A DNA-Based Intelligent Expert System for Personalised Skin-Health Recommendations.

Intensive attention on personalised skin-health solutions is on account of incomparable love of skin and an urgent need for effective treatment. In the meanwhile, people have great expectations on how to utilise genetic knowledge of our body to provide a precise solution for different individuals, such as daily use of skin-health products, since the rapid development of genetic test services and skin-health science. However, the complexity of multi-modal data, the establishment of correlations between consumer genetic data and product ingredients are the main obstacles encountered today. Determining to settle such obstacles, a personalised recommendation expert system for selecting optimised skin-health product within the category based upon genetic phenotypes for each consumer was introduced in this article. Random Forests were implemented to achieve automatic product categorisation, the performance discussed and compared with SVM and Logistic Regression. Lastly, categorised skin-health product suggestion was made with an optimised recommendation model based on associated genetic phenotype information. Potential changes (up to 71.0% more phenotypic relevant ingredients) from experiments using real product data were demonstrated and compared with imitated cases of real-life human selections.

PERSON-Personalized Expert Recommendation System for Optimized Nutrition.

The rise of personalized diets is due to the emergence of nutrigenetics and genetic tests services. However, the recommendation system is far from mature to provide personalized food suggestion to consumers for daily usage. The main barrier of connecting genetic information to personalized diets is the complexity of data and the scalability of the applied systems. Aiming to cross such barriers and provide direct applications, a personalized expert recommendation system for optimized nutrition is introduced in this paper, which performs direct to consumer personalized grocery product filtering and recommendation. Deep learning neural network model is applied to achieve automatic product categorization. The ability of scaling with unknown new data is achieved through the generalized representation of word embedding. Furthermore, the categorized products are filtered with a model based on individual genetic data with associated phenotypic information and a case study with databases from three different sources is carried out to confirm the system.

Highly Twisted Dianchoring D-π-A Sensitizers for Efficient Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells.

Two new organic dyes-BPDTA and BTTA-possessing dual D-π-A units have been synthesized, characterized, and employed as efficient sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells. The two individual D-π-A, which are based on (E)-3-(5'-(4-(bis(4-(hexyloxy)phenyl)amino)phenyl)-[2,2'-bithiophen]-5-yl)-2-cyanoacrylic acid unit (D21L6), are connected directly between phenylene or thiophene within linear π-conjugated backbone to constitute a highly twisted architecture for suppressing the dye aggregation. The new dianchoring dyes exhibited pronounced absorption profile with higher molar extinction coefficient, which is consistent with the results obtained from density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The theoretical analysis also indicated that the charge transfer transition is mainly constituted of HOMO/HOMO-1 to LUMO/LUMO+1 that were found to be located on donor and acceptor segments, respectively. Theoretical calculations give the distance between two binding sites of 19.50 Å for BPDTA and 12.04 Å for BTTA. The proximity between two anchoring units of BTTA results in superior dye loading and, hence, higher cell efficiency. The BTTA-based device yielded an optimized efficiency of 6.86%, compared to 6.61% for the BPDTA-based device, whereas the model sensitizer D21L6 only delivered an inferior performance of 5.33% under similar conditions. Our molecular design strategy thus opens up a new horizon to establish efficient dianchoring dyes.

Investigation of Coral-Like Cu2O Nano/Microstructures as Counter Electrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells.

In this study, a chemical oxidation method was employed to fabricate coral-like Cu2O nano/microstructures on Cu foils as counter electrodes (CEs) for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The Cu2O nano/microstructures were prepared at various sintering temperatures (400, 500, 600 and 700 °C) to investigate the influences of the sintering temperature on the DSSC characteristics. First, the Cu foil substrates were immersed in an aqueous solution containing (NH4)2S2O8 and NaOH. After reacting at 25 °C for 30 min, the Cu substrates were converted to Cu(OH)2 nanostructures. Subsequently, the nanostructures were subjected to nitrogen sintering, leading to Cu(OH)2 being dehydrated into CuO, which was then deoxidized to form coral-like Cu2O nano/microstructures. The material properties of the Cu2O CEs were comprehensively determined using a scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer, X-ray diffractometer, Raman spectrometer, X-ray photoelectron spectroscope, and cyclic voltameter. The Cu2O CEs sintered at various temperatures were used in DSSC devices and analyzed according to the current density-voltage characteristics, incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency, and electrochemical impedance characteristics. The Cu2O CEs sintered at 600 °C exhibited the optimal electrode properties and DSSC performance, yielding a power conversion efficiency of 3.62%. The Cu2O CEs fabricated on Cu foil were generally mechanically flexible and could therefore be applied to flexible DSSCs.

Indolo[2,3-b]carbazole synthesized from a double-intramolecular Buchwald-Hartwig reaction: its application for a dianchor DSSC organic dye.

A new synthetic strategy for indolo[2,3-b]carbazole via a double-intramolecular Buchwald-Hartwig reaction has been established. The N-alkylated indolo[2,3-b]carbazole then was adopted as the geometry-fixed core for the synthesis of a new molecule (ICZDTA) bearing two bithiophene π-bridged 2-cyanoacrylic acid groups as the bidentate anchor. The bidentate anchoring together with efficient HOMO (indolo[2,3-b]carbazole) → LUMO (TiO2 nanocluster) electron transfer leads to the successful development of ICZDTA-based DSSC with a power conversion efficiency of 6.02%.

Enhanced Magnetic Anisotropy via Quasi-Molecular Magnet at Organic-Ferromagnetic Contact.

To realize the origin of efficient spin injection at organic-ferromagnetic contact in organic spintronics, we have implemented the formation of quasi-molecular magnet via surface restructuring of a strong organic acceptor, tetrafluoro-tetracyano-quinodimethane (F4-TCNQ), in contact with ferromagnetic cobalt. Our results demonstrate a spin-polarized F4-TCNQ layer and a remarkably enhanced magnetic anisotropy of the Co film. The novel magnetic properties are contributed from strong magnetic coupling caused by the molecular restructuring that displays an angular anchoring conformation of CN and upwardly protruding fluorine atoms. We conclude that the π bonds of CN, instead of the lone-pair electrons of N atoms, contribute to the hybridization-induced magnetic coupling between CN and Co and generate a superior magnetic order on the surface.