Hydrophobic sponge structure‐based triboelectric nanogenerators using an inverse opal structured film for sustainable energy harvesting over a wide range of humid atmosphere have been successfully ...demonstrated. The output voltage and current density reach a record value of 130 V and 0.10 mA cm−2, respectively, giving over 10‐fold power enhancement, compared with the flat film‐based triboelectric nanogenerator.
Abstract
Objective
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are almost twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) as those without. However, traditional CVD risks have been shown to ...underperform in RA patients; thus, we aimed to identify new surrogate risk factors to better reflect their atherosclerotic burden.
Methods
A total of 380 RA patients with carotid atherosclerosis data were analyzed in this prospective cohort study. The primary outcome was carotid plaque progression over the 3-year follow-up period. Risk parameters assessed for the progression of carotid plaque were categorized as demographics, traditional CVD risks, RA-related risks, and bone parameters.
Results
The progression of carotid plaque was associated with the level of rheumatoid factor (
p
= 0.025), serum C-terminal telopeptide of type-I collagen (CTX-I) (
p
= 0.014), and femur and distal radius bone mass density (BMD) (
p
= 0.007 and 0.004, respectively), as well as traditional CVD risk factors. In multivariable analyses, the bone parameters of serum CTX-I and distal radius BMD proved to be independent predictors of the progression of carotid plaque along with hyperlipidemia, smoking, and baseline carotid plaque (all,
p
< 0.05). Adding both serum CTX-I and distal radius BMD increased the carotid plaque progression prediction model’s percentage of explained variance from 24 to 30%.
Conclusion
High serum CTX-I and lower radius BMD, reflecting high bone turnover, were independent risk factors for the progression of carotid plaque in RA patients, implicating the direct or indirect role of bone metabolism on the atherosclerotic burden.
It is known that grafting one polymer onto another polymer backbone is a powerful strategy capable of combining dual benefits from each parent polymer. Thus amphiphilic graft copolymer precursors ...(poly(vinylidene difluoride)‐graft‐poly(tert‐butylacrylate) (PVDF‐g‐PtBA)) have been developed via atom transfer radical polymerization, and demonstrated its outstanding properties as a promising binder for high‐performance lithium‐ion battery (LIB) by using in situ pyrolytic transformation of PtBA to poly(acrylic acid) segments. In addition to its superior mechanical properties and accommodation capability of volume expansion, the Si anode with PVDF‐g‐PtBA exhibits the excellent charge and discharge capacities of 2672 and 2958 mAh g−1 with the capacity retention of 84% after 50 cycles. More meaningfully, the graft copolymer binder shows good operating characteristics in both LiN0.5M1.5O4 cathode and neural graphite anode, respectively. By containing such diverse features, a graft copolymer‐loaded LiN0.5M1.5O4/Si‐NG full cell has been successfully achieved, which delivers energy density as high as 546 Wh kg−1 with cycle retention of ≈70% after 50 cycles (1 C). For the first time, this work sheds new light on the unique nature of the graft copolymer binders in LIB application, which will provide a practical solution for volume expansion and low efficiency problems, leading to a high‐energy‐density lithium‐ion chemistry.
High energy density lithium ion batteries including a high voltage cathode (LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4) and high capacity anode (3D‐porous Si) are fabricated with amphiphilic graft copolymer via atom transfer radical polymerization transfer. The battery delivers a high energy density of about 546 Wh kg−1 with good cycling stability at a rate of 1 C.
•A colorimetric sensor array (CSA) was developed to detect warmed-over flavour (WOF).•TBARS and aldehydes were determined as WOF indicators of cooked chicken.•Colour responses of the array were ...highly correlated with WOF indicators.•The CSA successfully predicted changes in WOF concentrations.•The CSA was useful for WOF detection of cooked chicken.
The aim of this study was to develop a simple and rapid method based on colorimetric sensor array (CSA) for evaluation of warmed-over flavour (WOF) in cooked chicken. All samples were classified according to storage time by CSA coupled with principle component analysis (PCA) or hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA). The CSA data were used to establish prediction models with thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), pentanal, hexanal, or heptanal associated with WOF by partial least square regression (PLSR). For the TBARS model, the coefficient of determination (rp2) was 0.9997 in the prediction range of 0.28–0.69mg/kg. In each of the models for pentanal, hexanal, and heptanal, all rp2 were higher than 0.960 in the range of 0.58–2.10mg/kg, 5.50–11.69mg/kg, and 0.09–0.16mg/kg, respectively. These results demonstrate that the CSA was able to predict WOF development and to distinguish between each storage time.
