Operation Of Stage Research Articles

Clinicopathological and survival analysis for patients with uterine sarcoma treated following surgery for presumed benign disease

ObjectivesTo investigate the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of patients with uterine sarcoma treated following surgery for presumed benign disease.MethodsWe identified all patients with uterine sarcoma found incidentally after primary surgery for presumed benign disease who presented to our institution and received re-exploration for completion surgery from January 1, 2004 to January 1, 2021. We analyzed the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis.ResultsOverall, 95 patients were included in our study. For the initial surgery, myomectomy was performed in 50 (52.6%, 50/95) patients, hysterectomy was performed in 45 (47.4%, 45/95) patients. All patients were re-explored to complete the staging operation. The median time to the staging surgery was 40 days (range 15–90 days). There were 29 patients (30.5%, 29/95) had remnant sarcomas, with 17 patients (17/95, 17.9%) on the remaining uterus, 9 patients (9/95, 9.5%) had disseminated diseases, and 4 patients (4/95, 4.2%) had positive lymph nodes. About 40 patients (42.1%) received adjuvant chemotherapy, 55.2% (16/29) and 36.4% (24/66) patients with/without remnant diseases received adjuvant chemotherapy, respectively (P = 0.087). The median follow-up duration was 76.7 months (IQR: 34.8-118.1 months). And 17 patients (17.9%) had recurrence following re-exploration surgery. 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) and 5-year overall survival (OS) for the entire cohort was 81.7% and 92.1%, respectively. Patients with remnant sarcomas had a tendency towards a worse 5-year PFS and 5-year OS, compared with those without (5-year PFS: 75.6% vs. 84.5%, P = 0.224; 5-year OS: 85.5% vs. 95.1%, P = 0.217). Patients with disseminated diseases had a worse 5-year OS (62.5% vs. 95.1%, P = 0.007) and non-significantly worse 5-year PFS (64.8% vs. 83.4%, P = 0.153) compared with those without.ConclusionsPatients with uterine sarcoma treated following surgery for presumed benign disease have a favorable survival. Patients with disseminated diseases had a worse 5-year OS compared with those without. Surgical re-exploration may be valuable for removing remnant sarcomas and disseminated diseases.

Understanding the transitional phase of nitrate removal in three different specialty adsorbents for stormwater treatment

Excess nitrogen input from nonpoint sources driven by hydrologic and anthropogenic disturbances has become a significant ecological challenge in receiving water bodies. Moreover, nitrate removal by cost-effective filtration media has still not performed up to expectation because of the knowledge gap in the transitional phase from physicochemical to microbiological processes. This study developed three cost-effective, sustainable, and adaptable green sorption media (GSM), namely CPS (clay–perlite with sand sorption media), ZIPGEM (zero-valent iron and perlite green environmental media), and BIPGEM (biochar, zero-valent iron, and perlite-based green environmental media), made of readily available and recyclable materials, to compare nitrate removal methods for stormwater treatment and elucidate the transitional phase. The primary adsorption mechanism was chemisorption, and subsequent biofilm growth sustained removal efficiency for a long-lasting period. Adsorption kinetics, adsorption equilibrium, material characterization, and fixed-bed column experiments with a 2-stage cultivation approach were undertaken to characterize the transitional phase in these GSM, based on breakthrough curves, maximum adsorption capacity, and microbial population dynamics for nitrification and denitrification. As shown in the column study, BIPGEM had the highest adsorption capacity (7.637 mg∙g−1), followed by ZIPGEM (2.16 mg∙g−1), and CPS (0.1798mg∙g−1). The biochar in BIPGEM provides a better cultivation environment for nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, contributing sufficient electron donors. Biofilm production and maturation enabled the BIPGEM to maintain 30 % nitrate removal in a steady state even after 2000 h of operation in the first stage. When the biofilm reached maturation, BIPGEM’s nitrate removal percentage was up to 70 % via denitrification in the second stage.

