Intrinsic Sense Research Articles

Intrinsic sense of touch for intuitive physical human-robot interaction.

The sense of touch is a property that allows humans to interact delicately with their physical environment. This article reports on a technological advancement in intuitive human-robot interaction that enables an intrinsic robotic sense of touch without the use of artificial skin or tactile instrumentation. On the basis of high-resolution joint-force-torque sensing in a redundant arrangement, we were able to let the robot sensitively feel the surrounding environment and accurately localize touch trajectories in space and time that were applied on its surface by a human. Through an intertwined combination of manifold learning techniques and artificial neural networks, the robot identified and interpreted those touch trajectories as machine-readable letters, symbols, or numbers. This opens up unexplored opportunities in terms of intuitive and flexible interaction between human and robot. Furthermore, we showed that our concept of so-called virtual buttons can be used to straightforwardly implement a tactile communication link, including switches and slider bars, which are complementary to speech, hardware buttons, and control panels. These interaction elements could be freely placed, moved, and configured in arbitrary locations on the robot structure. The intrinsic sense of touch we proposed in this work can serve as the basis for an advanced category of physical human-robot interaction that has not been possible yet, enabling a shift from conventional modalities toward adaptability, flexibility, and intuitive handling.

Ultra-Tough Graphene Oxide/DNA 2D Hydrogel with Intrinsic Sensing and Actuation Functions.

Hydrogel devices with mechanical toughness and tunable functionalities are highly desirable for practical long-term applications such as sensing and actuation elements for soft robotics. However, existing hydrogels have poor mechanical properties, slow rates of response, and low functionality. In this work, two-dimensional hydrogel actuators are proposed and formed on the self-assembly of graphene oxide (GO) and deoxynucleic acid (DNA). The self-assembly process is driven by the GO-induced transition of double stranded DNA (dsDNA) into single stranded DNA (ssDNA). Thus, the hydrogel's structural unit consists of two layers of GO covered by ssDNA and a layer of dsDNA in between. Such heterogeneous architectures stabilized by multiple hydrogen bondings have Young's modulus of up to 10GPa and rapid swelling rates of 4.0×10-3 to 1.1×10-2 s-1, which surpasses most types of conventional hydrogels. It is demonstrated that the GO/DNA hydrogel actuators leverage the unique properties of these two materials, making them excellent candidates for various applications requiring sensing and actuation functions, such as artificial skin, wearable electronics, bioelectronics, and drug delivery systems.

Revealing urban residents’ intention to pay for the greening of farmland in the urban fringe by extending the theory of planned behavior: Insights from payment for ecosystem services

The greening of farmland in the urban fringe improves the resilience of urban ecosystem and brings more abundant ecosystem services to urban residents. From the perspective of payment for ecosystem services, this study explored urban residents’ intention to pay for the improved ecosystem by extending the theory of planned behavior. The main findings are as follows. First, 76% of urban residents had a relatively strong payment intention. Second, moral obligation was the foremost factor that affects intention, which highlights the importance of individuals’ intrinsic sense of responsibility and social altruism to mould “greening action”. Third, the positive effect of behavioral attitude was subsequently highlighted, therefore, the government should shape decision-makers’ positive attitudes by propagandizing the value of green farmland. Fourth, both ecosystem service perception and nature affinity had a significant and positive impact on payment intention, and further, ecosystem service perception mediated the impact of nature affinity on intention. This observation provides policymakers with enlightenment that measures to enhance urban residents’ nature affinity, are also effective in improving ecosystem service perception. Moreover, the average payment level of urban residents was 174.7CNY per year. If payment intention can be catalyzed into actual payment behavior, it expected to greatly contribute to the financing of greening action. These results can help policymakers better understand the sustainable path of farmland greening from the perspective of payment for ecosystem services.

