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Laser shock peening (LSP) is a post-treatment process that is widely used to modify the surface microstructure and mechanical properties of parts constructed by additive manufacturing (AM). In this study, the influence of LSP on the microstructure and fatigue behavior of Ti–6Al–4V alloy manufactured via electron beam melting (EBM), a popular method of AM, was investigated. The microstructure of the EBM sample consisted of the β phase (~6 vol%) and α lamellar phase. Grain refinement of the α phase occurred via both dislocation evolution and deformation twinning during LSP. A theoretical description of the microstructural evolution, particularly the distribution of deformation twins, was developed. The fatigue strength and micro-hardness of the EBM samples increased by approximately 17% and 11% after LSP treatment, respectively. The fatigue fracture morphologies at three defined damage stages (crack initiation, crack propagation, and instantaneous rupture) were examined for EBM samples before and after LSP. The dominant mechanism of fatigue strength enhancement by LSP was discussed. The effects of residual compressive stress assistant with adiabatic temperature increase and grain refinement of the α phase produced by LSP reduced the pre-existing crack size, suppressed crack initiation, and increased the required work for fatigue fracture. • The effects of LSP on the fatigue behavior of EBM Ti–6Al–4V alloy was investigated. • Microstructure evolution of EBM Ti–6Al–4V alloy by LSP treatment was discussed. • The grain refinement mechanism of EBM Ti–6Al–4V alloy by LSP was illustrated. • The dominant mechanism of fatigue strength enhancement via LSP was revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-cell RNA sequencing has enabled to capture the gene activities at single-cell resolution, thus allowing reconstruction of cell-type-specific gene regulatory networks (GRNs). The available algorithms for reconstructing GRNs are commonly designed for bulk RNA-seq data, and few of them are applicable to analyze scRNA-seq data by dealing with the dropout events and cellular heterogeneity. In this paper, we represent the joint gene expression distribution of a gene pair as an image and propose a novel supervised deep neural network called DeepDRIM which utilizes the image of the target TF-gene pair and the ones of the potential neighbors to reconstruct GRN from scRNA-seq data. Due to the consideration of TF-gene pair's neighborhood context, DeepDRIM can effectively eliminate the false positives caused by transitive gene–gene interactions. We compared DeepDRIM with nine GRN reconstruction algorithms designed for either bulk or single-cell RNA-seq data. It achieves evidently better performance for the scRNA-seq data collected from eight cell lines. The simulated data show that DeepDRIM is robust to the dropout rate, the cell number and the size of the training data. We further applied DeepDRIM to the scRNA-seq gene expression of B cells from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of the patients with mild and severe coronavirus disease 2019. We focused on the cell-type-specific GRN alteration and observed targets of TFs that were differentially expressed between the two statuses to be enriched in lysosome, apoptosis, response to decreased oxygen level and microtubule, which had been proved to be associated with coronavirus infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With the increasing prevalence of colorectal cancer (CRC), optimizing perioperative management is of paramount importance. This study investigates the potential of stellate ganglion block (SGB), known for its stress response-mediating effects, in improving postoperative recovery. We postulate that preoperative SGB may enhance the postoperative recovery of patients undergoing laparoscopic CRC surgery. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial of 57 patients undergoing laparoscopic colorectal cancer surgery at a single center. Patients, aged 18–70 years, were randomly assigned to receive either preoperative SGB or standard care. SGB group patients received 10 mL of 0.2% ropivacaine under ultrasound guidance prior to surgery. Primary outcome was time to flatus, with secondary outcomes encompassing time to defecation, lying in bed time, visual analog scale (VAS) pain score, hospital stays, patient costs, intraoperative and postoperative complications, and 3-year mortality. A per-protocol analysis was used. Results: Twenty-nine patients in the SGB group and 28 patients in the control group were analyzed. The SGB group exhibited a significantly shorter time to flatus (mean [SD] hour, 20.52 [9.18] vs. 27.93 [11.69]; p = 0.012), accompanied by decreased plasma cortisol levels (mean [SD], postoperatively, 4.01 [3.42] vs 7.75 [3.13], p = 0.02). Notably, postoperative pain was effectively managed, evident by lower VAS scores at 6 h post-surgery in SGB-treated patients (mean [SD], 4.70 [0.91] vs 5.35 [1.32]; p = 0.040). Furthermore, patients in the SGB group experienced reduced hospital stay length (mean [SD], day, 6.61 [1.57] vs 8.72 [5.13], p = 0.042). Conclusions: Preoperative SGB emerges as a promising approach to enhance the postoperative recovery of patients undergoing laparoscopic CRC surgery. Clinical trial registration: ChiCTR1900028404, Principal investigator: Xia Feng, Date of registration: 