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The interaction properties can be significantly improved by using conjugated polymers with aromatic rings for carbon nanotube (CNT)‐reinforced composites. In this study, we investigated the influence of the molecular structure of the polyimide (PI) conjugated polymer on the mechanical properties and interfacial characteristics of CNT/PI composites. To that end, nanocomposites composed of aligned multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and PI with three different molecular structures were examined. Tensile tests, small‐angle x‐ray scattering (SAXS), and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were conducted, which revealed significant variations in the tensile properties among the three aligned MWNT/PI nanocomposites. The SAXS analyses indicated that MWNT/BPDA‐PDA had the largest interfacial specific surface area, as corroborated by the MD simulation results, which further demonstrated that the rigidity of the molecular structure influenced the extent of wrapping the PI chains around MWNTs. A highly rigid molecular chain hindered the intrachain folding of the PI chain, facilitating better wrapping of the MWNTs and a larger interfacial area. The MWNTs induced conformational changes in the PI chain owing to π–π stacking. Hermans orientation factor revealed that BPDA‐PDA exhibited the highest degree of orientation with MWNTs, whereas BTDA‐MPD displayed the greatest extent of MWNT‐induced conformational changes. The calculated interaction energy confirmed that MWNT/BTDA‐MPD exhibited the strongest interface strength (−41.50 Kcal/mol/nm2), which was 36.32% and 43.03% higher than that of MWNT/BPDA‐ODA and MWNT/BPDA‐PDA, demonstrating its superior tensile properties. This study provides insights into the interfacial characteristics between conjugated polymers and CNTs, which are essential for designing interfaces and developing high‐performance nanocomposites. Highlights: Interfacial interaction between polyimide and aligned carbon nanotubes was investigated.Modulation by polyimide structures on the mechanical property of composite was revealed.The rigidity of the polyimide hinders the folding and facilitates the wrapping.The interfacial interaction induces molecular orientation in polyimide can be observed by molecular dynamic simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) into thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters holds great promise for the advancement of highly efficient organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Despite recent advancements, a thorough comprehension of the underlying mechanisms remains imperative for the practical application of such materials. In this work, we introduce a novel approach aimed at modulating the TADF process by manipulating dynamic processes in excited states through aggregation effect. Our findings reveal that aggregation not only enhances both prompt and delayed fluorescence simultaneously but also imposes constraints on molecular reorientation. This constraint reinforces spin‐orbit coupling and reduces the energy gap between singlets and triplets. These insights deepen our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms governing the aggregation effect on TADF materials and provide valuable guidance for the design of high‐efficiency photoluminescent materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the application of sandwich theory in robot-assisted right hemicolectomy, a surgical procedure for colorectal malignancies. Robotic surgical systems offer enhanced precision and stability, reducing surgical trauma and improving safety. The video vignette accompanying the text demonstrates the procedure on a 55-year-old woman with a caecal mass, showcasing the technical aspects of the surgery. The study highlights the benefits of robotic surgery over traditional laparoscopic techniques, emphasizing improved visualization, flexibility, and stability during the operation. [Extracted from the article]

Untethered magnetic millirobots with a characteristic length of a few millimeters can be wirelessly controlled. They exhibit promising potential in a wide variety of applications, particularly for tasks in clinic workspaces. However, magnetically controlling these robots is counter‐intuitive and requires a steep learning curve, hindering their wide adoption. Herein, a computer‐aided teleoperation platform is developed to operate a soft millirobot, with its feedback control being conducted behind‐the‐scenes, bridging the user's inputs directly with the millirobot's actions to offer an intuitive control. This system enables untrained users to conveniently control the position and actions of the millirobot inside a human stomach phantom by pointing‐and‐clicking on a real‐time video monitor or using a