"Demodicosis" Mimicking PreSeptal Cellulitis: Severe Periocular and Facial Inflammation Caused by "Normal" Skin Flora.

Due to their relatively high prevalence and commensalism, the pathogenicity of Demodex mites has been debated. Recent data, however, show Demodex to be associated with skin and ocular surface diseases such as rosacea, blepharitis, and keratitis. Here the authors report the first known case, to the best of the their knowledge, of Demodex infestation mimicking preseptal cellulitis in an adult human. A 29-year-old male bilaterally blind from advanced retinopathy of prematurity presented with a 2-month history of right-greater-than-left upper eyelid and periocular/cheek swelling, redness, and ocular discharge that did not resolve with oral antibiotics or oral steroids. Based on MRI findings, biopsies of the right lacrimal gland, right orbital fat, and right upper eyelid preseptal skin were obtained which revealed marked intrafollicular Demodex mite density and budding yeasts in the upper eyelid skin. This case serves to alert clinicians to this entity that may not otherwise be usually considered in ophthalmic clinical practice.

Self-Powered Autonomous Electrostatic Dust Removal for Solar Panels by an Electret Generator.

Solar panels often suffer from dust accumulation, significantly reducing their output, especially in desert regions where many of the world's largest solar plants are located. Here, an autonomous dust removal system for solar panels, powered by a wind-driven rotary electret generator is proposed. The generator applies a high voltage between one solar panel's output electrode and an upper mesh electrode to generate a strong electrostatic field. It is discovered that dust particles on the insulative glass cover of the panel can be charged under the high electrical field, assisted by adsorbed water, even in low-humidity environments. The charged particles are subsequently repelled from the solar panel with the significant Coulomb force. Two panels covered with sand dust are cleaned in only 6.6 min by a 15 cm diameter rotary electret generator at 1.6 m s-1 wind speed. Experimental results manifest that the system can work effectively in a wide range of environmental conditions, and doesn't impact the panel performance for long-term operation. This autonomous system, with its high dust removal efficiency, simplicity, and low cost, holds great potential in practical applications.

Enhanced hyaline cartilage formation and continuous osteochondral regeneration via 3D-Printed heterogeneous hydrogel with multi-crosslinking inks.

The unique gradient structure and complex composition of osteochondral tissue pose significant challenges in defect regeneration. Restoration of tissue heterogeneity while maintaining hyaline cartilage components has been a difficulty of an osteochondral tissue graft. A novel class of multi-crosslinked polysaccharide-based three-dimensional (3D) printing inks, including decellularized natural cartilage (dNC) and nano-hydroxyapatite, was designed to create a gradient scaffold with a robust interface-binding force. Herein, we report combining a dual-nozzle cross-printing technology and a gradient crosslinking method to create the scaffolds, demonstrating stable mechanical properties and heterogeneous bilayer structures. Biofunctional assessments revealed the remarkable regenerative effects of the scaffold, manifesting three orders of magnitude of mRNA upregulation during chondrogenesis and the formation of pure hyaline cartilage. Transcriptomics of the regeneration site in vivo and scaffold cell interaction tests in vitro showed that printed porous multilayer scaffolds could form the correct tissue structure for cell migration. More importantly, polysaccharides with dNC provided a hydrophilic microenvironment. The microenvironment is crucial in osteochondral regeneration because it could guide the regenerated cartilage to ensure the hyaline phenotype.

Preparation of cyclodextrin polymer-functionalized polyaniline/MXene composites for high-performance supercapacitor.

Controlled aggregation is of great significance in designing nanodevices with high electrochemical performance. In this study, an in situ aggregation strategy with cyclodextrin polymer (CDP) was employed to prepare polyaniline (PANI)/MXene (MX) composites. MXene served as a two-dimensional structure template. Due to supramolecular interactions, CDP could be controllably modified with PANI layers, effectively preventing the self-polymerization of PANI. As a result, this integration facilitated a more uniform growth of PANI on MXene and further improved the capacitance performance of CDP-MX/PA. In a three-electrode system, the specific capacitance of MX/PA at 1 A g-1 was 460.8 F g-1, which increased to 523.8 F g-1 after CDP-induced growth. CDP-MX/PA exhibited a high energy density of 27.7 W h kg-1 at a power density of 700 W kg-1. This suggests that the synthetic strategy employed in this study holds promise in providing robust support for the preparation of high-performance energy-storage device.

