Anti-adhesive and antibacterial chitosan/PEO nanofiber dressings with high breathability for promoting wound healing.

Wound dressings are crucial for wound healing. Ideal wound dressings should possess many functions such as wettability, antibacterial activity and anti-adherent property to promote wound healing. In the present study solution blown spinning (SBS) technology was applied to prepare chitosan/polyethylene oxide (CS/PEO) nanofiber dressings in high efficiency. The obtained nanofiber dressings were treated with anhydrous ethanol to improve the fiber structure and enhance the functionality of the fiber dressings. The results show that the treated nanofibers had higher crystallinities and higher CS contents. The CS/PEO nanofiber dressings fabricated by using no additives and crosslinking had excellent wettability, water stability and antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus reached to over 99.99 %. In addition, the CS/PEO nanofiber dressings exhibited high breathability, antioxidant activity and anti-adhesion function. The in vivo animal experiment confirmed that the nanofiber dressings enhanced cell proliferation and significantly accelerated the wound healing within 10 days. The developed CS/PEO nanofiber dressings have great potential in the clinical field of wound healing.

Efficacy of Dupilumab in Children 6 Months to 11 Years Old With Atopic Dermatitis: A Retrospective Real-World Study in China.

Background: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common skin disease that affects patients' quality of life, especially in the pediatric population. Dupilumab has shown good efficacy and safety in the treatment of AD in adolescents and adults, but the real data on younger children using dupilumab are scarce. Objectives: We investigated the doses, efficacy, and safety of dupilumab in children with moderate-to-severe AD aged ≥6 months to 11 years. Methods: This single-center retrospective cohort analysis included dupilumab-treated patients with severe AD under 12 years of age. Primary endpoints included the proportion of Validated Investigator Global Assessment (vIGA) 0/1 achieved and the percentage change from baseline in eczema area and severity index (EASI) and SCORing Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) at week 24 (W24). Secondary endpoints were mean change in pruritus numerical rating score (P-NRS) and body surface area (BSA) after W24 of treatment, description of adverse events, and Children's Dermatology Life Quality Index (CDLQI) improvement from baseline in endpoints. Results: Fifty-seven patients were included (mean age 7.2 ± 3.0 years). The primary endpoint (vIGA = 0/1) was achieved by 51 of 57 (89.5%) patients at W24. Significant improvements in EASI, SCORAD, P-NRS, and CDLQI scores were observed from baseline to W24 with dupilumab treatment and remained until W40. In different age groups, the endpoint vIGA achieved 0/1: 95.2% (20/21) of younger children and 88.9% (32/36) of older children. No serious adverse drug reactions were reported. Conclusions: This study aimed to describe the safety and efficacy of dupilumab in pediatric patients and examined differences of efficacy with various doses. The outcomes are comparable with those of existing clinical trials. Phase III Clinical Trial: NCT03346434.

Hydroxyethyl methyl cellulose controls the diffusion behavior of pico-liter scale ink droplets on silk to improve inkjet printing performance.

In this study, a simple and effective coating method to improve printing quality and material utilization rate was proposed. The flow behavior of pico-liter scale ink droplets on the silk fabric surfaces which treated separately with Sodium alginate (SA), Hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) and Hydroxyethyl methyl cellulose (HEMC) was observed and measured. Indeed, based on the direct empirical results, the optimal pretreatment process on the fabrics, aiming to increase the ink utilization rate and further improve the surface printing clarity, has been obtained in the experiments. Studies on rheological property, surface activity, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and contact angle have shown that HEMC can form the densest and smoothest film on silk fabrics, where the most hydrophobic surface arises. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results indicate that the surface of the fabric is covered with films of different properties formed by the treatment solution, and confirmed that the films formed by HEMC were more hydrophobic. The spreading motion of ink droplets revealed that although the hydrophobicity of HEC and HEMC effectively restrain the flow of ink droplet along the fiber, and the length and width of one-ink droplet deposition are minimum in HEMC treated fabric. Similarly, the findings on color performance suggest that HEMC has absolutely comparative advantage over HEC in improving the color effect of printing, with dye utilization rate of three different colors increasing by 68.7 %-80.0 %.

Intermittent Discrete Observation Control for Synchronization of Stochastic Neural Networks.

In this paper, to investigate the exponential synchronization of stochastic neural networks, a new periodically intermittent discrete observation control (PIDOC) is first proposed. Different from the existing periodically intermittent control, our control in control time is feedback control based on discrete-time state observations (FCDSOs) instead of a continuous-time one. By employing the Lyapunov method, graph theory, and theory of differential inclusions, the exponential synchronization of stochastic neural networks with a discontinuous right-hand side is realized by PIDOC and some sufficient conditions are presented. Especially, when control width tends to control period, PIDOC will be reduced to a general FCDSO and we give some detailed discussions. Then, we provide some corollaries about synchronization in mean square, asymptotical synchronization in mean square, and exponential synchronization of stochastic neural networks under FCDSO. Finally, some numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate our analytical results.