Triggered by the endogenous chemical energy in the tumor microenvironment (TME), chemodynamic therapy (CDT) as an emerging non‐exogenous stimulant therapeutic modality has received increasing ...attention in recent years. The chemodynamic agents can convert internal hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) into the lethal reactive oxygen species (ROS) hydroxyl radicals (•OH) for oncotherapy. Compared with other therapeutic modalities, CDT possesses many notable advantages, such as tumor‐specific, highly selective, fewer systemic side effects, and no need for external stimulation. Nevertheless, mild acid pH, low H2O2 content, and overexpressed reducing substance in TME severely suppressed the CDT efficiency. With the rapid development of nanotechnology, some kinds of nanomaterials have been utilized with improved CDT efficiency. In particular, the excellent photo‐, ultrasound‐, magnetic‐, and other stimuli‐response properties of nanomaterials make it possible for combination cancer therapy of CDT with other therapeutic modalities, and it has shown superior anti‐cancer activity than monotherapies. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize the application of nanomaterial‐based chemodynamic cancer therapy. In this review, the various nanomaterials‐based nanoplatforms for CDT and its combinational therapies are summarized and discussed, aiming to provide inspiration for the design of better‐quality agents to promote the CDT development and lay the foundation for its future conversion to clinical applications.
Chemodynamic therapy (CDT) is an emerging non‐exogenous stimulant therapeutic modality and has drawn increasing attention in recent years. In particular, varieties of nanomaterials have been utilized in CDT with encouraging therapeutic efficiency. The latest progress on CDT‐involved combined therapy is overviewed, aiming to provide inspiration for the design of better‐quality agents and hoping to promote CDT future clinical conversion.
Deep learning as performed by artificial deep neural networks (DNNs) has achieved great successes recently in many important areas that deal with text, images, videos, graphs, and so on. However, the ...black-box nature of DNNs has become one of the primary obstacles for their wide adoption in mission-critical applications such as medical diagnosis and therapy. Because of the huge potentials of deep learning, the interpretability of DNNs has recently attracted much research attention. In this article, we propose a simple but comprehensive taxonomy for interpretability, systematically review recent studies on interpretability of neural networks, describe applications of interpretability in medicine, and discuss future research directions, such as in relation to fuzzy logic and brain science.
The atmospheric water vapor transport for summer precipitation over the southeastern Tibetan Plateau (hereafter TP) during 1979–2002 is examined by using five precipitation data sets and three ...reanalysis data sets. The multidata ensemble mean shows that under climate mean conditions, TP is a moisture sink in summer, having a net moisture convergence of 4 mm/day. The climatological water vapor transport from the southern boundary, which originates from the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, dominates the summer precipitation over the southeastern TP. It is estimated that the water vapor from the western boundary along the southern edge of the TP is about 32% of that from the southern boundary. The summer precipitation over the southeastern TP exhibits strong interannual variability, with a standard deviation of 1.3 mm/day, but no significant long‐term trend. The water vapor transport for the interannual variability of summer rainfall over the southeastern TP mainly comes from the western boundary of the TP, which is originally from lower latitudes. An excessive rainfall anomaly of 1 mm/day over the southeastern TP is associated with an anomalous water vapor input of 138 (104) kg/m/s from the western (southern) boundary. It is worth noting that the quantitative analysis in this study is determined by the setting of the domain. The interannual variability of summer precipitation over the southeastern TP is dominated by an anomalous anticyclone over the northern Indian subcontinent and the Bay of Bengal, which intensifies the water vapor transport along the southern edge of the TP and leads to more water vapor convergence over the southeastern TP, thus the excessive rainfall in the area.
Key Points
The climate mean water vapor transport is examined
The interannual variability of water vapor transport is examined
Compare the results by using mutiple data sets
In the last few decades, growing numbers of fluorescent probes have been developed to detect intracellular GSH. However, the majority of probes for GSH were irreversible without monitoring the ...changes of intracellular GSH concentration. Therefore, recently, fluorescent probes for monitoring concentrations of GSH in real-time in living cells have come into being to address this challenge. This Perspective aimed at the development of reversible probes for GSH was organized by structural features, chemical reactions, and physicochemical properties. The reversible probes designed by a coumarin skeleton as a read-out fluorophore and the Michael addition reaction as a response mechanism accounted for most of the reported reversible probes. The performances of reversible fluorescent probes based on Michael addition could be roughly predicted by fundamental laws of kinetics and thermodynamics in physical chemistry. Essentially, the design principles included a highly reactive site for GSH, a small thermodynamic driving force, a desirable K d of 1–10 mM, and excellent cell membrane permeability. Prospectively, the development of various mechanisms and fluorophores will be effective measures to enrich the types of reversible probes for GSH.
Recent advances in nanofabrication technologies have spurred many breakthroughs in the field of photonic metamaterials that provide efficient ways of manipulating light–matter interaction at ...subwavelength scales. As one of the most important applications, photonic metamaterials can be used to implement novel optical absorbers. First the morphology engineering of various photonic metamaterial absorbers is discussed, which is highly associated with impendence matching conditions and resonance modes of the absorbers, thus directly determines their absorption efficiency, operational bandwidth, incident angle, and polarization dependence. Then, the recent achievements of various interdisciplinary applications based on photonic metamaterial absorbers, including structural color generation, ultrasensitive optical sensing, solar steam generation, and highly responsive photodetection, are reviewed. This report is expected to provide an overview and vision for the future development of photonic metamaterial absorbers and their applications in novel nanophotonic systems.
