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A PEDOT:PSS-based multifunctional hydrogel dressing with a high photothermal effect and catalytic activity for enhancing antibacterial therapy and promoting wound healing has been developed.

Objectives: Placental inflammation possibly underlies preeclampsia pathogenesis. This study aimed to investigate the expression of the high mobility box group 1 (HMGB1)-toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) signalling pathway in preeclamptic placentas and determine whether HMGB1 regulates the biological behaviour of trophoblasts in vitro. Design: Placental biopsies were taken from 30 preeclamptic patients and 30 normotensive controls. In vitro experiments were carried out in HTR-8/SVneo human trophoblast cells. Participants/Materials, Setting, Methods: HMGB1, TLR4, and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) mRNA and protein were quantified to compare their expression in human placentas from preeclamptic and normotensive pregnancies. HTR-8/SVneo cells were stimulated with HMGB1 (50 – 400 µg/L) for 6 – 48 h, and proliferation and invasion of HTR-8/SVneo cells were measured via Cell Counting Kit-8 and transwell assays. HTR-8/SVneo cells were also transfected with HMGB1 and TLR4 siRNA to investigate the effect of knocking down these proteins. The mRNA and protein expression of TLR4, NF-κB, and matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP-9) were determined using qPCR and western blotting, respectively. Data were analysed with either a t-test or one-way analysis of variance. Results The mRNA and protein levels of HMGB1, TLR4, and NF-κB were significantly higher in the placentas from preeclamptic pregnancies than from normal pregnancies (P < 0.05). HMGB1 stimulation (at concentrations up to 200 µg/L) of HTR-8/SVneo cells significantly increased invasion and proliferation over time. However, at an HMGB1 stimulation concentration of 400 µg/L, the invasion and proliferation ability of HTR-8/SVneo cells decreased. Compared to controls, mRNA and protein expression levels of TLR4, NF-κB, and MMP-9 increased (mRNA level fold change: 1.460, 1.921, 1.667; protein level fold change: 1.600, 1.750, 2.047) when stimulated with HMGB1 (P < 0.05) but decreased when HMGB1 was knocked down (P < 0.05). TLR4 siRNA transfection combined with HMGB1 stimulation reduced the mRNA (fold change: 0.451) and protein (fold change: 0.289) expression of TLR4 (P < 0.05), while NF-κB and MMP-9 were unaffected (P > 0.05). Limitations Only one trophoblast cell line was used in this study, and the findings were not confirmed in animal studies. Conclusions This study explored the pathogenesis of preeclampsia from two aspects: inflammation and trophoblast invasion. The overexpression of HMGB1 in placentas from preeclamptic pregnancies suggests this protein may be involved in preeclampsia pathogenesis. In vitro, HMGB1 was found to regulate the proliferation and invasion of HTR-8/SVneo cells by activating the TLR4-NF-κB-MMP-9 pathway. These findings have implications for targetting HMGB1 could be a therapeutic strategy for treating PE. In the future, we will further verify this in vivo and in other trophoblast cell lines, further exploring the molecular interactions of the pathway.

Combined therapeutic strategies for bacterial infection have attracted worldwide attention owing to their faster and more effective therapy with fewer side effects compared with monotherapy. In this work, gold-platinum nanodots (AuPtNDs) are simply and quickly synthesized by a one-step method. They not only exhibit powerful peroxidase-like activity but also confer a higher affinity for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), which is 3.4 times that of horseradish peroxidase. Under 808 nm laser irradiation, AuPtNDs also have excellent photothermal conversion efficiency (50.53%) and strong photothermal stability. Excitingly, they can combat bacterial infection through the combination of chemodynamic and photothermal therapy. In vitro antibacterial results show that the combined antibacterial strategy has a broad-spectrum antibacterial property against both Escherichia coli (Gram negative, 97.1%) and Staphylococcus aureus (Gram positive, 99.3%). Animal experiments further show that nanodots can effectively promote the healing of bacterial infection wounds. In addition, owing to good biocompatibility and low toxicity, they are hardly traceable in the main organs of mice, which indicates that they can be well excreted through metabolism. These results reveal the application potential of AuPtNDs as a simple and magic multifunctional nanoparticle in antibacterial therapy and open up new applications for clinical anti-infective therapy in the near future.

