Single-arm diagnostic electrocardiography with printed graphene on wearable textiles.

Stimulated by the COVID-19 outbreak, the global healthcare industry better acknowledges the necessity of innovating novel methods for remote healthcare monitoring and treating patients outside clinics. Here we report the development of two different types of graphene textile electrodes differentiated by the employed fabrication techniques (i.e., dip-coating and spray printing) and successful demonstration of ergonomic and truly wearable, single-arm diagnostic electrocardiography (SADE) using only 3 electrodes positioned on only 1 arm. The performance of the printed graphene e-textile wearable systems were benchmarked against the "gold standard" silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) "wet" electrodes; achieving excellent correlation up to ∼ 96% and ∼ 98% in ECG recordings (15 s duration) acquired with graphene textiles fabricated by dip-coating and spray printing techniques, respectively. In addition, we successfully implemented automatic detection of heartrate of 8 volunteers (mean value: 74.4 bpm) during 5 min of static and dynamic daily activities and benchmarked their recordings with a standard fingertip photoplethysmography (PPG) device. Heart rate variability (HRV) was calculated, and the root means successive square difference (rMMSD) metric was 30 ms during 5 min of recording. Other cardiac parameters such as R-R interval, QRS complex duration, S-T segment duration, and T-wave duration were also detected and compared to typical chest ECG values.

Diet and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE): From Supplementation to Intervention.

BACKGROUND: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune inflammatory disease characterised by immune dysregulation affecting multiple organs. Current anti-inflammatory treatments used in SLE are associated with unwanted side-effects. Dietary supplementation has been suggested as a safe and effective addition to conventional treatment, but evidence of efficacy in SLE or preventing associated comorbidities is uncertain. METHODS: We identified literature on clinical trials focused on nutritional interventions in SLE aiming to improve inflammation and comorbidities. A systematic-type search on Embase, Medline, and the Cochrane Library, was conducted to identify nutritional interventions among SLE patients in the past 15 years that met our inclusion criteria. RESULTS: We identified 2754 articles, of which 14 were eligible for inclusion based on our set criteria and were subsequently quality assessed. Vitamin D or E supplementation was associated with respective improvement of inflammatory markers or antibody production, but not disease activity scores in most studies. Despite their expected synergistic actions, the addition of curcumin on vitamin D supplementation had no additional effects on disease activity or inflammatory markers. Trials of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation presented significant reductions in ESR, CRP, disease activity, inflammatory markers, and oxidative stress, and improved lipid levels and endothelial function, while a low glycaemic index (GI) diet showed evidence of reduced weight and improved fatigue in patients. CONCLUSIONS: Different dietary guidelines can therefore be implicated to target specific SLE symptoms or therapeutic side-effects. This systematic review highlights the scarcity of larger and longer in duration trials with homogenous methodologies and verifiable outcomes to assess disease progression.

Large Area Emission in p-Type Polymer-Based Light-Emitting Field-Effect Transistors by Incorporating Charge Injection Interlayers.

Organic light-emitting field-effect transistors (LEFETs) provide the possibility of simplifying the display pixilation design as they integrate the drive-transistor and the light emission in a single architecture. However, in p-type LEFETs, simultaneously achieving higher external quantum efficiency (EQE) at higher brightness, larger and stable emission area, and high switching speed are the limiting factors for to realise their applications. Herein, we present a p-type polymer heterostructure-based LEFET architecture with electron and hole injection interlayers to improve the charge injection into the light-emitting layer, which leads to better recombination. This device structure provides access to hole mobility of ~2.1 cm2 V-1 s-1 and EQE of 1.6% at a luminance of 2600 cd m-2. Most importantly, we observed a large area emission under the entire drain electrode, which was spatially stable (emission area is not dependent on the gate voltage and current density). These results show an important advancement in polymer-based LEFET technology toward realizing new digital display applications.