Abstract:Glioma is a serious brain disease that seriously endangers human health. Early diagnosis and therapy of glioma play a vital role in improving the survival of glioma patients. Currently, the diagnosis of brain glioma mainly relies on advanced instruments such as magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography, which is difficult to accurately identify the margin of brain tumor and guide intraoperative surgical resection of the lesion. Moreover, due to the limitation of blood-brain barrier, the concentration of drugs into the brain tissue is very low, which is difficult to achieve good therapeutic effect and has serious side effects. In recent years, the rapid development of nanotechnology has brought new hope for accurate diagnosis and therapy of glioma. With the advantages of high sensitivity, high specificity and multifunction, the new functional nanoprobe has been successfully applied in the research of multimodality diagnosis and treatment of glioma. This article mainly introduces the recent advances of nanoprobe for precise diagnosis and treatment of glioma, focusing on the nanoprobes passing through the blood-brain barrier, multimodality imagingguided glioma margin identification and imaging guided precision glioma treatment. The preparation and surface functionalization modification of nanoprobe, as well as for glioma imaging and treatment are further discussed. Finally, the opportunities and challenges faced by functional nanoprobes in the clinical application are prospected.

Abstract:Implanted medical electronics (IMEs) is essential for healthcare and treatment. Battery is usually applied in the sustainable operation of IMEs. However, once these batteries finished their mission, the patients had to undergo a second operation to remove them and bear considerable financial burdens as well as severe pain. The human body abounds with mechanical and chemical energy, such as the heartbeat, breathing, blood circulation, and the oxidation-reduction of glucose. With the development of self-powered energy harvesting technology, the collected energy could be applied in powering IMEs. In this context, self-powered implantable energy harvesters (IEHs) based on the piezoelectric effect, triboelectric effect, photoelectric effect, pyroelectric effect, automatic wristwatch devices, biofuel cells and endocochlear potential were prepared. Here, this review article focuses on the classification and typical applications of self-powered IEHs. Furthermore, the current challenges and perspectives are also discussed.

Abstract:The auditory brainstem response (ABR) is an objective method to detect hearing loss. Generally, the ABR induced by click is considered as the gold standard. However, the click-induced ABR is mainly used to assess high-frequency hearing due to the delayed characteristics of human cochlear basilar membrane. In order to compensate for the limitation of the ABR induced by click, a swept-tone stimulus that adjusts the occurrence time of different frequency components was proposed and used to evoke the ABR in this study. The swept-tone evoked ABR was compared with the click evoked ABR at different test levels and different stimulus rates. The experimental results show that the waveform morphology of the swept-tone ABR is better than that of the click ABR. In addition, the swept-tone ABR and the click ABR after different sweeps were also calculated under a different number of sweeps, and the results show that the swept-tone ABR could save recording time compared to the click ABR. These results suggest that the proposed swept-tone ABR could be more sensitive than the commonly used click ABR in the detection of hearing loss.

Abstract:Ballistocardiography (BCG) is a technique that records the force signal caused by the ejection of blood into the arteries with each heartbeat. BCG signal can be acquired non-invasively by using polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) sensors integrated in a mattress or chair. In addition to being able to show cardiac rhythms, BCG signals can also be used for assessing cardiac hemodynamic changes. However, body movements, sensor displacement, etc. can easily influence the morphological characteristics of BCG signal, which makes its hemodynamic analysis difficult and even impossible. In this paper, we developed a BCG signal acquisition system using PVDF sensor. The proposed system can effectively suppress external electromagnetic interference and result in high signal-to-noise ratio. Specifically, we systematically investigated the effects of sensor position, mattress hardness and user’s posture on the stability of the BCG acquisition system, and analyzed the detection performance under apnea and the difference in gender characteristics of BCG signals. The evaluation results demonstrate that when collecting BCG signals in a lying position, it is better to use a hard mattress (such as a wooden bed) and place the sensor directly below the hear. When the above conditions are met, the collected BCG signals waveform is the optimal; the H, J, and K waves are significant and have a strong rhythm, which is conducive to improving the accuracy of hemodynamic analysis.

Abstract:External stimuli such as hypoxia or nutritional deprivation may lead to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress which is closely related to the survival of cancer cells. In this study, we revealed that TRIM25, as a novel inducible protein during ER stress and its role in tumor cells, which provides evidences for new tumor targets. In this research, we constructed TRIM25 stable knockdown cell line in MCF7 and detected the effects of TRIM25 knockdown on ER stress, unfolded protein reaction (UPR) signaling pathway and ER stress induced apoptosis. Then, we detected expression of TRIM25 in different breast cells and analyzed the correlation between TRIM25 and prognosis of breast cancer patients by using bioinformatics. Our results identified that ER stress significantly induce the expression of TRIM25. Moreover, TRIM25 knockdown promotes the apoptosis of MCF7 cells through inducing ER stress and activating unfolded protein reaction signaling pathway. In addition, bioinformatics analysis shows that the expression of TRIM25 is up-regulated during the transition from primary breast epithelial cells to breast cancer cells, and the high expression of TRIM25 also suggests poor prognosis in breast cancer patients.

Abstract:Speech is one of the most important skills in human normal life. It is the result of the coordinated movement of the articulation-related muscles under the control of central cervous system. Surface electromyography (sEMG) is a commonly used method for collecting electrical signals of muscles, which can detect reliable electrophysiological information. When using electromyographic signals on speech classification, the selected electrode position plays an important role in classification accuracy. However, the current sEMG-based speech recognition method does not have an objective index for selecting the position and number of electrodes, and it is still unclear whether the contribution of the articulation related symmetrical position electrodes on the left and right sides of the face and neck to speech recognition is redundant. In this study, the facial and neck sEMG of 8 subjects with normal pronunciation were collected by using a 120-channel electrode (about facial and neck symmetry) when they pronounced 5 Chinese words and 5 English words respectively. The contribution of sEMG in the symmetrical position of left and right sides of facial and neck to speech recognition was investigated. The results show that the muscles of the left and right sides of the face and neck had similar variation, but the correlation between the symmetrical positions of the face and neck was lower than that of the neck. There was little difference in classification accuracy between the left and right sEMG signals of the neck, but significant difference between the left and right SEMG signals of the face. Thus, sEMG signals from symmetrical positions in the neck are consistent in their contribution to speech recognition, whereas facial signals are not, which might provide useful clue to reduce the electrode number and select the optimal location of channels for speech recognition.

Abstract:The energy storage system of a pure electric vehicle must meet the requirements of high power density and high energy density at the same time. However, it is difficult for a single energy storage unit to have these two characteristics in the meantime currently. Reasonable hybridization of high energy density lithium batteries and high power density supercapacitors is an effective solution to the problems. This research designs a lithium battery/supercapacitor hybrid energy storage system for the BMW I3 pure electric vehicle and proposes a driving condition-adaptive rule-based energy management strategy for the hybrid energy storage system, which takes into account the requirements of external working conditions and the charging status of battery and supercapacitor. Based on the idea of rapid control prototype, a verification platform for the proposed energy management strategy of the hybrid energy storage system is established with the dSPACE as the control center. The experimental verification of the energy management strategy is completed with an external electric loading equipment which can edit power requirement parameters. The experimental results show that, the hybrid energy storage system equipped with energy management strategy presents good performances on both energy and power densities, better meet the requirements of modern pure electric vehicles for endurance mileage and power performance. At the same time, it can save energy, and may play a role in extending the life cycle of energy storage system.