Comparison of visual acuity of the patients on the first day after sub-Bowman keratomileusis or laser in situ keratomileusis

AIM：To compare recovery of the visual acuity in patients one day after sub-Bowman keratomileusis（SBK）or laser in situ keratomileusis（LASIK）.· METHODS：Data from 5923 eyes in 2968 patients that received LASIK（2755 eyes） or SBK（3168 eyes） were retrospectively analyzed.The eyes were divided into 4groups according to preoperative spherical equivalent：between-12.00 to-9.00 D,extremely high myopia（n =396,including 192 and 204 in SBK and LASIK groups,respectively）;-9.00 to-6.00 D,high myopia（n=1822,including 991 and 831 in SBK and LASIK groups,respectively）,-6.00 to-3.00 D,moderate myopia（n=3071,including 1658 and 1413 in SBK and LASIK groups,respectively）,and-3.00 to 0.00 D,low myopia（n =634,including 327 and 307 in SBK and LASIK groups,respectively）.Uncorrected logMAR visual acuity values of patients were assessed under standard natural light.Analysis of variance was used for comparisons among different groups.· RESULTS：Uncorrected visual acuity values were0.0115±0.1051 and 0.0466±0.1477 at day 1 after operation for patients receiving SBK and LASIK,respectively（P〈0.01）;visual acuity values of 0.1854±0.1842,0.0615±0.1326,-0.0033±0.0978,and-0.0164±0.0972 were obtained for patients in the extremely high,high,moderate,and low myopia groups,respectively（P〈0.01）.In addition,significant differences in visual acuity at day 1 after operation were found between patients receiving SBK and LASIK in each myopia subgroup.· CONCLUSION：Compared with LASIK,SBK is safer and more effective,with faster recovery.Therefore,SBK is more likely to be accepted by patients than LASIK for better uncorrected visual acuity the day following operation.

Preparation and thermal decomposition mechanism of Mg,Al-hydrotalcite nano-crystals with titania doping

The highly pure nano-crystal Mg,Al-hydrotalcite with titania doping was synthesized by one-step liquid reaction method at atmospheric pressure. The preparation of the Mg,Al-hydrotalcite nano-crystal after doping titania was investigated according to the results of XRD, TEM, IR and DSC. Moreover, based on the DSC test results, the thermal mechanism functions of the Mg,Al-hydrotalcite with titania doping were studied after calculation and comparison.

Structural characterization and property of in-situ synthesized AZ91-Mg_2Si composite

A new-type Mg2Si composite was prepared with Mg-9Al-1Zn (AZ91) alloy and vermiculite as raw materials by melt infiltration method. The results show that the microstructure of composite consists of a large amount of Mg2Si precipitates and a little amount of MgO embedded inα-Mg matrix. The Vickers hardness of the composite is obviously higher than that of matrix of AZ91 alloy. Moreover, the composite exhibits excellent compressive property. The ultimate compressive strength of the material is 290 MPa, the yield strength is 175 MPa, and the elongation is about 5%, which are higher than those of AZ91alloy.

Bucket Group Effect of the Composite Multi-bucket Structure

As a novel type of foundation in beach and shallow sea, the bucket structure is especially suitable for complex conditions such as soft clay ground and the worse types of sea environments. In this paper, the bearing capacity of a multi-bucket structure is studied by experiments with a single bucket and four-bucket foundation in a saturated sand layer. Based on the experimental data and numerical analysis results, the bearing capacity behavior and the bucket group effect are compared and analyzed. Furthermore, some influential factors, such as the soil type, the ratio of length to diameter L/D, the ratio of the bucket spacing to the bucket diameter S/D, and the bucket number are introduced and their effects on the multi-bucket structural capacity are investigated. The vertical static capacity adjustment factor is introduced to evaluate the bucket group effects of the multi-bucket foundation.

Centrifuge model tests of the formation mechanism of coarse sand debris flow

Using the self-developed visualization test apparatus, centrifuge model tests at 20 g were carried out to research the macro and microscopic formation mechanism of coarse sand debris flows. The formation mode and soil-water interaction mechanism of the debris flows were analyzed from both macroscopic and microscopic points of view respectively using high digital imaging equipment and micro-structure analysis software Geodip. The test results indicate that the forming process of debris flow mainly consists of three stages, namely the infiltration and softening stage, the overall slide stage, and debris flow stage. The essence of simulated coarse sand slope forming debris flow is that local fluidization cause slope to wholly slide. The movement of small particles forms a transient stagnant layer with increasing saturation, causing soil shear strength lost and local fluidization. When the driving force of the saturated soil exceeds the resisting force, debris flow happens on the coarse sand slope immediately.

