Artificial Intelligence Meets Flexible Sensors:Emerging Smart Flexible Sensing Systems Driven by Machine Learning and Artificial Synapses

The recent wave of the artificial intelligence(AI)revolution has aroused unprecedented interest in the intelligentialize of human society.As an essential component that bridges the physical world and digital signals,flexible sensors are evolving from a single sensing element to a smarter system,which is capable of highly efficient acquisition,analysis,and even perception of vast,multifaceted data.While challenging from a manual perspective,the development of intelligent flexible sensing has been remarkably facilitated owing to the rapid advances of brain-inspired AI innovations from both the algorithm(machine learning)and the framework(artificial synapses)level.This review presents the recent progress of the emerging AI-driven,intelligent flexible sensing systems.The basic concept of machine learning and artificial synapses are introduced.The new enabling features induced by the fusion of AI and flexible sensing are comprehensively reviewed,which significantly advances the applications such as flexible sensory systems,soft/humanoid robotics,and human activity monitoring.As two of the most profound innovations in the twenty-first century,the deep incorporation of flexible sensing and AI technology holds tremendous potential for creating a smarter world for human beings.

高效液相色谱法测定化妆品中3种α-羟基酸及其酯

建立了高效液相色谱法(HPLC)同时测定化妆品中葡糖酸、葡糖酸内酯和乳糖酸的含量,并结合高效液相色谱-串联质谱联用法(HPLC-MS/MS)对结果进行确证。样品经水超声提取,并在氢氧化钠的作用下将葡糖酸、葡糖酸内酯、乳糖酸转化为葡糖酸盐和乳糖酸盐,采用高效液相色谱法,以0.04 mol/L的磷酸氢二铵水溶液和乙腈为流动相进行洗脱,Comixsil HCS(4.6 mm×150 mm,3μm)色谱柱分离,二极管阵列检测器(214 nm)检测,外标法定量。采用高效液相色谱-串联质谱联用法,以0.1%甲酸水溶液和含0.1%甲酸乙腈为流动相进行梯度洗脱,Waters T3-C18(2.1 mm×100 mm,1.8μm)色谱柱分离,电喷雾电离,负离子多反应监测模式定性。结果显示,葡糖酸与乳糖酸在相应线性范围内线性关系良好,相关系数均大于0.999。葡糖酸与葡糖酸内酯的方法检出限为100μg/g,乳糖酸的方法检出限为500μg/g。3种化合物4种基质样品加标平均回收率为90.8%~110.1%,相对标准偏差为0.3%~4.4%。该方法操作简便、准确度好、灵敏度高,适用于化妆品中葡糖酸、葡糖酸内酯和乳糖酸的测定。

祛斑美白类化妆品中6种功效成分的同时测定及使用情况分析

建立水基类、乳液类、膏霜类不同基质类型的祛斑美白类化妆品中α-熊果苷、β-熊果苷、脱氧熊果苷、烟酰胺、氢醌和苯酚含量测定的液相色谱法。样品使用70%甲醇溶液提取,经C_(18)(250×4.6 mm,5μm)色谱柱分离后,以甲醇-水为流动相梯度洗脱,采用二极管阵列检测器检测。结果表明,α-熊果苷、β-熊果苷、脱氧熊果苷、烟酰胺、氢醌和苯酚在一定浓度范围内线性关系良好,r^(2)>0.999,方法检出限和定量下限分别为6~12 mg/kg,20~40 mg/kg。6个待测物的方法回收率为93.4%~109.6%,RSD(n=6)为0.2%~3.8%。测定了150批祛斑美白类样品,均未检出脱氧熊果苷、氢醌和苯酚,检出的烟酰胺、β-熊果苷和α-熊果苷含量分别在0.10%~5.26%,0.01%~3.32%和0.01%~0.57%之间。本法准确、灵敏、前处理简单,可用于化妆品中6种目标组分的测定。

Design and test of soft-pot-tray automatic embedding system for light-economical pot seedling nursery machine

Most of the commercially-available pot seedling nursery machines are incompatible with soft-pot-trays and are labor-intensive and low in productivity.A soft-pot-tray automatic embedding system was developed in this study to achieve automatic embedding of the soft pot tray into the hard tray following sowing and covering with soil.A control system was constructed using the Arduino program development environment.An embedded-hard-tray automatic lowering mechanism and conveyor-belt-based pot-tray embedding system were designed.Dynamics analysis was conducted to derive an equation to describe the embedding process of the soft pot tray into the embedded hard tray.A prototype of the soft-pot-tray automatic embedding system was manufactured and tested.The analytical equation suggested that a minimum linear velocity of 0.86 m/s was required for a complete embedding process.The experimental results showed that the embedded-hard-tray automatic lowering mechanism was reliable and stable as the tray placement success rate was greater than 99%.The successful tray embedding rate was 100%and the seed exposure rate was less than 1%with a linear velocity of the conveyor belt of 0.92 m/s.The experiment findings agreed well with the analytical results.The proposed soft-pot-tray automatic embedding system satisfied the technical specifications for a light-economical pot seedling nursery machine.

