Showing papers by "Donghua University published in 2013"
TL;DR: This review provides a brief overview of current state-of-the-art research designing and using biomimetic electrospun nanofibers as scaffolds for tissue engineering.
640 citations
TL;DR: The rational design and synthesis of ultrasmall (<10 nm) Fe3O4@Cu2-xS core-shell nanoparticles, which offer both high photothermal stability and superparamagnetic properties are reported, which should provide improved understanding of synergistic effect resulting from the integration of magnetism with photothermal phenomenon.
Abstract: Photothermal nanomaterials have recently attracted significant research interest due to their potential applications in biological imaging and therapeutics. However, the development of small-sized photothermal nanomaterials with high thermal stability remains a formidable challenge. Here, we report the rational design and synthesis of ultrasmall (<10 nm) Fe3O4@Cu2–xS core–shell nanoparticles, which offer both high photothermal stability and superparamagnetic properties. Specifically, these core–shell nanoparticles have proven effective as probes for T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and infrared thermal imaging because of their strong absorption at the near-infrared region centered around 960 nm. Importantly, the photothermal effect of the nanoparticles can be precisely controlled by varying the Cu content in the core–shell structure. Furthermore, we demonstrate in vitro and in vivo photothermal ablation of cancer cells using these multifunctional nanoparticles. The results should provide improved un...
533 citations
TL;DR: The most recent progress and research trends in the area of alkaline polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) development in terms of material selection, synthesis, characterization, and theoretical approach are examined.
Abstract: In this review, we examine the most recent progress and research trends in the area of alkaline polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) development in terms of material selection, synthesis, characterization, and theoretical approach, as well as their fabrication into alkaline PEM-based membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) and the corresponding performance/durability in alkaline polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). Respective advantages and challenges are also reviewed. To overcome challenges hindering alkaline PEM technology advancement and commercialization, several research directions are then proposed.
518 citations
TL;DR: The used polymers and the state-of-the-art strategies for the controllable fabrication of NFN membranes are highlighted in terms of the ESN process and some potential applications associated with the remarkable features ofNFN nanostructure are highlighted.
435 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a facile approach for extracting cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) was presented through hydrochloric acid hydrolysis of cellulose raw materials under hydrothermal conditions.
Abstract: A facile approach for extracting cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) was presented through hydrochloric acid hydrolysis of cellulose raw materials under hydrothermal conditions. The influences of preparation parameters, such as reaction time, reaction temperature, and acid-to-cellulose raw material ratio, and different neutralization methods on the yield, microstructure and properties were studied. A high yield of up to 93.7%, crystallinity of 88.6%, and a maximum degradation temperature (Tmax) of 363.9 °C can be achieved by combining hydrochloric acid hydrolysis under hydrothermal conditions and neutralization with ammonia, compared with only 30.2%, 84.3% and 253.2 °C for sulfuric acid hydrolysis, respectively. More importantly, good stability of aqueous CNC suspensions can also be obtained due to the existence of ammonium groups, which can easily be removed through simple heat treatment before using the CNCs.
367 citations
TL;DR: A novel approach that combines experimental measurements and theoretical calculations was used to determine the aggregation kinetics of GO sheets in aqueous solutions under different chemistry conditions, suggesting that edge-to-edge and face- to-face interactions were the dominant modes of GO aggregation in the presence of divalent metal ions and H(+), respectively.
Abstract: Although graphene oxide (GO) has been used in many applications to improve human life quality, its environmental fate and behavior are still largely unknown. In this work, a novel approach that combines experimental measurements and theoretical calculations was used to determine the aggregation kinetics of GO sheets in aqueous solutions under different chemistry conditions (e.g., cation valence and pH). Experimental data showed that both cation valence and pH showed significant effect on the aggregation of GO sheets. The measured critical coagulation concentrations were in good agreement with the predictions of the extended Schulze–Hardy rule. Ca2+ and Mg2+ were more effective than Na+ in aggregating the GO sheets, which could be attributed to the cross-linking between GO sheets by the divalent cations through “bridging” the functional groups at the edges of the GO sheets. When solution pH increases, deprotonation of carboxylic groups was found to play a key role in increasing GO sheet stability and surfa...
