Hydrogels for Oral Tissue Engineering: Challenges and Opportunities.

Oral health is crucial to daily life, yet many people worldwide suffer from oral diseases. With the development of oral tissue engineering, there is a growing demand for dental biomaterials. Addressing oral diseases often requires a two-fold approach: fighting bacterial infections and promoting tissue growth.

Fabrication of Biodegradable and Biocompatible Functional Polymers for Anti-Infection and Augmenting Wound Repair.

The problem of bacteria-induced infections threatens the lives of many patients. Meanwhile, the misuse of antibiotics has led to a significant increase in bacterial resistance. There are two main ways to alleviate the issue: one is to introduce antimicrobial agents to medical devices to get local drug releasing and alleviating systemic toxicity and resistance, and the other is to develop new antimicrobial methods to kill bacteria.

Research Progress in the Synthesis of Carbon Dots and Their Application in Food Analysis.

Food safety is connected to public health, making it crucial to protecting people's health. Food analysis and detection can assure food quality and effectively reduce the entry of harmful foods into the market. Carbon dots (CDs) are an excellent choice for food analysis and detection attributable to their advantages of good optical properties, water solubility, high chemical stability, easy functionalization, excellent bleaching resistance, low toxicity, and good biocompatibility.

-prepared poly(ether-ester)-based gel polymer electrolytes for high-performance lithium metal batteries.

Batteries based on an -polymerized amorphous cross-linked poly(ether-ester) GPE exhibit high performance, which is attributed to the synergistic effect of the ether and ester segments of the GPE and the -generated polymer electrolytes.

Visible-Light-Driven Zr-MOF/BiOBr Heterojunction for the Efficient Synchronous Removal of Hexavalent Chromium and Rhodamine B from Wastewater.

With the rapid industrial development, the coexistence of multiple pollutants in wastewater has become a common phenomenon. Thus, developing highly efficient decontamination methods is imperative. In this work, a string of UiO-66-NH/BiOBr heterojunctions with varying ratios of BiOBr were prepared and applied to remove hexavalent chromium Cr(VI) and rhodamine B (RhB).

Directional Migration and Distribution of Magnetic Microparticles in Polypropylene-Matrix Magnetic Composites Molded by an Injection Molding Assisted by External Magnetic Field.

Surface-functionalized polymer composites with spherical particles as fillers offer great qualities and have been widely employed in applications of sensors, pharmaceutical industries, anti-icing, and flexible electromagnetic interference shielding. The directional migration and dispersion theory of magnetic microparticles in polypropylene (PP)-matrix magnetic composites must be studied to better acquire the functional surface with remarkable features. In this work, a novel simulation model based on multi-physical field coupling was suggested to analyze the directed migration and distribution of magnetic ferroferric oxide (FeO) particles in injection molding assisted by an external magnetic field using software.

Tough, Anti-Swelling Supramolecular Hydrogels Mediated by Surfactant-Polymer Interactions for Underwater Sensors.

It is a great challenge for traditional hydrogel-based sensors to be effective underwater due to unsatisfactory water resistance and insufficient wet adhesion. Herein, a tough supramolecular hydrogel aiming at underwater sensing is prepared by the modification of hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) with a small amount of hydrophobic lauryl methacrylate (LMA) in the presence of high concentrations of the cationic surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). Owing to the synergistic effects of the electrostatic interactions and hydrophobic associations of CTAB with the P(AA--LMA) copolymer, the hydrogel with a water content of approximately 58.

Combined Approach of Compression Molding and Magnetic Attraction to Micropatterning of Magnetic Polydimethylsiloxane Composite Surfaces with Excellent Anti-Icing/Deicing Performance.

The accumulation of ice and contaminants on the surface of composite insulators will cause high energy consumption or even major hazards to power systems. In this work, the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) silicone rubber was modified by surface micropatterning and material compositing. Highly crosslinked poly(cyclotriphosphazene--4,4'-sulfonyldiphenol) (PZS) was used to directly coat ferroferric oxide (FeO) nanoparticles.

Psychological impact of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers in China Xi'an central hospital.

Objective: COVID-19 significantly altered our routine, lifestyle, and stress level across the globe. This study investigated the psychological impact of COVID-19 on healthcare workers in China Xi'an Center hospital.

Methods: A modified online questionnaire of Psychological Status and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was provided to 1,967 healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effects of Coated Separator Surface Morphology on Electrolyte Interfacial Wettability and Corresponding Li-Ion Battery Performance.

In order to study the effect of interfacial wettability of separator on electrochemical properties for lithium-ion batteries, two different kinds of polyvinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP) solution are prepared and used to coat onto a polypropylene (PP) microporous membrane. It is found that the cell performance of a coated separator using aqueous slurry (WPS) is better than that of the coated separator using acetone (APS) as the solvent. The separator with flat and pyknotic surface (PP and APS) has a strong polar action with the electrolyte, where the polar part is more than 80%.

Studying the Ring-Opening Polymerization of 1,5-Dioxepan-2-one with Organocatalysts.

Three different organocatalysts, namely, 1--butyl-4,4,4-tris(dimethylamino)-2,2-bis[tris (dimethylamino) phosphoranylidenamino]-2Λ,4Λ-catenadi(phosphazene) (-BuP), 1,5,7-triazabicyclo[4.4.0]dec-5-ene (TBD) and 1,8-diazabicyclo[5.

Preparation and hemostatic property of low molecular weight silk fibroin.

Effective hemorrhage control becomes increasingly significant in today's military and civilian trauma, while the topical hemostats currently available in market still have various disadvantages. In this study, three low molecular weight silk fibroins (LMSF) were prepared through hydrolysis of silk fibroin in a ternary solvent system of CaCl2/H2O/EtOH solution at different hydrolysis temperatures. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis showed that the content of β sheet structure in the LMSF decreased with the increase in hydrolysis temperature.