Signaling pathways in obesity:mechanisms and therapeutic interventions

Obesity is a complex,chronic disease and global public health challenge.Characterized by excessive fat accumulation in the body,obesity sharply increases the risk of several diseases,such as type 2 diabetes,cardiovascular disease,and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease,and is linked to lower life expectancy.Although lifestyle intervention(diet and exercise)has remarkable effects on weight management,achieving long-term success at weight loss is extremely challenging,and the prevalence of obesity continues to rise worldwide.Over the past decades,the pathophysiology of obesity has been extensively investigated,and an increasing number of signal transduction pathways have been implicated in obesity,making it possible to fight obesity in a more effective and precise way.In this review,we summarize recent advances in the pathogenesis of obesity from both experimental and clinical studies,focusing on signaling pathways and their roles in the regulation of food intake,glucose homeostasis,adipogenesis,thermogenesis,and chronic inflammation.We also discuss the current antiobesity drugs,as well as weight loss compounds in clinical trials,that target these signals.The evolving knowledge of signaling transduction may shed light on the future direction of obesity research,as we move into a new era of precision medicine.

Jigsaw-like mini-pillar platform for multi-mode biosensing

The multiple sensing provides booming options to eliminate interference and ensure the accuracy of detection by mutually coupling and validating multiple data sets.Here,we integrate the jigsaw-like multifunctional mini-pillar platform to perform multi-mode(electrochemical,fluorescence,surface-enhanced Raman scattering(SERS)and colorimetric)sensing in individual microdroplets.Each mini-pillar connector can parallelize together by specific concave-convex interface to form integrated jigsaw-like platform for multi-mode sensing,and each specific mini-pillar can be modified into the individual sensing unit to read the prescribed signals.We successfully implemented electrochemical,fluorescence,SERS and colorimetric detection by multiple signals coupling to reduce the false positive analysis.Such platform brings a promising clue of in-situ analysis and point-of-care testing for disease diagnosis and health monitoring.

Efficacy and safety of bridging therapy and direct mechanical thrombectomy in large vessel occlusions:a meta-analysis

To the Editor:Acute large vessel occlusion(LVO)is responsible for most acute ischemic stroke(AIS),a common cause of disability and death worldwide.Randomized controlled clinical trials(RCTs)provided evidence endorsing intravenous thrombolysis(IVT,also termed bridging therapy[IVT])and endovascular thrombectomy over IVT alone as the current standard treatment for people with LVO in the anterior circulation.[1]The current American and European guidelines recommend using IVT for all eligible individuals with LVO before direct mechanical thrombectomy(d-MT)(class of recommendation-I).Recent RCTs suggest that MT was noninferior to BT in terms of efficacy and safety,[2,3]which contradict the results from multiple meta-analyses favoring BT over d-MT.[4]The benefit of routine IVT for eligible individuals before thrombectomy has become controversial.BT is associated with complications,including the risk of vasospasm,distal emboli,or symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage.

Imaging and spatial omics of kidney injury:significance,challenges,advances and perspectives

The kidneys are susceptible to a range of insults that can cause damage to them.Early diagnosis,timely prevention,and proper treatment are crucial for improving the outcome of kidney injury.However,the complexity of renal structure and function makes it difficult to reach the demand of early detection and comprehensive evaluation of kidney injury.No successful drug therapy caused by the elaborate pathogenesis mechanism network of kidney injury calls for a systematical interpretation in mechanism researches.Recent advances in renal imaging and omics studies have provided novel views and deeper insights into kidney injury,but also raise challenges in reaching a comprehensive cellular and molecular atlas of kidney injury.Progresses in imaging and omics of kidney injury are being made in various directions,with the initiative of construction a high-resolution structural atlas of kidney,dynamic and non-invasive evaluation of renal function,and systematic establishment of spatially resolved molecular atlas by transcriptomics and metabolomics.With the limitations of a single modality,novel multimodal integration technologies of imaging and omics are being attempted to achieve a systematic description of nephropathy mechanisms.Further extensive efforts in renal multimodal imaging and omics studies are extremely required to deepen our understanding on kidney injury in the context of diagnostic,mechanistic and therapeutic perspectives.

