Changchun University

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death worldwide. The rapid development of flexible sensing technologies and wearable pressure sensors have attracted keen research interest and have been widely used for long-term and real-time cardiovascular status monitoring. Owing to compelling characteristics, including light weight, wearing comfort, and high sensitivity to pulse pressures, physiological pulse waveforms can be precisely and continuously monitored by flexible pressure sensors for wearable health monitoring. Herein, an overview of wearable pressure sensors for human pulse wave monitoring is presented, with a focus on the transduction mechanism, microengineering structures, and related applications in pulse wave monitoring and cardiovascular condition assessment. The conceptualizations and methods for the acquisition of physiological and pathological information related to the cardiovascular system are outlined. The biomechanics of arterial pulse waves and the working mechanism of various wearable pressure sensors, including triboelectric, piezoelectric, magnetoelastic, piezoresistive, capacitive, and optical sensors, are also subject to systematic debate. Exemple applications of pulse wave measurement based on microengineering structured devices are then summarized. Finally, a discussion of the opportunities and challenges that wearable pressure sensors face, as well as their potential as a wearable intelligent system for personalized healthcare is given in conclusion.

Human genetic history in East Asia is poorly understood. To clarify population relationships, we obtained genome-wide data from 26 ancient individuals from northern and southern East Asia spanning 9500 to 300 years ago. Genetic differentiation in this region was higher in the past than the present, which reflects a major episode of admixture involving northern East Asian ancestry spreading across southern East Asia after the Neolithic, thereby transforming the genetic ancestry of southern China. Mainland southern East Asian and Taiwan Strait island samples from the Neolithic show clear connections with modern and ancient individuals with Austronesian-related ancestry, which supports an origin in southern China for proto-Austronesians. Connections among Neolithic coastal groups from Siberia and Japan to Vietnam indicate that migration and gene flow played an important role in the prehistory of coastal Asia.

Making highly efficient catalysts for an overall ​water splitting reaction is vitally important to bring solar/electrical‐to‐hydrogen energy conversion processes into reality. Herein, the synthesis of ultrathin nanosheet‐based, hollow MoO x /Ni 3 S 2 composite microsphere catalysts on nickel foam, using ammonium molybdate as a precursor and the triblock copolymer pluronic P123 as a structure‐directing agent is reported. It is also shown that the resulting materials can serve as bifunctional, non‐noble metal electrocatalysts with high activity and stability for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) as well as the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Thanks to their unique structural features, the materials give an impressive water‐splitting current density of 10 mA cm −2 at ≈1.45 V with remarkable durability for >100 h when used as catalysts both at the cathode and the anode sides of an alkaline electrolyzer. This performance for an overall water splitting reaction is better than even those obtained with an electrolyzer consisting of noble metal ‐based Pt/C and IrO x /C catalytic couple—the benchmark catalysts for HER and OER, respectively.

Abstract Propane dehydrogenation (PDH) has great potential to meet the increasing global demand for propylene, but the widely used Pt‐based catalysts usually suffer from short‐term stability and unsatisfactory propylene selectivity. Herein, we develop a ligand‐protected direct hydrogen reduction method for encapsulating subnanometer bimetallic Pt–Zn clusters inside silicalite‐1 (S‐1) zeolite. The introduction of Zn species significantly improved the stability of the Pt clusters and gave a superhigh propylene selectivity of 99.3 % with a weight hourly space velocity (WHSV) of 3.6–54 h −1 and specific activity of propylene formation of 65.5 mol g Pt −1 h −1 (WHSV=108 h −1 ) at 550 °C. Moreover, no obvious deactivation was observed over PtZn4@S‐1‐H catalyst even after 13000 min on stream (WHSV=3.6 h −1 ), affording an extremely low deactivation constant of 0.001 h −1 , which is 200 times lower than that of the PtZn4/Al 2 O 3 counterpart under the same conditions. We also show that the introduction of Cs + ions into the zeolite can improve the regeneration stability of catalysts, and the catalytic activity kept unchanged after four continuous cycles.

