In this study, we investigated the influence of pH on the hydrothermal synthesis of copper (II) oxide CuO nanostructures with the aim of tuning their morphology. By varying the pH of the reaction medium, we successfully produced CuO nanostructures with three distinct morphologies including nanoparticles, nanorods, and nanosheets according to the pH levels of 4, 7, and 12, respectively. The observed variations in surface morphology are attributed to fluctuations in growth rates across different crystal facets, which are influenced by the presence of intermediate species within the reaction. This report also compared the structural and optical properties of the synthesized CuO nanostructures and explored their potential for photoelectrochemical glucose sensing. Notably, CuO nanoparticles and nanorods displayed exceptional performance with calculated limits of detection of 0.69 nM and 0.61 nM, respectively. Both of these morphologies exhibited a linear response to glucose within their corresponding concentration ranges (3–20 nM and 20–150 nM). As a result, CuO nanorods appear to be a more favorable photoelectrochemical sensing method because of the large surface area as well as the lowest solution resistance in electroimpedance analysis compared to CuO nanoparticles and nanosheets forms. These findings strongly suggest the promising application of hydrothermal-synthesized CuO nanostructures for ultrasensitive photoelectrochemical glucose biosensors.

Antibiotic-free approaches are more important than ever to address the rapidly growing problem of the antibiotic resistance crisis. The photolysis of the bacterial virulence factor staphyloxanthin using blue light at 460 nm (BL460 nm) has been found to effectively attenuate Staphylococcus aureus to chemical and physical agents. However, phototherapy using BL640 nm still needs to be investigated in detail for its safety in eradicating Staphylococcus aureus in vitro and in vivo. In this study, we employed a 460 nm continuous-wavelength LED source and a low concentration of hydrogen peroxide to treat S. aureus under a culturing condition and a wound abrasion mouse model. The results demonstrated the safety of the combined therapy when it did not modify the bacterial virulence factors or the susceptibility to widely used antibiotics. In addition, the results of the mouse model also showed that the combined therapy was safe to apply to mouse skin since it did not cause adverse skin irritation. More importantly, the therapy can aid in healing S. aureus-infected wounds with an efficacy comparable to that of the topical antibiotic Fucidin. The aforementioned findings indicate that the concurrent application of BL460 nm and hydrogen peroxide can be used safely as an alternative or adjunct to antibiotics in treating S. aureus-infected wounds.

Electrochemical and photoelectrochemical sensors are a rapidly developing field in analytical chemistry. However, commercial systems often lack versatility and affordability, hindering wider adoption. Additionally, the absence of integrated excitation light sources limits their application in photoelectrochemical sensing. Here, we present a highly precise, versatile, affordable measurement system for both electrochemical and photoelectrochemical sensing applications. The system incorporates a three-electrode potentiostat with a synchronized excitation light source. This design enables the system to perform conventional electrochemical measurements like cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and photoelectrochemical amperometric measurements with controlled light excitation. The developed measurement system operates within a voltage range suitable for a measurable current range of 1 nA to 18 mA, with a high precision of 99%. The excitation source is a monochromatic LED system offering seven distinct wavelengths with digitally controlled intensity via a digital-to-analog converter. Furthermore, an Android-based user interface allows wireless system control via Bluetooth Low Energy. The report also details the construction of a photoelectrochemical experiment using copper (II) oxide nanorods synthesized by the hydrothermal process as the photoactive material employed to test the experiment on a potassium ferricyanide/potassium ferrocyanide solution. This user-friendly system allows broader exploration of electrochemical and photoelectrochemical sensing applications.

Antibiotic-free approaches are more important than ever to deal with the rapidly growing problem of antibiotic resistance. The blue light 460nm (BL460nm) has been shown to effectively attenuate Staphylococcus aureus to chemical and physical agents through photolysis of the bacterial virulence factor Staphyloxanthin. However, the phototherapy using BL640nm has yet to be investigated in detail for its safety in eradicating Staphylococcus aureus in vitro and in vivo. In this study, we used a LED source producing a continuous wavelength of 460 nm along with hydrogen peroxide to treat S. aureus in culturing conditions and a wound abrasion mouse model. The results proved the safety of the combined therapy when it did not modify the bacterial virulence factors or the susceptibility to the widely used antibiotics. In addition, the experimental results on the mouse skin infection model also showed that the combined therapy is safe to apply to mouse skin and that it did not cause adverse skin irritation. Furthermore, the therapy can help Staphylococcus aureus-infected wounds heal with efficacy comparable to the topical antibiotic Fucidin. The above results suggest that the combination therapy of 460nm blue light and hydrogen peroxide can be safely used as an alternative to or adjunct to antibiotics in treating S. aureus-infected wounds.

A number of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are growing to become a big problem in society at the present time. Autism is the neurological disorder that makes the children feel inferior in social communication. Identifying individuals with early autism (under 3 years of age) is difficult and there is still not any medical test for rapid detection of autism. Currently, the clinical diagnosis is mainly based on the observed behavior of the child, and besides, educational and psychological tests are also applied. Eye movements have an important role in an individual's perception and attention in social activities. Non-invasive detection and tracking techniques of the eye movement have been developed over many decades. Nowadays, the Eye Tracking is a technological process that enables the measurement of eye movements, eye positions, and points of gaze. In other words, eye tracking identifies and collects a person’s visual data of the eyes in terms of location, objects and duration. It is applied for a variety of different research methods to investigate human behavior. In particular, the Eye Tracking method makes an application for identifying people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), it has been not only a wide study but also a great interest in recent years. This article provided an overview of children's visual attention with Autism Spectrum Disorder and children with Typical Development (TD). The study has focused on exploring the difference in observed behavior of ASD children and TD children. This study used the DBSCAN (Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise) clustering algorithm for grouping a set of Eye Tracking data, which were collected by the test of children’s visual attention to a variety of images. The classification of Eye Tracking data was based on the feature parameters, which were extracted from analyzing data. Moreover, a model for classification and identification of Eye Tracking image data of children groups with ASD and TD was built on Deep Learning algorithms. In this study, the chosen algorithm was Multilayer Perceptron. The children's eye movements dataset was extracted from the paper "A dataset of eye movements for the children with autism spectrum disorder" by Huiyu Duan et al. The results showed that using the Eye Tracking data is highly promising in identifying children with ASD by analyzing the observed behavior of children on images, especially on human images.