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Species in Lonicera genus are magic elves with excellent adaptability to varying environments with the aid of the divergent morphological and color pattern variation. Flowers undergo strong selection of both biotic and abiotic factors with species-specific morphology and color strategies. Take Lonicera nervosa (L. nervosa) and Lonicera tangutica (L. tangutica) as representative species, two sister taxa of Lonicera widespread in alpine to subalpine ecosystems in the same region, which present ideal subject in terms of evolution and adaptation of flowers to determine underlying ecological implications with close evolutionary relationship: (1) both species present differentiation in floral structure, corolla orientation and anther position; (2) L. nervosa has constant color while L. tangutica undergoes color change during florescence (3) Both species share the same pollinators, distribution and specimen coordinates show that the two species of Lonicera have similar distribution centers.

The aim of this study is to explore the correlation between hepatocyte proliferation and hepatitis B virus (HBV) clearance in young children with chronic HBV infection.We collected liver biopsy samples and clinical data corresponding to paediatric patients with chronic HBV infection. Ki-67 expression in liver tissues was evaluated by immunohistochemical staining.Eighteen patients were included and were divided into two groups based on different antiviral outcomes. Group I achieved hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) loss within 48 weeks. Group II did not develop seroconversion from hepatitis B e (HBe) antigen to anti-HBe after 48 weeks. There were 10 patients in Group I and 8 in Group II, respectively. Demographical data and baseline virological and biochemical characteristics in serum across Group I and Group II were not statistically different. Histologically, mean Ki-67 expression index in Group I was 15%, while the mean index in Group II was 5%. There was a significant difference between the two groups (p 0.01).High Ki-67 expression can contribute to viral clearance in young children with chronic HBV infection. This is the first confirmation of the association between hepatocyte proliferation and HBV clearance in vivo and has implications for novel therapeutic strategies against hepatitis B.

Vitamin DVDRThe gastric mucosa of VDROur data indicate that oral administration of VitD

Wilson's disease (WD) is an inherited disorder with perturbations in copper metabolism and can cause multiorgan damage. This study aims to explore cardiac findings mainly based on electrocardiography (ECG) in WD patients.We retrospectively enrolled adult patients who were diagnosed with WD between January 2011 and December 2020. Demographic and clinical data were collected and reevaluated.A total of 126 patients were included. There were 71 men and 55 women. The mean age was 27.2 years. Ninety-nine had hepatic presentation as the initial symptom and 27 had neuropsychiatric presentation as the initial symptom. Thirty-seven patients (29.4%) had cardiac manifestations. Of these patients, nine presented apparent cardiac symptoms (three with discontinuous chest tightness, three with dizziness, two with palpitation and one with atypical chest pain) and 28 had asymptomatic electrocardiography (ECG) abnormalities. Among the nine patients, four had second- or third-degree atrioventricular block, three had ST-segment change and two had ventricular tachycardia. ECG abnormalities in the 28 patients included increase in the width of the QRS complex in 8, atrial premature beats in 8, T-wave inversion in 5, P-wave inversion in 2, sinus bradycardia in 2, ST-segment change in 2, and coexistence of sinus bradycardia and T-wave inversion in 1. No statistical difference (P = 0.32) existed in the occurrence of ECG abnormalities between patients with hepatic presentation (27/99) and those with neuropsychiatric presentation (10/27).Cardiac involvement is not rare in adult WD patients. We suggest that cardiac evaluation should be routinely performed in the population.

There is a need for data to evaluate hepatitis B antigenemia in newborns of mothers with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. This study aims to investigate this.Newborns with positive serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and/or e antigen (HBeAg) were enrolled in the study.One hundred and one newborns from 98 HBV-infected mothers were included. Median maternal serum HBV DNA level was 23,200 IU/mL at delivery. Among the newborns, 48 were boys and 53 were girls. Mean birth weight was 3190.5 g. Twenty-one newborns had concurrent seropositive HBsAg and HBeAg, nine had seropositive HBsAg and seronegative HBeAg, and 71 had seronegative HBsAg and seropositive HBeAg. Eight newborns had detectable serum HBV DNA. In the follow-up, serum HBsAg and HBeAg in the newborns with undetectable HBV DNA became negative before 6 months of age. Two infants with detectable HBV DNA were diagnosed with immunoprophylaxis failure, one of whom developed active hepatitis at 3 months of age. Liver biopsy in this case showed significant interface hepatitis, fibrous septa formation, and expansion of portal areas with occasional bridging fibrosis.Concurrent HBV viremia and antigenemia in newborns of HBV-infected mothers requires attention, while antigenemia without viremia is often transient.

