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The device offers a favourable and effective pathway for advanced energy storage. © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd.OBJECTIVE To investigate the diameter and flow rate of aortic arch arteries, their post-operative changes, and relationship in patients undergoing thoracic endovascular repair (TEVAR). APPROACH Patient-specific diameters and flow rates were collected in common carotid (CCA), subclavian (SA), and vertebral (VA) arteries using duplex ultrasound pre-operatively and up to post-operative 6-month. MAIN RESULTS For either diameter or flow rate of CCA, SA, and VA, there was no significant difference between the left and right sides for the 12 patients (age 64±12 years, mean±SD). The diameters of CCA, SA, and VA did not change over time and the average diameters of all measures were 7.4±1.0, 7.3±1.0, and 3.9±1.9 mm, respectively. The CCA and VA flow rates did not change over time and averaged 494±142 and 100±56 mL/min, respectively, while the SA flow rates were 147±80, 230±104, 136±73, and 116±55 mL/min at pre-operative, post-operative 1-week, 1-month, 6-month, with a decrease from 1-week to 6-month (P=.017). The total flow rate of all branches decreased at 6-month compared to 1-week (P=.020). The CCA, SA, and VA best diameter-flow rate relationships showed power values of 1.6 (R2=0.51), 1.8 (R2=0.20), and 2.4 (R2=0.60), respectively. Excluding the SA, a strong quadratic diameter-flow rate relationship was observed for the CCA and VA combined (Q=8.5*D^2, R2=0.87). SIGNIFICANCE There is a strong quadratic relationship between diameters and flow rates for the CCA and VA, but not SA. Our study provides reference diameter and flow rate boundary condition data of aortic arch arteries for computational modeling of patients undergoing TEVAR procedures. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.Cervical cancer induced by human papillomavirus (HPV) causes severe morbidity worldwide. Although cervical conization has been widely accepted as the most conventional surgery against cervical cancer, tissue defects and high recurrence rates have a significant negative impact on women's mental and physical health. Herein we developed an implantable, personalized cervical implant with drug release function using 3D printing technology. The cervical implant was designed in cone-shape with hieratical porous structures according to the clinical data, 3D printed using polyurethane by low-temperature deposition manufacturing (LDM), and finished by lyophilization. Anti-HPV protein was loaded into the porous structure under negative pressure afterwards. Elastic biomedical polyurethane and the porous structure ensured that these cervical implants were equipped with tailored mechanical properties comparable to physiological cervix tissue. Cytotoxicity and cytocompatibility tests indicated that these 3D-printed cervical implants supported cell adhesion and growth. More importantly, the cervical implants with regulated pores could help to quantitatively control the loading and release of anti-HPV protein to inhibit dissociative viruses near the cervix validly. As a result, the 3D-printed cervical implants in the present study showed considerable potential for use as functional tissue implants against HPV infection after cervical conization. © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd.Developing, homeostatic, and regenerating tissues are full of various gradients, including mechanical, chemical, porosity and growth-factor gradients. However, it remains challenging to replicate these gradients using common tissue engineering approaches. Here, we use electrospinning to create scaffolds with in-depth gradients. We created a fiber diameter gradient and pore size gradient throughout the depth of electrospun scaffolds by a continuous gradient of polymer concentration. As an alternative to this established method, we developed a novel method to create fiber diameter gradients by changing the voltage on both needle and collector, keeping the total voltage constant. In this way, fiber diameter could be changed in a gradient matter by focusing the electrospinning spot. Using this method, we created a fiber diameter and pore size gradient, while keeping all other parameters constant. Lastly, we developed a novel method to create functional group gradients, which can potentially be used in a wide variety of polymer solutions to couple peptides and proteins to ESP scaffolds. A scaffold with an in-depth gradient of functional groups was created by adding functionalized PEG-additives to the polymer solution, a novel method with potentially wide applications. The techniques demonstrated here could be applied to a wide variety of polymers and applications and can aid in developing physiologically relevant gradient scaffolds. © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd.Phase transformations of Ge under compression/decompression cycle at room temperature were studied in a diamond anvil cell (DAC) using in-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and near infrared absorption techniques. Upon compression similar behavior is observed in nanowires and bulk although a higher stability is observed in nanowires. The cubic-diamond phase, the most energetically favorable phase, transforms into the β-tin metallic phase at high pressure and the reverse Ge-β-tin to Ge-3C transformation is generally inhibited by kinetics when pressure is released. While the transformation in Ge bulk leads mostly to Ge-ST12 phase, the loading/unloading cycle of Ge nanowires in DAC leads back to Ge-3C, exhibiting unprecedented size effects. A comprehensive characterization of the final states is described. © 2020 IOP Publishing Ltd.OBJECTIVE Here we introduced, Vivio, a wireless optical tonometer and compared its pulse waveform measurement capabilities to the AtCor SphygmoCor. METHODS Pulse waveform data from both devices was captured on a heterogeneous cohort of 29 participants (15 males, 14 females) including 16 healthy individuals free from cardiovascular diseases and 13 patients with one or more cardiovascular diseases. These participants were a subgroup of the Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI) iPhone Heart Study. RESULTS Carotid pulse waveforms captured by Vivio were comparable to those captured using the AtCor SphygmoCor tonometer. The point-by-point root-mean-square (RMSE) error between averaged waveforms captured by either device on the same participant was 6.3% with a standard deviation of 2%. The harmonic content of the pulse waveforms captured by either device was also similar. Data collected by Vivio displayed good to excellent agreement across a wide range of pulse waveform features such as left ventricular ejection time (LVET), reflected wave arrival time (RWO), the ratio of systolic to diastolic time intervals (SDR), and heart rate (HR). A comparison between Augmentation Index (AI) measured by Vivio and tonometry showed a correlation of 0.82 (p less then 0.001). Bland-Altman analysis of this data yielded a bias of -2.5% and limits of agreement spanning -15.1% to 10.1%. SIGNIFICANCE The Vivio has the potential to enhance the availability of noninvasive pulse waveform data thereby expanding the tools available for the diagnosis and monitoring of cardiovascular disease. When used in combination with advanced waveform analysis methods, Vivio can impact mobile healthcare resulting in improved patient health, quality of life and the overall reduction of healthcare costs. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.Despite well-established dosimetry in clinical radiotherapy, dose measurements in pre-clinical and radiobiology studies are frequently inadequate, thus undermining the reliability and reproducibility of published findings. The lack of suitable dosimetry protocols, coupled with the increasing complexity of pre-clinical irradiation platforms, undermines confidence in preclinical studies and represents a serious obstacle in the translation to clinical practice. To accurately measure output of a pre-clinical radiotherapy unit, appropriate Codes of Practice (CoP) for medium energy X-rays needs to be employed. However, determination of absorbed dose to water (Dw) relies on application of backscatter factor (Bw) employing in-air method or carrying out in-phantom measurement at the reference depth of 2 cm in a full backscatter (i.e. 30×30×30 cm3) condition. Both of these methods require thickness of at least 30 cm of underlying material, which are never fulfilled in typical pre-clinical irradiations. This work is focused on evaluation the effects of the lack of recommended reference conditions in dosimetry measurements for pre-clinical settings and is aimed at extending the recommendations of the current CoP to practical experimental conditions and highlighting the potential impact of the lack of correct backscatter considerations on radiobiological studies. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.OBJECTIVE Non-adhesive textile electrode belts offer several advantages over adhesive electrodes and are increasingly used in neonatal patients during continuous electrical impedance tomography (EIT) lung monitoring. However, non-adhesive belts may rotate in unsedated patients and discrepancies between chest circumference and belt sizes may result in a gap between electrodes near the sternum. This project aimed to determine the effects of belt rotation and sternal electrode gap on commonly used lung EIT parameters. APPROACH We developed a simulation framework based on a three-dimensional finite-element model and introduced lung regions with little or no ventilation that could be changed according to a decremental positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP) trial. Four degrees of sternal gap and belt rotation were simulated and their effect on the EIT parameters silent spaces, centre of ventilation, global inhomogeneity index and overdistension/collapsed lung (OD/CL) analysed. Additionally, seven premature infants were examined to assess the influence of leftward and rightward belt rotations in a clinical setting. MAIN RESULTS Small violations of the electrode equidistance criterion and rotations of the belts less than one electrode space exert only minor effects on the EIT parameters and do not impede the interpretation. Rotations of two and three electrode spaces induce non-negligible effects that might lead to flawed interpretations. The "best PEEP" determined with the OD/CL approach was robust and identifiable with all studied sternal gaps and belt rotations. PHA-767491 clinical trial SIGNIFICANCE We revealed an important challenge for neonatal EIT applications related to a wide electrode gap at the sternum and belt rotation, which should be avoided in clinical application. © 2020 Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.The silicon-photomultiplier (SiPM) is an established device of choice for a variety of applications, e.g. in time of flight positron emission tomography (TOF-PET), lifetime fluorescence spectroscopy, distance measurements in LIDAR applications, astrophysics, quantum-cryptography and related applications as well as in high energy physics (HEP). To fully utilize the exceptional performances of the SiPM, in particular its sensitivity down to single photon detection, the dynamic range and its intrinsically fast timing properties, a qualitative description and understanding of the main SiPM parameters and properties is necessary. These analyses consider the structure and the electrical model of a single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) and the integration in an array of SPADs, i.e. the SiPM. The discussion will include the front-end readout and the comparison between analog-SiPMs, where the array of SPADs is connected in parallel, and the digital SiPM, where each SPAD is read out and digitized by its own electronic channel.