Multi-Layer Polyurethane-Fiber-Prepared Entangled Strain Sensor with Tunable Sensitivity and Working Range for Human Motion Detection.

The entanglement of fibers can form physical and topological structures, with the resulting bending and stretching strains causing localized changes in pressure. In this study, a multi-layer polyurethane-fiber-prepared (MPF) sensor was developed by coating the CNT/PU sensing layer on the outside of an elastic electrode through a wet-film method. The entangled topology of two MPFs was utilized to convert the stretching strain into localized pressure at the contact area, enabling the perception of stretching strain. The influence of coating mechanical properties and surface structure on strain sensing performance was investigated. A force regulator was introduced to regulate the mechanical properties of the entangled topology of MPF. By modifying the thickness and length proportion of the force regulator, the sensitivity factor and sensitivity range of the sensor could be controlled, achieving a high sensitivity factor of up to 127.74 and a sensitivity range of up to 58%. Eight sensors were integrated into a sensor array and integrated into a dance costume, successfully monitoring the multi-axis motion of the dancer's lumbar spine. This provides a new approach for wearable biomechanical sensors.

Study on material basis and anti-hypertensive metabolomics of Zhengan-Xifeng-Tang(ZXT): A comparison between ZXT decoction and granules.

High blood pressure is a serious human health problem and one of the leading risk factors for fatal complications in cardiovascular disease. The ZXT granules were prepared based on the Zhengan-Xifeng-Tang (ZXT) decoction. However, the therapeutic effects of ZXT granules on spontaneous hypertension and the metabolic pathways in which they may intervene are unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the antihypertensive effect of ZXT granules on spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and to analyze the metabolic pathway of intervention through chemical composition characterization, pharmacodynamics, and serum metabolomics analysis. After eight weeks of administration, serum and aortic arch samples were collected for biochemical, histopathology and serum metabolomics analysis to assess the effect of ZXT granules on SHR. The results showed that ZXT granules reduced aortic arch injury and blood pressure in SHR rats. Serum data from rats in each group was collected using LC-MS and 74 potential biomarkers were identified that showed significant differences between the model and control groups. Of these, 18 potential biomarkers were found to be deregulated after intervention with ZXT granules. These 18 potential differential metabolic markers are primarily involved in bile acid biosynthesis, arachidonic acid metabolism pathway, and fatty acid degradation. The results demonstrated that ZXT granules significantly affected blood lipids, aortic arch, and metabolic disorders in SHR rats. ZXT granules offer a new possibility for effective and convenient treatment of hypertensive patients.

Three-Dimensional Polypyrrole-Decorated CuCo2S4 Nanowires Anchored on Nickel Foam: A Promising Electrode for High-Performance Supercapacitors.

The exploitation of high-performance supercapacitors is crucial to promote energy storage technologies. Benefiting from the three-dimensional conductive micronanostructures and high specific capacity of the PPy@CuCo2S4@NF (polypyrrole/copper cobalt sulfide/nickel foam) composite electrode, this electrode exhibits a high specific capacity of 1403.21 C g-1 at 1 A g-1 and a capacitance retention of 85.79% after 10,000 cycles at 10 A g-1. The assembled PPy@CuCo2S4@NF//AC aqueous hybrid supercapacitor (AHSC) reveals a wide operating potential window of 1.5 V and achieves a high specific capacity of 322.52 C g-1 at 1 A g-1 and a capacitance retention of 86.84% after 15,000 cycles at 10 A g-1. The AHSC also exhibits a high power density of 733.69 W kg-1 at an energy density of 67.19 W h kg-1, surpassing those of previously reported spinel-based supercapacitors. Ex situ X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results show that the CuCo2S4 spinel structure changes to CuS2 and CoS2 cube structures, and the oxidation states of Cu and Co increase during charging and discharging processes. Density functional theory calculations suggest a superior conductivity for CuCo2S4 compared to that for CuCo2O4, demonstrating that CuCo2S4 has superior electrochemical performance. These findings attest to the considerable potential of the spinel materials for advanced energy storage applications.

