AURKB promotes tumorigenesis and carboplatin resistance by regulating the ERK pathway in neuroblastoma cells.

BACKGROUND: Previous research has revealed that activation or aberrant expression of kinases can lead to tumorigenesis of various cancers, including neuroblastoma (NB). Suppression of kinase expression can reduce drug resistance. We explored the potential role and mechanism of the aurora kinase B (AURKB) gene in the acquisition of carboplatin resistance in NB. METHODS: Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and qRT-PCR were used to explore the AURKB expression in NB patients. Subsequently, we structured Carboplatin-resistant NB cells. The potential biological functions of AURKB in carboplatin resistance were examined through knockdown of AURKB combined with CCK8, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, and western blot. Finally, overexpression of AURKB combined with ERK inhibitor (U0126) was carried out to explore the role of downstream signaling pathways. RESULTS: Overexpression of AURKB was closely correlated to poor prognosis in NB patients. In vitro, knockdown of AURKB could lead to a decline in IC50 value and restrain the invasion and the expression of MRP1 and Ki67, while promotes apoptosis in carboplatin-resistant cells (IMR-32-R and SK-N-AS-R). Additionally, AURKB overexpression could potentiate the invasion and the expression of MRP1 and Ki67, while suppresses apoptosis in SK-N-AS-R and IMR-32-R, whereas ERK inhibitor U0126 could reverse the phenomenon caused by AURKB overexpression. CONCLUSION: AURKB overexpression was strongly associated with poor prognosis and carboplatin resistant acquisition. Additionally, suppression of AURKB-ERK axis might be a potential therapy for carboplatin resistance in NB patients.

Looseness Identification of Track Fasteners Based on Ultra-Weak FBG Sensing Technology and Convolutional Autoencoder Network.

Changes in the geological environment and track wear, and deterioration of train bogies may lead to the looseness of subway fasteners. Identifying loose fasteners randomly distributed along the subway line is of great significance to avoid train derailment. This paper presents a convolutional autoencoder (CAE) network-based method for identifying fastener loosening features from the distributed vibration responses of track beds detected by an ultra-weak fiber Bragg grating sensing array. For an actual subway tunnel monitoring system, a field experiment used to collect the samples of fastener looseness was designed and implemented, where a crowbar was used to loosen or tighten three pairs of fasteners symmetrical on both sides of the track within the common track bed area and the moving load of a rail inspection vehicle was employed to generate 12 groups of distributed vibration signals of the track bed. The original vibration signals obtained from the on-site test were converted into two-dimensional images through the pseudo-Hilbert scan to facilitate the proposed two-stage CAE network with acceptable capabilities in feature extraction and recognition. The performance of the proposed methodology was quantified by accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score, and displayed intuitively by t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE). The raster scan and the Hilbert scan were selected to compare with the pseudo-Hilbert scan under a similar CAE network architecture. The identification performance results represented by the four quantification indicators (accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score) based on the scan strategy in this paper were at least 23.8%, 9.5%, 20.0%, and 21.1% higher than those of the two common scan methods. As well as that, the clustering visualization by t-SNE further verified that the proposed approach had a stronger ability in distinguishing the feature of fastener looseness.

Highly Efficient Dehydrogenation of Formic Acid over Binary Palladium-Phosphorous Alloy Nanoclusters on N-Doped Carbon.

Highly efficient dehydrogenation of formic acid (FA) at room temperature is a safe and suitable way to obtain hydrogen and promote the development of hydrogen storage application. Herein, the phosphorous-alloyed Pd nanoclusters loading on nitrogen-doped carbon (PdP/NC) were prepared and recognized as the highly active nanocatalysts for the dehydrogenation of FA. The PdP/NCs with controlled sizes and compositions were prepared by an easy self-limiting synthesis in an aqueous solution. The best PdP/NC exhibited a remarkable catalytic activity with a high turnover frequency of ∼3253.0 h-1 than the compared nanocatalysts for the dehydrogenation of FA at room temperature. The catalytic kinetics and durability studies showed that both the alloyed P in Pd crystals and doped N in the carbon support could effectively tailor the electronic states of the Pd surface and further optimize the adsorption energy of FA. Based on the Sabatier principle, the proper adsorption energy accelerated the dehydrogenation reaction and correspondingly enhanced the activity and durability. The work proposed a high-efficiency nanocatalyst for safe hydrogen generation and may be extended to create other similar nanocatalysts with different compositions and nanostructures.

