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Background: The impairments of physiological functions caused by aging are common problems in the elderly, especially the impairments of sensory perception. Besides, close relationship between food sensory perception and nutritional status also suggests the importance of dietary management for the elderly population. The foods taking sensory perception into account are urgently needed by the elderly., Scope and Approach: This review analyzed sensory perception changes and their effects on food behaviors and nutritional status. Besides, sensory properties essential for aged-foods and acquisition methods, as well as current status of such foods were summarized., Key Findings and Conclusions: Soft, smooth and moisty foods were more suitable for the elderly with chewing and swallowing dysfunction, which can be prepared by gelation, enzyme treatment, blade tenderization and other non-thermal technologies. Flavor enhancement/enrichment, irritant addition and packet sauces were recommended to compensate the impairment of chemical sensory. Molds, piping bag and 3D printing were suggested for refining appearance of pureed foods, and improving appetite of the elderly., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Authors.)

Semi-skilled or unskilled nursing care aides primarily provide direct care to residents in long-term care (LTC) facilities in China and many other countries around the world. There has been a significantly increased commitment from nurses and other formally trained professionals to provide person-centered care (PCC) for people with dementia (PwD). However, it is still unclear how nursing care aides who provide direct care to older residents with dementia understand and adopt PCC in their daily work. It is of utmost importance to understand person-centered dementia care from the perspectives of care aides, and to identify implications to facilitate and sustain their efforts in providing quality care for older residents with dementia. We found that the seemingly beneficial mental models used by care aides in their work can hinder them from playing a more adaptive role in tailoring their care to the needs of older residents. Infantilizing older residents with dementia and labeling them using mother wit can prevent meaningful, equal, and person-centered conversations between both parties. Care aides do not have regular formal interactions and sensemaking with nurses and other professionals in nursing homes. Increasing interactions and communication between care aides and health care professionals in nursing homes can lead to insight for changing the approach to in-service training to achieve better acceptance by care aides. The current study derives implications for operationalizing and embedding the principles of PCC in daily care., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest On behalf of all the authors, there are no financial or personal relationships that could cause a conflict of interest regarding this article., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Metamaterial with hyperbolic dispersion properties can effectively manipulate plasmonic resonances. Here, we designed a hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) substrate with a near-zero dielectric constant in the near-infrared region to manipulate the plasmon resonance of the nano-antenna (NA). For NA arrays, tuning the equivalent permittivity of HMM substrate by modifying the thickness of Au/diamond, the wavelength range of plasmon resonance can be manipulated. When the size of the NA changes within a certain range, the spectral position of the plasmon resonance will be fixed in a narrow band close to the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) wavelength and produce a phenomenon similar to "pinning effect." In addition, since the volume plasmon polaritons (VPP) mode is excited, it will couple with the localized surface plasmon (LSP) mode to generate a spectrum splitting. Therefore, the plasmon resonance is significantly affected and can be precisely controlled by designing the HMM substrate.

The incidence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has increased in recent years. Considering the potential side effects of conventional drugs, safe and efficient treatment methods for IBD are required urgently. Natural polysaccharides (NPs) have attracted considerable attention as potential therapeutic agents for IBD owing to their high efficiency, low toxicity, and wide range of biological activities. Intestinal microbiota and their fermentative products, mainly short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), are thought to mediate the effect of NPs in IBDs. This review explores the beneficial effects of NPs on IBD, with a special focus on the role of intestinal microbes. Intestinal microbiota exert alleviation effects via various mechanisms, such as increasing the intestinal immunity, anti-inflammatory activities, and intestinal barrier protection via microbiota-dependent and microbiota-independent strategies. The aim of this paper was to document evidence of NP-intestinal microbiota-associated IBD prevention, which would be helpful for guidance in the treatment and management of IBD.

In this study, apple pectin (AP) and tomato pectin (TP) were demonstrated to be a high-ester (74.8%) polysaccharide with the weight-average molecular weight ( M w ) of ∼ 243 kDa and a low-ester (45.9%) polysaccharide with the M w of ∼ 19 kDa, respectively. The semi-rigid chain conformations of pectic polysaccharides in NaNO 3 aqueous solution were deduced according to the Smidsrød " B values" of AP (0.025) and TP (0.029), while AP and TP exhibited higher stiffness in water due to the electric repulsion of carboxyl groups, which was visually observed by AFM images. Under steady shear, the shear-thickening behaviors of AP and TP in NaNO 3 aqueous solutions were observed in the shear rate range of < 1 s -1 , which were attributed to the disruption of the ordered arrangement induced by semi-rigid pectin chains into randomly entangled structure by weak shear force. AP exhibited stronger shear-thickening behavior due to the formation of more entanglements resulted from the higher M w and longer side chains highly branched at rhamngalacturonan region. This study provides the scientific basis for the construction of the relationship of steady-shear property with chain conformation and molecular weight of pectin., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Plasmon induced transparency (PIT), known as the coupling of plasmon modes in metamaterials, has attracted intensive research interests in photonic applications. In this work, a PIT-like transparency is realized via the strong coupling of plasmonic dipole and epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) mode. Two types of metasurfaces, namely the gold nanoantenna and dolmen-like metasurface, are designed with an integrated ENZ material aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) film. Simulations with the finite element method (FEM) demonstrate that single and double transparent windows are achieved respectively. The adjustments of the peak position and transmittance of transparent windows via the structure parameters and the AZO film thickness are further investigated. This work provides an alternative coupling scheme of realizing PIT-like transparency with simple metasurface design, and offers great potential for future metamaterial applications.

