ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to further clarify clinical characteristics and predict mortality risk among patients with viral pneumonia.MethodsA total of 528 patients with viral pneumonia at RuiJin hospital in Shanghai from May 2015 to May 2019 were recruited. Multiplex real-time RT-PCR was used to detect respiratory viruses. Demographic information, comorbidities, routine laboratory examinations, immunological indexes, etiological detections, radiological images and treatment were collected on admission.Results76 (14.4%) patients died within 90 days in hospital. A predictive MuLBSTA score was calculated on the basis of a multivariate logistic regression model in order to predict mortality with a weighted score that included multilobular infiltrates (OR = 5.20, 95% CI 1.41–12.52, p = 0.010; 5 points), lymphocyte ≤ 0.8∗109/L (OR = 4.53, 95% CI 2.55–8.05, p < 0.001; 4 points), bacterial coinfection (OR = 3.71, 95% CI 2.11–6.51, p < 0.001; 4 points), acute-smoker (OR = 3.19, 95% CI 1.34–6.26, p = 0.001; 3 points), quit-smoker (OR = 2.18, 95% CI 0.99–4.82, p = 0.054; 2 points), hypertension (OR = 2.39, 95% CI 1.55–4.26, p = 0.003; 2 points) and age ≥60 years (OR = 2.14, 95% CI 1.04–4.39, p = 0.038; 2 points). 12 points was used as a cut-off value for mortality risk stratification. This model showed sensitivity of 0.776, specificity of 0.778 and a better predictive ability than CURB-65 (AUROC = 0.773 vs. 0.717, p < 0.001).ConclusionHere, we designed an easy-to-use clinically predictive tool for assessing 90-day mortality risk of viral pneumonia. It can accurately stratify hospitalized patients with viral pneumonia into relevant risk categories and could provide guidance to make further clinical decisions.

The growth of large single crystals of YBCO is a matter of significant importance in the study of superconductivity by neutron scattering experiments. For this reason, a well c-axis-oriented YBCO crystal with a size of 34 mm in diameter was successfully fabricated by modified melt-growth. First, our findings show that the thermal stability of the film-seed could be enhanced by introducing an intermediate mini-pellet between film and bulk. Furthermore, we present evidence to prove that the serious liquid loss could be suppressed by the CeO2 addition. Finally, the interesting question we addressed is the nature of the formation of distinctive growing macrostructures, such as ambiguous growth facet lines, and the corner-concaved a–b plane. Most importantly, apart from YBCO, our new approach strongly suggests the possibility of synthesizing large crystals for more attractive members in its family, i.e., chemically doped YBCO materials, being unsuccessful by the prior art crystal growth methods.

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REBa 2 Cu 3 O y (RE123 or REBCO, RE ¼ rare earth elements) bulk high-temperature superconductors have a potential perspective for large-scale engineering applications. However, the cost of REBCO bulk production is rather high, considering high failure rates, expensive RE materials, and Pt or Ag addition. Using the cold-seeding in the top-seeded melt growth, a simple and feasible process, we succeeded in recycling the failed REBCO (RE ¼ Y) bulks. The distinctive feature of this recycling process is the use of YBCO-buffered NdBCO films as seeds, which have high thermal stability and can endure a maximum processing temperature (T max ) up to 1120 C to enable full decomposition of solid REBCO. Three typical microstructures were recognized in the failed samples attributed to the inherent differences in the non-optimized growth heating profiles. Preferential recycling procedures were chosen according to the difficulty of the failed-samples decomposition, which has a certain connection with the microstructures of the failed bulks. Finally, after oxygenation, the recycled bulks demonstrate good superconducting properties. V C 2012 American Institute of Physics.