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Kidney International Reports Jun 2020Since the arteriovenous fistula (AVF) was first conceived over 50 years ago, the goal to create a vascular conduit with predictable and reproducible maturation and... (Review)
Review
Since the arteriovenous fistula (AVF) was first conceived over 50 years ago, the goal to create a vascular conduit with predictable and reproducible maturation and durability continues to elude caregivers. Recently, however, advances in the understanding of vascular biology and new technologies now provides us with some optimism; we are moving toward a viable solution. A quickly maturing, sustainable, and durable arteriovenous access may soon be attainable. This review will discuss these advances. There are novel approaches to AVF creation and devices to enhance maturation, advances in arteriovenous graft material(s), and devices to safely prolong the use of tunneled dialysis catheters. Although hemodialysis (HD) access remains a complex problem, these innovations may lead the way to optimizing the care and the quality of life of those patients who have no choice but to proceed with HD.
PubMed: 32518859
DOI: 10.1016/j.ekir.2020.02.1024 -
International Journal of Molecular... Mar 2022The unprecedented aging of the world's population will boost the need for orthopedic implants and expose their current limitations to a greater extent due to the medical... (Review)
Review
The unprecedented aging of the world's population will boost the need for orthopedic implants and expose their current limitations to a greater extent due to the medical complexity of elderly patients and longer indwelling times of the implanted materials. Biocompatible metals with multifunctional bioactive coatings promise to provide the means for the controlled and tailorable release of different medications for patient-specific treatment while prolonging the material's lifespan and thus improving the surgical outcome. The objective of this work is to provide a review of several groups of biocompatible materials that might be utilized as constituents for the development of multifunctional bioactive coatings on metal materials with a focus on antimicrobial, pain-relieving, and anticoagulant properties. Moreover, the review presents a summary of medications used in clinical settings, the disadvantages of the commercially available products, and insight into the latest development strategies. For a more successful translation of such research into clinical practice, extensive knowledge of the chemical interactions between the components and a detailed understanding of the properties and mechanisms of biological matter are required. Moreover, the cost-efficiency of the surface treatment should be considered in the development process.
Topics: Aged; Aging; Anti-Bacterial Agents; Biocompatible Materials; Coated Materials, Biocompatible; Humans; Metals; Prostheses and Implants; Surface Properties
PubMed: 35269928
DOI: 10.3390/ijms23052786 -
Materials (Basel, Switzerland) Apr 2024High-nickel ternary materials are currently the most promising lithium battery cathode materials due to their development and application potential. Nevertheless, these...
High-nickel ternary materials are currently the most promising lithium battery cathode materials due to their development and application potential. Nevertheless, these materials encounter challenges like cation mixing, lattice oxygen loss, interfacial reactions, and microcracks. These issues are exacerbated at high voltages, compromising their cyclic stability and safety. In this study, we successfully prepared Nb-doped high-nickel ternary cathode materials via a high-temperature solid-phase method. We investigated the impact of Nb doping on the microstructure and electrochemical properties of LiNiCoMnO ternary cathode materials by varying the amount of NbO added. The experimental results suggest that Nb doping does not alter the crystal structure but modifies the particle morphology, yielding radially distributed, elongated, rod-like structures. This morphology effectively mitigates the anisotropic volume changes during cycling, thereby bolstering the material's cyclic stability. The material exhibits a discharge capacity of 224.4 mAh g at 0.1C and 200.3 mAh g at 1C, within a voltage range of 2.7 V-4.5 V. Following 100 cycles at 1C, the capacity retention rate maintains a high level of 92.9%, highlighting the material's remarkable capacity retention and cyclic stability under high-voltage conditions. The enhancement of cyclic stability is primarily due to the synergistic effects caused by Nb doping. Nb modifies the particle morphology, thereby mitigating the formation of microcracks. The formation of high-energy Nb-O bonds prevents oxygen precipitation at high voltages, minimizes the irreversibility of the H2-H3 phase transition, and thereby enhances the stability of the composite material at high voltages.
PubMed: 38730933
DOI: 10.3390/ma17092127 -
International Journal of Molecular... Nov 2023In an effort to prepare non-autologous bone graft or biomaterial that would possess characteristics comparable to autologous bone, many different allogenic bone... (Review)
Review
In an effort to prepare non-autologous bone graft or biomaterial that would possess characteristics comparable to autologous bone, many different allogenic bone derivatives have been created. Although different existing processing methods aim to achieve the very same results, the specific parameters applied during different stages material preparation can result in significant differences in the material's mechanical and biological properties The properties, including osteoconductive, osteoinductive, and even osteogenic potential, can differ vastly depending on particular preparation and storage techniques used. Osteogenic properties, which have long been thought to be characteristic to autogenic bone grafts only, now seem to also be achievable in allogenic materials due to the possibility to seed the host's stem cells on a graft before its implantation. In this article, we aim to review the available literature on allogenic bone and its derivatives as well as the influence of different preparation methods on its performance.
