Durable, multifunctional cotton fabrics with in situ deposited micro/nanomaterials for effective self-cleaning, oil-water separation and antibacterial activity.

The facile modification of cotton fabrics for excellent self-cleaning, oil-water separation, and antibacterial activity is of great interest for multifunctional requirements. Herein, a durable, robust, fluorine-free multifunctional cotton fabric was fabricated via in-situ growing zeolitic imidazolate framework-67 (ZIF-67) on the cotton surface, followed by depositing hydrophobic SiO2 (H-SiO2) nanoparticles synthesized via an improved Stöber reaction. Meanwhile, the abundant hydroxyls of the cotton fabrics provided the necessary ion interaction sites for the uniform deposition of micro/nanomaterials, confirmed by the visualized Raman imaging technology. The resultant H-SiO2/ZIF-67@cotton fabric exhibited superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 159° and versatile self-cleaning, antifouling, oil-water separation, as well as prominent antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli. At the same time, the superhydrophobic cotton fabric possessed excellent durability and stability against harsh environments, including abrasion, washing, acid, base, salt, and organic solvents. This facile technique can be applied for large-scale production of multifunctional superhydrophobic cotton fabrics due to its easy operation, low cost, and environmental friendliness.

Mining of disease-resistance genes in Crocus sativus based on transcriptome sequencing.

Introduction: Crocus sativus L. has an important medicinal and economic value in traditional perennial Chinese medicine. However, due to its unique growth characteristics, during cultivation it is highly susceptible to disease. The absence of effective resistance genes restricts us to breed new resistant varieties of C. sativus. Methods: In present study, comprehensive transcriptome sequencing was introduced to explore the disease resistance of the candidate gene in healthy and corm rot-infected C. sativus. Results and discussion: Totally, 43.72 Gb of clean data was obtained from the assembly to generate 65,337 unigenes. By comparing the gene expression levels, 7,575 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were primarily screened. A majority of the DEGs were completely in charge of defense and metabolism, and 152 of them were annotated as pathogen recognition genes (PRGs) based on the PGRdb dataset. The expression of some transcription factors including NAC, MYB, and WRKY members, changed significantly based on the dataset of transcriptome sequencing. Therefore, this study provides us some valuable information for exploring candidate genes involved in the disease resistance in C. sativus.

Aesthetic Cellulose Filaments with Water-Triggered Switchable Internal Stress and Customizable Polarized Iridescence Toward Green Fashion Innovation.

Healthy, convenient, and aesthetic hair dyeing and styling are essential to fashion trends and personal-social interactions. Herein, we fabricate green, scalable, and aesthetic regenerated cellulose filaments (ACFs) with customizable iridescent colors, outstanding mechanical properties, and water-triggered moldability for convenient and fashionable artificial hairdressing. The fabrication of ACFs involves cellulose dissolution, cross-linking, wet-spinning, and nanostructured orientation. Notably, the cross-linking strategy endows the ACFs with significantly weakened internal stress, confirmed by monitoring the offset of the C-O-C group in the cellulose molecular chain with Raman imaging, which ensures a tailorable orientation of the nanostructure during wet stretching and tunable iridescent polarization colors. Interestingly, ACFs can be tailored for three-dimensional shaping through a facile water-triggered adjustable internal stress: temporary shaping with low-level internal stress in the wet state and permanent shaping with high-level internal stress in the dry state. The health, convenience, and green aesthetic filaments show great potential in personal wearables.

Transcriptome Analysis of Salvia miltiorrhiza under Drought Stress.

