Locally Controlled Sensing Properties of Stretchable Pressure Sensors Enabled by Micro-Patterned Piezoresistive Device Architecture.

For wearable health monitoring systems and soft robotics, stretchable/flexible pressure sensors have continuously drawn attention owing to a wide range of potential applications such as the detection of human physiological and activity signals, and electronic skin (e-skin). Here, we demonstrated a highly stretchable pressure sensor using silver nanowires (AgNWs) and photo-patternable polyurethane acrylate (PUA). In particular, the characteristics of the pressure sensors could be moderately controlled through a micro-patterned hole structure in the PUA spacer and size-designs of the patterned hole area. With the structural-tuning strategies, adequate control of the site-specific sensitivity in the range of 47~83 kPa-1 and in the sensing range from 0.1 to 20 kPa was achieved. Moreover, stacked AgNW/PUA/AgNW (APA) structural designed pressure sensors with mixed hole sizes of 10/200 µm and spacer thickness of 800 µm exhibited high sensitivity (~171.5 kPa-1) in the pressure sensing range of 0~20 kPa, fast response (100~110 ms), and high stretchability (40%). From the results, we envision that the effective structural-tuning strategy capable of controlling the sensing properties of the APA pressure sensor would be employed in a large-area stretchable pressure sensor system, which needs site-specific sensing properties, providing monolithic implementation by simply arranging appropriate micro-patterned hole architectures

Correlation of Radiographic and Patient Assessment of Spine Following Correction of Nonstructural Component in Juvenile Idiopathic Scoliosis

Objective To evaluate the association between progression of curvature of scoliosis, and correction for functional component in patients with juvenile idiopathic scoliosis (JIS). Methods We retrospectively reviewed medical data of patients prescribed custom molded foot orthosis (FO) to correct inequality of RCSPA (resting calcaneal stance position angle), and chose 52 patients (26 females, 26 males) with Cobb angle ≥10° in radiology and uneven pelvic level at iliac crest by different RCSPA (≥3°) as a factor of functional scoliosis. They had different hump angle ≥5° in forward bending test, for idiopathic scoliosis component. Their mean age and mean period of wearing FO were 79.5±10.6 months and 18.6±0.70 months. Results Cobb angle was reduced from 22.03°±4.39° initially to 18.86°±7.53° after wearing FO. Pelvis height difference and RCSPA difference, were reduced from 1.07±0.25 cm initially to 0.60±0.36, and from 4.25°±0.71° initially to 1.71°±0.75° (p<0.01). Cobb angle improved most in 9 months. However, there was no significant improvement for those with more than 25° of Cobb angle initially. Mean Cobb angle improved in all age groups, but patients less than 6 years had clinically significant improvement of more than 5°. Conclusion JIS can have functional components, which should be identified and managed. Foot orthosis is useful in correcting functional factors, in the case of pelvic inequality caused by different RCSPA, for patients with juvenile idiopathic scoliosis

Locally Controlled Sensing Properties of Stretchable Pressure Sensors Enabled by Micro-Patterned Piezoresistive Device Architecture

For wearable health monitoring systems and soft robotics, stretchable/flexible pressure sensors have continuously drawn attention owing to a wide range of potential applications such as the detection of human physiological and activity signals, and electronic skin (e-skin). Here, we demonstrated a highly stretchable pressure sensor using silver nanowires (AgNWs) and photo-patternable polyurethane acrylate (PUA). In particular, the characteristics of the pressure sensors could be moderately controlled through a micro-patterned hole structure in the PUA spacer and size-designs of the patterned hole area. With the structural-tuning strategies, adequate control of the site-specific sensitivity in the range of 47~83 kPa−1 and in the sensing range from 0.1 to 20 kPa was achieved. Moreover, stacked AgNW/PUA/AgNW (APA) structural designed pressure sensors with mixed hole sizes of 10/200 µm and spacer thickness of 800 µm exhibited high sensitivity (~171.5 kPa−1) in the pressure sensing range of 0~20 kPa, fast response (100~110 ms), and high stretchability (40%). From the results, we envision that the effective structural-tuning strategy capable of controlling the sensing properties of the APA pressure sensor would be employed in a large-area stretchable pressure sensor system, which needs site-specific sensing properties, providing monolithic implementation by simply arranging appropriate micro-patterned hole architectures

