Sensors are widely used in various fields, among which flexible strain sensors that can sense minuscule mechanical signals and are easy to adapt to many irregular surfaces are attractive for structure health monitoring, early detection, and failure prevention in humans, machines, or buildings. In practical applications, subtle and abnormal vibrations generated from any direction are highly desired to detect and even orientate their directions initially to eliminate potential hazards. However, it is challenging for flexible strain sensors to achieve hypersensitivity and omnidirectionality simultaneously due to the restrictions of many materials with anisotropic mechanical/electrical properties and some micro/nanostructures they employed. Herein, it is revealed that the vision‐degraded scorpion detects subtle vibrations spatially and omnidirectionally using a slit sensillum with fan‐shaped grooves. A bioinspired flexible strain sensor consisting of curved microgrooves arranged around a central circle is devised, exhibiting an unprecedented gauge factor of over 18 000 and stability over 7000 cycles. It can sense and recognize vibrations of diverse input waveforms at different locations, bouncing behaviors of a free‐falling bead, and human wrist pulses regardless of sensor installation angles. The geometric designs can be translated to other material systems for potential applications including human health monitoring and engineering failure detection.

BackgroundTo explore the influences of prenatal antibiotic exposure, the intensity of prenatal and postnatal antibiotic exposure on gut microbiota of preterm infants and whether gut microbiota and drug resistant strains in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) over a defined period are related.MethodsAmong 28 preterm infants, there were two groups, the PAT (prenatal antibiotic therapy) group (12 cases), and the PAF (prenatal antibiotic free) group (12 cases). Fecal samples from both groups were collected on days 7 and 14. According to the time of prenatal and postnatal antibiotic exposure, cases were divided into two groups, H (high) group (11 cases) and L (low) group (11 cases), and fecal samples on day 14 were collected. Genomic DNA was extracted from the fecal samples and was subjected to high throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Bioinformatics methods were used to analyze the sequencing results.ResultsPrenatal and postnatal antibiotic exposure exercised influence on the early establishment of intestinal microflora of preterm infants. Bacteroidetes decreased significantly in the PAT group (p < 0.05). The number of Bifidobacterium significantly decreased in the PAT group and H group (p < 0.05). The early gut microbiota of preterm infants with prenatal and postnatal antibiotic exposure was similar to resistant bacteria in NICU during the same period.ConclusionPrenatal and postnatal antibiotic exposure may affect the composition of early gut microbiota in preterm infants. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in NICU may play a role in reshaping the early gut microbiota of preterm infants with prenatal and postnatal antibiotic exposure.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12941-018-0264-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

BackgroundHuman papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing is an important method in cervical cancer screening. However, the studies on prevalence and genotype distribution of HPV among women in northeastern Guangdong Province of China are very limited.MethodsA total of 28,730 women attending the Department of Gynecology of Meizhou People’s Hospital (Huangtang Hospital), Meizhou Hospital Affiliated to Sun Yat-sen University between January 1st, 2013 and June 1st, 2015 were enrolled in this study. HPV type-specific distribution was tested using flow-through hybridization and gene chip.ResultsThe overall prevalence of HPV infection was 19.81%, among which 79.09% were infected with high-risk HPV subtypes in the subjects. The 5 most predominant genotypes were HPV16, 52, 58, 18 and 81. Most HPV infections were observed in women aged 41–50 and women aged 30–59 accounted for a proportion of over 80%.ConclusionsOur findings suggested a high burden of HPV infection among women in northeastern Guangdong Province of China. We identified the top 5 HPV genotypes as well as the age-specific distribution of HPV infections in this area.

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