Association between monocyte/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio and carotid plaque in postmenopausal women: A cross-sectional study.

To investigate the relationship between carotid plaque and monocyte to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (MHR) in postmenopausal women. A cross-sectional study was conducted and 214 postmenopausal women who underwent physical examination at the Health Management Center of Heping Hospital affiliated to Changzhi Medical College between August 2018 and August 2022 were enrolled. The subjects were grouped according to the results of carotid ultrasound. The general information, blood pressure, biochemical markers, and routine blood indicators were compared between the 2 groups. Binary logistic regression was performed to analyze the correlation between MHR and carotid plaque in postmenopausal women, and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve was used to analyze the predictive value of MHR for carotid plaque in this population. The carotid plaque group showed a lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (1.21 [1.08-1.425] vs 1.29 [1.15-1.445] mmol/L, Z = -2.115, P = .034) and a higher MHR [0.33 ±â€…0.1 vs 0.26 ±â€…0.1, t = -5.756, P < .001] when compared to the no carotid plaque group. After adjusting for potential confounders such height, weight, and HDL-C, binary logistic regression analysis revealed that MHR continued to be an independent risk factor for the formation of carotid plaque in postmenopausal women (odds ratio [OR] = 1.795, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.198-2.689, P = .005). ROC curve analysis indicated that MHR had a 95% CI of 0.656 to 0.793 in predicting carotid plaque formation, an optimal cut-point of 0.265, and a sensitivity and specificity of 82.2% and 58.9%, respectively. MHR is a distinct risk factor for carotid plaque formation in postmenopausal women.

Social Recognition of Joint Attention Cycles in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders.

OBJECTIVE: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterized by impairments in joint attention (JA) comprising two components: responding to JA (RJA) and initiating JA (IJA). RJA and IJA are considered two interrelated aspects of JA, related to different stages of infant development. While recent technologies have been used to characterize RJA emerging in earlier childhood, only a limited number of studies have attempted to explore IJA, which progressively becomes evident as a hallmark of ASD. This study aims to achieve the social recognition of both RJA and IJA by vision-based human behavior perception through a multi-modal framework automatically and comprehensively. METHODS: The first three layers of this framework leverage localization, feature extraction, and activity recognition. On this basis, three critical activities in JA are recognized: attention estimation, spontaneous pointing, and showing actions. Then different behaviors are linked through the fourth layer, semantic interpretation, to model the JA event. The proposed framework is evaluated on experiments of four groups: 7 children with ASD, 5 children with mental retardation (MR), 5 children with developmental language disorder (DLD), and 3 typically developed children (TD). RESULTS: Experimental results compared with human codings demonstrate recognition reliability with an intra-class coefficient of 0.959. In addition, statistical analysis suggests significant group difference and correlations. CONCLUSIONS: The multi-modal human behavior perception-based framework is a feasible solution for the recognition of joint attention in unconstrained environments. SIGNIFICANCE: Thus the proposed approach has the potential to improve the clinical diagnosis of autism by offering quantitative monitoring and statistical analysis.

Antimony isotope fractionation and the key controls in the soil profiles of an antimony smelting area.

The controlling factors of antimony migration and transformation in soil profiles are still unclear. Antimony isotopes might be a useful tool to trace it. In this paper, antimony isotopic compositions of plant and smelter-derived samples, and two soil profiles were measured for the first time. The δ123Sb values of the surface and bottom layers of the two soil profiles varied in 0.23‰-1.19‰ and 0.58‰-0.66‰, respectively, while δ123Sb of the smelter-derived samples varied in 0.29‰-0.38‰. The results show that the antimony isotopic compositions in the soil profiles are affected by post-depositional biogeochemical processes. The enrichment and loss of light isotopes at 0-10 cm and 10-40 cm layers of the contrasted soil profile may be controlled by plant uptake process. The loss and enrichment of heavy isotopes in the 0-10 cm and 10-25 cm layers of the antimony from smelting source in the polluted soil profile may be controlled by the adsorption process, while the enrichment of light isotopes in the 25-80 cm layer may be related to the reductive dissolution process. The conclusion emphasizes that the promotion of the Sb isotope fractionation mechanism will play a crucial role in understanding the migration and transformation behaviors of Sb in soil systems.

