Softening of thermoelectric generators facilitates conformal contact with arbitrary-shaped heat sources, which offers an opportunity to realize self-powered wearable applications. However, existing ...wearable thermoelectric devices inevitably exhibit reduced thermoelectric conversion efficiency due to the parasitic heat loss in high-thermal-impedance polymer substrates and poor thermal contact arising from rigid interconnects. Here, we propose compliant thermoelectric generators with intrinsically stretchable interconnects and soft heat conductors that achieve high thermoelectric performance and unprecedented conformability simultaneously. The silver-nanowire-based soft electrodes interconnect bismuth-telluride-based thermoelectric legs, effectively absorbing strain energy, which allows our thermoelectric generators to conform perfectly to curved surfaces. Metal particles magnetically self-assembled in elastomeric substrates form soft heat conductors that significantly enhance the heat transfer to the thermoelectric legs, thereby maximizing energy conversion efficiency on three-dimensional heat sources. Moreover, automated additive manufacturing paves the way for realizing self-powered wearable applications comprising hundreds of thermoelectric legs with high customizability under ambient conditions.
This study was undertaken to analyze whether luxury fashion retail brands can adhere to their core essence of providing personalized care through e-services rather than through traditional ...face-to-face interactions, particularly through Chatbot, an emerging digital tool offering convenient, personal, and unique customer assistance. The authors use customer data to test a five-dimension model measuring Chatbot for customer perceptions of interaction, entertainment, trendiness, customization, and problem-solving. The study reveals that Chatbot e-service provides interactive and engaging brand/customer service encounters. Marketers and managers in the luxury context can adopt the instrument to measure whether e-service agents provide desired outcomes and to determine whether they should adopt Chatbot virtual assistance.
Background:
Generally, a glenoid bone loss greater than 20% to 25% is considered critical for poor surgical outcomes after a soft tissue repair. However, recent studies have suggested that the ...critical value should be lower.
Purpose:
To determine the critical value of anterior glenoid bone loss that led to surgical failure in patients with anterior shoulder instability.
Study Design:
Case-control study; Level of evidence, 3.
Methods:
The study included 169 patients with anterior glenoid erosion. The percentage of glenoid erosion was calculated as the ratio of the glenoid loss width and the glenoid width to the diameter of the outer-fitting circle based on the inferior portion of the glenoid contour. The critical value of the glenoid bone loss was analyzed by means of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Patients were divided into 2 groups based on the amount of glenoid bone loss: group A (less than the critical value) and group B (more than the critical value). Patients evaluated their shoulder function as a percentage of their preinjury level using the Single Assessment Numeric Evaluation (SANE) score, and postoperative clinical outcomes were assessed with the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) score and Rowe score. Surgical failure was defined as the need for revision surgery or the presence of subjective symptoms of instability.
Results:
The optimal critical value of glenoid bone loss was 17.3% (area under the curve = 0.82; 95% confidence interval, 0.73-0.91; P < .001; sensitivity 75%; specificity 86.6%). Group A and B contained 134 and 35 patients, respectively. Shoulder functional scores were significantly lower in group B than in group A (P < .001). Five patients (3.7%) in group A and 15 (42.9%) in group B had surgical failure (P < .001). The SANE score was significantly lower in group B (83.8 ± 12.1) than in group A (92.9 ± 4.7, P = .001).
Conclusion:
An anterior glenoid bone loss of 17.3% or more with respect to the longest anteroposterior glenoid width should be considered as the critical amount of bone loss that may result in recurrent glenohumeral instability after arthroscopic Bankart repair.
Thermoelectric technology, which has been receiving attention as a sustainable energy source, has limited applications because of its relatively low conversion efficiency. To broaden their ...application scope, thermoelectric materials require a high dimensionless figure of merit (ZT). Porous structuring of a thermoelectric material is a promising approach to enhance ZT by reducing its thermal conductivity. However, nanopores do not form in thermoelectric materials in a straightforward manner; impurities are also likely to be present in thermoelectric materials. Here, a simple but effective way to synthesize impurity‐free nanoporous Bi0.4Sb1.6Te3 via the use of nanoporous raw powder, which is scalably formed by the selective dissolution of KCl after collision between Bi0.4Sb1.6Te3 and KCl powders, is proposed. This approach creates abundant nanopores, which effectively scatter phonons, thereby reducing the lattice thermal conductivity by 33% from 0.55 to 0.37 W m−1 K−1. Benefitting from the optimized porous structure, porous Bi0.4Sb1.6Te3 achieves a high ZT of 1.41 in the temperature range of 333–373 K, and an excellent average ZT of 1.34 over a wide temperature range of 298–473 K. This study provides a facile and scalable method for developing high thermoelectric performance Bi2Te3‐based alloys that can be further applied to other thermoelectric materials.
