Individual differences in emoji comprehension: Gender, age, and culture.

Emoji are an important substitute for non-verbal cues (such as facial expressions) in online written communication. So far, however, little is known about individual differences regarding how they are perceived. In the current study, we examined the influence of gender, age, and culture on emoji comprehension. Specifically, a sample of 523 participants across the UK and China completed an emoji classification task. In this task, they were presented with a series of emoji, each representing one of six facial emotional expressions, across four commonly used platforms (Apple, Android, WeChat, and Windows). Their task was to choose from one of six labels (happy, sad, angry, surprised, fearful, disgusted) which emotion was represented by each emoji. Results showed that all factors (age, gender, and culture) had a significant impact on how emojis were classified by participants. This has important implications when considering emoji use, for example, conversation with partners from different cultures.

Spatial distribution prediction of soil heavy metals based on sparse sampling and multi-source environmental data.

Predicting the precise spatial distribution of heavy metals in soil is crucial, especially in the fields of environmental management and remediation. However, achieving accurate spatial predictions of soil heavy metals becomes quite challenging when the number of soil sampling points is relatively limited. To address this challenge, this study proposes a hybrid approach, namely, Light Gradient Boosting Machine plus Ordinary Kriging (LGBK), for predicting the spatial distribution of soil heavy metals. A total of 137 soil samples were collected from the Shengli Coal-mine Base in Inner Mongolia, China, and their heavy metal concentrations were measured. Leveraging environmental covariates and soil heavy metal data, we constructed the predictive model. Experimental results demonstrate that, in comparison to traditional models, LGBK exhibits superior predictive performance. For copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), chromium (Cr), and arsenic (As), the coefficients of determination (R²) from the cross-validation results are 0.65, 0.52, 0.57, and 0.63, respectively. Moreover, the LGBK model excels in capturing intricate spatial features in heavy metal distribution. It accurately forecasts trends in heavy metal distribution that closely align with actual measurements. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATION: This study introduces a novel method, LGBK, for predicting the spatial distribution of soil heavy metals. This method yields higher-precision predictions even with a limited number of sampling points. Furthermore, the study analyzes the spatial distribution characteristics of Cu, Zn, Cr, and As in the grassland coal-mine base, along with the key environmental factors influencing their spatial distribution. This research holds significant importance for the environmental regulation and remediation of heavy metal pollution.

High-Gain of NdIII Complex Doped Optical Waveguide Amplifiers at 1.06 and 1.31 µm Wavelengths Based on Intramolecular Energy Transfer Mechanism.

Chelate phosphine oxide ligand (9,9-dimethyl-9H-xanthene-4,5-diyl) bis (diphenylphosphineoxide) (XPO) is prepared as a neutral ligand to synthesize complex Nd (TTA)3 (XPO) (TTA = 2-thenoyltrifluoroacetone). An appropriate energy gap between the XPO and TTA ligands, which can support two additional energy transfer routines from the first excited triplet state (T1 ) energy level of the XPO to that of the TTA, improves energy transfer in the Nd complex. Based on intramolecular energy transfer mechanism, optical gains at 1.06 and 1.31 µm are demonstrated in Nd (TTA)3 (XPO)-doped polymer waveguides with the excitation of low-power light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of semiconductor lasers as pump sources. Using the vertical top-pumping mode of a 365 nm LED, relative gains of 22.5 and 8.4 dB cm-1 are obtained at 1.06 and 1.31 µm, respectively, in a 0.2 cm long embedded waveguide with a cross-section of 8 × 5 µm2 . The active core layer is Nd (TTA)3 (XPO)-doped SU-8 polymer. Moreover, relative gains are achieved in evanescent-field waveguide with a cross-section of 6 × 4 µm2 . The 21.0 and 5.6 dB cm-1 relative gains are achieved at 1.06 and 1.31 µm, respectively, with a net gain of 13.8 ± 0.3 dB cm-1 obtained at 1.06 µm in a 0.9 cm long SU-8 waveguide with Nd (TTA)3 (XPO)-doped polymethylmethacrylate as upper cladding.