An automatic fresh rib fracture detection and positioning system using deep learning.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the performance and robustness of a deep learning-based automatic fresh rib fracture detection and positioning system (FRF-DPS). METHODS: CT scans of 18,172 participants admitted to eight hospitals from June 2009 to March 2019 were retrospectively collected. Patients were divided into development set (14,241), multicenter internal test set (1612), and external test set (2319). In internal test set, sensitivity, false positives (FPs) and specificity were used to assess fresh rib fracture detection performance at the lesion- and examination-levels. In external test set, the performance of detecting fresh rib fractures by radiologist and FRF-DPS were evaluated at lesion, rib, and examination levels. Additionally, the accuracy of FRF-DPS in rib positioning was investigated by the ground-truth labeling. RESULTS: In multicenter internal test set, FRF-DPS showed excellent performance at the lesion- (sensitivity: 0.933 [95%CI, 0.916-0.949], FPs: 0.50 [95%CI, 0.397-0.583]) and examination-level. In external test set, the sensitivity and FPs at the lesion-level of FRF-DPS (0.909 [95%CI, 0.883-0.926], p < 0.001; 0.379 [95%CI, 0.303-0.422], p = 0.001) were better than the radiologist (0.789 [95%CI, 0.766-0.807]; 0.496 [95%CI, 0.383-0.571]), so were the rib- and patient-levels. In subgroup analysis of CT parameters, FRF-DPS were robust (0.894-0.927). Finally, FRF-DPS(0.997 [95%CI, 0.992-1.000], p < 0.001) is more accurate than radiologist (0.981 [95%CI, 0.969-0.996]) in rib positioning and takes 20 times less time. CONCLUSION: FRF-DPS achieved high detection rate of fresh rib fractures with low FP values, and precise positioning of ribs, thus can be used in clinical practice to improve the detection rate and work efficiency. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: We developed the FRF-DPS system which can detect fresh rib fractures and rib position, and evaluated by a large amount of multicenter data.

Preparation of novel ß-CD/P(AA-co-AM) hydrogels by frontal polymerization.

In this paper, betaine (Bet) was used as a hydrogen bond acceptor (HBA), and acrylic acid (AA) and acrylamide (AM) were used as hydrogen bond donors (HBD) and mixed to form a deep eutectic solvent (DES). Different concentrations of ß-cyclodextrin (ß-CD) were dispersed in the DES, and a novel ß-CD/P(AA-co-AM) hydrogel was prepared by frontal polymerization (FP). The characteristic structure and morphology of the hydrogels were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the properties of the hydrogels were investigated. The results show that the mechanical properties of the hydrogel were improved by ß-CD acting as a second cross-linking agent in the polymerization process, thus increasing the cross-link density of the hydrogel. Because the carboxyl groups contained in the acrylic acid dissociate under alkaline conditions, the composite hydrogel shows excellent pH responsiveness under alkaline conditions. Tetracycline hydrochloride was used as a drug model to test the drug loading and drug release performance of the hydrogels. With the increase of ß-CD content, the loading capacity of the hydrogels for tetracycline hydrochloride gradually increased. The data of drug release indicated that the hydrogel has good drug delivery performance and has promising applications in drug delivery systems and other areas.

Poly(Styrene-Co-Maleic Acid)-Conjugated 6-Aminofluorescein and Rhodamine Micelle as Macromolecular Fluorescent Probes for Micro-Tumors Detection and Imaging.

Styrene-co-maleic acid (SMA) copolymer was evaluated as a polymer platform to conjugate with two fluorescent dyes, i.e., 6-aminofluorescein (AF) and Rhodamine (Rho); which spontaneously self-assembles in an aqueous medium and forms a micelle through a non-covalent interaction. These SMA-dye conjugates showed the nanosized micelle formation through dynamic light scattering (DLS) with discrete distributions having mean particle sizes of 135.3 nm, and 190.9 nm for SMA-AF, and SMA-Rho, respectively. The apparent molecular weight of the micelle was evaluated using Sephadex G-100 gel chromatography and it was found that the 49.3 kDa, and 28.7 kDa for SMA-AF, and SMA-Rho, respectively. Moreover, the biodistribution study showed the selective accumulation of the SMA-dye conjugates in the tumor of mice. Taken together, the SMA-dye conjugated micelles appear in high concentrations in the tumor by utilizing the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect of the tumor-targeted delivery. These results indicate that SMA-dye conjugates have the advanced potential as macromolecular fluorescent probes for microtumor imaging by means of a photodynamic diagnosis.

Automatic Upper-Limb Brunnstrom Recovery Stage Evaluation via Daily Activity Monitoring.