12/20/2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the hardware performance of laser and other infrastructures is restricted, how to effectively improve the intensity of the residual compressive stress field introduced by laser shocks has become the focus of researchers. With the help of the ABAQUS software of finite element simulation and the determined target material of 304-type steel, the rules of pulse width and laser energy regulating the distribution of the residual stress field were intuitively confirmed. The results show that different parameters of the pulsed laser led to different degrees of influence on the main characteristics of the residual stress field, and these influence laws can be effectively used to propose a composite technology with varied parameter characteristics. By comparing and analyzing the control effects of the residual stress field of different composite processes, the feasibility and effectiveness in improving the intensity of the residual compressive stress field were verified. The processing method of gradually changing pulse laser parameters described in this paper is expected to achieve the goal of high-intensity surface strengthening more economically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUD: Calcium phosphate biomaterials have excellent bone inductivity, and exercise can promote the bone formation of biomaterials in animals, but it is not clear which exercise mode is better. OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of different exercise modes on osteoinduction by calcium phosphate-based biomaterials which were implanted in mice. METHOD: The collagen-thermosensitive hydrogel-calcium phosphate (CTC) composite was prepared and transplanted in the thigh muscle of mice, then all mice were divided randomly into four groups (n = 10): the uphill running group, the downhill running group, the swimming group and the control group (conventional breeding). Ten weeks later, the samples were harvested, fixed, decalcified, embedded in paraffin and stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E), and then the osteoinduction phenomenon was observed and compared through digital slice scanning system. The area percentage of new bone-related tissues and the number of osteocytes and chondrocytes were counted and calculated. Lastly, the immunohistochemistry of type I collagen (ColI) and osteopontin (OPN) was performed to identify the new bone tissues. RESULTS: The area percentage of new bone-related tissues and the number of osteocytes and chondrocytes were positively correlated; ordering from most to least of each group were as followings: the uphill running group > the swimming group > the downhill running group > the control group. The immunostaining of ColI and OPN results showed that both of the two proteins were identified in the new bone tissues, indicating that the CTC composite could induce ectopic bone formation in mice, especially training for uphill running and swimming. CONCLUSION: Our results show that uphill running or swimming is a form of exercise that is beneficial to osteogenesis. According to this, we propose treatment with artificial bone transplantation to patients who suffer from bone defects. Patients should do moderate exercise, such as running uphill on the treadmill or swimming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The objective of this study is to compare the bone induction of five kinds of calcium phosphate (Ca-P) biomaterials implanted in mice and explore the vascularization and particle-size-related osteoinductive mechanism. Methods: The following five kinds of Ca-P biomaterials including hydroxyapatite (HA) and/or tricalcium phosphate (TCP) were implanted in the muscle of 30 BALB/c mice (n = 6): 20 nm HA (20HA), 60 nm HA (60HA), 12 µm HA (12HA), 100 nm TCP (100TCP) and 12 µm HA + 100 nm TCP (HATCP). Then, all animals were put on a treadmill to run 30 min at a 6 m/h speed each day. Five and ten weeks later, three mice of each group were killed, and the samples were harvested to assess the osteoinductive effects by hematoxylin eosin (HE), Masson's trichrome and safranine–fast green stainings, and the immunohistochemistry of the angiogenesis and osteogenesis markers CD31 and type I collagen (ColI). Results: The numbers of blood vessels were 139 ±   29 ,   118   ±   25 ,   78   ±   15 ,   65   ±   14 in groups HATCP, 100TCP, 60HA and 20HA, respectively, which were significantly higher than that of group 12HA (12 ± 5) in week 5 (p < 0.05). The area percentages of new bone tissue were (7.33 ± 1.26)% and (8.49 ±   1.38) % in groups 100TCP and HATCP, respectively, which were significantly higher than those in groups 20HA (3.27 ±   0.38) % and 60HA (3.43 ±   0.27) % (p < 0.05); however, no bone tissue was found in group 12HA 10 weeks after transplantation. The expression of CD31 was positive in new blood vessels, and the expression of ColI was positive in new bone tissue. Conclusions: Nanoscale Ca-P biomaterials could induce osteogenesis in mice muscle, and the osteoinductive effects of TCP were about 124% higher than those of 20HA and 114% higher than those of 60HA. The particle size of the biomaterials affected angiogenesis and osteogenesis. There was a positive correlation between the number of blood vessels and the area percentage of new bone tissue; therefore, osteoinduction is closely related to vascularization. Our results provide an experimental basis for the synthesis of calcium–phosphorus