Comprehensive analysis of the immune implication of EPHX4 gene in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES: The role of Epoxide Hydrolase-4 (EPHX4), a member of epoxide hydrolase family, has not been investigated in cancer. The purpose of this article is to explore the application value of EPHX4 in laryngeal cancer and its relationship with immune infiltration. METHODS: We observed that EPHX4 expression and its survival assays in laryngeal cancer specimens based on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohorts. We also analyzed the correlation between immune cell infiltration levels and EPHX4 gene copy number in laryngeal cancer. Finally, we conducted in vitro assay to evaluate the functions of EPHX4 in laryngeal cancer cell line. RESULTS: EPHX4 is highly expressed in laryngeal cancer specimens and has a poor prognosis. EPHX4 related immune cell analysis showed that it participated in NK Natural killer cell mediated cytotoxicity. Finally, Cell experiments indicate that EPHX4 could promote laryngeal cancer cell line proliferation, colony formation and invasion. CONCLUSIONS: Our research results suggest that EPHX4 may be a potential immunotherapy target for laryngeal cancer. The nominated immune signature is a helpful and promising prognostic indicator in laryngeal cancer. LEVELS OF EVIDENCE: Level 3.

Impacts of environmental uncertainty on investment stocks perception under the holiday effect.

This study explored how the holiday effect impacts the fluctuations in various scale indexes. Using differential and double-difference methods, the researchers of this study analyzed the impact of the lockdown in Wuhan, China on the holiday effect during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research objects used in this study include CSI All Share, CNI1000, CNI 2000, CNI Large Cap., CNI Mid-Cap., and CNI Small Cap. This study found that on behalf of the Chinese market index and the large, medium, and small-scale index, stock volatility is evident on the next day following successive holidays. Meanwhile, greater volatility is observed in small stocks' 4-day vacation (May 1, 11) than in a two-day vacation. The researchers discovered that the sealing effect causes investors to feel uncertain about the increased stock volatility. In terms of size, the net impact of the pandemic on the stock holiday effect is also greater for small stocks than for large stocks. This study's main contribution is the GARCH+DID hybrid method.

Ultrafast Synthesis of Graphene-Embedded Cyclodextrin-Metal-Organic Framework for Supramolecular Selective Absorbency and Supercapacitor Performance.

Limited by preparation time and ligand solubility, synthetic protocols for cyclodextrin-based metal-organic framework (CD-MOF), as well as subsequent derived materials with improved stability and properties, still remains a challenge. Herein, an ultrafast, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective microwave method is proposed, which is induced by graphene oxide (GO) to design CD-MOF/GOs. This applicable technique can control the crystal size of CD-MOFs from macro- to nanocrystals. CD-MOF/GOs are investigated as a new type of supramolecular adsorbent. It can selectively adsorb the dye molecule methylene green (MG) owing to the synergistic effect between the hydrophobic nanocavity of CDs, and the abundant O-containing functional groups of GO in the composites. Following high temperature calcination, the resulting N, S co-doped porous carbons derived from CD-MOF/GOs exhibit a high capacitance of 501 F g-1 at 0.5 A g-1 , as well as stable cycling stability with 90.1% capacity retention after 5000 cycles. The porous carbon exhibits good electrochemical performance due to its porous surface containing numerous electrochemically active sites after dye adsorption and carbonization. The design strategy by supramolecular incorporating a variety of active molecules into CD-MOFs optimizes the properties of their derived materials, furthering development toward the fabrication of zeitgeisty and high-performance energy storage devices.

Health Monitoring via Heart, Breath, and Korotkoff Sounds by Wearable Piezoelectret Patches.

