Carboxymethyl chitosan-enhanced multi-level microstructured composite hydrogel scaffolds for bone defect repair.

Critical-sized bone defects (CSBDs) necessitate interventions like bone grafts or tissue engineering scaffolds to surpass the body's limited spontaneous healing capacity and ensure effective bone regeneration. A multi-level microstructured composite hydrogel 3D scaffold was fabricated for enhanced bone defect repair, integrating a 3D-printed macroporous polylactic acid (PLA) scaffold with polydopamine treatment and filled with a sodium alginate/nano hydroxyapatite/carboxymethyl chitosan (SA/nHA/CMCS) micrometer-scale porous composite hydrogel. The incorporation of nano hydroxyapatite (nHA) nanoparticles enhanced hydrogel crosslinking and osteogenic activity.

Self-Healing Hyaluronic Acid-based Hydrogel with miRNA140-5p Loaded MON-PEI Nanoparticles for Chondrocyte Regeneration: Schiff Base Self-Assembly Approach.

Articular cartilage defects present a significant therapeutic challenge due to the inherent avascular and aneural characteristics of cartilage tissue. Gene therapy has emerged as a promising strategy for cartilage regeneration, particularly through the use of functional RNA and biomaterial-assisted frameworks. In this study, an innovative gene-activated self-healing hydrogel is developed and fabricated for the controlled release of miR140-5p, a key regulator of cartilage regeneration.

Intelligent Supramolecular Modification for Implants: Endogenous Regulation of Bone Defect Repair in Osteoporosis.

Addressing osteoporosis-related bone defects, a supramolecular strategy is innovated for modifying carbon fiber reinforced polyether ether ketone (CF/PEEK) composites. By covalently attaching intelligent macromolecules via in situ RAFT polymerization, leveraging the unique pathological microenvironment in patients with iron-overloaded osteoporosis, intelligent supramolecular modified implant surface possesses multiple endogenous modulation capabilities. After implantation, surface brush-like macromolecules initially resist macrophage adhesion, thereby reducing the level of immune inflammation.

A dual-population Constrained Many-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm based on reference point and angle easing strategy.

Constrained many-objective optimization problems (CMaOPs) have gradually emerged in various areas and are significant for this field. These problems often involve intricate Pareto frontiers (PFs) that are both refined and uneven, thereby making their resolution difficult and challenging. Traditional algorithms tend to over prioritize convergence, leading to premature convergence of the decision variables, which greatly reduces the possibility of finding the constrained Pareto frontiers (CPFs).

MixIR: Mixing Input and Representations for Contrastive Learning.

Recently, contrastive learning has shown significant progress in learning visual representations from unlabeled data. The core idea is training the backbone to be invariant to different augmentations of an instance. While most methods only maximize the feature similarity between two augmented data, we further generate more challenging training samples and force the model to keep predicting aggregated representation on these hard samples.

Seasonal migration patterns of Siberian Rubythroat (Calliope calliope) facing the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Background: Small songbirds respond and adapt to various geographical barriers during their annual migration. Global flyways reveal the diverse migration strategies in response to different geographical barriers, among which are high-elevation plateaus. However, few studies have been focused on the largest and highest plateau in the world, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) which poses a significant barrier to migratory passerines.

Construction of a layer-by-layer self-assembled rosemarinic acid delivery system on the surface of CFRPEEK implants for enhanced anti-inflammatory and osseointegration activities.

Carbon fiber-reinforced polyether ether ketone (CFRPEEK) implants have attracted widespread attention in the field of clinical bone defect repair. However, the surface bioinertness confines the application of CFRPEEK implants. Inspired by the study of rosmarinic acid (RA)-promoted osteogenic differentiation, a self-assembly surface modification method based on electrostatic interactions, involving deposition of sodium carboxymethyl cellulose/chitosan and rosmarinic acid layer by layer on the surface of poly-L-lysine modified hydroxy CFRPEEK (SCPP/CC@RA), is proposed to introduce RA on the surface of CFRPEEK for bioactivation.

Survival benefit of surgery for second primary esophageal cancer following gastrointestinal cancer: a population-based study.