We aimed to compare the reliability of bone scintigraphy (BS) and fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (
F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)-derived parameters in the detection of active arthritis in ...28-joint areas and evaluate the reliability of joint counts between BS and clinical assessment in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We enrolled 106 patients (67 in the development group and 39 in the validation groups) with active RA who underwent BS,
F-FDG PET/computed tomography (CT), and clinical evaluation of disease activity. We compared the results of BS-derived joint assessment with those of PET-derived and clinical joint assessments. Subsequently we developed a disease activity score (DAS) using BS-positive joints and validated it in an independent group. The number of BS-positive joints in 28-joint areas significantly correlated with the swollen /tender joint counts (SJC/TJC) and PET-derived joint counts. A BS uptake score of 2 (strong positive) was significantly more sensitive compared with a BS uptake score of 1 (weak positive) in detecting a PET-positive joint among the 28-joints. After conducting multivariate analyses including erythrocyte sediment rate (ESR) and patient global assessment (PGA) in addition to BS-derived parameters, BS/DAS was obtained as follows: 0.056 × number of BS-positive joints in 28 joints + 0.012 × ESR + 0.030 × PGA. A significant correlation between BS/DAS and DAS28-ESR was confirmed in the validation group. Strong positive uptake of BS is sensitive and reproducible for the detection of active joints, and can complement the clinical assessment of disease activity in RA.
Enhancing tensile strength is crucial to increasing the applicability of nanoporous materials including nanoporous gold (np-Au) that show mechanical weakness because of their nanoporous structure ...despite other superior characteristics. We fabricated twinned and textured np-Au foils with an average twin spacing of 7.9 nm. The foils exhibit an ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 87.5 MPa when the loading axis is normal to the twin boundaries. This UTS value is approximately three times greater than that for np-Au with rare twins of 27.4 MPa. The high UTS can be ascribed to the twin boundaries acting as effective barriers to dislocation slip, resulting in the strain-hardening of the load-bearing ligaments.
Display omitted
Nanoporous gold (np-Au) samples of ligament sizes 68.6, 248.6, 462.9, and 710.9nm are prepared by heat treatment, and representative volumes are reconstructed by focused ion beam (FIB) tomography. ...The increase in relative density by thermal coarsening is not pronounced. We analyze the distribution of ligament size, surface-to-volume ratio, and scaled connectivity density for coarsened np-Au, revealing that np-Au coarsens in a self-similar way. The measured activation energy for thermal coarsening supports that it is accomplished by surface diffusion of Au.
Display omitted
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the association between galectin-3 concentration and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) with and ...without albuminuria. In this cross-sectional study, we examined 334 patients with T2DM. The eGFR was calculated using a creatinine-based formula (eGFR
crea
) and a combined creatinine-cystatin C equation (eGFR
crea-cyst
). The participants were categorized into two groups based on the urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR): patients without albuminuria (UACR < 30 mg/g) and those with albuminuria (UACR ≥ 30 mg/g). Greater concentrations of plasma galectin-3 were associated with lower eGFR
crea-cyst
and eGFR
crea
levels in patients with and without albuminuria. Plasma galectin-3 concentrations were negatively correlated with eGFR
crea-cyst
in patients with normoalbuminuria and albuminuria (γ = − 0.405,
P
< 0.001; γ = − 0.525,
P
< 0.001, respectively). Galectin-3 concentrations were significantly associated with eGFR
crea-cyst
after adjusting for sex, age, and other confounding factors, including UACR as a categorical or continuous variable in multiple regression analyses (β = − 0.294, 95% CI − 70.804 to − 41.768,
P
< 0.001; β = − 0.265, 95% CI − 65.192 to − 36.550,
P
< 0.001, respectively). Likewise, when eGFR
crea-cyst
was treated in place of eGFR
crea
, this result was replicated in the correlation and regression analyses. Galectin-3 concentration was negatively associated with eGFR in patients with T2DM, independent of albuminuria status.
Annealed, prestrained, and ball-milled nanoporous gold (np-Au) samples were prepared. Since the microstructures of the precursor alloys, such as the crystallographic orientation and grain size, were ...mostly preserved during the dealloying process, prestrained np-Au is believed to have higher initial dislocation density, and ball-milled np-Au is believed to have higher densities of initial dislocation and grain boundary comparing to annealed np-Au. The time-dependent deformation behavior of np-Au samples with various microstructures was characterized with two parameters; creep strain exponent n and activation volume V∗ using spherical nanoindentation creep tests. We found that primary mechanism of time-dependent plasticity for annealed and prestrained np-Au samples is dislocation slip and that for ball-milled np-Au sample is grain boundary sliding. In dislocation slip-dominant time-dependent deformation in np-Au, a higher initial dislocation density lowers n and V∗. In grain boundary sliding-dominant time-dependent deformation in np-Au, the values of n and V∗ are similar to those for dislocation slip-dominant time-dependent deformation; however, the creep strain rate in quasi-steady-state is higher than that for dislocation slip-dominant time-dependent deformation.
Display omitted
•Three nanoporous gold (np-Au) samples with different microstructure were fabricated.•Time-dependent plasticity was characterized by spherical nanoindentation creep test.•Primary mechanism of time-dependent plasticity was found to be dependent on the microstructure of np-Au.
PDF