Cerebral Protection of Intraoperative Infusion of Dexmedetomidine in Patients with Chronic Cerebrovascular Stenosis Undergoing Endovascular Interventional Therapies: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: To investigate the cerebral protective effect of intraoperative dexmedetomidine infusion on patients with chronic cerebral vascular stenosis receiving endovascular interventional therapy. METHODS: Sixty patients with carotid artery or cerebral artery stenosis or occlusion stenting under elective general anesthesia were divided into dexmedetomidine group (group D) and normal saline group (group N). Group D was given dexmedetomidine loading dose 1.0 µg/kg after peripheral vein opening for 10 min, and then adjusted infusion rate to 0.5 µg/kg/h until stopped 30 min before end. RESULTS: At 7 days after operation, the contents of S100ß, neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in group D were apparently lower than those in group N (P < 0.05), while the contents of IL-1ß and tumor necrosis factor-α in 2 groups showed no statistical significance (P > 0.05). Additionally, at 4 days and 7 days after operation, the scores of Mini-Mental State Scale (MMSE) and Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) in group D were significantly higher than those in group N (P < 0.05). Thirty days after surgery, the cerebral hemodynamic indexes (relative mean transit time, relative time to peak) in group D were significantly improved, and obviously better than those in group N (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The S-100ß, NSE, and inflammatory mediator IL-6 in group D were significantly decreased compared with group N, the MMSE and WMS cognitive function scores, and the cerebral blood perfusion were apparently improved in group D, clarifying dexmedetomidine has protective effect on nerve tissue injury by inhibiting inflammation.

Risk factors for dapsone resistance in leprosy patients: a systematic meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: Dapsone is one of the important drugs in the treatment of leprosy. The present study aims to evaluate the resistance of Mycobacterium leprae isolates to dapsone, in turn assisting in implementing better control strategies for leprosy elimination. METHODS: A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, Medline, and Web of Science. Two independent reviewers selected the literature according to the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), extracted data, and evaluated the risk of bias. Drug resistance data were pooled using the random-effects model. Subgroup analysis was performed based on across sampling time, region, study population (treatment status, relapses status), and sample size. RESULTS: A total of 30 studies were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that the dapsone resistance rate of leprosy patients after treatment was 8% (95% confidence interval [CI], 6%-10%). Compared to the rates of primary resistance of new cases without treatment therapy (pooled incidence, 4% [95% CI, 2%-5%]), treatment cases (13% [95% CI 9%-16%]) had secondary resistance, and relapse cases (26% [95% CI, 18%-33%]) had drug resistance. In addition, the drug resistance rate of monotherapy was significantly increased than that of relapsed patients treated with diamino-diphenylsulfone monotherapy. Subgroup analysis showed that the patients in the Western Pacific have the highest dapsone resistance, and the resistance to dapsone was slightly lower after 2005. For sample size, the rate in the group under 100 samples was significantly higher than in the other. CONCLUSION: Dapsone resistance is closely related to leprosy relapse and long-term drug use. Dapsone monotherapy is one of important reasons for drug resistance in relapsed cases. Drug resistance varies among different populations and regions of the world.

Full-Textile Human Motion Detection Systems Integrated by Facile Weaving with Hierarchical Core-Shell Piezoresistive Yarns.

The tremendous progress of the wearable intelligent system has brought an urgent demand for flexible pressure sensors, especially for those possessing high sensing performances, simple manufacture technology, and efficient integration. In this work, hierarchical core-shell piezoresistive yarns (HCPYs), which contain internal silver-plated nylon electrodes and surface microporous structured carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) sensing layer, are designed and manufactured via facile wet-spinning accompanied by a water vapor coagulating bath. The obtained HCPY can either be inserted into traditional textiles to assemble a single-pressure sensor, or be woven into a textile-based flexible pressure sensors array with expected size and resolution, without compromising their comfort, breathability, and three-dimensional (3D) conformability. Simultaneously, to further enhance the sensing performance, the surface microporous structures of HCPYs are optimized by altering the treatment humidity and exposure time during the process of water vapor-induced phase separation. The wearable pressure sensors assembled by the optimal HCPY achieved a high sensitivity up to 84.5 N-1, a good durability over 5000-cycle tests, a fast response time of 2.1 ms, and a recovery time of 2.4 ms. Moreover, the wearable pressure sensors have been successfully used to monitor physical signals and human motions. The textile-based flexible pressure sensors array has also been seamlessly integrated with sportswear to detect movements of the elbow joint and map spatial pressure distribution, which makes HCPY a promising candidate for constructing next-generation wearable electronics.

Breathable and Large Curved Area Perceptible Flexible Piezoresistive Sensors Fabricated with Conductive Nanofiber Assemblies.