Mesoporous Palladium-Boron-Sulfur Alloy Nanospheres for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution.

Ternary noble metal-metalloid-nonmetal PdBS alloy mesoporous nanospheres (MSs) with three-dimensional central-radial pore channels were prepared for an electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction. The synthesis was performed via precise control in the reduction and nucleation growth of ternary PdBS alloy MSs along confined cylinder mesophases assembled by amphiphilic dioctadecyldimethylammonium chloride. The resultant PdBS alloy MSs disclosed a remarkably improved electrocatalytic performance due to their structural and compositional synergies. This finding extended our knowledge on the rational design and targeted synthesis of novel noble metal-metalloid-nonmetal alloys with desired structures and morphologies for catalysis and other applications.

Ultrafine RhNi Nanocatalysts Confined in Hollow Mesoporous Carbons for a Highly Efficient Hydrogen Production from Ammonia Borane.

Ammonia borane (AB) has received growing research interest as one of the most promising hydrogen-storage carrier materials. However, fast dehydrogenation of AB is still limited by sluggish catalytic kinetics over current catalysts. Herein, highly uniform and ultrafine bimetallic RhNi alloy nanoclusters encapsulated within nitrogen-functionalized hollow mesoporous carbons (defined as RhNi@NHMCs) are developed as highly active, durable, and selective nanocatalysts for fast hydrolysis of AB under mild conditions. Remarkable activity with a high turnover frequency (TOF) of 1294 molH2 molRh-1 min-1 and low activation energy (Ea) of 18.6 kJ mol-1 is observed at room temperature, surpassing the previous Rh-based catalysts. The detailed mechanism studies reveal that when catalyzed by RhNi@NHMCs, a covalently stable O-H bond by H2O first cleaves in electropositive H* and further attacks B-H bond of AB to stoichiometrically produce 3 equiv of H2, whose catalytic kinetics is restricted by the oxidation cleavage of the O-H bond. Compositional and structural features of RhNi@NHMCs result in synergic electronic, functional, and support add-in advantages, kinetically accelerating the cleavage of the attacked H2O (O-H bond) and remarkably promoting the catalytic hydrolysis of AB accordingly. This present work represents a new and effective strategy for exploring high-performance supported metal-based alloy nanoclusters for (electro)catalysis.

Combining SDAE Network with Improved DTW Algorithm for Similarity Measure of Ultra-Weak FBG Vibration Responses in Underground Structures.

Quantifying structural status and locating structural anomalies are critical to tracking and safeguarding the safety of long-distance underground structures. Given the dynamic and distributed monitoring capabilities of an ultra-weak fiber Bragg grating (FBG) array, this paper proposes a method combining the stacked denoising autoencoder (SDAE) network and the improved dynamic time wrapping (DTW) algorithm to quantify the similarity of vibration responses. To obtain the dimensionality reduction features that were conducive to distance measurement, the silhouette coefficient was adopted to evaluate the training efficacy of the SDAE network under different hyperparameter settings. To measure the distance based on the improved DTW algorithm, the one nearest neighbor (1-NN) classifier was utilized to search the best constraint bandwidth. Moreover, the study proposed that the performance of different distance metrics used to quantify similarity can be evaluated through the 1-NN classifier. Based on two one-dimensional time-series datasets from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) archives, the detailed implementation process for similarity measure was illustrated. In terms of feature extraction and distance measure of UCR datasets, the proposed integrated approach of similarity measure showed improved performance over other existing algorithms. Finally, the field-vibration responses of the track bed in the subway detected by the ultra-weak FBG array were collected to determine the similarity characteristics of structural vibration among different monitoring zones. The quantitative results indicated that the proposed method can effectively quantify and distinguish the vibration similarity related to the physical location of structures.

Asymmetric Multimetallic Mesoporous Nanospheres.

Mesoporous colloidal nanospheres with tailorable asymmetric nanostructures and multimetallic elemental compositions are building blocks in next-generation heterogeneous catalysts. Introducing structural asymmetry into metallic mesoporous frameworks has never been demonstrated, but it would be beneficial because the asymmetry enables the spatial control of catalytic interfaces, facilitates the electron/mass transfer and assists in the removal of poisonous intermediates. Herein, we describe a simple bottom-up strategy to generate uniform sub-100 nm multimetallic asymmetric bowl-shaped mesoporous nanospheres (BMSs). This method uses a surfactant-directed "dual"-template to control the kinetics of metal reduction on the surface of a vesicle, forming mesoporous metal islands on its surface whose spherical cone angle can be precisely controlled. The asymmetric BMS mesostructures with different spherical cone angles (structural asymmetries) and elemental compositions are demonstrated. The high surface area and asymmetric nature of the metal surfaces are shown to enhance catalytic performance in the alcohol oxidation reactions. The findings described here offer novel and interesting opportunities for rational design and synthesis of hierarchically asymmetric nanostructures with desired functions for a wide range of applications.

