Recent technological advances have made a myriad of soft and flexible electronic devices possible. The essential materials behind many of these devices and systems are electrical conductors that are compliant and retain their conductivity at high strain deformation. These so-called "compliant conductors" are the class of materials that enable stretchable and flexible electrodes, interconnects, and other components utilized in soft electronics. Creating conductors with high compliance, conductivity, and transparency is not a trivial matter, since these properties are often mutually exclusive. Furthermore, engineering reliable compliant conductors with a desired set of properties that remain fairly unchanged over long service lifetimes is an additional criterion that merits careful attention. These challenges have been addressed through at least two primary approaches. The first has been to create conducting composites that are intrinsically stretchable, typically by filling elastomers with conductive particles, or by depositing conductive particles on or just beneath the surface of elastomers. The second strategy has been to build conducting structures capable of reversible bending or stretching. In this review, the key research efforts toward the development of compliant conductors, including transparent conductors, are surveyed for application in flexible and highly stretchable electronic and electromechanical devices.

Advanced anode materials for high power and high energy lithium-ion batteries have attracted great interest due to the increasing demand for energy conversion and storage devices. Metal oxides (e.g., Fe3O4) usually possess high theoretical capacities, but poor electrochemical performances owing to their severe volume change and poor electronic conductivity during cycles. In this work, we develop a self-assembly approach for the synthesis of sandwich-structured graphene-Fe3O4@carbon composite, in which Fe3O4 nanoparticles with carbon layers are immobilized between the layers of graphene nanosheets. Compared to Fe3O4@carbon and bulk Fe3O4, graphene-Fe3O4@carbon composite shows superior electrochemical performance, including higher reversible capacity, better cycle and rate performances, which may be attributed to the sandwich structure of the composite, the nanosized Fe3O4, and the carbon layers on the surface of Fe3O4. Moreover, compared to the reported graphene-Fe3O4 composite, the particle size of Fe3O4 is controllable and the content of Fe3O4 in this composite can be arbitrarily adjusted for optimal performance. This novel synthesis strategy may be employed in other sandwich-structured nanocomposites design for high-performance lithium-ion batteries and other electrochemical devices.

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ObjectivesLung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) often diagnosed as advanced with poor prognosis. The mechanisms of its pathogenesis and prognosis require urgent elucidation. This study was performed to screen potential biomarkers related to the occurrence, development and prognosis of LUSC to reveal unknown physiological and pathological processes. Materials and MethodsUsing bioinformatics analysis, the lung squamous cell carcinoma microarray datasets from the GEO and TCGA databases were analyzed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Furthermore, PPI and WGCNA network analysis were integrated to identify the key genes closely related to the process of LUSC development. In addition, survival analysis was performed to achieve a prognostic model that accomplished a high level of prediction accuracy. Results and ConclusionEighty-five up-regulated and 39 down-regulated genes were identified, on which functional and pathway enrichment analysis was conducted. GO analysis demonstrated that up-regulated genes were principally enriched in epidermal development and DNA unwinding in DNA replication. Down-regulated genes were mainly involved in cell adhesion, signal transduction and positive regulation of inflammatory response. After PPI and WGCNA network analysis, eight genes, including AURKA, RAD51, TTK, AURKB, CCNA2, TPX2, KPNA2 and KIF23, have been found to play a vital role in LUSC development. The prognostic model contained 20 genes, 18 of which were detrimental to prognosis. The AUC of the established prognostic model for predicting the survival of patients at 1, 3, and 5 years was 0.828, 0.826 and 0.824, respectively. To conclude, this study identified a number of biomarkers of significant interest for additional investigation of the therapies and methods of prognosis of lung squamous cell carcinoma.