keyboard. The platform automatically materializes the user's instructions by maneuvering a robotic arm with a tip‐mounted magnet to exert a magnetic field to induce the desired response from the millirobot. Experiments show that the system allows the user to intuitively operate the millirobot and deliver its cargo without splitting their attention to monitor the workspace or to calculate the constantly changing control parameters. This platform can lower the barrier for healthcare practitioners without engineering expertise to adopt miniature robotic systems into their workflow and realize these systems' promising potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the host‐guest interactions for thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters is critical because the interactions between the host matrices and TADF emitters enable precise control on the optoelectronic performance, whereas technologically manipulating the singlet and triplet excitons by using different kinds of host‐guest interactions remains elusive. Here, we report a comprehensive picture that rationalizes host‐guest interaction‐modulated exciton recombination by using time‐resolved spectroscopy. We found that the early‐time relaxation is accelerated in polar polymer because dipole‐dipole interaction facilitates the stabilization of the 1CT state. However, an opposite trend is observed in longer delay time, and faster decay in the less polar polymer is ascribed to the π‐π interaction that plays the dominant role in the later stage of the excited state. Our findings highlight the technological engineering singlet and triplet excitons using different kinds of host‐guest interactions based on their electronic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To produce ethylene–vinyl acetate (EVA) foams with a higher foaming ratio and stable cell size, the efficiency of the crosslinking reaction is required to conduct simultaneously with the blowing reaction. Hence, the multifunctional monomer trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (TMP) as a crosslinking promoter and a crosslinking agent dicumyl peroxide are used together as a crosslinking system to EVA foaming, when chemical blowing agent azodicarbonamide (ADC) is used. The TMP concentration of approximately 1.0 phr (per hundred resin) is most effective for balancing the expansion ratio and fine cell size. In the SEM diagram and expansion ratio results, it can be found that when the concentration of TMP ranges from 0 to 1.0 phr, the cell mean size is reduced from 360.3 to 140.5 μm and the expansion ratio is reduced from 13.6 to 9.1 at 170°C. The results of time‐sweep experiment of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) show that the foaming time of ADC in the melt increases with the addition of TMP. Capillary rheometer and rotational rheometer tests show that the viscosity and the crosslinking efficiency of the melt are improved with the TMP addition. The curing time has been reduced from 2.93 to 2.22 min for 170°C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen production from water electrolysis plays an important role for the development of hydrogen‐based energy sources. Developing efficient electrocatalysts is crucial for accelerating the reaction kinetics and achieving large‐scale water electrolysis. Despite the significant advancements in electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) achieved over the past few decades, there remains a lack of comprehensive discussion on the in‐depth mechanism for the enhanced activity, particularly with regard to the active intermediates. Recently, with the development of state‐of‐the‐art characterization methods and theoretical computation, optimizing interaction between reaction intermediates and corresponding active sites has been demonstrated as an effective strategy to enhance the intrinsic catalytic activity. Herein, the recent advances in the electrocatalysts design guided by active intermediates of HER are presented. Emphasis is focused on the discussion of key intermediates that determine HER activity and the strategies to tune the interaction between active sites and reaction intermediates. Finally, an outlook on future challenges and perspectives on the development of electrocatalysts based on the active intermediates is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the incorporation of Ru into the framework of ZIF‐8 resulted in that a Ru‐ZIF‐8 nanozyme with both esterase‐like activity and peroxidase‐like activity. Owing to the dual nanozymatic activities of Ru‐ZIF‐8 nanozyme, the acetylcholine (ACh) detection process utilized only one natural enzyme (choline oxidase), which greatly simplified the detection procedure. In the detection process, nanozyme Ru‐ZIF‐8 showed esterase‐like activity to catalyze the hydrolysis of ACh