Motor function assessment is crucial for post-stroke rehabilitation. Conventional evaluation methods are subjective, heavily depending on the experience of therapists. In light of the strong correlation between the stroke severity level and the performance of activities of daily living (ADLs), we explored the possibility of automatically evaluating the upper-limb Brunnstrom Recovery Stage (BRS) via three typical ADLs (tooth brushing, face washing and drinking). Multimodal data (acceleration, angular velocity, surface electromyography) were synchronously collected from 5 upper-limb-worn sensor modules. The performance of BRS evaluation system is known to be variable with different system parameters (e.g., number of sensor modules, feature types and classifiers). We systematically searched for the optimal parameters from different data segmentation strategies (five window lengths and four overlaps), 42 types of features, 12 feature optimization techniques and 9 classifiers with the leave-one-subject-out cross-validation. To achieve reliable and low-cost monitoring, we further explored whether it was possible to obtain a satisfactory result using a relatively small number of sensor modules. As a result, the proposed approach can correctly recognize the stages of all 27 participants using only three sensor modules with the optimized data segmentation parameters (window length: 7s, overlap: 50%), extracted features (simple square integral, slope sign change, modified mean absolute value 1 and modified mean absolute value 2), the feature optimization method (principal component analysis) and the logistic regression classifier. According to the literature, this is the first study to comprehensively optimize sensor configuration and parameters in each stage of the BRS classification framework. The proposed approach can serve as a factor-screening tool towards the automatic BRS classification and is promising to be further used at home.

Automatic upper-extremity Brunnstrom Classification for Stroke Survivors with a Minimum Number of Tasks.

Motor function evaluation plays an important role in post-stroke rehabilitation. However, the traditional evaluation is subjective and laborious, which may bring a heavy burden to both physicians and stroke survivors. Therefore, an automatic and objective rehabilitation evaluation is needed to minimize the burden of physician, so as to achieve a simplified and objective evaluation process. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the minimum number of tasks for upper-extremity actions in objective assessment of stroke survivors with a Brunnstrom stage (BS) based on wearable sensing device, which can achieve a satisfactory result to reduce the burden of stroke survivors. In this study, we employed 20 stroke survivors and 7 healthy participants, performing three types of daily living activities (drinking, teeth brushing, face washing). The acceleration, angular velocity and surface Electromyography signals on five parts of the forearm were simultaneously acquired. Then, we compared the effects of each action combination under multiple classifiers. The results show that the use of a single action can achieve competitive results compared with multiple action combination classifications, and the use of K nearest neighbor (KNN) algorithm for the average recognition accuracy of face washing action shows better performance, with the highest accuracy reaching 85.65±6.21% (mean ± standard error), 23 of the 27 subjects were accurately classified. These findings indicate that the predominant qualitative assessment after stroke can be supplemented by corresponding quantitative solutions, and that stroke rehabilitation can be automated with less professional therapist involvement.

Cytotoxic Action of Palladium-Based Compound on Prostate Stem Cells, Primary Prostate Epithelial Cells, Prostate Epithelial Cells, and Prostate Cell Lines.

Objective: Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer found to occur in males and is ranked as the second-highest cause of cancer-associated deaths among male patients. In this study, we have shown the influence of a new palladium-based anticancer agent in contrast to the six distinct prostate cancer lines and the primary cultures. Methods: In this study, we have used six distinct prostate cell lines, that is, PNT2-C2, LNCaP, BPH-1, PC-3, PNT1A, and P4E6. The MTP and ATP assay were performed to evaluate the growth of the cell and the flow cytometry to investigate the status of the cell cycle. The antigrowth effect of the palladium complex was evaluated against different cell lines at three time zones 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h. [PdCl(terpy)] (capsule)-2H2O is synthesized by direct encapsulation of equimolar amounts of capsule ions into [Pd (terpy) Cl] Cl-2H2O. Results: A comparative analysis was done on 25 mM etoposide and 12 mM cisplatin, cytotoxic agents. The lowest IC50 value at 72 hours was 0.128 mM for BPH-1 cell lines with 0.139 mM, whereas PNT2-C2 cells were found to be most resistant with IC50 values of 0.829 mM. The antigrowth effect of palladium complex on cell lines was measured using the MTS assay at 24, 48, and 72 hours. BPH-1, PNT2-C2, and PNT1A either possess normal tissues or have benign prostatic hyperplasia tissues whereas P4E6, PC-3, and LNCaP cell lines possess malignant origin. The Pd complex exhibited significant cytotoxic action in stem cells when compared against etoposide. An antigrowth effect was reported for Pd complex at lower concentration, but it was more cytotoxic than etoposide with significant cytotoxicity (P=0.001). Conclusion: The palladium complex experienced a substantial antigrowth influence over most of the prostate tumor cell lines and the primary cultures, eventually, leading to the implementation of this Pd complex in the treating procedure of metastatic prostate cancer, which is tremendously resistant to the traditional treatment.