Electrospinning is the most facile and highly versatile approach to produce 1D polymeric, inorganic, and hybrid nanomaterials with a small diameter, controllable dimensions, and designed architectures. In particular, with large surface area, high porosity, low density, good directionality, and tunable composition, electrospun nanofibers and mats are regarded as ideal candidates for various kinds of electrochemical energy storage devices such as supercapacitors (SCs). In this review, the recent progress in electrospun electrode materials for SCs is presented, covering the architecture design and their electrochemical performance. After a brief introduction about SCs, the basic principles of the electrospinning technique are discussed. Following, attention is paid to the discussion of various electrospun nanofibers and mats including 1D carbons, metal oxides, metal sulfides, metal nitrides, conducting polymers and composite nanomaterials with various types of architectures as electrodes for SCs. The relationship between the composition, architecture, and the electrochemical performance is discussed in detail. Finally, some challenges and perspectives of future research of the electrospun nanofibers and mats for high performance SCs are highlighted. It is anticipated that this review would provide the researchers some inspiration for constructing new types of energy storage devices.

Abstract It is urgently required to develop highly efficient and stable bifunctional non‐noble metal electrocatalysts for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) for water splitting. In this study, a facile electrospinning followed by a post‐carbonization treatment to synthesize nitrogen‐doped carbon nanofibers (NCNFs) integrated with Ni and Mo 2 C nanoparticles (Ni/Mo 2 C‐NCNFs) as water splitting electrocatalysts is developed. Owing to the strong hydrogen binding energy on Mo 2 C and high electrical conductivity of Ni, synergetic effect between Ni and Mo 2 C nanoparticles significantly promote both HER and OER activities. The optimized hybrid (Ni/Mo 2 C(1:2)‐NCNFs) delivers low overpotentials of 143 mV for HER and 288 mV for OER at a current density of 10 mA cm −2 . An alkaline electrolyzer with Ni/Mo 2 C(1:2)‐NCNFs as catalysts for both anode and cathode exhibits a current density of 10 mA cm −2 at a voltage of 1.64 V, which is only 0.07 V larger than the benchmark of Pt/C‐RuO 2 electrodes. In addition, an outstanding long‐term durability during 100 h testing without obvious degradation is achieved, which is superior to most of the noble‐metal‐free electrocatalysts reported to date. This work provides a simple and effective approach for the preparation of low‐cost and high‐performance bifunctional electrocatalysts for efficient overall water splitting.

Abstract Conductive hydrogels as flexible electronic devices, not only have unique attractions but also meet the basic need of mechanical flexibility and intelligent sensing. How to endow anisotropy and a wide application temperature range for traditional homogeneous conductive hydrogels and flexible sensors is still a challenge. Herein, a directional freezing method is used to prepare anisotropic MXene conductive hydrogels that are inspired by ordered structures of muscles. Due to the anisotropy of MXene conductive hydrogels, the mechanical properties and electrical conductivity are enhanced in specific directions. The hydrogels have a wide temperature resistance range of −36 to 25 °C through solvent substitution. Thus, the muscle‐inspired MXene conductive hydrogels with anisotropy and low‐temperature resistance can be used as wearable flexible sensors. The sensing signals are further displayed on the mobile phone as images through wireless technology, and images will change with the collected signals to achieve motion detection. Multiple flexible sensors are also assembled into a 3D sensor array for detecting the magnitude and spatial distribution of forces or strains. The MXene conductive hydrogels with ordered orientation and anisotropy are promising for flexible sensors, which have broad application prospects in human–machine interface compatibility and medical monitoring.

Cobalt hydroxide is a promising electrode material for supercapacitors due to the high capacitance and long cyclability. However, the energy storage/conversion mechanism of cobalt hydroxide is still vague at the atomic level. Here we shed light on how cobalt hydroxide functions as a supercapacitor electrode at operando conditions. We find that the high specific capacitance and long cycling life of cobalt hydroxide involve a complete modification of the electrode morphology, which is usually believed to be unfavourable but in fact has little influence on the performance. The conversion during the charge/discharge process is free of any massive structural evolution, but with some tiny shuffling or adjustments of atom/ion species. The results not only unravel that the potential of supercapacitors could heavily rely on the underlying structural similarities of switching phases but also pave the way for future material design for supercapacitors, batteries and hybrid devices.

BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are increasingly being applied as a therapy for liver fibrosis. Exosomes possess similar functions to their parent cells; however, they are safe and effective cell-free reagents with controllable and predictable outcomes. In this study, we investigated the therapeutic potential and underlying molecular mechanism for human bone mesenchymal stem cells-derived exosomes (hBM-MSCs-Ex) in the treatment of liver fibrosis. METHODS: -induced rat liver fibrosis model, after which, we administered hBM-MSCs-Ex in vivo for 4 weeks. The resulting histopathology, liver function, and inflammatory cytokines were analyzed. In addition, we investigated the anti-fibrotic mechanism of hBM-MSCs-Ex in hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and liver fibrosis tissue, by western blotting for the expression of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway-related genes. RESULTS: In vivo administration of hBM-MSCs-Ex effectively alleviated liver fibrosis, including a reduction in collagen accumulation, enhanced liver functionality, inhibition of inflammation, and increased hepatocyte regeneration. Moreover, based on measurement of the collagen area, Ishak fibrosis score, MDA levels, IL-1, and IL-6, the therapeutic effect of hBM-MSCs-Ex against liver fibrosis was significantly greater than that of hBM-MSCs. In addition, we found that hBM-MSCs-Ex inhibited the expression of Wnt/β-catenin pathway components (PPARγ, Wnt3a, Wnt10b, β-catenin, WISP1, Cyclin D1), α-SMA, and Collagen I, in both HSCs and liver fibrosis tissue. CONCLUSIONS: -induced liver fibrosis via inhibition of HSC activation through the Wnt/β-catenin pathway.

Sr-doped perovskite manganite La_1−xSr_xMnO₃ materials, which are composed of nanoparticles, possess a meso-scale porous structure with superior electrochemical properties under the mechanism of oxygen intercalation.

A novel concept and approach to engineering carbon nanodots (CNDs) were explored to overcome the limited light absorption of CNDs in low-energy spectral regions. In this work, we constructed a novel type of supra-CND by the assembly of surface charge-confined CNDs through possible electrostatic interactions and hydrogen bonding. The resulting supra-CNDs are the first to feature a strong, well-defined absorption band in the visible to near-infrared (NIR) range and to exhibit effective NIR photothermal conversion performance with high photothermal conversion efficiency in excess of 50%. Carbon nanostructures with superb optical properties in both the visible and near-infrared regions have been synthesized by a team in China. Carbon nanodots (CNDs) are a kind of biocompatible nanomaterials, making them ideal for biological applications. Their absorption wavelengths can be controlled, but this has so far been limited to ultraviolet, blue and green regions. Now, Songnan Qu and co-workers from the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics and Jilin University show that assembling CNDs creates nano-sized aggregates that absorb across the visible range and into the near-infrared. They created the CNDs by hydrothermal treatment of a solution and freeze-drying. The H2O molecules cause CNDs to stick together due to possible electrostatic interactions and hydrogen bonding. The extended optical properties of these so-called supra-CNDs could prove useful in photothermal conversion for nanomedicine.

Accumulating evidence demonstrates that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play important roles in the development and progression of complex human diseases, and predicting novel human lncRNA-disease associations is a challenging and urgently needed task, especially at a time when increasing amounts of lncRNA-related biological data are available. In this study, we proposed a global network-based computational framework, RWRlncD, to infer potential human lncRNA-disease associations by implementing the random walk with restart method on a lncRNA functional similarity network. The performance of RWRlncD was evaluated by experimentally verified lncRNA-disease associations, based on leave-one-out cross-validation. We achieved an area under the ROC curve of 0.822, demonstrating the excellent performance of RWRlncD. Significantly, the performance of RWRlncD is robust to different parameter selections. Predictively highly-ranked lncRNA-disease associations in case studies of prostate cancer and Alzheimer's disease were manually confirmed by literature mining, providing evidence of the good performance and potential value of the RWRlncD method in predicting lncRNA-disease associations.