Biocompatible conductors are important components for soft and stretchable bioelectronics for digital healthcare, which have attracted extensive research efforts. Natural biopolymers, compared to other polymers, possess unique features that make them promising building blocks for biocompatible conductors, such as good biocompatibility/biodegradability, natural abundance, sustainability, and capability, can be processed into various functional formats with tunable material properties under benign conditions. In this comprehensive review, we focus on the recent advances in biocompatible conductors based on natural biopolymers for stretchable bioelectronics. We first give a brief introduction of conductive components and natural polymers and summarize the recent development of biocompatible conductors based on representative natural biopolymers including protein (silk), polypeptide (gelatin), and polysaccharide (alginate). The design and fabrication strategies for biocompatible conductors based on these representative biopolymers are outlined, after the chemical structure and properties of such biopolymers are presented. Then we discuss the electronic component-biopolymer interface and bioelectronic-biological tissue (skin and internal tissues) interface, highlight various fabrication techniques of biocompatible conductors for soft bioelectronics, and introduce representative examples of utilizing natural biopolymer-based biocompatible conductors for on-skin bioelectronics, textile-based wearable electronics, and implantable bioelectronics for digital healthcare. Finally, we present concluding remarks on challenges and prospects for designing natural biopolymers for soft biocompatible conductors and bioelectronics.

The functional support and advancement of our body while preserving inherent naturalness is one of the ultimate goals of bioengineering. Skin protection against infectious pathogens is an application that requires common and long-term wear without discomfort or distortion of the skin functions. However, no antimicrobial method has been introduced to prevent cross-infection while preserving intrinsic skin conditions. Here, we propose an antimicrobial skin protection platform copper nanomesh, which prevents cross-infectionmorphology, temperature change rate, and skin humidity. Copper nanomesh exhibited an inactivation rate of 99.99% for Escherichia coli bacteria and influenza virus A within 1 and 10 min, respectively. The thin and porous nanomesh allows for conformal coating on the fingertips, without significant interference with the rate of skin temperature change and humidity. Efficient cross-infection prevention and thermal transfer of copper nanomesh were demonstrated using direct on-hand experiments.

Long-term high-fidelity electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are critical for clinical and brain science applications. Conductive liquid-like or solid-like wet interface materials have been conventionally used as reliable interfaces for EEG recording. However, because of their simplex liquid or solid phase, electrodes with them as interfaces confront inadequate dynamic adaptability to hairy scalp, which makes it challenging to maintain stable and efficient contact of electrodes with scalp for long-term EEG recording. Here, we develop an on-skin paintable conductive biogel that shows temperature-controlled reversible fluid-gel transition to address the abovementioned limitation. This phase transition endows the biogel with unique on-skin paintability and in situ gelatinization, establishing conformal contact and dynamic compliance of electrodes with hairy scalp. The biogel is demonstrated as an efficient interface for long-term high-quality EEG recording over several days and for the high-performance capture and classification of evoked potentials. The paintable biogel offers a biocompatible and long-term reliable interface for EEG-based systems.

