Recently, 2D materials have been intensively studied as emerging materials for future electronics, including flexible electronics, photonics, and electrochemical energy storage devices. Among ...representative 2D materials (such as graphene, boron nitride, and transition metal dichalcogenides) that exhibit extraordinary properties, graphene stands out in the flexible electronics field due to its combination of high electron mobility, high thermal conductivity, high specific surface area, high optical transparency, excellent mechanical flexibility, and environmental stability. This review covers the synthesis, transfer, and characterization methods of graphene and 2D materials and graphene's application to flexible devices as well as comparison with other competing materials.
The integration of mechanophores, motifs that transduce mechanical forces into chemical reactions, allows creating materials with stress-dependent properties. Typical mechanophores are activated by ...cleaving weak covalent bonds, but these reactions can also be triggered by other stimuli, and this renders the behavior unspecific. Here we show that this problem can be overcome by extending the molecular-shuttle function of rotaxanes to mechanical activation. A mechanically interlocked mechanophore composed of a fluorophore-carrying macrocycle and a dumbbell-shaped molecule containing a matching quencher was integrated into a polyurethane elastomer. Deformation of this polymer causes a fluorescence turn-on, due to the spatial separation of fluorophore and quencher. This process is specific, efficient, instantly reversible, and elicits an easily detectable optical signal that correlates with the applied force.
The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) is a national surveillance system that has been assessing the health and nutritional status of Koreans since 1998. Based on the ...National Health Promotion Act, the surveys have been conducted by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). This nationally representative cross-sectional survey includes approximately 10 000 individuals each year as a survey sample and collects information on socioeconomic status, health-related behaviours, quality of life, healthcare utilization, anthropometric measures, biochemical and clinical profiles for non-communicable diseases and dietary intakes with three component surveys: health interview, health examination and nutrition survey. The health interview and health examination are conducted by trained staff members, including physicians, medical technicians and health interviewers, at a mobile examination centre, and dieticians' visits to the homes of the study participants are followed up. KNHANES provides statistics for health-related policies in Korea, which also serve as the research infrastructure for studies on risk factors and diseases by supporting over 500 publications. KCDC has also supported researchers in Korea by providing annual workshops for data users. KCDC has published the Korea Health Statistics each year, and microdata are publicly available through the KNHANES website (http://knhanes.cdc.go.kr).
In this study, we synthesized asymmetric dimeric chiral molecules as photon-mode chiral switches for reversible tuning of self-assembled helical superstructures. The chiral switches bearing two ...mesogen unitscholesterol and azobenzene moieties connected through flexible alkylenedioxy bridgeswere doped into nematic liquid crystals, resulting in a chiral nematic (cholesteric) phase. Under irradiation with UV light, photoisomerization of the azobenzene units led to unprecedented switching of the cholesteric pitch and helical twisting power (HTP, β), with a higher HTP found in the cis-rich state (bent-form) than in the trans-state (rod-form). We attribute this behavior to the elongated cybotactic smectic clusters disrupting the helical orientation of the molecules in the cholesteric liquid crystals; their reversible decay and reassembly was evidenced upon sequential irradiation with UV and visible light, respectively. In addition to the photoisomerization of the azobenzene units, the odd/even parity of the alkylenedioxy linkers of the dimeric dopants also had a dramatic effect on the transitions of the cybotactic smectic domains. On the basis of the large rotational reorganization of the cholesteric helix and HTP switching (Δβ/βini of up to 50%), we could control the macroscopic rotational motion of microsized glass rods upon irradiating the surface of a cholesteric liquid crystal film featuring a polygonal fingerprint texture using UV and visible light.
: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and obesity are independently associated with an increased risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), the leading cause of mortality in ...patients with NAFLD. Many NAFLD patients are lean, but their ASCVD risk compared to obese subjects with NAFLD is unclear.
Data from the 2008 to 2011 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys database were analyzed (n=4,786). NAFLD was defined as a comprehensive NAFLD score ≥40 or a liver fat score ≥-0.640. ASCVD risk was evaluated using the American College of Cardiology/ American Heart Association guidelines.
The frequency of subjects without NAFLD, with obese NAFLD, and with lean NAFLD was 62.4% (n=2,987), 26.6% (n=1,274), and 11.0% (n=525), respectively. Subjects with lean NAFLD had a significantly higher ASCVD score and prevalence of a high ASCVD risk (mean 15.6±14.0, 51.6%) than those with obese NAFLD and without NAFLD (mean 11.2±11.4, 39.8%; mean 7.9±10.9, 25.5%; all p<0.001). Subjects with lean NAFLD and significant liver fibrosis showed a significantly higher odds ratio for a high risk for ASCVD than those with obese NAFLD with or without significant liver fibrosis (odds ratio, 2.60 vs 1.93; p=0.023).