Real-time monitoring of vital sounds from cardiovascular and respiratory systems via wearable devices together with modern data analysis schemes have the potential to reveal a variety of health conditions. Here, a flexible piezoelectret sensing system is developed to examine audio physiological signals in an unobtrusive manner, including heart, Korotkoff, and breath sounds. A customized electromagnetic shielding structure is designed for precision and high-fidelity measurements and several unique physiological sound patterns related to clinical applications are collected and analyzed. At the left chest location for the heart sounds, the S1 and S2 segments related to cardiac systole and diastole conditions, respectively, are successfully extracted and analyzed with good consistency from those of a commercial medical device. At the upper arm location, recorded Korotkoff sounds are used to characterize the systolic and diastolic blood pressure without a doctor or prior calibration. An Omron blood pressure monitor is used to validate these results. The breath sound detections from the lung/ trachea region are achieved a signal-to-noise ration comparable to those of a medical recorder, BIOPAC, with pattern classification capabilities for the diagnosis of viable respiratory diseases. Finally, a 6×6 sensor array is used to record heart sounds at different locations of the chest area simultaneously, including the Aortic, Pulmonic, Erb's point, Tricuspid, and Mitral regions in the form of mixed data resulting from the physiological activities of four heart valves. These signals are then separated by the independent component analysis algorithm and individual heart sound components from specific heart valves can reveal their instantaneous behaviors for the accurate diagnosis of heart diseases. The combination of these demonstrations illustrate a new class of wearable healthcare detection system for potentially advanced diagnostic schemes.

The moderating influence of perceived government information transparency on COVID-19 pandemic information adoption on social media systems.

Introduction: Social media systems are instrumental in the dissemination of timely COVID-19 pandemic information to the general population and contribute to the fight against the pandemic and waves of disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses the information adoption model (IAM) as the theoretical framework to examine the moderating influence of perceived government information transparency on the adoption of COVID-19 pandemic information on social media systems from the Ghanaian perspective. Government information transparency regarding the pandemic is crucial since any lack of transparency can negatively affect the global response to the pandemic by destroying trust (in government and public health authorities/institutions), intensifying fears, and causing destructive behaviors. Methods: It applies a convenient sampling technique to collect the responses from 516 participants by using self-administrated questionnaires. The data analysis was computed and analyzed with SPSS-22. The following statistical tests were conducted to test the hypotheses: descriptive statistics, scale reliability test, Pearson bivariate correlation, multiple linear regressions, hierarchical regression, and slope analysis. Results: The results indicate that information quality, information credibility, and information usefulness are significant drivers of COVID-19 pandemic information adoption on social media systems. Furthermore, the perceived government information transparency positively moderates the influence of information quality, information credibility, and information usefulness on the adoption of COVID-19 pandemic information on social media systems. Conclusion: The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings suggest the utilization of social media systems as an effective tool to support the continued fight against the current COVID-19 pandemic and its future role in national and global public health emergencies.

Rapid Synthesis of Oxygen-Enriched Porous Carbon through a Microwave Method and Its Application in Supercapacitors.

In this study, a strategy for the rapid and simple preparation of porous carbon (PC) using the microwave method was proposed. Oxygen-rich PC was synthesized by microwave irradiation in air, where potassium citrate and ZnCl2 served as the carbon source and microwave absorber, respectively. ZnCl2 achieves microwave absorption through dipole rotation, which uses ion conduction to convert heat energy in the reaction system. In addition, potassium salt etching improved the porosity of PCs. The PC prepared under optimal conditions had a large specific surface area (902 m2·g-1) and exhibited a significant specific capacitance (380 F·g-1) in the three-electrode system at 1 A·g-1. The energy and power densities of the assembled symmetrical supercapacitor device based on PC-375W-0.4 were 32.7 W·h·kg-1 and 0.65 kW·kg-1, respectively, at a current density of 1 A·g-1. Even after 5000 cycles at 5 A·g-1 current density, the excellent cycle life retained 94% of its initial capacitance.

Lead Vacancy Promotes Sodium Solubility to Achieve Ultra-High zT in Only Ternary Pb1- x Nax Te.

