RNA‐Templated Concatenation of Triplet Nucleic‐Acid Probe

Template‐directed synthesis offers several distinct benefits over conventional laboratory creation, including unsurpassed reaction rate and selectivity. Although it is central to many biological processes, such an approach has rarely been applied to the in situ synthesis and recognition of biomedically relevant target. Towards this goal, we report the development of a three‐codon nucleic‐acid probe containing a C‐terminal thioester group and an N‐terminal cysteine that is capable of undergoing template‐directed oligomerization in the presence of an RNA target and self‐deactivation in its absence. The work has implications for the development of millamolecular nucleic‐acid probes for targeting RNA‐repeated expansions associated with myotonic dystrophy type 1 and other related neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders.     

Time delays and stimulus-dependent pattern formation in periodicenvironments in isolated neurons

The dynamical characteristics of a single isolated Hopfield-type neuron with dissipation and time-delayed self-interaction under periodic stimuli are studied. Sufficient conditions for the heteroassociative stable encoding of periodic external stimuli are obtained. Both discrete and continuously distributed delays are included.     

On a mixed finite element method for clamped anisotropic plate bending problems

The paper deals with a new mixed finite element method of solution of the bending problem of clamped anisotropic/orthotropic/isotropic plates with variable/constant thickness. This new mixed method gives simultaneous approximations to displacement u and bending and twisting moment tensor (ψ_ij)_{1 ≤ i, j ≤ 2}. Computer implementation procedures for this mixed method are given along with results of numerical experiments on a good number of interesting problems.     

A novel wet-spinning method of manufacturing continuous bio-inspired composites based on graphene oxide and sodium alginate

Nacre is a lightweight, strong, stiff, and tough material, which makes it a mimicking object for material design. Many attempts to mimic nacre by various methods resulted in the synthesis of artificial nacre with excellent properties. However, the fabrication procedure was very laborious and time-consuming due to the sequential steps, and only limited-sized materials could be obtained. Hence, a novel design enabling scalable production of high-performance artificial nacre with uniform layered structures is urgently needed. We developed a novel wet-spinning assembly technique to rapidly manufacture continuous nacremimic graphene oxide (GO, brick)-sodium alginate (SA, mortar) films and fibers with excellent mechanical properties. At high concentrations, the GO-SA mixtures spontaneously produced liquid crystals (LCs) due to the template effect of GO, and continuous, 6 m long nacre-like GO-SA films were wet-spun from the obtained GO-SA liquid crystalline (LC) dope with a speed of up to 1.5 m/min. The assembled macroscopic GO-SA composites inherited the alignment of the GO sheets from the LC phase, and their mechanical properties were investigated by a joint experimental-computational study. The tensile tests revealed that the maximum strength (σ) and Young’s modulus (E) of the obtained films reached 239.6 MPa and 22.4 GPa, while the maximum values of σ and E for the fibers were 784.9 MPa and 58 GPa, respectively. The described wet-spinning assembly method is applicable for a large-scale and fast production of high-performance continuous artificial nacre.

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The Wearable Motherboard™: The first generation of adaptive and responsive textile structures (ARTS) for medical applications

Virtual reality (VR) has been making inroads into medicine in a broad spectrum of applications, including medical education, surgical training, telemedicine, surgery and the treatment of phobias and eating disorders. The extensive and innovative applications of VR in medicine, made possible by the rapid advancements in information technology, have been driven by the need to reduce the cost of healthcare while enhancing the quality of life for human beings.In this paper, we discuss the design, development and realisation of an innovative technology known as the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard (GTWM), or the Smart Shirt. The principal advantage of GTWM is that it provides, for the first time, a very systematic way of monitoring the vital signs of humans in an unobtrusive manner. The flexible databus integrated into the structure transmits the information to monitoring devices such as an EKG machine, a temperature recorder, a voice recorder, etc. GTWM is lightweight and can be worn easily by anyone, from infants to senior citizens. We present the universal characteristics of the interface pioneered by the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard and explore the potential applications of the technology in areas ranging from combat to geriatric care. The GTWM is the realisation of a personal information processing system that gives new meaning to the termubiquitous computing. Just as the spreadsheet pioneered the field of information processing that brought computing to the masses, it is anticipated that the Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard will bring personalised and affordable healthcare monitoring to the population at large.