Photonic metamaterial absorbers (PMAs) are reviewed, focusing on their morphology engineering and interdisciplinary applications. Feasible methods to tailor the subwavelength‐scale structures of PMAs for optimizing their absorption performances are presented. Incorporated with interdisciplinary techniques, the application of PMAs in coloration, sensing, steam generation, and photodetection is also discussed.
Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in the correspondence between infinitely wide networks and Gaussian processes. Despite the effectiveness and elegance of the current neural network ...Gaussian process theory, to the best of our knowledge, all the neural network Gaussian processes (NNGPs) are essentially induced by increasing width. However, in the era of deep learning, what concerns us more regarding a neural network is its depth as well as how depth impacts the behaviors of a network. Inspired by a width-depth symmetry consideration, we use a shortcut network to show that increasing the depth of a neural network can also give rise to a Gaussian process, which is a valuable addition to the existing theory and contributes to revealing the true picture of deep learning. Beyond the proposed Gaussian process by depth, we theoretically characterize its uniform tightness property and the smallest eigenvalue of the Gaussian process kernel. These characterizations can not only enhance our understanding of the proposed depth-induced Gaussian process but also pave the way for future applications. Lastly, we examine the performance of the proposed Gaussian process by regression experiments on two benchmark datasets.
A flexible strain sensor with excellent mechanical and electrical properties was fabricated by depositing carboxylated multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene (Gr) onto thermoplastic ...polyurethane (TPU) nanofibrous membranes. The deposition efficiency and fastness of CNTs and Gr particles on TPU nanofibrous membranes were improved by vacuum assisted deposition and ultrasonication. Furthermore, a flexible strain sensor with excellent sensing performance was obtained by optimizing the optimal hybrid ratio between CNTs and Gr. Electromechanical experiments showed that the strain sensor had a wide working range of 172% with a high‐gauge factor of approximately 217 for TPU/5CNTs5Gr composite. Moreover, the TPU/5CNTs5Gr composite also exhibited good durability in 10,000 tensile loading‐unloading cycles, and had superior sensing performance when monitoring the bending motions of human finger, elbow and knee.
Abstract Background It is important to establish whether frailty among older individuals is reversible with nutritional, physical, or cognitive interventions, singly or in combination. We compared ...the effects of 6-month-duration interventions with nutritional supplementation, physical training, cognitive training, and combination treatment vs control in reducing frailty among community-dwelling prefrail and frail older persons. Methods We conducted a parallel group, randomized controlled trial in community-living prefrail and frail old adults in Singapore. The participants' mean age was 70.0 years, and 61.4% (n = 151) were female. Five different 6-month interventions included nutritional supplementation (n = 49), cognitive training (n = 50), physical training (n = 48), combination treatment (n = 49), and usual care control (n = 50). Frailty score, body mass index, knee extension strength, gait speed, energy/vitality, and physical activity levels and secondary outcomes (activities of daily living dependency, hospitalization, and falls) were assessed at 0 months, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months. Results Frailty score and status over 12 months were reduced in all groups, including control (15%), but were significantly higher (35.6% to 47.8%) in the nutritional (odds ratio OR 2.98), cognition (OR 2.89), and physical (OR 4.05) and combination (OR 5.00) intervention groups. Beneficial effects were observed at 3 months and 6 months, and persisted at 12 months. Improvements in physical frailty domains (associated with interventions) were most evident for knee strength (physical, cognitive, and combination treatment), physical activity (nutritional intervention), gait speed (physical intervention), and energy (combination intervention). There were no major differences with respect to the small numbers of secondary outcomes. Conclusions Physical, nutritional, and cognitive interventional approaches were effective in reversing frailty among community-living older persons.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non‐coding RNAs that regulate gene expression at a post‐transcriptional level via either the degradation or translational repression of a target mRNA. They play an ...irreplaceable role in angiogenesis by regulating the proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, migration and tube formation of angiogenesis‐related cells, which are indispensable for multitudinous physiological and pathological processes, especially for the occurrence and development of vascular diseases. Imbalance between the regulation of miRNAs and angiogenesis may cause many diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, aneurysm, Kawasaki disease, aortic dissection, phlebothrombosis and diabetic microvascular complication. Therefore, it is important to explore the essential role of miRNAs in angiogenesis, which might help to uncover new and effective therapeutic strategies for vascular diseases. This review focuses on the interactions between miRNAs and angiogenesis, and miRNA‐based biomarkers in the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of angiogenesis‐related diseases, providing an update on the understanding of the clinical value of miRNAs in targeting angiogenesis.
A flexible decentralized and hierarchical architecture is presented to reduce computational effort in designing optimal nonblocking supervisors for discrete-event systems (DES). We organize a DES ...into modular subsystems that embody internal interacting dependencies. Verification of, and coordination among modular subsystems are achieved through their model abstractions. Sufficient conditions are presented to guarantee that coordinators and modular supervisors result in maximally permissive and nonblocking control. A medium-sized example demonstrates the computational effectiveness of our approach.
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