Electronic skin (e-skin) is attracting huge attention due to its promising applications in diverse fields, including biomimetic machines, artificial intelligence and smart robotics.

Mechanical forces are crucial for normal living organisms as well as formation of tumor microenvironments. However, to date, there are rather limited trials to regulate the mechanical factors toward tumor treatment or imaging. Here, a synergistic antitumor therapy of cryoablation and gallium microparticles (GMs) mediated bomb-explosion-like mechanical destruction is proposed for the first time. Moreover, the GMs are demonstrated to enhance the T2 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) effect and mediate the dual-mode imaging of computerized tomography (CT) and MRI. The GMs are found to exert a mechanical force to surrounding chitosan ice crystals during freezing, which is attributed to the volume expansion during the phase transition process. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of piercing gallium materials via a sword-like shape into the solid ice crystals is observed with a penetration length of 150 µm within 1 ms, which further shows the remarkable mechanical destruction to frozen ice crystals. Furthermore, a series of in vitro and in vivo results prove the negligible biotoxicity and good biocompatible of GMs. The in vivo synergistic therapy exhibits effective destructive results with reduced recurrence rate and prolonged survival. The present methods are expected to not only open an efficient tumor destructive approach, but also hold potential for advanced theranostic systems.

BackgroundTumor hypoxia plays a fundamental role in resistance to therapy and disease progression. A number of studies have assessed the prognostic role of HIFs expression in head and neck cancer (HNC), but no consistent outcomes are reported.MethodologyA systematical search was performed to search relevant literatures in PubMed, Web of Science and ISI Web of Knowledge databases. The patients’ clinical characteristics and survival outcome were extracted. The correlation between HIFs expression and prognosis was analyzed.Principal FindingsA total of 28 studies assessed the association between HIFs and HNC survival, the result showed that overexpressed HIFs was significantly associated with increase of mortality risk (HR = 2.12; 95% CI: 1.52–2.94; I2 74%). Subgroup analysis on different HIF isoforms with OS indicated that both HIF-1α and HIF-2α were associated with worse prognosis. The pooled HRs were 1.72(95% CI 1.34–2.20; I2 70.7%) and 1.79(95% CI: 1.42–2.27, I2 0%). Further subgroup analysis was performed by different geographical locations, disease subtype, stage, types of variate analysis and cut-off value. The results revealed that overexpressed HIF-1α was significantly associated with poor prognosis in Asian patients (HR = 2.34; 95% CI: 1.76–3.1; I2 48.9%), but not in European patients (HR = 1.13; 95% CI: 0.77–1.66; I2 78.3%). Furthermore, HIF-1α overexpression was significantly associated with worse OS in oral carcinoma(HR = 2.1; 95% CI: 1.11–3.97; I2 81.7%), nasopharyngeal carcinoma(HR = 2.07; 95% CI:1.23–3.49; I2 22.5%) and oropharynx carcinoma(HR = 1.76; 95% CI:1.05–2.97; I2 61%), but not in laryngeal carcinoma(HR = 1.38; 95% CI: 0.87–2.19; I2 62.5%). We also found that the prognostic value of HIF-1α overexpression existed only when using staining and percentage as positive definition (HR = 1.82; 95% CI 1.42–2.33; I2 9.9%).ConclusionsThis study showed that overexpressed HIFs were significantly associated with increase of mortality risk. Subgroup analysis revealed that overexpressed HIF-1α was significantly associated with worse prognosis of HNC in Asian countries. Additionally, HIF-1α had different prognostic value in different HNC disease subtypes.

Aims To investigate the career success and work environment among nurses with a master's or doctoral degree and analyse the effect of work environment on their career success. Methods This was a national descriptive, cross‐sectional study. A total of 1223 nurses with a master's or doctoral degree from 115 tertiary hospitals across mainland China participated in the study. Subscales of the practice environment scale of the nursing work index and career success scale were utilized for data collection via email in the summer of 2017. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the collected data. Results The research showed that the career success and work environment ratings of nurses with a master's or doctoral degree were at a moderate level. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that work environment was positively correlated with career success for three of the four subscales. Conclusion The career success and work environment is moderate among nurses with a master's or doctoral degree, and improving the work environment for nurses may lead to higher career success.