matrix composites and for further exploration of the osteoinductive mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a novel idea of controlling microstructure and mechanical properties based on the non-equilibrium microstructure of nickel-based superalloy fabricated by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). The network microstructures were firstly built in LPBF nickel-based superalloys by direct aging (DA) heat treatment. Thermodynamic calculations were conducted to design the DA and homogenizing + DA (HDA) heat treatments for elucidating the control mechanism. The results showed that the non-equilibrium microstructures in as-built nickel-based superalloy contributed to the network microstructure formation and recrystallization during DA heat treatment. The grains were refined and the <001> texture was eliminated after DA heat treatment. The non-equilibrium microstructures were removed and the recrystallized grains tended to coarsen after HDA heat treatment due to high temperature homogenizing treatment. The in-situ nano γ′ phase uniformly distributed in the grains of HAD-treated microstructures, which was also found inside network microstructures of DA-treated microstructures. Due to the additional strengthening effect of refined grains and network microstructures, the strength of DA-treated sample was higher than those of as-built and HAD-treated samples, while the ductility was lower than that of as-built sample, and but was close to that of HAD-treated sample. This study will provide guidance for developing a suitable heat treatment process of LPBF nickel-based superalloys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite rural hospitals' central role in their communities, they are increasingly in financial distress and may merge with other hospitals or health systems, potentially reducing service lines that are less profitable or duplicative of services that the acquirer also offers. Using hospital discharge data from thirty-two Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases from the period 2007-18, we examined the influence of rural hospital mergers on changes to inpatient service lines at hospitals and within their catchment areas. We found that merged hospitals were more likely than independent hospitals to eliminate maternal/neonatal and surgical care. Whereas the number of mental/substance use disorder--related stays decreased or remained stable at merged hospitals and within their catchment areas, it increased for unaffiliated hospitals and their catchment areas, indicating a potential unmet need in the communities of rural hospitals postmerger. Although a merger could salvage a hospital's sustainability, it also could reduce service lines and responsiveness to community needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • R134a and water vapor adsorption isotherms on AC-2 were measured and investigated via the Single/Dual-site Langmuir-Freundlich model. At the same pressure, the increasing temperature could weaken R134a adsorption capacity. • Under different experimental conditions, R134a breakthrough curves were systemically measured. Due to water vapor competitive adsorption, with increasing relative humidity or moisture content, R134a breakthrough times on AC-2 fixed beds were weakened. • Using the R134a breakthrough curve as the standard, dynamic competitive processes of R134a and water vapor could be divided into four stages: co-adsorption, co-breakthrough, competitive adsorption ("Rolling Up" and "Adsorption Platform"), and dynamic adsorption equilibrium. 1.1.1.2-Tetrafluoroethane (R134a) is developed as a tracer for mechanical leakage detection in military chemistry. Due to the weaker physical adsorption properties, water vapor competitive adsorption limits the use of tracer R134a. Thus, it is urgent to the analyze dynamic competitive adsorption behavior of R134a and water vapor on the activated carbon. In this study, R134a breakthrough curves on the fixed beds packed with activated carbons under different relative humidity and moisture content levels were systematically measured. Combining mass spectrometry, gas chromatography, and a novel fiber Bragg grating temperature sensor, the dynamic competitive adsorption processes and axial temperature of fixed beds were first reported. Interestingly, with increasing moisture content, R134a breakthrough time decreased, but dynamic adsorption capacity increased. This was attributed to the fact that the residual water vapor could increase the specific surface area and pore volume of activated carbon to enhance R134a dynamic adsorption capacity. Using the R134a as the standard, the dynamic competitive adsorption process was first revealed and could be divided into four stages including Co-adsorption, Co-breakthrough, Competitive Adsorption ("Rolling Up" and "Adsorption Platform"), and Dynamic Adsorption Equilibrium. "Rolling Up" and "Adsorption Platform" phenomena are mainly determined by the strength of intermolecular interactions, the concentration difference of adsorbate, and the thermal effect induced by water vapor adsorption/desorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A static volumetric method measured the water vapor adsorption isotherms on porous activated carbons (AC and ASC-T) at 278.15 K ～ 308.15 K. Because of the difference in surface oxygen-containing functional groups, a Type-V isotherm represented water vapor adsorption on