Piezoelectric ZnO Thin Films for 2DOF MEMS Vibrational Energy Harvesting

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an environmental-friendly semiconducting, piezoelectric and non-ferroelectric material, and plays an essential role for applications in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). In this work, a fully integrated two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) MEMS piezoelectric vibration energy harvester (p-VEH) was designed and fabricated using ZnO thin films for converting kinetic energy into electrical energy. The 2DOF energy harvesting system comprises two subsystems: the primary one for energy conversion and the auxiliary one for frequency adjustment. Piezoelectric ZnO thin film was deposited using a radio-frequency magnetron sputtering method onto the primary subsystem for energy conversion from mechanical vibration to electricity. Dynamic performance of the 2DOF resonant system was analyzed and optimized using a lumped parameter model. Two closely located but separated peaks were achieved by precisely adjusting mass ratio and frequency ratio of the resonant systems. The 2DOF MEMS p-VEH chip was fabricated through a combination of laminated surface micromachining process, double-side alignment and bulk micromachining process. When the fabricated prototype was subjected to an excitation acceleration of 0.5 g, two close resonant peaks at 403.8 and 489.9 Hz with comparable voltages of 10 and 15 mV were obtained, respectively

Short-Term Effects of Ambient Air Pollution on Hospitalization for Respiratory Disease in Taiyuan, China: A Time-Series Analysis

In this study, we estimated the short-term effects of ambient air pollution on respiratory disease hospitalization in Taiyuan, China. Daily data of respiratory disease hospitalization, daily concentration of ambient air pollutants and meteorological factors from 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2017 in Taiyuan were included in our study. We conducted a time-series study design and applied a generalized additive model to evaluate the association between every 10-μg/m3 increment of air pollutants and percent increase of respiratory disease hospitalization. A total of 127,565 respiratory disease hospitalization cases were included in this study during the present period. In single-pollutant models, the effect values in multi-day lags were greater than those in single-day lags. PM2.5 at lag02 days, SO2 at lag03 days, PM10 and NO2 at lag05 days were observed to be strongly and significantly associated with respiratory disease hospitalization. No significant association was found between O3 and respiratory disease hospitalization. SO2 and NO2 were still significantly associated with hospitalization after adjusting for PM2.5 or PM10 into two-pollutant models. Females and younger population for respiratory disease were more vulnerable to air pollution than males and older groups. Therefore, some effective measures should be taken to strengthen the management of the ambient air pollutants, especially SO2 and NO2, and to enhance the protection of the high-risk population from air pollutants, thereby reducing the burden of respiratory disease caused by ambient air pollution

Precise and Efficient Phototheranostics: Molecular Engineering of Photosensitizers with Near-Infrared Aggregation-Induced Emission for Acid-Triggered Nucleus-Targeted Photodynamic Cancer Therapy

Phototheranostics involving both fluorescence imaging (FLI) and photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been recognized to be potentially powerful for cancer treatment by virtue of various intrinsic advantages. However, the state-of-the-art materials in this area are still far from ideal towards practical applications, owing to their respective and collective drawbacks, such as inefficient imaging quality, inferior reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, the lack of subcellular-targeting capability, and dissatisfactory theranostics delivery. In this contribution, these shortcomings are successfully addressed through the integration of finely engineered photosensitizers having aggregation-induced emission (AIE) features and well tailored nanocarrier system. The yielded AIE NPs simultaneously exhibit broad absorption in visible light region, bright near-infrared fluorescence emission, extremely high ROS generation, as well as tumor lysosomal acidity-activated and nucleus-targeted delivery functions, making them dramatically promising for precise and efficient phototheranostics. Both in vitro and in vivo evaluations show that the presented nanotheranostic system bearing excellent photostability and appreciable biosecurity well performed in FLI-guided photodynamic cancer therapy. This study thus not only extends the applications scope of AIE nanomaterials, but also offers useful insights into constructing a new generation of cancer theranostics

Transcriptome Analysis of Monozygotic Twin Brothers with Childhood Primary Myelofibrosis

Primary myelofibrosis (PMF) is a chronic myeloproliferative disorder in human bone marrow. Over 50% of patients with myelofibrosis have mutations in JAK2, MPL, or CALR. However, these mutations are rarely detected in children, suggesting a difference in the pathogenesis of childhood PMF. In this study, we investigated the response to drug treatment of a monozygotic twin pair with typical childhood PMF. The twin exhibited different clinical outcomes despite following the same treatment regimen. The transcriptomic profiles of patient samples after drug treatment (E2 and Y2) were significantly different between the twin pair, which is consistent with the observation that the drug treatment was effective only in the younger brother, despite the twin being genetically identical. Bioinformatics analysis of the drug-responsive genes showed that the JAK-STAT pathway was activated in the cured younger brother, which is opposite to the pathway inhibition observed in adult PMF cases following treatment. Moreover, apoptosis and cell cycle processes were both significantly influenced by drug treatment in the sample of younger brother (Y2), implying their potential association with the pathogenesis of childhood PMF. Gene mutations in JAK2, MPL, or CALR were not observed; however, mutations in genes including SRSF2 and SF3B1 occurred in this twin pair with childhood PMF. Gene fusion events were extensively screened in the twin pair samples and the occurrence of IGLV2-14-IGLL5 gene fusion was confirmed. The current study reported at transcriptomic level the different responses of monozygotic twin brothers with childhood PMF to the same androgen/prednisone treatment regimen providing new insights into the potential pathogenesis of childhood PMF for further research and clinical applications