New definitions of fractional derivatives and integrals for complex analytic functions

In this paper, we introduce a ground-breaking approach to defining fractional calculus for a selected class of analytic functions. Our new definitions, based on a novel and intuitive understanding of fractional derivatives and integrals, offer improved mathematical tractability for a variety of applications, including physics, engineering and finance. Our approach significantly simplifies the complexity of mathematical functions compared to the traditional Riemann-Liouville approach, by using simple functions rather than special functions, while preserving the intrinsic sense of fractional calculus. This article not only presents our proposed definitions but also provides a thorough analysis of their properties and advantages. The conclusion of this paper discusses the potential for future research in the field of fractional calculus.

Migration patterns and navigation cues of Atlantic salmon post-smolts migrating from 12 rivers through the coastal zones around the Irish Sea.

The freshwater phase of the first seaward migration of juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) is relatively well understood when compared with our understanding of the marine phase of their migration. In 2021, 1008 wild and 60 ranched Atlantic salmon smolts were tagged with acoustic transmitters in 12 rivers in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. Large marine receiver arrays were deployed in the Irish Sea at two locations: at the transition of the Irish Sea into the North Atlantic between Ireland and Scotland, and between southern Scotland and Northern Ireland, to examine the early phase of the marine migration of Atlantic salmon smolts. After leaving their natal rivers' post-smolt migration through the Irish Sea was rapid with minimum speeds ranging from 14.03 to 38.56 km.day-1 for Atlantic salmon smolts that entered the Irish Sea directly from their natal river, to 9.69-39.94 km.day-1 for Atlantic salmon smolts that entered the Irish Sea directly from their natal estuary. Population minimum migration success through the study area was strongly correlated with the distance of travel, populations further away from the point of entry to the open North Atlantic exhibited lower migration success. Post-smolts from different populations experienced different water temperatures on entering the North Atlantic. This was largely driven by the timing of their migration and may have significant consequences for feeding and ultimately survivorship. The influence of water currents on post-smolt movement was investigated using data from previously constructed numerical hydrodynamic models. Modeled water current data in the northern Irish Sea showed that post-smolts had a strong preference for migrating when the current direction was at around 283° (west-north-west) but did not migrate when exposed to strong currents in other directions. This is the most favorable direction for onward passage from the Irish Sea to the continental shelf edge current, a known accumulation point for migrating post-smolts. These results strongly indicate that post-smolts migrating through the coastal marine environment are: (1) not simply migrating by current following (2) engage in active directional swimming (3) have an intrinsic sense of their migration direction and (4) can use cues other than water current direction to orientate during this part of their migration.

Effects of Ankle Stabilization Exercises Using Sonic Balance Pad on Proprioception and Balance in Subjects with Ankle Instability.

