Notes

Alamandine shields against renal ischaemia-reperfusion damage inside rodents via inhibiting oxidative tension.
Wound dressings able to deliver topically bioactive molecules represent a new generation of wound regeneration therapies. In this article, foams based on methylcellulose cross-linked with Manuka honey were used as platform to deliver borate bioactive glass particles doped additionally with copper. Borate bioactive glasses are of great interest in wound healing applications due to a combination of favorable properties, such as angiogenic and antibacterial properties. The multifunctional composite providing dual effects of the bioactive glass and Manuka honey was produced by freeze drying und the resulting foams exhibit a suitable morphology including a high porosity. Moreover, the performed tests showed improved wettability and mechanical performance by the addition of bioactive glass particles. Dissolution studies using simulated body fluid (SBF) and cell biology tests using relevant skin cells further proved the excellent bioactivity and the positive effects of the foams on cell proliferation and migration. Most interestingly, by the dual release of Manuka honey and ions from the copper doped bioactive glass, an antibacterial effect against E. coli and S. aureus could be obtained. Therefore, the multifunctional foams showed promising results as wound dressings for the treatment of infected wounds. Creative Commons Attribution license.BACKGROUND Several commercial and custom-made forced oscillation technique (FOT) devices are used to assess respiratory system impedance. The impulse oscillometry system (IOS) is a widespread device, which yields similar, but not identical results to those provided by other FOT systems. Differences may be related to the forcing waveform, the device hardware, or the data processing algorithms. We evaluated the agreement between resistance (Rrs) and reactance (Xrs) measurements while alternating between different forcing waveforms and data processing algorithms. METHODS We performed pre- and post-bronchodilator measurements in 20 patients with respiratory complaints. We generated pulse waveforms using an IOS, and sinusoidal oscillations by replacing the IOS loudspeaker with customized loudspeaker providing a 5 Hz sinusoidal pressure signal. Pressure and flow were measured using the IOS sensors and breathing circuit. We developed a data processing algorithm compatible to both forcing signals. We also applied the commercial IOS software during pulse waveform and a least mean square (lms) algorithm during sinusoidal waveform. RESULTS The median (5th,95th percentile) differences between Rrs and Xrs were 1) -0.35 (-2.49,1.23) and 0.16 (-1.63,3.07) cmH2O*s/L, when the same algorithm was used during pulse vs. sinusoidal stimulus; 2) 0.34 (-2.33,5.98) and 0.57 (-2.64,6.09) cmH2O*s/L, when our algorithm and the IOS software were used during pulse waveform; 3) 0.33 (-1.20, 6.05) and 0.25 (-4.94,4.28) cmH2O*s/L when the IOS software was used during pulse and the lms algorithm during sinusoidal waveforms. CONCLUSION Both forcing signal and data processing contribute to differences in impedance values measured by different FOT devices. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.Recently we have developped a new energetic model based on the determination of the energies on each site of random solid solutions after relaxation as a function of both the local composition and the nominal concentration. It allows to determine the main thermodynamics driving forces of disordered alloys. Here, we extend the effective site energy model to ordered alloys and illustrate the results for the AuPd system. As a first step, we show the ability of this energetic model to reproduce the hierarchy of ordered phases. Then, we derive general mean-field analytic formulae for ordered systems and get the phase diagram. We determine the relative role of the cohesive effect, the chemical effect and the size effect and find that the chemical effect differs significantly between the disordered state and the ordered state. Finally, we link the energy formation of antisite to the permutation enthalpy and give the driving forces for the formation of antisite. © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd.OBJECTIVE Gait analysis helps to assess recovery during rehabilitation. Previous gait analysis studies are primarily applicable to healthy subjects or to postoperative patients. The purpose of this paper is to construct a new gait parameter estimation platform based on an ear-worn activity recognition (e-AR) sensor, which can be used for both normal and pathological gait signals. APPROACH Thirty healthy adults and eight postoperative patients participated in the experiment. A method based on singular spectrum analysis (SSA) and iterative mean filtering (IMF) is proposed to detect gait events and estimate three key gait parameters, i.e. stride time, swing time, and stance time. MAIN RESULTS Experimental results show that the estimated gait parameters by proposed method are very close to the gait parameters provided by the gait assessment system. For normal gait signals, the average absolute errors of stride, swing, and stance time are 27.8ms, 35.8ms, and 37.5ms, respectively. For pathological gait signals, the average absolute error of stride time is 32.1 ms. SIGNIFICANCE The proposed parameter estimation method can be applied on both the general analysis for healthy subjects and the rehabilitation evaluation for postoperative patients. The convinence and comfortability of the ear-worn sensor increase its potential of practical applications. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.Cone-beam X-ray luminescence computed tomography (CB-XLCT) has been proposed as a promising imaging tool, which enables three-dimensional imaging of the distribution of nanophosphors (NPs) in small animals. However, the reconstruction performance is usually unsatisfactory in terms of spatial resolution due to the ill-posedness of CB-XLCT inverse problem. To alleviate this problem and to achieve high spatial resolution, a reconstruction method consisting of inner and outer iterations based on a restarted strategy is proposed. In this method, the primal-dual Newton Conjugate Gradient method (pdNCG) is adopted in the inner iterations to get fast reconstruction, which is used for resetting the permission region and increase the convergence speed of the outer iteration. To assess the performance of the method, numerical simulation and physical phantom experiments were conducted with a CB-XLCT system. 