365 citations
TL;DR: A new photothermal coupling agent for photothermal ablation (PTA) therapy of tumors is developed based on ultrathin PEGylated W18O49 nanowires, resulting in the efficient PTA of cancer cells in vivo in 10 min.
Abstract: A new photothermal coupling agent for photothermal ablation (PTA) therapy of tumors is developed based on ultrathin PEGylated W18O49 nanowires. After being injected with the nanowire solution, the in vivo tumors exhibit a rapid temperature rise to 50.0 ± 0.5 °C upon irradiation with NIR laser light at a safe, low intensity (0.72 W cm(-2)) for 2 min (left-hand mouse in the figure),), resulting in the efficient PTA of cancer cells in vivo in 10 min.
363 citations
TL;DR: This article is concerned with the recursive finite-horizon filtering problem for a class of nonlinear time-varying systems subject to multiplicative noises, missing measurements and quantisation effects, and the design of a recursive filter such that an upper bound for the filtering error covariance is guaranteed and such anupper bound is subsequently minimised by properly designing the filter parameters at each sampling instant.
Abstract: This article is concerned with the recursive finite-horizon filtering problem for a class of nonlinear time-varying systems subject to multiplicative noises, missing measurements and quantisation effects. The missing measurements are modelled by a series of mutually independent random variables obeying Bernoulli distributions with possibly different occurrence probabilities. The quantisation phenomenon is described by using the logarithmic function and the multiplicative noises are considered to account for the stochastic disturbances on the system states. Attention is focused on the design of a recursive filter such that, for all multiplicative noises, missing measurements as well as quantisation effects, an upper bound for the filtering error covariance is guaranteed and such an upper bound is subsequently minimised by properly designing the filter parameters at each sampling instant. The desired filter parameters are obtained by solving two Riccati-like difference equations that are of a recursive form...
324 citations
TL;DR: Using the measurements of 750 GPS stations around the Tibetan Plateau for over 10 years since 1999, Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper derived a high-resolution 3-D velocity field for the present-day crustal movement of the plateau.
Abstract: [1] Using the measurements of 750 GPS stations around the Tibetan Plateau for over 10 years since 1999, we derived a high-resolution 3-D velocity field for the present-day crustal movement of the plateau. The horizontal velocity field relative to stable Eurasia displays in details the crustal movement and tectonic deformation features of the India-Eurasia continental collision zone with thrust compression, lateral extrusion, and clockwise rotation. The vertical velocity field reveals that the Tibetan Plateau is continuing to rise as a whole relative to its stable north neighbor. However, in some subregions, uplift is insignificant or even negative. The main features of the vertical crustal deformation of the plateau are the following: (a) The Himalayan range is still rising at a rate of ~2 mm/yr. The uplift rate is ~6 mm/yr with respect to the south foot of the Himalayan range. (b) The middle eastern plateau has a typical uplift rate between 1 and 2 mm/yr, and some high mountain ranges in this area, like the Longmen Shan and Gongga Shan, have surprising uplift rates as large as 2–3mm/yr. (c) In the middle southern plateau, there is a basin and endorheic subregion with a series of NS striking normal faults, showing obvious sinking with the rates between 0 and -3 mm/yr. (d) The present-day rising and sinking subregions generally correspond well to the Cenozoic orogenic belts and basins, respectively. (e) At the southeastern corner of the plateau. There is an apparent trend that the uplift rate is gradually decreasing from between 0.8 and 2.3 mm/yr in the inner plateau to between -0.5 and -1.6 mm/yr outside the plateau, with the decrease of terrain height.
313 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a pair of compliant electrodes comprising silver nanowire networks embedded in the surface layer of polyurethane matrix, and a highly compliant dielectric spacer sandwiched between the electrodes are demonstrated for the detection of deformation and pressure.