Poly(styrene-co-maleic acid) Micelle of Photosensitizers for Targeted Photodynamic Therapy, Exhibits Prolonged Singlet Oxygen Generating Capacity and Superior Intracellular Uptake.

Targeted therapy by using nanomedicines based on the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect is becoming a promising anticancer strategy. Many nano-designed photosensitizers (PSs) for photodynamic therapy (PDT) have been developed which show superior therapeutic potentials than free PS. To further understand the advantages of nano-designed PS, in this study, we used styrene-co-maleyl telomer (SMA) as a polymer platform to prepare a micellar type of PS with two well-characterized PSs-rose bengal (RB) and methylene blue (MB)-and evaluated the outmatching benefits of SMA-PS micelles, especially focusing on the singlet oxygen (1O2) generation capacity and intracellular uptake profiles. In aqueous solutions, SMA-PS self-assembles to form micelles by non-covalent interactions between PS and SMA. SMA-PS micelles showed discrete distributions by dynamic light scattering having a mean particle size of 18-30 nm depending on the types of SMA and different PSs. The hydrodynamic size of SMA-PS was evaluated by Sephadex chromatography and it found to be 30-50 kDa. In the presence of human serum albumin, the sizes of SMA-PS remarkably increased, suggesting the albumin-binding property. 1O2 generation from the SMA-PS micelle was determined by electron spin resonance, in which the SMA-PS micelle showed comparatively more photo-stable, and consequently a more durable and constant, 1O2 generation capability than free PS. Moreover, intracellular uptake of SMA-PS micelles was extensively faster and higher than free PS, especially in tumor cells. Taken together, SMA-PS micelles appear highly advantageous for photodynamic therapy in addition to its capacity in utilizing the EPR effect for tumor targeted delivery.

AC010973.2 promotes cell proliferation and is one of six stemness-related genes that predict overall survival of renal clear cell carcinoma.

Extensive research indicates that tumor stemness promotes tumor progression. Nonetheless, the underlying roles of stemness-related genes in renal clear cell carcinoma (ccRCC) are unclear. Data used in bioinformatics analysis were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Moreover, the R software, SPSS, and GraphPad Prism 8 were used for mapping and statistical analysis. First, the stemness index of each patient was quantified using a machine learning algorithm. Subsequently, the differentially expressed genes between high and low stemness index were identified as stemness-related genes. Based on these genes, a stable and effective prognostic model was identified to predict the overall survival of patients using a random forest algorithm (Training cohort; 1-year AUC: 0.67; 3-year AUC: 0.79; 5-year AUC: 0.73; Validation cohort; 1-year AUC: 0.66; 3-year AUC: 0.71; 5-year AUC: 0.7). The model genes comprised AC010973.2, RNU6-125P, AP001209.2, Z98885.1, KDM5C-IT1, and AL021368.3. Due to its highest importance evaluated by randomforst analysis, the AC010973.2 gene was selected for further research. In vitro experiments demonstrated that AC010973.2 is highly expressed in ccRCC tissue and cell lines. Meanwhile, its knockdown could significantly inhibit the proliferation of ccRCC cells based on colony formation and CCK8 assays. In summary, our findings reveal that the stemness-related gene AC01097.3 is closely associated with the survival of patients. Besides, it remarkably promotes cell proliferation in ccRCC, hence a novel potential therapeutic target.

A pilot study on prophylactic tube enterostomy for the prevention of anastomotic leakage in patients with high-risk intestinal anastomosis.

