Recent Advances in Smart Biomaterials for the Detection and Treatment of Autoimmune Diseases

Autoimmune diseases are a group of debilitating illnesses that are often idiopathic in nature. The steady rise in the prevalence of these conditions warrants new approaches for diagnosis and treatment. Stimuli‐responsive biomaterials also known as “smart,” “intelligent,” or “recognitive” biomaterials are widely studied for their applications in drug delivery, biosensing, and tissue engineering due to their ability to produce thermal, optical, chemical, or structural changes upon interacting with the biological environment. Studies within the last decade that harness the recognitive capabilities of these biomaterials toward the development of novel detection and treatment options for autoimmune diseases are critically analyzed.     

Genetically Encoding Light-Responsive Protein-Polymers Using Translation Machinery for the Multi-Site Incorporation of Photo-Switchable Unnatural Amino Acids

A general and versatile technology to engineer light-responsive protein-based biomaterials can enable the manipulation and interrogation of proteins, pathways, and cells, and it will assist the design of “smart” light-responsive biomaterials. This study reports the evolution of chromosomal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) for azobenzene-bearing unnatural amino acids (uAAs) with up to ≈40-fold increased protein production and improved fidelity, as compared with a previously described aaRS. The evolved translation systems enable efficient and accurate incorporation of up to 10 instances of the various light-responsive uAAs in elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs). Azobenzene-containing ELPs are capable of isothermal, reversible, light-mediated soluble-to-insoluble phase transition, with up to a 12  °C difference in the ELP transition temperature upon cis-to-trans azobenzene isomerization. Furthermore, the incorporation of azobenzene-uAAs in ELP diblock-copolymers enables the creation of light-responsive self-assembled nanostructures. Finally, light-responsive resilin-inspired polymers are also generated by multi-site azobenzene-incorporation. The translation machinery evolved in this study can be used for the multi-site incorporation of azobenzene moieties at the polypeptide level and constitute a universal methodology for the design of light-responsive proteins and additional families of protein-based biomaterials with customized and tunable light-responsive behavior.     

Novel Photoinduced Recovery of OFET Memories Based on Ambipolar Polymer Electret for Photorecorder Application

A new design concept for novel photoresponsive flash organic field‐effect transistor (OFET) memory is demonstrated by employing the carbazoledioxazine polymer (Poly CD) as an electret. Photoactive electrets that can absorb the light effectively rather than photoactive semiconductors are proposed by the “photoinduced recovery” mechanism in the literature; however, the correlation between the chemical structure and photoresponsive electrical performances is ambiguous. In this study, it is reported for the first time that the OFET memory with trapped charges can be optically recovered by a polymer electret and the working mechanism can be explained by the structural design. The highly planar Poly CD electret exhibits photoluminescence quenching in film states, resulting in the generation of sufficient excitons to eliminate trapped charges under light excitation. Additionally, the Poly CD electret with coplanar donor–acceptor moieties is suitable for both p‐channel and n‐channel semiconductors. For p‐type memory devices, a large memory window (82 V) and stable nonvolatile retention performance with high ON/OFF ratio could be obtained. The memories also display good switching reliability for voltage‐programming and light‐erasing cycles. This study provides useful information for the development of polymer‐based photoresponsive flash OFET memories and demonstrates the practical applications of photorecorder and photosensitive smart tag.     

Photonics and Optoelectronics with Bacteria: Making Materials from Photosynthetic Microorganisms

A critical selection of the recent literature reports on the use of photosynthetic and photoresponsive bacteria as a source of materials for optoelectronics and photonic devices is discussed, together with the applications foreseen in solar energy conversion and storage and light information technologies. The use of both photoactive cellular components and entire living cells is reviewed, aiming to highlight the great conceptual impact of these studies. These studies point out possible deep changes in the paradigm of design, and synthesis of materials and devices for optoelectronics. Although the possible technological impact of this technology is still hard to be predicted, these studies advance the understanding of photonics of living organisms and develop new intriguing concepts in biomaterials research.     

