Porous materials confined within capillary columns/microfluidic devices are discussed, and progress in chromatographic and membrane separations and catalysis is reviewed.

Novel highly luminescent metal–organic gels with a trace amount of doping (as low as 0.01 mol%) have been fabricated.

Video surveillance systems play an important role in underground mines. Providing clear surveillance images is the fundamental basis for safe mining and disaster alarming. It is of significance to investigate image compression methods since the underground wireless channels only allow low transmission bandwidth. In this paper, we propose a new image compression method based on residual networks and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to solve the image compression problem. The residual networks are used to compose the codec network. Further, we propose a novel loss function named discrete wavelet similarity (DW-SSIM) loss to train the network. Because the information of edges in the image is exposed through DWT coefficients, the proposed network can learn to preserve the edges better. Experiments show that the proposed method has an edge over the methods being compared in regards to the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity (SSIM), particularly at low compression ratios. Tests on noise-contaminated images also demonstrate the noise robustness of the proposed method. Our main contribution is that the proposed method is able to compress images at relatively low compression ratios while still preserving sharp edges, which suits the harsh wireless communication environment in underground mines.

BackgroundThe children’s lipid accumulation product (CLAP) is associated with MS in Chinese children and adolescents. The aim of this study was to develop a more effective indicator, the relative children's lipid accumulation product (RCLAP) was evaluated for correlation with MS and the density of lipid accumulation.MethodsA stratified cluster sampling method was used to recruit 683 students aged 8–15 years in this study. The presence of MS was defined according to the NCEP-ATP III criteria. The participants’ guardians signed informed consent before the medical examination. This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Bengbu Medical College [(2015) No.003] and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.ResultsThe overall prevalence of MS was 4.8% (male 6.6%, female 2.8%). After adjusting for sedentary activity time, relative children's lipid accumulation product per height (RCLAP-H) and relative children's lipid accumulation product per sitting height (RCLAP-SH) significantly increased the risk of MS in girls [OR (95% CI): 96.13 (11.11–831.97) and 96.13 (11.11–831.97), respectively]. After adjusting for ages and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity time, RCLAP-H, and RCLAP-SH significantly increased the risk of MS in boys [OR (95% CI): 171.75 (33.60–878.00) and 133.18 (27.65–641.39), respectively]. The AUCs of RCLAP-H and RCLAP-SH for predicting MS were 0.950, 0.948 in girls, and 0.952, 0.952 in boys, which were higher than BMI, WHtR, Tg/HDL-C, CLAP, and CLAP combining height, sitting height.ConclusionsThe RCLAP-H and RCLAP-SH were more effective indicators for predicting MS than BMI, WHtR, Tg/HDL-C, and CLAP in children and adolescents.

ObjectiveThe present research aimed to study the relationship between body mass index (BMI), sex hormones, leptin, and irisin in children and adolescents with different body types.MethodsIn this study, a stratified cluster random sampling method was used to select students aged 8-15 years from two 9-year schools as the research subjects. Based on a case-control study, 183 overweight/obese students were selected. After using sex and age matching to create a matched sample of normal-weighted students, a total of 366 students, including 214 boys (58.5%) and 152 girls (41.5%) were included. We measured their height and weight and calculated their body mass index BMI. Afterward, their concentrations of leptin, irisin, oestradiol (E2), and testosterone (T) in the serum were detected.ResultsThere were significant differences in T, E2, leptin, and irisin between normal-weighted boys and girls (p < 0.05). There were statistically significant differences in T, E2, and irisin between overweight/obese boys and girls (p < 0.05). Overweight/obese students had higher concentrations of irisin and leptin than normal-weight students (p < 0.05). The direct effect of BMI on irisin was not statistically significant in either normal or overweight/obese students, but their indirect effects via leptin were statistically significant (for normal-weight boys and girls, standardized indirect effect coefficient: 0.29 and 0.38, respectively; for overweight/obese boys and girls, standardized indirect effect coefficient: 0.36 and 0.34, respectively). There was a negative pathway of E2 → leptin → irisin in normal-weight boys (standardized indirect effect coefficient: −0.24) and a negative pathway of T → leptin → irisin in overweight/obese boys (standardized indirect effect coefficient: −0.27).ConclusionThe indirect effects of BMI on irisin via leptin exist in children and adolescents of different body types. E2 was negatively correlated with leptin in normal-weight boys, whereas T was negatively correlated with leptin in overweight/obese boys.