Background Diagnosis of rare diseases possesses a great challenge in pediatric hepatology because expert knowledge in the field is extremely insufficient. The study aims to explore new findings and collect diagnostic experience from pediatric rare liver diseases. Methods The large-sample case analysis study included pediatric patients who had liver-involved rare diseases. All cases underwent liver biopsy and/or gene sequencing. Results A total of 1158 pediatric patients were identified. Liver-based genetic diseases were most frequent (737 cases), followed by liver damages involved in extrahepatic or systemic disorders (151 cases) and cryptogenic hepatobilliary abnormalities (123 cases). Of note, diagnoses of 16 patients were re-evaluated according to genetic results combined with clinical pointers. In addition, 101 patients who underwent gene sequencing remained undiagnosed. Of them, 55 had negative genetic findings, 30 harbored mutations that failed to meet their typically pathogenic condition, and 16 had detected variants that were inconsistent with clinical pointers. Conclusions As a study involving known largest number of children with rare hepatobiliary disorders, it allows us to accumulate information (especially new findings) on the etiology and diagnosis of these disorders. The results can help to improve the diagnostic quality in the population. Impact Liver-based genetic diseases were most frequent in clinical profiles of pediatric rare liver diseases. Some novel variants in cases with genetic diseases (for example, two variants of c.3638G>T and c.1435G>C in a patient with progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis type 2) were identified. As a study involving known largest number of pediatric cases with rare hepatobiliary disorders, it allows us to accumulate information on the etiology and diagnosis of these disorders. The study can help to optimize the diagnostic process and significantly improve the diagnostic quality in the field of pediatric hepatology. Given that clinical variability often exists within rare genetic disease entities and not all rare disorders are genetic, clinicians should not over-depend on the genetic results in the diagnosis.

The emerging two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted explosive research interest, because of their unique properties and broad applications. However, the instability of typical 2D materials (...

High-order harmonic generation (HHG) driven by an abruptly autofocusing circular Airy vortex beam (CAiVB) is investigated here. The autofocusing property of the CAiVB gives HHG a low initial intensity. The slow divergence after focusing provides a long and sufficiently intense region, which is favorable for HHG. Here, we analyze the phase-matching mechanism in detail by plotting the spatial diagram of the coherence length, while simulating HHG driven by the CAiVB carrying distinct orbital angular momentum in a gas medium, as well as the harmonic distributions in the near and far fields.

Topographic factors are recognized as one of the key factors influencing vegetation distribution patterns, and studying the interactions between them can contribute to enhancing our understanding of future vegetation dynamics. We used the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (MODIS NDVI) image dataset (2000-2019), combined with Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and vegetation type data for trend analysis, and explored NDVI variation and its relationship with topographic factors through an integrated geographically-weighted model in the Three Parallel Rivers Region (TPRR) of southeastern Tibetan plateau in the past 20 years. Our results indicated that there was no significant increase of NDVI in the entire basin between 2000-2019, except for the Lancang River basin. In the year 2004, abrupt changes in NDVI were observed across the whole basin and each sub-basin. During 2000-2019, the mean NDVI value of the whole basin increased initially and then decreased with the increasing elevation. However, it changed marginally with changes in slope and aspect. We observed a distinct spatial heterogeneity in vegetation patterns with elevation, with vegetation in the southern regions showing higher NDVI than the north as a whole. Most of the vegetation cover was concentrated in the slope range of 8~35°, with no significant difference in distribution except flat-land. Furthermore, from 2000 to 2019, the vegetation cover in the TPRR showed an improving trend with the changes of various topographic factors, with the largest improvement area (36.10%) in the slightly improved category. The improved region was mainly distributed in the source area of the Jinsha River basin and the southern part of the whole basin. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) analysis showed that elevation was negatively correlated with NDVI trends in most areas, especially in the middle reaches of Nujiang River basin and Jinsha River basin, where the influence of slope and aspect on NDVI change was considerably much smaller than elevation.

Robust polymeric nanofilms can be used to construct gas-permeable soft electronics that can directly adhere to soft biological tissue for continuous, long-term biosignal monitoring. However, it is challenging to fabricate gas-permeable dry electrodes that can self-adhere to the human skin and retain their functionality for long-term (>1 d) health monitoring. We have succeeded in developing an extraordinarily robust, self-adhesive, gas-permeable nanofilm with a thickness of only 95 nm. It exhibits an extremely high skin adhesion energy per unit area of 159 μJ/cm(2). The nanofilm can self-adhere to the human skin by van der Waals forces alone, for 1 wk, without any adhesive materials or tapes. The nanofilm is ultradurable, and it can support liquids that are 79,000 times heavier than its own weight with a tensile stress of 7.82 MPa. The advantageous features of its thinness, self-adhesiveness, and robustness enable a gas-permeable dry electrode comprising of a nanofilm and an Au layer, resulting in a continuous monitoring of electrocardiogram signals with a high signal-to-noise ratio (34 dB) for 1 wk.