Integrated prenatal and postnatal management for neonates with transposition of the great arteries: thirteen-year experience at a single center

BackgroundTransposition of the great arteries (TGA) is the most common cyanotic congenital heart defect in neonates but with low prenatal detection rate. This study sought to review the prenatal diagnosis, associated abnormalities, and mid-term postnatal outcomes of fetuses with TGA and investigate the integrated prenatal and postnatal management for TGA neonates.MethodsA total of 134 infants prenatally diagnosed with TGA in Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, China, from January 2009 to December 2022 were included in the study. The prenatal ultrasound data and neonatal records were reviewed to assess the accuracy of prenatal diagnosis. Univariate and multivariate logistic and Cox analyses were used to identify risk factors associated with prognosis in such individuals.ResultsThe population originated from 40 cities in 10 provinces in China, with integrated antenatal and postnatal management rate reaching 94.0% (126/134) and a high accuracy rate (99.3%) of prenatal primary diagnosis. The median period of follow-up was 1.6 [interquartile range (IQR) 0.1–4.3] years. There were 3 (2.2%) postnatal deaths, 118 (88.1%) patients undergoing arterial switch operation (ASO), 3 (2.2%) undergoing Rastelli operations and 5 (3.7%) doing stage operations. Of 118 patients receiving ASO, the major morbidity occurred in 64 patients (54.2%), and right ventricular outflow tract obstruction (RVOTO) in 31 (26.3%). In the multivariate logistic analysis, gestational ages at birth (OR = 0.953, 95% CI 0.910–0.991; p = 0.025) and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) time (OR = 1.010, 95% CI 1.000–1.030; p = 0.038) were identified as independent risk factors associated with major morbidity. In the Cox multivariate analysis, aortic cross-clamping time (HR = 1.030, 95% CI 1.000–1.050; p = 0.017) was identified as independent risk factor associated with RVOTO.ConclusionEarlier gestational ages at birth and longer CPB time are significantly associated with increased morbidity. Integrated prenatal and postnatal management is recommended for patients with prenatal diagnosis of TGA.

A learning-based memetic algorithm for a cooperative task allocation problem of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles in smart agriculture

Smart agriculture aligns with the principles of sustainable development, making it a crucial direction for the future agriculture. This study focuses on a cooperative plant protection task allocation problem (CPPTAP) of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with a common deadline in smart agriculture. CPPTAP permits multiple UAVs to conduct pesticide spraying on the same field. The completion time for each task fluctuates due to the cooperation among UAVs. We present a mathematical model and learning-based memetic algorithm (L-MA) to maximize the total area of the fields to be sprayed. In the evolutionary stage, mutation and repair operators based on value information are applied to balance the exploration and exploitation, while a problem-specific local search strategy is designed to enhance exploitation capability. A knowledge-based UAV allocation method (KUAM) is employed to maximize UAV utilization efficiency and minimize conflicts. Throughout the search process, Q-learning is utilized to assist the aforementioned operators and make decisions on the number of cooperative UAVs on fields. The effectiveness of L-MA is validated by comparing it against other state-of-the-art algorithms. The results demonstrate that L-MA outperforms the compared algorithms at a considerable margin in a statistical sense.

Dynamic Validation of Calibration Accuracy and Structural Robustness of a Multi-Sensor Mobile Robot.

For mobile robots, the high-precision integrated calibration and structural robustness of multi-sensor systems are important prerequisites for ensuring healthy operations in the later stage. Currently, there is no well-established validation method for the calibration accuracy and structural robustness of multi-sensor systems, especially for dynamic traveling situations. This paper presents a novel validation method for the calibration accuracy and structural robustness of a multi-sensor mobile robot. The method employs a ground-object-air cooperation mechanism, termed the "ground surface simulation field (GSSF)-mobile robot -photoelectric transmitter station (PTS)". Firstly, a static high-precision GSSF is established with the true north datum as a unified reference. Secondly, a rotatable synchronous tracking system (PTS) is assembled to conduct real-time pose measurements for a mobile vehicle. The relationship between each sensor and the vehicle body is utilized to measure the dynamic pose of each sensor. Finally, the calibration accuracy and structural robustness of the sensors are dynamically evaluated. In this context, epipolar line alignment is employed to assess the accuracy of the evaluation of relative orientation calibration of binocular cameras. Point cloud projection and superposition are utilized to realize the evaluation of absolute calibration accuracy and structural robustness of individual sensors, including the navigation camera (Navcam), hazard avoidance camera (Hazcam), multispectral camera, time-of-flight depth camera (TOF), and light detection and ranging (LiDAR), with respect to the vehicle body. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method offers a reliable means of dynamic validation for the testing phase of a mobile robot.