Sound waves generate acoustic resonance energy that penetrates deeply and safely into body areas normal mechanical vibrations cannot reach. The sonic balance pad utilizes these sound waves to create an optimal musculoskeletal response. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a 4-week ankle stabilization exercise program using a sonic balance pad on proprioceptive sense and balance ability in individuals with ankle instability. This study was conducted as a randomized control-group pre-and post-test design in 30 participants (21 females and 9 males) who had experienced an ankle fracture or sprain within the last 5 years or who scored 11 points or more on The Identification of Functional Ankle Instability. The ankle stabilization exercise program was conducted for 4 weeks in the experimental group (n = 15), to which sonic pads were applied, and the control group (n = 15), to which balance pads were applied. All participants were assessed for their intrinsic proprioceptive sense of dorsiflexion and plantarflexion, static balance test, dynamic balance test, and long jump test were measured before and after 4 weeks as dependent variables. After 4 weeks of training, a significant difference was shown in the right dorsiflexion error (Balance pad = PRE: 2.47 ± 0.92; POST: 2.33 ± 1.40, Sonic pad = PRE: 3.27 ± 1.39; POST: 1.20 ± 0.77) and the left plantar flexion error (Balance pad = PRE: 2.00 ± 1.36; POST: 2.73 ± 1.22, Sonic pad = PRE: 3.53 ± 1.25; POST: 2.20 ± 1.01) (p < 0.05) between the experimental and control groups in the proprioception test. In the static balance test, there was no significant difference between the experimental and control groups during the pre, post, and variation stages. However, in the Y-Balance test, which is one of the dynamic balance tests, there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups at various points, including anterior left (Balance pad = PRE: 72.85 ± 19.95; POST: 63.41 ± 8.66, Sonic pad = PRE: 68.16 ± 6.38; POST: 76.17 ± 3.67), posteromedial right (Balance pad = PRE: 78.59 ± 15.34; POST: 81.41 ± 10.37, Sonic pad = PRE: 86.33 ± 16.44; POST: 102.23 ± 11.53), posteromedial left (Balance pad = PRE: 78.00 ± 16.99; POST: 83.36 ± 10.15, Sonic pad = PRE: 88.96 ± 19.92; POST: 102.45 ± 12.98), posterolateral right (Balance pad = PRE: 78.16 ± 14.33; POST: 82.61 ± 10.73, Sonic pad = PRE: 87.95 ± 17.51; POST: 101.34 ± 15.37), and posterolateral left (Balance pad = PRE: 80.86 ± 14.96; POST: 81.31 ± 7.16, Sonic pad = PRE: 91.23 ± 17.35; POST: 104.18 ± 11.78) (p < 0.05). Moreover, in the single-leg long jump test, which is another dynamic balance test, the experimental group (Sonic pad = PRE: 100.27 ± 29.00; POST: 116.80 ± 28.86) also demonstrated a significant difference in the right single-leg long jump compared to the control group (Balance pad = PRE: 91.87 ± 17.74; POST: 97.67 ± 17.70) (p < 0.05). When a sonic balance pad using sound waves was applied in addition to a 4-week ankle stabilization exercise program for participants with ankle stability, it helped to improve proprioception and dynamic balance ability.

Dp–convergence and 𝜖–regularity theorems for entropy and scalar curvature lower bounds

Consider a sequence of Riemannian manifolds $(M^n_i,g_i)$ with scalar curvatures and entropies bounded below by small constants $R_i,\mu_i \geq-\epsilon_i$. The goal of this paper is to understand notions of convergence and the structure of limits for such spaces. Even in the seemingly rigid case $\epsilon_i\to 0$, we construct examples showing that such a sequence may converge wildly in the Gromov-Hausdorff or Intrinsic Flat sense. On the other hand, we will see that these classical notions of convergence are the incorrect ones to consider. Indeed, even a metric space is the wrong underlying category to be working on. Instead, we introduce $d_p$ convergence, a weaker notion of convergence that is valid for a class of rectifiable Riemannian spaces. These rectifiable spaces have well-behaved topology, measure theory, and analysis, though potentially there will be no reasonably associated distance function. Under the $d_p$ notion of closeness, a space with almost nonnegative scalar curvature and small entropy bounds must in fact be close to Euclidean space; this will constitute our $\epsilon$-regularity theorem. More generally, we have a compactness theorem saying that sequences of Riemannian manifolds $(M^n_i,g_i)$ with small lower scalar curvature and entropy bounds $R_i,\mu_i \geq -\epsilon$ must $d_p$ converge to such a rectifiable Riemannian space $X$. Comparing to the first paragraph, the distance functions of $M_i$ may be degenerating, even though in a well-defined sense the analysis cannot be. Applications for manifolds with small scalar and entropy lower bounds include an $L^\infty$-Sobolev embedding and apriori $L^p$ scalar curvature bounds for $p<1$.

