The synthesis and characterization of phosphonic acids for the surface modification study on indium tin oxide

The synthesis and characterization of some phosphonic acids as well as the modification of indium tin oxide (ITO) substrates using these phosphonic acids are presented in this thesis. Phosphonic acids have been known to bind strongly to the surface of a number of metal oxides. ITO substrates were reported to be modified with a variety of surface modifiers. Herein the ITO substrates were modified with the chosen phosphonic acids with different functional groups in order to tune the work function and compare the work function changes with the functional group properties.MSCommittee Chair: Guanhua Feng; Committee Member: Jean-Luc Br¨¦das; Committee Member: Joseph Perr

Complex absorbing potential based Lorentzian fitting scheme and time dependent quantum transport

Based on the complex absorbing potential (CAP) method, a Lorentzian expansion scheme is developed to express the self-energy. The CAP-based Lorentzian expansion of self-energy is employed to solve efficiently the Liouville-von Neumann equation of one-electron density matrix. The resulting method is applicable for both tight-binding and first-principles models, and is used to simulate the transient currents through graphene nanoribbons and a benzene molecule sandwiched between two carbon-atom-chains.Comment: This paper is about a methodology development on the time dependent quantum transport theory. It has 22 pages and 6 figure

Intracavity biosensor based on the Nd:YAG waveguide laser: tumor cells and dextrose solutions

[EN]This work demonstrates the Nd:YAG waveguide laser as an efficient platform for the bio-sensing of dextrose solutions and tumor cells. The waveguide was fabricated in an Nd:YAG crystal with the cooperation of ultrafast laser writing and ion irradiation. The laser oscillation in the Nd:YAG waveguide is ultrasensitive to the external environment of the waveguide. Even a weak disturbance leads to a large variation of the output power of the laser. According to this feature, an Nd:YAG waveguide coated with graphene and WSe2 layers is used as substrate for the microfluidic channel. When the microflow crosses the Nd:YAG waveguide, the laser oscillation in the waveguide is disturbed and induces fluctuation of the output laser. According to the fluctuation, the microflow is detected with a sensitivity of 10 mW/RIU.National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (11535008, 11775136); Young Scholars Program of Shandong University (SDU) (2015WLJH20)

Small sized EGFR1 and HER2 specific bifunctional antibody for targeted cancer therapy

licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). Reproduction is permitted for personal, noncommercial use, provided that the article is in whole, unmodified, and properly cited. Received: 2014.07.10; Accepted: 2015.01.05; Published: 2015.01.21 Targeting tumors using miniature antibodies is a novel and attractive therapeutic approach, as these biomolecules exhibit low immunogenicity, rapid clearance, and high targeting specificity. However, most of the small-sized antibodies in existence do not exhibit marked anti-tumor ef-fects, which limit their use in targeted cancer immunotherapy. To overcome this difficulty in targeting multiple biomarkers by combination therapies, we designed a new bifunctional antibody, named MaAbNA (multivalent antibody comprised of nanobody and affibody moieties), capable of targeting EGFR1 and HER2, which are widely overexpressed in a variety of tumor types. The small-sized (29 kDa) MaAbNA, which was expressed in E.coli, consists of one anti-EGFR1 nano-body and two anti-HER2 affibodies, and possesses high affinity (KD) for EGFR1 (~4.1 nM) and HER2 (~4.7 nM). In order to enhance its anti-tumor activity, MaAbNA was conjugated with adriamycin (ADM) using a PEG2000 linker, forming a new complex anticancer drug, MaAbNA-PEG2000-ADM. MaAbNA exhibited high inhibitory effects on tumor cell

ZeRO++: Extremely Efficient Collective Communication for Giant Model Training

Zero Redundancy Optimizer (ZeRO) has been used to train a wide range of large language models on massive GPUs clusters due to its ease of use, efficiency, and good scalability. However, when training on low-bandwidth clusters, or at scale which forces batch size per GPU to be small, ZeRO's effective throughput is limited because of high communication volume from gathering weights in forward pass, backward pass, and averaging gradients. This paper introduces three communication volume reduction techniques, which we collectively refer to as ZeRO++, targeting each of the communication collectives in ZeRO. First is block-quantization based all-gather. Second is data remapping that trades-off communication for more memory. Third is a novel all-to-all based quantized gradient averaging paradigm as replacement of reduce-scatter collective, which preserves accuracy despite communicating low precision data. Collectively, ZeRO++ reduces communication volume of ZeRO by 4x, enabling up to 2.16x better throughput at 384 GPU scale.Comment: 12 page

Moxibustion Activates Macrophage Autophagy and Protects Experimental Mice against Bacterial Infection

Moxibustion is one of main therapies in traditional Chinese medicine and uses heat stimulation on the body surface from the burning of moxa to release pain or treat diseases. Emerging studies have shown that moxibustion can generate therapeutic effects by activating a series of signaling pathways and neuroendocrine-immune activities. Here we show moxibustion promoted profound macrophage autophagy in experimental Kunming mice, with reduced Akt phosphorylation and activated eIF2α phosphorylation. Consequently, moxibustion promoted bacterial clearance by macrophages and protected mice from mortality due to bacterial infection. These results indicate that moxibustion generates a protective response by activating autophagy against bacterial infections

Case report: A rare case of left ventricular noncompaction in two Chinese siblings with becker muscular dystrophy caused by deletion of exons 10 to 12 in the DMD gene

BackgroundBecker muscular dystrophy (BMD) is an inherited X-linked recessive condition resulting from mutations of the DMD gene encoding dystrophin. Left ventricular noncompaction (LVNC) is a rare cardiomyopathy morphologically characterized by abnormal myocardial trabeculae and deep recesses in the left ventricle. LVNC in BMD patients has only rarely been reported.Case reportIn the present study, we identified a deletion mutation in exons 10 to 12 (EX10_12 del) of the DMD gene (reference sequence NM_004006.2) in two Chinese siblings with BMD and LVNC by high throughput targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The proband was a 22-year-old man admitted with dyspnea, abdominal distention, and polyserositis. It is noteworthy that both the proband and his younger brother manifested progressive muscular atrophy and creatine kinase (CK) elevation. Light and electron microscopy examination of muscle biopsies showed the typical features of dystrophinopathies. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and echocardiography demonstrated that both brothers had an enlarged left ventricle, LVNC, and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction. Finally, the proband underwent heart transplantation at age 26 with an event-free follow-up over 4 years post-transplantation.ConclusionThis case further enriches our knowledge of the symptoms, genotype, cardiac performance, management, and prognosis of BMD patients complicated by LVNC. It is recommended that early comprehensive cardiac evaluation should be considered for patients with BMD to exclude LVNC, as this may have a significant impact on their prognosis