Design of Extruded Nanostructured Composites via Decoupling of the Cellulose Nanofibril/Poly(butylene adipate--terephthalate) Interface.

The full exploitation of the outstanding mechanical properties of cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) as potential reinforcements in nanocomposite materials is limited by the poor interactions at the CNF-polymer matrix interface. Within this work, tailor-made copolymers were designed to mediate the interface between CNFs and biodegradable poly(butylene adipate--terephthalate) (PBAT), and their effect on extruded nanocomposite performance was tested. For this purpose, two well-defined amphiphilic anchor-tail diblock copolymer structures were compared, with a fixed anchor block length and a large difference in the hydrophobic tail block length.

Pain in idiopathic scoliosis not associated with known genetic variants for pain.

Introduction: Back pain is common in idiopathic scoliosis. The aim of this study was to study known genetic variants associated with pain in individuals with idiopathic scoliosis.

Methods: We included 1442 individuals with juvenile or adolescent idiopathic scoliosis from Sweden and Denmark.

Enhancing Electrochemical CO Reduction via Redox Non-Innocent Spheres in Copper-Coordinated Covalent Organic Frameworks.

Significant efforts have been dedicated to the development of highly efficient electrocatalysts for electrochemical CO reduction reactions (eCORR). The outer coordination spheres of catalytic centers may play a pivotal role in the reaction pathway and kinetics for eCORR. Herein, three single copper sites coordinated Aza-fused conjugated organic frameworks (Aza-COFs-Cu) with different outer coordination spheres around Cu sites are designed.

Experimental Assessment of Traction Force and Associated Fetal Brain Deformation in Vacuum-Assisted Delivery.

Vacuum-assisted delivery (VAD) uses a vacuum cup on the fetal scalp to apply traction during uterine contractions, assisting complicated vaginal deliveries. Despite its widespread use, VAD presents a higher risk of neonatal morbidity compared to natural vaginal delivery and biomechanical evidence for safe VAD traction forces is still limited. The aim of this study is to develop and assess the feasibility of an experimental VAD testing setup, and investigate the impact of traction forces on fetal brain deformation.

Discovery and biological evaluation of potent 2-trifluoromethyl acrylamide warhead-containing inhibitors of protein disulfide isomerase.

Protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) regulates multiple protein functions by catalyzing the oxidation, reduction, and isomerization of disulfide bonds. The enzyme is considered a potential target for treating thrombosis. We previously developed a potent PDI inhibitor, CPD, which contains the propiolamide as a warhead targeting cysteine residue in PDI.

Ultra-Broadband Perfect Absorbers Based on Biomimetic Metamaterials with Dual Coupling Gradient Resonators.

Ultra-broadband metamaterial absorbers can achieve near-perfect absorption of omnidirectional electromagnetic waves, crucial for light utilization and manipulation. Traditional ultra-broadband metamaterials rely on the superposition of different resonator units either in the plane or in perpendicular directions to broaden absorption peaks. However, this approach is subject to quantity restrictions and complicates the fabrication process.

Platelet characteristics in extremely preterm infants after fatty acid supplementation: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Two risk factors for severe retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in extremely preterm infants are thrombocytopenia and low levels of arachidonic acid (AA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). To date, these risk factors have not been linked.

Method: Infants born < 28 weeks gestational age (GA) from 2016 to 2019 were randomized to postnatal enteral AA/DHA supplementation or standard care (controls).

Fully convolutional networks for velocity-field predictions based on the wall heat flux in turbulent boundary layers.

Fully-convolutional neural networks (FCN) were proven to be effective for predicting the instantaneous state of a fully-developed turbulent flow at different wall-normal locations using quantities measured at the wall. In Guastoni et al. (J Fluid Mech 928:A27, 2021.

Environmental concerns on water-soluble and biodegradable plastics and their applications - A review.

Water-soluble polymers are materials rapidly growing in volume and in number of materials and applications. Examples include synthetic plastics such as polyacrylamide, polyacrylic acid, polyethylene glycol, polyethylene oxide and polyvinyl alcohol, with applications ranging from cosmetics and paints to water purification, pharmaceutics and food packaging. Despite their abundance, their environmental concerns (e.

Biologically inspired bioactive hydrogels for scarless corneal repair.

Corneal injury-induced fibrosis occurs because of corneal epithelial basement membrane (EBM) injury and defective regeneration. Corneal fibrosis inhibition and transparency restoration depend on reestablished EBM, where the collagen network provides structural stability and heparan sulfate binds corneal epithelium-derived cytokines to regulate homeostasis. Inspired by this, bioactive hydrogels (Hep@Gel) composed of collagen-derived gelatins and highly anionic heparin were constructed for scarless corneal repair.

Identification of macrophages as an immune suppressor in hepatocellular carcinoma using single-cell and bulk transcriptomics.

Introduction: Macrophages and T cells play crucial roles in liver physiology, but their functional diversity in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains largely unknown.

Methods: Two bulk RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) cohorts for HCC were analyzed using gene co-expression network analysis. Key gene modules and networks were mapped to single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data of HCC.

