Impacts of Surface Depletion on the Plasmonic Properties of Doped Semiconductor Nanocrystals

Degenerately doped semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) exhibit a localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike metals, semiconductor NCs offer tunable LSPR characteristics enabled by doping, or via electrochemical or photochemical charging. Tuning plasmonic properties through carrier density modulation suggests potential applications in smart optoelectronics, catalysis, and sensing. Here, we elucidate fundamental aspects of LSPR modulation through dynamic carrier density tuning in Sn-doped Indium Oxide NCs. Monodisperse Sn-doped Indium Oxide NCs with various doping level and sizes were synthesized and assembled in uniform films. NC films were then charged in an in situ electrochemical cell and the LSPR modulation spectra were monitored. Based on spectral shifts and intensity modulation of the LSPR, combined with optical modeling, it was found that often-neglected semiconductor properties, specifically band structure modification due to doping and surface states, strongly affect LSPR modulation. Fermi level pinning by surface defect states creates a surface depletion layer that alters the LSPR properties; it determines the extent of LSPR frequency modulation, diminishes the expected near field enhancement, and strongly reduces sensitivity of the LSPR to the surroundings

Representing anxious parents in China: a study of ‘Parenting Science’ magazine 1980-2016

This paper analyses the representation of parental practices in Parenting Science, the first and longest running parenting magazine published in China since 1980. Drawing on Foucault’s work on governmentality and biopolitics as well as their current development in cultural studies and sociology of health, this paper critically investigates the cultural frames that surround parental practices relating to the health and development of young children. It explores how issues of medicalisation, intensive parenting, responsibility and selfmanagement are represented in the magazine, ‘reflecting’ as well as ‘reinforcing’ dominant cultural ideas of parenting and childrearing in China. Based on a qualitative content analysis of 2,295 items from 37 issues of the magazine (1980-2016), including editorials, feature stories, standard articles, Q&As, adverts and other short items, this paper has identified three major frames of parental practices in monitoring and facilitating children’s health, development and wellbeing: 1) the medicalisation of children’s health problems, 2) the rise of expert authority, 3) and the responsibilisation of parents. This paper argues that these frames underpin the construction of an intensive and anxious parenting culture in China and serve as powerful tools of biopolitical control

Communicating risk and protection: advertising discourse of young children’s healthcare products and parental reception in China

This article analyses the representation and reception of the advertising of children’s healthcare products in Chinese television. It engages with the concept of risk to analyse the representation of a coherent narrative of young children’s health-related risks comprising messages of environment, nature, nutrition and science. Within the narrative, interconnected risks – risks of everyday living, risks of environment pollution, risk of malnutrition – as well as a wider discourse of ‘risk and protection’ are constructed. This article also analyses parents’ reception of the discourse and their responses to perceived and real health risks contextualised in a neoliberal system marked by medicalised children’s healthcare and ‘truncated’ civic rights in China. This article argues that these institutional conditions reinforce the risk-centred narrative which invokes heightened parental uncertainties and anxieties about childrearing as part of the modern cultural experiences in China

Consuming Anxiety? Parenting Practices in China after the Infant Formula Scandal

This paper examines the social context and implications of the 2008 infant formula scandal in China. It argues that the crisis was precipitated by China's rapid urbanization and the growth of middle class consumption patterns as well as by a lack of effective government regulation of the supply chain. The paper uses focus group research with families in Chengdu to examine the way parenting practices changed in light of the scandal as parents switched to more expensive imported formula and came to rely on food supplies from rural friends and relatives. The paper argues that parenting practices, including infant feeding, should be understood in terms of the high rate of female labor-force participation in China (with low levels of maternity leave), the medicalization of childbirth and antenatal care, and the heavy reliance on grandparents to provide childcare for newborn babies. While parental practices have adjusted since the infant formula scandal, a range of food-related anxieties persist

‘Telling China’s Story Well’ as propaganda campaign slogan: International, domestic and the pandemic

‘Telling China’s Story Well’ as propaganda campaign slogan: International, domestic and the pandemi

Media Freedom and Responsibility in South Korea: The perceptions of journalists and politicians during the Roh Moo-hyun Presidency

This paper analyses the perceptions of media freedom and responsibility by journalists and politicians in South Korea during the Presidency of Roh Moo-huyn (2003-8). It draws on indepth interviews with ten journalists and ten politicians with different political affiliations and interests. Findings suggest that both groups had positive appraisals of the country’s media democratisation. For them the media could function as a watchdog on political power without having to fear direct political reprisals for doing so. However, the political press remained partially shackled to specific legacies and economic conditions. The most pressing example is the way the paternal power of conservative media owners challenged the editorial independence of journalists. While the internet media offered some hope to re-balance the power relationship between the conservative and progressive forces, the sensational and hyper-adversarial media motivated by market and political competition emerged as more worrying concerns for the consolidation of democratic political communication in post-transition South Korea. Setbacks in press freedom since 2008 have undermined some of the positive evaluations of the political communication in South Korea, suggesting that the democratic transition in this country resembles ‘a circle rather a straight line’

Feeding (On) Geopolitical Anxieties: Asian Appetites, News Media Framing and the 2007-2008 Food Crisis

This paper analyses the role of news media in (re)producing geopolitical narratives of food insecurity in relation to the 2007–2008 global food price spike. News content and textual analysis suggests that the media’s representation of the food price spike is partly framed by Western geopolitical anxieties of the ‘threatening rise of Asia’, and features ‘fast growing’ Asian appetites among the main culprits of the crisis. Seeking to explain the widespread circulation of such representation, this paper analyses media-source relationship within the context of market-driven journalism, and suggests that the changing role of news media has in turn contributed to a rapid and uncritical circulation of elite-based interpretation of, and neoliberal geopolitical approach to, food security. The paper points at the importance of critical enquiries into geopolitical representations of food insecurity and of opening media space for a ‘counter-geopolitics of food security’