Phenolic acids are one of the major secondary metabolites accumulated in Salvia miltiorrhiza with various pharmacological activities. Moderate drought stress can promote the accumulation of phenolic acids in S. miltiorrhiza, while the mechanism remains unclear. Therefore, we performed transcriptome sequencing of S. miltiorrhiza under drought treatment. A total of 47,169 unigenes were successfully annotated in at least one of the six major databases. Key enzyme genes involved in the phenolic acid biosynthetic pathway, including SmPAL, SmC4H, Sm4CL, SmTAT, SmHPPR, SmRAS and SmCYP98A14, were induced. Unigenes annotated as laccase correlated with SmRAS and SmCYP98A14 were analyzed, and seven candidates that may be involved in the key step of SalB biosynthesis by RA were obtained. A total of 15 transcription factors significantly up-regulated at 2 h and 4 h potentially regulating phenolic acid biosynthesis were screened out. TRINITY_DN14213_c0_g1 (AP2/ERF) significantly transactivated the expression of SmC4H and SmRAS, suggesting its role in the regulation of phenolic acid biosynthesis. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis of differential expression genes showed that phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and plant hormone signal transduction were significantly higher. The ABA-dependent pathway is essential for resistance to drought and phenolic acid accumulation. Expression patterns in drought and ABA databases showed that four PYLs respond to both drought and ABA, and three potential SnRK2 family members were annotated and analyzed. The present study presented a comprehensive transcriptome analysis of S. miltiorrhiza affected by drought, which provides a rich source for understanding the molecular mechanism facing abiotic stress in S. miltiorrhiza.

A Cross-Plane Design for Wearable Thermoelectric Generators with High Stretchability and Output Performance.

Stretchable wearable thermoelectric (TE) generators (WTEGs) without compromising output performance for real wearables have attracted much attention recently. Herein, a 3D thermoelectric generator with biaxial stretchability is constructed on the device level. Ultraflexible inorganic Ag/Ag2 Se strips are sewn into the soft purl-knit fabric, in which the thermoelectric legs are aligned in the direction of vertical heat flux. A stable and sufficient temperature gradient of 5.2 °C across the WTEG is therefore achieved when contacted with the wrist at a room temperature of 26.3 °C. The prepared TEG generates a high power density of 10.02 W m-2 at a vertical temperature gradient of 40 K. Meanwhile, the reliable energy harvesting promises a variation of less than 10% under the biaxial stretching up to 70% strain via leveraging the combined effects of the stretchability of knit fabric and geometry of TE strips. The knit fabric-supported TEG enables a seamless conformation to the skin as well as efficient body heat harvesting, which can provide sustainable energy to low power consumption wearable electronics.

The thermodynamics of enhanced dope stability of cellulose solution in NaOH solution by urea.

The addition of urea in pre-cooled alkali aqueous solution is known to improve the dope stability of cellulose solution. However, its thermodynamic mechanism at a molecular level is not fully understood yet. By using molecular dynamics simulation of an aqueous NaOH/urea/cellulose system using an empirical force field, we found that urea was concentrated in the first solvation shell of the cellulose chain stabilized mainly by dispersion interaction. When adding a glucan chain into the solution, the total solvent entropy reduction is smaller if urea is present. Each urea molecule expelled an average of 2.3 water molecules away from the cellulose surface, releasing water entropy that over-compensates the entropy loss of urea and thus maximizing the total entropy. Scaling the Lennard-Jones parameter and atomistic partial charge of urea revealed that direct urea/cellulose interaction was also driven by dispersion energy. The mixing of urea solution and cellulose solution in the presence or absence of NaOH are both exothermic even after correcting for the contribution from dilution.

Chitosan derived efficient and stable Pd nano-catalyst for high efficiency hydrogenation.

The design and development of green and efficient supported catalysts is the frontier direction in the field of green synthesis, which conforms to the strategic concept of green sustainable chemistry and "carbon neutrality". Herein, we used a renewable resource chitosan (CS) derived from seafood wastes of chitin as carriers to design two different chitosan-supported palladium (Pd) nano-catalysts through different activation methods. The Pd particles were firmly and uniformly dispersed on the chitosan microspheres due to the interconnected nanoporous structure and functional groups of chitosan, proved by diverse characterizations. The chitosan supported catalysts (Pd@CS) was applied to hydrogenation of 4-nitrophenol, which showed competitive catalytic activity compared to commercial Pd/C, un-supported nano-Pd and Pd(OAc)2 catalysts, as well as excellent catalytic activity, good reusability, long-life and broad applicability in selective hydrogenation of aromatic aldehydes, suggesting potential of applications in green industrial catalysis.

Nacre-inspired biodegradable nanocellulose/MXene/AgNPs films with high strength and superior gas barrier properties.

