas with more severe COVID-19 outbreaks, higher internet use, and higher bank competition. Those banks also attract more deposit flows and receive better mobile customer reviews during the pandemic.

In this study, a novel kinematic calibration method is proposed to improve the absolute positioning accuracy of 6R robot. This method can achieve indirect compensation of the 25 parameters of modified Denavit–Hartenberg (MDH). The procedures of the method are threefold. Firstly, the 25-parameter errors model of MDH is initially established. However, only the errors of 10 parameters can be directly compensated in the 25-parameter errors model, since the inverse kinematics algorithm has to meet Pieper criterion. Subsequently, a calibration method is proposed to improve accuracy of the absolute position, which uses the Newton–Raphson method to transform the 25-parameter errors into 10-parameter errors (namely T-10 parameter model). Finally, the errors corresponding to 10 parameters in the T-10 parameters model are identified through the least square method. The calibration performances of T-10 parameters model are comprehensively validated by experimentation on two ER6B-C60 robots and one RS010N robot. After kinematic calibration, the average absolute positioning accuracy of the three robots can be improved by about 90%. The results indicate that the proposed calibration method can achieve more precise absolute positioning accuracy and has a wider range of universality.

Examination of the material collected by Taiwan deep-sea cruises reveals the presence of five species of the deep-sea shrimp genus Glyphocrangon A. Milne-Edwards, 1881, representing new records for Taiwan and Dongsha (Pratas Island; under jurisdiction of Taiwan). These species are Glyphocrangon albatrossae, G. caecescens, G. indonesiensis, G. major and G. proxima, all of which belong to the informal Glyphocrangon spinicauda species group. These findings bring the total number of species in the G. spinicauda species group reported in the waters around Taiwan and Dongsha to 11. The complex ornamentation of the body surface of each species is shown using micro-computed tomography. Diagnosis and illustrations showing diagnostic characters and living colouration are provided for most, if not all, of these species. Glyphocrangon grandis is placed under the synonymy of G. major based on morphology, because it was found that diagnostic characters proposed to distinguish these two taxa are variable within the current series of specimens. The biogeographical distributions of these species are presented, and a key is provided to help identify the 11 known species in this region.

Longitudinal studies on the variations of phenotypic and genotypic characteristics of K. pneumoniae across two decades are rare. We aimed to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility and virulence factors for K. pneumoniae isolated from patients with bacteraemia or urinary tract infection (UTI) from 1999 to 2022. A total of 699 and 1,267 K. pneumoniae isolates were isolated from bacteraemia and UTI patients, respectively, and their susceptibility to twenty antibiotics was determined; PCR was used to identify capsular serotypes and virulence-associated genes. K64 and K1 serotypes were most frequently observed in UTI and bacteraemia, respectively, with an increasing frequency of K20, K47, and K64 observed in recent years. entB and wabG predominated across all isolates and serotypes; the least frequent virulence gene was htrA. Most isolates were susceptible to carbapenems, amikacin, tigecycline, and colistin, with the exception of K20, K47, and K64 where resistance was widespread. The highest average number of virulence genes was observed in K1, followed by K2, K20, and K5 isolates, which suggest their contribution to the high virulence of K1. In conclusion, we found that the distribution of antimicrobial susceptibility, virulence gene profiles, and capsular types of K. pneumoniae over two decades were associated with their clinical source.

Rodents and shrews are major reservoirs of various pathogens that are related to zoonotic infectious diseases. The purpose of this study was to investigate co-infections of zoonotic pathogens in rodents and shrews trapped in four provinces of China. We sampled different rodent and shrew communities within and around human settlements in four provinces of China and characterised several important zoonotic viral, bacterial, and parasitic pathogens by PCR methods and phylogenetic analysis. A total of 864 rodents and shrews belonging to 24 and 13 species from RODENTIA and EULIPOTYPHLA orders were captured, respectively. For viral pathogens, two species of hantavirus (Hantaan orthohantavirus and Caobang orthohantavirus) were identified in 3.47% of rodents and shrews. The overall prevalence of Bartonella spp., Anaplasmataceae, Babesia spp., Leptospira spp., Spotted fever group Rickettsiae, Borrelia spp., and Coxiella burnetii were 31.25%, 8.91%, 4.17%, 3.94%, 3.59%, 3.47%, and 0.58%, respectively. Furthermore, the highest co-infection status of three pathogens was observed among Bartonella spp., Leptospira spp., and Anaplasmataceae with a co-infection rate of 0.46%. Our results suggested that species distribution and co-infections of zoonotic pathogens were prevalent in rodents and shrews, highlighting the necessity of active surveillance for zoonotic pathogens in wild mammals in wider regions.