Immobilizing calcium-dependent affinity ligand onto iron oxide nanoparticles for mild magnetic mAb separation.

Current downstream processing of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) is limited in throughput and requires harsh pH conditions for mAb elution from Protein A affinity ligands. The use of an engineered calcium-dependent ligand (Z) in magnetic separation applications promises improvements due to mild elution conditions, fast processability, and process integration prospects. In this work, we synthesized and evaluated three magnetic nanoparticle types immobilized with the cysteine-tagged ligand Z-cys.

Green Nanotechnology of Cell Wall Swelling for Nanostructured Transparent Wood of High Optical Performance.

Transparent wood composites provide new functionalities through active additives distributed at the nanoscale. Scalable nanotechnology includes processing where nanoparticles and molecules are brought into the dense wood cell wall. A novel cell wall swelling step through green chemistry is therefore investigated.

Interaction of complex particles: A framework for the rapid and accurate approximation of pair potentials using neural networks.

Motivated by the limitations of conventional coarse-grained molecular dynamics for simulation of large systems of nanoparticles and the challenges in efficiently representing general pair potentials for rigid bodies, we present a method for approximating general rigid body pair potentials based on a specialized type of deep neural network that maintains essential properties, such as conservation of energy and invariance to the chosen origins of the particles. The network uses a specialized geometric abstraction layer to convert the relative coordinates of the rigid bodies to input more suitable to a conventional artificial neural network, which is trained together with the specialized layer. This results in geometric representations of the particles optimized for the specific potential.

Adsorption hierarchy of surfactants and polymers to a damaged hair model: effect of composition, order and polymer size.

A comprehensive understanding of chemical interactions at the surface of hair represents an important area of research within the cosmetic industry and is essential to obtain new products that exhibit both performance and sustainability. This paper aims at contributing to this research by applying a combination of surface techniques (neutron reflectometry, quartz-crystal microbalance and atomic force microscopy) to study adsorption of surface active ingredients onto hair-mimetic surfaces. The surface of hair is not homogeneous due to chemical and physical damage, and this work focuses on partly damaged hair models, in which both hydrophobic and charged moieties are present.

SHM System for Composite Material Based on Lamb Waves and Using Machine Learning on Hardware.

There is extensive use of nondestructive test (NDT) inspections on aircraft, and many techniques nowadays exist to inspect failures and cracks in their structures. Moreover, NDT inspections are part of a more general structural health monitoring (SHM) system, where cutting-edge technologies are needed as powerful resources to achieve high performance. The high-performance aspects of SHM systems are response time, power consumption, and usability, which are difficult to achieve because of the system's complexity.

Automated bone property analysis using corrected in vivo dental cone-beam CT data of human wrists.

Fracture liaison services are essential to mitigate underdiagnosis and undertreatment of osteoporosis-related fractures. However, it often suffers from limited access to dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) or high-resolution peripheral quantitative CT equipment. This in vivo study of 21 patients aims to evaluate the feasibility of dental cone beam CT (dCBCT) to analyse bone properties of human wrists, comparing with DXA and finite element (FE) analysis.

Bimetallic CuNi Nanoparticle Formation: Solution Combustion Synthesis and Molecular Dynamic Approaches.

Nanomaterials are vital in catalysis, sensing, energy storage, and biomedicine and now incorporate multiprincipal element materials to meet evolving technological demands. However, achieving a uniform distribution of multiple elements in these nanomaterials poses significant challenges. In this study, various Cu-Ni compositions were used as a model system to investigate the formation of bimetallic nanoparticles by employing computer simulation molecular dynamics methods and comparing the results with observations from solution-combustion-synthesized materials of the same compositions.

Is the gene involved in the accumulation of (1,3;1,4)-β-D-glucan in wheats, their wild relatives and their hybrids?

Mixed linkage (1,3;1,4)-β-d-glucan (MLG) is a well-recognized bioactive carbohydrate and dietary fibre with expanding applications in food industry. The MLG are small components of the cell wall of vegetative tissues of cereals synthetized by members of the genes (). Within the family, the has been the major contributor in wheat.

Simulating the psychological and neural effects of affective touch with soft robotics: an experimental study.

Human affective touch is known to be beneficial for social-emotional interactions and has a therapeutic effect. For touch initiated by robotic entities, richer affective affordance is a critical enabler to unlock its potential in social-emotional interactions and especially in care and therapeutic applications. Simulating the attributes of particular types of human affective touch to inform robotic touch design can be a beneficial step.

Eco-friendly and strong lignin-containing microfibrillated cellulose films for high-performance separators of aqueous zinc batteries.

Aqueous zinc-ion batteries have gained significant interest, offering several distinct advantages over conventional lithium-ion batteries owing to their compelling low cost, enhanced battery safety, and excellent environmental friendliness. Nevertheless, the unfortunate growth of zinc dendrites during cycling leads to poor electrochemical performance of zinc batteries, primarily attributed to the diminished wet mechanical properties and limited electrolyte uptake of existing commercial separators. Herein, a bio-based separator was developed from sustainable resources using natural polymers derived from wood pulp to replace fossil-based polyolefin separators.