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Background Research has demonstrated that higher social support is associated with better psychological health, quality of life, cognition, activities of daily living and social participation, but the relationship between social support and sleep quality remains unknown. Aims This study aimed to assess the incidence of poor sleep quality, clarify the relationship between social support and sleep quality amongst stroke patients and determine whether anxiety and depression symptoms mediate this relationship. Methods We conducted a quantitative, cross‐sectional study involving 238 patients with stroke (median age of 61 [range 29–87] years, 68.1% male) recruited from a comprehensive tertiary care hospital between September 2019 and January 2020. A self‐administered, structured questionnaire was used for the survey. The mediating effect of anxiety and depression symptoms was assessed using the bootstrap method via Model 4 (parallel mediation) of the SPSS PROCESS macro. Results Results showed that the incidence of poor sleep quality amongst stroke patients was 65%. Mediation analysis showed that social support exerted significant direct effects on sleep quality, and anxiety and depression symptoms mediated the relationship between social support and sleep quality. Conclusion Measures should be taken to enhance social support to improve the sleep quality of stroke patients.

Aims and objectives The study aims to explore and describe nurses' behaviours towards physical restraint (PR) use in intensive care units (ICUs) and identify key characteristics of these experiences. Background Patients within the ICU are always vulnerable, which requires a thoughtful deliberation when employing PR in ethically laden situations. Considering that the qualitative study on nurses' behaviours towards PR use in ICUs is limited, a deep understanding of how nurses reason and restrict patients is necessary before developing a minimizing programme in hospitals. Methods A descriptive qualitative study was conducted in this paper. Data were collected by 24 semistructured, in‐depth and individual interviews about PR, where 24 nurses were drawn from six ICUs of four hospital settings from a comprehensive tertiary care hospital in Qingdao. The QSR NVivo 11.0 software program was used to manage the interview data, and data analysis was guided by the Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven. The checklist of Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Studies was followed as a guideline in reporting the study. Results Regarding PR, nurses' behaviours start with a hazard perception, followed by hesitation about whether to restrict the patient. They would usually decide to apply PR when they think that no other choice to control the situation is available. Then, they would reflect on and rationalize their behaviours. Nurses, intensivists, patients and their families participate in and affect this process directly or indirectly. Conclusions Nurses' behaviours towards PR use comprise a series of complex processes centred on safety. Nurses' decision making should be performed with the participation of intensivists, patients and family caregivers.

A high-power multi-transverse modes random fiber laser (RFL) is investigated by combining a master oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) configuration with a segment of extra-large mode area step-index multimode fiber (MMF). Spatial coherence of the highpower multi-transverse modes RFL has been analyzed, which shows that speckle contrast is reduced dramatically with the output power increasing. In this way, considerably low speckle contrast of ~0.01 is achieved under high laser power of ~56 W, which are the records for multi-transverse modes RFLs in both spatial coherence and output power. This work paves a way to develop high-power RFLs with very low spatial coherence for wide-range speckle-free imaging and free-space communication applications.

Background Gastrointestinal functional recovery is an important factor affecting postoperative outcome. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) on gastrointestinal function in women undergoing cesarean section. Methods 150 pregnant women undergoing cesarean section were randomly allocated into TEAS, nonacupoint stimulation (sham group), and no stimulation (control group). The primary outcome was indications of gastrointestinal functional recovery and the secondary outcomes included time to first mobilization, postoperative hospital stay, daily living activities at one week after surgery, postoperative side-effects, and serum levels of gastroenterological hormones. Results The time to first flatus in TEAS group was significantly shorter compared to control (P=0.004) and sham groups (P=0.003). The time to first oral liquid and solid intake was significantly shorter than that in control (P<0.001; P=0.021) and sham group (P=0.019; P=0.037). Besides, postoperative hospital stay was shorter in TEAS group than in control group (P=0.031) and sham group (P<0.001). TEAS also promoted daily living activities (P=0.001 versus control group and P=0.015 versus sham group). Postoperative complications were similar among all the groups except for the incidence of abdominal distention 24 h after surgery (P=0.013; P=0.040). The motilin level was increased by TEAS (P=0.014 versus control group and P=0.020 versus sham group). Conclusion TEAS accelerated gastrointestinal functional recovery after cesarean section, by reducing postoperative hospital length, and improved daily living activities after surgery. This effect was partially mediated by regulation of the gastroenterological hormones.

Controlling emission of light in random structures/disordered systems, e.g., implementing mode-locked pulses in a laser system with a random structures/disordered systems, is a complex task. Usually, the generation of laser pulse by mode locking needs a stable fixed-length cavity that determines a specific repetition rate of the mode-locked pulses. Here, mode-locking laser pulses with selectable repetition rates are achieved in a typical one-dimensional disordered laser by passive mode locking. The laser includes disordered reflectors to provide multiple resonant modes associated with different cavity length. The regular pulses with adjustable repetition rates can be generated and selected by a nonlinear polarization rotator and a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. The proposed work utilizing the advantages of multiple resonances in random lasers could pave a new way for regulating emission of light in the random structures/disordered system. And it displays an effective and realistic technical route to study ultrafast pulses generation and optical soliton dynamics in random structures/disordered systems.

Fig. 1. Examples of two-layer images. Prompts are displayed on the top of images. Each example includes foreground (fg), background (bg), and mask component to compose a two-layer image. From left to right of each example: fg, bg, mask, and composed image.