Search

Copyright of Nonferrous Metals Engineering is the property of Beijing Research Institute of Mining & Metallurgy Technology Group and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Flexible temperature and strain sensors are key components of wearable devices for healthcare monitoring. Currently, the insufficient precision, undesirable mechanical properties, and the cross interference between different external stimuli are still bottleneck problems for flexible sensors especially in body temperature and human motion monitoring. Herein, an ionic gel based on ionic liquids (ILs) and commercial thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) fiber is fabricated via a feasible and scalable immersion method for temperature and strain multifunctional sensing. Wearable sensor based on ionic gel exhibits high temperature sensitivity (2.73% ◦C−1) and sufficient resolution (0.1 ◦C) in the skin temperature range. Meanwhile, the sensor exhibits linear and stable strain sensing performance and has the ability to respond to tiny strains. More importantly, the multifunctional fiber‐like sensor is easy to integrate with traditional textile, which is beneficial to solve the wearability problems such as discomfort and impermeability in practical applications. Notably, the stimulus caused by strain can be almost avoided by sewing smart fibers into S‐shape during the temperature monitoring, which helps decouple the temperature and strain signals. As prepared intelligent textiles can accurately capture small fluctuations in temperature and detect the action amplitude of the human body, which is important for disease prediction and rehabilitation training of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a flexible capacitive pressure sensor based on filter paper substrate is proposed. The electric double layer (EDL) structure was constructed through the introduction of ionic liquid (IL), and the pressure-sensing was realized by using the change of ion-electron interface contact. The paper-based iontronic pressure sensor possesses a high sensitivity of 221.9 kPa−1, which is hundreds of times higher than that of the capacitive pressure sensors with conventional parallel plate structure, as well as an ultra-low detection limit of 2 Pa. The sensor exhibits an enormous application potential in healthcare wearable electronics and human-machine interface equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic muscle disorder characterized by progressive muscle wasting associated with persistent inflammation. In this study, we aimed to identify auxiliary biomarkers and further characterize the immune microenvironment in DMD. Methods: Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between DMD and normal muscle tissues based on Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. Bioinformatical analysis was used to screen and identify potential diagnostic signatures of DMD which were further validated by real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR). We also performed single-sample gene-set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA) to characterize the proportion of tissue-infiltrating immune cells to determine the inflammatory state of DMD. Results: In total, 182 downregulated genes and 263 upregulated genes were identified in DMD. C3, SPP1, TMSB10, TYROBP were regarded as adjunct biomarkers and successfully validated by RT-qPCR. The infiltration of macrophages, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in DMD compared with normal muscle tissues, while the infiltration of activated B cells, CD56dim natural killer cells, and type 17 T helper (Th17) cells was lower. In addition, the four biomarkers (C3, SPP1, TMSB10, TYROBP) were strongly associated with immune cells and immune-related pathways in DMD muscle tissues. Conclusion: Analyses demonstrated C3, SPP1, TMSB10 , and TYROBP may serve as biomarkers and enhance our understanding of immune responses in DMD. The infiltration of immune cells into the muscle microenvironment might exert a critical impact on the development and occurrence of DMD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facultative endosymbionts can affect the growth, physiology, and behavior of their arthropod hosts. There are several endosymbionts in the invasive whitefly Bemisia tabaci Mediterranean (MED, Q biotype) that influence host fitness by altering stylet probing behavior. We investigated the probing behavior of B. tabaci MED infected with the facultative endosymbiont Candidatus Cardinium hertigii (Cardinium (Sphingobacteriales: Flexibacteraceae)). We generated genetically similar Cardinium -infected (C*+) and uninfected (C-) clonal sublines and analyzed the probing behavior of newly emerged adult on cotton (Malvales: Malvaceae), Gossypium hirsutum L. using electropenetrography (EPG). The C- subline demonstrated a longer duration of E2 (2.81-fold) and more events of E2 (2.22-fold) than the C*+ subline, indicating a greater level of sustained ingestion of plant phloem. These findings provide insight into the fitness costs (fitness of a particular genotype is lower than the average fitness of the population) of the Cardinium -infected B. tabaci. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrogeology Journal is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Just as it is difficult to imagine capturing all the genres, subgenres and sub-subgenres of music being listened to today, so, too, is it impossible to capture all the diversity among contemporary poetry. Yet the heterogeneity within Chinese poetry emanates not only from recent fragmentation of literary tastes (as exemplified by the split between the schools of upper- and lower-body writing), and the regional and dialectal differences among Han poets, but also the new voices of contemporary writers arising from within the ancient literary (oral and written) traditions of China's officially recognized ethnic minorities. In his essay "Cry of the Silver Pheasant," Mark Bender, a sinologist specializing in traditional Han (Chinese) and ethnic minority performance-oriented literature, explores the incredibly diverse and lively poetry world(s) thriving in the ethnic minority communities of southwest China and beyond. Bender points out that Yunnan Province alone has approximately twenty-five official ethnic groups, including the Yi, Wa, Hani, Dai, Jingpo, and Zhuang, among others, and he reveals the diverse poetry being written within these groups today by highlighting the work of poets from different ethnic groups. He offers an extended exploration of the poetry and poetics of one group in particular--the Liangshan School of Nuosu Yi poets based in Sichuan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]