AC, whereas a Type-IV isotherm characterized ASC-T. The applicability of seven classical adsorption equilibrium models was analyzed and compared systemically. Results show that the Dual-sites Langmuir-Freundlich equation had the lowest residual errors (< 6 ml/g). Further, based on the linearization DA equation, a new partitioned segment-fitting strategy was first developed to describe multi-temperature adsorption isotherms. Two sets of the division points (P/P 0) and parameters (n) were acquired. For AC and ASC-T, the best division point (P/P 0) and parameter (n) were equal to 0.1 and 0.9, 0.2 and 2, respectively. The fitted results of multi-temperature adsorption isotherms show that the R2 values of AC and ASC-T both were bigger than 0.93, showing that the new fitting strategy has very good applicability. It offers the possibility to address the problem of the accurate description for multi-temperature water vapor adsorption data on porous activated carbons. [Display omitted] • Water vapor adsorption isotherms on activated carbons (AC and ASC-T) were measured at 278.15 K ～ 308.15 K using the volumetric method, Adsorption isotherms showed Type-V and Type-IV, respectively. • For the seven classical adsorption equilibrium models, the Dual-site Langmuir-Freundlich equation has a best-fitting result. In the residual range of 0 ml/g to 4 ml/g, the fitted residuals for AC and ASC-T accounted for 85.29% and 100%, respectively. • A new partitioned segment-fitting strategy was developed to use to fit multi-temperature adsorption isotherms. The calculated values of R 2 for AC and ASC-T both are bigger than 0.93 and better than multi-temperature QHR and modified BET equations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The single adsorption isotherms of R134a and water vapor on ASZMT were measured and fitted by experiments and adsorption equilibrium models, respectively. • The adsorption selectivity and the binary adsorption equilibrium of water vapor and R134a on ASZMT were investigated via the DIH method and IAST method, respectively. • The different competitive adsorption behavior between R134a and water vapor in different pore size, which is mainly dominated by water vapor concentration, was revealed. • The effect of relative humidity was further examined through R134a breakthrough curves. As an efficient tracer gas of activated carbon filter quality testing, the use of R134a is limited by relative humidity (RH) due to water vapor competitive adsorption. To analyze the competitive effect, the isosteric heats between vapor and ASZMT were calculated by C – C equation, the adsorption selectivity was predicted using the DIH method, and the binary adsorption equilibrium of water vapor and R134a on ASZMT were investigated via IAST model. Results showed that water vapor exhibited a higher isosteric heat than R134a at the same adsorption capacity, indicating a stronger interaction with ASZMT. The water vapor/R134a adsorption selectivity on ASZMT increases from 0 to 6.6, proving that the ASZMT is more selective for water vapor than R134a with water vapor pressure increasing. Besides, with water vapor pressure ratio improving, the R134a adsorption capacity on ASZMT decreases obviously, but water vapor adsorption capacity keeps increasing continuously. R134a breakthrough curves (1000 ppm) also showed that with relative humidity increasing, the R134a breakthrough times and dynamic adsorption capacities both became shorter, from 15 min to 9 min and from 6.68 mg/g to 1.49 mg/g, respectively. It proves that R134a and water vapor have obvious competitive adsorption behavior which is mainly dominated by water vapor concentration. It is necessary for ppm-level R134a to control the lower relative humidity of airflow in application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of non-equilibrium microstructures on microstructure evolution and mechanical properties of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) IN625 alloy during long-term thermal exposure at 700 °C and 750 °C was studied in this study. The as-built (AB) LPBF IN625 alloy had a typical non-equilibrium microstructure consisting of fine dendritic and cellular microstructures, Laves phase and high-density tangled dislocations. The non-equilibrium microstructure transformed into uniform recrystallized microstructure after solution treatment (ST). During long-term thermal exposure, δ phase in AB sample preferentially nucleated in inter-dendritic regions with high-density dislocations, while δ phase in ST specimen firstly nucleated at grain boundaries (GBs) and then grew into grains. The coarsening rate of δ phase in AB sample was lower and the size of δ phase was smaller than those in ST sample. The coarsening of Laves phase at GBs led to the depleted-δ zone in AB sample, which was not found in ST sample. For AB and ST samples, the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) and yield strength (YS) increased with the increase of thermal exposure time, while the elongation (EI) decreased. The tensile strength of AB sample was higher than that of ST sample during the thermal exposure at 700 °C, while their tensile strength was close during the thermal exposure at 750 °C. In addition, the anisotropy of mechanical properties of AB LPBF IN625 alloy was eliminated gradually during long-term thermal exposure. The microstructure evolution of LPBF IN625 alloy during long-term thermal exposure was explained by a