Emulsions are utilized in the food, pharmaceutical, and personal care industries to provide specific physicochemical properties and functional attributes. In many applications, it is desirable to use ...natural ingredients to formulate emulsions to create “label-friendly” products. In this study, the impact of three polysaccharide-based emulsifiers on the formation and stability of oil-in-water emulsions prepared using high-pressure microfluidization were compared: gum arabic, corn fiber gum, and beet pectin. The surface activities of these emulsifiers were characterized using interfacial tension measurements. The influence of emulsifier type, concentration, and homogenization pressure on the efficiency of emulsion formation was examined. The impact of oil type (medium chain triglycerides, corn oil, fish oil, and lemon oil) on the ability of the different emulsifiers to form emulsions was also investigated. The stability of the emulsions was monitored during storage at ambient temperature. Emulsions could be produced using all three polysaccharide-based emulsifiers, with the mean particle diameter decreasing with increasing emulsifier concentration and homogenization pressure. Gum arabic and beet pectin were more effective emulsifiers than corn fiber gum, with a lower amount of emulsifier required and smaller droplets being produced. This effect was attributed to a greater reduction in interfacial tension and stronger adsorption leading to more efficient droplet disruption and less re-coalescence within the homogenizer for gum arabic and beet pectin. Emulsions prepared using corn fiber gum were susceptible to flocculation and coalescence. This study provides valuable information for choosing polysaccharide-based emulsifiers for utilization in food and beverage industries.
Display omitted
•Emulsions were prepared by high-pressure microfluidization.•Droplet size decreased with emulsifier level and homogenization pressure.•Beet pectin produced smaller droplets than gum arabic and corn fiber gum.•Corn fiber gum emulsions creamed due to large droplets & depletion flocculation.
Display omitted
•The circular or elliptical arc is used in the struts through the curving lattice strategy, maintaining lightweight, relieving stress concentration.•Theoretical prediction models with ...a high calculation accuracy of elastic modulus ratios are established.•The specific elastic modulus and specific compressive strength of curving lattice structures are maximally raised 213.7% and 126.2% the original.•The curving lattice structure has a superior energy absorption capacity with a maximum increase of 92.9% the original.
A porous lattice structure with highly controllable mechanical properties, low weight, and high strength is the most promising option for many fields, such as the aerospace, automobile, and biomedical industries. However, the most common and critical issue is the excessively high stress concentration at the struts’ nodes when the lattice structure is loaded. Thus, a curving lattice design strategy is proposed, maintaining a light structure, through which either a circular or elliptical arc is used in the lattice struts to obtain new forms of curving lattice structures. By establishing theoretical models and preparing samples by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF), combined with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), quasi-static uniaxial compressive experiments, finite element analysis (FEA), and Gibson-Ashby models, excellent results were obtained. The stress distribution of the original under the loads was altered in the curving lattice structure and the stress concentration at the nodes of the struts was effectively relieved, dramatically improving its mechanical properties. Compared with the original structure, the specific elastic modulus and specific compressive strength of curving lattice structures were maximally increased by 213.7% and 126.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, the curving lattice structure had a superior energy absorption capacity, with a significant increase of 92.9%.
Jumping is an important locomotion function to extend navigation range, overcome obstacles, and adapt to unstructured environments. In that sense, continuous jumping and direction adjustability can ...be essential properties for terrestrial robots with multimodal locomotion. However, only few soft jumping robots can achieve rapid continuous jumping and controlled turning locomotion for obstacle crossing. Here, we present an electrohydrostatically driven tethered legless soft jumping robot capable of rapid, continuous, and steered jumping based on a soft electrohydrostatic bending actuator. This 1.1 g and 6.5 cm tethered soft jumping robot is able to achieve a jumping height of 7.68 body heights and a continuous forward jumping speed of 6.01 body lengths per second. Combining two actuator units, it can achieve rapid turning with a speed of 138.4° per second. The robots are also demonstrated to be capable of skipping across a multitude of obstacles. This work provides a foundation for the application of electrohydrostatic actuation in soft robots for agile and fast multimodal locomotion.