DETERMINATION OF THE OPTIMUM DESIGN OF THE MEANS TO ENSURE FUEL CONTINUITY USING THE METHOD OF NUMERICAL SIMULATION

Residues of liquid propellant components in the power system of the propulsion system at the end of the operation of the launch vehicle stage significantly affect its energy characteristics. The fuel continuity features found in modern launch vehicle tanks ensure a continuous supply of propellant components from the tank to the propulsion system without disrupting flow and mini- mizing residues. In the fuel tank of launch vehicles, the presence of a tunnel pipeline complicates, and in certain cases excludes the possibility of taking fuel from the pole of the tank. Solving the problem of fuel intake, in this case, allows the use of means to ensure the continuity of fuel of the side type. However, the use of such a device, due to the displacement relative to the pole of the bottom of the tank by a certain angle of the sampling point, can lead to an uneven level of breakthrough and immersion of the boost gas at the inlet to the flow line and, as a result, a significant increase in the remainder of the fuel components. The authors searched for and substantiated the optimal design of the means for ensuring fuel continuity on the example of the fuel tank of the first stage of the Cyclone-4 launch vehicle, which is equipped with a side-type fuel continuity means in the form of a profiled plate (plate). The designs of siphon and annular fuel continuity means are considered. An analytical calculation was carried out using empirical dependences, a physical experiment, and a numerical simulation of their main parameters. Based on the work performed, a comparative analysis of the change in the energy characteristics of the launch vehicle depending on the chosen design was carried out. The efficiency of the operation of the considered means of ensuring the continuity of the fuel is determined in terms of the mass parameter of the remainder of the propellant components under static conditions. The result of the experimental and computational-analytical work was to obtain the most optimal variant of the fuel continuity means, which turned out to be a siphon according to several parameters. The introduction of a siphon means of ensuring continuity, as more optimal, into the design of the fuel tank of the Cyclone-4 launch vehicle will improve its energy characteristics by increasing the mass of the output payload by 5.4 kg. Also, using the numerical modeling methods (CFD methods) for design work on devel- opment, optimization, and improvement, instead of empirical and semi-empirical dependencies, allows you to: obtain more accurate results; reduce the number of experimental designs; reduce the required number of tests; reduce the duration of exami- nations; reduce the total duration of computational and design and experimental work; reduce the overall material and technical costs and, as a result, reduce the final cost of the development product, which will increase its competitiveness.

Comparison of Long-Term Outcomes in Early-Stage Endometrial Cancer: Robotic Single-Site vs. Multiport Laparoscopic Surgery.

The purpose of this study was to establish the noninferiority of robotic single-site (RSS) surgery compared with multiport laparoscopic (MPL) surgery in surgical outcomes and overall survival for early endometrial cancer. This study was conducted retrospectively in a single center and included 421 patients who underwent either RSS (n = 146) or MPL (n = 275) surgery between 2014 and 2022. In terms of perioperative outcomes, the RSS group had a longer operating time than the MPL surgery group (mean (standard deviation [SD]) RSS 97.55 [29.79] vs. MPL 85.56 [26.13], p < 0.001). However, no significant differences in estimated blood loss or perioperative complications were found between the groups (p = 0.196 and p = 0.080, respectively). The patients in the RSS group were discharged earlier than those in the MPL group (mean [SD]): 4.06 [3.24] vs. 9.39 [4.76], p < 0.001). Regarding oncologic outcomes, no significant differences in the type of therapy, disease stage, tumor grade, histopathological type, or lymphovascular invasion were found between the groups. No statistically significant differences were found in the disease-free (p = 0.27) and overall survival rates (p = 0.5) either. In conclusion, this study suggests that RSS and MPL surgery are both safe and effective options for staging operations in patients with early-stage endometrial cancer.