Subjects with lean NAFLD had a significantly higher ASCVD score and prevalence of high risk for ASCVD than those with obese NAFLD. Similarly, lean subjects with significant liver fibrosis had a higher probability of ASCVD than obese subjects in the subpopulation with NAFLD.
Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) films were patterned by a soft lithography technique using a nanopatterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) mold to generate one-dimensional (1D) grating and two-dimensional ...(2D) crossed line pillar patterns. The redox currents (i p) were significantly increased due to the facilitated diffusion of ClO4 − counterions associated with redox processes at the P3HT electrode as analyzing cyclic voltammetry (CV) was performed at different scan rates (ν). It was found that the diffusion coefficient (D f, cm2 s−1) for ion diffusion in the patterned electrode was much larger than that of the pristine P3HT electrode. Furthermore, the value of D f in the 2D electrode was three times higher than that in a pristine film. As a result of such facilitated charge transport, the electrochromic (EC) properties of the patterned P3HT electrode were greatly enhanced and dependent on the dimension of the pattern. Thus, the electrochromic efficiency (E e), including the coloration (E c) and bleaching efficiencies (E b), was higher as the dimension of the pattern was increased; E e was maximized in the 2D patterned P3HT film. In a patterned cell, electrochromic diffraction was reversibly observed with a switching efficiency (R DE) of 2 and 2.5 for the 1D and 2D patterned cells, respectively.
The aim of study was to investigate proliferation and differentiation capacities of Hanwoo myosatellite cells for the development of Hanwoo cell cultures. From P1 to P19, the number of live cells ...decreased and the cell size increased. It was confirmed that the PAX7 mRNA was higher in P3 than P6 and P9 (p < 0.05). The maximum differentiation score was measured from P1 to P12. The maximum differentiation score maintained high from P1 to P10. Immunostaining was performed for both P1 and P10 cells to investigate differentiation characteristics. And there were no significant differences in differentiation characteristics between P1 and P10 cells. MYOG mRNA was low, whereas C-FOS mRNA was high (p < 0.05) in the late passage. Myosin and Tom20 protein also showed low values in the late passage (p < 0.05). In conclusion, our results suggest that it is appropriate to use P1 to P10 for the production of cultured meat using Hanwoo muscle cells. If cell culture meat production is performed without differentiation, the passage range may increase further. These results provide basic essential data required for further development of Hanwoo cell cultures, which could provide a valuable source of protein for human populations in the future.
Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex and multisystem neurobehavioral disorder. The molecular mechanism of PWS is deficiency of paternally expressed gene gene or genes from the chromosome ...15q11-q13. Due to imprinted gene regulation, the same genes in the maternal chromosome 15q11-q13 are structurally intact but transcriptionally repressed by an epigenetic mechanism. The unique molecular defect underlying PWS renders an exciting opportunity to explore epigenetic-based therapy to reactivate the expression of repressed PWS genes from the maternal chromosome. Inactivation of H3K9m3 methyltransferase SETDB1 and zinc finger protein ZNF274 results in reactivation of SNRPN and SNORD116 cluster from the maternal chromosomes in PWS patient iPSCs and iPSC-derived neurons, respectively. High content screening of small molecule libraries using cells derived from transgenic mice carrying the SNRPN-EGFP fusion protein has discovered that inhibitors of EHMT2/G9a, a histone 3 lysine 9 methyltransferase, are capable of reactivating expression of paternally expressed SNRPN and SNORD116 from the maternal chromosome, both in cultured PWS patient-derived fibroblasts and in a PWS mouse model. Treatment with an EMHT2/G9a inhibitor also rescues perinatal lethality and failure to thrive phenotypes in a PWS mouse model. These findings present the first evidence to support a proof-of-principle for epigenetic-based therapy for the PWS in humans.
This Review focuses on recent advancements regarding the design of photoisomerizable chiral dopants which can switch the helical orientation in cholesteric liquid crystals upon light stimuli. Chiral ...dopants exhibiting conformational change in response to an external stimulus can provide dynamic control of the cholesteric pitch. Development of such responsive systems has been attempted since the 1970s. However, major advances on efficient chiral dopants exhibiting either high helical twisting power or large photoswitching have been achieved only in recent years. This Review covers photoresponsive low molecular weight cholesteric liquid crystal systems based on chiral dopants capable of photochemically “switching power to twist” surrounding liquid crystalline host molecules, “inverting” their handedness or even “inducing” helical organization from the racemic nematic phase.
Around the twist: Recent advances in the design of photoisomerizable chiral dopants which can switch the helical orientation in cholesteric liquid crystals upon application of a light stimulus are reviewed. Such systems may find application in advanced optical and mechanical functions.