Rock-salt SnS and SnSe: Native Topological Crystalline Insulators

Unlike time-reversal topological insulators, surface metallic states with Dirac cone dispersion in the recently discovered topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) are protected by crystal symmetry. To date, TCI behaviors have been observed in SnTe and the related alloys Pb$_{1-x}$Sn$_{x}$Se/Te, which incorporate heavy elements with large spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Here, by combining first-principles and {\it ab initio} tight-binding calculations, we report the formation of a TCI in the relatively lighter rock-salt SnS and SnSe. This TCI is characterized by an even number of Dirac cones at the high-symmetry (001), (110) and (111) surfaces, which are protected by the reflection symmetry with respect to the ($\bar{1}$10) mirror plane. We find that both SnS and SnSe have an intrinsically inverted band structure and the SOC is necessary only to open the bulk band gap. The bulk band gap evolution upon volume expansion reveals a topological transition from an ambient pressure TCI to a topologically trivial insulator. Our results indicate that the SOC alone is not sufficient to drive the topological transition.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Experimental study on Shear capacity of cementitious composite RPC Beams using high strength steel

Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) is a special concrete where the microstructure is optimized by precise gradation of all particles in the mix to yield maximum density. Therefore, Reactive Powder Concrete exhibits ultra-high strength and durability. The high strength reinforcement (HSR) has high strength and good plastic deformation properties. The combination of RPC and high strength reinforcement can fully exploit their respective advantages. At present, there is little research on shear capacity of HSR reinforced RPC concrete beams, neither are design guidelines for this type of structure. Therefore, it is imperative to make detailed investigations on the shear capacity of this type of concrete. In this paper, thirty-two full scale shear tests of high strength steel reinforced RPC beams were carried out. The parameters affecting the shear capacity of this type of structures were studied, the major failure modes of this type structure due to shear are identified

Dual fluorescence from aqueous 1-naphthylamine solutions of high pH - Excited-state acidic dissociation of naphthylamine

Dual fluorescence at ca. 447 nm and 545 nm was observed from the aqueous 1-naphthylamine (NA) solutions at pH higher than 13.6. Similar dual fluorescence was also found with sodium 1-naphthylaminoacetate(NAA), but not with N, N-disubstituted 1-aminonaphthalenes such as sodium 1-naphthylaminodiacetate (NADA) and 1-dimethylaminonaphthalene (DMAN). No change in absorption spectra of NA and NAA was observed in this pH region. It was proposed that the dual fluorescence observed with NA and NAA was due to the excited state dissociation of the primary and secondary amines at high pH. From the dual fluorescence intensity ratio pH titration curve, the pK(a)(.)'s of NA and NAA were estimated to be between 14 and 15 which are much lower than the ground state pK(a). The novel approach is such a simple, convenient and frequent analysis technique that it can be widely used in detecting the substitutional derivatives of aminonaphthalene

Assessing the Quality of Reports about Randomized Controlled Trials of Acupuncture Treatment on Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the reports' qualities which are about randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture treatment on Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy (DPN). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Eight databases including The Cochrane Library(1993-Sept.,2011), PubMed (1980-Sept., 2011), EMbase (1980-Sept.,2011), SCI Expanded (1998-Sept.,2011), China Biomedicine Database Disc (CBMdisc, 1978-Sept., 2011), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, 1979-Sept., 2011 ), VIP (a full text issues database of China, 1989-Sept., 2011), Wan Fang (another full text issues database of China 1998-Sept., 2011) were searched systematically. Hand search for further references was conducted. Language was limited to Chinese and English. We identified 75 RCTs that used acupuncture as an intervention and assessed the quality of these reports with the Consolidated Standards for Reporting of Trials statement 2010 (CONSORT2010) and Standards for Reporting Interventions Controlled Trials of Acupuncture 2010(STRICTA2010). 24 articles (32%) applied the method of random allocation of sequences. No article gave the description of the mechanism of allocation concealment, no experiment applied the method of blinding. Only one article (1.47%) could be identified directly from its title as about the Randomized Controlled Trials, and only 4 articles gave description of the experimental design. No article mentioned the number of cases lost or eliminated. During one experiment, acupuncture syncope led to temporal interruption of the therapy. Two articles (2.94%) recorded the number of needles, and 8 articles (11.76%) mentioned the depth of needle insertion. None of articles reported the base of calculation of sample size, or has any analysis about the metaphase of an experiment or an explanation of its interruption. One (1.47%) mentioned intentional analysis (ITT). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The quality of the reports on RCTs of acupuncture for Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy is moderate to low. The CONSORT2010 and STRICTA2010 should be used to standardize the reporting of RCTs of acupuncture in future

Silver nanowire-based transparent, flexible, and conductive thin film

The fabrication of transparent, conductive, and uniform silver nanowire films using the scalable rod-coating technique is described in this study. Properties of the transparent conductive thin films are investigated, as well as the approaches to improve the performance of transparent silver nanowire electrodes. It is found that silver nanowires are oxidized during the coating process. Incubation in hydrogen chloride (HCl) vapor can eliminate oxidized surface, and consequently, reduce largely the resistivity of silver nanowire thin films. After HCl treatment, 175 Ω/sq and approximately 75% transmittance are achieved. The sheet resistivity drops remarkably with the rise of the film thickness or with the decrease of transparency. The thin film electrodes also demonstrated excellent flexible stability, showing < 2% resistance change after over 100 bending cycles