5Fluorouracil The results demonstrate that compared with conventional reconstruction methods, the proposed re-pdNCG method can accurately and efficiently resolve the adjacent NPs with the least relative error. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.Two-dimensional (2D) materials have wide applications towards electronic devices, energy storages, and catalysis, et al. So far, most of elemental 2D materials are composed of group IIIA- VA elements. Out of the scope, the orbital hybridization becomes a key factor to determine 2D structure stability. Here we show a sp2d3 hybridization in the outmost electrons with O-shell for Iodine and P-shell for astatine, builds up triangle lattice (delta-type) to form 2D structures-delta-iodiene and delta-astatiene. Each atom is connected by sigma bonds with surrounded 6 atoms. The pi bonds become possible, and band gap approaches zero because of interaction of unpaired single electron to each atom, depending on reducing bond length. By applying compression strain or spin orbit coupling (SOC), the Dirac points or topological nontrivial points can be available in the delta-iodiene and delta-astatiene. Our discovery has paved a new way to construction of 2D materials. © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd.Flexible and lightweight photomultiplication-type organic photodetectors (PM-OPDs) have attracted wide attention for their broad application prospects, especially in the field of wearable electronic products. However, the common used indium tin oxide (ITO) conductive anode is not conducive to realize high-performance flexible PM-OPD due to its rigidity and fragility. Here, on the flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, we successfully fabricate highly sensitive poly 3-hexylthiophenephenyl-C70-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HTPC70BM, 1001) based PM-OPDs using ultra-thin silver films as the transparent anode. Specifically, a 1 nm thick MoO3 layer is utilized as the wetting layer for facilitating the silver film percolation, and a 2 nm thick MoO3 layer, as the hole transport layer, is coated on top of the ultra-thin silver film before coating the P3HTPC70BM film. The as-prepared flexible PM-OPDs based on the ultra-thin silver film exhibit the optimal external quantum efficiency (EQE) and responsivity (R) of 1.3×105 % and 388.4 A/W, respectively, under -15 V bias, which are 1.98 times and 2.15 times greater than those of the ITO anode based device. More importantly, the device has good flexibility with the EQE maintaining 70.6% of its initial value after 10 times of bending, and 51.4% of its initial value after 1000 times of bending. This work paves the way for developing flexible PM-OPDs as well as other flexible optoelectronic devices. © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd.OBJECTIVE Assessment of cardiac time intervals (CTIs) is essential for monitoring cardiac performance. Recently, gyrocardiography (GCG) has been introduced as a non-invasive technology for cardiac monitoring. GCG measures the chest's angular precordial vibrations caused by myocardium wall motion using a gyroscope sensor attached to the sternum. In this study, we investigated the accuracy and reproducibility of estimating CTIs from the GCG recordings of 50 adults. APPROACH We proposed five fiducial points for the GCG waveforms associated with the opening and closure of aortic and mitral valves. Two annotators annotated the suggested points on each cardiac cycle. The points were compared to the corresponding opening and closing of cardiac valves delineated on Tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) recordings. The fiducial points were annotated on seismocardiography (SCG) and impedance cardiography (ICG) signals recorded simultaneously. MAIN RESULTS For estimating the timing of mitral valve closure, aortic valve opening, aortic valve closure, and mitral valve opening, 40%, 67%, 75%, and 70% of GCG annotations fell in the corresponding echocardiography ranges, respectively. The results showed moderate to excellent (r = 0.4-0.92; p-value less then 0.01) correlation between the measured and the reference CTls. Myocardial performance index (Tei index) adapted using joint GCG and SCG resulted in a moderate correlation (r = 0.4; p-value less then 0.001). SIGNIFICANCE The findings showed that the CTIs can be easily measured using GCG. Also, we found that using SCG and GCG recordings together could provide the opportunity to estimate CTIs more accurately, and make it possible to calculate the Tei Index as an indicator of myocardial performance. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers among men and its early detection is critical for its successful treatment. The use of multimodal imaging, such as MR-PET, is most advantageous as it is able to provide detailed information about the prostate. However, as the human prostate is flexible and can move into different positions under external conditions, it is important to localise the focused region-of-interest using both MRI and PET under identical circumstances. In this work, we designed five commonly used linear and quadrature radiofrequency surface coils suitable for hybrid MR-PET use in endorectal applications. Due to the endorectal design and the shielded PET insert, the outer face of the coils investigated was curved and the region to be imaged was outside the volume of the coil. The tilting angles of the coils were varied with respect to the main magnetic field direction. This was done to approximate the various positions from which the prostate could be imaged. The transmit efficiencies and safety excitation efficiencies from simulations, together with the signal-to-noise ratios from the MR images were calculated and analysed.
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