Indocyanine Green Modified Silica Shells for Colon Tumor Marking

Marking of colon tumors for surgery is normally done using India ink, but it cannot be imaged below the tissue surface and there is evidence of serious complications such as abscess, intestinal perforation and inconsistency of injection. A novel infrared marker was developed using FDA approved indocyanine green (ICG) dye and ultrathin hollow silica nanoshells. Using a positively charged amine linker, ICG was non-covalently bound to the shell surface. This non-covalent attachment was shown to be stable under biological conditions. For ultra-thin wall 100 nm diameter silica shells, a bimodal ICG layer of < 3 nm was formed. Conversely, for thicker walls on 2 μm diameter silica shells, the ICG layer was only bound to the outer surface and was 6 nm thick. In vitro testing of fluorescent emission showed the particles with the thinner coating were considerably more efficient, consistent with self-quenching in the thicker ICG coatings due to formation of energy traps. Ex vivo testing showed that ICG bound to the 100 nm hollow silica shells was visible under 1.5 cm of tissue. In vivo experiments demonstrated the ability of ICG bound to 100 nm silica shells to mark tumors accurately with no diffusion in tissue and remain visible for over 12 days

Low Efficiency Upconversion Nanoparticles for High-Resolution Coalignment of Near-Infrared and Visible Light Paths on a Light Microscope

One major technical barrier in working with both NIR and visible light on an optical microscope is obtaining their precise coalignment at the imaging plane position. Current techniques require complex setups and software. Photon upconverting particles (UCPs) can bridge this gap as they are excited by NIR light but emit in the visible range. Here, two different UCPs have been identified, high-efficiency micro540-UCPs and lower efficiency nano545-UCPs are compared, and it is found that the lower efficiency nano-UCPs were superior for precise coalignment of the NIR beam with the visible light path consistent with limited particle-to-particle energy transfer, superlinear power dependence for emission, and much smaller particle size

Low Efficiency Upconversion Nanoparticles for High-Resolution Coalignment of Near-Infrared and Visible Light Paths on a Light Microscope

One major technical barrier in working with both NIR and visible light on an optical microscope is obtaining their precise coalignment at the imaging plane position. Current techniques require complex setups and software. Photon upconverting particles (UCPs) can bridge this gap as they are excited by NIR light but emit in the visible range. Here, two different UCPs have been identified, high-efficiency micro540-UCPs and lower efficiency nano545-UCPs are compared, and it is found that the lower efficiency nano-UCPs were superior for precise coalignment of the NIR beam with the visible light path consistent with limited particle-to-particle energy transfer, superlinear power dependence for emission, and much smaller particle size

Low Efficiency Upconversion Nanoparticles for High-Resolution Coalignment of Near-Infrared and Visible Light Paths on a Light Microscope

The combination of near-infrared (NIR) and visible wavelengths in light microscopy for biological studies is increasingly common. For example, many fields of biology are developing the use of NIR for optogenetics, in which an NIR laser induces a change in gene expression and/or protein function. One major technical barrier in working with both NIR and visible light on an optical microscope is obtaining their precise coalignment at the imaging plane position. Photon upconverting particles (UCPs) can bridge this gap as they are excited by NIR light but emit in the visible range via an anti-Stokes luminescence mechanism. Here, two different UCPs have been identified, high-efficiency micro540-UCPs and lower efficiency nano545-UCPs, that respond to NIR light and emit visible light with high photostability even at very high NIR power densities (>25 000 Suns). Both of these UCPs can be rapidly and reversibly excited by visible and NIR light and emit light at visible wavelengths detectable with standard emission settings used for Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), a commonly used genetically encoded fluorophore. However, the high efficiency micro540-UCPs were suboptimal for NIR and visible light coalignment, due to their larger size and spatial broadening from particle-to-particle energy transfer consistent with a long-lived excited state and saturated power dependence. In contrast, the lower efficiency nano-UCPs were superior for precise coalignment of the NIR beam with the visible light path (∼2 μm versus ∼8 μm beam broadening, respectively) consistent with limited particle-to-particle energy transfer, superlinear power dependence for emission, and much smaller particle size. Furthermore, the nano-UCPs were superior to a traditional two-camera method for NIR and visible light path alignment in an in vivo Infrared-Laser-Evoked Gene Operator (IR-LEGO) optogenetics assay in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In summary, nano-UCPs are powerful new tools for coaligning NIR and visible light paths on a light microscope

pydantic/pydantic: v2.5.2 2023-11-22

<h2>v2.5.2 (2023-11-22)</h2> <p><a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/releases/tag/v2.5.2">GitHub release</a></p> <h3>What's Changed</h3> <h4>Packaging</h4> <ul> <li>uprev <code>pydantic-core</code> to 2.14.5</li> </ul> <h4>New Features</h4> <ul> <li>Add <code>ConfigDict.ser_json_inf_nan</code> by @davidhewitt in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/pull/8159">#8159</a></li> </ul> <h4>Fixes</h4> <ul> <li>Fix validation of <code>Literal</code> from JSON keys when used as <code>dict</code> key by @sydney-runkle in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic-core/pull/1075">pydantic/pydantic-core#1075</a></li> <li>Fix bug re <code>custom_init</code> on members of <code>Union</code> by @sydney-runkle in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic-core/pull/1076">pydantic/pydantic-core#1076</a></li> <li>Fix <code>JsonValue</code> <code>bool</code> serialization by @sydney-runkle in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/pull/8159">#8190</a></li> <li>Fix handling of unhashable inputs with <code>Literal</code> in <code>Union</code>s by @sydney-runkle in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic-core/pull/1089">pydantic/pydantic-core#1089</a></li> </ul> <p>https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/compare/v2.5.1...v2.5.2/</p&gt

pydantic/pydantic: v2.5.1 2023-11-15

<h2>v2.5.1 (2023-11-15)</h2> <p><a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/releases/tag/v2.5.1">GitHub release</a></p> <h3>What's Changed</h3> <h4>Packaging</h4> <ul> <li>uprev pydantic-core to 2.14.3 by @samuelcolvin in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/pull/8120">#8120</a></li> </ul> <h4>Fixes</h4> <ul> <li>Fix package description limit by @dmontagu in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/pull/8097">#8097</a></li> <li>Fix <code>ValidateCallWrapper</code> error when creating a model which has a @validate_call wrapped field annotation by @sydney-runkle in <a href="https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/pull/8110">#8110</a></li> </ul> <p>Full Changelog: https://github.com/pydantic/pydantic/compare/v2.5.0...v2.5.1/</p&gt

geopandas/geopandas: v0.14.0

Python tools for geographic dat

Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo

Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are monitoring the sky and collecting gravitational-wave strain data with sufficient sensitivity to detect signals routinely. In this paper we describe the data recorded by these instruments during their first and second observing runs. The main data products are gravitational-wave strain time series sampled at 16384 Hz. The datasets that include this strain measurement can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at http://gw-openscience.org, together with data-quality information essential for the analysis of LIGO and Virgo data, documentation, tutorials, and supporting software