Injectable Scaffolds for In Vivo Programmed Macrophages Manufacture and Postoperative Cancer Immunotherapy

Cancer recurrence and metastasis after surgical resection is a vital reason of treatment failure. The modification of immune cells through implanted biomaterials is a promising postoperative immunotherapy. Herein, an injectable hydrogel scaffold loaded with engineered exosome mimetics that in vivo recruits and programs endogenous macrophages into M1 binding with anti-CD47 antibody (M1-aCD47 macrophages) for postoperative cancer immunotherapy is developed. Briefly, M1 macrophages-derived exosome mimetics co-modified with vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein (VSV-G) and aCD47 (V-M1EM-aCD47) are encapsulated in injectable chitosan hydrogel. Such hydrogel recruits inherent macrophages in situ and releases V-M1EM-aCD47 that programs M2 to M1-aCD47 macrophages. M1-aCD47 macrophages own dual-functions of tumor-homing and enhanced phagocytosis. They can actively target to tumor cells for delivery of aCD47 that blocks the “don't eat me” signal, thereby promoting phagocytosis of macrophages to cancer cells. Furthermore, V-M1EM-aCD47 hydrogel implanted into resection site of 4T1 breast tumor inhibits tumor recurrence and metastasis by phagocytosis of M1-aCD47 macrophages and T cell-mediated immune responses. The findings demonstrate that biomaterials can be designed in vivo to program inherent macrophages, thereby activating the innate and adaptive immune systems for prevention of postoperative tumor recurrence and metastasis.     

Ambient Assisted Living – Intelligente Assistenz durch M2M-Technologien

The challenges of demographic changes are addressed by Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) by ICT-based technologies, which shall assist independent living of older adults in a situational and unobtrusive way. This work deals with application examples of M2M technologies in the area of AAL. The applied research projects “Gesundheitsdialog Diabetes”, “iStoppFalls”, “Liquid Level Measurement by Near Field Communication (NFC)” and “Leichter Wohnen (moduLAAr)” are presented and discussed.     

Switching On and Off Macrophages by a “Bridge-Burning” Coating Improves Bone-Implant Integration under Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis poses substantial challenges for biomaterials implantation. New approaches to improve bone-implant integration should resolve the fundamental dilemma of inflammation—proper inflammation is required at early stages but should be suppressed later for better healing, especially under osteoporosis. However, precisely switching on and off inflammation around implants in vivo remains unachieved. To address this challenge, a “bridge-burning” coating material that comprises a macrophage-activating glycan covalently crosslinked by a macrophage-eliminating bisphosphonate to titanium implant surface is designed. Upon implantation, the glycan instructs host macrophages to release pro-osteogenic cytokines (“switch-on”), promoting bone cell differentiation. Later, increasingly mature bone cells secrete alkaline phosphatase to cleave the glycan-bisphosphonate complexes from the implant, which in turn selectively kill the proinflammatory macrophages (“switch-off”) that have completed their contribution—hence in the manner of “burning bridges”—to promote healing. In vivo examination in an osteoporotic rat model demonstrates that this coating significantly enhances bone-implant integration (88.4% higher contact ratio) through modulating local inflammatory niches. In summary, a bioresponsive, endogenously triggered, smart coating material is developed to sequentially harness and abolish the power of inflammation to improve osseointegration under osteoporosis, which represents a new strategy for designing immunomodulatory biomaterials for tissue regeneration.     