The rapid development of wearable electronics, humanoid robots, and artificial intelligence requires sensors to sensitively and stably detect external stress variations in large areas or on three-dimensional (3D) irregularly shaped surfaces while possessing the comfort. Most importantly, the flexibility and 3D compliance of sensors, and the fitting state of the interface between the sensor and the object are of great significance to the sensing accuracy and reliability. The ordered or random stacking and entangling of flexible and electrically conductive fiber materials can form a highly porous and mechanically stable fiber assembly. The changes in external stress can lead to the air trapped in the fiber assembly to flow in and out rapidly and repeatedly, as well as the reversible mechanical deformation of fiber materials. Correspondingly, the contact areas between electrically conductive fibers in the fiber assembly are reversibly changed, which makes the conductive and flexible fiber assembly be an ideal candidate for piezoresistive sensing material. It can be further expected that the statistical stability of contact points between conductive fibers under the stress may significantly increase with the decrease in fiber diameters. Herein, a new method to make a flexible piezoresistive sensor with conductive and porous fiber assembly was proposed. An ultrasensitive piezoresistive material was facilely prepared by fabricating conductive poly(vinyl alcohol-co-ethylene) (EVOH) nanofiber assemblies. The sensing performance of the piezoresistive sensor was optimized by regulating the nanofiber morphology, electrical conductivity, and mechanical properties. The flexible piezoresistive sensor exhibited a sensitivity of 2.79 kPa-1, a response time of 3 ms, and a recovery time of 10 ms. The sensing performance at different working frequencies was stable and durable within 4500 cycling tests. The flexible sensor showed good pressure-sensing accuracy and reliability when used on irregular surfaces and therefore was further applied in the static monitoring of large-area spatial pressure distribution and the wearable intelligent interactive device, demonstrating great application potential.

Highly Accurate Wearable Piezoresistive Sensors without Tension Disturbance Based on Weaved Conductive Yarn.

Wearable piezoresistive sensors have attracted wide attention for application in human activities monitoring, smart robots, medical detection, etc. However, most of the sensing signals collected from the piezoresistive sensor are triggered by coupling forces, such as the combination of tension and pressure. Thus, the piezoresistive sensor would be incapable of accurately monitoring and evaluating specific human motion due to the mutual interference from tension and pressure, as the tension is difficult to be decoupled or eliminated from the coupling forces. Herein a prestretchable conductive yarn (PCY) sensor with pressure sensitivity but tension insensitivity was introduced to remove the disturbance from tension. The PCY-based piezoresistive sensor is tension insensitive (gauge factor of 0.11) but pressure sensitive (sensitivity of 187.33 MPa-1). The fabric-based pressure sensor assembled with cross-arranged PCY weft and warp revealed magnified pressure sensitivity compared with the single PCY yarn sensor, as well as tension insensitivity to strain and tensile angle. Moreover, it possessed benign cyclicity during 5000 cycles of pressing/releasing. Therefore, the fabric piezoresistive sensor based on weaved conductive yarns is suitable for highly accurate and large area pressure detection, such as monitoring massage intensity of acupuncture points.

Ultra-Sensitive Piezo-Resistive Sensors Constructed with Reduced Graphene Oxide/Polyolefin Elastomer (RGO/POE) Nanofiber Aerogels.

Flexible wearable pressure sensors have received extensive attention in recent years because of the promising application potentials in health management, humanoid robots, and human machine interfaces. Among the many sensory performances, the high sensitivity is an essential requirement for the practical use of flexible sensors. Therefore, numerous research studies are devoted to improving the sensitivity of the flexible pressure sensors. The fiber assemblies are recognized as an ideal substrate for a highly sensitive piezoresistive sensor because its three-dimensional porous structure can be easily compressed and can provide high interconnection possibilities of the conductive component. Moreover, it is expected to achieve high sensitivity by raising the porosity of the fiber assemblies. In this paper, the three-dimensional reduced graphene oxide/polyolefin elastomer (RGO/POE) nanofiber composite aerogels were prepared by chemical reducing the graphene oxide (GO)/POE nanofiber composite aerogels, which were obtained by freeze drying the mixture of the GO aqueous solution and the POE nanofiber suspension. It was found that the volumetric shrinkage of thermoplastic POE nanofibers during the reduction process enhanced the compression mechanical strength of the composite aerogel, while decreasing its sensitivity. Therefore, the composite aerogels with varying POE nanofiber usage were prepared to balance the sensitivity and working pressure range. The results indicated that the composite aerogel with POE nanofiber/RGO proportion of 3:3 was the optimal sample, which exhibits high sensitivity (ca. 223 kPa-1) and working pressure ranging from 0 to 17.7 kPa. In addition, the composite aerogel showed strong stability when it is either compressed with different frequencies or reversibly compressed and released 5000 times.

Mycobacterium marseillense Infection in Human Skin, China, 2018.

We describe a case of facial skin infection and sinusitis caused by Mycobacterium marseillense in an immunocompetent woman in China in 2018. The infection was cleared with clarithromycin, moxifloxacin, and amikacin. Antimicrobial drug treatments could not be predicted by genetic analyses; further genetic characterization would be required to do so.