Chemical doping of sodium is an indispensable means to optimize thermoelectric properties of PbTe materials, while a bottleneck is that an aliovalent atom doping leads to spontaneous intrinsic defects in the PbTe matrix, resulting in low dopant solubility. Therefore, it is urgent to improve the doping efficiency of Na for maximizing optimization. Here, an amazing new insight that the intentionally introduced Pb vacancies can promote Na solubility in ternary Pb1- x Nax Te is reported. Experimental analysis and theoretical calculations provide new insights into the inherent mechanism of the enhancement of Na solubility. The Pb vacancies and the resultant more dissolved Na not only synergistically optimize the carrier concentration and further facilitate the band convergence, but also induce a large number of dense dislocations in the grains. Consequently, benefiting from the self-enhancement of Seebeck coefficient and the minimization of lattice thermal conductivity, an 18% growth is obtained for the figure of merit zT in vacancy-containing Pb0.95 Na0.04 Te sample, reaching maximum zTmax  ≈ 2.0 at 823 K, which achieves an ultra-high performance in only Na-doped ternary Pb1- x Nax Te materials. The strategy utilized here provides a novel route to optimize PbTe materials and represents an important step forward in manipulating thermoelectrics to improve dopant solubility.

Advances in Microfluidics for Single Red Blood Cell Analysis.

The utilizations of microfluidic chips for single RBC (red blood cell) studies have attracted great interests in recent years to filter, trap, analyze, and release single erythrocytes for various applications. Researchers in this field have highlighted the vast potential in developing micro devices for industrial and academia usages, including lab-on-a-chip and organ-on-a-chip systems. This article critically reviews the current state-of-the-art and recent advances of microfluidics for single RBC analyses, including integrated sensors and microfluidic platforms for microscopic/tomographic/spectroscopic single RBC analyses, trapping arrays (including bifurcating channels), dielectrophoretic and agglutination/aggregation studies, as well as clinical implications covering cancer, sepsis, prenatal, and Sickle Cell diseases. Microfluidics based RBC microarrays, sorting/counting and trapping techniques (including acoustic, dielectrophoretic, hydrodynamic, magnetic, and optical techniques) are also reviewed. Lastly, organs on chips, multi-organ chips, and drug discovery involving single RBC are described. The limitations and drawbacks of each technology are addressed and future prospects are discussed.

Fabrication and Performance Evaluation of Gelatin/Sodium Alginate Hydrogel-Based Macrophage and MSC Cell-Encapsulated Paracrine System with Potential Application in Wound Healing.

A gelatin/sodium alginate-based hydrogel microsphere has been fabricated after reaction condition optimization. Macrophages (RAW246.7) and adipose mesenchymal stem cells (ADSC) have been subsequently encapsulated in the microsphere in order to construct a 3D paracrine system for wound healing treatment. The synthesized microsphere displayed neglectable cytotoxicity toward both encapsulated cells until 10 days of incubation, indicating promising biocompatibility of the microsphere. A qRT-PCR and ELISA experiment revealed positive regulation of cytokines (Arg-1, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, bFGF, HGF, VEGF, TLR-1, and CXCL13) expression regarding macrophage phenotype transformation and anti-inflammatory performance both inside the microsphere and in the microenvironment of established in vitro inflammatory model. Additionally, positive tendency of cytokine expression benefit wound healing was more pronounced in a fabricated 3D paracrine system than that of a 2D paracrine system. Furthermore, the 3D paracrine system exhibited more efficiently in the wound healing rate compared to the 2D paracrine system in an in vitro model. These results suggested the current paracrine system could be potentially used as a robust wound healing dressing.

Self-Patterning of Highly Stretchable and Electrically Conductive Liquid Metal Conductors by Direct-Write Super-Hydrophilic Laser-Induced Graphene and Electroless Copper Plating.

