Aberrant neural oscillations hallmark numerous brain disorders. Here, we first report a method to track the phase of neural oscillations in real-time via endpoint-corrected Hilbert transform (ecHT) ...that mitigates the characteristic Gibbs distortion. We then used ecHT to show that the aberrant neural oscillation that hallmarks essential tremor (ET) syndrome, the most common adult movement disorder, can be transiently suppressed via transcranial electrical stimulation of the cerebellum phase-locked to the tremor. The tremor suppression is sustained shortly after the end of the stimulation and can be phenomenologically predicted. Finally, we use feature-based statistical-learning and neurophysiological-modelling to show that the suppression of ET is mechanistically attributed to a disruption of the temporal coherence of the aberrant oscillations in the olivocerebellar loop, thus establishing its causal role. The suppression of aberrant neural oscillation via phase-locked driven disruption of temporal coherence may in the future represent a powerful neuromodulatory strategy to treat brain disorders.
The ability to monitor blood flow is critical to patient recovery and patient outcomes after complex reconstructive surgeries. Clinically available wired implantable monitoring technology requires ...careful fixation for accurate detection and needs to be removed after use. Here, we report the design of a pressure sensor, made entirely of biodegradable materials and based on fringe-field capacitor technology, for measuring arterial blood flow in both contact and non-contact modes. The sensor is operated wirelessly through inductive coupling, has minimal hysteresis, fast response times, excellent cycling stability, is highly robust, allows for easy mounting and eliminates the need for removal, thus reducing the risk of vessel trauma. We demonstrate the operation of the sensor with a custom-made artificial artery model and in vivo in rats. This technology may be advantageous in real-time post-operative monitoring of blood flow after reconstructive surgery.
To evaluate the potential efficacy of Triptolide (TP) on cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury (CIRI) and to uncover the underlying mechanism through which TP regulates CIRI.
We constructed a middle ...cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion (MCAO/R) mouse model to simulate CIRI, and established a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated BV-2 cell model to mimic the inflammatory state during CIRI. The neurological deficits score (NS) of mice were measured for assessment of neurologic functions. Both the severity of cerebral infarction and the apoptosis level in mouse brain tissues or cells were respectively evaluated using corresponding techniques. The expression levels of Ionized calcium binding adapter molecule 1 (IBA-1), Inductible Nitric Oxide Synthase (iNOS), Arginase 1 (Arg-1), Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), Interleukin 1β (IL-1β), Cysteine histoproteinase S (CTSS), Fractalkine, chemokine C-X3-C motif receptor 1 (CX3CR1), BCL-2-associated X protein (BAX), and antiapoptotic proteins (Bcl-2) were detected using immunofluorescence, qRT-PCR as well as Western blot, respectively.
Relative to the Sham group, treatment with TP attenuated the increased NS, infarct area and apoptosis levels observed in MCAO/R mice. Upregulated expression levels of IBA-1, iNOS, Arg-1, TNF-α and IL-1β were found in MCAO/R mice, while TP suppressed iNOS, TNF-α and IL-1β expression, and enhanced Arg-1 expression in both MCAO/R mice and LPS-stimulated BV-2 cells. Besides, TP inhibited the CTSS/Fractalkine/CX3CR1 pathway activation in both MCAO/R mice and LPS-induced BV-2 cells, while overexpression of CTSS reversed such effect. Co-culturing HT-22 cells with TP+LPS-treated BV-2 cells led to enhanced cell viability and decreased apoptosis levels. However, overexpression of CTSS further aggravated HT-22 cell injury.
TP inhibits not only microglia polarization towards the M1 phenotype by suppressing the CTSS/Fractalkine/CX3CR1 pathway activation, but also HT-22 apoptosis by crosstalk with BV-2 cells, thereby ameliorating CIRI. These findings reveal a novel mechanism of TP in improving CIRI, and offer potential implications for addressing the preventive and therapeutic strategies of CIRI.
•Triptolide regulates the Fractalkine/CX3CR1 signaling pathway.•A new mechanism of Triptolide in improving CIRI.•A potential new preventive and therapeutic strategy of CIRI.
Straight bevel gears are widely used in mining equipment, ships, heavy industrial equipment, and other fields due to their high capacity and robust transmission. Accurate measurements are essential ...in order to determine the quality of bevel gears. We propose a method for measuring the accuracy of the top surface profile of the straight bevel gear teeth based on binocular visual technology, computer graphics, error theory, and statistical calculations. In our method, multiple measurement circles are established at equal intervals from the small end of the top surface of the gear tooth to the large end, and the coordinates of the intersection points of these circles with the tooth top edge lines of the gear teeth are extracted. The coordinates of these intersections are fitted to the top surface of the tooth based on NURBS surface theory. The surface profile error between the fitted top surface of the tooth and the designed surface is measured and determined based on the product use requirements, and if this is less than a given threshold, the product is acceptable. With a module of 5 and an eight-level precision, such as the straight bevel gear, the minimum surface profile error measured was -0.0026 mm. These results demonstrate that our method can be used to measure surface profile errors in the straight bevel gears, which will broaden the field of in-depth measurements for the straight bevel gears.