Facile Fabrication of Conductive Graphene/Polyurethane Foam Composite and Its Application on Flexible Piezo-Resistive Sensors.

Flexible pressure sensors have attracted tremendous research interests due to their wide applications in wearable electronics and smart robots. The easy-to-obtain fabrication and stable signal output are meaningful for the practical application of flexible pressure sensors. The graphene/polyurethane foam composites are prepared to develop a convenient method for piezo-resistive devices with simple structure and outstanding sensing performance. Graphene oxide was prepared through the modified Hummers method. Polyurethane foam was kept to soak in the obtained graphene oxide aqueous solution and then dried. After that, reduced graphene oxide/polyurethane composite foam has been fabricated under air phase reduction by hydrazine hydrate vapor. The chemical components and micro morphologies of the prepared samples have been observed by using FT-IR and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results predicted that the graphene is tightly adhered to the bare surface of the pores. The pressure sensing performance has been also evaluated by measuring the sensitivity, durability, and response time. The results indicate that the value of sensitivity under the range of 0-6 kPa and 6-25 kPa are 0.17 kPa-1 and 0.005 kPa-1, respectively. Cycling stability test has been performed 30 times under three varying pressures. The signal output just exhibits slight fluctuations, which represents the good cycling stability of the pressure sensor. At the same stage, the response time of loading and unloading of 20 g weight turned out to be about 300 ms. These consequences showed the superiority of graphene/polyurethane composite foam while applied in piezo-resistive devices including wide sensitive pressure range, high sensitivity, outstanding durability, and fast response.

Strategy of Constructing Light-Weight and Highly Compressible Graphene-Based Aerogels with an Ordered Unique Configuration for Wearable Piezoresistive Sensors.

Three-dimensional (3D) graphene aerogels (GAs) have attracted huge attention from researchers due to their great potential in vast applications. The hydrothermal reaction combined with freeze-drying using graphene oxide (GO) as a precursor has proven to be an effective method for obtaining relatively well-structured pure GAs. However, insufficient mechanical strength and low compressibility of the materials still limit their practical applications. Here, we report the microstructure-induced strong mechanical anisotropy of these monolithic GAs in transverse direction (TD) and longitudinal direction (LD), which has never been considered to be related to structural vulnerability. To overcome this anisotropy and enhance the structure, we hereby introduce our self-made poly(vinyl alcohol)- co-polyethylene (PVA- co-PE) nanofibers and low-molecular weight PVA as structural enhancers into the original 3D network to form a novel nanofiber-graphene composite aerogel. Intriguingly, a unique configuration is formed in the GA, in which the highly aligned stacked reduced GO sheets serve as the framework (cellular walls) and the nanofibers act as cross-linking columns anchored between the walls to support the structure along the TD, whereas the micro/nanosized PVA lamellae serve as binders. The resulting aerogel (referred to as graphene-PVA- co-PE nanofibers-PVA aerogel (GNPA)) has excellent compressive resilience along the TD and exhibits an ultrahigh gauge factor (14387%) at a very subtle strain (0.23%) in piezoresistive properties. The GNPA-TD has also been assembled into a variety of wearable sensors and demonstrates great potential for wireless human pressure sensing. In short, this study offers an extremely simple and effective method for developing graphene aerogels with a strong mechanical structure and paves the way for the application of 3D graphene in wearable sensors.

Ultrasensitive Wearable Pressure Sensors Assembled by Surface-Patterned Polyolefin Elastomer Nanofiber Membrane Interpenetrated with Silver Nanowires.

Wearable pressure sensors with ultrahigh sensitivity and flexibility have garnered tremendous attention because of their abilities to mimic the human somatosensory system and perceive surrounding pressure distribution. Herein, an ultrasensitive pressure sensor was fabricated with surface-patterned nanofibrous membranes (SPNMs) via a facile replica method from available plain-weaved nylon textiles. The SPNMs were composed of internal three-dimensional interpenetrating polyolefin elastomer nanofibers and silver nanowires (Ag NWs). The effects of the geometry of surface patterns and the density of the Ag NW network on the sensing performance of the assembled pressure sensor were systematically investigated. The results indicated that clavate groove-shaped surface patterns improved the sensitivity and a larger groove spacing contributed to higher sensitivities, whereas denser Ag NWs would reduce the sensing performance. The optimal pressure sensor assembled with SPNMs-45 and a Ag NW fraction of 3.8% showed high sensitivity (19.4 kPa-1) below the pressure of 2.76 kPa, a low detection limit (<1.6 Pa), fast response (30 and 42 ms), as well as excellent durability. These outstanding performances demonstrated its promising potential for wearable electronic applications, like detecting the spatial pressure distribution and monitoring human muscle motions.