Transcriptome Analysis of Monozygotic Twin Brothers with Childhood Primary Myelofibrosis

Primary myelofibrosis (PMF) is a chronic myeloproliferative disorder in human bone marrow. Over 50% of patients with myelofibrosis have mutations in JAK2, MPL, or CALR. However, these mutations are rarely detected in children, suggesting a difference in the pathogenesis of childhood PMF. In this study, we investigated the response to drug treatment of a monozygotic twin pair with typical childhood PMF. The twin exhibited different clinical outcomes despite following the same treatment regimen. The transcriptomic profiles of patient samples after drug treatment (E2 and Y2) were significantly different between the twin pair, which is consistent with the observation that the drug treatment was effective only in the younger brother, despite the twin being genetically identical. Bioinformatics analysis of the drug-responsive genes showed that the JAK-STAT pathway was activated in the cured younger brother, which is opposite to the pathway inhibition observed in adult PMF cases following treatment. Moreover, apoptosis and cell cycle processes were both significantly influenced by drug treatment in the sample of younger brother (Y2), implying their potential association with the pathogenesis of childhood PMF. Gene mutations in JAK2, MPL, or CALR were not observed; however, mutations in genes including SRSF2 and SF3B1 occurred in this twin pair with childhood PMF. Gene fusion events were extensively screened in the twin pair samples and the occurrence of IGLV2-14-IGLL5 gene fusion was confirmed. The current study reported at transcriptomic level the different responses of monozygotic twin brothers with childhood PMF to the same androgen/prednisone treatment regimen providing new insights into the potential pathogenesis of childhood PMF for further research and clinical applications

Data from: Dynamically prognosticating patients with hepatocellular carcinoma through survival paths mapping based on time-series data

Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) always require routine surveillance and repeated treatment, which leads to accumulation of huge amount of clinical data. A predictive model utilizes the time-series data to facilitate dynamic prognosis prediction and treatment planning is warranted. Here we introduced an analytical approach, which converts the time-series data into a cascading survival map, in which each survival path bifurcates at fixed time interval depending on selected prognostic features by the Cox-based feature selection. We apply this approach in an intermediate-scale database of patients with BCLC stage B HCC and get a survival map consisting of 13 different survival paths, which is demonstrated to have superior or equal value than conventional staging systems in dynamic prognosis prediction from 3 to 12 months after initial diagnosis in derivation, internal testing, and multicentric testing cohorts. This methodology/model could facilitate dynamic prognosis prediction and treatment planning for patients with HCC in the future

Time Series Clinical Data for patients with BCLC stage B Hepatocellular carcinoma

This database contain three independent electronic forms, which includes the time-series clinical data and survival outcome of patient with BCLC stage B hepatocellular carcinoma, with an time interval of three months. The derivation cohort includes 979 patients, the internal validation cohort includes 627 patients, and the multicentric validation cohort includes 414 patients. All the categorical variables were annotated

Thermal-Responsive Anisotropic Wetting Microstructures for Manipulation of Fluids in Microfluidics

We show morphology-patterned stripes modified by thermal-responsive polymer for smartly guiding flow motion of fluid in chips. With a two-step modification process, we fabricated PNIPAAm-modified Si stripes on silicon slides, which were employed as substrates for fluid manipulation in microchannels. When the system temperature switches between above and below the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of PNIPAAm, the wettability of the substrates also switches between strong anisotropy and weak anisotropy, which resulted in anisotropic (even unidirectional) flow and isotropic flow behavior of liquid in microchannels. The thermal-responsive flow motion of fluid in the chip is influenced by the applied pressure, the thickness of PNIPAAm, and dimension of the microchannels. Moreover, we measured the feasible applied pressure scopes under different structure factors. Because of the excellent reversibility and quick switching speed, the chip could be used as a thermal-responsive microvalve. Through tuning the system temperature and adding the assistant gas, we realized successive “valve” function. We believe that the practical and simple chip could be widely utilized in medical detection, immunodetection, protein analysis, and cell cultures

Modulate the Morphology and Spectroscopic Property of Gold Nanoparticle Arrays by Polymer-Assisted Thermal Treatment

In this article, we report the morphology modulation of gold nanoparticle (NP) arrays by polymer-assisted thermal treatment. Simultaneously, localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) UV–vis extinction (absorption plus scattering) of gold NP arrays was monitored and analyzed. First, through horizontal lifting, gold NP monolayers were transferred from a water/hexane interface to glass slides. After thin polymer films were spin-coated on the gold NP monolayers, thermal treatment was carried out, which results in apparent color changes in the obtained samples. The color changes could be attributed to the shift of the surface plasmon band (SPB), along with increasing gold NP size and interparticle distance. We found that different polymers show different effects on the modulation of gold NPs’ morphology, accompanied by different shifts of the SPB. Polymers with relatively lower glass transition temperatures (<i>T</i>_g), such as poly­(methyl methacrylate), promoted gold NPs to merge into spheres, while polymers with relatively higher <i>T</i>_g, such as polyphenylene sulfone resins, inhibited the fusion of gold NPs, which collapsed as a whole slice. We believe that the difference should be attributed to the polymer chain’s ability to move during heating. Therefore, the temperature of thermal treatment and the <i>T</i>_g of the polymer play critical roles in the merging process of gold NPs. Moreover, through combining colloidal lithography technology, patterned gold NP monolayers have been fabricated. The current strategy is simple and facile to control the morphology of gold NP arrays, as well as to control their optical properties

Strategy in Construction of Survival Path of HCC patients manually

This picture illustrate how we construct the survival path system of patients using time-series data manually