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The rapid development of wearable electronics requires energy storage devices capable of withstanding both static and dynamic deformations. The versatility of textile supercapacitors renders them promising candidates, but their low electrochemical performance especially under mechanical deformation, poses many limitations for practical use. In this study, MXene‐based textile supercapacitors are designed and fabricated using hierarchical spacer fabrics as the skeleton to provide robust mechanical support and stable performance. Ti3C2Tx MXene is adopted as the current collector and active material for the spacer fabric supercapacitor, resulting in an impressive areal capacitance of 415 mF cm−2 with a MXene loading of 4.2 mg cm−2. Remarkable stability and durability are achieved in the form of three‐dimensional (3D) textile supercapacitors, even under both static and dynamic deformations. The compressive behaviors of these supercapacitors can be easily adjusted (e.g., from 10 to 168 KPa at 50% compression) by altering the spacer fabric structure, demonstrating their energy‐absorption (damping of kinetic energy) capability and their potential to meet the requirements of various wearable applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A modified thermal states quantum cryptography is proposed by adding the noise at Bob's side and the impact of finite‐size effects focused on by performing the channel estimation. An optimal noise which can maximize the key rate is demonstrated to exist and, by using numeric simulations, is shown to vary with the transmission distance. Adding the optimal noise can enhance the effectiveness of the thermal states quantum cryptography protocol under noisy and lossy channel in terms of secret key rate, the maximum transmission distance and the tolerable channel noise. Although finite‐size effects deteriorate the performance of thermal quantum cryptography, this approach can compensate the impact of this degradation, and even make the performance of the modified protocol in the finite‐size regime better than that of the original protocol in the ideal asymptotic regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amorphous Al2O3-coated spinel LiMn2O4 cathode materials were prepared via a simple combustion method at a low temperature using glucose as a fuel. The morphology and structure of all samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The thickness of the amorphous Al2O3-coating is about 5 nm. Moreover, the typical spinel structure of the LiMn2O4 exhibits no change after coating Al2O3. Electrochemical characterization showed that the Al2O3-coating can improve the cycling and high current rate performance of the LiMn2O4; in particular, the 1.0 wt% Al2O3-coated LiMn2O4 cathode revealed a high initial discharge capacity of 120.4 mA h g−1 and a good cycling stability with a capacity retention of 93.52% after 100 cycles at 1 C. Moreover, an excellent high rate performance with an initial capacity of 84.2 mA h g−1 and a capacity retention of 76.96% after 1000 cycles are also obtained at 10 C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tremendous efforts have been dedicated towards high-performance energy storage devices though material innovation, nanoscale structural design and hybrid fabrication approaches. A crucial technique to tune the properties of nanomaterials, such as MXene, is through introducing defects or heteroatom dopants. To improve the level of nitrogen dopant, a two-step pre-intercalation–annealing strategy is developed herein, using ammonium citrate (AC) as an all-in-one intercalant, antioxidant and nitrogen source, followed by annealing in an ammonia atmosphere. It is shown that the doping efficiency of nitrogen-doped Ti3C2Tx MXene (N-MXene) increased from 3.5% to 6.3%, compared with MXene annealed in ammonia without pre-intercalation. This high doping level induces significantly enhanced electrochemical capacitance (475 F g−1 at 5 mV s−1) compared with pristine MXene (321 F g−1), and greatly improved performance at high current density (248 F g−1 at 1 V s−1). Modelling was performed to elucidate the N-doping process of MXene and to understand the mechanism enhancing the electrochemical capacitance, which indicates that the pre-intercalation strategy promotes N-doping as surface functionalization, as well as in the MXene lattice. The pre-intercalation strategy demonstrates a new and facile pathway for functionalizing Ti3C2Tx MXene which will facilitate use in applications such as in high performance supercapacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides (GLP) has anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects. Dysregulated immune responses are involved in the pathogenesis of dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis. The aim of this study was to assess the therapeutic potential of GLP to alleviate DSS-induced colitis.Methods: The mice were administered with GLP by intragastric gavage daily for two weeks prior to the DSS treatment. Mice were orally