-exposed N2a cells. In LPS-stimulated BV2 cells, FA treatment decreased the formation of the pro-inflammatory factors IL-6, IL-1β, and NO. In male APP/PS1 mice, FA treatment ameliorated memory and cognitive impairments and suppressed Aβ deposition and p-tau levels in the brain. Analyses using proteomics, immunohistochemistry, ELISA, and western blot revealed that FA treatment significantly augmented dopaminergic signaling, inhibited iron deposition and lipid peroxidation, prevented the activation of IKK/IκB/NF-κB signaling, reduced the secretion of pro-inflammatory factors, and promoted the production of anti-inflammatory factors in the brain. FA treatment exerted anti-ferroptosis and anti-neuroinflammatory effects in erastin-stimulated HT22 cells, and the Nrf2/GPX4 axis played a key role in these effects. Collectively, these results demonstrate the protective effects of FA and highlight its therapeutic potential as a drug component for AD treatment.

at a 500-fold salinity gradient (i.e., flowing salt lake into river water). Furthermore, a generator, built by connecting a series of membranes, could power a calculator for 120 hours without obvious current decline, proving the excellent physical and chemical stabilities. Therefore, we believe that this work advances the fundamental understanding of fluid transport and materials design as a paradigm for a high-performance energy conversion generator.

Abstract Developing high‐performance, low‐cost, and robust bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting is extremely indispensable and challenging. It is a promising strategy to couple highly active precious metals with transition metals as efficient electrocatalysts, which can not only effectively reduce the cost of the preparation procedure, but also greatly improve the performance of catalysts through a synergistic effect. Herein, Ru and Ni nanoparticles embedded within nitrogen‐doped carbon nanofibers (RuNi‐NCNFs) are synthesized via a simple electrospinning technology with a subsequent carbonization process. The as‐formed RuNi‐NCNFs represent excellent Pt‐like electrocatalytic activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in both alkaline and acidic conditions. Furthermore, the RuNi‐NCNFs also exhibit an outstanding oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity with an overpotential of 290 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm −2 in alkaline electrolyte. Strikingly, owing to both the HER and OER performance, an electrolyzer with RuNi‐NCNFs as both the anode and cathode catalysts requires only a cell voltage of 1.564 V to drive a current density of 10 mA cm −2 in an alkaline medium, which is lower than the benchmark of Pt/C||RuO 2 electrodes. This study opens a novel avenue toward the exploration of high efficient but low‐cost electrocatalysts for overall water splitting.

Exploring efficient strategies to overcome the performance constraints of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts is vital for electrocatalytic applications such as H 2 O splitting, CO 2 reduction, N 2 reduction, etc . Herein, tunable, wide-range strain engineering of spinel oxides, such as NiFe 2 O 4, is proposed to enhance the OER activity. The lattice strain is regulated by interfacial thermal mismatch during the bonding process between thermally expanding NiFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles and the nonexpanding carbon fiber substrate. The tensile lattice strain causes energy bands to flatten near the Fermi level, lowering e g orbital occupancy, effectively increasing the number of electronic states near the Fermi level, and reducing the pseudoenergy gap. Consequently, the energy barrier of the rate-determining step for strained NiFe 2 O 4 is reduced, achieving a low overpotential of 180 mV at 10 mA/cm 2 . A total water decomposition voltage range of 1.52–1.56 V at 10 mA/cm 2 (without iR correction) was achieved in an asymmetric alkaline electrolytic cell with strained NiFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles, and its robust stability was verified with a voltage retention of approximately 99.4% after 100 h. Furthermore, the current work demonstrates the universality of tuning OER performance with other spinel ferrite systems, including cobalt, manganese, and zinc ferrites.