This letter presents a novel Adaptive-frequency MPC framework for bipedal locomotion over terrain with uneven stepping stones. In detail, we intend to achieve adaptive gait periods with variable MPC ...frequency for bipedal periodic walking gait to traverse terrain with discontinuities without slowing down. We pair this adaptive-frequency MPC with kino-dynamics trajectory optimization to obtain MPC adaptive frequencies (in terms of sampling times), center of mass (CoM) trajectory, and foot placements. We use whole-body control (WBC) along with adaptive-frequency MPC to track the optimal trajectories from offline optimization. In numerical validations, our adaptive-frequency optimization and MPC framework have shown advantages over fixed-frequency MPC. The proposed framework can control the bipedal robot to traverse through uneven stepping stone terrains with perturbed stone heights, widths, and surface shapes while maintaining an average speed of 1.5 m/s.
Lithium‐ion batteries play a significant role in modern electronics and electric vehicles. However, current Li‐ion battery chemistries are unable to satisfy the increasingly heightened expectations ...regarding energy demand and reliability. To boost the overall energy density while ensuring the safety of Li batteries, researchers have focused on alternative battery materials, such as silicon, sulfur, and Li metal. These represent promising avenues, although numerous obstacles (e.g., Si cracking, polysulfide shuttling, Li dendrites, etc.) must be tackled before batteries based on these materials can enter mass production and penetrate the mainstream market. Polymers are a class of materials that are widely used in current battery systems; however, many novel polymer chemistries may offer better performance and reliability than the current ones, and even overcome the issues of the above‐mentioned new battery materials. In this review, selected polymeric materials for solving these issues are categorized into four parts: polymer electrolytes, polymer artificial solid‐electrolyte interphases, binders, and separators. Both the current progress and the characterization methods are included. Potential future directions of energy materials research are pointed out as well.
This review outlines the polymers used in lithium batteries and categorizes them into four sections: 1) solid polymer electrolytes, 2) polymer artificial solid electrolyte interphases, 3) binders, and 4) separators. Detailed examples, summary, and outlook are provided. Particularly, this review incorporates the experience from the battery industry and shows an organic combination between academia and industry.
•A structured light bar extraction method suitable for FPGA high-speed computation is proposed.•An FPGA camera architecture with high-speed acquisition and parallel processing is designed.•By pairing ...an FPGA camera with a CPU, an efficient heterogeneous measurement system was designed.
Due to its real-time efficiency, stability, and reliability, structured light 3D measurement is widely used in measuring surface quality and manufacturing accuracy of industrial products. With the structured light measurement system's slow acquisition speed and low efficiency, it is difficult to meet the needs of online real-time detection, resulting in sparse 3D contour data and loss of details. To improve the algorithm's running speed and balance hardware resource consumption, a structured light extraction algorithm adapted to hardware acceleration is proposed, which executes the three low-coupling computational modules at eight-pixel parallel speed and in a pipelined manner. In order to further reduce the overall computational efficiency and deployment cost of high-speed structured light measurement tasks, an FPGA camera architecture with parallel acquisition and processing is designed, and the FPGA camera is cooperated with the CPU to form a more efficient heterogeneous measurement system. For samples of different materials and shapes, the standard deviation of sub-pixel coordinates extracted is less than 0.65. With this architecture, it is possible to process video stream with one million pixels at 500FPS, and the power consumption is 2.566w. Experimental results of measuring blocks and steel pipes show that the measurement error is below 0.15 mm. The proposed algorithm and heterogeneous processing measurement architecture are applicable in engineering, especially for high-speed real-time 3D measurement.
Tenecteplase is a modified recombinant tissue-plasminogen activator, which is effective and safe in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke. However, the therapeutic dose of tenecteplase has been ...controversial. The purpose of this study is to systematically investigate the efficacy and safety of different doses of tenecteplase thrombolytic therapy for acute ischemic stroke.
Computer retrieval of English databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library) and Chinese databases (CNKI, Wanfang, Viper, and Chinese Biomedical Database) is conducted for a randomized controlled clinical study on thrombolytic treatment of acute ischemic stroke with different doses of tenecteplase from the establishment of the database to October 2020. Two researchers independently conduct data extraction and literature quality evaluation on the quality of the included studies, and meta-analysis is conducted on the included literatures using RevMan5.3 software.
In this study, National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score scale, symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (SICH) incidence, All-cause mortality, and so on are used to evaluate the efficacy and safety of tenecteplase thrombolytic therapy in acute ischemic stroke with different doses.
This study will provide reliable evidence-based evidence for the clinical application of different doses of tenecteplase in thrombolytic therapy for acute ischemic stroke.
DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/2MPCW.
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