Summary Electronic textile (E-textile) has drawn tremendous attention with the development of flexible and wearable electronics in recent years. Herein, we report the direct printing of E-textile composed of core-sheath fibers by employing a 3D printer equipped with a coaxial spinneret. Customer-designed core-sheath fiber-based patterns can be printed on textile for various purposes. For demonstration, we used carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as a conductive core and silk fibroin (SF) as a dielectric sheath, and fabricated a CNTs@SF core-sheath fiber-based smart pattern, which was further used as a triboelectricity nanogenerator textile. The smart textile could harvest biomechanical energy from human motion and achieve a power density as high as 18 mW/m2. We also demonstrated the printing of a supercapacitor textile for energy storage. The direct printing of smart patterns on textile may contribute to the large-scale production of self-sustainable E-textile with integrated electronics.

Flexible and rechargeable Zn–air batteries, because of their high energy density, low cost, and environmental and human benignity, are one kind of the most attractive energy systems for future wear...

In this paper, aiming at the safety problem of automatic overtaking of self-driving vehicle at present, the automatic overtaking based on OBU and RSU is put forward, and it is realized by simulation and programming. First, build the vehicle, environment and road through the system, build the software to define the vehicle and road system, then set up the animation connection and control system, the real data collected by the test vehicle and the virtual data of the artificial system are jointly optimized to ensure the safety of overtaking. The experiment took full advantage of the cloud, the road, the OBU on the vehicle and the RSU on the side of the road by first importing a set of programs into the OBU of two different vehicles, and then importing another set of programs into the RSU, so that they can communicate with each other in real time on the road to ensure safe automatic overtaking, compared with the traditional manual car, automatic overtaking has a higher safety, comfort, the future has a very high market value.

This article provides a method for intelligent fire detection and extinguishing agent selection based on machine olfactory technology. The machine olfactory system is used for non-destructive detection of odor information in the event of a fire, obtain multi-dimensional feature data, and analyze and explore electronic The feasibility of using the nose to detect and classify fire odors, and establish the best detection and pattern recognition methods, and use the flavor database obtained by sorting to classify the molecular element categories to determine the type of fire extinguishing agent used. It solves the problem of not being able to choose which extinguishing agent and the wrong extinguishing agent in time when a fire occurs.

Pan Zhao,1 Yinying Lu,1 Chunya Wang,2 Limin Wang,3 Jinfeng Li,1 Meina Li4 1The Fifth Medical Center (formerly Beijing 302 Hospital), Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, 100039, People’s Republic of China; 2Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100029, People’s Republic of China; 3Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 102218, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Health Service, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, 200433, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Limin Wang; Pan Zhao Tel +86 10 56119097; +86 10 66933464Email cynthia0929@sina.com; doczhaopan@126.comIntroduction: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains the major challenge in the management of patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. To date, limited studies have been done on pediatric HBV-associated HCC specifically.Methods: Pediatric patients younger than 16 years with HBV-associated HCC were included in the study. HBV integration detection was performed using a high-throughput viral integration detection (HIVID) method.Results: Among the 13 included pediatric patients, boys predominated (10, 76.9%). The median age at diagnosis of HCC was 13 years and the youngest age was 6 years. Nine patients had initially seronegative hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) and 4 had seropositive HBeAg. All patients had cirrhosis and elevated alpha-fetoprotein. Splenomegaly was present in all patients. Intrahepatic HBsAg was not detected in any tumor tissues from 5 patients who underwent biopsy or excision, while it was positive in all matched non-tumor tissues. In the tumor and matched non-tumor tissues from 3 individuals, HBV integration was identified except in the neoplastic specimen from 1 patient. Integration into the reported genes associated with hepatocarcinogenesis was not found in the tumor tissues from the 3 patients.Discussion: Hypervigilance for HCC development is required in HBeAg-negative cirrhotic children. The findings based on the immunohistochemical and genetic results expand the knowledge of pediatric HCC development.Keywords: hepatitis B virus, hepatocellular carcinoma, children