In this work, we present an efficient polarization conversion device via using a hollow graphene metasurface. The platform can simultaneously realize a series of excellent performances, including the broadband x-to-y cross polarization conversion (CPC) function with near unity polarization conversion ratio (PCR), dual-frequency linear-to-circular polarization conversion (LTC-PC) function, and highly sensitive polarization conversion function manipulation under wide oblique incidence angle range. For instance, the proposed device obtains an x-to-y CPC function with the bandwidth up to 1.83 THz (χPCR ≥98.8%). Moreover, the x-to-y CPC function can be switched to LTC-PC function via artificially tuning the Fermi energy of graphene. The maximal frequency shift sensitivity (S) of polarization conversion function reaches 23.09 THz/eV, suggesting a frequency shift of 2.309 THz for the LTC-PC function when the chemical potential is changed by 0.1 eV. Based on these superior performances, the polarization converter can hold potential applications in integrated and compact devices, such as polarization sensor, switches and other optical polarization control components.

Although several lines of evidence existed suggesting that Mortalin was linked with survival in malignant tumors; it has been barely described regarding the prognostic involvement of its expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Herein, to understand the prognostic meaning of Mortalin expression, Immunohistochemistry was undertaken to observe the immunohistochemical characteristics of Mortalin on HCC tissue microarray consisting of 90 cases of HCC and its paired normal control dots, followed by detailed statistical analysis with the accompanying clinicopathological variables available, including gender, age, tumor size, differentiation, cirrhosis, vascular invasion, clinical stage, T classification and intrahepatic metastases. Meanwhile, Kaplan-Meier survival curve was plotted to analyze the prognostic difference for patients with high and low expression of Mortalin. It was exhibited that Mortalin was over-expressed in HCC tissues relative to paired normal control and elevated Mortalin significantly correlated with vascular invasion, clinical stage and intrahepatic metastasis. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that Mortalin was remarkably associated with overall survival and disease-free survival. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that expression of Mortalin was an independent prognostic factor in HCC. Collectively, the data we provided here support the prognostic prediction value of Mortalin in HCC., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In this study, we combine the methods of magnetron sputtering, hydrothermal growth, and stepwise deposition to prepare novel ZnO@Ag 3 PO 4 core-shell nanocomposite arrays structure. Through scanning electron microscope (SEM) topography test, energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) element test and X-ray diffractometry (XRD) component test, we characterize the morphology, element distribution and structural characteristics of ZnO@Ag 3 PO 4 core-shell nanocomposite arrays structure. At the same time, we test the samples for light reflectance, hydrophilicity and photoelectric performance. We find that after deposition of Ag 3 PO 4 on ZnO nanorods, light reflectance decreases. As the time of depositions increases, light reflectance gradually decreases. After the deposition of Ag 3 PO 4 , the surface of the sample shows super hydrophilicity, which is beneficial for the photoelectric performance test. Through the optical transient response test, we find that the photo-generated current reaches a maximum when a small amount of Ag 3 PO 4 is deposited. As the time of depositions of Ag 3 PO 4 increases, the photogenerated current gradually decreases. Finally, we conducted an alternating current (AC) impedance test and also verified the correctness of the photocurrent test. Therefore, the structure is expected to be prepared into a photoanode for use in fields such as solar cells., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Four polysaccharides (named as P1, P2, and P3 from three natural Cordyceps sinensis and P4 from cultured C. sinensis ) were obtained by hot-water extraction and ethanol precipitation and their structural characteristics as well as antioxidant potentials were compared. Results revealed that the backbone of P1, P2, and P3 comprised α-1,4-glucose, with a branching point mainly at position 6 and terminating at glucose. On the other hand, the structure of P4 was highly complex, mainly comprising glucose, galactose, and mannose, with 1,4-glucose and 1,4-galactose as the main chain. For in vitro antioxidant assays, all the four polysaccharides showed similar scavenging capacity against DPPH and hydroxyl radicals, whereas P1 had a relatively low ferric reducing ability, possibly related to a combination of factors such as the phenolic compounds and amino acids that conjugated in polysaccharides.