Comparative Study on Water Vapour Resistance of Poly(Lactic Acid) Films Prepared by Blending, Filling and Surface Deposit

The polylactic acid (PLA) resin Ingeo 4032D was selected as the research object, with a focus on PLA modification by using polymers such as linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and ethylene–propylene-diene monomer grafted with glycidyl methacrylate (EPDM-g-GMA), by using fillers such as nano calcium carbonate and zeolite. In order to characterize the deposition effect of Al2O3 on the film surface by plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition, Bio-oriented PLA (BOPLA) with more uniform thickness than blown film was purchased for study. The mechanical properties, friction coefficient, surface contact angle and water vapour transmission rate of the modified PLA film were compared and discussed. The aim was to find out the most influencing factors of film’s water vapour resistance.

CT Image Segmentation Method of Liver Tumor Based on Artificial Intelligence Enabled Medical Imaging

Artificial intelligence (AI) has made various developments in the image segmentation techniques in the field of medical imaging. This article presents a liver tumor CT image segmentation method based on AI medical imaging-based technology. This study proposed an artificial intelligence-based K-means clustering (KMC) algorithm which is further compared with the region growing (RG) method. In this study, 120 patients with liver tumors in the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education & Research Hospital, Chandigarh, India, were selected as the research objects, and they were classified according to liver function (Child–Pugh), with 58 cases in grade A and 62 cases in grade B. The experimentation indicates that liver tumor showed low density on plain CT scan, moderate enhancement in the arterial phase of the enhanced scan, and low-density filling defect in the involved blood vessel in the portal venous phase (PVP). It was observed that the CT examination is more sensitive to liver metastasis than hepatocellular carcinoma ( P < 0.05 ). The outcomes obtained depict the good deposition effect of lipiodol chemotherapy emulsion (LCTE) in the contrast group with rich blood type accounted for 53.14% and the patients with the poor blood type accounted for 25.73% showed poor deposition effect. The comparison with the state-of-the-art method reveals that the segmentation effect of the KMC algorithm is better than that of the conventional RG method.

Flexible welding of SiOx nanowire to macroporous carbon film and underlying new insights

With the continuous decreasing in sizes of functional materials and devices, people are being asked to perform a flexible, accurate, in-situ and non-thermal welding of nanowires at the nanoscale. In this work, a well deliberated procedure including three typical stages: sharpening, hooking and welding, was carried out in sequence by in-situ TEM to realize the high demand welding of SiOx nanowire to macroporous carbon film. It was found that the brittle SiOx nanowire was non-thermally softened under energetic e-beam irradiation, and the flexibility and accuracy of welding could be achieved by adjusting the beam spot size, irradiation location and irradiation time. It was demonstrated that the nanocurvature effect of SiOx nanowire and the ultra-fast energy deposition effect induced by energetic e-beam irradiation dominated the diffusion, evaporation and plastic flow of atoms and the resulting nanowire re-shaping and nanowelding processes. In contrast, the traditional knock-on mechanism and e-beam heating effect are inadequate to explain these phenomena. Therefore, such a study is crucial not only to the flexible technical controlling but also to the profound fundamental understanding of energetic e-beam-induced nanowire re-shaping and nanowelding.