Deep learning, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies are constantly being integrated into people's daily lives. Even small vending machines that can be seen everywhere in life have begun to use facial payment methods. The detection and recognition of face images is no longer unattainable, but the analysis and recognition of face information and characteristics (gender, age, race, etc.) is still not fully mature, in order to improve the accuracy of face information recognition In this paper, a face information recognition model is designed. The feature extraction part uses an eight-layer convolutional neural network, and then uses two fully connected modules as the classifiers for gender recognition and age recognition. The experimental results show that the model uses the advantages of the convolutional neural network so that the model can predict the gender and age of the face more accurately. Keywords: Convolutional neural network, Face recognition, Gender recognition, Age recognition, Journal of Information and Communication Engineering (JICE)

In recent years, with the development of the national economy and the improvement of living standards, the output and consumption of seafood in my country have increased. However, the new crown virus that broke out in early 2020 is very easy to survive in humid and cold environments, so seafood has become Its best food carrier. Both the government and consumers are paying more and more attention to the inspection of the hygienic quality and safety of seafood. Freshness is an important indicator of the quality of seafood products, and it is very important to the final quality of the products. This paper selects fresh sea crabs that have just been salvaged from the sea and sea crabs stored under refrigerated conditions as experimental materials, uses an electronic nose to detect the freshness of sea crabs, and analyzes and explores the use of electronic nose for sea crab freshness through a combination of simulated annealing and genetic algorithms The feasibility of degree detection, and the establishment of the best detection and pattern recognition methods, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the freshness of sea crabs.

In The common olfactory system odor recognition is processed by the electronic nose collecting sensor data, but the odor data collection of substances is easily affected by the environment and the processing is complicated, which is prone to deviation. This paper proposes a method based on big data analysis. According to the different chemical structure characteristics of different odor substances, the BP neural network is used to build a model to classify and recognize similar odors, and compare it with the traditional PCA+LDA recognition method. The results show that the establishment of a similar odor recognition model can accurately classify substances with similar odors, and the BP neural network algorithm is used to identify different substances with a higher rate of odor recognition. This method is stable and simple, and can provide different ideas for odor identification.

with the rapid development of big data technology, text classification plays an important role in practical application, its applications span a wide range of activities such as sentiment analysis, spam detection, etc. Traditionally, we model the relationship between document and label. However, in many scenarios, document have specific relationship with corresponding title. Inspired by this, a text classification model based on title Semantic Information is proposed in this study. In our model, long short-term memory(LSTM)is used to learn title embedding, document embedding is obtained by using promoted LSTM(TS-LSTM) which take into account the title information. The experimental results on the standard text classification datasets show that its performance is better than the existing state-of-the-art text classification algorithms.

Deep learning, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies are constantly being integrated into people's daily lives. Even small vending machines that can be seen everywhere in life have begun to use facial payment methods. The detection and recognition of face images is no longer unattainable, but the analysis and recognition of face information and characteristics (gender, age, race, etc.) is still not fully mature, in order to improve the accuracy of face information recognition In this paper, a face information recognition model is designed. The feature extraction part uses an eight-layer convolutional neural network, and then uses two fully connected modules as the classifiers for gender recognition and age recognition. The experimental results show that the model uses the advantages of the convolutional neural network so that the model can predict the gender and age of the face more accurately.