Super strength and high barrier properties are the bottleneck of the application of cellulose film materials. Herein, it is reported a flexible gas barrier film with nacre-like layered structure, in which 1D TEMPO-oxidized nanocellulose (TNF) and 2D MXene self-assembled to form an interwoven stack structure with 0D AgNPs filling the void space. The strong interaction and dense structure endowed TNF/MX/AgNPs film with mechanical properties far superior to PE films and acid-base stability. Importantly, the film presented ultra-low oxygen permeability confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations and better barrier properties to volatile organic gases than PE films. It is here considered the tortuous path diffusion mechanism of the composite film responsible for the enhanced gas barrier performance. The TNF/MX/AgNPs film also possessed antibacterial properties, biocompatibility and degradability (completely degraded after 150 days in soil). Collectively, the TNF/MX/AgNPs film brings innovative insights into the design and fabrication of high-performance materials.

The clinical characteristics of anemia in native adults living at different altitudes of the Tibetan Plateau.

To provide evidence-based medicine references for formulating prevention and control policies in plateau areas, we explore the characteristics of anemia patients in Tibet (the plateau areas of China), especially those located at an altitude above 4500 m. We collected clinical data from 379 Tibetan anemia patients over the age of 18 years. We found those female patients accounted for the majority of Tibetan anemia patients. Almost half of the anemia patients aged from 28 to 47 years. The percentage of severe anemia and extremely severe anemia was 45.4% and 2.4%, respectively. 88.7% of patients are engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, and 81.5% of patients just graduated from primary school or below. The most common causes of anemia were nutritional anemia, especially iron-deficiency anemia. At high-altitude localities, folic acid-deficiency anemia needs more attention. Overall, this study showed that altitude influences the incidence, severity, and cause of anemia. Peasants and herdsmen, low education levels, young and middle-aged women, and nutrition status should be paid attention to in future anemia control.

Understanding the Interfacial Adhesion between Natural Silk and Polycaprolactone for Fabrication of Continuous Silk Biocomposites.

The poor interfacial adhesion between silk fiber and polyester species remains a critical problem for the optimal mechanical performance of silk-reinforced polyester composites. Here, we investigated in quantitative terms the interfacial properties between natural silk fibers and polycaprolactone (PCL) at nano-, micro-, and macroscales and fabricated continuous silk-PCL composite filaments by melt extrusion and drawing processing of PCL melt at 100, 120, and 140 °C. Bombyx mori (Bm) silk, Antheraea pernyi (Ap) silk, and polyamide6 (PA6) fiber were compared to the composite with PCL. The Ap silk exhibited the highest surface energy, the best wettability, and the largest interfacial shear strength (IFSS) with PCL. The silk-PCL composite from the 120 °C melt processing displayed the highest tensile modulus, implying an optimal temperature for interfacial adhesion. The Raman imaging technique revealed in detail the nature of the physical fusion of the interface phase in these silk- and polyamide-reinforced PCL composites. This work is intended to lay a foundation for the design and processing of robust composites from continuous silk fibers and bioresorbable polyesters for potential structural biomaterials.

Tough, Highly Oriented, Super Thermal Insulating Regenerated All-Cellulose Sponge-Aerogel Fibers Integrating a Graded Aligned Nanostructure.

Thermal insulating fibers can effectively regulate the human body temperature and decrease indoor energy consumption. However, designing super thermal insulating fibers integrating a sponge and aerogel structure based on biomass resources is still a challenge. Herein, a flow-assisted dynamic dual-cross-linking strategy is developed to realize the steady fabrication of regenerated all-cellulose graded sponge-aerogel fibers (CGFs) in a microfluidic chip. The chemically cross-linked cellulose solution is used as the core flow, which is passed through two sheath flow channels, containing either a diffusion solvent or a physical cross-linking solvent, resulting in CGFs with a porous sponge outer layer and a dense aerogel inner layer. By regulating and simulating the flow process in the microfluidic chip, CGFs with adjustable sponge thicknesses, excellent toughness (26.20 MJ m-3), and ultralow thermal conductivity (0.023 W m-1 K-1) are fabricated. This work provides a new method for fabricating graded biomass fibers and inspires attractive applications for thermal insulation in textiles.

Characterization and regulatory mechanism analysis of VvmiR156a-VvAGL80 pair during grapevine flowering and parthenocarpy process induced by gibberellin.