面向中小企业的随选网络架构及关键技术

随选网络主要基于SDN、NFV和云技术,实现网络的软化、自动化、智能化以及为用户提供按需配置网络的能力,重点论述了随选网络的架构和关键技术,通过引入协同编排器来编排SDN、NFV网络和云资源,通过引入 SD-WAN 的 overlay 技术快速建立网络通路,并提出了面向中小企业的随选网络的四大应用场景。随选网络可以为客户提供“可视”“随选”“自服务”的全新网络体验。     

Synthesis of Zwitterionic Water‐Soluble Oligofluorenes with Good Light‐Harvesting Ability

A new water‐soluble zwitterionic oligofluorene bearing carboxylic acid and quaternary ammonium as pendant groups (OF‐1) is synthesized and characterized. It forms aggregates by intermolecular electrostatic interactions and exhibits similar light‐harvesting ability as that of conjugated polymers. Efficient fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) occurs from OF‐1 to double‐stranded DNA tagged with fluorescein (dsDNA‐F1). A photoresponsive oligofluorene (OF‐3) is also synthesized by protecting OF‐1 with 1‐(2‐nitrophenyl)ethanol. Photolysis of OF‐3 can produce OF‐1 to result in a fluorescence “turn‐on” response, thus the FRET from OF‐3 to dsDNA‐Fl can be turned on by light irradiation. OF‐3 offers the potential for remote DNA sensing.     

A contribution to the reduction of the dynamic power dissipation in the turbo decoder

In the field of mobile communication systems, the energy issue of a turbo decoder becomes an equivalent constraint as throughput and performance. This paper presents a contribution to the reduction of the power consumption in the turbo decoder. The main idea is based on re-encoding technique combined with dummy insertion during the iterative decoding process. This technique, named “toward zero path” (TZP) helps in reducing the state transition activity of the Max-Log-MAP algorithm by trying to maintain the survivor path on the ‘zero path’ of the trellis. The design of a turbo decoder based on the TZP technique, associated with different power reduction technique (saturation of state metrics, stoping criterium) is described. The resulting turbo decoder was implemented onto a Xilinx VirtexII-Pro field-programmable gate array (FPGA) in a digital communication experimental setup. Performance and accurate power dissipation measurements have been done thanks to dynamic partial reconfiguration of the FPGA device. The experimental results have shown the interest of the different contributions for the design of turbo decoders.     

Shortest Path Evaluation in Wireless Network Using Fuzzy Logic

Evaluation of the shortest path in a wireless network is to ensure the fast and guaranteed delivery of the data over the established wireless network. Most of the wireless protocols are using a shortest path evaluation technique which is based on the random weights assigned to the network nodes. This alone may not be sufficient to get the accurate shortest path for routing process. Most of the shortest path evaluation algorithms perform the blind search to find the shortest routes for routing, this eventually increase the complexity of the whole process itself. This article puts some light on facts of using real time estimated routing delay from source node to other nodes by broadcasting a “knock” message. And this delay is being used to evaluate the shortest path for routing using fuzzy logic. This process is enhanced with its improved inference engine model and furnished fuzzy crisp patterns to deploy the shortest routing path in real time wireless nodes.     

An Intelligent Transdermal Formulation of ALA-Loaded Copolymer Thermogel with Spontaneous Asymmetry by Using Temperature-Induced Sol–Gel Transition and Gel–Sol (Suspension) Transition on Different Sides

Aqueous solutions of some amphiphilic block copolymers undergo a sol–gel transition upon heating and are thus called thermogels. In the thermogel family, some systems also exhibit a gel–sol (suspension) transition at higher temperatures following the sol–gel transition, which is usually ignored in biomedical applications. Herein, for the first time, a case is reported employing both the sol–gel transition and the gel–sol (suspension) transition, which is found in the development of a transdermal hydrogel formulation containing 5-aminolevulinic acid for photodynamic therapy (PDT) of skin disease. Two poly(d ,l -lactide-co-glycolide)-b-poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(d ,l -lactide-co-glycolide) triblock copolymers of different block lengths are synthesized. The transition temperatures of the formulation can be easily adjusted to meet the condition of sol–gel transition temperature (T_gel) < room temperature (T_air) < gel–sol (suspension) temperature (T_{sol (suspension)}) < body temperature (T_body) via changing the blending ratio. Therefore, after applying to skin, formulation of spontaneous asymmetry with a hydrogel outside and a sol (suspension) inside can avoid free flowing and achieve rapid release to ensure an efficient PDT. This study demonstrates such a concept via characterizations of the “block blend” biomaterials and drug release profiles, and also via cell experiments, in vitro permeation, and in vivo transdermal delivery studies.     

