FUNCTIONALIZED SUB-10 NM SILICA METHYLENE BLUE NANOPHOTOSENSITIZERS

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) presents an alternative non-invasive therapeutic modality for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. PDT relies on cytotoxic singlet oxygen that is locally generated through energy transfer between a photosensitizer and molecularly dissolved triplet oxygen. To minimize side-effects, i.e. damage of healthy tissue, targeted delivery to places of disease, high local photosensitizer concentrations, high singlet oxygen quantum yield, and rapid post-treatment clearance of photosensitizers are desired. Ultrasmall (sub-10 nm) organic-inorganic hybrid silica nanoparticles loaded with photosensitizer molecules, referred to as silica nanophotosensitizers (SNPSs), present a way to meet these requirements. Here, we investigate two different particle designs of ultrasmall poly(ethylene glycol) coated (PEGylated) SNPSs covalently binding the methylene blue derivate MB2. In the first approach (design one), MB2 is encapsulated into the silica matrix, while in the second approach (design two), MB2 is grafted on the particle surface in between chains of the stabilizing PEG corona. We compare both cases with regard to their singlet oxygen quantum yields, ΦΔ, with the effective ΦΔeff per particle reaching 111% and 161% for design one and two, respectively. Finally, we show that both particle designs allow functionalization with a targeting peptide, c(RGDyC), rendering SNPSs a promising platform for medical applications

傾斜した亀裂内でビンガム流体状グラウトの流れモデル

In accordance with the Navier-Stokes equation between planar plates, the equation of motion of the Binghamian grouts is deduced in smooth and inclined fissures. The model indicates that the velocity of flow gradually reduce with the development of time. And the greater the pressure is, the greater the speed is, as a result, the Binghamian grouts has a further infiltration. The velocity of flow of Binghamian grouts has nothing to do with fissure inclination. In addition, in the circumstance of the same parameters, the wider the fissure is, the slower the velocity of flow of Binghamian grouts is; the bigger the viscosity of grouts is, the slower the flow is; the smaller the initial shear strength is, the slower the flow is; the bigger the Binghamian grouts density is, the slower the flow is; and vice versa.特集 : 「資源、新エネルギー、環境、防災研究国際セミナー

Identification of new biomarkers and immune infiltration characteristics of sepsis in very low birth weight infants

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition, especially in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants, and its pathogenesis remains unclear. Effective biomarkers need to be found to diagnose and treat the disease at an early stage. The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database was screened and analyzed for differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in VLBW infants with sepsis. DEGs were then analyzed for functional enrichment. A weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WCGNA) was performed to identify the key modules and genes. The optimal feature genes (OFGs) were created using three machine learning algorithms. The single-sample Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (ssGSEA) scored the degree of immune cell enrichment between septic and control patients, and the correlation between OFGs and immune cells was evaluated. A total of 101 DEGs were identified between the sepsis and control samples. DEGs were mainly associated with immune responses and inflammatory signaling pathways in the enrichment analysis. In the WGCNA analysis, the MEturquoise module was significantly correlated with sepsis in VLBW infants (cor = 0.57, P < 0.001). By intersecting OFGs derived from three machine learning algorithms, two biomarkers were identified: glycogenin 1 (GYG1) and resistin (RETN). The area under the curves of GYG1 and RETN was greater than 0.97 in the testing set. The ssGSEA indicated immune cells infiltration in septic VLBW infants, and GYG1 and RETN revealed close correlations with immune cells. New biomarkers offer promising insights into the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis in VLBW infants

Single Fasting Plasma Glucose Versus 75-g Oral Glucose-Tolerance Test in Prediction of Adverse Perinatal Outcomes::A Cohort Study

