Intelligent, Flexible Artificial Throats with Sound Emitting, Detecting, and Recognizing Abilities.

In recent years, there has been a notable rise in the number of patients afflicted with laryngeal diseases, including cancer, trauma, and other ailments leading to voice loss. Currently, the market is witnessing a pressing demand for medical and healthcare products designed to assist individuals with voice defects, prompting the invention of the artificial throat (AT). This user-friendly device eliminates the need for complex procedures like phonation reconstruction surgery. Therefore, in this review, we will initially give a careful introduction to the intelligent AT, which can act not only as a sound sensor but also as a thin-film sound emitter. Then, the sensing principle to detect sound will be discussed carefully, including capacitive, piezoelectric, electromagnetic, and piezoresistive components employed in the realm of sound sensing. Following this, the development of thermoacoustic theory and different materials made of sound emitters will also be analyzed. After that, various algorithms utilized by the intelligent AT for speech pattern recognition will be reviewed, including some classical algorithms and neural network algorithms. Finally, the outlook, challenge, and conclusion of the intelligent AT will be stated. The intelligent AT presents clear advantages for patients with voice impairments, demonstrating significant social values.

[An in vitro study of specific antitumor immunity induced by dendritic cells pulsed with tumor cell lysates from patients with hepatocellular carcinoma].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate T cell-mediated antitumor effects of dendritic cells (DCs) pulsed with tumor lysates in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in vitro. METHODS: DCs isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells of HCC patients were cultured and proliferated in vitro by using recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF) and interleukin-4 (rhIL-4), and then were pulsed with autologous hepatoma cell lysates. The phenotypes of the DCs were assayed by flow cytometry. The concentration of IFN-gamma and IL-12 were measured in culture supernatants by ELISA. The ability of DCs pulsed with hepatoma cell lysates to stimulate proliferation of autologous T lymphocytes (CTL) was tested by thymidine incorporation method. The specific cytolytic activity of CTL was assessed by MTT method. RESULTS: The hepatoma cell lysates pulsed DC vaccines led to up-regulation of CD1a, CD40, CD86 and HLA-DR. Concentrations of IFN-gamma and IL-12 were increased more in the hepatoma cell lysate pulsed DCs group than those in the unpulsed DCs group, the hepatoma cell lysate group and control group. The proliferation of T-cells was markedly enhanced in the hepatoma cell lysate pulsed DCs group than that in the others. The CTL stimulated by the hepatoma cell lysate pulsed DCs had much higher cytotoxicity to autologous hepatoma cells (killing rate: 81.72%+/-9.49%), as compared with HepG2 and HNE-1 tumor cells (killing rate: 49.37%+/-11.21% and 17.14%+/-5.65%, respectively). CONCLUSION: The hepatoma cell lysate pulsed DC vaccines can induce an effective and specific anti-hepatoma effect.