newly proposed mold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved significant performance on various real-life tasks. However, the large number of parameters in convolutional layers requires huge storage and computation resources, making it challenging to deploy CNNs on memory-constrained embedded devices. In this article, we propose a novel compression method that generates the convolution filters in each layer using a set of learnable low-dimensional quantized filter bases. The proposed method reconstructs the convolution filters by stacking the linear combinations of these filter bases. By using quantized values in weights, the compact filters can be represented using fewer bits so that the network can be highly compressed. Furthermore, we explore the sparsity of coefficients through L 1 -ball projection when conducting linear combination to further reduce the storage consumption and prevent overfitting. We also provide a detailed analysis of the compression performance of the proposed method. Evaluations of image classification and object detection tasks using various network structures demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a higher compression ratio with comparable accuracy compared with the existing state-of-the-art filter decomposition and network quantization methods.

The coating of filter media with silver is typically achieved by chemical deposition and aerosol processes. Whilst useful, such approaches struggle to provide uniform coating and are prone to blockage. To address these issues, an in situ method for coating glass fibers is presented via the dopamine-mediated electroless metallization method, yielding filters with low air resistance and excellent antibacterial performance. It is found that the filtration efficiency of the filters is between 94 and 97% and much higher than that of silver-coated filters produced using conventional dipping methods (85%). Additionally, measured pressure drops ranged between 100 and 150 Pa, which are lower than those associated with dipped filters (171.1 Pa). Survival rates of Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis bacteria exposed to the filters decreased to 0 and 15.7%±1.49, respectively after 2 h, with no bacteria surviving after 6 h. In contrast, survival rates of E. coli and B. subtilis bacteria on the uncoated filters are 92.5% and 89.5% after 6 h. Taken together, these results confirm that the in situ deposition of silver onto fiber surfaces effectively reduces pore clogging, yielding low air resistance filters that can be applied for microbial filtration and inhibition in a range of environments., (© 2024 The Authors. Small published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Green energy technology is generally becoming one of hot issues that need to be solved due to the adverse effects on the environment of fossil fuels. One of the strategies being studied and developed by theorists and experimentalists is the use of photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells, which are emerging as a candidate to produce hydrogen from water splitting. However, creating photoelectrodes that meet the requirements for PEC water splitting has emerged as the primary obstacle in bringing this technology to commercial fruition. Here, we construct a heterostructure, which consists of MoS 2 /TiO 2 /Au nanoparticles (NPs) to overcome the drawbacks of the photoanode. Owing to the dependence on charge transfer, the bandgap of MoS 2 /TiO 2 and the utilization the Au NPs as a stimulant for charges separation of TiO 2 by localized surface plasmon resonances effect as well as the increase of hot electron injection to cathode, leading to photocatalytic activities are improved. The results have recorded a significant increase in the photocurrent density from 2.3μAcm-2of TiO 2 to approximately 16.3μAcm-2of MoS 2 /TiO 2 /Au NPs. This work unveils a promising route to enhance the visible light adsorption and charge transfer in photo-electrode of the PEC cells by combining two-dimensional materials with metal NPs., (Creative Commons Attribution license.)

Fluctuations in patient volume during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been particularly concerning for rural hospitals. We examined hospital discharge data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases to compare data from the COVID-19 pandemic period (March 8, 2020-December 31, 2021) with data from the prepandemic period (January 1, 2017-March 7, 2020). Changes in average daily medical volume at rural hospitals showed a dose-response relationship with community COVID-19 burden, ranging from a 13.2 percent decrease in patient volume in periods of low transmission to a 16.5 percent increase in volume in periods of high transmission. Overall, about 35 percent of rural hospitals experienced fluctuations exceeding 20 percent (in either direction) in average daily total volume, in contrast to only 13 percent of urban hospitals experiencing similar magnitudes of changes. Rural hospitals with a large change in average daily volume were more likely to be smaller, government-owned, and critical access hospitals and to have significantly lower operating margins. Our findings suggest that rural hospitals may have been more vulnerable operationally and financially to volume shifts during the pandemic, which warrants attention because of the potential impact on these hospitals' long-term sustainability.

