A Multi-Robot Cooperation Framework for Sewing Personalized Stent Grafts

This paper presents a multi-robot system for manufacturing personalized medical stent grafts. The proposed system adopts a modular design, which includes: a (personalized) mandrel module, a bimanual sewing module, and a vision module. The mandrel module incorporates the personalized geometry of patients, while the bimanual sewing module adopts a learning-by-demonstration approach to transfer human hand-sewing skills to the robots. The human demonstrations were firstly observed by the vision module and then encoded using a statistical model to generate the reference motion trajectories. During autonomous robot sewing, the vision module plays the role of coordinating multi-robot collaboration. Experiment results show that the robots can adapt to generalized stent designs. The proposed system can also be used for other manipulation tasks, especially for flexible production of customized products and where bimanual or multi-robot cooperation is required.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, accepted by IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, Key words: modularity, medical device customization, multi-robot system, robot learning, visual servoing, robot sewin

A study on the current status and suggestions of students’ character development education in secondary vocational school

This study aims to understand the current situation of character development education for students in the direction of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishing in secondary vocational schools. A questionnaire was administered to 303 students in such vocational schools in Lanzhou city to collect data on their daily behavior, learning ability, psychological health, and vocational competence. The results indicate that students continue to face some issues in these four aspects. Therefore, educational suggestions have been put forward for schools, parents, and students to implement character development education, to help these vocational students form good behavior habits, maintain a healthy psychological state, and possess excellent professional qualities.</p

Table_1_Trends in economic burden of type 2 diabetes in China: Based on longitudinal claim data.DOCX

ObjectiveDiabetes is a major health issue in China that has a significant economic burden on society. Understanding the economic impact of diabetes can help policymakers make informed decisions about healthcare spending and priorities. This study aims to estimate the economic burden of patients with diabetes in an urban setting in China and to identify the impact of hospitalization and complications on health care costs for people with diabetes.MethodsThe study was conducted in a sample city located in eastern China. All patients diagnosed with diabetes before January 2015 were identified from the official health management information system, and their social demographics and records of their health care uses and costs were extracted from the claim database from 2014 to 2019. Six groups of complications were identified according to ICD-10 codes. The diabetes-related direct medical cost (DM cost) was described for patients in stratified groups. A multiple linear regression model was applied to identify the effect of hospitalization and complications on the DM cost of diabetic patients.ResultsOur research included 44,994 patients with diabetes, the average annual DM costs for diabetic patients increased from 1,292.72 USD in 2014 to 2,092.87 USD in 2019. The costs of diabetes are closely related to hospitalizations and the type and number of complications. The average annual DM cost of patients who were hospitalized was 2.23 times that of those without hospitalization, and it rose as the number of complications increased. Cardiovascular complications and nephropathic complications were the complications that had the greatest impact on patients’ DM costs, increasing by an average of 65 and 54%, respectively.ConclusionThe economic burden of diabetes in urban China has increased significantly. Hospitalization and the type and number of complications have significant impacts on the economic burden of patients with diabetes. Efforts should be made to prevent the development of long-term complications in the population with diabetes.</p

Layer-by-Layer Assembly of Aerogel and Alginate toward Self-Extinguishing Flexible Polyurethane Foam

Flexible polyurethane foams (FPUFs) have wide applications in numerous fields; however, their high flammability seriously threatens the environment and humans. Thus, it is of practical significance to realize the self-extinguishing property of FPUF. Herein, silica aerogel and sodium alginate (SA) were deposited on the skeleton surface of FPUF utilizing electrostatic force through layer-by-layer assembly. The thermal, flame-retardant, and smoke-suppression properties of coated FPUF were improved effectively. With increase in the number of coating layers, the coated FPUF has more significant flame retardancy. Compared with pure FPUF, the coated FPUF reaches V-0 rating during the vertical burning test, and PHRR and total smoke production (TSP) of coated FPUF were reduced by 69.41 and 78.11%, respectively. The improvements in flame-retardant and smoke-suppression properties of coated FPUF are attributed to the excellent protection barrier of the network formed by SA/silica aerogel, preventing the FPUF from further combustion from transferring into heat and toxic smoke gases

Layer-by-Layer Assembly of Aerogel and Alginate toward Self-Extinguishing Flexible Polyurethane Foam

Flexible polyurethane foams (FPUFs) have wide applications in numerous fields; however, their high flammability seriously threatens the environment and humans. Thus, it is of practical significance to realize the self-extinguishing property of FPUF. Herein, silica aerogel and sodium alginate (SA) were deposited on the skeleton surface of FPUF utilizing electrostatic force through layer-by-layer assembly. The thermal, flame-retardant, and smoke-suppression properties of coated FPUF were improved effectively. With increase in the number of coating layers, the coated FPUF has more significant flame retardancy. Compared with pure FPUF, the coated FPUF reaches V-0 rating during the vertical burning test, and PHRR and total smoke production (TSP) of coated FPUF were reduced by 69.41 and 78.11%, respectively. The improvements in flame-retardant and smoke-suppression properties of coated FPUF are attributed to the excellent protection barrier of the network formed by SA/silica aerogel, preventing the FPUF from further combustion from transferring into heat and toxic smoke gases

van der Waals Stacking Induced Transition from Schottky to Ohmic Contacts: 2D Metals on Multilayer InSe

Incorporation of two-dimensional (2D) materials in electronic devices inevitably involves contact with metals, and the nature of this contact (Ohmic and/or Schottky) can dramatically affect the electronic properties of the assembly. Controlling these properties to reliably form low-resistance Ohmic contact remains a great challenge due to the strong Fermi level pinning (FLP) effect at the interface. Herein, we employ density functional theory calculations to show that van der Waals stacking can significantly modulate Schottky barrier heights in the contact formed between multilayer InSe and 2D metals by suppressing the FLP effect. Importantly, the increase of InSe layer number induces a transition from Schottky to Ohmic contact, which is attributed to the decrease of the conduction band minimum and rise of the valence band maximum of InSe. Based on the computed tunneling and Schottky barriers, Cd3C2 is the most compatible electrode for 2D InSe among the materials studied. This work illustrates a straightforward method for developing more effective InSe-based 2D electronic nanodevices

Supplementary Fig. from The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug tolfenamic acid inhibits BT474 and SKBR3 breast cancer cell and tumor growth by repressing erbB2 expression

Supplementary Fig. from The nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug tolfenamic acid inhibits BT474 and SKBR3 breast cancer cell and tumor growth by repressing erbB2 expressio