administered with 2.5% DSS dissolved in drinking water with GLP or water treatment for 6 days. The mice were killed on day 7 after induction of colitis. Survival rates, body weight loss, colon lengths, histological changes, and disease activity index scores (DAI) were evaluated.Results: GLP significantly improved survival rates, colon length shortening, body weight loss, histopathological score, and DAI scores in mice with DSS-induced colitis. GLP markedly suppressed the secretions of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-17A, and IL-4 and significantly affected populations of Th17 cells, B cells, NK cells, and NKT cells in the lamina propria lymphocytes.Conclusions: GLP prevented inflammation, maintained intestinal homeostasis, and regulated the intestinal immunological barrier functions in mice with DSS-induced colitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aims to clarify the clinical characteristics of pediatric voice disorders., Methods: The clinical data of 1782 pediatric patients presenting with voice disorders were retrospectively analyzed. These cases were categorized into four age-based cohorts: 0-3, 4-7, 8-11, and 12-15years. Variables such as gender disparities, laryngoscopic manifestation, disease types, and acoustic parameters were thoroughly examined., Results: A total of 1782 children with acoustic hoarseness were included in this study, comprising 1325 males and 457 females. When the sex ratio among the children in each group was compared, males were found to outnumber females. A notable male predominance was observed across all age groups. Laryngoscopic results revealed that the most prevalent condition was vocal cord nodules (1363 cases, 76.48%), followed by vocal cord polyps (271 cases, 15.20%). Other diseases included laryngeal papillomas, vocal fold movement impairment, vocal cord cysts, functional dysphonia, leukoplakia of the vocal cords, and benign laryngeal tumors such as laryngeal amyloidosis and subglottic granular cell tumors. Among these, adenoid hypertrophy was presented in 382 children (21.44%). Additionally, the Reflux Finding Score (RFS) was conducted, and 799 cases (44.83%) were found to have a score above 7. The distribution of various diseases across different age groups indicated that children with vocal cord nodules (637 cases, 46.74%), vocal cord polyps (109 cases, 40.22%), and laryngeal papillomas (35, 36.84%) were predominantly found in the 4-7 years age group. Pediatric acute laryngitis (three cases, 75%) and vocal fold movement impairment (eight cases, 36.36%) were more common in the 0-3 years age group. Functional dysphonia (four cases, 66.67%) and vocal cord leukoplakia (four cases, 80%) were mainly observed in the 12-15 years age group, while vocal cord cysts were predominantly seen in the 8-11 years age group (four cases, 57.14%). A comparative analysis of acoustic parameters among 153 children showed statistically significant differences in jitter, fundamental frequency (F0), voice handicap index (VHI), reflux symptom index (RSI), and RFS across different pathologies., Conclusion: This study highlighted that vocal cord nodules, vocal cord polyps, and laryngeal papillomas were the primary causes of pediatric hoarseness, although the possibility of tumors and rare diseases cannot be disregarded. There was a noticeable gender bias towards males, and functional dysphonia was significantly more prevalent in older children., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest 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., (Copyright © 2024 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Fiber-shaped supercapacitors (FSCs) are promising energy storage solutions for powering miniaturized or wearable electronics. However, the scalable fabrication of fiber electrodes with high electrical conductivity and excellent energy storage performance for use in FSCs remains a challenge. Here, an easily scalable one-step wet-spinning approach is reported to fabricate highly conductive fibers using hybrid formulations of Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene nanosheets and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate. This approach produces fibers with a record conductivity of ≈1489 S cm -1 , which is about five times higher than other reported Ti 3 C 2 T x MXene-based fibers (up to ≈290 S cm -1 ). The hybrid fiber at ≈70 wt% MXene shows a high volumetric capacitance (≈614.5 F cm -3 at 5 mV s -1 ) and an excellent rate performance (≈375.2 F cm -3 at 1000 mV s -1 ). When assembled into a free-standing FSC, the energy and power densities of the device reach ≈7.13 Wh cm -3 and ≈8249 mW cm -3 , respectively. The excellent strength and flexibility of the hybrid fibers allow them to be wrapped on a silicone elastomer fiber to achieve an elastic FSC with 96% capacitance retention when cyclically stretched to 100% strain. This work demonstrates the potential of MXene-based fiber electrodes and their scalable production for fiber-based energy storage applications., (© 2019 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)