The Effect of Providing Counseling on Knowledge about Safety Houses in Housewives Neighborhood Association of Bagan Pete Village, Jambi City

&lt;p&gt;Potential hazard is a state or condition in a process, machine, tool, material or way of working which in an intrinsic (natural) sense can cause injury, injury, even further, namely loss of worker's life and can damage tools and the environment. The house where we live is a place that is often considered the safest and most comfortable place for us. But without us knowing it, the house is also potentially dangerous. Therefore, it is necessary to understand and be aware of the safety house for every household in minimizing the risk of work accidents that occur in the house. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of providing counseling on knowledge about safety houses in housewives at neighborhood association of 23, Bagan Pete Village, Jambi City. This research is a quantitative study using a quasi-experimental one group pretest-posttest design. The research population was all housewives in neighborhood association 0f 23. The research samples were 30 housewives using the purposive sampling technique. Methods of data collection through interviews using a questionnaire. Data analysis was carried out using univariate and bivariate. Bivariate analysis uses the paired T-test if the data distribution is normal, otherwise if the data distribution is free then the Wilcoxon test is used. Analysis of the data in this study used the IBM SPSS 20 application. The results of the statistical analysis showed that counseling had an effect on knowledge about safety houses (p=0.000 &amp;lt;0.05). The conclusion is that there is an influence of counseling on knowledge about safety house among housewives in neighborhood association of 23, Bagan Pete Jambi.&lt;br /&gt;Keyword: Counseling, Knowledge, Safety House&lt;/p&gt;

Time-adaptive Lagrangian variational integrators for accelerated optimization

&lt;abstract&gt;&lt;p&gt;A variational framework for accelerated optimization was recently introduced on normed vector spaces and Riemannian manifolds in &lt;sup&gt;[&lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b1"&gt;1&lt;/xref&gt;]&lt;/sup&gt; and &lt;sup&gt;[&lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b2"&gt;2&lt;/xref&gt;]&lt;/sup&gt;. It was observed that a careful combination of time-adaptivity and symplecticity in the numerical integration can result in a significant gain in computational efficiency. It is however well known that symplectic integrators lose their near-energy preservation properties when variable time-steps are used. The most common approach to circumvent this problem involves the Poincaré transformation on the Hamiltonian side, and was used in &lt;sup&gt;[&lt;xref ref-type="bibr" rid="b3"&gt;3&lt;/xref&gt;]&lt;/sup&gt; to construct efficient explicit algorithms for symplectic accelerated optimization. However, the current formulations of Hamiltonian variational integrators do not make intrinsic sense on more general spaces such as Riemannian manifolds and Lie groups. In contrast, Lagrangian variational integrators are well-defined on manifolds, so we develop here a framework for time-adaptivity in Lagrangian variational integrators and use the resulting geometric integrators to solve optimization problems on vector spaces and Lie groups.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/abstract&gt;

On the relationships linking intrinsic and extrinsic sense of freedom with pro-environmental attitudes. Synergic and buffering effects of the identification with all humanity.

This study aimed to examine whether the individual way of understanding freedom is related to pro-environmental attitudes. This idea has not been studied before. In the paper, the authors examined whether understanding freedom as extrinsic (absolute and unconditional) was related to a decrease in environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior, while understanding it as intrinsic (conditional, limited by the needs of other people) had the opposite effect. Another set of hypotheses concerned the moderating role of identification with all humanity (IWAH). The authors hypothesized that in people with a high level of IWAH, the positive relationship between intrinsic freedom and pro-environmental attitudes was stronger, and the negative relationship between extrinsic freedom and pro-environmental attitudes was weaker compared to people with a low level of IWAH. The study was conducted on a sample of 773 Polish young adults (18-29 years) using a professional research panel. The results provide empirical evidence that intrinsic and extrinsic way of understanding freedom is related to environmental concern and pro-environmental behavior. Moreover, the hypothesis concerning the moderating role of IWAH was confirmed. These results contribute to a better understanding of the factors that determine commitment to climate protection.