A Wearable Ultrasound Interface for Prosthetic Hand Control.

Ultrasound can non-invasively detect muscle deformations and has great potential applications in prosthetic hand control. Traditional ultrasound equipment was usually too bulky to be applied in wearable scenarios. This research presented a compact ultrasound device that could be integrated into a prosthetic hand socket. The miniaturized ultrasound system included four A-mode ultrasound transducers for sensing musculature deformations, a signal excitation/acquisition module, and a prosthetic hand control module. The size of the ultrasound system was 65*75*25 mm, weighing only 85 g. For the first time, we integrated the ultrasound system into a prosthetic hand socket to evaluate its performance in practical prosthetic hand control. We designed an experiment requiring twenty subjects to perform six commonly used gestures. The performance of decoding ultrasound signals was analyzed offline using four classification algorithms and then was assessed in online control. The average values of online classification accuracy with and without wearing the physical prosthetic were 91.5 [Formula: see text] and 96.5 [Formula: see text], respectively. We found that wearing the prosthetic hand influenced the ultrasound gestures classification accuracy, but remarkable online classification performance could still be maintained. These experimental results demonstrated the efficacy of the designed integrated ultrasound system for practical use, paving the way for an effective HMI system that could be widely used in prosthetic hand control.

Simultaneous Prediction of Wrist and Hand Motions via Wearable Ultrasound Sensing for Natural Control of Hand Prostheses.

Simultaneous prediction of wrist and hand motions is essential for the natural interaction with hand prostheses. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-out Gaussian process (MOGP) model and a multi-task deep learning (MTDL) algorithm to achieve simultaneous prediction of wrist rotation (pronation/supination) and finger gestures for transradial amputees via a wearable ultrasound array. We target six finger gestures with concurrent wrist rotation in four transradial amputees. Results show that MOGP outperforms previously reported subclass discriminant analysis for both predictions of discrete finger gestures and continuous wrist rotation. Moreover, we find that MTDL has the potential to improve the accuracy of finger gesture prediction compared to MOGP and classification-specific deep learning, albeit at the expense of reducing the accuracy of wrist rotation prediction. Extended comparative analysis shows the superiority of ultrasound over surface electromyography. This paper prioritizes exploring the performance of wearable ultrasound on the simultaneous prediction of wrist and hand motions for transradial amputees, demonstrating the potential of ultrasound in future prosthetic control. Our ultrasound-based adaptive prosthetic control dataset (Ultra-Pro) will be released to promote the development of the prosthetic community.

PLA-lignin nanofibers as antioxidant biomaterials for cartilage regeneration and osteoarthritis treatment.

BACKGROUND: Osteoarthritis (OA) is common musculoskeletal disorders associated with overgeneration of free radicals, and it causes joint pain, inflammation, and cartilage degradation. Lignin as a natural antioxidant biopolymer has shown its great potential for biomedical applications. In this work, we developed a series of lignin-based nanofibers as antioxidative scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering. RESULTS: The nanofibers were engineered by grafting poly(lactic acid) (PLA) into lignin via ring-opening polymerization and followed by electrospinning. Varying the lignin content in the system was able to adjust the physiochemical properties of the resulting nanofibers, including fiber diameters, mechanical and viscoelastic properties, and antioxidant activity. In vitro study demonstrated that the PLA-lignin nanofibers could protect bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (BMSCs) from oxidative stress and promote the chondrogenic differentiation. Moreover, the animal study showed that the lignin nanofibers could promote cartilage regeneration and repair cartilage defects within 6 weeks of implantation. CONCLUSION: Our study indicated that lignin-based nanofibers could serve as an antioxidant tissue engineering scaffold and facilitate the cartilage regrowth for OA treatment.

Degradation of the mixed organic solvents of tributyl phosphate and n-dodecane by heterogeneous Fenton-like oxidation using nanoscale zero-valent iron as the catalyst.