Bioinspired molecules design for bilateral synergistic passivation in buried interfaces of planar perovskite solar cells

Trap-mediated energy loss in the buried interface with non-exposed feature constitutes one of the serious challenges for achieving high-performance perovskite solar cells(PSCs).Inspired by the adhesion mechanism of mussels,herein,three catechol derivatives with functional Lewis base groups,namely 3,4-Dihydroxyphenylalanine(DOPA),3,4-Dihydroxyphenethylamine(DA)and 3-(3,4-Dihydroxyphenyl)propionic acid(DPPA),were strategically designed.These molecules as interfacial linkers are incorporated into the buried interface between perovskite and SnO_(2) surface,achieving bilateral synergetic passivation effect.The crosslinking can produce secondary bonding with the undercoordinated Pb^(2+) and Sn^(4+) defects.The PSCs treated with DOPA exhibited the best performance and operational stability.Upon the DOPA passivation,a stabilized power conversion efficiency(PCE)of 21.5%was demonstrated for the planar PSCs.After 55 days of room-temperature storage,the unencapsulated devices with the DOPA crosslinker could still maintain 85%of their initial performance in air under relative humidity of-15%.This work opens up a new strategy for passivating the buried interfaces of perovskite photovoltaics and also provides important insights into designing defect passivation agents for other perovskite optoelectronic devices,such as light-emitting diodes,photodetectors,and lasers.

Biophotonic Activity and Transmission Mediated by Mutual Actions of Neurotransmitters are Involved in the Origin and Altered States of Consciousness

Dear Editor Despite remarkable advances in our understanding of brain functions,the neural substrates and correlates of consciousness remain unclear[1].It has been argued that classical physics is intrinsically incapable of explaining the holistic aspects of consciousness.

Biophotons Contribute to Retinal Dark Noise

The discovery of dark noise in retinal photoreceptors resulted in a long-lasting controversy over its origin and the underlying mechanisms.Here,we used a novel ultra-weak biophoton imaging system（UBIS） to detect biophotonic activity（emission） under dark conditions in rat and bullfrog（Rana catesbeiana） retinas in vitro.We found a significant temperature-dependent increase in biophotonic activity that was completely blocked either by removing intracellular and extracellular Ca^（2＋）together or inhibiting phosphodiesterase 6.These findings suggest that the photon-like component of discrete dark noise may not be caused by a direct contribution of the thermal activation of rhodopsin,but rather by an indirect thermal induction of biophotonic activity,which then activates the retinal chromophore of rhodopsin.Therefore,this study suggests a possible solution regarding the thermal activation energy barrier for discrete dark noise,which has been debated for almost half a century.

Fast and robust image sequence mosaicking of nursery plug tray images

A machine vision based system to estimate the nursery plug tray sowing quantity is necessary in the rice seedling nursery.Because the super hybrid rice is of small diameter,in order to obtain better estimation results of sowing quantity,only part of the tray scene is captured by machine vision system.Therefore,nursery tray image sequence mosaic algorithm is required so as to obtain the whole nursery tray sowing performance.In this paper,a fast nursery plug tray image mosaic technique based on Phase Correlation and Speeded up Robust Features(the PC-SURF)algorithm was introduced.To reduce huge computational complexity in feature extraction and avoid wrong match points from non-overlapping regions between two adjacent images,firstly the proposed method used Phase Correlation to approximately locate the overlapping regions between two sequential images so as to narrow down the processing area for further feature extraction.Then,the SURF algorithm was implemented in the overlapping region of the images to perform image registration and image blending.Image registration and blending were then performed using the RANSAC algorithm and transition smoothing method.Finally,sequential images were warped into a single frame to produce a panoramic tray image with high resolution and better quality.The test results showed that the PC-SURF algorithm greatly outperforms the SURF algorithm in point matching accuracy,time consumption,and image mosaic accuracy.The average feature point matching accuracy of the PC-SURF algorithm was improved by approximately 7.14%.The implementation time was almost three times faster.The Root Mean Squared Error(RMSE)of image blending in the R,G,B channels(RMSEr,RMSEg,and RMSEb)decreased by approximately 8.4%,6.9%,6.9%respectively.The RMSE of image registration RMSEreg decreased by 33.8%.In addition,the speed of the nursery tray image mosaic technology could meet the requirements for real-time implementation in super hybrid rice automated sowing machines.