Table5_Unidirectional alteration of methylation and hydroxymethylation at the promoters and differential gene expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma.XLSX

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Although overall losses of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) have been previously observed, a genome-wide, single-base-resolution, and simultaneous mapping of 5mC and 5hmC in OSCC is still unaccomplished. Similarly, the mechanism of how 5mC and 5hmC collectively lead to abnormal gene expression in OSCC is largely unexplored. Using parallel whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) and whole-genome oxidative bisulfite sequencing (oxWGBS), we characterized 5mC- and 5hmC-profiles at single-nucleotide resolution in paired primary OSCC samples and their normal adjacent tissues (NATs). We also analyzed the effect of 5mC- and 5hmC-modifications on differential gene expression in OSCC using multi-omics analysis.Results: An overall reduction of both 5mC and 5hmC in various genomic regions have been observed in OSCC samples. At promoter regions, a total of 6,921 differentially methylated regions and 1,024 differentially hydroxymethylated regions were identified in OSCC. Interestingly, compared to bidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC, unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters is associated with bigger change in the gene expression. Additionally, genes bearing unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters are enriched in signaling pathways like cell proliferation, cell differentiation, and receptor tyrosine kinase pathway that are essential for the tumorigenesis. Finally, the grouped expression signature of top 20 genes bearing promoter-unidirectional-modification with 5mC and 5hmC tends to correlate with the clinical outcome of certain subtypes of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Conclusion: Using parallel WGBS and oxWGBS analyses, we observed an overall reduction of 5mC- and 5hmC-modifications at various genomic regions in OSCC. Unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters is associated with enhanced changes in gene expression in OSCC tissues. Furthermore, such differentially expressed genes bearing unidirectional modifications with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters might have clinical relevance to the outcome of OSCC.</p

Table4_Unidirectional alteration of methylation and hydroxymethylation at the promoters and differential gene expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma.XLSX

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Although overall losses of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) have been previously observed, a genome-wide, single-base-resolution, and simultaneous mapping of 5mC and 5hmC in OSCC is still unaccomplished. Similarly, the mechanism of how 5mC and 5hmC collectively lead to abnormal gene expression in OSCC is largely unexplored. Using parallel whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) and whole-genome oxidative bisulfite sequencing (oxWGBS), we characterized 5mC- and 5hmC-profiles at single-nucleotide resolution in paired primary OSCC samples and their normal adjacent tissues (NATs). We also analyzed the effect of 5mC- and 5hmC-modifications on differential gene expression in OSCC using multi-omics analysis.Results: An overall reduction of both 5mC and 5hmC in various genomic regions have been observed in OSCC samples. At promoter regions, a total of 6,921 differentially methylated regions and 1,024 differentially hydroxymethylated regions were identified in OSCC. Interestingly, compared to bidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC, unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters is associated with bigger change in the gene expression. Additionally, genes bearing unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters are enriched in signaling pathways like cell proliferation, cell differentiation, and receptor tyrosine kinase pathway that are essential for the tumorigenesis. Finally, the grouped expression signature of top 20 genes bearing promoter-unidirectional-modification with 5mC and 5hmC tends to correlate with the clinical outcome of certain subtypes of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Conclusion: Using parallel WGBS and oxWGBS analyses, we observed an overall reduction of 5mC- and 5hmC-modifications at various genomic regions in OSCC. Unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters is associated with enhanced changes in gene expression in OSCC tissues. Furthermore, such differentially expressed genes bearing unidirectional modifications with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters might have clinical relevance to the outcome of OSCC.</p

Table3_Unidirectional alteration of methylation and hydroxymethylation at the promoters and differential gene expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma.XLSX

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Although overall losses of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) have been previously observed, a genome-wide, single-base-resolution, and simultaneous mapping of 5mC and 5hmC in OSCC is still unaccomplished. Similarly, the mechanism of how 5mC and 5hmC collectively lead to abnormal gene expression in OSCC is largely unexplored. Using parallel whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS) and whole-genome oxidative bisulfite sequencing (oxWGBS), we characterized 5mC- and 5hmC-profiles at single-nucleotide resolution in paired primary OSCC samples and their normal adjacent tissues (NATs). We also analyzed the effect of 5mC- and 5hmC-modifications on differential gene expression in OSCC using multi-omics analysis.Results: An overall reduction of both 5mC and 5hmC in various genomic regions have been observed in OSCC samples. At promoter regions, a total of 6,921 differentially methylated regions and 1,024 differentially hydroxymethylated regions were identified in OSCC. Interestingly, compared to bidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC, unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters is associated with bigger change in the gene expression. Additionally, genes bearing unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters are enriched in signaling pathways like cell proliferation, cell differentiation, and receptor tyrosine kinase pathway that are essential for the tumorigenesis. Finally, the grouped expression signature of top 20 genes bearing promoter-unidirectional-modification with 5mC and 5hmC tends to correlate with the clinical outcome of certain subtypes of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Conclusion: Using parallel WGBS and oxWGBS analyses, we observed an overall reduction of 5mC- and 5hmC-modifications at various genomic regions in OSCC. Unidirectional modification with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters is associated with enhanced changes in gene expression in OSCC tissues. Furthermore, such differentially expressed genes bearing unidirectional modifications with 5mC and 5hmC at the promoters might have clinical relevance to the outcome of OSCC.</p