Abstract: Highly flexible transparent capacitive sensors have been demonstrated for the detection of deformation and pressure. The elastomeric sensors employ a pair of compliant electrodes comprising silver nanowire networks embedded in the surface layer of polyurethane matrix, and a highly compliant dielectric spacer sandwiched between the electrodes. The capacitance of the sensor sheets increases linearly with strains up to 60% during uniaxial stretching, and linearly with externally applied transverse pressure from 1 MPa down to 1 kPa. Stretchable sensor arrays consisting of 10 × 10 pixels have also been fabricated by patterning the composite electrodes into X-Y addressable passive matrix.
283 citations
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that nHAp/CTS scaffold promotes bone regeneration by supporting the adhesion, proliferation and activating integrin-BMP/Smad signaling pathway of BMSCs both in vitro and in vivo.
TL;DR: A novel decentralized adaptive pinning-control scheme for cluster synchronization of undirected networks using a local adaptive strategy on both coupling strengths and feedback gains is proposed.
Abstract: In this brief, we investigate pinning control for cluster synchronization of undirected complex dynamical networks using a decentralized adaptive strategy. Unlike most existing pinning-control algorithms with or without an adaptive strategy, which require global information of the underlying network such as the eigenvalues of the coupling matrix of the whole network or a centralized adaptive control scheme, we propose a novel decentralized adaptive pinning-control scheme for cluster synchronization of undirected networks using a local adaptive strategy on both coupling strengths and feedback gains. By introducing this local adaptive strategy on each node, we show that the network can synchronize using weak coupling strengths and small feedback gains. Finally, we present some simulations to verify and illustrate the theoretical results.
TL;DR: With the proven hemocompatibility and rich amine conjugation chemistry, the Fe3O4-PEI NPs with different surface functionalities may be applied for various biomedical applications, especially for magnetic resonance imaging and therapy.
Abstract: We report the facile hydrothermal synthesis and surface functionalization of branched polyethyleneimine (PEI)-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (Fe3O4–PEI NPs) for biomedical applications. In this study, Fe3O4–PEI NPs were synthesized via a one-pot hydrothermal method in the presence of PEI. The formed Fe3O4–PEI NPs with primary amine groups on the surface were able to be further functionalized with polyethylene glycol (PEG), acetic anhydride, and succinic anhydride, respectively. The formed pristine and functionalized Fe3O4–PEI NPs were characterized via different techniques. We showed that the sizes of the Fe3O4–PEI NPs were able to be controlled by varying the mass ratio of Fe(II) salt and PEI. In addition, the formed Fe3O4–PEI NPs with different surface functionalities had good water dispersibility, colloidal stability, and relatively high R2 relaxivity (130–160 1/(mM·s)). Cell viability assay data revealed that the surface PEGylation and acylation of Fe3O4–PEI NPs rendered them with good biocompatibili...
TL;DR: The synthesis, characterization, and utilization of gadolium-loaded dendrimer-entrapped gold nanoparticles (Gd-Au DENPs) for dual mode computed tomography (CT)/magnetic resonance (MR) imaging applications are reported.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors considered the attraction-repulsion chemotaxis system under homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions in a bounded domain with smooth boundary and proved that the system with τ = 0 is globally well-posed in high dimensions if repulsion prevails over attraction.
Abstract: We consider the attraction–repulsion chemotaxis system under homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions in a bounded domain Ω ⊂ ℝn with smooth boundary, where χ ≥ 0, ξ ≥ 0, α > 0, β > 0, γ > 0, δ > 0 and τ = 0, 1. We study the global solvability, boundedness, blow-up, existence of non-trivial stationary solutions and asymptotic behavior of the system for various ranges of parameter values. Particularly, we prove that the system with τ = 0 is globally well-posed in high dimensions if repulsion prevails over attraction in the sense that ξγ - χα > 0, and that the system with τ = 1 is globally well-posed in two dimensions if repulsion dominates over attraction in the sense that ξγ - χα > 0 and β = δ. Hence our results confirm that the attraction–repulsion is a plausible mechanism to regularize the classical Keller–Segel model whose solution may blow up in higher dimensions.