MicroRNA156 (miR156) is an important conserved miRNA family in plants. Recently, we revealed VvmiR156a could involve in the modulation of gibberellin (GA)-mediated flower and berry development process of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.). However, how to manipulate this process is unclear. For this, we used the GA-induced grapevine parthenocarpy system to investigate the regulatory roles of VvmiR156a during this process. Here, we cloned the mature and precursor sequences of VvmiR156a in Wink grape and identified its potential target gene VvAGL80, which belongs to the MADS-box gene family. Moreover, using RNA ligase-mediated 5' rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RLM-RACE) and poly(A)polymerase-mediated 3' rapid amplification of cDNA (PPM-RACE) technologies, it confirmed that VvAGL80 was the true target gene of VvmiR159a. Analysis of promoter cis-elements and ß-glucuronidase (GUS) staining showed that both VvmiR156a and VvAGL80 contained GA-responsive elements and could respond to GA treatments. Quantitative real-time-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis exhibited the VvmiR156a and VvAGL80 showed opposite expression trends during grapevine flower and berry development, indicating that VvmiR156a negatively regulated the expression of VvAGL80 during this process. After GA treatment, the expression of miR156 in flowers was downregulated significantly, while that of VvAGL80 was upregulated, thereby accelerating grapevine flowering. Furthermore, GA treatment enhanced the negative regulation of VvmiR156a on VvAGL80 in seed, especially at the seed-coat hardening stage, which was the key period of seed growth and development. Our findings enriched the knowledge of the regulatory mechanism of the miRNA-mediated grapevine parthenocarpy process.

A Stiffness-Switchable, Biomimetic Smart Material Enabled by Supramolecular Reconfiguration.

In nature, stiffness-changing behavior is essential for living organisms, which, however, is challenging to achieve in synthetic materials. Here, a stiffness-changing smart material, through developing interchangeable supramolecular configurations inspired from the dermis of the sea cucumber, which shows extreme, switchable mechanical properties, is reported. In the hydrated state, the material, possessing a stretched, double-stranded supramolecular network, showcases a soft-gel behavior with a low stiffness and high pliability. Upon the stimulation of ethanol to transform into the coiled supramolecular configuration, it self-adjusts to a hard state with nearly 500-times enhanced stiffness from 0.51 to 243.6 MPa, outstanding load-bearing capability (over 35 000 times its own weight), and excellent puncture/impact resistance with a specific impact strength of ≈116 kJ m-2 (g cm-3 )-1 (higher than some metals and alloys such as aluminum, and even comparable to the commercially available protective materials such as D3O and Kevlar). Moreover, this material demonstrates reconfiguration-dependent self-healing behavior and designable formability, holding great promise in advanced engineering fields that require both high-strength durability and good formability. This work may open up a new perspective for the development of self-regulating materials from supramolecular-scale configuration regulation.

Dual feedback based bipolar current source with high stability for driving voice coil motors in wide temperature ranges.

Bipolar current sources with a stability better than 0.1% in the temperature range of -30 to +70 °C are demanded for driving voice coil motors applied in a new ultra-quiet satellite platform, but almost none of the existing designs satisfy the harsh requirements. This paper presents a possible solution, which is essentially a floating-load, bipolar current source circuit with a dual feedback path. The key circuit is a composite amplifier (co-amp) composed of a high precision amplifier for error correction and a high power amplifier for load driving. The first feedback path comprises a specially designed four-wire current-sense resistor for current-to-voltage conversion and a discrete instrumentation amplifier for amplifying the converted voltage and closing the loop. The second feedback path is a proposed compensation network for loop stability. Error budgets for evaluating current stability and choosing key components of the circuit are comprehensively studied based on a derived rigorous current equation. Loop-stability problems attributable to the inductive load and the high open-loop gain of the co-amp are analyzed, and the proposed dual feedback compensation method is verified by theory, simulation, and measurement. All these contributions are demonstrated by three implemented prototypes with an output of up to ±2 A. The measured results agree well with theoretical predictions. The best and the worst stability performances of the three prototypes at +2 and -2 A are, respectively, 394 and 986 ppm in the temperature range of -30 to +70 °C, which are close to the theoretical value of 776 ppm.