BACKGROUND: Anastomotic leakages (ALs) are one of the most serious complications following gastrointestinal anastomosis. Currently, very few operative measures are available for the prevention of ALs. This pilot study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of tube enterostomy (T-E) for the prevention of ALs in patients with high-risk intestinal anastomosis. METHODS: In this retrospective study, demographic data and postoperative outcomes were compared among patients who received T-E and two historical cohorts: one group that underwent primary anastomosis without T-E (non-T-E group) and another that underwent conventional stoma construction without anastomosis (stoma group). The operative procedures were selected according to a scoring system that quantitatively evaluated risk of Als (Zhongnan score). RESULTS: From March 2017 to March 2020, a total of 45 consecutive patients were enrolled in the T-E group. Among these patients, 53.3% (24/45) were diagnosed with Crohn's disease (CD), and 66.7% (30/45) of them underwent emergency surgery. After propensity score matching, the demographic data were comparable among the three groups. One case of AL (2.2%) occurred in the T-E group, while four cases of ALs (8.9%, 4/45) were found in the non-T-E group (p = 0.13). Tube feeding was provided to 33.3% (15/45) of the T-E patients. Major tube-related complications included one tube dislocation (2.2%) and 3 (6.7%) minor leakages after tube withdrawal (treated conservatively). One death occurred in the stoma group. In the subgroup analysis of CD patients, lower rates of ALs and abdominal abscesses were observed in the T-E group than in the non-T-E and stoma subgroups, but the differences were not significant. CONCLUSIONS: T-E seems to be a safe and feasible operative method for the protection of high-risk intestinal anastomosis, can be reversed and can provide enteral feeding with acceptable tube-related complications. Further studies are needed to validate the role of T-E.

The uptake of selenite in calcite revealed by X-ray absorption spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations.

Selenium (Se) is an important trace element in the environment, but the interaction of Se with calcite that may control the fate and geochemical behavior of Se is not fully understood. In this study, the molecular-scale mechanism for the uptake of selenite in calcite was investigated by a combination of laboratory experiments, extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy, and quantum chemical calculations. Results showed that selenite can be largely distributed to calcite at circumneutral pH. The local structure of Se in calcite obtained from EXAFS analyses, in combination with quantum chemical calculations, demonstrated that selenite can be incorporated into calcite by substituting for the carbonate, and that the geometric incompatibility of selenite could be accommodated by a slight expansion of crystal volume. The findings from this study suggest that calcite could be a potential Se sink, providing an important insight into the understanding of the mobility and geochemical behavior of Se in the subsurface environments particularly in the groundwater system.

Adsorption of U(VI) on the natural soil around a very low-level waste repository.

The behaviors of U(VI) in environmental media around radioactive waste disposal site are important for safety assessment of geological repositories. However, the estimation of environmental behaviors of U(VI) in natural media was insufficient. This work aimed to determine the adsorption of U(VI) on natural soil surrounding a candidate very low-level radioactive waste (VLLW) disposal site in southwest China. Results showed that the adsorption process of U(VI) on soils could be well supported by pseudo-second-order kinetic and Freundlich model. The adsorption of U(VI) was pH-dependent but temperature-independent. High ionic strength (NaCl) strongly affected the adsorption process at low pH (2.0-5.5). CO32- remarkably inhibited the U(VI) adsorption, while the adsorption of U(VI) was promoted by PO43- and SO42-. Naturally occurred soil organic matters (SOMs) showed high affinity for U(VI), while the presence of additional humic acid (HA) strongly inhibited U(VI) adsorption. The occurrence of ferrous iron could result in the reduction of U(VI) at low pH values (pH < 4), leading to the promotion of immobilization of U(VI). These findings would provide some guidance for the safety assessments of the VLLW disposal as well as the remediation of contaminated soil.

Mechanism and characteristics of a tunable dispersion-compensating dual-ring microstructure fiber for different orbital angular momentum modes.

A tunable dual-ring microstructure fiber that can support stable transmission for different orbital angular momentum (OAM) states and possess ultrahigh dispersion coefficients and low confinement losses is proposed and theoretically investigated. The proposed fiber is composed of two high-refractive-index rings and a double-cladding structure. Owing to the central air core and outer cladding, the dual-ring structure can support stable transmission for the OAM states. The mode fields of different OAM states in the inner ring can spread to the outer ring under certain conditions, which leads to high absolute values of dispersion around the coupling wavelengths. By tuning the refractive indices of the dual rings, the proposed fiber can achieve dispersion control for different OAM modes. Moreover, the specially designed two-layer air holes in the inner cladding can affect the mode-coupling coefficients, which are characterized by the effective mode areas and the overlap integral of the electric fields between the resonant ring modes. Therefore, the dispersion curves and operating wavelengths of the OAM modes can be modulated by regulating the physical parameters (the radius of the two-layer air holes or the infiltrated functional materials) of the inner cladding. We built a theoretical model and analyzed the modulation method and mechanism of the dispersion curves based on the coupled mode theory. The theoretical results indicate that the proposed fiber is flexible and has potential dispersion-compensating applications in fiber OAM systems.