[Cerebral Autoregulation in Patients with Unilateral Carotid Artery Stenosis].

Objective To investigate cerebral autoregulation(CA)in patients with severe unilateral carotid artery stenosis by near infrared spectroscopy. Methods Thirty patients who underwent general anesthesia in our hospital from January 2015 to February 2017 were enrolled in this study.The stenosis group included 15 patients with severe unilateral internal carotid artery stenosis,and the control group included 15 patients without carotid artery stenosis.Both groups were matched in sex and age.Cerebral tissue oxygenation index(TOI)and mean arterial pressure were recorded continuously under stable general anesthesia.The Pearson correlation coefficient(r)was calculated to judge the CA status. Results TOI was not significantly different between the stenosis side and the non-stenosis side in the stenosis group(66.52±6.50 vs. 65.23±4.50;t=0.93, P=0.368)or between the stenosis side in the stenosis group and the stenosis side in the control group(66.52±6.50 vs. 64.22±3.87;t=1.18, P=0.248).The r values of stenosis side and non-stenosis side in the stenosis group were 0.36±0.12 and 0.17±0.11,respectively,and the r values of the stenosis side in the stenosis group and the stenosis side of the control group were 0.36±0.12 and 0.13±0.08,respectively.In the stenosis group,5 patients had transient ischemic attack and 2 patients had a history of stroke within 3 months before operation.When an r value of 0.342 was used as the judgment point of CA abnormality,the sensitivity and specificity were 0.625 and 0.909,respectively. Conclusion Within the range of normal blood pressure fluctuation,cerebral blood flow is linked to blood pressure at the stenosis side in patients with severe unilateral carotid artery stenosis.

A Novel Monitoring Approach for Train Tracking and Incursion Detection in Underground Structures Based on Ultra-Weak FBG Sensing Array.

Tracking operating trains and identifying illegal intruders are two important and critical issues in subway safety management. One challenge is to find a reliable methodology that would enable these two needs to be addressed with high sensitivity and spatial resolution over a long-distance range. This paper proposes a novel monitoring approach based on distributed vibration, which is suitable for both train tracking and incursion detection. For an actual subway system, ultra-weak fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensing technology was applied to collect the distributed vibration responses from moving trains and intruders. The monitoring data from the subway operation stage were directly utilized to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed method for tracking trains. Moreover, a field simulation experiment was performed to validate the possibility of detecting human intrusion. The results showed that the diagonal signal pattern in the distributed vibration response can be used to reveal the location and speed of the moving loads (e.g., train and intruders). Other train parameters, such as length and the number of compartments, can also be obtained from the vibration responses through cross-correlation and envelope processing. Experimental results in the time and frequency domains within the selected intrusion range indicated that the proposed method can distinguish designed intrusion cases in terms of strength and mode.

ß-Aescin shows potent antiproliferative activity in osteosarcoma cells by inducing autophagy, ROS generation and mitochondrial membrane potential loss.

PURPOSE: Osteosarcoma is one of the frequent bone tumor affecting mainly children and is associated with considerable mortality. The limited availability of anticancer drugs and less efficacious treatment options have led to poor survival rates of patients with osteosarcoma. Therefore, there is need to look for more viable treatment options and against this backdrop, natural products may prove handy. Therefore the aim of the present study was to evaluate the anticancer activity of a natural product of plant origin, ß-aescin, against U2OS human osteosarcoma cells. METHODS: U205 human osteosarcoma cell line was used in this study. Antiproliferative activity was determined by MTT assay. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) and mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) were evaluated by flow cytometry. Autophagy was detected by monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining and immunofluorescence. Protein expression was examined by western blotting. RESULTS: The results indicated that ß-aescin showed significant anticancer activity against U2OS human osteosarcoma cells and exhibited an IC50 of 40 µM. ß-aescin treatment caused significant increase in ROS and decrease in the MMP. The anticancer effect of ß-aescin was found to be due mainly to autophagic cell death as evidenced from MDC staining and immunofluorescence. Moreover, ß-aescin caused significant increase in the expression levels of LC3- II protein in U2OS osteosarcoma cells in a time and dosedependent manner. CONCLUSION: Taken together we propose that ß-aescin may prove a lead molecule in the management of osteosarcoma and deserves further research efforts.

