Strain-restricted transfer of ferromagnetic electrodes for constructing reproducibly superior-quality spintronic devices

Spintronic device is the fundamental platform for spin-related academic and practical studies. However, conventional techniques with energetic deposition or boorish transfer of ferromagnetic metal inevitably introduce uncontrollable damage and undesired contamination in various spin-transport-channel materials, leading to partially attenuated and widely distributed spintronic device performances. These issues will eventually confuse the conclusions of academic studies and limit the practical applications of spintronics. Here we propose a polymer-assistant strain-restricted transfer technique that allows perfectly transferring the pre-patterned ferromagnetic electrodes onto channel materials without any damage and change on the properties of magnetism, interface, and channel. This technique is found productive for pursuing superior-quality spintronic devices with high controllability and reproducibility. It can also apply to various-kind (organic, inorganic, organic-inorganic hybrid, or carbon-based) and diverse-morphology (smooth, rough, even discontinuous) channel materials. This technique can be very useful for reliable device construction and will facilitate the technological transition of spintronic study

A COVID-19 Risk Score Combining Chest CT Radiomics and Clinical Characteristics to Differentiate COVID-19 Pneumonia From Other Viral Pneumonias

With the continued transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) throughout the world, identification of highly suspected COVID-19 patients remains an urgent priority. In this study, we developed and validated COVID-19 risk scores to identify patients with COVID-19. In this study, for patient-wise analysis, three signatures, including the risk score using radiomic features only, the risk score using clinical factors only, and the risk score combining radiomic features and clinical variables, show an excellent performance in differentiating COVID-19 from other viral-induced pneumonias in the validation set. For lesion-wise analysis, the risk score using three radiomic features only also achieved an excellent AUC value. In contrast, the performance of 130 radiologists based on the chest CT images alone without the clinical characteristics included was moderate as compared to the risk scores developed. The risk scores depicting the correlation of CT radiomics and clinical factors with COVID-19 could be used to accurately identify patients with COVID-19, which would have clinically translatable diagnostic and therapeutic implications from a precision medicine perspective

Preparation and Characterization of PVA Alkaline Solid Polymer Electrolyte with Addition of Bamboo Charcoal

Natural bamboo charcoal (BC) powder has been developed as a novel filler in order to further improve performances of the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based alkaline solid polymer electrolyte (ASPE) by solution casting method. X-ray diffraction patterns of composite polymer electrolyte with BC revealed the decrease in the degree of crystallinity with increasing content of BC. Scanning electron microscopy images showed pores on a micrometer scale (average diameter about 2 μm) distributed inside and on the surface of the membranes, indicating a three-dimension network formed in the polymer framework. The ionic conductivity was measured by the alternating-current (AC) impedance method, and the highest conductivity value of 6.63 × 10−2 S·cm−1 was obtained with 16 wt % of BC content and mKOH:mPVA = 2:1.5 at 30 °C. The contents of BC and KOH could significantly influence the conductivity. The temperature dependence of the bulk electrical conductivity displayed a combination of Arrhenius nature, and the activation energy for the ion in polymer electrolyte has been calculated. The electrochemical stability window of the electrolyte membrane was over 1.6 V. The thermogravimetric analysis curves showed that the degradation temperatures of PVA-BC-KOH ASPE membranes shifted toward higher with adding BC. A simple nickel-hydrogen battery containing PVA-BC-KOH electrolyte membrane was assembled with a maximum discharge capacity of 193 mAh·g−1

Effect of Silicone Rubber of a Waste Composite Insulator on Cement Mortar Properties

Due to the rapid growth of the electric power system, the silicone rubber composite insulator is so widely employed around the world. However, the aging damage and decommission of it inevitably generates plenty of waste silicone rubber. It takes up large amounts of land for non-degradation, which is becoming a serious environmental issue. In this paper, the effort has been made to reuse the silicone rubber of composite insulator by peeling, breaking and adding it into the cement mortar to partly replace river sand by 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 30% in volume. Moreover, the surface modification of silicone rubber particles with H2O2 and KOH is explored to improve hydrophilicity. The mechanical strength of silicone rubber mortar and modified silicone rubber mortar are measured in detail, and the effects of particle size, content and modification of silicone rubber on the properties of mortar are investigated. This study shows that at least a 5% addition of silicone rubber can reduce the strengths, while the 15% addition is obviously favorable for increasing the toughness. Furthermore, the mortar strength gets promoted due to the surface modification. Lastly, the superior thermal insulation and noise reduction of the mortar are obtained as the addition of silicone rubber particles, and an equation between dry apparent density and thermal conductivity of mortar has been developed

Explicit Differentiation of G-Quadruplex/Ligand Interactions: Triplet Excited States as Sensitive Reporters

We report a new transient spectral method utilizing triplet excited state as sensitive reporters to monitor and differentiate the multiplex G-quadruplex/ligand interactions in a single assay, which is a difficult task and usually requires a combination of several techniques. From a systematic study on the interactions of porphyrin (TMPyP4) with each telomeric G-quadruplex: AG(3)(T(2)AG(3))(3), G(2)T(2)G(2)TGTG(2)T(2)G(2), (G(4)T(4)G(4))(2), and (TG(4)T)(4), it is convincingly shown that the ligand triplet decay lifetimes are sensitive to the local bound microenviromnent within G-quadruplexes, from which the coexisting binding modes of end-stacking, intercalation, and sandwich are distinguished and their respective contribution are determined. The complete scenario of mixed interaction modes is thus revealed, shedding light on the past controversial issues. Additional control experiments demonstrate the sensitivity of this triplet reporter method, which can even capture the binding behavior change as the G-quadruplex structures are adjusted by Na+ or K+

The Novel Prognostic Index Model of Combining Circulating Tumor DNA and PINK-E Predicts the Clinical Outcomes for Newly Diagnosed Extranodal NK/T-cell Lymphoma

Extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTL) is a highly aggressive and heterogeneous disease with poor clinical outcome. Our previous work had demonstrated that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analyses were feasible in ENKTL, and dynamic tracing of ctDNA could be used to monitor the disease status. However, the prognostic value of ctDNA in ENKTL has not been fully investigated. Patients with newly diagnosed ENKTL from February 2017 to December 2021 (n = 70) were enrolled. The pretreatment ctDNA concentration (hGE/mL) was measured. The prognostic value of ctDNA, international prognostic index (IPI), Korean prognostic index (KPI), PINK-E, and the combination of PINK-E and ctDNA (PINK-EC) were investigated in our cohort. The IPI and PINK-E risk categories had a significant difference in progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) between the low-risk and intermediate-risk groups. The KPI risk category had a difference in PFS and OS between the intermediate-risk and high-risk groups. Furthermore, integrating ctDNA into the PINK-E model could overcome the shortcomings of other prognostic models, which could significantly distinguish the different-risk groups. Overall, our results demonstrated that PINK-EC showed a superior prognostic prediction value and stability compared with IPI, KPI, and PINK-E. The integration of molecular features of the tumor into classic risk categories might better characterize a high-risk group where novel treatment approaches are most needed