TL;DR: The FA-targeted Fe3O4 NPs are able to be used as an efficient nanoprobe for MR imaging of cancer cells in vitro and a xenografted tumor model in vivo via an active FA targeting pathway.
TL;DR: In this article, a facile hydrothermal and thermal decomposition process was successfully developed to grow 3D NiCo2O4 micro-spheres constructed with radial chain-like nanowires with different exposed crystal planes.
Abstract: Faceted crystals with different exposed planes have attracted intensive investigations for applications. Herein, we report a facile hydrothermal and thermal decomposition process which is successfully developed to grow 3D NiCo2O4 micro-spheres constructed with radial chain-like NiCo2O4 nanowires with different exposed crystal planes. When applied as electrode materials for supercapacitors, chain-like NiCo2O4 nanowires exhibit excellent electrochemical performances in supercapacitors with high specific capacitance (1284 F g−1 at 2 A g−1), good rate capability, and excellent cycling stability (only 2.5% loss after 3000 cycles). In situ electrical properties clearly illustrated that the chain-like nanowires with different exposed crystal planes exhibit excellent electronic conductivity, which shows that the electronic conductivity plays an essential role for electrode materials in supercapacitors. So, high electronic conductivity chain-like NiCo2O4 nanowires with different exposed crystal planes can form a competitive electrode material for next generation supercapacitors.
TL;DR: The loaded AMX within the n-HA/PLGA hybrid nanofibers shows a sustained release profile and a non-compromised activity to inhibit the growth of a model bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus.
TL;DR: A new predictor, called iLoc-Animal, has been developed that can be used to deal with the systems containing both single- and multi-label animal (metazoan except human) proteins and the outcomes achieved were quite encouraging, indicating that the predictor may become a useful tool in this area.
Abstract: Predicting protein subcellular localization is a challenging problem, particularly when query proteins have multi-label features meaning that they may simultaneously exist at, or move between, two or more different subcellular location sites. Most of the existing methods can only be used to deal with the single-label proteins. Actually, multi-label proteins should not be ignored because they usually bear some special function worthy of in-depth studies. By introducing the “multi-label learning” approach, a new predictor, called iLoc-Animal, has been developed that can be used to deal with the systems containing both single- and multi-label animal (metazoan except human) proteins. Meanwhile, to measure the prediction quality of a multi-label system in a rigorous way, five indices were introduced; they are “Absolute-True”, “Absolute-False” (or Hamming-Loss”), “Accuracy”, “Precision”, and “Recall”. As a demonstration, the jackknife cross-validation was performed with iLoc-Animal on a benchmark dataset of animal proteins classified into the following 20 location sites: (1) acrosome, (2) cell membrane, (3) centriole, (4) centrosome, (5) cell cortex, (6) cytoplasm, (7) cytoskeleton, (8) endoplasmic reticulum, (9) endosome, (10) extracellular, (11) Golgi apparatus, (12) lysosome, (13) mitochondrion, (14) melanosome, (15) microsome, (16) nucleus, (17) peroxisome, (18) plasma membrane, (19) spindle, and (20) synapse, where many proteins belong to two or more locations. For such a complicated system, the outcomes achieved by iLoc-Animal for all the aforementioned five indices were quite encouraging, indicating that the predictor may become a useful tool in this area. It has not escaped our notice that the multi-label approach and the rigorous measurement metrics can also be used to investigate many other multi-label problems in molecular biology. As a user-friendly web-server, iLoc-Animal is freely accessible to the public at the web-site http://www.jci-bioinfo.cn/iLoc-Animal.
TL;DR: A silver-catalyzed hydrotrifluoromethylation of unactivated alkenes is described, which is a complementary method to electrophilic allylic triflorometHylation in the presence or absence of metal catalysts.
Abstract: For the first time the title reaction is presented providing a wide range of trifluoromethylated alkanes.
TL;DR: The first attempt to characterize the uncertainties entering into the inner coupling matrix is made with the aid of the interval matrix approach, and a novel measurement model is proposed to account for these phenomena occurring with individual probability.