Enzymatic Mesoporous Metal Nanocavities for Concurrent Electrocatalysis of Nitrate to Ammonia Coupled with Polyethylene Terephthalate Upcycling.

Electrochemical upcycling of waste pollutants into high value-added fuels and/or chemicals is recognized as a green and sustainable solution that can address the resource utilization on earth. Despite great efforts, their progress has seriously been hindered by the lack of high-performance electrocatalysts. In this work, bimetallic PdCu mesoporous nanocavities (MCs) are reported as a new bifunctional enzymatic electrocatalyst that realizes concurrent electrocatalytic upcycling of nitrate wastewater and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic waste. Abundant metal mesopores and open nanocavities of PdCu MCs provide the enzymatic confinement of key intermediates for the deeper electroreduction of nitrate and accelerate the transport of reactants/products within/out of electrocatalyst, thus affording high ammonia Faradic efficiency (FENH3) of 96.6% and yield rate of 5.6 mg h-1 mg-1 at the cathode. Meanwhile, PdCu MC nanozymes trigger the selective electrooxidation of PET-derived ethylene glycol (EG) into glycolic acid (GA) and formic acid with high FEs of >90% by a facile regulation of potentials at the anode. Moreover, concurrent electrosynthesis of value-added NH3 and GA is disclosed in the two-electrode coupling system, further confirming the high efficiency of bifunctional PdCu MC nanozymes in producing value-added fuels and chemicals from waste pollutants in a sustainable manner.

2D PtRhPb Mesoporous Nanosheets with Surface-Clean Active Sites for Complete Ethanol Oxidation Electrocatalysis.

The development of active and selective metal electrocatalysts for complete ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) into desired C1 products is extremely promising for practical application of direct ethanol fuel cells. Despite some encouraging achievements, their activity and selectivity remain unsatisfactory. In this work, it is reported that 2D PtRhPb mesoporous nanosheets (MNSs) with anisotropic structure and surface-clean metal site perform perfectly for complete EOR electrocatalysis in both three-electrode and two-electrode systems. Different to the traditional routes, a selective etching strategy is developed to produce surface-clean mesopores while retaining parent anisotropy quasi-single-crystalline structure without the mesopore-forming surfactants. This method also allows the general synthesis of surface-clean mesoporous metals with other compositions and structures. When being performed for alkaline EOR electrocatalysis, the best PtRhPb MNSs deliver remarkably high activity (7.8 A mg-1) and superior C1 product selectivity (70% of Faradaic efficiency), both of which are much better than reported electrocatalysts. High performance is assigned to multiple structural and compositional synergies that not only stabilized key OHads intermediate by surface-clean mesopores but also separated the chemisorption of two carbons in ethanol by adjacent Pt and Rh sites, which facilitate the oxidation cleavage of stable C─C bond for complete EOR electrocatalysis.

Ablation effect indicated by impedance fall is correlated with contact force level during ablation for atrial fibrillation.

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies have validated the use of impedance fall as a measure of the effects of ablation. We investigated whether catheter-to-tissue contact force correlated with impedance fall during atrial fibrillation ablation. METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 394 ablation points from 35 patients who underwent atrial fibrillation ablation were selected and analyzed in terms of the presence of stable catheter contact in non-ablated areas in the left atrium. A fixed power output (30 W) was applied for 60 seconds. Contact force, impedance fall, and force-direction angle were retrieved and exported for off-line analysis. Qualified points were divided into 5 groups according to the level of contact force (1-5 g, 6-10 g, 11-15 g, 16-20 g, and >20 g). An acute impedance fall was observed in the first 10 seconds followed by a plateau in group I and by a further fall in the other groups. Group V showed a rise in impedance during the last 20 seconds of ablation. Levels of impedance fall at each time point were significantly different among all the groups (P<0.001) except between groups III and IV. There was a significant correlation between contact force and maximum impedance fall (rho = 0.54, P<0.01). Lesions with a force-direction angle of 0-30° had significantly lower contact force and maximum impedance fall than those with angles of 30-60° and 60-135° (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Under stable catheter conditions, contact force correlates with impedance fall during 60 seconds of ablation. Contact force exceeding 5 g produces greater impedance fall, which probably indicates adequate lesion formation. A contact force greater than 20 g may lead to late tissue overheating.