Since the advantages of precise operation and effective reduction of radiation, robots have become one of the best choices for solving the defects of traditional fracture reduction surgery. This ...paper focuses on the application of robots in fracture reduction surgery, design of the mechanism, navigation technology, robotic control, interaction technology, and the bone-robot connection technology. Through literature review, the problems in current fracture reduction robot and its future development are discussed.
The effective regeneration of weight-bearing bone defects and critical-sized cartilage defects remains a significant clinical challenge. Traditional treatments such as autologous and allograft bone ...grafting have not been successful in achieving the desired outcomes, necessitating the need for innovative therapeutic approaches. Nucleic acids have attracted significant attention due to their ability to be designed to form discrete structures and programmed to perform specific functions at the nanoscale. The advantages of nucleic acid nanotechnology offer numerous opportunities for in-cell and in vivo applications, and hold great promise for advancing the field of biomaterials. In this review, the current abilities of nucleic acid nanotechnology to be applied in bone and cartilage regeneration are summarized and insights into the challenges and future directions for the development of this technology are provided.
Data on the associations between esophageal histological lesions and risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in general populations are limited. We aimed to investigate these associations ...in a large Chinese general population to inform future Chinese ESCC screening guidelines.
We performed endoscopic screening of 21,111 participants aged 40-69 years from 3 high-risk areas of China in 2005-2009, and followed the cohort through 2016. Cumulative incidence and mortality rates of ESCC were calculated by baseline histological diagnosis, and hazard ratios of ESCC, overall and by age and sex, were assessed using the Cox proportional hazards models.
We identified 143 new ESCC cases (0.68%) and 62 ESCC deaths (0.29%) during a median follow-up of 8.5 years. Increasing grades of squamous dysplasia were associated with the increasing risk of ESCC incidence and mortality. The cumulative ESCC incidence rates for severe dysplasia/carcinoma in situ, moderate dysplasia (MD), and mild dysplasia were 15.5%, 4.5%, and 1.4%, respectively. Older individuals (50-69 years) had 3.1 times higher ESCC incidence than younger individuals (40-49 years), and men had 2.4 times higher ESCC incidence than women.
This study confirmed that increasing grades of squamous dysplasia are associated with increasing risk of ESCC and that severe dysplasia and carcinoma in situ require clinical treatment. This study suggests that in high-risk areas of China, patients with endoscopically worrisome MD should also receive therapy, the first screening can be postponed to 50 years, and endoscopic surveillance intervals for unremarkable MD and mild dysplasia can be lengthened to 3 and 5 years, respectively.
Crystalline porous materials (CPMs), including covalent organic frameworks (COFs) and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), are promising materials for advanced separation technologies. However, the ...challenge of transforming nanoscale CPMs into large‐area functional membranes hinders their application in the membrane separation process. Herein, a self‐standing pure COF (TpPa‐1) nanofiber membrane with high crystallinity, good flexibility, excellent mechanical properties, and scalability is prepared using an electrospinning process and polymer sacrificial template strategy. Subsequently, the COF nanofiber membrane is innovatively used to replace traditional inorganic discs, metal meshes, and polymer membranes as porous supports, and the COF–MOF composite CPM membrane is prepared through the tailorable and confined growth of zeolite imidazolium salt frame‐8 (ZIF‐8) on the surface of the COF membrane and in the gaps of the COF nanofibers. The COF–MOF composite membrane exhibits excellent permeability and significantly enhances separation selectivity for organic dyes. Moreover, MOF and COF form an interpenetrating network structure, and their similar chemical properties improve the interfacial stability between the two phases, giving the COF–MOF composite membrane good long‐term separation performance. This is the first self‐standing composite CPM membrane with excellent molecular sieving performance, which provides new insights into the design of high‐performance and robust composite membranes.
A novel COF–MOF composite membrane with excellent separation performance and service stability is prepared using self‐standing TpPa‐1 membrane and ZIF‐8 as porous support and ultra‐thin selective layer, respectively. By utilizing the synergistic effect between different types of MOFs and COFs, high‐performance composite membranes are obtained, which can be widely used in separation processes related to energy and environment.
Surface-guided radiation therapy can be used to continuously monitor a patient's surface motions during radiotherapy by a non-irradiating, noninvasive optical surface imaging technique. In this ...study, machine learning methods were applied to predict external respiratory motion signals and predict internal liver motion in this therapeutic context.