Comparison of Recovery Rate and Early Complications Between Primary Resection and Two-stage Operation in the Treatment of Acute Non- Complicated Sigmoid Volvulus

Background: This study compares recovery rates and early complications associated with primary resection and a two-stage operation in treating acute sigmoid volvulus, a gastrointestinal emergency requiring prompt intervention. Proper diagnosis and appropriate operative approaches are crucial for lifesaving treatment. Objectives: This study was aim to compair of recovery rate and early complecations between two operative procedures. Methods: The cross-sectional analytical study was conducted from May to October 2015in National Institute Cancer Research and Hospital, Mohakhali, Dhaka, Bangladesh, involved 50 patients with acute non-complicated sigmoid volvulus, randomly divided into two groups, with the outcome variable being the only difference between two groups. Results: Two stage operation patients experienced 24% stomal complications, while one stage operation patients did not experience any late complication. The mean time for one stage operation was longer, and one stage operation resulted in 200 ml blood loss compared to 156 ml in two stage operations. Conclusion: In consideration of anastomotic leakage, operative time, operative blood loss post-operative hospital stay, two stage operation was better than primary resection. J Rang Med Col. March 2024; Vol. 9, No. 1: 59-64

SDPH: a new technique for spatial detection of path holes from huge volume high-resolution raster images in near real-time

Detecting and repairing road defects is crucial for road safety, vehicle maintenance, and enhancing tourism on well-maintained roads. However, monitoring all roads by vehicle incurs high costs. With the widespread use of remote sensing technologies, high-resolution satellite images offer a cost-effective alternative. This study proposes a new technique, SDPH, for automated detection of damaged roads from vast, high-resolution satellite images. In the SDPH technique, satellite images are organized in a pyramid grid file system, allowing deep learning methods to efficiently process them. The images, generated as 256×256\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$256\ imes 256$$\\end{document} dimensions, are stored in a directory with explicit location information. The SDPH technique employs a two-stage object detection models, utilizing classical and modified RCNNv3, YOLOv5, and YOLOv8. Classical RCNNv3, YOLOv5, and YOLOv8 and modified RCNNv3, YOLOv5, and YOLOv8 in the first stage for identifying roads, achieving f1 scores of 0.743, 0.716, 0.710, 0.955, 0.958, and 0.954, respectively. When the YOLOv5, with the highest f1 score, was fed to the second stage; modified RCNNv3, YOLOv5, and YOLOv8 detected road defects, achieving f1 scores of 0.957,0.971 and 0.964 in the second process. When the same CNN model was used for road and road defect detection in the proposed SDPH model, classical RCNNv3, improved RCNNv3, classical YOLOv5, improved YOLOv5, classical YOLOv8, improved RCNNv8 achieved micro f1 scores of 0.752, 0.956, 0.726, 0.969, 0.720 and 0.965, respectively. In addition, these models processed 11, 10, 33, 31, 37, and 36 FPS images by performing both stage operations, respectively. Evaluations on geotiff satellite images from Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality, ranging between 20 and 40 gigabytes, demonstrated the efficiency of the SDPH technique. Notably, the modified YOLOv5 outperformed, detecting paths and defects in 0.032 s with the micro f1 score of 0.969. Fine-tuning on TileCache enhanced f1 scores and reduced computational costs across all models.

Successful multidisciplinary treatment for synchronous advanced esophageal and cecal cancers after total gastrectomy with reconstruction by jejunal interposition

BackgroundEsophageal squamous cell carcinoma is characterized by field cancerization, wherein multiple cancers occur in the esophagus, head and neck, and stomach. Synchronous esophageal and colorectal cancers are also encountered with a certain frequency. A good prognosis can be expected if the tumors in both locations can be safely and completely removed. For patients with multiple cancers that occur simultaneously with esophageal cancer, it is necessary to perform a staged operation, taking into consideration the associated surgical invasiveness. It is also necessary to select multidisciplinary treatment depending on the degree of progression of the multiple lesions. We report our rare experience with a staged operation for a patient with synchronous advanced cancers of the esophagus and cecum who had previously undergone total gastrectomy with reconstruction by jejunal interposition for gastric cancer.Case presentationA 71-year-old man with a history of reconstruction by jejunal interposition after total gastrectomy was diagnosed as having multiple synchronous esophageal and cecal cancers. After neoadjuvant chemotherapy, we performed a planned two-stage operation, with esophagectomy and jejunostomy in the first stage and ileocecal resection and jejunal reconstruction with vascular anastomosis in the second. Postoperatively, the patient was relieved without major complications, and both tumors were amenable to curative pathologic resection.ConclusionsOur procedure reported here may be recommended as an option for staged resection and reconstruction in patients with simultaneous advanced esophageal and cecal cancer after total gastrectomy.