“周氏平面”的深入研究

“周氏平面”采用了图形化的方式,诠释了接入技术与网络基础设施之间的适应性关系。本文在“周氏平面”的基础上,进一步阐述了“Cloonan区”的含义及其下边界的界定、“1×1”斜线对分布式接入技术的限制等内容,并解释了如何利用“光进铜退”扩展频谱以得到更高的速度和网络容量。据此,本文分别描述了DOCSIS技术、分布式的EoC和C-DOCSIS技术在“周氏平面”上的演进途径。     

国外海军潜艇通信技术与装备发展

为推动潜艇从传统的“单打独斗”向“网络中心战”作战方式过渡,近年来国外海军对高效安全的潜艇通信系统的需求显著提升。同时随着现代电子对抗技术的发展,潜艇通信被侦察和干扰的可能性大大增加。因此,国外海军不断提升潜艇通信的现有技术,并大力发展新兴技术。主要讨论了国外海军潜艇在“网络中心战”背景下的通信方式,并介绍了外军潜艇通信当前与新兴技术与装备的发展。     

Stem Cell-Recruiting Injectable Microgels for Repairing Osteoarthritis

The differentiation potentials and viability of stem cells are often impaired during cell isolation and delivery. Inspired by the phenomenon where islands can recruit seabirds for nesting, “cell island” microgels (MGs), that is, growth factor-loaded methacrylated hyaluronic acid and heparin blend MGs, which can recruit endogenous stem cells and promote chondrogenic differentiation, are constructed using microfluidic technology and photopolymerization processes, followed by non-covalently binding platelet-derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB) and transforming growth factor-beta3 (TGF-β3). The loading efficiency of PDGF-BB and TGF-β3 are 96% and 91%, respectively. In vitro and in vivo experiments find that the “cell island” MGs can enhance the migratory capacity of cells and recruit them from their niche via releasing PDGF-BB. Meanwhile, by using hyaluronic acid, the “cell island” MGs provide a suitable microenvironment for cell attachment and spreading. Furthermore, the “cell island” MGs induce chondrogenic differentiation of the recruited cells via releasing TGF-β3 and present a promising therapeutic effect for osteoarthritis. In sum, this developed “cell island” MG might serve as a temporary “nest site” to allow the migration, adhesion, and differentiation of endogenous stem cells, which can be a promising candidate rather than the conventional cell-seeded scaffolds for promoting tissue regeneration.     

Polymer-Encapsulated Halide Perovskite Color Converters to Overcome Blue Overshoot and Cyan Gap of White Light-Emitting Diodes

Currently, the most popular way to manufacture white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) is based on blue-emitting InGaN LED chips (440–460 nm) and yellow-emitting phosphor coating (520–700 nm) to produce white light lighting. However, because conventional white WLEDs lack the uniformly distributed continuous emission spectrum compared to natural sunlight: “blue overshoot” (extra 440–460 nm blue-light can cause damage to the retina) and “cyan gap” (470–520 nm wavelength range). Here, a novel strategy to “kill two birds with one stone” is reported: using the stable and bright polymer encapsulated perovskite nanocrystals (PNCs) composite films as the cyan color converters that efficiently absorb the “blue overshoot” and effectively emit the cyan light to fill the “cyan gap”. A series of polymer-encapsulated PNC films is achieved that can reach very high photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY) of 90–95% under 450 nm blue-light excitation. Importantly, both 370 nm UV-excited WLED and 455 nm blue-excited WLED devices are constructed that exhibit smoothly and evenly distributed white light without blue overshoot and cyan gap, which was not achieved before for blue-excited cyan-emissive materials. This study paves the way toward the application of PNC color converters in the next generation full-visible-spectrum WLED lighting that mimic the natural daylight.     