Weeds contribute to biodiversity and a wide range of ecosystem functions. It is crucial to map different weed species and analyze their physiological activities. Remote sensing techniques for plant identification, especially hyperspectral imaging, are being developed using spectral response patterns to vegetation for detection and species identification. A library of hyperspectral images of 40 urban weed species in northeast China was established in this study. A terrestrial hyperspectral camera was used to acquire 435 hyperspectral images. The hyperspectral information for each weed species was extracted and analyzed. The spectral characteristics and vegetation indices of different weeds revealed the differences between weed species in the cities of northeast China and indirectly characterized the growth and physiological activity levels of different species, but could not effectively distinguish different species. Five methods—first derivative spectrum (FDS), second derivative spectrum (SDS), standard normal variate (SNV), moving averages (MA), and Savitzky-Golay (SG) smoothing—were used to pretreat the spectral curves to maximize the retention of spectral characteristics while removing the influence of noise. We investigated the application of a convolutional neural network (CNN) with terrestrial hyperspectral remote sensing to identify urban weeds in northeast China. A CNN classification model was established to distinguish weeds from the hyperspectral images and demonstrated a test accuracy of 95.32% to 98.15%. The accuracy of the original spectrum was 97.45%; SNV had the best accuracy (98.15%) and SG was the least accurate (95.32%). This provides a baseline for understanding the hyperspectral characteristics of urban weed species and monitoring their growth. It also contributes to the development of a hyperspectral imaging database with global applicability.

Routine blood examination is an easy way to examine infectious diseases. This study is aimed to develop a model to diagnose serious bacterial infections (SBI) in ICU neonates based on routine blood parameters. This was a cross-sectional study, and data were extracted from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care III (MIMIC-III). SBI was defined as suffering from one of the following: pyelonephritis, bacteraemia, bacterial meningitis, sepsis, pneumonia, cellulitis, and osteomyelitis. Variables with statistical significance in the univariate logistic regression analysis and log systemic immune–inflammatory index (SII) were used to develop the model. The area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to assess the performance of the model. A total of 1,880 participants were finally included for analysis. Weight, haemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume, white blood cell, monocyte, premature delivery, and log SII were selected to develop the model. The developed model showed a good performance to diagnose SBI for ICU neonates, with an AUC of 0.812 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.737–0.888). A nomogram was developed to make this model visualise. In conclusion, our model based on routine blood parameters performed well in the diagnosis of neonatal SBI, which may be helpful for clinicians to improve treatment recommendations.

Flexible cables in cable-driven parallel robots (CDPRs) are easy to be excited and vibrate. Cable vibration will react on the end-effector, causing attitude deviation of the end-effector. The main objective of this study is to accurately model axially moving flexible cables and characterize the dynamic behaviors of associated compliant CDPRs. Firstly, a model for transverse vibration of the axially moving length-variable cable is developed. On this basis, an original nonlinear dynamic model of the CDPRs able to capture the vibration of the cables and the dynamics of the end-effector is proposed. Secondly, the frequency–amplitude relationship of the CDPR is obtained. Moreover, the significance of the excitation effect caused by the axially moving length-variable cables is demonstrated, by comparing the results with and without excitation effect at different frequencies. It turns out that, as the oscillation frequency of the end-effector increases, the end-effector and cables exhibit the dynamics process from steady state to unstable large-amplitude vibration and finally to stable small-amplitude vibration. This indicates that the dynamics of the CDPR exhibit non-linear characteristics, due to the influence of flexible cables. Finally, the proposed dynamic model of compliant CDPRs is validated by experiments performed in the laboratory.

The discharged capillary plasma channel has been extensively studied as a high-gradient particle acceleration and transmission medium. A novel measurement method of plasma channel density profiles has been employed, where the role of plasma channels guiding the advantages of lasers has shown strong appeal. Here, we have studied the high-order transverse plasma density profile distribution using a channel-guided laser, and made detailed measurements of its evolution under various parameters. The paraxial wave equation in a plasma channel with high-order density profile components is analyzed, and the approximate propagation process based on the Gaussian profile laser is obtained on this basis, which agrees well with the simulation under phase conditions. In the experiments, by measuring the integrated transverse laser intensities at the outlet of the channels, the radial quartic density profiles of the plasma channels have been obtained. By precisely synchronizing the detection laser pulses and the plasma channels at various moments, the reconstructed density profile shows an evolution from the radial quartic profile to the quasi-parabolic profile, and the high-order component is indicated as an exponential decline tendency over time. Factors affecting the evolution rate were investigated by varying the incentive source and capillary parameters. It can be found that the discharge voltages and currents are positive factors quickening the evolution, while the electron-ion heating, capillary radii and pressures are negative ones. One plausible explanation is that quartic profile contributions may be linked to plasma heating. This work helps one to understand the mechanisms of the formation, the evolutions of the guiding channel electron-density profiles and their dependences on the external controllable parameters. It provides support and reflection for physical research on discharged capillary plasma and optimizing plasma channels in various applications.

We design an open-loop active flow control for separated flows around a plunging circular cylinder based on resolvent analysis. The cylinder is plunging at a Strouhal number of 0.36 and a Reynolds number of 500. A linear time-periodic system for control is obtained by linearizing the non-inertial incompressible vorticity equation in the cylinder-fixed frame about a time-averaged base flow. Using the Lyapunouv–Floquet transformation, the linear time-periodic system is transformed into a similar linear time-invariant system, whose resolvent is analysed to obtain an optimal actuating Strouhal number of 0.1464 for the transformed linear system. Simulations show that the active control with tangential actuations is capable of reducing the lift fluctuation by up to 25.7 % when the flow is actuated near the predicted harmonic and subharmonic frequencies.