Background To elucidate the influence and molecular mechanism of microRNA-29c-3p (miR-29c-3p) on cell functions of cardiac fibroblasts. Methods Rat primary cardiac fibroblasts were induced with high-level glucose (HG), followed by determination of miR-29c-3p and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) levels. The regulatory effects of miR-29c-3p and STAT3 (AG490) on proliferative and migratory potentials in HG-induced cardiac fibroblasts were examined by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) and transwell assay, respectively. The interaction between miR-29c-3p and STAT3 was assessed by bioinformatics analysis and dual-luciferase reporter assay. Results MiR-29c-3p was downregulated, and STAT3 was upregulated in HG-induced cardiac fibroblasts. HG induction stimulated proliferative and migratory potentials in cardiac fibroblasts, which were attenuated by overexpression of miR-29c-3p. STAT3 was the target gene binding miR-29c-3p. Application of AG490, the STAT3 inhibitor, was able to reverse the promoted proliferative and migratory potentials in HG-induced cardiac fibroblasts with miR-29c-3p knockdown. Conclusions MiR-29c-3p weakens the over-proliferative and over-migratory potentials in HG-induced cardiac fibroblasts via inactivating the STAT3 signaling.

Protective clothing plays a vital role in safety and security. Traditional protective clothing can protect the human body from physical injury. It is highly desirable to integrate modern wearable electronics into a traditional protection suit to endow it with versatile smart functions. However, it is still challenging to integrate electronics into clothing through a practical approach while keeping the intrinsic flexibility and breathability of textiles. In this work, we realized the direct writing of laser-induced graphene (LIG) on a Kevlar textile in air and demonstrated the applications of the as-prepared Janus graphene/Kevlar textile in intelligent protective clothing. The C═O and N-C bonds in Kevlar were broken, and the remaining carbon atoms were reorganized into graphene, which can be ascribed to a photothermal effect induced by the laser irradiation. Proof-of-concept devices based on the prepared graphene/Kevlar textile, including flexible Zn-air batteries, electrocardiogram electrodes, and NO2 sensors, were demonstrated. Further, we fabricated self-powered and intelligent protective clothing based on the graphene/Kevlar textile. The laser-induced direct writing of graphene from commercial textiles in air conditions provides a versatile and rapid route for the fabrication of textile electronics.

Ink-based processes, which enable scalable fabrication of flexible devices based on nanomaterials, are one of the practical approaches for the production of wearable electronics. However, carbon nanotubes (CNTs), which possess great potential for flexible electronics, are facing challenges for use in inks due to their low dispersity in most solvents and suspicious cytotoxicity. Here, a stable and biocompatible CNT ink, which is stabilized by sustainable silk sericin and free from any artificial chemicals, is reported. The ink shows stability up to months, which can be attributed to the formation of sericin-CNT (SSCNT) hybrid through non-covalent interactions. It is demonstrated that the SSCNT ink can be used for fabricating versatile circuits on textile, paper, and plastic films through various techniques. As proofs of concept, electrocardiogram electrodes, breath sensors, and electrochemical sensors for monitoring human health and activity are fabricated, demonstrating the great potential of the SSCNT ink for smart wearables.

Stretchable and flexible supercapacitors are highly desired due to their many potential applications in wearable devices. However, it is challenging to fabricate supercapacitors that can withstand large tensile strain while maintaining high performance. Herein, we report an ultra-stretchable wire-shaped supercapacitor based on carbon nanotube@graphene@MnO2 fibers wound around a superelastic core fiber. The supercapacitor can sustain tensile strain up to 850%, which is the highest value reported for this type of device to date, while maintaining stable electrochemical performance. The energy density of the supercapacitor is 3.37 mWh·cm–3 at a power density of 54.0 mW·cm–3. The results show that 82% of the specific capacitance is retained after 1,000 stretch–release cycles with strains of 700%, demonstrating the superior durability of the elastic supercapacitor and showcasing its potential application in ultra-stretchable flexible electronics.