The treatment and disposal of spent radioactive organic solvents, i.e., tributyl phosphate (TBP) and diluent (such as kerosene, n-dodecane, etc.), produced in the reprocessing of spent fuel in the closed cycle are crucial for the sustainable development of the nuclear industry. In this study, the synthesized nanoscale zero-valent iron (nZVI) was used as the heterogeneous Fenton-like catalyst to promote the generation of hydroxyl radicals (•OH) by reacting with H2O2 to degrade the mixed organic solvents of TBP and n-dodecane. nZVI was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to investigate the micro-morphology, nano-particle size, and surface valence state. The change of Fe2+/Fe3+ concentration ratio during the reaction was measured to clarify the performance of nZVI. The effects of temperature, catalyst dosage, H2O2 dosage, and acidifier concentration on the degradation of TBP and n-dodecane were studied, and the results were complemented by the COD of the aqueous solution and the volume reduction rate of the organic phase. The mixed organic solvents of TBP and n-dodecane containing Co2+ were used to simulate the spent radioactive organic solvents and to study the distribution of nuclides after the reaction. The results showed that most of the radioactivity was in the residual solution, and the condensate contained almost no radioactivity. The degradation of TBP and n-dodecane was carried out separately, which showed that n-dodecane was more difficult to degrade. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were applied to determine the adsorption energy of organic solvents and nZVI. According to the Fourier transform infrared spectra (FTIR) and their corresponding DFT calculations, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) of the sample after the reaction, the possible intermediates were analyzed, and the degradation mechanism was speculated.

Effects of Ground Subsidence on Vegetation Chlorophyll Content in Semi-Arid Mining Area: From Leaf Scale to Canopy Scale.

Ground subsidence is the main cause of vegetation degradation in mining areas. It is of great significance to study the effects of ground subsidence on vegetation. At present, few studies have analyzed the effects of ground subsidence on vegetation from different scales. However, the conclusions on different scales may differ. In this experiment, chlorophyll content was used as an indicator of vegetation degradation. We conducted a long-term field survey in the Lijiahao coalfield in China. Based on field survey data and remote sensing images, we analyzed the effects of ground subsidence on chlorophyll content from two scales (leaf scale and canopy scale) and summarized the similarities and differences. We found that, regardless of leaf scale or canopy scale, the effects of subsidence on chlorophyll content have the following three characteristics: (1) mining had the least effect on chlorophyll content in the neutral area, followed by the compression area, and the greatest effect on chlorophyll content in the extension area; (2) subsidence had a slight effect on chlorophyll content of Caragana korshins, but a serious effect on chlorophyll content of Stipa baicalensis; (3) chlorophyll content was not immediately affected when the ground sank. It was the cumulative subsidence that affects chlorophyll content. The difference between leaf scale and canopy scale was that the chlorophyll content at canopy scale is more affected by mining. This means that when assessing vegetation degradation, the results obtained by remote sensing were more severe than those measured in the field. We believe that this is because the canopy chlorophyll content obtained by remote sensing is also affected by the plant canopy structure. We recommend that mining and ecological restoration should be carried out concurrently, and that ground fissures should be taken as the focus of ecological restoration. In addition, Caragana korshins ought to be widely planted. Most importantly, managers should assess the effects of ground subsidence on vegetation on different scales. However, managers need to be aware of differences at different scales.

Demonstration of optical gain at 1550 nm in an Er3+-Yb3+ co-doped phosphate planar waveguide under commercial and convenient LED pumping.

A 980 nm semiconductor laser is always selected as the pump source for erbium-ytterbium co-doped optical waveguide amplifiers. In this work, two low-cost blue-violet LEDs, rather than an expensive 980 nm laser, were used to pump an Er3+-Yb3+ co-doped phosphate planar waveguide. When the signal power was 0.4 mW at a 1550 nm wavelength, internal optical gains of about 4.1 and 4.5 dB/cm were respectively obtained under the excitations of a 32 mW/cm2, 275 nm LED and a 914 mW/cm2, 405 nm LED. It was found that 51.17% of the total Er3+ ions in the 2H9/2 state contributed to the luminescence at 1550 nm, and a theoretical model of gain simulation was established under the excitation of a 405 nm LED. The calculated gain of about 4.1 dB/cm was found to be in accordance with the experimental optical gain results.