Light-Induced Electron Transfer Toward On/Off Room Temperature Phosphorescence in Two Photochromic Coordination Polymers

Photoswitchable room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials are of great interest due to their potential applications in optical devices and switches. Herein, two Zn-based coordination polymers (CPs) (H₃-TPB)·[Zn₆(H-HEDP)(HEDP)₃(H₂O)₂]·5H₂O (complex 1; HEDP = hydroxyethylidene diphosphonate; TPB = 1,3,5-tris(4-pyridyl)benzene) and (H-TPB)·[Zn₃(H-HEDP)(HEDP)(H₂O)]·2H₂O (complex 2) with distinguishable photochromism and tunable RTP are synthesized involving photoactive TPB molecules with different packing modes. Complex 1 exhibits bidirectionally on/off RTP regulation via on-switch with excitation of 250−330 nm light and off-switch with 350−380 nm, and the “turn-on” behavior can be attributed to the advance of Förster resonance energy transfer-assisted intersystem crossing (ISC) process while “turn-off” process due to the transformation from H₃-TPB cations to H₃-TPB^· radicals. Complex 2 exhibits photoswitchable RTP accompanied with reversible photochromism by leveraging the self-absorption and RTP emission. Two demos based on the above compounds are further applied to demonstrate the application in information recording and encryption fields. This work supplies a strategy toward the design of switchable RTP systems using electron transfer photochromism, shedding light on broadening the frontiers of photoresponsive materials.     

Supraparticles for Sustainability

The indispensable transformation to a (more) sustainable human society on this planet heavily relies on innovative technologies and advanced materials. The merits of nanoparticles (NPs) in this context are demonstrated widely during the last decades. Yet, it is believed that the impact of particle-based nanomaterials to sustainability can be even further enhanced: taking NPs as building blocks enables the creation of more complex entities, so-called supraparticles (SPs). Due to their evolving phenomena coupling, emergence, and colocalization, SPs enable completely new material functionalities. These new functionalities in SPs can be utilized to render six fields, essential to human life as it is conceived, more sustainable. These fields, selected based on an entropy-rate-related definition of sustainability, are as follows: 1) purification technologies and 2) agricultural delivery systems secure humans “fundamental needs.” 3) Energy storage and conversion, as well as 4) catalysis enable the “basic comfort.” 5) Extending materials lifetime and 6) bringing materials back in use ensure sustaining “modern life comfort.” In this review article, a perspective is provided on why and how the properties of SPs, and not simply properties of individual NPs or conventional bulk materials, may grant attractive alternative pathways in these fields.     

Unstructured big data analytics for retrieving e-commerce logistics knowledge

The divergent evolution of e-commerce has complicated its correspondingly logistics management. However, few studies have explored e-commerce logistics business models via big data analytics. Hence, this investigation explores e-commerce logistics business models from unstructured big data. Specifically, this work develops a hybrid content analytical model to scrutinize essential knowledge of e-commerce logistics. The empirical results of the proposed model incorporate theories of resource dependence theory (RDT) and innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to generate logistical strategies. Ten critical themes of e-commerce logistics from topic mining are “Southeast Asia’s e-commerce logistics payments”, “E-commerce order management”, “E-commerce logistics cloud services”, “E-commerce logistics package management”, “Europe e-commerce trends”, “India’s e-commerce logistics”, “E-commerce distribution management”, “Tax policies”, “E-commerce logistics platforms”, and “E-commerce logistics networks”. Moreover, the fundamental rule of “cross-border e-commerce logistics” is uncovered by the association rules model. The proposed hybrid content analytics framework provides a research foundation for e-commerce logistics management. Furthermore, e-commerce logistics can be implemented by vital strategies: “Establish inter-organizational and technical collaboration to create positive operations performance” and “Comprehend law, policy, and cultural differences to customize appropriate technologies of e-commerce logistics”.