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Abstract Gesture recognition utilizing flexible strain sensors is a highly valuable technology widely applied in human–machine interfaces. However, achieving rapid detection of subtle motions and timely processing of dynamic signals remain a challenge for sensors. Here, highly resilient and durable ionogels are developed by introducing micro‐scale incompatible phases in macroscopic homogeneous polymeric network. The compatible network disperses in conductive ionic liquid to form highly resilient and stretchable skeleton, while incompatible phase forms hydrogen bonds to dissipate energy thus strengthening the ionogels. The ionogels‐derived strain sensors show highly sensitivity, fast response time (5000 cycles), allowing for precise monitoring of human motions. More importantly, a self‐adaptive recognition program empowered by deep‐learning algorithms is designed to compensate for sensors, creating a comprehensive system capable of dynamic gesture recognition. This system can comprehensively analyze both the temporal and spatial features of sensor data, enabling deeper understanding of the dynamic process underlying gestures. The system accurately classifies 10 hand gestures across five participants with impressive accuracy of 93.66%. Moreover, it maintains robust recognition performance without the need for further training even when different sensors or subjects are involved. This technological breakthrough paves the way for intuitive and seamless interaction between humans and machines, presenting significant opportunities in diverse applications, such as human–robot interaction, virtual reality control, and assistive devices for the disabled individuals.

As the most widely used polybrominated diphenyl ether, BDE-209 is commonly used in polymer-based commercial and household products. Due to its unique physicochemical properties, BDE-209 is ubiquitous in a variety of environmental compartments and can be exposed to organisms in various ways and cause toxic effects. The present review outlines the current state of knowledge on the occurrence of BDE-209 in the environment, influencing factors, toxicity, and degradation. BDE-209 has been detected in various environmental matrices including air, soil, water, and sediment. Additionally, environmental factors such as organic matter, total suspended particulate, hydrodynamic, wind, and temperature affecting BDE-209 are specifically discussed. Toxicity studies suggest BDE-209 may cause systemic toxic effects on living organisms, reproductive toxicity, embryo-fetal toxicity, genetic toxicity, endocrine toxicity, neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, and developmental toxicity, or even be carcinogenic. BDE-209 has toxic effects on organisms mainly through epigenetic regulation and induction of oxidative stress. Evidence regarding the degradation of BDE-209, including biodegradation, photodegradation, Fenton degradation, zero-valent iron degradation, chemical oxidative degradation, and microwave radiation degradation is summarized. This review may contribute to assessing the environmental risks of BDE-209 to help develop rational management plans.

The erratic and random characteristics of wind power and wind-thermal replacement significantly degrade the performance of AGC in an interconnected, multi-source power system. For the lack of cooperation between wind power and thermal plants in AGC of interconnected power system as well as the heavy computational burden and inflexible information interaction of centralized AGC architecture, a novel coordinated AGC control strategy for an interconnected multi-source power system based on distributed model predictive control (DMPC) algorithm is proposed in this research. Under the DMPC architecture, the dimension of centralized AGC problem is reduced in each subsystem, and the overall AGC performance can be enhanced through inter-area communication between subsystems. In the meantime, based on the proposed coordinated control strategy, the active AGC response capability of wind farms and energy storage in the interconnected system is exploited to realize the dynamic cooperation between the wind generation and thermal AGC plants, and the overall AGC control performance can be further improved. In this paper, local DMPC controllers are deployed in each subsystem to address the drawbacks of a centralized control architecture by exchanging forecast and state measurement information with neighboring subsystems. In addition, considering the current operating status of multiple kinds of energy sources with different features, a fuzzy-based coordinated control strategy is designed for the purpose of dynamically allocating the AGC demand inside the wind-storage system, and the wind farm’s reliability for AGC response in diverse operation scenarios can be guaranteed. Finally, comparative analysis with existing works has been conducted on a three-area power system, and numerical results demonstrate that the proposed coordinated AGC control strategy has better performance in AGC performance and the dynamic cooperation can be achieved between wind power and thermal plants in AGC response through the designed wind-storage system and coordinated DMPC AGC control strategy.

Flexible bioelectronics exhibit promising potential for health monitoring, owing to their soft and stretchable nature. However, the simultaneous improvement of mechanical properties, biocompatibility, and signal-to-noise ratio of these devices for health monitoring poses a significant challenge. Hydrogels, with their loose three-dimensional network structure that encapsulates massive amounts of water, are a potential solution. Through the incorporation of polymers or conductive fillers into the hydrogel and special preparation methods, hydrogels can achieve a unification of excellent properties such as mechanical properties, self-healing, adhesion, and biocompatibility, making them a hot material for health monitoring bioelectronics. Currently, hydrogel-based bioelectronics can be used to fabricate flexible bioelectronics for motion, bioelectric, and biomolecular acquisition for human health monitoring and further clinical applications. This review focuses on materials, devices, and applications for hydrogel-based bioelectronics. The main material properties and research advances of hydrogels for health monitoring bioelectronics are summarized firstly. Then, we provide a focused discussion on hydrogel-based bioelectronics for health monitoring, which are classified as skin-attachable, implantable, or semi-implantable depending on the depth of penetration and the location of the device. Finally, future challenges and opportunities of hydrogel-based bioelectronics for health monitoring are envisioned.

For room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials to reach their potential for optical applications, new materials with improved performance must be realized. Here, the authors report multi-confined carbon dots as high stability RTP materials with long afterglow lifetime & high efficiency.

Highly sensitive detection of cancer cells with high signal-to-background ratio (SBR) is still urgently needed. Here, a self-assembling activatable probe (SAAP) based on split aptamers was developed to meet this purpose. The SAAP is formed with quenched fluorescence; only when target cells are present would the split aptamers self-assemble together and thus activate fluorescence by intramolecular and intermolecular fluorescence quenching strategies. As proof of concept, a split aptamer pair stemming from an intact aptamer, ZY11, developed by our lab was selected to construct SAAP. Owing to the design of self-assembly and activation strategy, the SBR of our approach could be raised to ~40 and achieved a very low detection limit of seven target 7721 cells in 100 µL of binding buffer. Meanwhile, one-step detection of target cells was achieved within 15 min without any washing steps and pretreatment, which shows potential for point-of-care detection. Moreover, we succeeded in the specific recognition of target cells in 50% human serum and mixed cell samples, which indicated this strategy had great advantages in detection in complex biological samples. In addition, dual-signal detection was also successfully implemented, which may be helpful for accurate detection of target cells. Therefore, this rapid, facile, specific, and highly sensitive detection method for cancer cells may provide convenience in cancer research and medical diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shell/core structure of CDs@CaF2 nanocomposites (CCNCs) were prepared by assembling fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) inside the inorganic CaF2 substrates using co-precipitation interaction. CDs endow CaF2 with properties of good UV-absorbing behavior and efficient blue light emission instead of rare-earth such as Eu that is expensive and susceptible to polluting the environment during the mining process. Due to the nanometer size and surface effect of nano CaF2, and the approximate refractive index between CaF2 and polyethylene (PE), CCNC/PE film exhibits better elongation at the break than pure PE film while maintaining high transparency and visible light transmittance. Simultaneously, the CCNC/PE film was experimentally demonstrated to have outstanding performance of anti-UV and blue light conversion, which shows that CCNCs can be a novel and promising multifunctional additive applied in polymers especially for greenhouse film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]