Mesoporous PdN Alloy Nanocubes for Efficient Electrochemical Nitrate Reduction to Ammonia.

Developing highly active and selective electrocatalysts for electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NITRR) is very important for synthesizing recyclable ammonia (NH3 ) in an economic and environmentally friendly manner. Despite some encouraging progress, their activity and selectivity have been remarkably slower than expected. In this manuscript, mesoporous palladium-nonmetal (meso-PdX) nanocubes (NCs) are reported as a new series of highly efficient electrocatalysts for selective nitrate reduction reaction (NITRR) electrocatalysis to NH3 . The samples feature uniformly alloyed compositions and highly penetrated mesopores with abundant highly active sites and optimized electronic structures. The best meso-PdN NCs hold an outstanding NITRR activity and selectivity with a remarkable NH3 Faradaic efficiency of 96.1% and a yield rate of 3760 µg h-1 mg-1 , suppressing the state-of-the-art electrocatalysts. Meanwhile, meso-PdN NCs are electrocatalytically stable, retaining well the activity and selectivity of NO3 - -to-NH3 electrocatalysis for more than 20 cycles. Detailed mechanism studies ascribe the superior performance to combined compositional and structural synergies of meso-PdN NCs that not only promote the adsorption (reactivity) of NO3 - and the desorption of NH3 but also increase the retention time of key intermediates for the deeper NITRR electrocatalysis to NH3 through an eight-electron pathway.

Application of periodontal tissue regeneration combined with orthodontics in oral prosthodontics and its influence and significance on the expressions of IL-1ß, TNF-α and IL-5 in periodontal tissue.

The aim is to investigate the application of periodontal tissue regeneration combined with orthodontics in oral restoration, and explore its effect and significance on the expressions of Interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-5 (IL-5) in periodontal tissue. The patients in observation group were treated with orthodontics combined with periodontal tissue regeneration, and the control group was treated with periodontal tissue regeneration. The total effective rate, adverse reactions, recurrence rate and treatment satisfaction were compared. The masticatory function, language function, aesthetic level, VAS score, quality of life, gingival index (GI), plaque index (PLI), periodontal pocket probing depth (PD), sulcus bleeding index (SBI), IL-1ß, TNF-α and IL-5 levels were compared. The recurrence rate of observation group was lower than control group, while the treatment satisfaction was higher after treatment. After treatment, the scores of masticatory, language, aesthetics, physiological, social, emotional, cognitive, and emotional functions and overall health score were higher than before treatment. After treatment, the scores of masticatory and language functions, aesthetics and quality of life of observation group were significantly higher than control group. After treatment, the VAS score, GI, PLI, SBI, PD, IL-1ß, TNF-α and IL-5 levels were lower than before. The VAS score, GI, PLI, SBI, PD levels, IL-1ß, TNF-α and IL-5 levels of observation group were lower after treatment. Orthodontics combined with periodontal tissue regeneration can help improve the periodontal condition of patients with periodontitis, reduce inflammatory response, improve the level of efficacy and overall safety, and further improve patients' quality of life and treatment satisfaction.

Creatine phosphate improves myocardial function and myocardial enzyme profile in children with myocarditis.

Myocarditis in children is more common in clinical practice, which can cause different degrees of cardiac function damage. We investigated the effects of creatine phosphate in the treatment of myocarditis in children. Children in the control group were treated with sodium fructose diphosphate, and children in the observation group were treated with creatine phosphate on the basis of the control group. After treatment, the myocardial enzyme profile and cardiac function of children in the observation group were better than the control group. The total effective rate of treatment for children in the observation group was higher than that in the control group. In conclusion, creatine phosphate could significantly improve myocardial function, improve myocardial enzyme profile and reduce myocardial damage in children with pediatric myocarditis and had a high safety of use, which was worthy of clinical promotion.

Micromechanics and Ultrasonic Propagation in Consolidated Earthen-Site Soils.

Although nondestructive ultrasonic technologies have been applied in laboratory and field tests in the field of heritage conservation, few studies have quantified the relationship among the real microstructures, micromechanical properties, and macroscopic acoustic responses of earthen-site soils. This paper develops a micromechanics-based multiscale model for quantitatively exploring the ultrasonic propagation characteristics of elastic waves in untreated and consolidated earthen-site soils. Scanning electron microscope images and image processing technology are integrated into the finite-element simulation. The effects of microstructure and wave features on the acoustic characteristics of soils are quantitatively investigated under pulsive loading. The simulation results of untreated and consolidated soils are efficiently compared to ultrasonic test data. It is demonstrated that the integration of microstructure image processing and multiscale modeling can predict the ultrasonic pulse velocity well, which improves the accuracy of laboratory testing and field monitoring and better serves the evaluation and implementation of engineering practice in the field of heritage conservation.