Conformal tori with almost non-negative scalar curvature

In this work, we consider sequence of metrics with almost non-negative scalar curvature on torus. We show that if the sequence is uniformly conformal to another sequence of metrics with bounded Ricci geometry, then it converges to a flat metric in the volume preserving intrinsic flat sense, the measured Gromov–Hausdorff sense and $$L^p$$ sense. Moreover, similar stability also holds on manifolds with non-positive Yamabe invariant.

The impact of the intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors on pre-service second language teachers' identity construction

PurposeThis article reports on the intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors that shaped the professional identity (PI) construction of five ESL Malaysian pre-service teachers (PSTs) during microteaching classes and teaching practicum.Design/methodology/approachThe study is qualitative in nature aiming to give voice to ESL PSTs and allow them share their personal experience while constructing their professional identity. The semi-interview data were supported by observation data to validate what PSTs report in their interview. The researchers chose junctural points in the PI construction journey to follow the developmental line of PI growth and to live the experience with the participant. The project was a co-construction of knowledge and enabled a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon.FindingsThis inquiry revealed that PI is dynamic and changing constantly as one reinterprets and reevaluates self and interact and react to the various intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological factors in their context. At the intrapersonal level, lack of practical experience and intrinsic motivation and sense of low self-efficacy created a perception of low PI in the beginning of the simulated practice. The findings also show that supportive interpersonal relationships developed within a facilitating context such as the simulated teaching class smoothed the emergence of high PI. However, when the interpersonal relationships and ecological context in the practicum settings were challenging, they hindered PI development and led to a PI crisis.Practical implicationsThe article offers recommendations to enhance the pivotal role of teaching practice during PSTs' journey of becoming.Originality/valueThis study was conducted in one of the understudied contexts in regards of PI construction. It captured a holistic view of the PI construction. It showed that the interplay of interpersonal and intrapersonal factors, in addition to ecological factors, is not isolated from each other. On the contrary, they were like a cycle circumscribing the PSTs and impact their PI construction. Hence, the authors believe that the study contributed with a comprehensive understanding of pre-service PI construction.

Sequences of three dimensional manifolds with positive scalar curvature

We develop two new methods of constructing sequences of manifolds with positive scalar curvature that converge in the Gromov-Hausdorff and Intrinsic Flat sense to limit spaces with “pulled regions”. The examples created rigorously using these methods were announced a few years ago and have influenced the statements of some of Gromov's conjectures concerning sequences of manifolds with positive scalar curvature. Both methods extend the notion of “sewing along a curve” developed in prior work of the authors with Dodziuk to create limits that are pulled string spaces. The first method allows us to sew any compact set in a fixed initial manifold to create a limit space in which that compact set has been scrunched to a single point. The second method allows us to edit a sequence of regions or curves in a sequence of distinct manifolds.

Association between long-range temporal correlations in intrinsic EEG activity and subjective sense of identity

The long-range temporal correlation (LRTC) in resting-state intrinsic brain activity is known to be associated with temporal behavioral patterns, including decision making based on internal criteria such as self-knowledge. However, the association between the neuronal LRTC and the subjective sense of identity remains to be explored; in other words, whether our subjective sense of consistent self across time relates to the temporal consistency of neural activity. The present study examined the relationship between the LRTC of resting-state scalp electroencephalography (EEG) and a subjective sense of identity measured by the Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI). Consistent with our prediction based on previous studies of neuronal-behavioral relationships, the frontocentral alpha LRTC correlated negatively with identity confusion. Moreover, from the descriptive analyses, centroparietal beta LRTC showed negative correlations with identity confusion, and frontal theta LRTC showed positive relationships with identity synthesis. These results suggest that more temporal consistency (reversely, less random noise) in intrinsic brain activity is associated with less confused and better-synthesized identity. Our data provide further evidence that the LRTC of intrinsic brain activity might serve as a noise suppression mechanism at the psychological level.