Mechanical Test and Meso-Model Numerical Study of Composite Rubber Concrete under Salt-Freezing Cycle

A composite rubber concrete(CRC)was designed by combining waste tire rubber particles with particle sizes of 3~5 mm,1~3 mm and 20 mesh.Taking the rubber content of different particle sizes as the influencing factors,the range and variance analysis of the mechanical and impermeability properties of CRC was carried out by orthogonal test.Through analysis,it is concluded that the optimal proportion of 3~5 mm,1~3 mm,and 20 mesh particle size composite rubber is 1:2.5:5.5 kinds of CRC and 3 kinds of ordinary single-mixed rubber concrete(RC)with a total content of 10%~20%were designed under this ratio,and the salt-freezing cycle test was carried out with a concentration of 5%Na 2 SO4 solution.The physical and mechanical damage laws during 120 salt-freezing cycles are obtained,and the corresponding damage prediction model is established according to the experimental data.The results show that:on the one hand,the composite rubber in CRC produces a more uniform“graded”structure,forms a retractable particle group,and reduces the loss of mechanical properties of CRC.On the other hand,colloidal particles with different particle sizes are used as air entraining agent to improve the pore structure of concrete and introduce evenly dispersed bubbles,which fundamentally improves the durability of concrete.Under the experimental conditions,the CRC performance is the best when the overall content of composite rubber is 15%.

Current Practice in Measuring the Quality of Conceptual Models:Challenges and Research

How to measure the quality of conceptual models is an important issue in the IS field and related research. This paper conducts a review of research in measuring conceptual model quality and identifies the major theoretical and practical issues that need to be addressed in future studies. We review current classification frameworks for conceptual model quality and practice of measuring conceptual model quality. Based on the review, challenges for studies of measuring the quality of conceptual models are proposed and these challenges are also research points which should be strengthened in future studies.

Monte-Carlo simulation of pinhole collimator of a small field of view gamma camera for small animal imaging

Needs in scintimammography applications,especially for small animal cardiac imaging,lead to develop a small field of view,high spatial resolution gamma camera with a pinhole collimator.However the ideal pinhole collimator must keep a compromise between spatial resolution and sensitivity.In order to design a pinhole collimator with an optimized sensitivity and spatial resolution,the spatial resolution and the geometric sensitivity response as a function of the source to collimator distance has been obtained by means of Monte-Carlo simulation for a small field of view gamma camera with a pinhole collimator of various-hole diameters.The results show that the camera with pinhole of 1 mm,1.5 mm and 2 mm diameter has respectively spatial resolution of 1.5 mm,2.25 mm and 3 mm and geometric sensitivity of 0.016%,0.022%and 0.036%,while the source to collimator distance is 3 cm.We chose the pinhole collimator with hole diameter size of 1.2 mm for our the gamma camera designed based on the trade-off between sensitivity and resolution.

Self-organizing fuzzy clustering neural network and application to electronic countermeasures effectiveness evaluation

A self-organizing fuzzy clustering neural network by combining the self-organizing Kohonen clustering network with the fuzzy theory is proposed. This network model is designed for the effectiveness evaluation of electronic countermeasures, which not only exerts the advantages of the fuzzy theory, but also has a good ability in machine learning and data analysis. The subjective value of sample versus class is computed by the fuzzy computing theory, and the classified results obtained by self-organizing learning of Kohonen neural network are represented on output layer. Meanwhile, the fuzzy competition learning algorithm keeps the similar information between samples and overcomes the disadvantages of neural network which has fewer samples. The simulation result indicates that the proposed algorithm is feasible and effective.

Development of a compact high resolution gamma-ray detector for E-CT applications

A compact gamma-ray detector with good spatial resolution for emission computed tomography (E-CT) applications has been developed. The detector is composed of NaI(Tl) scintillation pixels array and Hamamastu R2486-05 PSPMT. Having a pixel size of 2 mm × 2 mm and an overall dimension of 48.2 mm × 48.2mm × 5 mm, it has 484 pixels in a 22×22 matrix. An average spatial resolution of 2.5mm (FWHM) was achieved. The slope of position linearity is constant within 10% in a range of 40mm. After corrections, the average value of differential non-linearity and absolute non-linearity were 0.16mm and 0.535mm respectively, and a 17% at FWHM of total energy resolution for 241Am was obtained.

Impact of Freeze-Thaw Cycles on Compressive Characteristics of Asphalt Mixture in Cold Regions

Low average temperature, large temperature difference and continual freeze-thaw （F-T） cycles have significant impacts on mechanical property of asphalt pavement. F-T cycles test was applied to illustrate the mixtures＇ compressive characteristics. Exponential model was applied to analyze the variation of compressive characteristics with F-T cycles; Loss ratio model and Logistic model were used to present the deterioration trend with the increase of F-T cycles. ANOVA was applied to show the significant impact of F-T cycles and asphalt- aggregate ratio. The experiment results show that the compressive strength and resilient modulus decline with increasing F-T cycles; the degradation is sharp during the initial F-T cycles, after 8 F-T cycles it turns to gentle. ANOVA results show that F-T cycles, and asphalt-aggregate ratio have significant influence on the compressive characteristics. Exponential model, Loss ratio model and Logistic model are significantly fitting the test data from statistics view. These models well reflect the compressive characteristics of asphalt mixture degradation trend with increasing F-T cycles.

