BACKGROUND: Acupoint buried beans on the auricle is a feasible method to prevent and treat postpartum urinary retention. OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effect of auricular acupoint buried beans on postpartum urination and maternal and fetal outcomes following epidural analgesia for labor. METHODS: Two hundred forty primiparas underwent vaginal trial labor analgesia from May 2020 to January 2021 and were randomly placed into the intervention and control groups. Both groups received epidural labor analgesia. Maternal urination during labor, 2 h postpartum, and the time for first postpartum urination were recorded as primary outcomes, with maternal and infant outcomes documented as secondary results. Statistical analysis was performed using the independent sample t-test, non-parametric rank-sum, or chi-square test using the SPSS Statistics 25.0 software. RESULTS: Two hundred eight study participants were subsequently included in the results, i.e., 105 patients in the intervention group and 103 in the control group. The intervention group comprised a significantly lower number of patients with excessive residual urine volume at cervical dilatation of 5–6 cm (P< 0.05). The total postpartum score of the intervention group was lower than in the control group (P< 0.01), and the time to first urination was shorter compared with the control group (P< 0.05). In the intervention group, the time of labor analgesia, the duration of the first stage of labor, and the total labor time were shorter compared with the control group (P< 0.01). CONCLUSION: Auricular acupoint embedded beans can improve the urination status at cervical dilatation of 5–6 cm and 2 h postpartum, as well as significantly shorten the duration of labor.

Density-functional theory (DFT) theory is conducted for the structural and electronic features at the Hg/Al2O3 interface by the analysis of optimal structural geometry, partial density of states (PDOS) and difference charge density. The two adsorption sites of on-top and hollow locations according to the symmetry is adopted to construct the associated interfacial models between Hg atom and free surface. The calculated studies show that the oxygen atoms near Hg atom in the Al2O3 surface, for both on-top and hollow sites, have the gathering effect by shifting toward Hg atom. But their interacting electrons at the interface exhibit different statues in terms of the PDOS analysis that there have no evolution tendency to form the bond between associated O and Hg atoms at the on-top site; and the occurrence of Hg-5d and O-2p overlapping orbitals reveals the strong covalent bond existed at the interface. The PDOS curves show that Al atom in the surface is not liable to contribute to the formation of corresponding bonds by mixing its electrons with Hg atom. Meanwhile, the calculated results derived from difference charge density are in good agreement with the PDOS analysis. The calculated results support some advanced atomic investigation on design a new sorbent refined from fly gas, especially improving the mercury removal from the flue gas.

A shell-and-tube heat exchanger which is widely used for the heat recovery of air in a coal gasification system is investigated. FLUENT6.3 software is used and the RNG k−ε turbulence model is adopted for modeling turbulent flow. The porosity rate, the distribution of the resistance and the distribution of the heat source were introduced to FLUENT by coupling the user defined function. The variation of local heat transfer is studied under the effects of the baffles arrangement. The result shows that the porous media model can be applied in shell side of the air cooler in IGCC and the reasonable arrangement of the baffles can decrease the pressure drop with little influence on the heat transfer.