ProLanGO: Protein Function Prediction Using Neural Machine Translation Based on a Recurrent Neural Network.

With the development of next generation sequencing techniques, it is fast and cheap to determine protein sequences but relatively slow and expensive to extract useful information from protein sequences because of limitations of traditional biological experimental techniques. Protein function prediction has been a long standing challenge to fill the gap between the huge amount of protein sequences and the known function. In this paper, we propose a novel method to convert the protein function problem into a language translation problem by the new proposed protein sequence language "ProLan" to the protein function language "GOLan", and build a neural machine translation model based on recurrent neural networks to translate "ProLan" language to "GOLan" language. We blindly tested our method by attending the latest third Critical Assessment of Function Annotation (CAFA 3) in 2016, and also evaluate the performance of our methods on selected proteins whose function was released after CAFA competition. The good performance on the training and testing datasets demonstrates that our new proposed method is a promising direction for protein function prediction. In summary, we first time propose a method which converts the protein function prediction problem to a language translation problem and applies a neural machine translation model for protein function prediction.

Hierarchically Three-Dimensional Nanofiber Based Textile with High Conductivity and Biocompatibility As a Microbial Fuel Cell Anode.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) encompass complex bioelectrocatalytic reactions that converting chemical energy of organic compounds to electrical energy. Improving the anode configuration is thought to be a critical step for enhancing MFCs performance. In present study, a hierarchically structured textile polypyrrole/poly(vinyl alcohol-co-polyethylene) nanofibers/poly(ethylene terephthalate) (referred to PPy/NFs/PET) is shown to be excellent anode for MFCs. This hierarchical PPy/NFs/PET anode affords an open porous and three-dimensional interconnecting conductive scaffold with larger surface roughness, facilitating microbial colonization and electron transfer from exoelectrogens to the anode. The mediator-less MFC equipped with PPy/NFs/PET anode achieves a remarkable maximum power density of 2420 mW m(-2) with Escherichia coli as the microbial catalyst at the current density of 5500 mA m(-2), which is approximately 17 times higher compared to a reference anode PPy/PET (144 mW m(-2)). Considering the low cost, low weight, facile fabrication, and good winding, this PPy/NFs/PET textile anode promises a great potential for high-performance and cost-effective MFCs in a large scale.

[Intervention effects of qingre jiangya capsule on brain hippocampus of spontaneously hypertensive rats based on metabonomic research].

Thirty SHRs were obtained randomly to hypertension, model group, captopril group and Qingre jiangya capsule group. Ten Wistar rats were used as control group. The hippocampus tissue was removed to explore the damage of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and the protective effect of Qingre jiangya capsule after continuously administered for 14 days. And then the data were processed by principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The research results revealed captopril group was significantly different from the other three groups. The classification of other three groups is also very clear after captopril group removed. This suggested that Qingre jiangya capsule could improve the overall metabolism compared with captopril. Four metabolites were identified: dimethylglycine, glycerophosphocholine, aldosterone and noradrenaline. Hypertension hippocampus damage may mainly be expressed in tyrosine metabolism, aldosterone-regulated sodium, vascular smooth muscle contraction reabsorption, and Qingre jiangya capsule could reverse the hippocampus tissue damage of SHR.

Self-healing of the superhydrophobicity by ironing for the abrasion durable superhydrophobic cotton fabrics.

Self-healing of the superhydrophobic cotton fabric (SCF) obtained by the radiation-induced graft polymerization of lauryl methacrylate (LMA) and n-hexyl methacrylate (HMA), can be achieved by ironing. Through the steam ironing process, the superhydrophobicity of the SCFs will be regenerated even after the yarns are ruptured during the abrasion test under a load pressure of 44.8 kPa. SCFs made from LMA grafted cotton fabric can ultimately withstand at least 24,000 cycles of abrasion with periodic steam ironing. The FT-IR microscope results show that the migration of the polymethacrylates graft chains from the interior to the surface is responsible for the self-healing effect.

Laundering durability of photocatalyzed self-cleaning cotton fabric with TiO2 nanoparticles covalently immobilized.

Photocatalyzed self-cleaning cotton fabrics with TiO2 nanoparticles covalently immobilized are obtained by cograft polymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) together with the surface functionalized TiO2 nanoparticles under γ-ray irradiation. The covalent bonds between the TiO2 nanoparticles and cotton fabrics bridged by poly(2-hydroxyethyl acrylate) (PHEA) graft chains is strong enough to survive 30 accelerated laundering circles, equivalent to 150 commercial or domestic launderings.