Assessing the efficacy and safety of Craniosacral therapy for migraine: A single center randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: Design a feasible study to assess the efficacy and safety of Craniosacral therapy (CST) in the treatment of migraine, using a rigorous and innovative randomized controlled study design involving complementary light-touch sham treatments (CLST) as an attention control intervention. METHODS: This was a single-center, randomized, cross-over placebo-controlled experimental design. A total of 87 participants who suffered migraine attacks from 4 to 9 per month were randomly assigned into either 2 weekly units of CST or CLST for 4 weeks. And then the 2 groups were crossed and continued treatment for 4 weeks plus a follow-up observation for 4 weeks. As the primary outcome measures, Headache Impact Test-6 (HIT-6) and headache frequency were assessed every 4 weeks (at baseline, week 4, week 8 and week 12). The secondary outcome was the scores of Headache Disability inventory (HDI) and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) as well as the adverse events. RESULTS: All 87 individuals had been screened for eligibility, of which 60 were licensed for the study. The difference of HIT-6 and headache frequency between the 2 groups was not significant at the baseline. But the headache frequency and HIT-6 of 2 groups were all declined respectively after the CST at week 4 (group A) and week 8 (group B) than before (P☆= 0.01 < 0.05, 95% CI, -3.06 to -1.87; P※= 0.01 < 0.05, 95% CI, -3.52 to -2.53; P1A = 0.01 < 0.05, 95% CI, 4.55-11.7; P2B = 0.01 < 0.05, 95% CI, -11.78 to -6.01) while the changes were not obvious after CLST with previous treatment. The scores and frequency of fourth evaluation showed that there was no significant increase or decrease in both the 2 groups. Besides, we found that the mean scores of HIT-6 for all participants, compared with the baseline, were decreased significantly after the 3 round treatments (P3A = 0.01 < 0.05, 95% CI, -13.12 to -6.4; P3B = 0.01 < 0.05, CI, -12.73 to -6.69). We also showed the similar result in the scores of HDI and HAMA. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that standardized CST was both effective and safe in alleviating the migraine intensity and frequency as well as the headache-related disability. Further larger research is needed.

Single-atom catalysts: promotors of highly sensitive and selective sensors.

Sensors, the underlying technology that supports the Internet of Things, are undergoing multi-disciplinary integration development to constantly improve the efficiency of human production and life. Simultaneously, the application scenarios in emerging fields such as medical diagnosis, environmental monitoring and industrial safety put forward higher requirements for sensing capabilities. Over the last decade, single-atom catalysts (SACs) have attracted tremendous attention in fields such as environment and energy due to their high atom utilization efficiencies, controllable active sites, tailorable coordination environments and structural/chemical stability. These extraordinary characteristics extend the sensitivity and selectivity of sensors beyond their current limitations. Here, we start with the working principles of SAC-based sensors, and summarize the relationship between sensor performance and intrinsic properties of SACs, followed by an overview of the design strategy development. We then review the recent advances in SAC-based sensors in different fields and highlight the future opportunities and challenges in their exciting applications.

Cr-Doped Pd Metallene Endows a Practical Formaldehyde Sensor New Limit and High Selectivity.

Electrochemical sensors for detecting micromolecule organics are desirable for improving the perception of environmental quality and human health. However, currently, the electrochemical sensors for formaldehyde are substantially limited on the market due to the long-term unsolved problems of the low electrooxidation efficiency and CO poisoning issue of commercial Pd catalysts. Here, a 2D Cr-doped Pd metallene (Cr-Pdene) with few atomic layers is shown as an advanced catalyst for ultrasensitive and selective sensing of formaldehyde via a highly efficient formaldehyde electrooxidation. It is found that the doping of Cr into Pd metallene can efficiently optimize the electronic structure of Pd and weaken the interaction between Pd and CO, providing an anti-poisoning means to favor CO2 production and suppress CO adsorption. The Cr-Pdene-based electrochemical sensor exhibits one order of magnitude higher detection range and, especially, much higher anti-interference for formaldehyde than that of the conventional sensors. Most importantly, it is demonstrated that the Cr-Pdene can be integrated into commercializable wireless sensor networks or handheld instruments for promising applications relating to the environment, health, and food.

Investigation of MOF-derived humidity-proof hierarchical porous carbon frameworks as highly-selective toluene absorbents and sensing materials.