Seven groups of interrelated external/internal respiratory liver motion samples lasting from 5 to 6 min collected simultaneously were used as a dataset, D
. Long short-term memory (LSTM) and support vector regression (SVR) networks were then used to establish external respiratory signal prediction models (LSTMpred/SVRpred) and external/internal respiratory motion correlation models (LSTMcorr/SVRcorr). These external prediction and external/internal correlation models were then combined into an integrated model. Finally, the LSTMcorr model was used to perform five groups of model updating experiments to confirm the necessity of continuously updating the external/internal correlation model. The root-mean-square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and maximum absolute error (MAX_AE) were used to evaluate the performance of each model.
The models established using the LSTM neural network performed better than those established using the SVR network in the tasks of predicting external respiratory signals for latency-compensation (RMSE < 0.5 mm at a latency of 450 ms) and predicting internal liver motion using external signals (RMSE < 0.6 mm). The prediction errors of the integrated model (RMSE ≤ 1.0 mm) were slightly higher than those of the external prediction and external/internal correlation models. The RMSE/MAE of the fifth model update was approximately ten times smaller than that of the first model update.
The LSTM networks outperform SVR networks at predicting external respiratory signals and internal liver motion because of LSTM's strong ability to deal with time-dependencies. The LSTM-based integrated model performs well at predicting liver motion from external respiratory signals with system latencies of up to 450 ms. It is necessary to update the external/internal correlation model continuously.
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterized by elevated blood glucose and advanced glycation end product (AGEs) levels. Increased AGEs in bone tissue inhibit osteogenic differentiation by bone marrow ...mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs), leading to bone loss and osteoporosis in diabetic patients. Enhancing the osteogenic differentiation capacity of BMSCs in the presence of abundant AGEs can improve bone health and prevent osteoporosis in DM patients. The flavonoid, Quercetin, has anti‐inflammatory, antibacterial, and antitumor properties; however, it is insoluble in water and thus not easily absorbed by the body. Nanodrug delivery systems such as tetrahedral framework nucleic acids (tFNAs) exhibit excellent biocompatibility, efficient cell uptake, and drug piggybacking. In the present study, tFNAs with quercetin is complexed to form a novel nanodrug (tFNAs/Que) that combined the features of both components. tFNAs/Que promote osteogenic differentiation by BMSCs in an in vitro AGEs‐rich environment, maintain bone mass, and prevent diabetic osteoporosis in DM mice in vivo. The mechanism of tFNAs/Que against AGEs may be related to the JNK signaling pathway. In conclusion, it is shown that tFNAs/Que has a dual regulatory role by promoting osteogenic differentiation and inhibiting apoptosis. Such a feature is promising for the prevention and treatment of diabetic osteoporosis.
tFNAs loaded with Que to form the complex drug tFNAs/Que, which is use to intervene in DM mice. tFNAs facilitates the access of Que into BMSCs to rescue AGEs‐mediated apoptosis via the mitochondrial pathway, and thus enhanced the osteogenic differentiation ability of BMSCs and reduced bone loss to prevent the occurrence of osteoporosis in DM mice.
Fat mass and obesity-associated protein (FTO), an N6-methyladenosine (m
A) demethylase, participates in tumor progression and metastasis in many malignancies, but its role in colorectal cancer (CRC) ...is still unclear. Here, we found that FTO protein levels, but not RNA levels, were downregulated in CRC tissues. Reduced FTO protein expression was correlated with a high recurrence rate and poor prognosis in resectable CRC patients. Moreover, we demonstrated that hypoxia restrained FTO protein expression, mainly due to an increase in ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. The serine/threonine kinase receptor associated protein (STRAP) might served as the E3 ligase and K216 was the major ubiquitination site responsible for hypoxia-induced FTO degradation. FTO inhibited CRC metastasis both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, FTO exerted a tumor suppressive role by inhibiting metastasis-associated protein 1 (MTA1) expression in an m
A-dependent manner. Methylated MTA1 transcripts were recognized by an m
A "reader", insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA binding protein 2 (IGF2BP2), which then stabilized its mRNA. Together, our findings highlight the critical role of FTO in CRC metastasis and reveal a novel epigenetic mechanism by which the hypoxic tumor microenvironment promotes CRC metastasis.
PDF