Sketch of clinical phenomenology of the lived experience in the COVID-19 pandemic in Northeastern Brazil

The clinical practice in clinical phenomenology, be it psychiatric or psychological, is based on the philosophical inspiration adopted by the clinician. In my case, I see the world ambiguously and Merleau-Ponty is my philosopher of inspiration. Through these lenses, I see the phenomenon I study as a researcher or the way I relate to my patient as a psychotherapist. I also look through these lenses to write this essay about my lived experience in the pandemic of COVID-19 in 2020. COVID-19 reminds us that we are human and vulnerable. Assuming this vulnerability in its full existential meaning can be empowering, considering vulnerability in its intrinsic sense as a place in life with its ethical and political meanings. In the case of the lived experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in northeastern Brazil, contact with vulnerability, in many situations, is confused with precariousness, which has a more social nature. I also mention that the quarantine imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic required us to communicate with our families and work at home exclusively through video and audio on our computers. Under these circumstances, it is worth reflecting on the changes that we are experiencing in our own functioning, in our lived space and lived body. On the other hand, the lack of fluidity in our existential movement in the lived time is concerning as it affects the structural core of the human being and existential continuity. In this context, I finally present some preliminary thoughts about on-online psychotherapy through phenomenological lens.

A generalized tetrahedral property

We present examples of metric spaces that are not Riemannian manifolds nor dimensionally homogeneous that satisfy the Tetrahedral Property. In spite of that, Euclidean cones over metric spaces with small diameter do not satisfy this property. We extend Sormani's Tetrahedral Property to a less restrictive property and prove that this generalized definition retains all the results of the original Tetrahedral Property proven by Portegies-Sormani: it provides a lower bound on the sliced filling volume and a lower bound on the volumes of balls. Thus sequences with uniform bounds on this Generalized Tetrahedral Property also have subsequences which converge in both the Gromov-Hausdorff and Sormani-Wenger Intrinsic Flat sense to the same non-collapsed and countably rectifiable limit space.

Stability of the Spacetime Positive Mass Theorem in Spherical Symmetry

The rigidity statement of the positive mass theorem asserts that an asymptotically flat initial data set for the Einstein equations with zero ADM mass, and satisfying the dominant energy condition, must arise from an embedding into Minkowski space. In this paper, we address the question of what happens when the mass is merely small. In particular, we formulate a conjecture for the stability statement associated with the spacetime version of the positive mass theorem, and give examples to show how it is basically sharp if true. This conjecture is then established under the assumption of spherical symmetry in all dimensions. More precisely, it is shown that a sequence of asymptotically flat initial data satisfying the dominant energy condition, without horizons except possibly at an inner boundary, and with ADM masses tending to zero must arise from isometric embeddings into a sequence of static spacetimes converging to Minkowski space in the pointed volume preserving intrinsic flat sense. The difference of second fundamental forms coming from the embeddings and initial data must converge to zero in \(L^p\), \(1\le p<2\). In addition some minor tangential results are also given, including the spacetime version of the Penrose inequality with rigidity statement in all dimensions for spherically symmetric initial data, as well as symmetry inheritance properties for outermost apparent horizons.

Relating notions of convergence in geometric analysis

We relate Lp convergence of metric tensors or volume convergence to a given smooth metric to intrinsic flat and Gromov–Hausdorff convergence for sequences of Riemannian manifolds. We present many examples of sequences of conformal metrics which demonstrate that these notions of convergence do not agree in general even when the sequence is conformal, gj=fj2g0, to a fixed manifold. We then prove a theorem demonstrating that when sequences of metric tensors on a fixed manifold M are bounded, (1−1∕j)g0≤gj≤Kg0, and either the volumes converge, Volj(M)→Vol0(M), or the metric tensors converge in the Lp sense, then the Riemannian manifolds (M,gj) converge in the measured Gromov–Hausdorff and volume preserving intrinsic flat sense to (M,g0).