Background: The incidence of second primary malignancy is increasing. However, although there is some information on second primary esophageal cancer (SPEC) itself, there is no study or guideline on the use of surgery for SPEC after gastrointestinal cancer (SPEC-GC). Thus, this study aimed to gather evidence for the benefits of surgery by analyzing a national cohort and determining the prognostic factors and clinical treatment decisions for SPEC-GC.

Piceatannol protects against myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury by inhibiting ferroptosis via Nrf-2 signaling-mediated iron metabolism.

Unlabelled: Myocardial tissue ischemia damages myocardial cells. Although reperfusion is an effective technique to rescue myocardial cell damage, it may also exacerbate myocardial cell damage. Ferroptosis, an iron-dependent cell death, occurs following myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R).

Arjunolic acid protects the intestinal epithelial barrier, ameliorating Crohn's disease-like colitis by restoring gut microbiota composition and inactivating TLR4 signalling.

Background And Aims: Crohn's disease (CD) is characterized by an overabundance of epithelial cell death and an imbalance in microflora, both of which contribute to the dysfunction of the intestinal barrier. Arjunolic acid (AA) has anti-apoptotic effects and regulates microbiota efficacy. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of the treatment on colitis resembling Crohn's disease, along with exploring the potential underlying mechanism.

Effect of Glass Fiber-Reinforced Plastic Waste on the Mechanical Properties of Concrete and Evaluation of Its Feasibility for Reuse in Concrete Applications.

The disposal of glass fiber-reinforced plastic (GFRP) waste has become an urgent issue in both the engineering and environmental fields. In this study, the feasibility of reusing mechanically recycled GFRP in concrete was evaluated. Secondary screening of the recycled material was conducted to obtain different types of products, and the recycled GFRP (rGFRP) was characterized.

Diurnal migration patterns in willow warblers differ between the western and eastern flyways.

It is a long-standing view that the main mechanism maintaining narrow migratory divides in passerines is the selection against intermediate and suboptimal migratory direction, but empirical proof of this is still lacking. We present novel results from a willow warbler migratory divide in central Sweden from where birds take the typical SW and SE as well as intermediate routes to winter quarters in Africa. We hypothesized that individuals that take the intermediate route are forced to migrate in daytime more often when crossing wide ecological barriers than birds that follow the typical western or eastern flyways.

Eriocalyxin B ameliorated Crohn's disease-like colitis by restricting M1 macrophage polarization through JAK2/STAT1 signalling.

Background And Aims: M1 polarization of macrophages in the intestine is an important maintenance factor of the inflammatory response in Crohn's disease (CD). Eriocalyxin B (EriB) is a natural medicine that antagonizes inflammation. Our study aimed to determine the effects of EriB on CD-like colitis in mice, as well as the possible mechanism.

Construction of a fecal immune-related protein-based biomarker panel for colorectal cancer diagnosis: a multicenter study.

Purpose: To explore fecal immune-related proteins that can be used for colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis.

Patients And Methods: Three independent cohorts were used in present study. In the discovery cohort, which included 14 CRC patients and 6 healthy controls (HCs), label-free proteomics was applied to identify immune-related proteins in stool that could be used for CRC diagnosis.

Piceatannol protects against age-related hearing loss by inhibiting cellular pyroptosis and inflammation through regulated Caspase11-GSDMD pathway.

Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is a common issue associated with aging. One of the typical causes of hearing loss is the damage to inner ear hair cells. In addition, oxidative stress and inflammation contribute to ARHL.

Anomalous magnetoresistance by breaking ice rule in BiIrO/DyTiO heterostructure.

While geometrically frustrated quantum magnets host rich exotic spin states with potentials for revolutionary quantum technologies, most of them are necessarily good insulators which are difficult to be integrated with modern electrical circuit. The grand challenge is to electrically detect the emergent fluctuations and excitations by introducing charge carriers that interact with the localized spins without destroying their collective spin states. Here, we show that, by designing a BiIrO/DyTiO heterostructure, the breaking of the spin-ice rule in insulating DyTiO leads to a charge response in the conducting BiIrO measured as anomalous magnetoresistance during the field-induced Kagome ice-to-saturated ice transition.