to choline. Then the generated choline was oxidized by choline oxidase to generate H2O2. Finally, Ru‐ZIF‐8 with peroxidase‐like activity was used to catalyze H2O2 to oxidize 2,2′‐azino‐bis (3‐ethylbenzothiazo‐line‐6‐sulfonic acid) ammonium salt with a color change. As a result, the linear range for ACh was from 0.01 μM‐22 μM with the detection limit (DL) of 5.5 nM. In addition, Ru‐ZIF‐8 was utilized to fabricate a portable detection test strip. Our work provided a simple, portable, low‐cost, highly sensitive and selective assay for the detection of ACh, which paved the way for the development of multi enzyme cascade assays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soft robotics is a field that focuses on the development of robots with flexible and compliant structures. These robots have unique characteristics such as the ability to interact with the environment, resistance to damage, shape-morphing capabilities, and the ability to be controlled by non-electric signals. Research in soft robotics has led to the creation of various types of soft robots, including octopus-inspired arms, hand-like grippers, and miniature robots. Soft robots are particularly useful at small size scales where conventional mechanical components are not feasible. This article provides an overview of soft robots at different size scales, ranging from meters to micrometers, and highlights the potential applications and challenges in this field. [Extracted from the article]

A low‐cost and accurate positioning solution is significant for the massive deployment of fully autonomous driving vehicles (ADV). Conventional mechanical LiDAR has proven its performance, but its high cost hinders the massive production of autonomous vehicles. This paper proposes a low‐cost LiDAR/inertial‐based localization solution for autonomous systems with prior maps in urban areas. Instead of relying on the costly mechanical LiDAR, this paper proposes to utilize the solid‐state LiDAR (SSL) with the prior map to estimate the position of the vehicle by matching the real‐time point clouds from the SSL and the prior map using the normal distribution transformation (NDT) algorithm. However, the field of view (FOV) of the SSL is signifcantly smaller than the conventional mechanical LiDAR, which can easily lead to failure during the NDT map matching. To fill this gap, this paper proposes to exploit the complementariness of the inertial measurement unit (IMU) and the SSL, where the IMU pre‐integration provides a coarse but high‐frequency initial guess to the map matching. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method in this paper, the authors collect the dataset in two typical urban scenarios through a pedestrian hand‐hold and a vehicle driving condition. The results reveal that the SSL‐only‐based localization is significantly challenged in dynamic scenarios. With the help of the IMU, the robustness of the proposed method is significantly improved, achieving an accuracy of within 0.5 m. To show the sensitivity of the SSL‐based map matching against the initial guess of the state, this paper also presents the convergence results of the map matching under different levels of accuracy in terms of the initial guess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Miniature untethered robots attract growing interest as they have become more functional and applicable to disruptive biomedical applications recently. Particularly, the soft ones among them exhibit unique merits of compliance, versatility, and agility. With scarce onboard space, these devices mostly harvest energy from environment or physical fields, such as magnetic and acoustic fields and patterned lights. In most cases, one device only utilizes one energy transmission mode (ETM) in powering its activities to achieve programmed tasks, such as locomotion and object manipulation. But real‐world tasks demand multifunctional devices that require more energy in various forms. This work reports a liquid metal‐elastomer composite with dual‐ETM using one magnetic field for miniature untethered multifunctional robots. The first ETM uses the low‐frequency (<100 Hz) field component to induce shape‐morphing, while the second ETM employs energy transmitted via radio‐frequency (20 kHz–300 GHz) induction to power onboard electronics and generate excess heat, enabling new capabilities. These new functions do not disturb the shape‐morphing actuated using the first ETM. The reported material enables the integration of electric and thermal functionalities into soft miniature robots, offering a wealth of inspirations for multifunctional miniature robots that leverage developments in electronics to exhibit usefulness beyond self‐locomotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitin (Ub)‐like protein ISG15 (interferon‐stimulated gene 15) regulates