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When plastic surgeons reconstruct the defects for recurrent cancer, a longer vascular pedicle is often necessary because usable vessels are sacrificed in previous surgeries or radiotherapy. In this case, we would like to present another method for free anterolateral thigh flap pedicle elongation. A 59-year-old man was referred to our clinic for reconstruction after unilateral total maxillectomy and orbital exenteration due to recurrent squamous cell carcinoma. We need to cover the full-thickness defect in the left orbital area (8×7 cm sized), intraoral area (5×7 cm sized), and orbital floor. Due to prior surgeries and radiotherapy, we needed a vascular pedicle up to 15 cm for a distant recipient vessel. When harvesting the flap, we transected just proximal to the bifurcation site, harvested a muscular branch to vastus intermedius together, and used it for pedicle elongation by vessel turning over. A 17×6 cm sized musculocutaneous flap was harvested, and the total length of the pedicle was 15 cm. As the anastomosis was done at the distal portion of the vastus intermedius branch, there was no size mismatch with the superior thyroid artery. Both skin defects and the orbital floor were covered without any tension. The reconstruction was successful without any flap compromise 1 year after surgery. This case suggests another option for microsurgeons to lengthen the flap pedicle and reduce size mismatch using anatomical variability of the lateral circumflex femoral artery.

The optimal architecture of three-dimensional (3D) interface between a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) and catalyst layer (CL) is one of the most important issues to improve PEM fuel cells’ (PEMFCs) performance. Here, we report the fabrication of hierarchical wrinkled PEM/CL interface over a large area. We fabricated the hierarchical wrinkles on a multiscale from nanometers to micrometers by bottom-up-based facile, scalable, and simple method. Notably, it allows one to go beyond the limit of the catalyst utilization by extremely enlarged interfacial area. The resulting hierarchical wrinkled PEM/CL displays a dramatically increased electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) and power performance by the enhancement factors of 89% and 67% compared with those of flat interface, which is one of the best enhancements compared to previous PEMFCs. We believe the scalability of hierarchical wrinkled interface can be exploited to design advanced 3D interfaces for high-performance PEMFCs even with ultralow Pt-loading.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer; however, specific prognostic biomarkers have not yet been developed. In this study, we identified dysregulated microRNAs (miRNAs) in TNBC by profiling miRNA and mRNA expression. In patients with TNBC, miR-371b-5p expression was reduced, and miR-371b-5p overexpression significantly mitigated TNBC cell growth, migration, and invasion. In addition, we found that expression of cold shock domain-containing protein E1 (CSDE1), a direct target gene of miR-371b-5p, was upregulated in TNBC cells, and inhibition of CSDE1 expression alleviated TNBC cell growth by regulating RAC1transcription. Mechanistically, CSDE1, phosphorylated C-terminal domain (p-CTD) of RNA polymerase II (RNAPII), and CDK7 form a complex, and downregulation of CSDE1 leads to weak interaction between RNAPII p-CTD and CDK7, resulting in a decrease in RNAPII p-CTD expression to reduce RAC1transcript levels in CSDE1-deficient TNBC cells. Our data demonstrate that miR-371b-5p is a tumor-suppressive miRNA that regulates the CSDE1/Rac1 axis and could be a potential prognostic biomarker for TNBC.

Despite the extremely high energy density of the lithium metal, dendritic lithium growth caused by nonuniform lithium deposition can result in low Coulombic efficiency and safety hazards, thereby inhibiting its practical applications. Here, we report a new strategy for adopting a nanopatterned gold (Au) seed on a copper current collector for uniform lithium deposition. We find that Au nanopatterns enhance lithium metal battery performance, which is strongly affected by the feature dimensions of Au nanopatterns (diameter and height). Ex situscanning electron microscopy images confirm that this can be attributed to the perfectly selective lithium nucleation and uniform growth resulting from the spatial confinement effect. The spatial arrangement of Au dot seeds homogenizes the Li+flux and electric field, and the size-controlled Au seeds prevent both seed-/substrate-induced agglomeration and interseed-induced lithium growth, leading to uniform lithium deposition. This dendrite-free lithium deposition results in the improvement of electrochemical performance, and the system showed cyclic stability over 300 cycles at 0.5 mA cm–2and 200 cycles at 1.0 mA cm–2(1 mA h cm–2) and a high rate capability. This study provides in-depth insights into the more complicated and diverse seed geometry control of seed materials for the development of high-performance lithium metal batteries.