Abstract: In this paper, the H∞ state estimation problem is investigated for a class of complex networks with uncertain coupling strength and incomplete measurements. With the aid of the interval matrix approach, we make the first attempt to characterize the uncertainties entering into the inner coupling matrix. The incomplete measurements under consideration include sensor saturations, quantization, and missing measurements, all of which are assumed to occur randomly. By introducing a stochastic Kronecker delta function, these incomplete measurements are described in a unified way and a novel measurement model is proposed to account for these phenomena occurring with individual probability. With the measurement model, a set of H∞ state estimators is designed such that, for all admissible incomplete measurements as well as the uncertain coupling strength, the estimation error dynamics is exponentially mean-square stable and the H∞ performance requirement is satisfied. The characterization of the desired estimator gains is derived in terms of the solution to a convex optimization problem that can be easily solved using the semidefinite program method. Finally, a numerical simulation example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed design approach.
TL;DR: In this paper, a high smooth trajectory planning method is presented to improve the practical performance of tracking control for robot manipulators, which is designed as a combination of the planning with multi-degree splines in Cartesian space and multidirectional B-splines in joint space.
Abstract: In this paper a high smooth trajectory planning method is presented to improve the practical performance of tracking control for robot manipulators. The strategy is designed as a combination of the planning with multi-degree splines in Cartesian space and multi-degree B-splines in joint space. Following implementation, under the premise of precisely passing the via-points required, the cubic spline is used in Cartesian space planning to make either the velocities or the accelerations at the initial and ending moments controllable for the end effector. While the septuple B-spline is applied in joint space planning to make the velocities, accelerations and jerks bounded and continuous, with the initial and ending values of them configurable. In the meantime, minimum-time optimization problem is also discussed. Experimental results show that, the proposed approach is an effective solution to trajectory planning, with ensuring a both smooth and efficiency tracking performance with fluent movement for the robot manipulators.
TL;DR: In this article, the resistivity response under cyclic loading of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT) elastomeric nanocomposite films fabricated by a solution process with a low percolation threshold is reported.
TL;DR: The as-prepared membranes exhibited fast and efficient separation of oil-water mixtures by a solely gravity driven process, which makes them good candidates for industrial oil-polluted water treatments and oil spill cleanup, and also provided new insights into the design and development of functional nanofibrous membranes through F-PBZ modification.
Abstract: Creating an efficient, cost-effective method that can provide simple, practical and high-throughput separation of oil–water mixtures has proved extremely challenging. This work responds to these challenges by designing, fabricating and evaluating a novel fluorinated polybenzoxazine (F-PBZ) modified nanofibrous membrane optimized to achieve gravity driven oil–water separation. The membrane design is then realized by a facile combination of electrospun poly(m-phenylene isophthalamide) (PMIA) nanofibers and an in situ polymerized F-PBZ functional layer incorporating SiO2 nanoparticles (SiO2 NPs). By employing the F-PBZ/SiO2 NP modification, the pristine hydrophilic PMIA nanofibrous membranes are endowed with promising superhydrophobicity with a water contact angle of 161° and superoleophilicity with an oil contact angle of 0°. This new membrane shows high thermal stability (350 °C) and good repellency to hot water (80 °C), and achieves an excellent mechanical strength of 40.8 MPa. Furthermore, the as-prepared membranes exhibited fast and efficient separation of oil–water mixtures by a solely gravity driven process, which makes them good candidates for industrial oil-polluted water treatments and oil spill cleanup, and also provided new insights into the design and development of functional nanofibrous membranes through F-PBZ modification.
TL;DR: The proposed RDE approach is shown to be suitable for online application without the need of increasing the problem size and the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in the numerical example.