Siqi Yan,1 Shaohong Huang,1 Zijing Yang,2 Song Luo,1 Xiaoxia Yang,1 Lidan He,1 Jianbo Li,1 Guoying Que1 1Stomatological Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jianbo Li; Guoying QueStomatological Hospital, Southern Medical University, No. 366, South of Jiangnan Avenue, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +862084413946Email 435264691@qq.com; 2917268593@qq.comPurpose: This study aimed to investigate the new development of caries among preschoolers in northern Guangdong and to assess caries-related factors to distinguish groups with different caries risk levels.Methods: Baseline data were recorded for participants from September to November 2019, and participants were reexamined from September to November 2020. A longitudinal observation of 11,973 preschoolers was conducted. The simplified debris index (DI-S) and decayed-missing-filled tooth (dmft) index values were obtained for each participant.Results: Factors associated with whether caries would occur in the future and one-year increase in dmft (Δdmft) included baseline dmft, baseline DI-S, and baseline age. The risk ratio (RR) of caries occurrence and the number of teeth with new-onset caries were 4.482 (95% confidence interval, 4.056– 4.957) and 2.945 (2.742– 3.165) in the participants with baseline dmft ≥ 3, which were higher than those with baseline dmft =1 or 2. In the baseline caries-free group, whether caries would occur in the future was related to the baseline DI-S (95% confidence interval, 0.022– 0.062). The caries incidence of maxillary central incisors (27.9%) was the highest among teeth of preschoolers without caries at baseline, whereas the caries incidence of mandibular first deciduous molars (42.7%) was the highest among teeth of preschoolers with caries at baseline.Conclusion: Baseline dmft is a good predictor of future caries. Children with baseline caries-free status, baseline dmft > 0, and baseline dmft ≥ 3 should be treated with preventive interventions of different intensities and frequencies. The occurrence of future caries in baseline caries-free participants is related to oral hygiene status. Measures to prevent caries on smooth surfaces, such as topical fluoridation, should be applied to all preschoolers. Preschoolers with caries at baseline may be given priority for pit and fissure sealing.Keywords: preschool children, caries risk, previous caries experience, simplified debris index, oral epidemiology

Nanozyme-based chemodynamic therapy (CDT) has shown tremendous potential in the treatment of bacterial infections. However, the CDT antibacterial efficacy is severely limited by the catalytic activity of nanozymes or the infection microenvironments such as insufficient hydrogen peroxide (H

Holographic three-dimensional (3D) display can reproduce the amplitude and phase of the wavefront, providing perfect reconstructions of real 3D scenes. The computer-generated hologram (CGH) for the 3D model is calculated by the layer-based angular-spectrum theory. The wavefront is encoded by the CGH which is uploaded on the phase-only spatial light modulator. In order to achieve holographic 3D display with the high-definition, the number of layers and the resolution of the 3D model are significantly important. In this work, the effects of the number of layers and the resolution on reconstruction quality are analyzed quantitatively, which provides a guidance for the design of holographic 3D display system. A high-definition 3D display system with a high-resolution 3D data module based on Kinect Azure is designed and built, realizing a high quality 3D display effect.

The application of artificial neural networks to finance has received a great deal of attention from both investors and researchers, especially as a forecasting method. When the number of predictors is high, these methods suffer from the so-called "curse of dimensionality" and produce biased forecasts. In this paper, we relied on dimensionality reduction methods to alleviate such issue when a wide set of financial and macroeconomic variables is considered in the prediction of stock market volatility. Specifically, we combined Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) with hybrid artificial neutral networks to forecast realized volatility. The results showed that reduced models were able to perform in a similar way or even outperforms the compared full models in terms of predictive accuracy.

Background: Both supragingival plaque and saliva are commonly sampled for analysis of microbial communities. However, it remains unclear whether saliva can replace supragingival plaque for microbial studies of caries. There are limited studies on whether the microbiota of healthy first permanent molar (FPM) differs in different caries statuses of deciduous teeth. Herein, the PacBio Sequel platform was used to identify microbiome between three types of oral samples. Additionally, we compared the microbia between children with caries and healthy children in the same kind of microhabitat.Methods: In total, 30 children (aged 7–9 years) were enrolled in this study; 15 of them had dental caries. DNA was extracted from supragingival plaques of deciduous molars, supragingival plaques of maxillary FPMs, and saliva, and the v1–v9 regions of 16S rRNA was amplified. Additionally, PacBio sequencing and bioinformatic analyses were performed.Results: The salivary microbial alpha diversity were lower than that of the supragingival plaque on the teeth, but three was no difference between deciduous teeth and FPMs. Nonmetric multidimensional scaling analysis showed that the saliva samples were mainly scattered in the left side, whereas most plaque samples were distributed on the right. In the same microhabitat , there was no difference in microbial alpha and beta diverty between children with caries and healthy children. For the samples of the deciduous teeth, Streptococcus mutans, Propionibacterium acidifaciens, and Veillonella dispar were more abundant in the children with caries than healthy children, and the first two bacteria showed a positive correlation. For the samples of the FPMs, Selenomonas noxia was more abundant in healthy children than children with caries. But no differentially abundant microorganism were identified between the saliva subgroups. Conclusion:The microbial composition and struction of supragingival plaque was different from that of saliva, and supragingival plaque was found to be the best candidate for studying caries etiology. Streptococcus mutans, Veillonella dispar, and Propionibacterium acidifaciens are highly associated with the existence of deciduous caries. The microbia of the supragingival plaque on the healthy FPMs resemble when the caries status of the deciduous teeth was different, except for the abundance of Selenomonas noxia.