Although prognosis prediction models using nursing documentation have good predictive performance, the experiences of intensive care unit nurses related to nursing activities and documentation when a patient’s condition deteriorates are yet to be explored.

Developing a superomniphobic surface that exceeds the static and dynamic repellency observed in nature’s springtails for various liquids presents a significant challenge in the realm of surface and interface science. However, progress in this field has been particularly limited when dealing with low-surface-tension liquids. This is because dynamic repellency values are typically at least 2 orders of magnitude lower than those observed with water droplets. Our study introduces an innovative hierarchical topography demonstrating exceptional dynamic repellency to low-surface-tension liquids. Inspired by the structural advantages found in springtails, we achieve a static contact angle of >160° and the complete rebound of droplet impact with a Weber number (We) of ∼104 using ethanol. These results surpass all existing benchmarks that have been reported thus far, including those of natural surfaces. The key insight from our research is the vital role of the microscale air pocket size, governed by wrinkle wavelength, in both static and dynamic repellency. Additionally, nanoscale air pockets within serif-T nanostructures prove to be essential for achieving omniphobicity. Our investigations into the wetting dynamics of ethanol droplets further reveal aspects such as the reduction in contact time and the occurrence of a fragmentation phenomenon beyond We∼ 350, which has not been previously observed.

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are emerging two-dimensional materials with potential use for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) because they express a desired binding energy with protons. To date, TMD-based HER catalytic performance has been enhanced mostly by chemical modification, such as introducing defects, doping, and phase control. Herein, we enhanced the HER performance by precise control of wettability via hierarchical wrinkling. This hierarchical wrinkling confers tunability of the receding contact angle (2–30°) by controlling the wavelength of the hierarchical wrinkles. Minimization of the receding contact angle is directly related to overpotential reduction on the MoS2wrinkles through gas detachment from the catalytic surface. Unlike in previous studies, in this work, we demonstrated the effect of wettability only without changing other parameters such as surface chemistry. We showed that our method can be applied to other TMD materials such as WS2. This study will contribute to future TMD-based catalyst applications, such as hydrogen evolution, CO2reduction, and oxygen evolution.

Enhancing cardiomyocyte (CM) maturation by topographical cues is a critical issue in cardiac tissue engineering. Thus far, single‐scale topographies with a broad range of feature shapes and dimensions have been utilized including grooves, pillars, and fibers. This study reports for the first time a hierarchical structure composed of nano‐pillars (nPs) on micro‐wrinkles (µWs) for effective maturation of CMs. Through capillary force lithography followed by a wrinkling process, vast size ranges of topographies are fabricated, and the responses of CMs are systematically investigated. Maturation of CMs on the hierarchical structures is highly enhanced compared to a single‐scale topography: cardiac differentiation of H9C2s (rat cardiomyocytes) on the hierarchical topography is ≈ 2.8 and ≈ 1.9 times higher than those consisting of single‐scale µWs and nPs. Both nPs and µWs have important roles in cardiac maturation, and the aspect ratio (height/diameter) of the nPs and the wavelength of the µWs are important in CM maturation. This enhancement is caused by strong focal adhesion and nucleus mediated mechanotransduction of CMs from the confinement effects of the different wavelengths of µWs and the cellular membrane protrusion on the nPs. This study demonstrates how a large family of hierarchical structures is used for cardiac maturation. The hierarchical structure consisting of nano‐pillar and micro‐wrinkle is developed to mature the cardiomyocytes by the topographical cues. Confined within micro‐wrinkle, the stimulation from nano‐pillar is maximized and focal adhesion is strengthened. Owing to this unique structural effect on the hierarchical structure, the maturation of cardiomyocytes is synergistically enhanced compared to the constituent single‐scale topography.