Abstract: In this paper, a new H∞ filtering approach is developed for a class of discrete time-varying systems subject to missing measurements and quantization effects. The missing measurements are modeled via a diagonal matrix consisting of a series of mutually independent random variables satisfying certain probabilistic distributions on the interval [0,1] . The measured output is quantized by a logarithmic quantizer. Attention is focused on the design of a stochastic H∞ filter such that the H∞ estimation performance is guaranteed over a given finite-horizon in the simultaneous presence of probabilistic missing measurements, quantization effects as well as external non-Gaussian disturbances. A necessary and sufficient condition is first established for the existence of the desired time-varying filters in virtue of the solvability of certain coupled recursive Riccati difference equations (RDEs). Owing to its recursive nature, the proposed RDE approach is shown to be suitable for online application without the need of increasing the problem size. The simulation experiment is carried out for the mobile robot localization problem with non-Gaussian disturbances, missing measurements and quantization effects. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in the numerical example.
TL;DR: The combination of photothermal‐ and chemotherapies demonstrates better effects of therapy on cancer treatment than individual therapy approaches in vitro and in vivo, and is beneficial to delivery of DOX into cancer cells for chemotherapy.
Abstract: Copper chalcogenides have been demonstrated to be a promising photothermal agent due to their high photothermal conversion efficiency, synthetic simplicity, and low cost. However, the hydrophobic and less biocompatible characteristics associated with their synthetic processes hamper widely biological applications. An alternative strategy for improving hydrophilicity and biocompatibility is to coat the copper chalcogenide nanomaterials with silica shell. Herein, the rational preparation design results in successful coating mesoporous silica (mSiO(2)) on as-synthesized Cu9S5 nanocrystals, forming Cu9S5@mSiO(2)-PEG core-shell nanostructures. As-prepared Cu9S5@mSiO(2)-PEG core-shell nanostructures show low cytotoxicity and excellent blood compatibility, and are effectively employed for photothermal ablation of cancer cells and infrared thermal imaging. Moreover, anticancer drug of doxorubicin (DOX)-loaded Cu9S5@mSiO(2)-PEG core-shell nanostructures show pH sensitive release profile and are therefore beneficial to delivery of DOX into cancer cells for chemotherapy. Importantly, the combination of photothermal- and chemotherapies demonstrates better effects of therapy on cancer treatment than individual therapy approaches in vitro and in vivo.
TL;DR: The strategy to design multifunctional nanoprobes using the versatile dendrimer nanotechnology may be extended to design various dual mode or multimode imaging agents for accurate diagnosis of different types of cancer.
TL;DR: In this paper, Di Francesco, Lorz and Markowich showed that global weak solutions exist whenever m > 8 7 and the initial data (n 0, c 0, u 0 ) are sufficiently regular satisfying n 0 > 0 and c 0 < 0.
TL;DR: The developed Au DENPs-FA have a great potential to be used as imaging probes for targeted CT imaging of human lung adencarcinoma, indicating their good biocompatibility at the given concentration range.
TL;DR: In this article, a simple and general hydrothermal route has been developed to result in a large-scale growth of ZnO nanorod arrays on double sides of the flexible reduced graphene sheets (rGss) forming sandwichlike heterostructures of ZNO/G/ZnO.
Abstract: In the flexible devices' fabrication, highly ordered nanoscale texturing such as semiconductor metal oxide nanorod arrays on the flexible substrates is critical for optimal performance. Herein, a simple and general hydrothermal route has been developed to result in a large-scale growth of ZnO nanorod arrays on double sides of the flexible reduced graphene sheets (rGss) forming sandwichlike heterostructures of ZnO/G/ZnO, and on a single side of the flexible rGss forming two-layered heterostructures of ZnO/G. The diameter and density of the ZnO nanorods grown on the rGss can be easily tuned as required by varying the seed-solution concentration. Due to the outstanding mechanical and electrical properties of the rGss, two-layered ZnO/G heterostructures were demonstrated to possess excellent field emission properties (turn-on field as low as 2.1 V μm−1, the emitting current ∼470 μA cm−2 at 3 V μm−1) and gas sensing (three times the ZnO nanorods); the sandwichlike ZnO/G/ZnO heterostructures have much higher photocatalytic activity under UV irradiation than those of ZnO nanorods and ZnO/G heterostructures, suggesting a promising candidate for photocatalytic decontamination. This would open up possibilities for the extensive study of the physical and chemical properties from these most promising nanostructures and extend their practical applications.