Simultaneous Prediction of Wrist/Hand Motion via Wearable Ultrasound Sensing.

The ability to predict wrist and hand motions simultaneously is essential for natural controls of hand protheses. In this paper, we propose a novel method that includes subclass discriminant analysis (SDA) and principal component analysis for the simultaneous prediction of wrist rotation (pronation/supination) and finger gestures using wearable ultrasound. We tested the method on eight finger gestures with concurrent wrist rotations. Results showed that SDA was able to achieve accurate classification of both finger gestures and wrist rotations under dynamic wrist rotations. When grouping the wrist rotations into three subclasses, about 99.2 ± 1.2% of finger gestures and 92.8 ± 1.4% of wrist rotations can be accurately classified. Moreover, we found that the first principal component (PC1) of the selected ultrasound features was linear to the wrist rotation angle regardless of finger gestures. We further used PC1 in an online tracking task for continuous wrist control and demonstrated that a wrist tracking precision ( R2 ) of 0.954 ± 0.012 and a finger gesture classification accuracy of 96.5 ± 1.7% can be simultaneously achieved, with only two minutes of user training. Our proposed simultaneous wrist/hand control scheme is training-efficient and robust, paving the way for musculature-driven artificial hand control and rehabilitation treatment.

Comparative Analysis of Wearable A-Mode Ultrasound and sEMG for Muscle-Computer Interface.

OBJECTIVE: While surface electromyography (sEMG) is still dominant in the field of muscle-computer interface, ultrasound (US) sensing has been regarded as a promising alternative to sEMG, owing to its ability to precisely monitor muscle deformations. Among different US modalities, A-mode US is more compact and cost-effective for wearable applications against its cumbersome B-mode counterpart. In this article, we conduct a comprehensive comparison of wearable A-mode US and sEMG on gesture recognition and isometric muscle contraction force estimation. METHODS: We experimented with eight types of gesture, with a range of 0-60% maximum voluntary contraction for each motion. RESULTS: Results show that A-mode US outperforms sEMG on gesture recognition accuracy, robustness, and discrete force estimation accuracy, while sEMG is superior to US on continuous force estimation accuracy and ease of use in force estimation. Moreover, an extended online experiment demonstrates that the complementary advantages of US and sEMG on gesture recognition and continuous force estimation can be combined for the achievement of multi-class proportional gesture control. SIGNIFICANCE: This article demonstrates the potential of A-mode US in automated gesture recognition, and the prospect of sEMG/US fusion for proportional gesture interaction.

Dynamically Characterizing Skeletal Muscles via Acoustic Non-linearity Parameter: In Vivo Assessment for Upper Arms.

It is crucial to model skeletal muscles for muscle-centered health care, such as prosthetics. Here we hypothesize that the acoustic non-linearity parameter (B/A) can be utilized to partially represent the contraction state of skeletal muscles. Although previous work commonly measured the B/A value of tissues in vitro, the present study targets the biceps brachii muscle to investigate the relationship between the B/A value and the dynamics of the elbow. Furthermore, it is proposed that a correction method based on the angular spectrum theory be applied in vivo, and the dynamic metrics of the B/A value and its feasibility be verified through an underwater experiment. Seven participants were invited for the in vivo experiment, in which elbow torque and B/A values were measured simultaneously. The non-plane reflection was approximately treated through an integral method, leading to a modified B/A value. Then, linear regression was applied to characterize the B/A-torque relationship, with the calculated coefficient of determination (R2) ranging from 0.85-0.93. Experimental results indicate that the modified B/A value of the biceps brachii correlates well with elbow torque. This study not only paves the way to dynamic measurement of the B/A value of skeletal muscles in vivo, but also confirms that B/A can be used as a more comprehensive assessment criterion for muscle functions.

Salvianolic acid B ameliorates liver injury in a murine aGvHD model by decreasing inflammatory responses via upregulation of HO-1.

Acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD) remains lethal, even after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Inflammatory responses play an important role in aGvHD. Salvianolic acid B (Sal B) has been widely reported to have a major effect on the anti-inflammatory response, but these effects in an aGvHD model have never been reported. B6 donor splenocytes were transplanted into unirradiated BDF1 recipients and liver and serum were collected on day 14 after transplantation with or without Sal B administration. We measured the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines and other manifestations in aGvHD mice after Sal B treatment. Sal B ameliorated liver injury in aGvHD and promoted survival in mice. Sal B treatment resulted in decreased expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines whose expressions in liver are normally elevated by aGvHD. Furthermore, Sal B treatment also enhanced PGC-1α expression in liver tissue and HO-1 expression in nonparenchymal cells. In addition, HO-1 inhibitor abrogated the improvement of survival rate of mice with aGvHD. These results indicated that the protective effect of Sal B relies on suppressing the inflammatory response phase in the aGvHD model, presumably by inducing HO-1. Taken together our data showed that Sal B ameliorates liver injury in aGvHD by decreasing inflammatory responses via upregulation of HO-1. It may provide a novel way to deal with this disease.

Towards Zero Re-Training for Long-Term Hand Gesture Recognition via Ultrasound Sensing.

While myoelectric pattern recognition is a prevailing way for gesture recognition, the inherent nonstationarity of electromyography signals hinders its long-term application. This study aims to prove a hypothesis that morphological information of muscle contraction detected by ultrasound image is potentially suitable for long-term use. A set of ultrasound-based algorithms are proposed to realize robust hand gesture recognition over multiple days, with user training only at the first day. A markerless calibration algorithm is first presented to position the ultrasound probe during donning and doffing; an algorithm combining speeded-up robust features and bag-of-features model being immune to ultrasound probe shift and rotation is then introduced; a self-enhancing classification method is next adopted to update classification model automatically by incorporating useful knowledge from testing data; finally the performance of long-term hand gesture recognition with zero re-training is validated by a six-day experiment of six healthy subjects, whose outcomes strongly support the hypothesis with about 94% of gesture recognition accuracy for each testing day. This study confirms the feasibility of adoption of ultrasound sensing for long-term musculature related applications.

Pulsed Magnetic Field Stimuli Can Promote Chondrogenic Differentiation of Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles-Labeled Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Rats.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have potential uses for cartilage repair due to the potential of chondrogenic differentiation. However, developing effective approaches to regulate chondrogenesis in vivo remains a big challenging. To address the limitations, we propose the application of magnetic fields, which features excellent performance for tissue penetration, good biocompatibility even at high magnetic strength, and wireless remote control. To test this concept, a pulsed magnetic field (PMF) was used to enhance the chondrogenesis of SPIO-labeled MSCs in a rat model of cartilage defects. The SPIO labeling not only efficiently strengthens the responsiveness of MSCs to the externally applied PMF but also enables in vivo non-invasive monitoring of MSCs with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Importantly, biochemical and gene expression analysis reveal the upregulation of certain cartilage biomarkers (i.e., SOX9 and COL2A1), showing that the PMF improves the chondrogenesis of MSCs via activation of the TGF-ß/SMAD signaling pathways. These results indicate a promising scheme for stem cell-based cartilage repair.

Ultrasound-Based Sensing Models for Finger Motion Classification.

Motions of the fingers are complex since hand grasping and manipulation are conducted by spatial and temporal coordination of forearm muscles and tendons. The dominant methods based on surface electromyography (sEMG) could not offer satisfactory solutions for finger motion classification due to its inherent nature of measuring the electrical activity of motor units at the skin's surface. In order to recognize morphological changes of forearm muscles for accurate hand motion prediction, ultrasound imaging is employed to investigate the feasibility of detecting mechanical deformation of deep muscle compartments in potential clinical applications. In this study, finger motion classification has been represented as subproblems: recognizing the discrete finger motions and predicting the continuous finger angles. Predefined 14 finger motions are presented in both sEMG signals and ultrasound images and captured simultaneously. Linear discriminant analysis classifier shows the ultrasound has better average accuracy (95.88%) than the sEMG (90.14%). On the other hand, the study of predicting the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint angle of each finger in nonperiod movements also confirms that classification method based on ultrasound achieves better results (average correlation 0.89 $\pm$ 0.07 and NRMSE 0.15 $\pm$ 0.05) than sEMG (0.81 $\pm$ 0.09 and 0.19 $\pm$ 0.05). The research outcomes evidently demonstrate that the ultrasound can be a feasible solution for muscle-driven machine interface, such as accurate finger motion control of prostheses and wearable robotic devices.