Migration direction in a songbird explained by two loci.

Migratory routes and remote wintering quarters in birds are often species and even population specific. It has been known for decades that songbirds mainly migrate solitarily, and that the migration direction is genetically controlled. Yet, the underlying genetic mechanisms remain unknown.

An epitaxial graphene platform for zero-energy edge state nanoelectronics.

Graphene's original promise to succeed silicon faltered due to pervasive edge disorder in lithographically patterned deposited graphene and the lack of a new electronics paradigm. Here we demonstrate that the annealed edges in conventionally patterned graphene epitaxially grown on a silicon carbide substrate (epigraphene) are stabilized by the substrate and support a protected edge state. The edge state has a mean free path that is greater than 50 microns, 5000 times greater than the bulk states and involves a theoretically unexpected Majorana-like zero-energy non-degenerate quasiparticle that does not produce a Hall voltage.

Ni Single Atoms on MoS Nanosheets Enabling Enhanced Kinetics of Li-S Batteries.

The practical application of Li-S batteries is seriously hindered due to its shuttle effect and sluggish redox reaction, which requires a better functional separator to solve the problems. Herein, polypropylene separators modified by MoS nanosheets with atomically dispersed nickel (Ni-MoS ) are prepared to prevent the shuttle effect and facilitate the redox kinetics for Li-S batteries. Compared with pristine MoS nanosheets, Ni-MoS nanosheets exhibit both excellent adsorption and catalysis performance for overcoming the shuttle effect.

Recent Developments and Current Applications of Organic Nanomaterials in Cartilage Repair.

Regeneration of cartilage is difficult due to the unique microstructure, unique multizone organization, and avascular nature of cartilage tissue. The development of nanomaterials and nanofabrication technologies holds great promise for the repair and regeneration of injured or degenerated cartilage tissue. Nanomaterials have structural components smaller than 100 nm in at least one dimension and exhibit unique properties due to their nanoscale structure and high specific surface area.

Case report: Eosinophilic pneumonia associated with vedolizumab therapy in a patient with ulcerative colitis.

Extraintestinal manifestations are common in patients with inflammatory bowel disease, while respiratory involvement is less common. Vedolizumab is a new class of anti-integrin biological agents approved for treating inflammatory bowel disease. In this report, we present the case of a 38-year-old patient with ulcerative colitis for 7 years who developed cough, fever, and pulmonary infiltrates after taking vedolizumab.

One-Pot Preparation of Lithium Compensation Layer, Lithiophilic Layer, and Artificial Solid Electrolyte Interphase for Lean-Lithium Metal Anode.

Lithium metal is an ideal anode for high-energy-density batteries. However, the low Coulomb efficiency and the generation of dendrites pose a significant limitation to its practical application, while the excess lithium in the battery also generates serious safety concerns. Herein, a layer-by-layer optimized multilayer structure integrating an artificial solid electrolyte interphase (LiF) layer, a lithiophilic (LiAu alloy) layer, and a lithium compensation layer is reported for a lean-lithium metal battery, where each layer acts synergistically to stabilize the lithium deposition behaviors and enhances the cycling performance of the battery.

Recent Developments and Current Applications of Hydrogels in Osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common degenerative joint disease that causes disability if left untreated. The treatment of OA currently requires a proper delivery system that avoids the loss of therapeutic ingredients. Hydrogels are widely used in tissue engineering as a platform for carrying drugs and stem cells, and the anatomical environment of the limited joint cavity is suitable for hydrogel therapy.

Efficacy of adaptive ventilation support combined with lung recruitment maneuvering for acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the efficacy of adaptive support ventilation (ASV) and lung recruitment maneuvering (LRM) on the hemodynamics and respiratory mechanics of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Methods: A total of 100 patients with ARDS admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of our hospital from July 2016 to October 2019 were randomly divided into the control group (n=50) receiving synchronized intermittent mandatory ventilation (SIMV) and the study group (n=50) receiving ASV + LRM. The hemodynamics, respiratory mechanics, oxygen metabolism parameters, pulmonary index of microcirculatory resistance and prognosis were compared between the two groups.