Stretchable electrodes are desirable in flexible electronics for the transmission and acquisition of electrical signals, but their fabrication process remains challenging. Herein, we report an approach based on patterned liquid metals (LMs) as stretchable electrodes using a super-hydrophilic laser-induced graphene (SHL-LIG) process with electroless plating copper on a polyimide (PI) film. The LMs/SHL-LIG structures are then transferred from the PI film to an Ecoflex substrate as stretchable electrodes with an ultralow sheet resistance of 3.54 mΩ per square and excellent stretchability up to 480% in elongation. Furthermore, these electrodes show outstanding performances of only 8% electrical resistance changes under a tensile strain of 300%, and strong immunity to temperature and pressure changes. As demonstration examples, these electrodes are integrated with a stretchable strain sensing system and a smart magnetic soft robot toward practical applications.

Supramolecular Design Strategy of a Water-Soluble Diphenylguanidine-Cyclodextrin Polymer Inclusion Complex.

Diphenylguanidine (DPG) is a widely used secondary accelerator for the vulcanization of natural rubber (NR) latex. However, its low water solubility and high toxicity limit its use in high-end NR products. In this study, a water-soluble inclusion complex of DPG and a ß-cyclodextrin polymer (ß-CDP), termed DPG-ß-CDP, was prepared through supramolecular interactions and characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, 1H NMR, scanning electron microscopy, and UV-vis spectroscopy techniques. In comparison with that of DPG, the water solubility of DPG-ß-CDP was greatly enhanced because of the water-soluble host molecule. The molar ratio of DPG to the CD unit in ß-CDP was determined to be 1:1. At 25 °C, the binding constant of DPG-ß-CDP was found to be 9.2 × 105 L/mol by UV-vis spectroscopy. The proposed method for forming inclusion complexes with high potential for use as water-soluble vulcanization accelerators is promising.

Deep learning for non-parameterized MEMS structural design.

The geometric designs of MEMS devices can profoundly impact their physical properties and eventual performances. However, it is challenging for researchers to rationally consider a large number of possible designs, as it would be very time- and resource-consuming to study all these cases using numerical simulation. In this paper, we report the use of deep learning techniques to accelerate the MEMS design cycle by quickly and accurately predicting the physical properties of numerous design candidates with vastly different geometric features. Design candidates are represented in a nonparameterized, topologically unconstrained form using pixelated black-and-white images. After sufficient training, a deep neural network can quickly calculate the physical properties of interest with good accuracy without using conventional numerical tools such as finite element analysis. As an example, we apply our deep learning approach in the prediction of the modal frequency and quality factor of disk-shaped microscale resonators. With reasonable training, our deep learning neural network becomes a high-speed, high-accuracy calculator: it can identify the flexural mode frequency and the quality factor 4.6 × 103 times and 2.6 × 104 times faster, respectively, than conventional numerical simulation packages, with good accuracies of 98.8 ± 1.6% and 96.8 ± 3.1%, respectively. When simultaneously predicting the frequency and the quality factor, up to ~96.0% of the total computation time can be saved during the design process. The proposed technique can rapidly screen over thousands of design candidates and promotes experience-free and data-driven MEMS structural designs.

Successive Trajectory Privacy Protection with Semantics Prediction Differential Privacy.

The publication of trajectory data provides critical information for various location-based services, and it is critical to publish trajectory data safely while ensuring its availability. Differential privacy is a promising privacy protection technology for publishing trajectory data securely. Most of the existing trajectory privacy protection schemes do not take into account the user's preference for location and the influence of semantic location. Besides, differential privacy for trajectory protection still has the problem of balance between the privacy budget and service quality. In this paper, a semantics- and prediction-based differential privacy protection scheme for trajectory data is proposed. Firstly, trajectory data are transformed into a prefix tree structure to ensure that they satisfy differential privacy. Secondly, considering the influence of semantic location on trajectory, semantic sensitivity combined with location check-in frequency is used to calculate the sensitivity of each position in the trajectory. The privacy level of the position is classified by setting thresholds. Moreover, the corresponding privacy budget is allocated according to the location privacy level. Finally, a Markov chain is used to predict the attack probability of each position in the trajectory. On this basis, the allocation of the privacy budget is further adjusted and its utilization rate is improved. Thus, the problem of the balance between the privacy budget and service quality is solved. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme is able to ensure data availability while protecting data privacy.

