Flexible conductive fibers have been widely applied in wearable flexible sensing. However, exposed wearable flexible sensors based on liquid metal (LM) are prone to abrasion and significant conductivity degradation. This study presented a high-sensitivity LM conductive fiber with integration of strain sensing, electrical heating, and thermochromic capabilities, which was fabricated by coating eutectic gallium-indium (EGaIn) onto spandex fibers modified with waterborne polyurethane (WPU), followed by thermal curing to form a protective polyurethane sheath. This fiber, designated as Spandex/WPU/EGaIn/Polyurethane (SWEP), exhibits a four-layer coaxial structure: spandex core, WPU modification layer, LM conductive layer, and polyurethane protective sheath. The SWEP fiber had a diameter of (458.3 ± 10.4) μm, linear density of (2.37 ± 0.15) g/m, and uniform EGaIn coating. The fiber had excellent conductivity with an average value of (3 716.9 ± 594.2) S/m. The strain sensing performance was particularly noteworthy. A 5 cm × 5 cm woven fabric was fabricated using polyester warp yarns and SWEP weft yarns. The fabric exhibited satisfactory moisture permeability [(536.06 ± 33.15) g/(m2·h)] and maintained stable thermochromic performance after repeated heating cycles. This advanced conductive fiber development is expected to significantly promote LM applications in wearable electronics and smart textile systems.
In recent years, exploring the physiological and pathological mechanisms of brain functional integration from the neural network level has become one of the focuses of neuroscience research. Due to the non-stationary and nonlinear characteristics of neural signals, its linear characteristics are not sufficient to fully explain the potential neurophysiological activity mechanism in the implementation of complex brain functions. In order to overcome the limitation that the linear algorithm cannot effectively analyze the nonlinear characteristics of signals, researchers proposed the transfer entropy (TE) algorithm. In recent years, with the introduction of the concept of brain functional network, TE has been continuously optimized as a powerful tool for nonlinear time series multivariate analysis. This paper first introduces the principle of TE algorithm and the research progress of related improved algorithms, discusses and compares their respective characteristics, and then summarizes the application of TE algorithm in the field of electrophysiological signal analysis. Finally, combined with the research progress in recent years, the existing problems of TE are discussed, and the future development direction is prospected.
The construction of brain functional network based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an effective method to reveal the mechanism of human brain operation, but the common brain functional network generally contains a lot of noise, which leads to wrong analysis results. In this paper, the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) model in compressed sensing is used to reconstruct the brain functional network. This model uses the sparsity of L1-norm penalty term to avoid over fitting problem. Then, it is solved by the fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm (FISTA), which updates the variables through a shrinkage threshold operation in each iteration to converge to the global optimal solution. The experimental results show that compared with other methods, this method can improve the accuracy of noise reduction and reconstruction of brain functional network to more than 98%, effectively suppress the noise, and help to better explore the function of human brain in noisy environment.
ObjectiveTo evaluate the middle- and long-term effectiveness of primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) in patients with chronic autoimmune inflammatory diseases. MethodsBetween January 1990 and June 2006, 42 patients (51 hips) with chronic autoimmune inflammatory diseases underwent THA. There were 15 males (18 hips) and 27 females (33 hips) with an average age of 36.9 years (range, 22-70 years). The locations were the left side in 29 hips and the right side in 22 hips. Of 42 cases, there were 11 cases of systemic lupus erythematosus (13 hips), 16 cases of rheumatoid arthritis (22 hips), and 15 cases of ankylosing spondylitis (16 hips). The causes of THA included avascular necrosis of the femoral head in 26 cases (34 hips), ankylosis of the hip in 15 cases (16 hips), and fracture of the femoral neck in 1 case (1 hip). The Harris score was 32.49 ± 9.50. The physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) of short form 36 health survey scale (SF-36) scores were 25.53 ± 4.46 and 42.28 ± 6.27, respectively. ResultsAll incisions healed primarily. All 42 patients were followed up 5-21 years (mean, 9.1 years). At last follow-up, the Harris score was 89.25 ± 8.47; PCS and MCS of the SF-36 were 51.35 ± 4.28 and 55.29 ± 8.31, respectively; and significant differences in the scores were found between pre- and post-operation (P lt; 0.05). Complications included limp (4 cases), prosthesis dislocation (2 cases, 2 hips), periprosthetic fracture (1 case, 1 hip), aseptic loosening (2 cases, 2 hips), and ectopic ossification (3 cases, 3 hips). ConclusionTHA seems to be a good choice for patients with chronic autoimmune inflammatory diseases.