Symplastic intercellular transport in plants is achieved by plasmodesmata (PD). These cytoplasmic channels are well known to interconnect plant cells to facilitate intercellular movement of water, nutrients, and signaling molecules including hormones. However, it is not known whether Al may affect this cell-to-cell transport process, which is a critical feature for roots as organs of nutrient/water uptake. We have microinjected the dye lucifer yellow carbohydrazide into peripheral root cells of an Al-sensitive wheat (Triticum aestivum cv Scout 66) either before or after Al treatment and followed the cell-to-cell dye-coupling through PD. Here we show that the Al-induced root growth inhibition is closely associated with the Al-induced blockage of cell-to-cell dye coupling. Immunofluorescence combined with immuno-electron microscopic techniques using monoclonal antibodies against 1-->3-beta-D-glucan (callose) revealed circumstantial evidence that Al-induced callose deposition at PD may responsible for this blockage of symplastic transport. Use of 2-deoxy-D-glucose, a callose synthesis inhibitor, allowed us to demonstrate that a reduction in callose particles correlated well with the improved dye-coupling and reduced root growth inhibition. While assessing the tissue specificity of this Al effect, comparable responses were obtained from the dye-coupling pattern in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) mesophyll cells. Analyses of the Al-induced expression of PD-associated proteins, such as calreticulin and unconventional myosin VIII, showed enhanced fluorescence and co-localizations with callose deposits. These results suggest that Al-signal mediated localized alterations to calcium homeostasis may drive callose formation and PD closure. Our data demonstrate that extracellular Al-induced callose deposition at PD could effectively block symplastic transport and communication in higher plants.

Sensors are widely used in various fields, among which flexible strain sensors that can sense minuscule mechanical signals and are easy to adapt to many irregular surfaces are attractive for structure health monitoring, early detection, and failure prevention in humans, machines, or buildings. In practical applications, subtle and abnormal vibrations generated from any direction are highly desired to detect and even orientate their directions initially to eliminate potential hazards. However, it is challenging for flexible strain sensors to achieve hypersensitivity and omnidirectionality simultaneously due to the restrictions of many materials with anisotropic mechanical/electrical properties and some micro/nanostructures they employed. Herein, it is revealed that the vision-degraded scorpion detects subtle vibrations spatially and omnidirectionally using a slit sensillum with fan-shaped grooves. A bioinspired flexible strain sensor consisting of curved microgrooves arranged around a central circle is devised, exhibiting an unprecedented gauge factor of over 18 000 and stability over 7000 cycles. It can sense and recognize vibrations of diverse input waveforms at different locations, bouncing behaviors of a free-falling bead, and human wrist pulses regardless of sensor installation angles. The geometric designs can be translated to other material systems for potential applications including human health monitoring and engineering failure detection.

Using three different assays, we examined 103 serum samples collected from different civet farms and a market in China in June 2003 and January 2004. While civets on farms were largely free from SARS-CoV infection, approximately 80% of the animals from one animal market in Guangzhou contained significant levels of antibody to SARS-CoV, which suggests no widespread infection among civets resident on farms, and the infection of civets in the market might be associated with trading activities under the conditions of overcrowding and mixing of various animal species.

Abstract Developing low‐cost and high‐efficiency catalysts for sustainable hydrogen production through electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is crucial yet remains challenging. Here, a strategy is proposed to fill Ni‐vacancy (Ni v ) sites of dual‐deficient NiO (D‐NiO‐Pt) deliberately created by Ar plasma with homogeneously distributed Pt atoms driven by oxygen vacancies (O v ). The incorporated Pt atoms filling the Ni v reduce the formation energy to increase crystal stability, and subsequently combine with additional O v to tune the electronic structure of the surrounding Ni sites. Thus, a more ideal hydrogen adsorption free energy (Δ G H* ) closer to 0 of Ni sites and Pt sites can be achieved. As a result, the D‐NiO‐Pt electrode achieves superior mass activity of ≈1600 mA mg −1 (normalized by platinum) and nearly negligible loss of activity during long‐term operation, which is much better than as‐prepared Pt‐containing NiO catalysts without plasma treatment. A low overpotential of 20 mV is required for the D‐NiO‐Pt at 10 mA cm −2 in alkaline HER, outperforming that of the commercial Pt/C. In addition, the universal access to the other Ni‐based compounds including nickel phosphide (Ni 2 P), nickel sulfide (Ni 0.96 S), and nickel selenide (NiSe 2 ) is also demonstrated by employing a vacancy‐driven Pt filling mechanism.