Wearable Electromechanical Sensors and Its Applications

Wearable electromechanical sensor transforms mechanical stimulus into electrical signals. The main electromechanical sensors we focus on are strain and pressure sensors, which correspond to two main mechanical stimuli. According to their mechanisms, resistive and capacitive sensor attracts more attentions due to their simple structures, mechanisms, preparation method, and low cost. Various kinds of nanomaterials have been developed to fabricate them, including carbon nanomaterials, metallic, and conductive polymers. They have great potentials on health monitoring, human motion monitoring, speech recognition, and related human-machine interface applications. Here, we discuss their sensing mechanisms and fabrication methods and introduce recent progress on their performances and applications

Existence and Duality of Generalized ε-Vector Equilibrium Problems

We consider a generalized ε-vector equilibrium problem which contain vector equilibrium problems and vector variational inequalities as special cases. By using the KKM theorem, we obtain some existence theorems for the generalized ε-vector equilibrium problem. We also investigate the duality of this generalized ε-vector equilibrium problem and discuss the equivalence relation between solutions of primal and dual problems

Joint Multi-grained Popularity-aware Graph Convolution Collaborative Filtering for Recommendation

Graph Convolution Networks (GCNs), with their efficient ability to capture high-order connectivity in graphs, have been widely applied in recommender systems. Stacking multiple neighbor aggregation is the major operation in GCNs. It implicitly captures popularity features because the number of neighbor nodes reflects the popularity of a node. However, existing GCN-based methods ignore a universal problem: users' sensitivity to item popularity is differentiated, but the neighbor aggregations in GCNs actually fix this sensitivity through Graph Laplacian Normalization, leading to suboptimal personalization. In this work, we propose to model multi-grained popularity features and jointly learn them together with high-order connectivity, to match the differentiation of user preferences exhibited in popularity features. Specifically, we develop a Joint Multi-grained Popularity-aware Graph Convolution Collaborative Filtering model, short for JMP-GCF, which uses a popularity-aware embedding generation to construct multi-grained popularity features, and uses the idea of joint learning to capture the signals within and between different granularities of popularity features that are relevant for modeling user preferences. Additionally, we propose a multistage stacked training strategy to speed up model convergence. We conduct extensive experiments on three public datasets to show the state-of-the-art performance of JMP-GCF

Comparison of the therapeutic effects of continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion with systemic intravenous chemotherapy

Purpose: To compare the effectiveness and safety of intravenous cisplatin (DDP) and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) alone or in combination with continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion (CHPP) for the treatment of malignant ascites.Methods: In the study, 124 patients with tumour-induced malignant ascites were assign to test and control groups according to the sequence of their hospital visits. Patients in the test group were treated with intravenous DDP and 5-FU combined with CHPP, whereas patients in the control group were only treated with DDP and 5-FU. The treatments in both groups lasted for 4 weeks. Thereafter, treatment efficacy, remission of abdominal distension, ascites, Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS) score, and incidence of adverse reactions were compared between the two groups.Results: The overall response rates of the test and control groups were 85.50 (53/62) and 35.50 % (22/62), respectively, and the difference was significant (p < 0.05). Patients in the test group showed significant reduction in abdominal distension and markedly reduced ascites compared to the controls. The improvement in KPS score was superior in the test group (p < 0.05). No treatment-associated complications, such as intestinal adhesions or obstruction and grade III or IV toxic and side reactions, were found in either group. The incidence of adverse reactions was lower in the test group than in the controls.Conclusion: Chemotherapy in combination with CHPP is safe and effective for patients with advanced malignant tumours and ascites should be promoted clinically.Keywords: Malignant ascites, Continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion, Systemic intravenous chemotherap

Hepatic bile acids and bile acid-related gene expression in pregnant and lactating rats

Background. Significant physiological changes occur during pregnancy and lactation. Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) is a liver disease closely related to disruption of bile acid homeostasis. The objective of this study was to examine the regulation of bile acid synthesis and transport in normal pregnant and lactating rats.Materials and Methods. Livers from timed pregnant SD rats were collected on gestational days (GD) 10, 14 and 19, and postnatal days (PND) 1, 7, 14 and 21. Total bile acids were determined by the enzymatic method, total RNA was isolated and subjected to real time RT-PCR analysis. Liver protein was extracted for western-blot analysis.Results. Under physiological conditions hepatic bile acids were not elevated during pregnancy but increased during lactation in rats. Bile acid synthesis rate-limiting enzyme Cyp7a1 was unchanged on gestational days, but increased on PND14 and 21 at mRNA and protein levels. Expression of Cyp8b1, Cyp27a1 and Cyp7b1 was also higher during lactation. The mRNA levels of small heterodimer partner (SHP) and protein levels of farnesoid X receptor (FXR) were increased during pregnancy and lactation. Bile acid transporters Ntcp, Bsep, Mrp3 and Mrp4 were lower at gestation, but increased during lactation. Hepatic Oatp transporters were decreased during pregnancy and lactation.Conclusion. Hepatic bile acid homeostasis is maintained during normal pregnancy in rats, probably through the FXR-SHP regulation. The expression of bile acid synthesis genes and liver bile acid accumulation were increased during lactation, together with increased expression of bile acid efflux transporter Bsep, Mrp3 and Mrp4

Protecting Entanglement of Two V-type Atoms in Dissipative Cavity by Dipole-Dipole Interaction

In this work, we study a coupled system of two V-type atoms interacting with a dissipative single-mode cavity, which couples with an external environment. Firstly, in order to diagonalize Hamiltonian of dissipative cavity, we introduce a set of new creation and annihilation operators according to theorem Fano. Then, we obtain the analytical solution of this model by solving the time dependent Schrodinger equation. We also discuss in detail the influences of the cavity-environment coupling, the SGI parameter, the initial state and the dipole-dipole interaction between the two atoms on entanglement dynamics. The results show that, with the SGI parameter increasing, the entanglement will decay quicker for the initially maximal entangled state but it will decay slower for the initially partial entangled state. For the initially product state, the larger the SGI parameter, the more entanglement will be generated. The strong coupling can protect entanglement to some extent, but the dipole-dipole interaction can significantly protect entanglement. Moreover, the dipole-dipole interaction can not only generate entanglement very effectively, but also enhance the regulation effect of {\theta} on entanglement for the initially partial entangled and product states.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure