Novel thick-foam ferroelectret with engineered voids for energy harvesting applications

This work reports a novel thick-foam ferroelectret which is designed and engineered for energy harvesting applications. We fabricated this ferroelectret foam by mixing a chemical blowing agent with a polymer solution, then used heat treatment to activate the agent and create voids in the polymer foam. The dimensions of the foam, the density and size of voids can be well controlled in the fabrication process. Therefore, this ferroelectret can be engineered into optimized structure for energy harvesting applications

An Unsupervised Three-way Decisions Framework of Overload Preference Based on Adjusted Weight Multi-attribute Decision-making Model

AbstractIn the process of traffic control, law-enforcement officials are required to accurately evaluate the potential probability of freight-driver's overloading behavior. This study establishes a model of overloading preference assessment on the basis of freight-driver's individual variation. With indexes selecting, the equal-weight and AHP-based adjusted weight decision-making model are used respectively to evaluate freight-driver's overload preference. Synthesizing the results from two models, we present a three-way decisions model to make judgment

DNA polymeraseη protein expression predicts treatment response and survival of metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma patients treated with oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA polymerase η (pol η) is capable of bypassing DNA adducts produced by cisplatin or oxaliplatin and is associated with cellular tolerance to platinum. Previous studies showed that defective pol η resulted in enhanced cisplatin or oxaliplatin sensitivity in some cell lines. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of pol η protein expression in metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Four gastric adenocarcinoma cell lines were chosen to explore the relationship between pol η protein expression and oxaliplatin sensitivity by western blotting and MTT assay. Eighty metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma patients treated with FOLFOX or XELOX regimen as first-line chemotherapy were analyzed, corresponding pretreatment formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissues were used to detect pol η protein expression by immunohistochemistry. Relationship between pol η protein expression and clinical features and outcome of these patients was analyzed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A positive linear relationship between pol η protein expression and 48 h IC50 values of oxaliplatin in four gastric cancer cell lines was observed. Positivity of pol η protein expression was strongly associated with poor treatment response, as well as shorter survival at both univariate (8 versus 14 months; P < 0.001) and multivariate (hazard ratio, 4.555; 95% confidence interval, 2.461-8.429; P < 0.001) analysis in eighty metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma patients.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study indicates that polη is a predictive factor of treatment response and survival of metastatic gastric adenocarcinoma patients treated with FOLFOX or XELOX as first-line chemotherapy. Therefore confirming the value of polη in studies with prospective design is mandatory.</p

Flexible piezoelectric nano-composite films for kinetic energy harvesting from textiles

This paper details the enhancements in the dielectric and piezoelectric properties of a low-temperature screen-printable piezoelectric nano-composite film on flexible plastic and textile substrates. These enhancements involved adding silver nano particles to the nano-composite material and using an additional cold isostatic pressing (CIP) post-processing procedure. These developments have resulted in a 18% increase in the free-standing piezoelectric charge coefficient d33 to a value of 98 pC/N. The increase in the dielectric constant of the piezoelectric film has, however, resulted in a decrease in the peak output voltage of the composite film. The potential for this material to be used to harvest mechanical energy from a variety of textiles under compressive and bending forces has been evaluated theoretically and experimentally. The maximum energy density of the enhanced piezoelectric material under 800 N compressive force was found to be 34 J/m3 on a Kermel textile. The maximum energy density of the enhanced piezoelectric material under bending was found to be 14.3 J/m3 on a cotton textile. These results agree very favourably with the theoretical predictions. For a 10x10 cm piezoelectric element 100 µm thick this equates to 38 μJ and 14.3 μJ of energy generated per mechanical action respectively which is a potentially useful amount of energy

Molecular Cloning, Expression Profile and 5′ Regulatory Region Analysis of Two Chemosensory Protein Genes from the Diamondback Moth, Plutella xylostella

Chemosensory proteins play an important role in transporting chemical compounds to their receptors on dendrite membranes. In this study, two full-length cDNA codings for chemosensory proteins of Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae) were obtained by RACE-PCR. PxylCSP3 and Pxyl-CSP4, with GenBank accession numbers ABM92663 and ABM92664, respectively, were cloned and sequenced. The gene sequences both consisted of three exons and two introns. RT-PCR analysis showed that Pxyl-CSP3 and Pxyl-CSP4 had different expression patterns in the examined developmental stages, but were expressed in all larval stages. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that lepidopteran insects consist of three branches, and Pxyl-CSP3 and Pxyl-CSP4 belong to different branches. The 5′regulatory regions of Pxyl-CSP3 and Pxyl-CSP4 were isolated and analyzed, and the results consist of not only the core promoter sequences (TATA-box), but also several transcriptional elements (BR-C Z4, Hb, Dfd, CF2-II, etc.). This study provides clues to better understanding the various physiological functions of CSPs in P. xylostella and other insects

Enhancement of polar phases in PVDF by forming PVDF/SiC nanowire composite

Different contents of silicon carbide (SiC) nanowires were mixed with Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) to facilitate the polar phase crystallization. It was shown that the annealing temperature and SiC content affected on the phase and crystalline structures of PVDF/SiC samples. Furthermore, the addition of SiC nanowire enhanced the transformation of non-polar α phase to polar phases and increased the relative fraction of β phase in PVDF. Due to the nucleating agent mechanism of SiC nanowires, the ion-dipole interaction between the negatively charged surface of SiC nanowires and the positive CH2 groups in PVDF facilitated the formation of polar phases in PVDF

Skp2 expression unfavorably impacts survival in resectable esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The correlation of S-phase kinase–associated protein 2 (Skp2) with metastasis and prognosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is controversial. The purpose of this study was to explore whether there was a correlation between the expression of Skp2 evaluated by immunohistochemistry and the clinical outcome of patients with operable ESCC, and to further determine the possible mechanism of the impact of Skp2 on survival.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Tissue microarrays that included 157 surgically resected ESCC specimens was successfully generated for immunohistochemical evaluation. The clinical/prognostic significance of Skp2 expression was analyzed. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compare the postoperative survival between groups. The prognostic impact of clinicopathologic variables and Skp2 expression was evaluated using a Cox proportional hazards model. A cell proliferation assay and a colony formation assay were performed in ESCC cell lines to determine the function of Skp2 on the progression of ESCC <it>in vitro</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Skp2 expression correlated closely with the T category (<it>p</it> = 0.035) and the pathological tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (<it>p</it> = 0.027). High expression of Skp2 was associated with poor overall survival in resectable ESCC (<it>p</it> = 0.01). The multivariate Cox regression analysis demonstrated that pathological T category, pathological N category, cell differentiation, and negative Skp2 expression were independent factors for better overall survival. <it>In vitro</it> assays of ESCC cell lines demonstrated that Skp2 promoted the proliferative and colony-forming capacity of ESCCs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Negative Skp2 expression in primary resected ESCC is an independent factor for better survival. Skp2 may play a pro-proliferative role in ESCC cells.</p

Integrated application of uniform design and least-squares support vector machines to transfection optimization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Transfection in mammalian cells based on liposome presents great challenge for biological professionals. To protect themselves from exogenous insults, mammalian cells tend to manifest poor transfection efficiency. In order to gain high efficiency, we have to optimize several conditions of transfection, such as amount of liposome, amount of plasmid, and cell density at transfection. However, this process may be time-consuming and energy-consuming. Fortunately, several mathematical methods, developed in the past decades, may facilitate the resolution of this issue. This study investigates the possibility of optimizing transfection efficiency by using a method referred to as least-squares support vector machine, which requires only a few experiments and maintains fairly high accuracy.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A protocol consists of 15 experiments was performed according to the principle of uniform design. In this protocol, amount of liposome, amount of plasmid, and the number of seeded cells 24 h before transfection were set as independent variables and transfection efficiency was set as dependent variable. A model was deduced from independent variables and their respective dependent variable. Another protocol made up by 10 experiments was performed to test the accuracy of the model. The model manifested a high accuracy. Compared to traditional method, the integrated application of uniform design and least-squares support vector machine greatly reduced the number of required experiments. What's more, higher transfection efficiency was achieved.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The integrated application of uniform design and least-squares support vector machine is a simple technique for obtaining high transfection efficiency. Using this novel method, the number of required experiments would be greatly cut down while higher efficiency would be gained. Least-squares support vector machine may be applicable to many other problems that need to be optimized.</p