Towards Wearable A-Mode Ultrasound Sensing for Real-Time Finger Motion Recognition.

It is evident that surface electromyography (sEMG) based human-machine interfaces (HMI) have inherent difficulty in predicting dexterous musculoskeletal movements such as finger motions. This paper is an attempt to investigate a plausible alternative to sEMG, ultrasound-driven HMI, for dexterous motion recognition due to its characteristic of detecting morphological changes of deep muscles and tendons. A multi-channel A-mode ultrasound lightweight device is adopted to evaluate the performance of finger motion recognition; an experiment is designed for both widely acceptable offline and online algorithms with eight able-bodied subjects employed. The experiment result presents that the offline recognition accuracy is up to 98.83% ± 0.79%. The real-time motion completion rate is 95.4% ± 8.7% and online motion selection time is 0.243 ± 0.127 s. The outcomes confirm the feasibility of A-mode ultrasound based wearable HMI and its prosperous applications in prosthetic devices, virtual reality, and remote manipulation.

Collagen-alginate as bioink for three-dimensional (3D) cell printing based cartilage tissue engineering.

Articular cartilage repair is still a huge challenge for researchers and clinicians. 3D bioprinting could be an innovative technology for cartilage tissue engineering. In this study, we used collagen type I (COL) or agarose (AG) mixed with sodium alginate (SA) to serve as 3D bioprinting bioinks and incorporated chondrocytes to construct in vitro 3D printed cartilage tissue. Swelling ratio, mechanical properties, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), cell viability and cytoskeleton, biochemistry analysis and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) were performed to investigate the function of different bioinks in 3D printing cartilage tissue engineering applications. The results showed that the mechanical strength was improved in both SA/COL and SA/AG groups compared to SA alone. Besides, the addition of COL or AG has little impact on gelling behavior, demonstrating the advantage as bioinks for 3D printing. Among the three scaffolds, SA/COL could distinctly facilitated cell adhesion, accelerated cell proliferation and enhanced the expression of cartilage specific genes such as Acan, Col2al and Sox9 than the other two groups. Lower expression of Col1a1, the fibrocartilage marker, was present in SA/COL group than that in both of SA and SA/AG groups. The results indicated that SA/COL effectively suppressed dedifferentiation of chondrocytes and preserved the phenotype. In summary, 3D bioprinted SA/COL with favorable mechanical strength and biological functionality is promising in cartilage tissue engineering.

Genetic Polymorphisms of Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte Antigen 4 in Primary Biliary Cholangitis: A Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The connection between gene polymorphisms of cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA4) and primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is still vague and blurred. The purpose of this study is to precisely estimate the association of the polymorphisms of CTLA4 with the risk of PBC by using a meta-analysis. METHODS: PubMed and the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database were used to search correlative literatures, and the documents which were about the relationships between the polymorphisms of CTLA4 (rs231775, rs231725, rs3087243, and rs5742909) and PBC were collected as of June 2016. The strength of correlation based on odds ratios (ORs) and its 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) was computed by STATA. RESULTS: Generally, in rs231775, a significant risk was found in G allele, the value of OR was 1.32, and its 95%CI was 1.19 to 1.47. The same situation was found in A allele of rs231725, the value of OR was 1.33, and its 95%CI was 1.22 to 1.45. As genotypic level, different genotypic models were also found to have obvious relevance with PBC in rs231775 and rs231725. No obvious connections were found in other SNPs. CONCLUSION: This study indicated that the polymorphisms of rs231775 and rs231725 would be the risk factors of PBC.