Topics: Bone and Bones; Biocompatible Materials; Osteogenesis; Bone Regeneration; Dentistry; Bone Transplantation
PubMed: 38068918
DOI: 10.3390/ijms242316598 -
Eco-Environment & Health Jun 2022Water pollution is a major concern for public health and a sustainable future. It is urgent to purify wastewater with effective methods to ensure a clean water supply.... (Review)
Review
Water pollution is a major concern for public health and a sustainable future. It is urgent to purify wastewater with effective methods to ensure a clean water supply. Most wastewater remediation techniques rely heavily on functional materials, and cost-effective materials are thus highly favorable. Of great environmental and economic significance, developing waste-derived materials for wastewater remediation has undergone explosive growth recently. Herein, the applications of waste (e.g., biowastes, electronic wastes, and industrial wastes)-derived materials for wastewater purification are comprehensively reviewed. Sophisticated strategies for turning wastes into functional materials are firstly summarized, including pyrolysis and combustion, hydrothermal synthesis, sol-gel method, co-precipitation, and ball milling. Moreover, critical experimental parameters within different design strategies are discussed. Afterward, recent applications of waste-derived functional materials in adsorption, photocatalytic degradation, electrochemical treatment, and advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) are analyzed. We mainly focus on the development of efficient functional materials via regulating the internal and external characteristics of waste-derived materials, and the material's property-performance correlation is also emphasized. Finally, the key future perspectives in the field of waste-derived materials-driven water remediation are highlighted.
PubMed: 38075525
DOI: 10.1016/j.eehl.2022.05.001 -
BioRxiv : the Preprint Server For... May 2024We can visually discriminate and recognize a wide range of materials. Meanwhile, we use language to express our subjective understanding of visual input and communicate...
We can visually discriminate and recognize a wide range of materials. Meanwhile, we use language to express our subjective understanding of visual input and communicate relevant information about the materials. Here, we investigate the relationship between visual judgment and language expression in material perception to understand how visual features relate to semantic representations. We use deep generative networks to construct an expandable image space to systematically create materials of well-defined and ambiguous categories. From such a space, we sampled diverse stimuli and compared the representations of materials from two behavioral tasks: visual material similarity judgments and free-form verbal descriptions. Our findings reveal a moderate but significant correlation between vision and language on a categorical level. However, analyzing the representations with an unsupervised alignment method, we discover structural differences that arise at the image-to-image level, especially among materials morphed between known categories. Moreover, visual judgments exhibit more individual differences compared to verbal descriptions. Our results show that while verbal descriptions capture material qualities on the coarse level, they may not fully convey the visual features that characterize the material's optical properties. Analyzing the image representation of materials obtained from various pre-trained data-rich deep neural networks, we find that human visual judgments' similarity structures align more closely with those of the text-guided visual-semantic model than purely vision-based models. Our findings suggest that while semantic representations facilitate material categorization, non-semantic visual features also play a significant role in discriminating materials at a finer level. This work illustrates the need to consider the vision-language relationship in building a comprehensive model for material perception. Moreover, we propose a novel framework for quantitatively evaluating the alignment and misalignment between representations from different modalities, leveraging information from human behaviors and computational models.
PubMed: 38328102
DOI: 10.1101/2024.01.25.577219 -
Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) May 2022Non-volatile memories based on phase-change materials have gained ground for applications in analog in-memory computing. Nonetheless, non-idealities inherent to the...
Non-volatile memories based on phase-change materials have gained ground for applications in analog in-memory computing. Nonetheless, non-idealities inherent to the material result in device resistance variations that impair the achievable numerical precision. Projected-type phase-change memory devices reduce these non-idealities. In a projected phase-change memory, the phase-change storage mechanism is decoupled from the information retrieval process by using projection of the phase-change material's phase configuration onto a projection liner. It has been suggested that the interface resistance between the phase-change material and the projection liner is an important parameter that dictates the efficacy of the projection. In this work, we establish a metrology framework to assess and understand the relevant structural properties of the interfaces in thin films contained in projected memory devices. Using X-ray reflectivity, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy, we investigate the quality of the interfaces and the layers' properties. Using demonstrator examples of Sb and SbTe phase-change materials, new deposition routes as well as stack designs are proposed to enhance the phase-change material to a projection-liner interface and the robustness of material stacks in the devices.