Prototyping Mass Nouns from Students’ Perspective: A Pedagogical Implication

This paper investigates ESL learners’ prototyping mass nouns as a grammatical category. The study is supported by the theory of prototype developed by Rosch in 1970s which plays a wide role in graded categorization of the existent entities in the world. With an expected inspiration from the theory, the prototyping of vocabulary received research attention especially in the pedagogical world. Promisingly, this study seeks to extend the theory to explore a lexico-grammatical category i.e. “mass nouns” from learners’ perspective. Actually, the study was directed to find out which prototypical feature ESL students exploit to prioritize some mass nouns as prototypical examples over some other mass nouns, and how far students’ experientially and pedagogically perceived “prototypes” of mass nouns help them to correctly grouping up nouns as in mass category. The study was focused on shedding some light on a few pedagogical tips and implications in some likely challenging contexts of teaching mass nouns. The study reveals that ESL students shortlist ‘liquids’ (such as water, milk, wine, juice etc.) ‘gases’(such as hydrogen, oxygen etc.), ‘abstract ideas’ (such as childhood, anger, safety, knowledge etc.), ‘powdered substances’ (such as sand, sugar etc.), and some ‘natural entities’ (such as heat, sunshine etc.) as “prototype of mass nouns” which all are un-individuated and sometimes intangible - meaning uncountable - while the learners recognize ‘non-countable’ status as the most important prototypical feature of mass nouns. And, the students isolated ‘rice’, ‘wheat’, ‘hair’, ‘grass’ , ‘cotton’ and ‘coal’ as less prototypical mass nouns based on their intrinsic sense that these mass nouns are plural and they even can be individuated. However, the study reflects that the students’ perceived prototypes are not sufficient as they selected and considered many of mass nouns as so distant members as countable. It was further found that contextual type shifts of mass-count nouns, arbitrary sematic distributions to lexis, cross-linguistic approach to mass nouns, intrinsic and realistic conception, superordinate-subordinate influence, and perception of enumerating status etc. account for students’ this surprise selection of a number of mass nouns as opposite category i.e. count nouns. If pedagogues are non-responsive to these factors and fail to redefine their approaches to mass noun teaching, it is most likely to lead to learners’ grammatical inaccuracy resulted from their determiner-number-mass noun mismatch.

Assembly of Black Phosphorus Nanosheets and MOF to Form Functional Hybrid Thin-Film for Precise Protein Capture, Dual-Signal and Intrinsic Self-Calibration Sensing of Specific Cancer-Derived Exosomes.

As the emerging and noninvasive biomarkers, exosomes play an important role in cancer screening, cancer-related immune response, and the physiological process. The sensitive, specific, and efficient detection of cancer cell-derived exosomes is of significance for early cancer diagnosis of patients. This work developed a novel dual-signal and intrinsic self-calibration aptasensor of exosomes based on a functional hybrid thin-film platform. This platform was constructed via facile assembly of black phosphorus nanosheets (BPNSs) and ferrocene (Fc)-doped metal-organic frameworks (ZIF-67) on indium tin oxide (ITO) slice, followed by combining methylene blue (MB)-labeled single- strand DNA aptamer on ITO slice. The resultant aptamer-BPNSs/Fc/ZIF-67/ITO platform had dual redox-signal responses of MB (labeled on aptamer) and Fc (doped into ZIF-67). In the presence of specific cancer cell-derived exosomes, the redox current of MB regularly reduced and that of Fc (as reference) hardly changed. An intrinsic self-calibration aptasensor was achieved and enabled sensitive detection of exosomes, showing a limit of detection down to 100 particles mL-1. The aptasensor with a capability of precise protein capture can efficiently determine specific cancer cell-derived exosomes in practical human serum and plasma samples from healthy individuals and breast cancer patients. In light of excellent performances, this aptasensor can be expanded to multiple biomarkers from cell line exosomes and is beneficial for exploring advanced techniques for high-performance detection of exosomes derived from different types of cancer cells. This work promotes the development of current techniques for early cancer screening and clinical diagnosis.