innate immunity and links with the evasion of host response by viruses such as SARS‐CoV‐2. Dissecting ISGylation pathways recently received increasing attention which can inform related disease interventions, but such studies necessitate the preparation and development of various ISG15 protein tools. Here, we find that the leader protease (Lbpro) encoded by foot‐and‐mouth disease virus can promote ligation reactions between recombinant ISG15 and synthetic glycyl compounds, generating protein tools such as ISG15‐propargylamide and ISG15‐rhodamine110, which are needed for cellular proteomic studies of deISGylases, and the screening and evaluation of inhibitors against SARS‐CoV‐2 papain‐like protease (PLpro). Furthermore, this strategy can be also used to load ISG15 onto the lysine of a synthetic peptide through an isopeptide bond, and prepare Ub and NEDD8 (ubiquitin‐like protein Nedd8) protein tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitin (Ub)‐like protein ISG15 (interferon‐stimulated gene 15) regulates innate immunity and links with the evasion of host response by viruses such as SARS‐CoV‐2. Dissecting ISGylation pathways recently received increasing attention which can inform related disease interventions, but such studies necessitate the preparation and development of various ISG15 protein tools. Here, we find that the leader protease (Lbpro) encoded by foot‐and‐mouth disease virus can promote ligation reactions between recombinant ISG15 and synthetic glycyl compounds, generating protein tools such as ISG15‐propargylamide and ISG15‐rhodamine110, which are needed for cellular proteomic studies of deISGylases, and the screening and evaluation of inhibitors against SARS‐CoV‐2 papain‐like protease (PLpro). Furthermore, this strategy can be also used to load ISG15 onto the lysine of a synthetic peptide through an isopeptide bond, and prepare Ub and NEDD8 (ubiquitin‐like protein Nedd8) protein tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ruthenium (Ru) has been theoretically considered a viable alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalyst due to its fast water dissociation kinetics. However, its strong affinity to the adsorbed hydroxyl (OHad) blocks the active sites, resulting in unsatisfactory performance during the practical HER process. Here, we first reported a competitive adsorption strategy for the construction of SnO2 nanoparticles doped with Ru single‐atoms supported on carbon (Ru SAs‐SnO2/C) via atomic galvanic replacement. SnO2 was introduced to regulate the strong interaction between Ru and OHad by the competitive adsorption of OHad between Ru and SnO2, which alleviated the poisoning of Ru sites. As a consequence, the Ru SAs‐SnO2/C exhibited a low overpotential at 10 mA cm−2 (10 mV) and a low Tafel slope of 25 mV dec−1. This approach provides a new avenue to modulate the adsorption strength of active sites and intermediates, which paves the way for the development of highly active electrocatalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cover image is based on the article Molecular dynamics simulation of polymer wrapping for interfacial characteristics of aligned carbon nanotube/polyimide nanocomposites by Jiachen Zhang et al., https://doi.org/10.1002/pc.28790. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Pancreatic cystic neoplasms (PCNs) are relatively rare neoplasms and difficult to be classified preoperatively. Ordinary deep learning methods have great potential to provide support for doctors in PCNs classification but require a quantity of labeled samples and exact segmentation of neoplasm. The proposed metric learning‐based method using graph neural network (GNN) aims to overcome the limitations brought by small and imbalanced dataset and get fast and accurate PCNs classification result from computed tomography (CT) images. Methods: The proposed framework applies GNN. GNNs perform well in fusing information and modeling relational data and get better results on dataset with small size. Based on metric learning strategy, model learns distance from the data. The similarity‐based algorithm enhances the classification performance, and more characteristic information is found. We use a convolutional neural network (CNN) to extract features from given images. Then GNN is used to find the similarity between each two feature vectors and complete the classification. Several subtasks consisting of randomly selected images are established to improve generalization of the model. The experiments are carried out on the dataset provided by Huashan Hospital. The dataset is labeled by postoperative pathological analysis and contains region of interest (ROI) information calibrated by experts. We set two tasks based on the dataset: benign or malignant diagnosis of PCNs and classification of specific types. Results: Our model shows good performance on the two tasks with accuracies of 88.926% and 74.497%. The comparison of different methods' F1 scores in the benign or malignant diagnosis shows that the proposed GNN‐based method effectively reduces the negative impact brought by imbalanced dataset, which is also verified by the macroaverage comparison in the four‐class classification task. Conclusions: Compared with existing models, the proposed GNN‐based model shows better performance in terms of imbalanced dataset with small size while reducing labeling cost. The result provides a possibility for its application into the computer‐aided diagnosis of PCNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about the relation between perioperative inflammatory changes and long-term survival in cancer patients. The aim of the study was to assess the association of perioperative serum interleukin-6 (IL6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) levels with the 5-year overall survival in locally advanced gastric cancer.Methods: The 135 eligible patients in one center of Nanfang Hospital were retrieved from CLASS-01 trial (NCT01609309), an open-label, multicenter, randomized clinical noninferiority trial conducted at 14 centers in China. Serum IL6 and TNFα levels were tested before surgery, and on postoperative day (POD) 1, POD3, and POD5, respectively, referring to IL6_0, IL6_1, IL6_3, and IL6_5 and TNFα_0, TNFα_1, TNFα_3, and TNFα_5. Kaplan-Meier methods and COX models were used for survival analysis.Results: High levels of IL6_0 (≥3.67 pg/mL) and TNFα_0 (≥14.8 pg/mL) presented worse disease-free survival (DFS) (P = 0.0057 for IL6_0 and P = 0.0014 for TNFα_0) and overall survival (OS) (P = 0.0021 for IL6_0 and P = 0.0019 for TNFα_0). Both high IL6_0 and high IL6_5 levels indicated worse prognosis than other combinations (P = 0.0045 for DFS and P = 0.0022 for OS). In multivariate analysis, both high IL6_0 and high IL6_5 levels were significantly associated with poor DFS (HR = 4.29, 95% CI: 1.42-12.95, P = 0.01) and OS (HR = 4.11, 95% CI: 1.35-12.49, P = 0.013) after adjustment of tumor stage and TNFα_0. Also, high IL6_5 level was identified as the independent-related factor for postoperative infectious complications (OR = 2.69, 95% CI: 1.03-7.01, P = 0.043).Conclusions: Perioperative high serum IL6 and TNFα levels are negatively associated with 5-year survival outcomes in patients with locally advanced gastric cancer, indicating the potential survival benefits from perioperative anti-inflammatory treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In any stage of the teaching process, the teaching behavior depends on the decision of teachers. For English teachers, the English teaching decision level directly determines the course quality and the mining of learner potential. The existing studies only focus on a single teaching stage and involve one decision maker. The scientific level of decision is yet to be examined. Therefore, this paper develops a multicriteria English teaching decision (MCETD) model based on deep learning. Specifically, the author summarized the internalization and generation of MCETDs and expounded the generation mechanism of such decisions. Next, the problem of MCETD was described and mathematically modeled. After that, a neural network was constructed to weigh decision criteria and decision makers. In addition, the author explained how to comprehensively rank and generate MCETD schemes. Through experiments, the author obtained the information of decision matrix and preference ranking of decision schemes from decision makers and validated the effectiveness of the proposed model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photocatalytic oxidation of methanol on various anatase TiO2 nanocrystals was studied by in situ and time‐resolved characterizations and DFT calculations. Surface site and resulting surface adsorbates affect the surface band bending/bulk‐to‐surface charge migration processes and interfacial electronic structure/interfacial charge transfer processes. TiO2 nanocrystals predominantly enclosed by the {001} facets expose a high density of reactive fourfold‐coordinated Ti sites (Ti4c) at which CH3OH molecules dissociate to form the CH3O adsorbate (CH3O(a)Ti4c). CH3O(a)Ti4c localized density of states are almost at the valence band maximum of TiO2 surface, facilitating the interfacial hole transfer process; CH3O(a)Ti4c with a high coverage promotes upward surface band bending, facilitating bulk‐to‐surface hole migration. CH3O(a)Ti4c exhibits the highest photocatalytic oxidation rate constant. TiO2 nanocrystals enclosed by the {001} facets are most active in photocatalytic methanol oxidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immobilized penicillin G acylase (PGA) as an important industrial catalyst can catalyze penicillin G potassium (PG) to 6‐aminopenicillanic acid (6‐APA). 