【Abstract】 Objective To investigate the feasibility of transpositional anastomosis of C4 anterior trunk and accessory nerve for functional reconstruction of the trapezius muscle so as to provide theoretical basis of repairing accessory nerve defects. Methods Thirty-six adult male Sprague-Dawley rats (weighing 200-250 g) were randomly divided into the experimental group (n=18) and control group (n=18). The transpositional anastomosis of C4 anterior trunk and accessory nerve was performed in the left sides of experimental group; the accessory nerve was transected in the left sides of control group; and the right sides of both groups were not treated as within-subject controls. The electrophysiological and histological changes of the trapezius muscle were measured. The values of the latencies and amplitudes of compound muscle action potential (CMAP) were recorded in the experimental group at 1, 2, and 3 months; the latency delaying rate, amplitude recovery rate, and restoration rate of muscular tension were caculated. The counts of myelinated nerve fibers from distal to the anastomotic site were analyzed. The transverse area of the trapezius muscle was also measured and analyzed in 2 groups. Meanwhile, the muscles and nerves were harvested for transmission electron microscope observation in the experimental group at 1 and 3 months. Results As time passed by, the experimental group showed increased amplitudes of CMAP, shortened latencies of CMAP, and improved muscular tension. At 3 months, the amplitude recovery rates were 63.61% ± 9.29% in upper trapezius muscle and 73.13% ± 11.85% in lower trapezius muscle; the latency delaying rates were 130.45% ± 37.27% and 112.62% ± 19.57%, respectively; and the restoration rate of muscular tension were 77.27% ± 13.64% and 82.47% ± 22.94%, respectively. The passing rate of myelinated nerve fibers was 82.55% ± 5.00%. With the recovery of innervation, the transverse area of the trapezius muscle increased, showing significant differences between experimental group and control group at different time points (P lt; 0.05). The transmission electron microscope showed that the myotome arranged in disorder at 1 month and tended to order at 3 months. Conclusion Transpositional anastomosis of C4 anterior trunk and the accessory nerve can effectively reconstruct the function of the trapezius muscle of rats.
For the researches relating to the biomedical fields such as preparation of drug micro-particulates and biomedical materials coating, according to the modular design concept and combing the piezoelectric micro-jetting technology with electromechanical engineering and automatic control technology, the drug micro-jetting multifunctional system was designed, which included the spraying support subsystem, X-Y motion platform, Z-axis subsystem and rapid installation subsystem. The drug micro-jetting multifunctional system was run and adjusted. The versatility, rationality and feasibility of this system were validated by the experiments of amoxicillin microcapsule preparation, titanium alloy drug-loaded coating preparation and balloon electrode coating preparation. It was shown that the system can be used as basic platform in multi-disciplinary cross technology research such as biomedical engineering, pharmaceutical engineering and so on.
The main shortcomings of using electrocortical stimulation (ECS) in identifying the motor functional area around the focus in neurosurgery are certainly time-consuming, possibly cerebral cortex injuring and perhaps triggering epilepsy. To solve these problems, we in our research presented an intraoperative motor cortex functional mapping based on electrocorticography (ECoG). At first, using power spectrum estimation, we analyzed the characteristic of ECoG which was related to move task, and selected Mu rhythm as the move-related feature. Then we extracted the feature from original ECoG by multi-resolution wavelet analysis. By calculating the sum value of feature in every channel and observing the distribution of these sum values, we obtained the correlation between the cortex area under the electrode and motor cortex functional area. The results showed that the distribution of the relationship between the cortex under the electrode and motor cortex functional area was almost consistent with those identified by ECS which was called as ‘the gold-standard’. It indicated that this method was basically feasible, and it just needed five minutes totally. In conclusion, ECoG-based and passive identification of motor cortical function may serve as a useful adjunct to ECS in the intraoperative mapping.
