An Intrinsic Photothermal Liquid for Light Detection and Energy Storage

Photothermal materials (PTMs) have been intensively investigated in the fields of photothermal conversion. Superior to solid PTMs, liquid PTMs are leading the trends in satisfying the demands of high flexibility and easy recycling. Successful examples of liquid PTMs are mostly formulated by dispersing solid PTMs in solvents, but suffer from the problems of phase segregation and solvent pollution. In this work, a low-cost formulation is proposed, which involves an oxidative product of ethyl oleate by iodine. It is an intrinsic liquid PTM, preserving the fluidic nature as well as possessing considerable ability for photothermal conversion. In addition to understanding the mechanism of light absorption in the visible and even near infrared windows, two examples are presented to demonstrate the great potential of liquid PTMs in broad areas such as light sensing and energy storage.     

[2]Pseudorotaxane-Based Supramolecular Optical Indicator for the Visual Detection of Cellular Cyanide Excretion

Cyanide is extremely hazardous to living organisms and the environment. Owing to its wide range of applications and high toxicity, the development of functional materials for cyanide detection and sensing is highly desirable. Host–guest complexation between bis(p-phenylene)-34-crown-10 H and N-methylacridinium salt G remarkably decreases the detection limit for cyanide anions compared with that of the guest itself. The [2]pseudorotaxane selectively recognizes the cyanide anion with high optical sensitivity as a result of the nucleophilic addition of the cyanide anion at the 9-position of G . The host–guest complexation is further incorporated into supramolecular materials for the visual detection of cyanide anions, especially the detection of cellular cyanide excretion with a detection limit of 0.6 μm . This supramolecular method provides an extremely distinct strategy for the visual detection of cyanide anions.     

Visual Speech Recognition with Lightweight Psychologically Motivated Gabor Features

Extraction of relevant lip features is of continuing interest in the visual speech domain. Using end-to-end feature extraction can produce good results, but at the cost of the results being difficult for humans to comprehend and relate to. We present a new, lightweight feature extraction approach, motivated by human-centric glimpse-based psychological research into facial barcodes, and demonstrate that these simple, easy to extract 3D geometric features (produced using Gabor-based image patches), can successfully be used for speech recognition with LSTM-based machine learning. This approach can successfully extract low dimensionality lip parameters with a minimum of processing. One key difference between using these Gabor-based features and using other features such as traditional DCT, or the current fashion for CNN features is that these are human-centric features that can be visualised and analysed by humans. This means that it is easier to explain and visualise the results. They can also be used for reliable speech recognition, as demonstrated using the Grid corpus. Results for overlapping speakers using our lightweight system gave a recognition rate of over 82%, which compares well to less explainable features in the literature.     

Vertical copper oxide nanowire arrays attached three-dimensional macroporous framework as a self-supported sensor for sensitive hydrogen peroxide detection

A hierarchical nanostructure consisting of uniform copper oxide nanowires vertically grown on three-dimensional copper framework (CuO NWs/3D-Cu foam) was prepared by a two-step synthetic process. The uniform CuO NWs anchored onto the 3D foam exhibited outstanding electrocatalytic activity towards hydrogen peroxide reduction due to the unique one‐dimensional direction with its excellent catalytic activity and large surface area of 3D substrate, which enhanced electroactive sites and charge conductivity. As a result, a wide linear detection range of 1 µM–1 mM, good sensitivity of 8.87 µA/(mM ⋅ cm²), low detection limit of 0.98 µM, and rapid response time of 5 s to hydrogen peroxide were achieved under a working potential of −0.4 V in phosphate buffer solution (pH of 7.4). In addition, the CuO NWs/3D-Cu foam material showed excellent selectivity to hydrogen peroxide and good resistance against poisonous interferents, including ascorbic acid, dopamine, urea, uric acid, and potassium chloride. Furthermore, the CuO NWs/3D-Cu foam presented good reproducibility, stability, and accurate detection for hydrogen peroxide in real sample; therefore, it may be considered to be a potential free-standing hydrogen peroxide sensor in practical analysis applications.     

A Highly Stable (4, 8)-Connected Tb-MOF Exhibiting Efficiently Luminescent Sensing towards Nitroimidazole Antibiotics

A robust 4,8-connected Tb-based metal-organic framework (Tb-MOF) with paddle wheel-shaped {Tb₂(COO)₄} subunits extended by C₃-symmetric 3,3',3''-[1,3,5-benzenetriyltris(carbonylimino)]tris-benzoate connector was hydrothermally synthesized, showing highly environmental stability, good dispersion and intense green emission in water system. Resulting critically from the well suppressed absorption towards the excitation energy, the Tb-MOF exhibits rapid and efficient fluorescent response towards nitroimidazole antibiotics with strong quenching constants and low detection limits of 1.59 × 10⁴ m ^–1 and 2.4 μM for metronidazole as well as 1.62 × 10⁴ m ^–1 and 2.9 μM for dimetridazole. Moreover, the sensitive and selective identification of the Tb-MOF has strong anti-interference and excellent regeneration ability, which endows the promising applications of the Tb-MOF as fluorescent sensing materials.     