Removal of Anabaena by ultrasonic pretreatment enhancing-coagulation and water treatment processes

Cyanobacteria bloom brings great challenges to the safety of the drinking water process. Ultrasonic pretreatment can effectively enhance coagulation to remove algae cells from algae-laden water. However, due to the special chain-like structure of Anabaena, the removal characteristics of Anabaena in water treatment process are quite different from those of unicellular cyanobacteria. No study has yet systematic studied on the enhancement effect of ultrasonic enhanced water treatment process on Anabaena. Therefore, this paper studied the characteristics and mechanism of ultrasonic pretreatment to enhance the removal of Anabaena, and carried out pilot experiments. The results showed that ultrasound irradiation at 740 kHz and 1.12 MHz had a great effect on the destruction of the chain-like structure and cell structure of Anabaena. After 15 min, the removal rate of Anabaena cells reached 16.0% and 30.4%, respectively, and the release of intracellular organic matter (IOM) reached 4.3 and 6.0 mg/L, in which phycocyanin released more. The damage of dynamic ultrasound irradiation on algae cells is weak, which can avoid the influence of uneven ultrasound irradiation on algae cells. The enhanced coagulation effect was better after 740 kHz ultrasonic pretreatment for 1 min, and the removal rates of algal cells, turbidity and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) increased by 7%, 9.4% and 12.6%, respectively. Pilot scale experiments demonstrate that ultrasonic pretreatment leads to a notable enhancement in the removal efficiency during the coagulation and sedimentation stages. After 4 h of operation, the turbidity and algal cell removal in the sedimentation stage increased by 6.1% and 14.0%, respectively. In addition, the removal of DOC in the final treated water increased by 6.7%. Furthermore, the disinfection by-products (DBPs) concentration experiences a reduction exceeding 200 μg per liter. Together, these results show a substantial improvement in filtration efficiency and effluent quality. This study provides guidance for the ongoing study of ultrasonic pretreatment to remove chain-like cyanobacteria.

Simulation of Active Power Generation During Operation of a Steam Turbine Stage in Low-Steam and Motor Modes

The operation mode of the steam turbine stage in low-steam and motor modes is considered. The features of the operation of the steam turbine stage in the motor mode are given. It is shown that the condition accepted in earlier studies of hydrodynamic processes in the turbine stage during its operation in the motor mode, that the cooling steam flows through the stage without expansion, i.e. without generating active power, is valid if the entire flow part of the turbine is under pressure in the condenser and there is no pressure drop in the stages. The conditions under which the stage operates in the ventilation mode or in the mode of generating active power are determined. The technique developed with this condition in mind allows, with known parameters before the stage and the pressure ratio before and behind the stage, to determine the operating mode of the stage.

MSRMNet: Multi-scale skip residual and multi-mixed features network for salient object detection

The current models for the salient object detection (SOD) have made remarkable progress through multi-scale feature fusion strategies. However, the existing models have large deviations in the detection of different scales, and the target boundaries of the prediction images are still blurred. In this paper, we propose a new model addressing these issues using a transformer backbone to capture multiple feature layers. The model uses multi-scale skip residual connections during encoding to improve the accuracy of the model’s predicted object position and edge pixel information. Furthermore, to extract richer multi-scale semantic information, we perform multiple mixed feature operations in the decoding stage. In addition, we add the structure similarity index measure (SSIM) function with coefficients in the loss function to enhance the accurate prediction performance of the boundaries. Experiments demonstrate that our algorithm achieves state-of-the-art results on five public datasets, and improves the performance metrics of the existing SOD tasks. Codes and results are available at: https://github.com/xxwudi508/MSRMNet.