Comparative effectiveness of explainable machine learning approaches for extrauterine growth restriction classification in preterm infants using longitudinal data

IntroductionPreterm birth is a leading cause of infant mortality and morbidity. Despite the improvement in the overall mortality in premature infants, the intact survival of these infants remains a significant challenge. Screening the physical growth of infants is fundamental to potentially reducing the escalation of this disorder. Recently, machine learning models have been used to predict the growth restrictions of infants; however, they frequently rely on conventional risk factors and cross-sectional data and do not leverage the longitudinal database associated with medical data from laboratory tests.MethodsThis study aimed to present an automated interpretable ML-based approach for the prediction and classification of short-term growth outcomes in preterm infants. We prepared four datasets based on weight and length including weight baseline, length baseline, weight follow-up, and length follow-up. The CHA Bundang Medical Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit dataset was classified using two well-known supervised machine learning algorithms, namely support vector machine (SVM) and logistic regression (LR). A five-fold cross-validation, and several performance measures, including accuracy, precision, recall and F1-score were used to compare classifier performances. We further illustrated the models’ trustworthiness using calibration and cumulative curves. The visualized global interpretations using Shapley additive explanation (SHAP) is provided for analyzing variables’ contribution to final prediction.ResultsBased on the experimental results with area under the curve, the discrimination ability of the SVM algorithm was found to better than that of the LR model on three of the four datasets with 81%, 76% and 72% in weight follow-up, length baseline and length follow-up dataset respectively. The LR classifier achieved a better ROC score only on the weight baseline dataset with 83%. The global interpretability results revealed that pregnancy-induced hypertension, gestational age, twin birth, birth weight, antenatal corticosteroid use, premature rupture of membranes, sex, and birth length were consistently ranked as important variables in both the baseline and follow-up datasets.DiscussionThe application of machine learning models to the early detection and automated classification of short-term growth outcomes in preterm infants achieved high accuracy and may provide an efficient framework for clinical decision systems enabling more effective monitoring and facilitating timely intervention

Clinical Outcomes and Prognostic Factors of Up-Front Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients with Extranodal Natural Killer/T Cell Lymphoma

AbstractLimited data exist on up-front autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in extranodal natural killer/T cell lymphoma (ENKTL). Sixty-two patients (43 men and 19 women) with newly diagnosed ENKTL who underwent up-front ASCT after primary therapy were identified. Poor-risk characteristics included advanced stage (50%), high-intermediate to high-risk International Prognostic Index (25.8%), and group 3 to 4 of NK/T Cell Lymphoma Prognostic Index (NKPI, 67.7%). Pretransplant responses included complete remission in 61.3% and partial remission in 38.7% of patients, and final post-transplantation response included complete remission in 78.3%. Early progression occurred in 12.9%. At a median follow-up of 43.3 months (range, 3.7 to 114.6), 3-year progression-free survival (PFS) was 52.4% and 3-year overall survival (OS) was 60.0%. Patients with limited disease had significantly better 3-year PFS (64.5% versus 40.1%, P = .017) and OS (67.6% versus 52.3%, P = .048) than those with advanced disease. Multivariate analysis showed NKPI and pretransplant response were independent prognostic factors influencing survival, particularly NKPI in limited disease and pretransplant response in advanced disease. Radiotherapy was an independent factor for reduced progression and survival in patients with limited disease, but anthracycline-based chemotherapy was a poor prognostic factor for progression in patients with advanced disease. Up-front ASCT is an active treatment in ENKTL patients responding to primary therapy