Background: There remains uncertainty regarding whether a single fasting glucose measurement is sufficient to predict risk of adverse perinatal outcomes. Methods: We included 12,594 pregnant women who underwent a 75-g oral glucose-tolerance test (OGTT) at 22–28 weeks' gestation in the Born in Guangzhou Cohort Study, China. Outcomes were large for gestational age (LGA) baby, cesarean section, and spontaneous preterm birth. We calculated the area under the receiver operator characteristic curves (AUCs) to assess the capacity of OGTT glucose values to predict adverse outcomes, and compared the AUCs of different components of OGTT. Results: 1325 women had a LGA baby (10.5%). Glucose measurements were linearly associated with LGA, with strongest associations for fasting glucose (odds ratio 1.37, 95% confidence interval 1.30–1.45). Weaker associations were observed for cesarean section and spontaneous preterm birth. Fasting glucose have a comparable discriminative power for prediction of LGA to the combination of fasting, 1 h, and 2 h glucose values during OGTT (AUCs, 0.611 vs. 0.614, P = 0.166). The LGA risk was consistently increased in women with abnormal fasting glucose (≥5.1 mmol/l), irrespective of 1 h or 2 h glucose levels. Conclusions: A single fasting glucose measurement performs comparably to 75-g OGTT in predicting risk of having a LGA baby

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Influence of Interfacial Debonding on Mechanical Responses of Magnetorheological Elastomers

Magneto-Rheological Elastomers (MREs) are smart materials whose mechanical properties can be altered by external magnetic fields rapidly and reversibly. In this thesis, the large-strain behavior of MREs was studied by nonlinear finite element simulations under uniaxial tension and pure shear deformation. A modeling approach has been employed to investigate the mechanical behavior of silicone-rubber based MREs. Mooney-Rivlin model was used to simulate the mechanical response of matrix. Cohesive-zone model depending on the assumption of rubber-iron adhesion energy was used to define interface properties between particles and matrix. All types of models showed strongly non-linear stress-strain behavior. The simulation results agreed well with the experiments carried out by other researchers. Parametric studies were created to analyze the impacts of particle fraction, interface adhesion and microstructures in composite on the mechanical response of MREs models. Simulations outlined the influence of interface adhesionon the mechanical properties of MREs, which was more obvious in the case of higher particle volume fraction. Anisotropic Representative Volume Element (RVE) models revealed that the increase stiffness response due to the enhancement of chain-like particle alignment structures

Unpacking "the west": Divergence and Asymmetry in Chinese Public Attitudes towards Europe and the United States

Journal of Current Chinese Affair

The effect on twinning rate of transferring double vitrified-warmed embryos in women of advanced reproductive age: a retrospective study

Twin pregnancies are associated with greater risk of neonatal morbidity and mortality than a singleton. This study was performed to investigate the twin pregnancy rate when two vitrified-warmed embryos are transferred in women of advanced reproductive age (≥35 years at the time of oocyte retrieval) and to evaluate the implications of findings in selecting candidates for elective single embryo transfer (eSET). A retrospective analysis of data which included 2,038 women aged 35–45 years, who underwent vitrified-warmed double embryo transfer (DET), from January 2013 to December 2016 was undertaken. Pregnancy and twin rates were estimated after stratifying by prognostic profile. The twin pregnancy rate was lower in women with poor prognosis (12/96, 12.5%) as compared with that in women with favorable prognosis (102/374, 27.3%) and average prognosis (78/346, 22.5%) with significant differences (P 40 years. The twin rate for women with average prognosis was 25.8% (51/198) in the cycles of women aged 35–37 years, 22.0% (22/100) in the cycles of women aged 38–40 years and 10.4% (5/48) in the cycles of women >40 years. The twin rate for women with poor prognosis was 15.3% (9/59) in the cycles of women aged 35–37 years, 10.3% (3/29) in the cycles of women aged 38–40 years and 0% (0/8) in the cycles of women >40 years. From these results, it was concluded that women with a favorable or average prognosis have a high risk of twin pregnancies. The finding can be used to guide future practice: that is, performing eSET in women with favorable or average prognosis and DET in women with poor prognosis

Chinese Public Opinion about US-China Relations from Trump to Biden

Chinese Journal of International Politic