Carbon frameworks (CFs) derived from metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have been produced as adsorbents of toluene. To further obtain optimum hierarchical porous carbon structure of CFs, different treatment temperatures were applied to a typical kind of MOFs (ZIF-8). The adsorption capacity of the toluene of hierarchical porous CFs obtained from ZIF-8 under 1100 °C (CF-1100, adsorption capacity of 208.5 mg/g) was higher than that of other carbonization temperature and MOFs. Impressively, the adsorbent CF-1100 also exhibited strong hydrophobicity, low desorption temperature, and good selectivity to toluene. The adsorption capacity decreased by only 10.4% under wet condition compared with the dry condition, standing on the top of the recently reported adsorbents. The impressive adsorption performance of CF-1100 is attributed to the larger specific surface area (1024 m2/g) and pore volume (0.497 cm3/g), newly generated micropores (pore width is 0.6-0.8 nm) and mesopores (pore width above 10 nm), and carbonaceous structure with higher degree of graphitization. Based on the adequate adsorption performance, CF-1100 coated quartz crystal microbalances as sensor also showed a high sensitivity of 0.4004 Hz/ppm and small relative standard deviations of 1.0745% for toluene sensing. This contribution provides a foundation for optimizing potential adsorbents and sensing materials for air pollution abatement.

Flexible Two-Dimensional Ti3C2 MXene Films as Thermoacoustic Devices.

MXenes have attracted great attention for their potential applications in electrochemical and electronic devices due to their excellent characteristics. Traditional sound sources based on the thermoacoustic effect demonstrated that a conductor needs to have an extremely low heat capacity and high thermal conductivity. Hence, a thin MXene film with a low heat capacity per unit area (HCPUA) and special layered structure is emerging as a promising candidate to build loudspeakers. However, the use of MXenes in a sound source device has not been explored. Herein, we have successfully prepared sound source devices on an anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) and a flexible polyimide (PI) substrates by using the prepared Ti3C2 MXene nanoflakes. Due to the larger interlayer distance of MXene, the MXene-based sound source device has a higher sound pressure level (SPL) than that of graphene of the same thickness. High-quality Ti3C2 MXene nanoflakes were fabricated by selectively etching the Ti3AlC2 powder. The as-fabricated MXene sound source device on an AAO substrate exhibits a higher SPL of 68.2 dB (f = 15 kHz) and has a very stable sound spectrum output with frequency varying from 100 Hz to 20 kHz. A theoretical model has been built to explain the mechanism of the sound source device on an AAO substrate, matching well with the experimental results. Furthermore, the MXene sound source device based on a flexible PI substrate has been attached to the arms, back of the hand, and fingers, indicating an excellent acoustic wearability. Then, the MXene film is packaged successfully into a commercial earphone case and shows an excellent performance at high frequencies, which is very suitable for human audio equipment.

A Wearable Skinlike Ultra-Sensitive Artificial Graphene Throat.

Most mute people cannot speak due to their vocal cord lesion. Herein, to assist mute people to "speak", we proposed a wearable skinlike ultrasensitive artificial graphene throat (WAGT) that integrated both sound/motion detection and sound emission in single device. In this work, the growth and patterning of graphene can be realized at the same time, and a thin poly(vinyl alcohol) film with laser-scribed graphene was obtained by a water-assisted transferring process. In virtue of the skinlike and low-resistant substrate, the WAGT has a high detection sensitivity (relative resistance changes up to 150% at 133 Ω) and an excellent sound-emitting ability (up to 75 dB at 0.38 W power and 2 mm distance). On the basis of the excellent mechanical-electrical performance of graphene structure, the sound detecting and emitting mechanisms of WAGT are realized and discussed. For sound detection, both the motion of larynx and vibration of vocal cord contribute to throat movements. For sound emission, a thermal acoustic model for WAGT was established to reveal the principle of sound emitting. More importantly, a homemade circuit board was fabricated to build a dual-mode system, combining the detection and emitting systems. Meanwhile, different human motions, such as strong and small throat movements, were also detected and transformed into different sounds like "OK" and "NO". Therefore, the implementation of these sound/motion detection acoustic systems enable graphene to achieve device-level applications to system-level applications, and those graphene acoustic systems are wearable for its miniaturization and light weight.

An efficient flexible graphene-based light-emitting device.

In recent years, flexible light-emitting devices (LEDs) have become the main focus in the field of display technology. Graphene, a two-dimensional layered material, has attracted great interest in LEDs due to its excellent properties. However, there are many problems such as efficiency, lifetime, and flexibility not well solved. Herein, we have successfully prepared a flexible LED using laser-induced reduced graphene oxide (LIRGO). The LIRGO LED achieves a luminescence lifetime of over 60 hours and a wall plug efficiency of up to 1.4% in a vacuum environment of 0.02 Pa. There are many small luminescent spots randomly distributed on 3.5 × 5 mm2 of LIRGO. LIRGO's luminous behavior can be controlled by modifying the supply voltage and laser reduction intensity. We also explore LIRGO's applications by testing it in different packages and customizable bulbs. Furthermore, as an interesting demo, the LIRGO device can be used to mimic constellations with visual shapes. This work demonstrates LIRGO's great potential in many fields, such as flexible and miniature light sources and displays.