Progression of Prostate Cancer Despite an Extremely Low Serum Level of Prostate-Specific Antigen

A 61-year-old man who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer 9 years ago and had been treated with pelvic irradiation and intermittent androgen deprivation therapy visited the emergency room because of back pain and weakness in both legs. Spine magnetic resonance imaging showed a lumbar epidural mass and spine metastasis. The whole-body workup revealed multiple metastases to the lymph nodes, bone, liver, and lung. The serum prostate-specific antigen was 0.02 ng/ml. He underwent laminectomy, posterior fixation, and epidural mass excision, and metastatic adenocarcinoma from the prostate was diagnosed. The patient underwent 1 cycle of docetaxel-based chemotherapy. More chemotherapy could not be done because of his general weakness. The patient died one month later of multiple organ failure

Evaluation of barley to replace milk by-product in weaning pig’s diet

The supplementation level of barley was limited because of high contents of fiber in monogastric animals. Barley contained high soluble fiber, thus it could prevent to diarrhea of weaning pigs. Moreover, as the barley break down by enzymes, free sugars come out from the barley, which could be used as an energy source in weaning pigs and replace milk by-products in weaning pig’s diet. Therefore, present study was conducted to investigate the influence of barley to replace milk by-product in weaning pig’s diet on growth performance, blood profile, nutrient digestibility, diarrhea incidence, and economic analysis in weaning pigs. A total of 112 crossbred ([York-shire × Landrace] × Duroc, weaned at 28 days of age) piglets were allotted to 4 treatments in a randomized complete block (RCB) design. Each treatment has 7 replications with 4 pigs per pen. Pigs were fed each treatment diet which containing different levels of barley (0%, 10%, 20%, and 30%) at the expense of whey powder and lactose. Three phase feeding programs were used for 6 weeks of growth trial (phase 1: 0–2 weeks; phase 2: 3–4 weeks; phase 3: 5–6 weeks). During 0–2 week, body weight (BW), average daily gain (ADG) and G:F ratio were decreased as barley level increased in the diet (linear response, p < 0.01). In blood profile, blood urea nitrogen was decreased as the barley level increased in the diet (linear, p < 0.01). However, no significant differences were observed in blood glucose level. In nutrient digestibility, crude fat digestibility was linearly increased as barley increased (linear, p < 0.01). The incidence of diarrhea was improved as increasing barley contents in all phases (linear, p < 0.01). These results demonstrated that supplementation of barley to replace milk by-product influenced negatively on growth performance during 0–2 week. However, the incidence of diarrhea and later growth performance from 3 week postweaning were improved as dietary barley level increased

Continuous testing of silica-PEI adsorbents in a lab.-scale twin bubbling fluidized-bed system

In this study, a lab.-scale twin bubbling fluidized-bed system (TBS) has been used continuously to test the performance for CO2 adsorption of silica-PEI (S.PEI) adsorbents, containing 40 wt.% of PEI, which were supplied by the University of Nottingham (UNOTT). The TBS comprises bubbling-bed adsorption and desorption reactors, a riser for pneumatic conveying of solids from the adsorption to the desorption reactor, and a cyclone for solid-gas separation. The adsorbent prepared using PEI with a molecular mass of 800 (S.PEI-0.8K) was a preliminarily tested for almost 24 h at the given operating conditions by varying the inlet sorbent/CO2 mass ratio at the adsorber to analyse the CO2 removal efficiency in the adsorption reactor and the dynamic sorption capacity of the adsorbent. A 180-h continuous test was then carried out by changing various experimental conditions such as the H2O concentration, reaction temperature, solid layer height, reaction gas flow rate, and inlet sorbent/CO2 mass ratio at the adsorber using PEI with a molecular mass of 5000 (S.PEI-5K) adsorbent. In this test, a CO2 removal efficiency of above 80% and a dynamic sorption capacity greater than 6.0 wt.% were achieved