ObjectiveTo evaluate the impact of different surgical strategies for moderate functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) at the time of aortic valve replacement (AVR) on patients' prognosis.MethodsA total of 118 AVR patients, including 84 males and 34 females, aged 58.1±12.4 years, who were complicated with moderate FMR were retrospectively recruited. Patients were divided into three groups according to the treatment strategy of mitral valve: a group A (no intervention, n=11), a group B (mitral valve repair, n=51) and a group C (mitral valve replacement, n=56). The primary endpoint was the early and mid-term survival of the patients, and the secondary endpoint was the improvement of FMR.ResultsThe median follow-up time was 29.5 months. Five patients died perioperatively, all of whom were from the group C. Early postoperative FMR improvement rates in the group A and group B were 90.9% and 94.1% (P=0.694). The mid-term mortality in the three groups were 0.0%, 5.9% and 3.9%, respectively (P=0.264), while the incidences of major cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events were 0.0%, 9.8% and 17.7%, respectively (P=0.230). Improvements of FMR in the group A and group B were 100.0% and 94.3% at the mid-term follow-up (P>0.05).ConclusionFor patients receiving AVR with moderate FMR, conservative treatment or concurrent repair of mitral valve may be more reasonable, while mitral valve replacement may increase the incidence of early and mid-term adverse events.
摘要:目的: 隨機對照研究、評估生物反饋訓練治療慢性功能性便秘的療效。 方法 : 60例慢性功能性便秘患者,隨機分為治療組30例和對照組30例。治療組接受1個療程(5周)生物反饋訓練治療(10次為一個療程、一次30～45分鐘、每周2次)。對照組患者接受聚乙二醇4000 10g BID 口服,療程5周。治療前后作便秘癥狀評分、結腸通過試驗檢測、直腸肛門壓力檢測。 結果 : 生物反饋訓練和聚乙二醇4000均可使多數慢性功能性便秘患者的大便次數、大便性狀及伴隨癥狀恢復正常或緩解,總有效率分別為667%和80%(P ＞005)。生物反饋訓練和聚乙二醇4000口服治療后,結腸通過試驗72小時標志物排出率分別為75%及73%,均較治療前明顯增加。生物反饋訓練治療后力排時肛門壓明顯下降。 結論 : 生物反饋訓練對出口梗阻型、慢傳輸型便秘均有效,是一種有效的、新興的治療慢性功能性便秘的方法,可作為功能性便秘的一線治療方法。Abstract: Objective: To assess the clinic effect of biofeedback therapy for functional constipation. Methods : Sixty cases of chronic functional constipation were randomly divided into treatment group (30 cases) and control group (30 cases). Cases in the treatment group were exposed to biofeedback for a fiveweeklong treatment course—individual treatment lasted for 3045 minutes and twice per week. Patients in the control group received PEG 4000 10g BID for five weeks. Data from constipation symptom score, colonic transit test, and anorectal manometry were done and compared before and after two kinds of treatments. Results : Biofeedback training and PEG 4000 could restore the stoolfrequency, stool characteristics and accompanying symptoms to normal or mitigation of the majority of patients with chronic functional constipation, with the total effective rates being 667% and 80% (P gt;005), respectively. After biofeedback training and PGE 4000 treatment, the discharge rate of 72hour markers of colonic transit test significantly increased to 75% and 73%, respectively. Additionally, anorectal pressure decreased dramatically after biofeedback training. Conclusion : Biofeedback training would play a positive role in outlet obstruction and slow transit constipation. Thus, it could be an effective firstline treatment of chronic functional constipation.
ObjectiveTo review the current research and application progress of three-dimentional (3D) printed porous titanium alloy after tumor resection, and provide direction and reference for the follow-up clinical application and basic research of 3D printed porous titanium alloy. MethodsThe related literature on research and application of 3D printed porous titanium alloy after tumor resection in recent years was reviewed from three aspects: performance of simple 3D printed porous titanium alloy, application analysis of simple 3D printed porous titanium alloy after tumor resection, and research progress of anti-tumor 3D printed porous titanium alloy. Results3D printing technology can adjust the pore parameters of porous titanium alloy, so that it has the same biomechanical properties as bone. Appropriate pore parameters are conducive to inducing bone growth, promoting the recovery of skeletal system and related functions, and improving the quality of life of patients after operation. Simple 3D printed porous titanium alloy can more accurately match the bone defect after tumor resection through preoperative personalized design, so that it can closely fit the surgical margin after tumor resection, and improve the accuracy and efficiency of the operation. The early and mid-term follow-up results show that its application reduces the postoperative complications such as implant loosening, subsidence, fracture and so on, and enhances the bone stability. The anti-tumor performance of 3D printed porous titanium alloy mainly includes coating and drug-loading treatment of pure 3D printed porous titanium alloy, and some progress has been made in the basic research stage. ConclusionSimple 3D printed porous titanium alloy is suitable for patients with large and complex bone defects after tumor resection, and the anti-tumor effect of 3D printed porous titanium alloy can be achieved through coating and drug delivery.