A Flexible Sensor with Excellent Environmental Stability Using Well-Designed Encapsulation Structure.

The hydrogel-based sensors suffer from poor stability and low sensitivity, severely limiting their further development. It is still "a black box" to understand the effect of the encapsulation as well as the electrode on the performance of the hydrogel-based sensors. To address these problems, we prepared an adhesive hydrogel that could robustly adhere to Ecoflex (adhesive strength is 4.7 kPa) as an encapsulation layer and proposed a rational encapsulation model that fully encapsulated the hydrogel within Ecoflex. Owing to the excellent barrier and resilience of Ecoflex, the encapsulated hydrogel-based sensor can still work normally after 30 days, displaying excellent long-term stability. In addition, we performed theoretical and simulation analyses on the contact state between the hydrogel and the electrode. It was surprising to find that the contact state significantly affects the sensitivity of the hydrogel sensors (the maximum difference in sensitivity was 333.6%), indicating that the reasonable design of the encapsulation and electrode are indispensable parts for fabricating successful hydrogel sensors. Therefore, we paved the way for a novel insight to optimize the properties of the hydrogel sensors, which is greatly favorable to developing hydrogel-based sensors to be applied in various fields.

Development and Applications of Hydrogel-Based Triboelectric Nanogenerators: A Mini-Review.

In recent years, with the appearance of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), there has been a wave of research on small energy harvesting devices and self-powered wearable electronics. Hydrogels-as conductive materials with excellent tensile properties-have been widely focused on by researchers, which encouraged the development of the hydrogel-based TENGs (H-TENGs) that use the hydrogel as an electrode. Due to the great feasibility of adjusting the conductivity and mechanical property as well as the microstructure of the hydrogels, many H-TENGs with excellent performance have emerged, some of which are capable of excellent outputting ability with an output voltage of 992 V, and self-healing performance which can spontaneously heal within 1 min without any external stimuli. Although there are numerous studies on H-TENGs with excellent performance, a comprehensive review paper that systematically correlates hydrogels' properties to TENGs is still absent. Therefore, in this review, we aim to provide a panoramic overview of the working principle as well as the preparation strategies that significantly affect the properties of H-TENGs. We review hydrogel classification categories such as their network composition and their potential applications on sensing and energy harvesting, and in biomedical fields. Moreover, the challenges faced by the H-TENGs are also discussed, and relative future development of the H-TENGs are also provided to address them. The booming growth of H-TENGs not only broadens the applications of hydrogels into new areas, but also provides a novel alternative for the sustainable power sources.

Development of an optimized risk score to predict short-term death among acute myocardial infarction patients in rural China.

BACKGROUND: Risk stratification of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is of great clinical significance. HYPOTHESIS: The present study aimed to establish an optimized risk score to predict short-term (6-month) death among rural AMI patients from China. METHODS: We enrolled 6581 AMI patients and extracted relevant data. Patients were divided chronologically into a derivation cohort (n = 5539), to establish the multivariable risk prediction model, and a validation cohort (n = 1042), to validate the risk score. RESULTS: Six variables were identified as independent predictors of short-term death and were used to establish the risk score: age, Killip class, blood glucose, creatinine, pulmonary artery systolic pressure, and percutaneous coronary intervention treatment. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of the optimized risk score was 0.82 within the derivation cohort and 0.81 within the validation cohort. The diagnostic performance of the optimized risk score was superior to that of the GRACE risk score (AUC 0.76 and 0.75 in the derivation and validation cohorts, respectively; p < .05). CONCLUSION: These results indicate that the optimized scoring method developed here is a simple and valuable instrument to accurately predict the risk of short-term mortality in rural patients with AMI.

Effect of Elevated Pulmonary Artery Systolic Pressure on Short-Term Prognosis in Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction.

Pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) may increase because of cardiac alterations that result in increased filling pressures after acute myocardial infarction (AMI). We hypothesized that PASP might be a useful maker to predict the risk of cardiac death after AMI. We carried out a retrospective study from 2013 to 2017 involving 5401 patients with AMI. Patients were grouped according to their admission PASP result, and the primary end point was cardiac death in 6 months after AMI. Pulmonary artery systolic pressure was associated with age, AMI site, Killip classification, and decreased ejection fraction. After adjustments for clinical and echocardiographic parameters in a Cox model, PASP was found to be significantly related to cardiac death. In receiver operating characteristic analysis, PASP >30 mm Hg had a sensitivity of 59.8% and a specificity of 62.5% for predicting 6-month cardiac death after AMI. In conclusion, PASP at the index admission may be a useful marker predicting short-term cardiac death. These results have implications for future research and management of patients with AMI.

NLRP4 is an essential negative regulator of fructose-induced cardiac injury in vitro and in vivo.

High fructose consumption leads to metabolic syndrome and enhances cardiovascular disease risk. However, our knowledge of the molecular mechanism underlying the cardiac disease caused by fructose feeding is still poor. Nod-like receptors (NLRs) are intracellular sensors, responding to a variety of intracellular danger signals to induce injuries. NLRP4 is a negative regulator of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway through interactions with kinase IκB kinase (IKK). Here, we illustrated that NLRP4 attenuates pro-inflammatory cytokines releasing, including Transforming growth factor (TGF-ß1), Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß), interleukin-18 (IL-18) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), in fructose-treated cardiac cells by means of RT-qPCR, and western blotting analysis. In addition, NLRP4 could reduce the expression of TANK-binding kinase 1/interferon regulatory factor 3 (TBK1/IRF3), reducing inflammation response and achieving its anti-hypertrophic action. TBK1 plays critical roles in the IRF3 signaling pathway, modulating inflammation response. The inhibition of IKK/NF-κB signaling pathway by NLRP4 is confirmed by NLRP4 over-expression and knockdown. In vivo, high fructose feeding induced cardiac injury, accompanied with reduced expression of NLRP4 in heart tissue samples, indicating the possible role of NLRP4 in ameliorating heart injury. In conclusion, the findings above indicated that NLRP4 is an important mediator of cardiac remodeling in vitro and in vivo through negatively regulating TBK1/IRF3 and IKK/NF-κB signaling pathways, indicating that NLRP4 might be a promising therapeutic target against cardiac inflammation.