Bioactive glass (BG) has been widely used in the preparation of artificial bone scaffolds due to its excellent biological properties and non-cytotoxicity, which can promote bone and soft tissue regeneration. However, due to the brittleness, poor mechanical strength, easy agglomeration and uncontrollable structure of glass material, its application in various fields is limited. In this regard, most current researches mainly focus on mixing BG with organic or inorganic materials by freeze-drying method, sol-gel method, etc ., to improve its mechanical properties and brittleness, so as to increase its clinical application and expand its application field. This review introduces the combination of BG with natural organic materials, metallic materials and non-metallic materials, and demonstrates the latest technology and future prospects of BG composite materials through the development of scaffolds, injectable fillers, membranes, hydrogels and coatings. The previous studies show that the addition of BG improves the mechanical properties, biological activity and regeneration potential of the composites, and broadens the application of BG in the field of bone tissue engineering. By reviewing the recent BG researches on bone regeneration, the research potential of new materials is demonstrated, in order to provide a reference for future related research.

COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which primarily affects the respiratory system and can lead to severe illness. The virus is extremely contagious, early and accurate diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 is crucial to contain its spread, to provide prompt treatment, and to prevent complications. Currently, the reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is considered to be the gold standard for detecting COVID-19 in its early stages. In addition, loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LMAP), clustering rule interval short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), colloidal gold immunochromatographic assay (GICA), computed tomography (CT), and electrochemical sensors are also common tests. However, these different methods vary greatly in terms of their detection efficiency, specificity, accuracy, sensitivity, cost, and throughput. Besides, most of the current detection methods are conducted in central hospitals and laboratories, which is a great challenge for remote and underdeveloped areas. Therefore, it is essential to review the advantages and disadvantages of different COVID-19 detection methods, as well as the technology that can enhance detection efficiency and improve detection quality in greater details., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of several viruses and other pathogens. Some of these infectious diseases have spread globally, resulting in pandemics. Although biosensors of various types have been utilized for virus detection, their limited sensitivity remains an issue. Therefore, the development of better diagnostic tools that facilitate the more efficient detection of viruses and other pathogens has become important. Nanotechnology has been recognized as a powerful tool for the detection of viruses, and it is expected to change the landscape of virus detection and analysis. Recently, nanomaterials have gained enormous attention for their value in improving biosensor performance owing to their high surface-to-volume ratio and quantum size effects. This article reviews the impact of nanotechnology on the design, development, and performance of sensors for the detection of viruses. Special attention has been paid to nanoscale materials, various types of nanobiosensors, the internet of medical things, and artificial intelligence-based viral diagnostic techniques., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

Cyanogen chloride (CNCl) is highly toxic and volatile, and it is difficult to effectively remove via porous substances such as activated carbon due to the weak interaction between CNCl and the adsorbent surface. Developing a highly effective elimination material against CNCl is of great importance in military chemical protection. In this work, a new metal-organic framework (MOF) CuBTC@PA-PEI (polyacrylate-polyethyleneimine) composite was prepared and exhibited excellent CNCl elimination performance in the breakthrough tests. PEI was used for the functionalization of PA with amino groups, which is beneficial to anchor with metal ions of MOF. Afterward, the growth of MOF occurred on the surface and in the pores of the matrix by molecular self-assembly via our newly proposed stepwise impregnation layer-by-layer growth method. Breakthrough tests were performed to evaluate the elimination performance of the composites against CNCl. Compared with the pristine CuBTC powder, the CuBTC@PA-PEI composite exhibited better adsorption capacity and a longer breakthrough time. By compounding with the PA matrix, a hierarchically porous structure of CuBTC@PA-PEI composite was constructed, which provides a solution to the mass transfer problem of pure microporous MOF materials. It also solves the problems of MOF molding and lays a foundation for the practical application of MOF.