ОДНОЭТАПНАЯ КОРРЕКЦИЯ ПОСЛЕДСТВИЙ ПОВРЕЖДЕНИЯ ЛОКТЕВОГО НЕРВА

Objective: : To enhance the outcomes of surgical treatment for chronic ulnar nerve injuries by performing one-stage correction. Methods: From 2015 to 2023, 11 patients with chronic ulnar neurovascular bundle (NVB) injuries underwent one-stage reconstruction to restore hand function. The operations were performed on 8 men and 3 women aged 16 to 23. The duration of treatment for patients from the time of injury varied from 1.2 years to 5 years Results: In cases where there was a diastasis between the neural ends of no more than 3 cm in the upper third of the forearm due to nerve damage, restoration of the nerve with epineural suture was performed in 2 patients, while in two other cases with more significant gaps of 3.5 and 5 cm, epineural repair was carried out after anterior transposition of the nerve trunk. In one case of nerve damage in the middle third of the forearm, epineural sutures were applied to a 2.5 cm gap. Among 6 patients with damage to the ulnar NVB in the lower third of the forearm, 4 received epineural restoration of the ulnar nerve, and autologous neuroplasty was performed in gaps exceeding 3 cm in 2 patients. In cases of damage to the ulnar artery, 3 patients received autologous vein grafting, while in 3 other cases, there were no indications for vascular reconstruction. No infectious or inflammatory complications were observed in the immediate postoperative period, and there were no cases of thrombosis of autologous vein grafts of the ulnar artery. After evaluating all patients for 6 months to 2 years, it was found that 9 cases showed favorable and satisfactory long-term functional outcomes, while 2 cases exhibited unsatisfactory results. Conclusion: Restoring hand function after damage to the ulnar nerve is greatly influenced by the location, extent, and type of the damage, as well as the choice of an appropriate reconstruction method. Breaking the procedure into multiple stages can prolong patient recovery and negatively impact treatment outcomes. Conversely, performing the operation in a single stage within a relatively short timeframe can restore hand function and significantly reduce overall treatment and rehabilitation time Keywords: Ulnar nerve, neurovascular bundle, injury, tendon-muscular transfer, epineural suture

Research on the Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Industry-Teaching Integration Construction of Higher Vocational Excellence Courses--Based on Network DEA Model Analysis

Abstract The integration of industry and education is an important model for building high-level higher vocational colleges and universities, and it is also a necessary way to promote the modernization and development of higher vocational education. Based on Hall’s three-dimensional structural model, this paper explores the specific process of the construction of industry-teaching integration of high-level, high-quality courses and evaluates the effectiveness of the construction of industry-teaching integration of high-level, high-quality courses using the network SBM-DEA model. The evaluation index system was first constructed according to the questionnaire survey method, Delphi method, and hierarchical analysis method, and then the indexes were screened and applied to the empirical analysis of the effectiveness of the construction of industry-teaching fusion of higher vocational boutique courses. The average overall operational efficiency of the industry-teaching fusion of boutique courses at 45 higher vocational colleges and universities is 0.547, which is the average level. However, the efficiency of the two phases still has some differences between the average efficiency value of the resource construction phase and the outcome output phase. The correlation coefficient between the efficiency of the outcome output stage and the overall operational efficiency is 0.885, which is highly correlated. Most institutions pay more attention to the operation of the outcome output stage. The R² of the fit between pure technical efficiency and comprehensive efficiency is 0.731, and the R² of the fit between scale efficiency and comprehensive efficiency is 0.264, indicating that pure technical efficiency is the dominant factor affecting the comprehensive efficiency of institutions. In the two stages of resource construction and output of results, the output side shows insufficient output, while the input side shows input redundancy, indicating that the input resources are not effectively utilized. This paper provides a direction of action to strengthen the deep integration of industry and education in higher vocational boutique courses and to promote complementary resources and a benign interaction between schools and enterprises.