A general protocol for precise syntheses of ordered mesoporous intermetallic nanoparticles.

Intermetallic nanomaterials consist of two or more metals in a highly ordered atomic arrangement. There are many possible combinations and morphologies, and exploring their properties is an important research area. Their strict stoichiometry requirement and well-defined atom binding environment make intermetallic compounds an ideal research platform to rationally optimize catalytic performance. Making mesoporous intermetallic materials is a further advance; crystalline mesoporosity can expose more active sites, facilitate the mass and electron transfer, and provide the distinguished mesoporous nanoconfinement environment. In this Protocol, we describe how to prepare ordered mesoporous intermetallic nanomaterials with controlled compositions, morphologies/structures and phases by a general concurrent template strategy. In this approach, the concurrent template used is a hybrid of mesoporous platinum or palladium and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology-6 (KIT-6) (meso-Pt/KIT-6 or meso-Pd/KIT-6) that can be transformed by the second precursors under reducing conditions. The second precursor can either be a second metal or a metalloid/non-metal, e.g., boron/phosphorus. KIT-6 is a silica scaffold that is removed using NaOH or HF to form the mesoporous product. Procedures for example catalytic applications include the 3-nitrophenylacetylene semi-hydrogenation reaction, p-nitrophenol reduction reaction and electrochemical hydrogen evolution reaction. The synthetic strategy for preparation of ordered mesoporous intermetallic nanoparticles would take almost 5 d; the physical characterization by electron microscope, X-ray diffraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry takes ~2 days and the function characterization depends on the research question, but for catalysis it takes 1-5 h.

Growing recyclable and healable piezoelectric composites in 3D printed bioinspired structure for protective wearable sensor.

Bionic multifunctional structural materials that are lightweight, strong, and perceptible have shown great promise in sports, medicine, and aerospace applications. However, smart monitoring devices with integrated mechanical protection and piezoelectric induction are limited. Herein, we report a strategy to grow the recyclable and healable piezoelectric Rochelle salt crystals in 3D-printed cuttlebone-inspired structures to form a new composite for reinforcement smart monitoring devices. In addition to its remarkable mechanical and piezoelectric performance, the growth mechanisms, the recyclability, the sensitivity, and repairability of the 3D-printed Rochelle salt cuttlebone composite were studied. Furthermore, the versatility of composite has been explored and applied as smart sensor armor for football players and fall alarm knee pads, focusing on incorporated mechanical reinforcement and electrical self-sensing capabilities with data collection of the magnitude and distribution of impact forces, which offers new ideas for the design of next-generation smart monitoring electronics in sports, military, aerospace, and biomedical engineering.

Ventricular arrhythmias originating from the aortomitral continuity: an uncommon variant of left ventricular outflow tract tachycardia.

AIMS: Ventricular arrhythmias arising from the fibrous rings have been demonstrated, but knowledge about the aortomitral continuity (AMC) as a source of the arrhytmias is still limited. The objective is to describe the characteristics of ventricular arrhythmias originating from the AMC in patients without structural heart disease. METHODS AND RESULTS: Ten patients with ventricular tachycardia (VT) and/or premature ventricular contractions, who had been successfully treated by catheter ablation at the AMC beneath the aortic valve, were enrolled. Clinical data and electrocardiographic characteristics were analysed. Three of the 10 patients had previously registered episodes of supraventricular tachycardia and had undergone catheter ablation of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT). In four patients with anterior AMC location, early R/S wave transition was found in the precordial leads, with equal R and S amplitudes in V2, rS in V1, and R in V3. In six patients whose VT arose from the middle part of the AMC, we demonstrated a special ('rebound') transition pattern, with which equal R and S amplitudes occurred in V2, and high R waves in V1 and V3. In the anterior AMC location, the S/R ratios in leads V1 and V2 were >1 and statistically significantly higher than those located in the middle (V1: 1.59 vs. 0.23, P< 0.001; V2: 1.52 vs. 0.41, P< 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: We report a series of ventricular arrhythmias arising from the AMC with different R/S wave transition patterns in the precordial leads on the electrocardiogram. There may be a relationship between ventricular arrhythmias from AMC and AVNRT.