Trichothecenes in Food and Feed,Relevance to Human and Animal Health and Methods of Detection: A Systematic Review

Trichothecene mycotoxins are sesquiterpenoid compounds primarily produced by fungi in taxonomical genera such as Fusarium, Myrothecium, Stachybotrys, Trichothecium, and others, under specific climatic conditions on a worldwide basis. Fusarium mold is a major plant pathogen and produces a number of trichothecene mycotoxins including deoxynivalenol (or vomitoxin), nivalenol, diacetoxyscirpenol, and T-2 toxin, HT-2 toxin. Monogastrics are sensitive to vomitoxin, while poultry and ruminants appear to be less sensitive to some trichothecenes through microbial metabolism of trichothecenes in the gastrointestinal tract. Trichothecene mycotoxins occur worldwide however both total concentrations and the particular mix of toxins present vary with environmental conditions. Proper agricultural practices such as avoiding late harvests, removing overwintered stubble from fields, and avoiding a corn/wheat rotation that favors Fusarium growth in residue can reduce trichothecene contamination of grains. Due to the vague nature of toxic effects attributed to low concentrations of trichothecenes, a solid link between low level exposure and a specific trichothecene is difficult to establish. Multiple factors, such as nutrition, management, and environmental conditions impact animal health and need to be evaluated with the knowledge of the mycotoxin and concentrations known to cause adverse health effects. Future research evaluating the impact of low-level exposure on livestock may clarify the potential impact on immunity. Trichothecenes are rapidly excreted from animals, and residues in edible tissues, milk, or eggs are likely negligible. In chronic exposures to trichothecenes, once the contaminated feed is removed and exposure stopped, animals generally have an excellent prognosis for recovery. This review shows the occurrence of trichothecenes in food and feed in 2011–2020 and their toxic effects and provides a summary of the discussions on the potential public health concerns specifically related to trichothecenes residues in foods associated with the exposure of farm animals to mycotoxin-contaminated feeds and impact to human health. Moreover, the article discusses the methods of their detection.     

Polymer Scaffolds for Biomedical Applications in Peripheral Nerve Reconstruction

The nervous system is a significant part of the human body, and peripheral nerve injury caused by trauma can cause various functional disorders. When the broken end defect is large and cannot be repaired by direct suture, small gap sutures of nerve conduits can effectively replace nerve transplantation and avoid the side effect of donor area disorders. There are many choices for nerve conduits, and natural materials and synthetic polymers have their advantages. Among them, the nerve scaffold should meet the requirements of good degradability, biocompatibility, promoting axon growth, supporting axon expansion and regeneration, and higher cell adhesion. Polymer biological scaffolds can change some shortcomings of raw materials by using electrospinning filling technology and surface modification technology to make them more suitable for nerve regeneration. Therefore, polymer scaffolds have a substantial prospect in the field of biomedicine in future. This paper reviews the application of nerve conduits in the field of repairing peripheral nerve injury, and we discuss the latest progress of materials and fabrication techniques of these polymer scaffolds.     

Peroxidase-Like Platinum Clusters Synthesized by Ganoderma lucidum Polysaccharide for Sensitively Colorimetric Detection of Dopamine

The sensitive and selective detection of dopamine (DA) is very important for the early diagnosis of DA-related diseases. In this study, we reported the colorimetric detection of DA using Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharide (GLP) stabilized platinum nanoclusters (Pt_n-GLP NCs). When Pt₆₀₀-GLP NCs was added, 3,3’,5,5’-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) was rapidly catalyzed and oxidized to blue oxTMB, indicating the peroxidase-like activity of Pt₆₀₀-GLP NCs. The catalytic reaction on the substrate TMB followed the Michaelis-Menton kinetics with the ping-pong mechanism. The mechanism of the colorimetric reaction was mainly due to the formation of hydroxyl radical (•OH). Furthermore, the catalytic reaction of Pt₆₀₀-GLP NCs was used in the colorimetric detection of DA. The linear range for DA was 1–100 μM and the detection limit was 0.66 μM. The sensitive detection of DA using Pt-GLP NCs with peroxidase-like activity offers a simple and practical method that may have great potential applications in the biotechnology field.     

Detection challenges in quantitative polymer analysis by liquid chromatography

Accurate quantification of polymer distributions is one of the main challenges in polymer analysis by liquid chromatography. The response of contemporary detectors is typically influenced by compositional features such as molecular weight, chain composition, end groups, and branching. This renders the accurate quantification of complex polymers of which there are no standards available, extremely challenging. Moreover, any (programmed) change in mobile‐phase composition may further limit the applicability of detection techniques. Current methods often rely on refractive index detection, which is not accurate when dealing with complex samples as the refractive‐index increment is often unknown. We review current and emerging detection methods in liquid chromatography with the aim of identifying detectors, which can be applied to the quantitative analysis of complex polymers.     

Graphene and Carbon Nanotube-based Electrochemical Sensing Platforms for Dopamine

Dopamine (DA) is an important neurotransmitter, which is created and released from the central nervous system. It plays a crucial role in human activities, like cognition, emotions, and response to anything. Maladjustment of DA in human blood serum results in different neural diseases, like Parkinson's and Schizophrenia. Consequently, researchers have started working on DA detection in blood serum, which is undoubtedly a hot research area. Electrochemical sensing techniques are more promising to detect DA in real samples. However, utilizing conventional electrodes for selective determination of DA encounters numerous problems due to the coexistence of other materials, such as uric acid and ascorbic acid, which have an oxidation potential close to DA. To overcome such problems, researchers have put their focus on the modification of bare electrodes. The aim of this review is to present recent advances in modifications of most used bare electrodes with carbonaceous materials, especially graphene, its derivatives, and carbon nanotubes, for electrochemical detection of DA. A brief discussion about the mechanistic phenomena at the electrode interface has also been included in this review.