Intermediate stage hepatocellular carcinoma: Comparison of the value of inflammation-based scores in predicting progression-free survival of patients receiving transarterial chemoembolization.

CONTEXT AND AIMS: The identification of inflammation-related prognostic heterogeneity in intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) can reveal more effective first-line treatments. Our study aimed to compare the intermediate-stage HCC patients' different inflammation-based scores in predicting their progression-free survival (PFS) after transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed retrospectively a total of 128 intermediate-stage HCC patients who received first-line TACE treatment. We used the Cox-proportional hazards modeling to identify the independent prognostic factors. We compared the inflammation-based scores abilities to predict the PFS through the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curves and area under the curves. RESULTS: The multivariate analysis showed that tumor size and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were the independent prognostic factors for PFS (P < 0.05). The PLR predicted the intermediate-stage HCC patients' PFS receiving the TACE treatment better than other inflammation-based scores (e.g., the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, the Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), the modified GPS, the Prognostic Index, the Prognostic Nutritional Index, the lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio, and the systemic immune-inflammation index) (P < 0.05). An easy-to-use novel inflammation score based on tumor size - PLR-size score significantly improved the PFS prediction performance (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: As a first-line treatment, TACE was not well suitable for all intermediate-stage HCC patients, while the PLR was a better inflammation-based score than others. Tumor size should be regarded as an essential variable in affecting intermediate-stage HCC patients' first-line treatment strategies.

Bifunctional Regenerated Cellulose/Polyaniline/Nanosilver Fibers as a Catalyst/Bactericide for Water Decontamination.

For antagonizing urgent water pollution and increasing environmental consciousness, the integration of renewable resources and nanotechnologies has become a trend to improve water quality in the ecosystem. Here, we designed a green route to fabricate regenerated cellulose fibers (CFs) with 3D micro- and nanoporous structures in NaOH/urea aqueous solvent systems via a scalable wet-spinning procedure as support materials for nanoparticles (NPs). Modification of CFs with polyaniline@Ag nanocomposites through in situ reduction of the silver ion with aqueous aniline led to enhanced pollutant removal efficiency of functional cellulose-based fibers (FCFs), demonstrating both rapid hydrogenation catalytic performance for the reduction of p-nitrophenol and high antibacterial properties for in-flow water purification. Most importantly, the hierarchically porous structures of FCFs not only provided carrier space but also formed a limiting domain guaranteeing the homogeneity of FCFs even with a Ag NP content as high as 36.47 wt %. The prepared functional fibers show good behavior in in-flow water purification, representing significant advancement in the use of biomass fibers for catalytic and bactericidal applications in liquid media.

Pulsed terahertz spectroscopy combined with hybrid machine learning approaches for structural health monitoring of multilayer thermal barrier coatings.

Structural health monitoring of multilayer thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) is very vital to ensure the structural integrity and service performance of the hot-section components of the aero-engine. In this paper, we theoretically and numerically demonstrated that the terahertz time domain spectrum and the terahertz reflectance spectrum could be adopted to estimate the structure parameters, based on the finite difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm, 64 samples which were imported with three kinds of 64 sets structure parameters had been calculated to obtain the time domain and terahertz reflectance signals. To mimic the actual test signals, the original FDTD simulation signals were processed by adding the Gaussian white noise and wavelet noise reduction. To reduce the data dimension and improve the calculation efficiency during modeling, the principal component analysis (PCA) algorithm was adopted to reduce the dimensions of time-domain data and reflectance data. Finally, these data after multiple signal processing and PCA feature extraction were used to train the extreme learning machine (ELM), combining the genetic algorithm (GA) could optimize the PCA-ELM model and further improve the prediction performance of the hybrid model. Our proposed novel and efficient terahertz nondestructive technology combined with the hybrid machine learning approaches provides great potential applications on the multilayer TBCs structural integrity evaluation.

Polymorphic calcium alginate microfibers assembled using a programmable microfluidic field for cell regulation.