CMAT: Integrating Convolution Mixer and Self-Attention for Visual Tracking

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Transformer are two powerful representation learning techniques for visual tracking. Although CNNs can effectively reduce local redundancy via small-neighborhood convolution operations, their limited receptive fields make it difficult to capture global dependency. Self-attention in Transformer uses patches as the input representation, which can effectively capture long-range dependency. However, blind similarity comparisons between all patches can lead to high redundancy. Is there then a technique that combines well the advantages of both paradigms for visual tracking? In this work, we design a novel backbone network for feature extraction. First, we choose Depthwise Convolution and Pointwise Convolution to build a Convolution Mixer, which effectively separates spatial mixing from channel-wise mixing of information. The Convolution Mixer reduces redundancy in spatial and channel features while increasing receptive field. Then, to exploit the global modeling ability of self-attention, we construct a module by aggregating Convolution Mixer and self-attention. The module shares dominant computational complexity (the square of the channel size) in the first stage. In the second stage, the shift and summation operations are lightweight. Finally, to alleviate the overfitting of the backbone network during training, a dropout layer is added at the end of the module to improve the generalization ability of the network model. Stronger image features are provided for subsequent feature fusion and prediction. The proposed tracker (named CMAT) achieves satisfying tracking performance on ten challenging datasets. In particular, CMAT achieves a 64.1% AUC on LaSOT and a 68.9% AUC on UAV123 while running at 23 frames per second (FPS).

An HTTP REST API for Tape-backed Storage

The goal of the HTTP REST API for Tape project is to provide a simple, minimalistic and uniform interface to manage data transfers between Storage Endpoints (SEs) where the source file is on tape. The project is a collaboration between the developers of WLCG storage systems (EOS+CTA, dCache, StoRM) and data transfer clients (gfal2, FTS). For some years, HTTP has been growing in popularity as the preferred data transfer protocol between many WLCG SEs. However — unlike other protocols such as XRootD and SRM — HTTP does not include a method to stage files from tape to disk prior to transfer, forcing the use of workarounds such as hybrid protocols (different protocols used for the “stage” and “transfer” parts of the operation). The HTTP REST API offers a simple and consistent solution, by extending the HTTP protocol to include staging operations. It provides clients with a common and consistent API across different storage systems to manage and monitor the disk and tape residency of stored files. In this contribution, we present the history and motivation of the HTTP REST API project, the specification of version 1 of the API and implementation details in the various storage and data transfer systems. We also describe our experience of its deployment and use for LHC Run-3 operations. We conclude with a discussion of possible future work.

Simple model combined with data assimilation to forecast buoyancy-driven ceiling jet propagation in tunnel fires

Faster-than-real-time forecast for the ceiling jet head propagation is crucial for evacuation guidance and rescue operation in the early stages of tunnel fires. The ceiling jet head propagation is driven by buoyancy and thus significantly dominated by the heat transfer process in the head region. Simplified models have been established but proved challenging in forecasting complex dynamic processes. The cumulative deviations induced by the model limitations and the input parameter uncertainties lead to distorted forecast during the ceiling jet dynamic propagation process, thereby constraining the applicability of such models in practical scenarios. In this study, an assimilation method, the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF), was combined with a simple theoretical model to forecast the ceiling jet propagation. Using the EnKF to assimilate the monitored local data, the key input parameters such as mass flow rate m˙ and the temperature of the ceiling jet head Ts are corrected in real time, thus alleviating model prediction deviation. Meanwhile, a heat loss rate correction coefficient λα, introduced to correct the heat loss rate during the ceiling jet propagation process, is dynamically estimated as well. This enables the model to characterize the heat transfer process more accurately, consequently ensuring faster-than-real-time forecasts of the subsequent propagation stage. Finally, the forecasting effectiveness of the proposed combined method was examined in a 1:6 reduced-size experimental tunnel fire scenario and full-scale simulated tunnel fire scenarios with various fire source locations, tunnel geometries, and suddenly changing HRR. In response to the demand of minimizing both the type and quantity of sensors in practical applications, a factor analysis was also performed to examine the robustness of this method. The results exhibited good adaptability to different fire scenarios with very limited monitored data.