We develop Edgeworth expansion theory for spot volatility estimator under general assumptions on the log-price process that allow for drift and leverage effect. The result is based on further estimation of skewness and kurtosis, when compared with existing second order asymptotic normality result. Thus our theory can provide with a refinement result for the finite sample distribution of spot volatility. We also construct feasible confidence intervals (one-sided and two-sided) for spot volatility by using Edgeworth expansion. The Monte Carlo simulation study we conduct shows that the intervals based on Edgeworth expansion perform better than the conventional intervals based on normal approximation, which justifies the correctness of our theoretical conclusion.

Combined therapy can improve the curative effect and reduce side effect, so it has a broad application prospect in the treatment of bacterial infections especially bacterial biofilm infections. Herein, we propose a photothermal-activated multifunctional nano-antibacterial platform that is constructed by Introducing indocyanine green (ICG) photosensitizers and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) onto Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets surface. The constructed nanoplatform (MoS2/ICG/Ag) has the combined chemo/photothermal/photodynamic triple-mode antibacterial capability under a single 808 nm laser irradiation. Briefly, the photonic hyperthermia generated by MoS2 nanosheets can not only directly kill bacteria, but also accelerate the release of ICG and silver ions, and the latter is a commonly used chemical antibacterial reagent. The released ICG can catalyze the conversion of oxygen into singlet oxygen with the help of 808 nm light, achieving the photodynamic sterilization. Encouragingly, the loaded ICG and AgNPs can in turn enhance the heat, which is a mutually reinforcing effect that can produce a combined or even synergistic therapeutic effect. In vitro experiments demonstrate that the MoS2/ICG/Ag with triple bactericidal modalities has good broad-spectrum antibacterial performance. Importantly, it can remarkably inhibit the S. aureus biofilms formation and effectively eradicate the bacteria deep in the biofilms. In addition, the MoS2/ICG/Ag is successfully used for treating S. aureus biofilms-infected wound in vivo with minimal toxicity. Taken together, the developed MoS2/ICG/Ag nanoplatform may serve as a potential nano-antibacterial agent for photothermally activated multimodal combined antibacterial and antibiofilm therapy.

In this study, a new heat dissipation device with a composite heat sink of a loop heat pipe (LHP) system was evaluated for efficient cooling of electronic components. To improve the heat dissipation ability of the high heat flux chip and its local hot spot area, LHP, which had a gas-liquid phase change as the main mechanism of heat dissipation, was selected to remove heat. The experimental results showed that the average temperature performance was improved after the graphene copper foil heat sink was fitted, and the maximum temperature under the heat loads of 80 W, 90 W, 100 W, and 120 W was reduced by 3.8 oC, 5.7 oC, 6.5 oC, and 7.7 oC, respectively, compared with without a heat sink. The hot spot temperature increased linearly with an increase in the inlet water temperature. Increasing the ambient temperature within a certain range had little effect on the heat-dissipation effect of the hot spots. To interpret the experimental results, the hot spot heat transfer performance of the evaporation section of the LHP with a composite heat sink was set up by the equivalent thermal resistance model. The CFD simulated results were in good agreement with the experimental values. This indicated that the heat sink significantly reduced the hot spot temperature and improved the cooling uniformity largely. When the transverse thermal conductivity of the heat sink is sufficiently high, the increase in longitudinal thermal conductivity is more effective in reducing the hot spot temperature than the transverse thermal conductivity. Moreover, it has been suggested that the hot spots and heating power play a major role in the actual electronic structure and heat dissipation design. In summary, the study proposes a valuable method for improving the uniform cooling of chips, which was conducive to the heat management of the system.

Under scenario of high frequency data, consistent estimator of realized Laplace transform of volatility is proposed by \citet{TT2012a} and related central limit theorem has been well established. In this paper, we investigate the asymptotic tail behaviour of the empirical realized Laplace transform of volatility (ERLTV). We establish both large deviation principle and moderate deviation principle for the ERLTV. The good rate function for the large deviation principle is well defined in the whole real space, which indicates a limit for the normalized logarithmic tail probability of the ERLTV. Moreover, we also derive the function-level large and moderate deviation principles for ERLTV., Comment: 20pages, 2figures

Component importance is the key parameter of reliability analysis in power converter. Because of the particularity of topology, the traditional importance evaluation methods are not completely suitable for power converter. Based on complex network theories, the topology of power converter can be transformed to a complex network, and a method to evaluate component importance is proposed by using importance evaluation matrix, in which we synthesize node closeness, node degree and importance contributions of adjacent node. And the time complexity of this method is lower than O(n3). Finally, the experience of Buck converter verified this method is effective and feasible, and results are in conformity with actual fact.

Due to the topology particularity of power converter, AGREE reliability allocation method, which is widely used in engineering, is not completely suitable for power converter. Based on the principles of AGREE reliability allocation and allowing for the characteristics of power converter, a modified AGREE reliability allocation method is proposed. In this method, the component complexity is measured by technical maturity, and the component importance is measured by the role of component plays in circuit circulation and the importance of adjacent components, system reliability index can finally be allocated to the components. The method is verified to be effective.