6‐APA is an important intermediate for semisynthetic penicillin drugs, which occupies a huge market space in the anti‐inflammatory field; as a result, immobilized PGA occupies a huge market space in the pharmaceutical field. However, at present, there are different degrees of defects in the preparation and production process of immobilized PGAs on the market because of the huge demand; therefore, the performance of immobilized PGA and its productivity will bring huge economic benefits to enterprises. Therefore, research on immobilized PGA has always been a focus. This review first introduces the source, classification, structure, and catalytic mechanism of PGA and then studies the development of immobilization methods, immobilized carriers, reaction media, enzyme activity regeneration, and reactors of immobilized PGA in recent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the current study was to estimate the genetic parameters for growth and hypoxic tolerance traits in Pacific white shrimpLitopenaeus vannameiat 8 and 13 weeks of ages. Forty full-sib families (including 28 half-sib families) ofL. vannamei, which were produced by 26 sires and 40 dams, were obtained by artificial insemination. There were a total of 3,200 tagged shrimps representing 40 full-sib families evaluated for growth and hypoxic tolerance traits in this study (1,600 records were collected at weeks 8 and 13, respectively). The heritability estimates for growth traits were low to medium (0.11–0.23), and the heritability of hypoxic tolerance traits estimated on the observed scales was also low to medium (0.07–0.15), which suggested that selection for increasing growth and hypoxic tolerance traits was feasible. The genetic correlations between growth traits (including carapace length, abdominal segment length, body length, and body weight) within age were generally high, ranging from 0.84 ± 0.06 to 0.95 ± 0.02 (P< 0.05). A significant correlation between growth traits showed that any growth traits can be replaced by other growth traits for indirect selection. The genetic correlation between growth traits and hypoxic tolerance traits within age was low but positive (0.24–0.29), which indicated that selecting for growth traits will cause a positive correlated response in hypoxic tolerance traits. Our results also showed that there was a relatively low genetic correlation between growth traits at different ages (0.18–0.25), which suggested that selection for growth traits inL. vannameiat an early age may not be optimal and should be undertaken at later stages of growth. Received October 28, 2015; accepted April 29, 2016 Published online December 6, 2016 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitin (Ub)‐like protein ISG15 (interferon‐stimulated gene 15) regulates innate immunity and links with the evasion of host response by viruses such as SARS‐CoV‐2. Dissecting ISGylation pathways recently received increasing attention which can inform related disease interventions, but such studies necessitate the preparation and development of various ISG15 protein tools. Here, we find that the leader protease (Lbpro) encoded by foot‐and‐mouth disease virus can promote ligation reactions between recombinant ISG15 and synthetic glycyl compounds, generating protein tools such as ISG15‐propargylamide and ISG15‐rhodamine110, which are needed for cellular proteomic studies of deISGylases, and the screening and evaluation of inhibitors against SARS‐CoV‐2 papain‐like protease (PLpro). Furthermore, this strategy can be also used to load ISG15 onto the lysine of a synthetic peptide through an isopeptide bond, and prepare Ub and NEDD8 (ubiquitin‐like protein Nedd8) protein tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ubiquitin (Ub)‐like protein ISG15 (interferon‐stimulated gene 15) regulates innate immunity and links with the evasion of host response by viruses such as SARS‐CoV‐2. Dissecting ISGylation pathways recently received increasing attention which can inform related disease interventions, but such studies necessitate the preparation and development of various ISG15 protein tools. Here, we find that the leader protease (Lbpro) encoded by foot‐and‐mouth disease virus can promote ligation reactions between recombinant ISG15 and synthetic glycyl compounds, generating protein tools such as ISG15‐propargylamide and ISG15‐rhodamine110, which are needed for cellular proteomic studies of deISGylases, and the screening and evaluation of inhibitors against SARS‐CoV‐2 papain‐like protease (PLpro). Furthermore, this strategy can be also used to load ISG15 onto the lysine of a synthetic peptide through an isopeptide bond, and prepare Ub and NEDD8 (ubiquitin‐like protein Nedd8) protein tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]