A simple yet effective approach of selective dissolution of KCl alone after milling an intermixed Bi0.4Sb1.6Te3 and KCl powder to create numerous nanopores in Bi2Te3‐based alloys is presented. The nanoporous structure significantly reduces the lattice thermal conductivity by 36%, and this consequently results in high thermoelectric performance (ZTmax: 1.41) without introducing impurities.
The plant cell boundary generally comprises constituents of the primary and secondary cell wall (CW) that are deposited sequentially during development. Although it is known that the CW acts as a ...barrier against phytopathogens and undergoes modifications to limit their invasion, the extent, sequence, and requirements of the pathogen-induced modifications of the CW components are still largely unknown, especially at the level of the polysaccharide fraction. To address this significant knowledge gap, we adopted the compatible Pseudomonas syringae-Arabidopsis thaliana system. We found that, despite systemic signaling actuation, Pseudomonas infection leads only to local CW modifications. Furthermore, by utilizing a combination of CW and immune signaling-deficient mutants infected with virulent or non-virulent bacteria, we demonstrated that the pathogen-induced changes in CW polysaccharides depend on the combination of pathogen virulence and the host's ability to mount an immune response. This results in a pathogen-driven accumulation of CW hexoses, such as galactose, and an immune signaling-dependent increase in CW pentoses, mainly arabinose, and xylose. Our analyses of CW changes during disease progression also revealed a distinct spatiotemporal pattern of arabinogalactan protein (AGP) deposition and significant modifications of rhamnogalacturonan sidechains. Furthermore, genetic analyses demonstrated a critical role of AGPs, specifically of the Arabinoxylan Pectin Arabinogalactan Protein1, in limiting pathogen growth. Collectively, our results provide evidence for the actuation of significant remodeling of CW polysaccharides in a compatible host-pathogen interaction, and, by identifying AGPs as critical elements of the CW in plant defense, they pinpoint opportunities to improve plants against diverse pathogens.
Conventional crop-monitoring methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive, necessitating new techniques to provide faster measurements and higher sampling intensity. This study reports on ...mathematical modeling and testing of growth status for Chinese cabbage and white radish using unmanned aerial vehicle-red, green and blue (UAV-RGB) imagery for measurement of their biophysical properties. Chinese cabbage seedlings and white radish seeds were planted at 7–10-day intervals to provide a wide range of growth rates. Remotely sensed digital imagery data were collected for test fields at approximately one-week intervals using a UAV platform equipped with an RGB digital camera flying at 2 m/s at 20 m above ground. Radiometric calibrations for the RGB band sensors were performed on every UAV flight using standard calibration panels to minimize the effect of ever-changing light conditions on the RGB images. Vegetation fractions (VFs) of crops in each region of interest from the mosaicked ortho-images were calculated as the ratio of pixels classified as crops segmented using the Otsu threshold method and a vegetation index of excess green (ExG). Plant heights (PHs) were estimated using the structure from motion (SfM) algorithm to create 3D surface models from crop canopy data. Multiple linear regression equations consisting of three predictor variables (VF, PH, and VF × PH) and four different response variables (fresh weight, leaf length, leaf width, and leaf count) provided good fits with coefficients of determination (R2) ranging from 0.66 to 0.90. The validation results using a dataset of crop growth obtained in a different year also showed strong linear relationships (R2 > 0.76) between the developed regression models and standard methods, confirming that the models make it possible to use UAV-RGB images for quantifying spatial and temporal variability in biophysical properties of Chinese cabbage and white radish over the growing season.
Increase in incident light and surface modification of the charge transport layer are powerful routes to achieve high‐performance efficiency of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) by improving the ...short‐circuit current density (JSC) and charge transport characteristics, respectively. However, few techniques are studied to reduce reflection loss and simultaneously improve the electrical performance of the electron transport layer (ETL). Herein, an inclined fluorine (F) sputtering process to fabricate high‐performance PSCs is proposed. The proposed process simultaneously implements the antireflection effect of F coating and the effect of F doping on a TiO2 ETL, which increases the amount of light transmitted into the PSC due to the extremely low refractive index (≈1.39) and drastically improves the electrical properties of TiO2. Consequently, the JSC of the F coating and doping perovskite solar cell (F‐PSC) increased from 25.05 to 26.01 mA cm−2, and the power conversion efficiency increased from 24.17% to 25.30%. The unencapsulated F‐PSC exhibits enhanced air stability after 900 h of exposure to ambient environment atmosphere (30% relative humidity, 25 °C under dark condition). The inclined F sputtering process in this study can become a universal method for PSCs from the development stage to commercialization in the future.