Microscale Investigation into Selenium Distribution and Speciation in Se-Rich Soils from Enshi, China.

In this study, we investigated the distribution and chemical speciation of Se in Se-rich soil by using micro-focused X-ray absorption near-edge structure (µ-XANES) spectroscopy coupling with X-ray fluorescence (µ-XRF) mapping. The microscale distribution showed that Se is heterogeneously distributed in the soil from seleniferous areas in Enshi, China. Se K-edge µ-XANES analysis suggested that Se is mainly present as Se(IV), organic Se(-II) or Se(0) species in Se-rich agricultural soil. The findings from this study would help improve the understanding of the fate, mobility, bioavailability, and biogeochemical cycling of Se in the seleniferous soil environment.

Effects of 15-Day Head-Down Bed Rest on Emotional Time Perception.

Accurate time perception is clearly essential for the successful implementation of space missions. To elucidate the effect of microgravity on time perception, we used three emotional picture stimuli: neutral, fear, and disgust, in combination with a temporal bisection task to measure 16 male participants' time perception in 15 days of -6° head-down bed rest, which is a reliable simulation model for most physiological effects of spaceflight. We found that: (1) participants showed temporal overestimation of the fear stimuli in the middle phase (day 8), suggesting that when participants' behavioral simulations were consistent with the action implications of the emotional stimuli, they could still elicit an overestimation of time even if the subjective arousal of the emotional stimuli was not high. (2) Participants' temporal sensitivity tends to get worse in the bed rest phase (days 8 and 15) and better in the post-bed rest phase, especially for neutral and fear stimuli, suggesting that multiple presentations of short-term emotional stimuli may also lead to a lack of affective effects. This reduced the pacemaker rate and affected temporal perceptual sensitivity. Also, this may be related to changes in physiological factors in participants in the bed rest state, such as reduced vagal excitability. These results provide new evidence to support the theory of embodied cognition in the context of time perception in head-down bed rest and suggest important perspectives for future perception science research in special environments such as microgravity.

Orbital angular momentum generation in a dual-ring fiber based on the phase-shifted coupling mechanism and the interference of supermodes.

Based on the phased-shifted interference between supermodes, a novel method that can directly convert LP01 mode to orbital angular momentum (OAM) mode in a dual-ring microstructure optical fiber is proposed. In this fiber, the resonance between even and odd HE11 modes in inner ring and higher order mode in outer ring will form two pairs of supermodes, and the intensities and phases of the complete superposition mode fields for the involved supermodes created by the resonance at different wavelengths and propagating lengths are investigated and exhibited in this paper. We demonstrate that OAM mode can be generated from π/2-phase-shifted linear combinations of supermodes, and the phase difference of the even and odd higher order eigenmodes can accumulate to π/2 during the coupling process, which is defined as "phase-shifted" conversion. We build a complete theoretical model and systematically analyze the phase-shifted coupling mechanism, and the design principle and optimization method of this fiber are also illustrated in detail. The proposed microstructure fiber is compact, and the OAM mode conversion method is simple and flexible, which could provide a new approach to generate OAM states.

Macroscopic, theoretical simulation and spectroscopic investigation on the immobilization mechanisms of Ni(II) at cryptomelane/water interfaces.

In the present study, the macroscopic sorption behaviors and microscopic immobilization mechanisms of Ni(II) at cryptomelane/water interfaces were explored using the combination of batch sorption technique, desorption procedure, theoretical simulation, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analyses. The good simulation of the pseudo-second-order model on the sorption kinetics data suggests a driving force of chemical sorption rather than mass transport or physical interaction. The sorption trends and uptake mechanisms are obviously related to the solution pH, with cation exchange or outer-sphere surface complexation at an acidic pH of 4.0, inner-sphere surface complexation in both the edge-shared (ES) and double corner-shared (DCS) modes at a neutral pH of 7.0, and precipitation of α-Ni(OH)2(s) phase at a highly alkaline pH of 10.0. The gradual increase of Ni(II) sorption amount with solution temperature rising from 293 K to 333 K is consistent with the increased ratio of the weak DCS configuration. The research findings herein can help us better understand the migration and transformation trends of Ni(II) in the manganese mineral-riched aquatic environment.