Integrated carbon fiber electrodes within hollow polymer microneedles for transdermal electrochemical sensing

In this study, carbon fiber electrodes were incorporated within a hollow microneedle array, which was fabricated using a digital micromirror device-based stereolithography instrument. Cell proliferation on the acrylate-based polymer used in microneedle fabrication was examined with human dermal fibroblasts and neonatal human epidermal keratinocytes. Studies involving full-thickness cadaveric porcine skin and trypan blue dye demonstrated that the hollow microneedles remained intact after puncturing the outermost layer of cadaveric porcine skin. The carbon fibers underwent chemical modification in order to enable detection of hydrogen peroxide and ascorbic acid; electrochemical measurements were demonstrated using integrated electrode-hollow microneedle devices.     

Requests About Explosives and Illicit Drugs: A New Paradigm

This article addresses what reference librarians should do when patrons ask for information about explosives or dangerous drugs, and explores how reference librarians can possibly deter people from dangerous, unmediated searches by proactively providing information and actual examples on the dangers and risks of making and using these materials.     

Efficacy of Tumor Necrosis Factor and Interleukin-10 Analysis in the Follow-up of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Progression

Tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) is a cytokine involved in systemic inflammation during acute phase reactions. The current study was designed to investigate the levels of pro-inflammatory cytokine (TNF-α) along with the anti-inflammatory cytokine (IL-10) during progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) from simple steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and fibrosis in diabetic patients, and correlate the levels of cytokines with the progression of NAFLD. Fifty-two diabetic patients compared to 18 healthy controls were participated in this study. Based on clinical diagnosis, patients were divided into three groups: simple steatosis, NASH and fibrosis. Serum liver function tests, fasting blood glucose, bilirubin, ALT, AST, TNF-α, IL-10 and lipid profile were measured. TNF-α levels were significantly higher in NAFLD patients compared to control subjects with a significant positive correlation with body mass index and fasting blood glucose (FBG) but with negative correlation with IL-10. Serum IL-10 levels were significantly lower in NAFLD patients compared with controls. A positive correlation between IL-10 and HDL-C with concomitant negative correlation between IL-10 and FBG and triacylglycerides was found. Cytokine analyses showed that there was a prominent imbalance between TNF-α and IL-10 in patients with NAFLD, and this imbalance increase by increasing the progression of NAFLD especially in obese diabetic patients. TNF-α and IL-10 could be used in diagnosis and follow-up of NAFLD stages in a way to avoid liver biopsies in greater proportion of patients.     

Prescribed-time containment control with prescribed performance for uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems

The existing studies on prescribed-time control cannot directly deal with nonlinear functions which don’t satisfy Lipschitz growth conditions. No results are available for prescribed-time containment control of pure-feedback UNMASs with prescribed performance. Therefore, completely unknown nonlinear function, prescribed-time tracking of system states and prescribed performance of containment errors are simultaneously considered in this paper. Fuzzy logic systems are utilized to approximate completely unknown nonlinear function. Prescribed-performance function is introduced and further incorporated into a novel speed function. Combining the proposed speed function and barrier Lyapunov function, this article presents a novel adaptive fuzzy prescribed-time containment control method which can guarantee, under prescribed performance, all followers converge to a convex formed by dynamic leaders in a prescribed time. Moreover, all tracking errors converge to predefined regions in a prescribed time. The effectiveness of the proposed prescribed-time containment control method are confirmed by strict proof and simulation.     

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