Effectively guiding and accurately controlling cell adhesion and growth on the surfaces of specific morphological materials are key issues and hot research topics for optimizing biomaterials. Herein, novel polymorphic alginate microfibers formed through microfluidic spinning technology in a single microchip are presented. Through programming the flow and reaction kinetics in microchannels, other than self-modified micromorphic channel geometry, polymorphic microfibers with precisely tuned curvature-adjustable morphology can be obtained. Finite element (FE) simulations of the flow field (unidirectional fluid-solid coupling) proved the efficacy of the proposed control strategy. Moreover, the specific disordered-ordered cell arrangements showed a linear relationship between bioinspired alginate microfibers with different curvatures and the orientation angle of L929 cells, and diversified growth morphologies, including oblate ellipse, star, tree and strip shapes, occurred on the customizable interface curvature of the calcium alginate microfibers, providing a paradigm for using specific structured natural biomedical materials for cell regulation. This work represents a new design concept for manufacturing polymorphic fibrous biomedical materials through a unique marriage of the fields of green chemistry, hydromechanics, and biomaterials, which should be very useful for guiding the controllable construction of alginate materials for use in structural materials for biomedical and engineering purposes.

Hydrogen Concentration Distribution in 2.25Cr-1Mo-0.25V Steel under the Electrochemical Hydrogen Charging and Its Influence on the Mechanical Properties.

The deterioration of the mechanical properties of metal induced by hydrogen absorption threatens the safety of the equipment serviced in hydrogen environments. In this study, the hydrogen concentration distribution in 2.25Cr-1Mo-0.25V steel after hydrogen charging was analyzed following the hydrogen permeation and diffusion model. The diffusible hydrogen content in the 1-mm-thick specimen and its influence on the mechanical properties of the material were investigated by glycerol gas collecting test, static hydrogen charging tensile test, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) test, and microhardness test. The results indicate that the content of diffusible hydrogen tends to be the saturation state when the hydrogen charging time reaches 48 h. The simulation results suggest that the hydrogen concentration distribution can be effectively simulated by ABAQUS and the method can be used to analyze the hydrogen concentration in the material with complex structures or containing multiple microstructures. The influence of hydrogen on the mechanical properties is that the elongation of this material is reduced and the diffusible hydrogen will cause a decrease in the fracture toughness of the material, and thus hydrogen embrittlement (HE) will occur. Moreover, the Young's modulus E and microhardness are increased due to hydrogen absorption, and the variation value is related to the hydrogen concentration introduced into the specimen.

Microwave ablation versus sorafenib for intermediate-Stage Hepatocellular carcinoma with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization refractoriness: a propensity score matching analysis.

Purpose: To compared the benefits of sorafenib with microwave ablation (MWA) in intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with tumor size ≤7 cm and tumor number ≤5 after Transcatheter Arterial Chemoembolization (TACE) failure.Methods: A retrospective, single-center study was conducted using a one-to-one propensity score matching (PSM) analysis and involved 52 intermediate-stage HCC patients with absence of evidence of intrahepatic vascular invasion and extrahepatic metastasis after TACE failure and underwent treatment with MWA or sorafenib between 2007 and 2019. The overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were evaluated by the Kaplan-Meier method. The factors with OS and PFS were determined by Cox regression.Results: Of the 52 patients included in our study, 30 (57.7%) underwent MWA and 22 (42.3%) received sorafenib. After PSM, 22 pairs were enrolled into different groups for further analysis. Patients in the MWA-group had a significantly longer median PFS than patients in the sorafenib-group on both before (median, 9.3 vs. 2.8 months, p = .001) and after PSM (median, 9.0 vs. 2.8 months, p = .006). They also had a significantly longer median OS than patients in the sorafenib-group on before (median, 48.8 vs. 16.6 months, p = .001) and after PSM (median, Not reached vs. 16.6 months, p = .001). Besides, Cox regression analysis showed that the treatment and age were the independent prognostic factors of OS and PFS (p＜0.05).Conclusions: MWA was superior to sorafenib in improving survival for intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with tumor size ≤7 cm and tumor number ≤5 after TACE failure.Key PointsCompared with sorafenib, microwave ablation may be a more reasonable alternative treatment for intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with tumor size ≤7 cm and tumor number ≤5 after TACE refractoriness.The treatment (MWA vs sorafenib) and the age of patients were the independent prognostic factors of OS and PFS.