PubMed: 35630924
DOI: 10.3390/nano12101702 -
IScience Apr 2023A transition from a linear to a circular economy is the only alternative to reduce current pressures in natural resources. Our society must redefine our material... (Review)
Review
A transition from a linear to a circular economy is the only alternative to reduce current pressures in natural resources. Our society must redefine our material sources, rethink our supply chains, improve our waste management, and redesign materials and products. Valorizing extensively available biomass wastes, as new carbon mines, and developing biobased materials that mimic nature's efficiency and wasteless procedures are the most promising avenues to achieve technical solutions for the global challenges ahead. Advances in materials processing, and characterization, as well as the rise of artificial intelligence, and machine learning, are supporting this transition to a new materials' mining. Location, cultural, and social aspects are also factors to consider. This perspective discusses new alternatives for carbon mining in biomass wastes, the valorization of biomass using available processing techniques, and the implementation of computational modeling, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to accelerate material's development and process engineering.
PubMed: 37123246
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106549 -
Materials (Basel, Switzerland) Aug 2022Three-dimensional (3D) woven composites have attracted much attention in the lightweight research of protective armor due to their high specific strength and good impact...
Three-dimensional (3D) woven composites have attracted much attention in the lightweight research of protective armor due to their high specific strength and good impact resistance. However, there are still many gaps in terms of the performance and influencing factors of three-dimensional deep-angle-interlock (3DDAI) Kevlar/EP armor materials. Therefore, in order to prepare 3DDAI Kevlar/EP armor materials with excellent ballistic resistance and mechanical properties, this paper studies the bending performance of 3DDAI Kevlar/EP armor materials and the influence of the number of stacking layers, resin content, laying method, and weft density. Finally, we compare it with the traditional two-dimensional (2D) plain laminated Kevlar/EP armor material. The results showed that when the 3DDAI Kevlar/EP armor material was subjected to bending load, the upper and bottom layers of the material had a great influence on the initial stiffness and fracture strength of the material, respectively; when the material's warp and weft density are quite different, the utilization rate of the yarn and the strength of the material are negatively affected; the fracture energy of the 3DDAI Kevlar/EP armor material prepared by the orthogonal laying method was about 20% higher than that of the 3DDAI Kevlar/EP armor material with the unidirectional layering method; and the bending performance of the 3DDAI Kevlar/EP armor material in the weft direction was better than that of the 2D plain laminated Kevlar/EP armor material, with the 3DDAI Kevlar/EP armor material having better delamination resistance. The research results will lay the foundation for structural optimization and engineering applications of such materials.
PubMed: 35955259
DOI: 10.3390/ma15155321 -
Scientific Reports Jun 2022The potential of underground [Formula: see text] storage relies on the sealing efficiency of an overlaying caprock that acts as a geological barrier. Shales are...
The potential of underground [Formula: see text] storage relies on the sealing efficiency of an overlaying caprock that acts as a geological barrier. Shales are considered as potential caprock formations thanks to their favourable hydro-mechanical properties. In this work the sealing capacity of Opalinus Clay shale to [Formula: see text] injection is studied by means of capillary entry-pressure and volumetric response. The overall objective of this work is to contribute to the safe design of a [Formula: see text] injection strategy by providing a better understanding of the geomechanical response of the caprock material to [Formula: see text] injection and eventual breakthrough at different scales. This is achieved by relating lab-measured hydro-mechanical properties of the studying caprock material (porosity, permeability, volumetric response) to field-related parameters (effective stress, injection pressure). A number of [Formula: see text] breakthrough tests is performed in Opalinus Clay samples under two different scales, meso and micro. At the meso-scale, [Formula: see text] injection is performed in oedometric conditions under different levels of axial effective stress in both gaseous or liquid phase. In parallel, the material's transport properties in terms of water permeability are assessed before [Formula: see text] injection at each corresponding level of effective stress. The impact of [Formula: see text] phase and open porosity on the material's [Formula: see text] entry pressure are demonstrated. The correlation between measured entry pressure and absolute permeability is discussed. A second testing campaign at a smaller scale is presented where [Formula: see text] breakthrough is for the first time identified with in-situ X-ray tomography. [Formula: see text] injection is performed under isotropic conditions on an Opalinus Clay micro-sample (micro-scale), and [Formula: see text] breakthrough is identified through quantitative image analysis based on the measured localised volumetric response of the material. This innovative methodology provides important insight into the anisotropic response of this complex material that is indispensable for its representative modelling in the context of safe geological [Formula: see text] storage.
PubMed: 35739225
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-14793-8