Design Strategy for Vulcanization Accelerator of Diphenylguanidine/Cyclodextrin Inclusion Complex for Natural Rubber Latex Foam with Enhancing Performance.

Vulcanization is an essential process to obtain high-performance rubber products. Diphenylguanidine (DPG) is often used as the secondary accelerator in the vulcanization process of natural rubber (NR) latex. However, DPG would make NR latex emulsion exhibit gelation, resulting in the negative vulcanization efficiency. In addition, exposure to DPG might lead to some physiological diseases during the production process of DPG doped NR latex. Hydroxypropyl-ß-cyclodextrin (HP-ß-CD) with the hydrophobic interior and hydrophilic exterior has the advantages of good water solubility, high bioavailability, reliable stability, and low toxicity. In this study, the inclusion complex of diphenylguanidine-hydroxypropyl-ß-cyclodextrin (DPG-HP-ß-CD) is prepared by ball milling with a host-guest molar ratio of 1 : 1, which has also been applied to the foaming process of NR latex. The mechanical properties of DPG-HP-ß-CD inclusion complex/natural rubber latex foam (DPG-HP-ß-CD/NRLF) have been significantly improved, including the tensile strength, elongation at break, hardness, compression set, resilience, and antiaging performance. Further, the usage of DPG has been reduced, leading to the reduction of toxicity and environmental hazards.

Cu2Te Incorporation-Induced High Average Thermoelectric Performance in p-Type Bi2Te3 Alloys.

p-Type (Bi, Sb)2Te3 alloys are attractive materials for near-room-temperature thermoelectric applications due to their high atomic masses and large spin-orbit interactions. However, their narrow band gaps originating from spin-orbit interactions lead to bipolar excitation, thereby limiting average thermoelectrics within a local temperature region (300-400 K). Here, we introduce Cu2Te into the Bi0.3Sb1.7Te3 (BST) lattice to implement high thermoelectrics over a wide temperature range. The carrier concentration is synergistically modulated via Cu substitution and the evolution of intrinsic point defects (antisites and vacancies). Furthermore, the chain effect caused by Cu2Te incorporation in BST is reflected in the improvement of the weighted mobility µW, thereby enhancing the power factor in the whole temperature range. Extrinsic and intrinsic defects due to the incorporation of Cu2Te lead to a significant reduction in the lattice thermal conductivity κL, which is further demonstrated by Raman spectroscopy. Combining κL and µW, the quantity factor B increases from 0.5 to 1 with increasing Cu2Te content due to not only the reduction of κL but also a significant improvement in electrical properties. Eventually, a peak figure of merit (zT) of ∼1.15 at 423 K is achieved in BST-Cu2Te samples, and an average figure of merit (zTave) of ∼1.12 (350-500 K) surpasses other excellent p-type Bi2Te3-based thermoelectrics. Such a synergistic effect can facilitate near-room-temperature thermoelectric applications of Bi2Te3-based alloys and provide chances for the technology space in thermoelectrics.

Design strategies for adhesive hydrogels with natural antibacterial agents as wound dressings: Status and trends.

The wound healing process is usually susceptible to different bacterial infections due to the complex physiological environment, which significantly impairs wound healing. The topical application of antibiotics is not desirable for wound healing because the excessive use of antibiotics might cause bacteria to develop resistance and even the production of super bacteria, posing significant harm to human well-being. Wound dressings based on adhesive, biocompatible, and multi-functional hydrogels with natural antibacterial agents have been widely recognized as effective wound treatments. Hydrogels, which are three-dimensional (3D) polymer networks cross-linked through physical interactions or covalent bonds, are promising for topical antibacterial applications because of their excellent adhesion, antibacterial properties, and biocompatibility. To further improve the healing performance of hydrogels, various modification methods have been developed with superior biocompatibility, antibacterial activity, mechanical properties, and wound repair capabilities. This review summarizes hundreds of typical studies on various ingredients, preparation methods, antibacterial mechanisms, and internal antibacterial factors to understand adhesive hydrogels with natural antibacterial agents for wound dressings. Additionally, we provide prospects for adhesive and antibacterial hydrogels in biomedical applications and clinical research.