TiOF 2 was successfully prepared as an electrochemical capacitor electrode material by novel method, which is NF 3 treatment of a TiO 2 precursor at controlled reaction temperatures to modulate its structure and surface properties. The crystal phase of TiOF 2 changed to fluorine-doped anatase TiO 2 upon increasing the NF 3 treatment temperature. This structural change was induced to reduce the Ti 3+ ratio of the TiOF 2 surface. The specific capacitance of the TiOF 2 phase treated by fluorination with NF 3 gas at 580 °C was sevenfold higher than that of anatase TiO 2 in this study. The enhanced capacitance of TiOF 2 is expected to lead to a higher conductivity and charge transfer of the TiOF 2 phase in comparison to anatase TiO 2 , which is primarily attributed to the higher Ti 3+ ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrogen leaching from agricultural soils is a major source of pollution for adjacent water systems. Biochar application to agricultural soils was reported to manageably reduce N leaching. For the sustainable use of biochar application, a mechanistic understanding of the changes in N leaching induced by biochar treatment is urgently needed. In this study, the effects of biochar [rice (Oryza sativaL.) chaff] application to rice paddy soil (sandy loam) on leaching and soil structure were investigated. Free‐draining lysimeters (0.2 m in diameter by 0.1 m in height) filled with 500 g of air‐dried soil were treated with biochar at 0, 2, and 10% application rates (BC0, BC2, and BC10, respectively) and N fertilizer (NH4Cl) at 0 and 100 kg ha−1application rates (Fert0 and Fert100, respectively). During the 9‐wk incubation, the concentration of dissolved C in the leachates was higher in the soils treated with BC2 and BC10 compared with that treated with BC0 in the Fert0 soil while there were no significant differences among the biochar treatments in the Fert100 soil. This result indicated that the labile portion of the applied biochar C was utilized by microbes as the amended N was metabolized. Nitrate contents in leachates from the BC2 and BC10 treatments were significantly smaller than in those from the BC0 soil. Soil analysis showed that NH4+content decreased and NO3–content increased under BC10 treatment compared with BC0 treatment in the Fert100 soil, indicating that net N mineralization in the soil was enhanced under biochar treatment. We suggested that the NO3–retention in the biochar‐treated soil was related to increased soil aggregation. The C contents in the wet stable aggregates of size 53 to 1000 μm were significantly increased by biochar addition. This size fraction of aggregates is related to soil mesopores, which are involved in the soil's water holding. The water holding capacity (WHC) was higher in the BC2 and BC10 soils than in the BC0 soil, suggesting that application of rice chaff biochar to rice paddy soil could reduce N leaching through the redistribution of soil pores by forming more wet stable aggregates.

Abstract: To investigate the relationship between textural properties and electrochemical properties, activated carbon nanofibers were manufactured using an electrospinning process followed by chemical activation using KOH or NaOH. The specific surface area of the KOH-activated carbon nanofibers was higher than that of NaOH-activated carbon nanofibers; however, the total pore volume and mesopore volume of the NaOH-activated carbon nanofibers were greater than those of the KOH-activated carbon nanofibers when the same number of moles of KOH and NaOH were used. The specific capacitances increased as the specific surface area and pore volume of the activated carbon nanofibers were increased. However, the specific capacitance obtained at a high scan rate (50mV/s) and the retained capacitance of the activated carbon nanofibers increased with increasing total pore and mesopore volume, especially for mesopores with diameters of 2–4nm. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In article number 2100430by Sung Gap Im, Kyoung G. Lee, and co‐workers, an “all‐in‐one tube” is devised by coating poly‐(2‐dimethylaminomethyl styrene) (pDMAMS) on a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tube via initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD) to extract, amplify, and detect pathogens within a single tube. The all‐in‐one tube can capture the DNA of the pathogens by charge interaction and directly perform real‐time PCR, reducing the labor‐intensive pathogen detection steps.

An “all‐in‐one tube” platform is developed, where the genetic analysis involving DNA extraction, amplification, and detection can be performed in a single tube. The all‐in‐one tube consists of a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tube in which the inner surface is conformally modified with a tertiary‐amine‐containing polymer to generate a strong electrostatic interaction with DNA. The all‐in‐one tube provides high DNA capture efficiency exceeding 80% from Escherichia coliO157: H7 pathogen at a wide range of DNA amount from 0.003 to 3 ng. Indeed, the use of the surface‐functionalized PCR tube enables direct amplification and detection of the surface‐captured DNA without the modification of standard real‐time PCR instrument. Besides, this platform has sensitivity, selectivity, and reliability enough for accurate detection at the minimal infective dose of both gram‐positive and negative pathogens. The all‐in‐one tube enables the direct molecular diagnosis, substantially reducing the labor‐intensive pathogen detection steps while providing high compatibility with the currently established real‐time PCR instruments, and illustrates its on‐site applicability with convenience expandable to various genetic analyses including food safety testing, forensic analysis, and clinical diagnosis. An all‐in‐one tube is devised by coating poly‐(2‐dimethylaminomethyl styrene) on a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tube via initiated chemical vapor deposition to extract, amplify, and detect pathogens within a single tube. The all‐in‐one tube can capture DNA by charge interaction and directly perform real‐time PCR. The all‐in‐one tube can also detect four pathogens from artificially infected food samples.