NH 3 is a typical alkaline gaseous pollutant widely derived from industrial production and poses great risks to humans and other biota. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have excellent adsorption capacities relative to materials traditionally used to adsorb NH 3 . However, in practice, applications of MOFs as adsorbents are restricted because of its powder form. We prepared a polyamide (PA) macroporous polyester substrate using an emulsion template method and modified the surface with polyethylenimine (PEI) to improve the MOF growth efficiency on the substrate. The difficulty of loading the MOF because of the fast nucleation rate inside the PA macroporous polyester substrate was solved using a stepwise impregnation layer-by-layer (LBL) growth method, and a PA-PEI-MOF303(Al) hierarchical pore composite that very efficiently adsorbed NH 3 was successfully prepared. The PA-PEI-MOF303(Al) adsorption capacity for NH 3 was 16.07 mmol·g -1 at 298 K and 100 kPa, and the PA-PEI-MOF303(Al) could be regenerated repeatedly under vacuum at 423 K. The NH 3 adsorption mechanism was investigated by in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and by performing two-dimensional correlation analysis. Unlike for the MOF303(Al) powder, the formation of multi-site hydrogen bonds between Al-O-Al/C-OH, N-H, -OH, C=O, and NH 3 in PA-PEI-MOF303(Al) was found to be an important reason for efficient NH 3 adsorption. This study will provide a reference for the preparation of other MOF-polymer composites.

Cyanide gas is highly toxic and volatile and is among the most typical toxic and harmful pollutants to human health and the environment found in industrial waste gas. In the military context, cyanide gas has been used as a systemic toxic agent. In this paper, we review cyanide gas elimination methods, focusing on adsorption and catalysis approaches. The research progress on materials capable of affecting cyanide gas adsorption and catalytic degradation is discussed in depth, and the advantages and disadvantages of various materials are summarized. Finally, suggestions are provided for future research directions with respect to cyanide gas elimination materials.

Diseases originate at the molecular-genetic layer, manifest through altered biochemical homeostasis, and develop symptoms later. Hence, symptomatic diagnosis is inadequate to explain the underlying molecular-genetic abnormality and individual genomic disparities. The current trends include molecular-genetic information relying on algorithms to recognize the disease subtypes through gene expressions. Despite their disposition toward disease-specific heterogeneity and cross-disease homogeneity, a gap still exists in describing the extent of homogeneity within the heterogeneous subpopulation of different diseases. They are limited to obtaining the holistic sense of the whole genome-based diagnosis resulting in inaccurate diagnosis and subsequent management. Addressing those ambiguities, our proposed framework, ReDisX, introduces a unique classification system for the patients based on their genomic signatures. In this study, it is a scalable machine learning algorithm deployed to re-categorize the patients with rheumatoid arthritis and coronary artery disease. It reveals heterogeneous subpopulations within a disease and homogenous subpopulations across different diseases. Besides, it identifies granzyme B ( GZMB ) as a subpopulation-differentiation marker that plausibly serves as a prominent indicator for GZMB -targeted drug repurposing. The ReDisX framework offers a novel strategy to redefine disease diagnosis through characterizing personalized genomic signatures. It may rejuvenate the landscape of precision and personalized diagnosis and a clue to drug repurposing., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Yip, Chowdhury, Wang, Liu, Gao, Lan, Zheng, Guan, Lam, Zhu, Tai and Lu.)

Background: Although the WHO Trial Registration Data Set (TRDS) has been published for many years, the quality of clinical trial registrations with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is still not satisfactory, especially about the inadequate reporting on TCM interventions. The development of the WHO TRDS for TCM Extension 2020 (WHO TRDS-TCM 2020) aims to address this inadequacy., Methods: A group of clinical experts, methodologists, epidemiologists, and editors has developed this WHO TRDS-TCM 2020 through a comprehensive process, including the baseline survey, draft of the initial items, three-round of Delphi survey, solicitation of comments, revision, and finalization., Results: The WHO TRDS-TCM 2020 statement extends the latest version (V.1.3.1) of TRDS published in November 2017. The checklist includes 11 extended items (including subitems), namely Source(s) of Monetary or Material Support (Item 4), Scientific Title (Item 10a and 10b), Countries of Recruitment (Item 11), Health Condition(s) or Problem(s) Studied (Item 12), Intervention(s) (Item 13a, 13b and 13c), Key Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria (Item 14), Primary and Key Secondary Outcomes (Item 19 to 20), and Lay Summary (Item B1). For Item 13 (Interventions), three common TCM interventions--i.e., Chinese herbal medicine formulas, acupuncture and moxibustion-are elaborated., Conclusions: The group hopes that the WHO TRDS-TCM 2020 can improve the reporting quality and transparency of TCM trial registrations, assist registries in assessing the registration quality of TCM trials, and help readers understand TCM trial design.