The inclined fluorine (F) sputtering process can simultaneously implement an antireflection effect of F coating and the F doping effect on TiO2 electron transport layer. Consequently, the short‐circuit current density of F coating and doping perovskite solar cell is improved from 25.05 to 26.01 mA cm−2, and the power conversion efficiency increases from 24.17% to 25.30%.
A bioengineered skeletal muscle construct that mimics structural and functional characteristics of native skeletal muscle is a promising therapeutic option to treat extensive muscle defect injuries. ...We previously showed that bioprinted human skeletal muscle constructs were able to form multi-layered bundles with aligned myofibers. In this study, we investigate the effects of neural cell integration into the bioprinted skeletal muscle construct to accelerate functional muscle regeneration in vivo. Neural input into this bioprinted skeletal muscle construct shows the improvement of myofiber formation, long-term survival, and neuromuscular junction formation in vitro. More importantly, the bioprinted constructs with neural cell integration facilitate rapid innervation and mature into organized muscle tissue that restores normal muscle weight and function in a rodent model of muscle defect injury. These results suggest that the 3D bioprinted human neural-skeletal muscle constructs can be rapidly integrated with the host neural network, resulting in accelerated muscle function restoration.
Summary
Much like a factory, the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) assembles simple cellular building blocks into complex molecular machines known as proteins. In order to protect the delicate protein ...folding process and ensure the proper cellular delivery of protein products under environmental stresses, eukaryotes have evolved a set of signaling mechanisms known as the unfolded protein response (UPR) to increase the folding capacity of the ER. This process is particularly important in plants, because their sessile nature commands adaptation for survival rather than escape from stress. As such, plants make special use of the UPR, and evidence indicates that the master regulators and downstream effectors of the UPR have distinct roles in mediating cellular processes that affect organism growth and development as well as stress responses. In this review we outline recent developments in this field that support a strong relevance of the UPR to many areas of plant life.
Significance Statement
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the entry point to the secretory pathway, the primary site of phospholipid synthesis, a hub for critical stress and growth signaling molecules and for the assembly a third of the proteome. The unfolded protein response (UPR) increases the protein folding capacity of the ER in response to stresses and through unknown means exerts control over plant growth and development. Here we review recent and exciting findings that explore potential molecular mechanisms that support efficient UPR in plants. We visualize the plant UPR as a network that incorporates energy availability, plant production needs, and environmental conditions into a cohesive output governing plant life.
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been associated with relative skeletal muscle mass in several cross‐sectional studies. We explored the effects of relative skeletal muscle mass and ...changes in relative muscle mass over time on the development of incident NAFLD or the resolution of baseline NAFLD in a large, longitudinal, population‐based 7‐year cohort study. We included 12,624 subjects without baseline NAFLD and 2943 subjects with baseline NAFLD who underwent health check‐up examinations. A total of 10,534 subjects without baseline NAFLD and 2631 subjects with baseline NAFLD were included in analysis of changes in relative skeletal muscle mass over a year. Subjects were defined as having NAFLD by the hepatic steatosis index, a previously validated NAFLD prediction model. Relative skeletal muscle mass was presented using the skeletal muscle mass index (SMI), a measure of body weight–adjusted appendicular skeletal muscle mass, which was estimated by bioelectrical impedance analysis. Of the 12,624 subjects without baseline NAFLD, 1864 (14.8%) developed NAFLD during the 7‐year follow‐up period. Using Cox proportional hazard analysis, compared with the lowest sex‐specific SMI tertile at baseline, the highest tertile was inversely associated with incident NAFLD (adjusted hazard ratio AHR = 0.44, 95% confidence interval CI = 0.38‐0.51) and positively associated with the resolution of baseline NAFLD (AHR = 2.09, 95% CI = 1.02‐4.28). Furthermore, compared with the lowest tertile of change in SMI over a year, the highest tertile exhibited a significant beneficial association with incident NAFLD (AHR = 0.69, 95% CI = 0.59‐0.82) and resolution of baseline NAFLD (AHR = 4.17, 95% CI = 1.90‐6.17) even after adjustment for baseline SMI. Conclusion: Increases in relative skeletal muscle mass over time may lead to benefits either in the development of NAFLD or the resolution of existing NAFLD.
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