Flexible skin-mimicking electronics are highly desired for development of smart human-machine interfaces and wearable human-health monitors. Human skins are able to simultaneously detect different information, such as touch, friction, temperature, and humidity. However, due to the mutual interferences of sensors with different functions, it is still a big challenge to fabricate multifunctional electronic skins (E-skins). Herein, a combo temperature-pressure E-skin is reported through assembling a temperature sensor and a strain sensor in both of which flexible and transparent silk-nanofiber-derived carbon fiber membranes (SilkCFM) are used as the active material. The temperature sensor presents high temperature sensitivity of 0.81% per centigrade. The strain sensor shows an extremely high sensitivity with a gauge factor of ∼8350 at 50% strain, enabling the detection of subtle pressure stimuli that induce local strain. Importantly, the structure of the SilkCFM in each sensor is designed to be passive to other stimuli, enabling the integrated E-skin to precisely detect temperature and pressure at the same time. It is demonstrated that the E-skin can detect and distinguish exhaling, finger pressing, and spatial distribution of temperature and pressure, which cannot be realized using single mode sensors. The remarkable performance of the silk-based combo temperature-pressure sensor, together with its green and large-scalable fabrication process, promising its applications in human-machine interfaces and soft electronics.

Flexible and wearable sensors have drawn extensive concern due to their wide potential applications in wearable electronics and intelligent robots. Flexible sensors with high sensitivity, good flexibility, and excellent stability are highly desirable for monitoring human biomedical signals, movements and the environment. The active materials and the device structures are the keys to achieve high performance. Carbon nanomaterials, including carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, carbon black and carbon nanofibers, are one of the most commonly used active materials for the fabrication of high-performance flexible sensors due to their superior properties. Especially, CNTs and graphene can be assembled into various multi-scaled macroscopic structures, including one dimensional fibers, two dimensional films and three dimensional architectures, endowing the facile design of flexible sensors for wide practical applications. In addition, the hybrid structured carbon materials derived from natural bio-materials also showed a bright prospect for applications in flexible sensors. This review provides a comprehensive presentation of flexible and wearable sensors based on the above various carbon materials. Following a brief introduction of flexible sensors and carbon materials, the fundamentals of typical flexible sensors, such as strain sensors, pressure sensors, temperature sensors and humidity sensors, are presented. Then, the latest progress of flexible sensors based on carbon materials, including the fabrication processes, performance and applications, are summarized. Finally, the remaining major challenges of carbon-based flexible electronics are discussed and the future research directions are proposed.

The unique structure of a vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) array makes it behave most similarly to a blackbody. It is reported that the optical absorptivity of an extremely black VACNT array is about 0.98-0.99 over a large spectral range of 200 nm-200 μm, inspiring us to explore the performance of VACNT arrays in solar energy harvesting. In this work, we report the highly efficient steam generation simply by laminating a layer of VACNT array on the surface of water to harvest solar energy. It is found that under solar illumination the temperature of upper water can significantly increase with obvious water steam generated, indicating the efficient solar energy harvesting and local temperature rise by the thin layer of VACNTs. We found that the evaporation rate of water assisted by VACNT arrays is 10 times that of bare water, which is the highest ratio for solar-thermal-steam generation ever reported. Remarkably, the solar thermal conversion efficiency reached 90%. The excellent performance could be ascribed to the strong optical absorption and local temperature rise induced by the VACNT layer, as well as the ultrafast water transport through the VACNT layer due to the frictionless wall of CNTs. Based on the above, we further demonstrated the application of VACNT arrays in solar-driven desalination.

With the rapid development of wearable devices, flexible pressure sensors with high sensitivity and wide workable range are highly desired. In nature, there are many well-adapted structures developed through natural selection, which inspired us for the design of biomimetic materials or devices. Particularly, human fingertip skin, where many epidermal ridges amplify external stimulations, might be a good example to imitate for highly sensitive sensors. In this work, based on unique chemical vapor depositions (CVD)-grown 3D graphene films that mimic the morphology of fingertip skin, we fabricated flexible pressure sensing membranes, which simultaneously showed a high sensitivity of 110 (kPa)−1 for 0–0.2 kPa and wide workable pressure range (up to 75 kPa). Hierarchical structured PDMS films molded from natural leaves were used as the supporting elastic films for the graphene films, which also contribute to the superior performance of the pressure sensors. The pressure sensor showed a low detection limit (0.2 Pa), fast response (< 30 ms), and excellent stability for more than 10,000 loading/unloading cycles. Based on these features, we demonstrated its applications in detecting tiny objects, sound, and human physiological signals, showing its potential in wearable electronics for health monitoring and human/machine interfaces.