Effect of Anion Surface Active Agent on the Preparation of SrTiO_3 Nano-Crystals

SrTiO_3 nano-crystal samples with floccule or flake crystal morphology,which were indexed as a perovskite-type crystal structure based on the results of XRD and TEM,were successfully prepared by one-step liquid reaction method.And the growth mechanism of the SrTiO_3 nano-crystals under the liquid condition with/without adding the surface active agent was investigated.It was found that adding the surface active agent contributes to the processing in which the ions gathering bodies transit to a more stable phase through the chemical reaction and form the flake SrTiO_3 nano-crystals.

A compact gamma camera with scintillation array and parallel-hole collimator

A new compact gamma camera for small object imaging has been developed.It consists of a pixelized Nal(T1) scintillator array coupled to a position sensitive photomultiplier tube (Hamamatsu R2486) with a parallel-hole lead collimator.The compact camera has better spatial resolution than Anger camera.The average value of intrinsic spatial resolutions is 2.3 mm (FWHM).The overall spatial resolution (FWHM) is 3,5 and 6 mm at 0,2.5 and 3 mm SCD (source-to-collimator distance),respectively.The phantom studies with the compact camera have demonstrated that parallel-hole collimator gamma camera is a practical technique for nuclear medicine application.

A compact gamma-ray detector using wavelength-shifting fibers coupled to YAP scintillation crystal

The performance of a compact position sensitive gamma-ray detector based on wavelength-shifting fibers coupled to YAlO3:Ce scintillation crystal was evaluated using a Monte-Carlo simulation method. The simulation model has been setup using the GEANT4 codes. Compared with the gamma-ray detector based on the YAlO3:Ce scintillation crystal coupled to Hamamastu R2486 position sensitive photomultiplier tube, the results indicate that the gamma-ray detector based on wavelength-shifting fibers readout has good position linearity, good spatial resolution and larger effective field of view. The image and point spread function of measured point were presented. The spatial resolution response as a function of position was obtained. The factors influencing spatial resolution and position linearity were discussed.

Corrosion fatigue behavior of fastening hole structure and virtual crack propagation tests

The fatigue crack propagation behavior of the LY12CZ aluminum alloy fastener involving a central hole in air or in 3.5wt% NaCl solution was investigated. The experimental results indicated that the corrosion fatigue crack growth rate decreased with the increasing loading frequency,and in a corrosive environment,the crack growth rate was slightly larger than that in air. Based on the experimental results,the virtual corrosion fatigue crack propagation tests were investigated and the stochastic process method and the AFGROW simulation method were presented. The normal process and lognormal process were considered for the stochastic process method based on the numerically fitted Paris equation. The distribution of crack size and the corresponding probabilistic model of crack length distribution for a given number of cycles can be found by integrating the stochastic process over time. Using the AFGROW software,the virtual simulation was carried out to analyze the corrosion fatigue crack growth behavior and the predicted crack growth curve was in good agreement with the experimental results.

Corrosion mechanism of HVOF silicate glass coating in 5% NaCl solution

On the basis of good anticorrosion capability of silicate glass,silicate glass coating was sprayed by high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) and the corrosion mechanism in 5% NaCl solution was studied. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) ,energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) ,X-ray diffraction (XRD) and potentiom- eter were used to study the coating composition and corrosion process. The result shows that silicate glass coating is entirely noncrystallizable. Silicate glass coating has very low incidence of hole with compact structure. Electric double-layer can form at coating/solution interface and corrosive solution performs as a lead connecting the coating surface and substrate after permeating through glass coating. The corrosion mechanism of silicate glass coating is similar to that of glass and the entire corrosion process can be divided into some states. The whole corrosion process happens in glass coating without substrate basically. The fluctuation of the self-corrosion potential about glass coating in corrosion solution can help to research the corrosion process.

Simulation research on control algorithm of differential pressure casting process

To improve the precision of the filling pressure curve of differential pressure casting controlled with PID controller,the model of differential pressure casting process is established and two pressure-difference control systems using PID algorithm and Dahlin algorithm are separately designed in MATLAB. The scheduled pressure curves controlled with PID algorithm and Dahlin algorithm,respectively,are comparatively simulated in MATLAB. The simulated pressure curves obtained show that the control precision with Dahlin algorithm is higher than that with PID algorithm in the differential pressure casting process,and it was further verified by production practice.

Application of the Algorithm of Fractional Dimension to Extraction Image Edge

The idea of fractional dimension was stated in brief firstly.Then,adopting the fractional statistical similar principle, the method of the least square minimum error was applied to evaluate the fractional dimension of per image pixel depending on the fractional property of image.And the image edge is extracted by magnitude of fractional dimension of image pixel.We presented the algorithm of the local fractional dimension,which made the rule of window size and sentencing the fractional dimension of edge.Although this algorithm was waste time,it is better than the classical ones in extraction edge and anti-jamming.