Implantable and in-vivo shape-recoverable nanocellulose-hyaluronic acid composite hydrogel.

Hydrogels have been used as a filling material in medical cosmetology, but current injection hydrogels have poor shaping ability due to its fluidity, while the hydrogels with fixed shape are easy to cause large wound size, resulting in rarely used in clinical practice. An implantable and in-vivo shape-recoverable hyaluronic acid (HA) based hydrogel is developed for tissue filling. In this work, complexes were made by hydrogen bonding between two natural polysaccharides: HA and TEMPO-oxidation cellulose nano-fiber. The elastic modulus of the HA/TOCN physical crosslinking hydrogel was maintained at 2500 G' in Pa, while, when ethylene glycol diglycidyl ether was introduced in the hydrogel, the elastic modulus could reach 60,000 G' in Pa. The volume of shrunk hydrogel reduced 80 ± 6 % of initial state, importantly, it can recover the shape in vivo inducing by extracellular moisture environment. Facts have proved that these shape recovery hydrogels were non-toxic to mammalian cells.

Assessing psychological factors on farmers' intention to apply organic manure: an application of extended theory of planned behavior.

Different from the previous studies on social and economic impacts, this study focused on the assessment of psychological factors on farmers' application of organic manure. We explored the psychological evaluation based on the extended theory of planned behavior (TPB), which consists of attitude (AT), perceived behavior control (PBC), subjective norm, moral norm (MN), environmental risk perception (ERP), and perceived policy effectiveness (PPE). Further, we explored the moderating effects of PPE. We studied 235 tea growers in China to verify the model and analyzed the psychological factors in their decisions regarding organic manure application. The results showed that by incorporating psychological factors, such as MN, ERP, and PPE, the extended TPB's ability to explain farmers' intention to apply organic manure increased by 6%. The results also confirmed that psychological factors (ERP, PPE, AT, PBC, and MN) positively influenced farmers' inclination to use organic manure. Finally, PPE was found to have a negative mediating effect on attitude and intention. Given the influence of these psychological factors (PBC, ERP, and PPE), we discovered that increasing the policy publicity, raising the policy subsidy, and promoting the popularization of sustainable agriculture and environmental awareness, are essential to encourage farmers' utilization of organic manure.

Suppression of impurity magnetization by the saddle points.

We study the localized magnetic states of an impurity in the semi-Dirac-like system where the saddle point (SP) is present. It is found that with increasing the saddle point energy (SPE), the impurity magnetization region diminishes greatly, and reaches a minimum at the SPE equal to the impurity energy. When continuing to increase the SPE, the impurity magnetization region rapidly becomes large. Correspondingly, an explicit decrease with the SPE close to the impurity energy is also observed in the magnetic moment of the impurity. This suppression behavior for the magnetization of the impurity can be understood from the SP induced mitigation of asymmetry on the density of state at impurity energy. In contrast, when the SP vanishes, due to the opening of the gap, the magnetic region exhibits a monotonous decay when the conduction band edge goes up through the impurity energy. The combined effect of the SP and the Coulomb interaction at the impurity on the local magnetization is also investigated.

A honeycomb-like hydrogel in-situ constructed by Streptococcus zooepidemicus and TOCN for the proliferation of bacteria.

Cellulose, as a significant natural carbohydrate polymer, can be transformed into polysaccharide nanofiber. A novel in-situ hydrogel was constructed using TEMPO-oxidized cellulose nanofiber (TOCN) and metabolites of Streptococcus zooepidemicus, such as hyaluronic acid (HA) and lactic acid (LA). In the presence of LA, HA underwent a gelation process, and S. zooepidemicus was embedded in the skeleton of the hydrogel network. This in-situ hydrogel accommodated the bacteria by providing a suitable environment for their growth and protecting them from external stress. The elastic modulus of the in-situ hydrogel was maintained at 4000 G' in Pa, thus ensuring that it was protected from damage even after being immersed in the medium. The hydrogel continued to show normal fermentation activities upon being transferred into the seed or fermentation medium. These findings indicated that the in-situ hydrogel could act as a wellspring that spills out the scattered bacteria.