An Information Extraction Method for Industrial and Commercial Rooftop Photovoltaics Based on GaoFen-7 Remote Sensing Images

With the increasing global focus on renewable energy, distributed rooftop photovoltaics (PVs) are gradually becoming an important form of energy generation. Effective monitoring of rooftop PV information can obtain their spatial distribution and installed capacity, which is the basis used by management departments to formulate regulatory policies. Due to the time-consuming and labor-intensive problems involved in manual monitoring, remote-sensing-based monitoring methods are getting more attention. Currently, remote-sensing-based distributed rooftop PV monitoring methods are mainly used as household rooftop PVs, and most of them use aerial or satellite images with a resolution higher than 0.3 m; there is no research on industrial and commercial rooftop PVs. This study focuses on the distributed industrial and commercial rooftop PV information extraction method based on the Gaofen-7 satellite with a resolution of 0.65 m. First, the distributed industrial and commercial rooftop PV dataset based on Gaofen-7 satellite and the optimized public PV datasets were constructed. Second, an advanced MANet model was proposed. Compared to MANet, the proposed model removed the downsample operation in the first stage of the encoder and added an auxiliary branch containing the Atrous Spatial Pyramid Pooling (ASPP) module in the decoder. Comparative experiments were conducted between the advanced MANet and state-of-the-art semantic segmentation models. In the Gaofen-7 satellite PV dataset, the Intersection over Union (IoU) of the advanced MANet in the test set was improved by 13.5%, 8.96%, 2.67%, 0.63%, and 0.75% over Deeplabv3+, U2net-lite, U2net-full, Unet, and MANet. In order to further verify the performance of the proposed model, experiments were conducted on optimized public PV datasets. The IoU was improved by 3.18%, 3.78%, 3.29%, 4.98%, and 0.42%, demonstrating that it outperformed the other models.

Treatment strategy of congenital tracheal stenosis associated with non-vascular ring cardiac malformations

Objective: To examine the treatment strategy of congenital tracheal stenosis associated with non-vascular ring cardiac malformations. Methods: This is a retrospective case series. Clinic data from 24 children with tracheal stenosis who underwent surgical treatment in the Department of Cardiac Surgery, Children's Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University from February 2017 to March 2023 were retrospectively collected. There were 16 males and 8 females, aged (M(IQR)) 6.5 (19.6) months (range: 2.2 to 66.3 months) and weighted 5.95 (4.76) kg (range: 3.2 to 20.0 kg). All patients had obvious respiratory symptoms. Eighteen patients underwent cardiac malformation correction and tracheoplasty at the same time (simultaneous group). Six patients in the staged operation group were treated with cardiac malformation correction in the first stage operation and tracheoplasty in the second stage operation due to missed diagnosis or delayed diagnosis of tracheal stenosis or no condition for tracheoplasty. Slide tracheoplasty was used to correct tracheal stenosis in both groups. The recovery of the children was followed. Wilcoxon sign rank test was used for comparison between the two groups. Results: There was no death during the perioperative period and hospitalization. In the simultaneous group, 1 case with delayed chest closure underwent bedside chest closure after 52 hours, 2 cases were intubated again after operation, and 1 case was implanted with an endotracheal stent. The duration of mechanical ventilation was 40.5 (39.6) hours (range: 19.0 to 438.8 hours). In the staged group, there was 1 case of re-intubation after operation, combined with left vocal cord paralysis and respiratory multidrug-resistant bacterial infection (Acinetobacter baumanii). One patient underwent 3 times of bronchoscopic balloon dilatation of the right middle bronchus, and heart rate returned to normal range. The duration of mechanical ventilation was 19.0 (21.4) hours (range: 17.1 to 96.7 hours). During follow-up, a patient in the simultaneous group was prone to respiratory infection and had good exercise tolerance, 1 patient in the staged group still had sputum stridor in the throat 3 months after the operation, and symptoms improved significantly 6 months after the operation. The other children didn't have obvious respiratory symptoms. Conclusions: The diagnosis of tracheal stenosis may be delayed or missed when tracheal stenosis is complicated by non-vascular ring cardiac malformations. One-stage correction of tracheal stenosis and cardiac malformation can achieve a good outcome.