Vaccine Platforms Combining Circumsporozoite Protein and Potent Immune Modulators, rEA or EAT-2, Paradoxically Result in Opposing Immune Responses

Malaria greatly impacts the health and wellbeing of over half of the world's population. Promising malaria vaccine candidates have attempted to induce adaptive immune responses to Circumsporozoite (CS) protein. Despite the inclusion of potent adjuvants, these vaccines have limited protective efficacy. Conventional recombinant adenovirus (rAd) based vaccines expressing CS protein can induce CS protein specific immune responses, but these are essentially equivalent to those generated after use of the CS protein subunit based vaccines. In this study we combined the use of rAds expressing CS protein along with rAds expressing novel innate immune response modulating proteins in an attempt to significantly improve the induction of CS protein specific cell mediated immune (CMI) responses.BALB/cJ mice were co-vaccinated with a rAd vectors expressing CS protein simultaneous with a rAd expressing either TLR agonist (rEA) or SLAM receptors adaptor protein (EAT-2). Paradoxically, expression of the TLR agonist uncovered a potent immunosuppressive activity inherent to the combined expression of the CS protein and rEA. Fortunately, use of the rAd vaccine expressing EAT-2 circumvented CS protein's suppressive activity, and generated a fivefold increase in the number of CS protein responsive, IFNγ secreting splenocytes, as well as increased the breadth of T cells responsive to peptides present in the CS protein. These improvements were positively correlated with the induction of a fourfold improvement in CS protein specific CTL functional activity in vivo.Our results emphasize the need for caution when incorporating CS protein into malaria vaccine platforms expressing or containing other immunostimulatory compounds, as the immunological outcomes may be unanticipated and/or counter-productive. However, expressing the SLAM receptors derived signaling adaptor EAT-2 at the same time of vaccination with CS protein can overcome these concerns, as well as significantly improve the induction of malaria antigen specific adaptive immune responses in vivo

A web-based appointment system to reduce waiting for outpatients: A retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Long waiting times for registration to see a doctor is problematic in China, especially in tertiary hospitals. To address this issue, a web-based appointment system was developed for the Xijing hospital. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of the web-based appointment system in the registration service for outpatients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data from the web-based appointment system in Xijing hospital from January to December 2010 were collected using a stratified random sampling method, from which participants were randomly selected for a telephone interview asking for detailed information on using the system. Patients who registered through registration windows were randomly selected as a comparison group, and completed a questionnaire on-site.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 5641 patients using the online booking service were available for data analysis. Of them, 500 were randomly selected, and 369 (73.8%) completed a telephone interview. Of the 500 patients using the usual queuing method who were randomly selected for inclusion in the study, responses were obtained from 463, a response rate of 92.6%. Between the two registration methods, there were significant differences in age, degree of satisfaction, and total waiting time (<it>P </it>< 0.001). However, gender, urban residence, and valid waiting time showed no significant differences (<it>P </it>> 0.05). Being ignorant of online registration, not trusting the internet, and a lack of ability to use a computer were three main reasons given for not using the web-based appointment system. The overall proportion of non-attendance was 14.4% for those using the web-based appointment system, and the non-attendance rate was significantly different among different hospital departments, day of the week, and time of the day (<it>P </it>< 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Compared to the usual queuing method, the web-based appointment system could significantly increase patient's satisfaction with registration and reduce total waiting time effectively. However, further improvements are needed for broad use of the system.</p

Presence of Amorphous Carbon Nanoparticles in Food Caramels

We report the finding of the presence of carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) in different carbohydrate based food caramels, viz. bread, jaggery, sugar caramel, corn flakes and biscuits, where the preparation involves heating of the starting material. The CNPs were amorphous in nature; the particles were spherical having sizes in the range of 4–30 nm, depending upon the source of extraction. The results also indicated that particles formed at higher temperature were smaller than those formed at lower temperature. Excitation tuneable photoluminescence was observed for all the samples with quantum yield (QY) 1.2, 0.55 and 0.63%, for CNPs from bread, jaggery and sugar caramels respectively. The present discovery suggests potential usefulness of CNPs for various biological applications, as the sources of extraction are regular food items, some of which have been consumed by humans for centuries, and thus they can be considered as safe

Loss of heterozygosity at the ATBF1-A locus located in the 16q22 minimal region in breast cancer

Abstract Background Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) on the long arm of chromosome 16 is one of the most frequent genetic events in solid tumors. Recently, the AT-motif binding factor 1 (ATBF1)-A gene, which has been assigned to chromosome 16q22.3-23.1, was identified as a plausible candidate for tumor suppression in solid tumors due to its functional inhibition of cell proliferation and high mutation rate in prostate cancer. We previously reported that a reduction in ATBF1-A mRNA levels correlated with a worse prognosis in breast cancer. However, the mechanisms regulating the reduction of ATBF1-A mRNA levels (such as mutation, methylation in the promoter region, or deletion spanning the coding region) have not been fully examined. In addition, few studies have analyzed LOH status at the ATBF1-A locus, located in the 16q22 minimal region. Methods Profiles of ATBF1-A mRNA levels that we previously reported for 127 cases were used. In this study, breast cancer specimens as well as autologous blood samples were screened for LOH using 6 polymorphic microsatellite markers spanning chromosome band 16q22. For mutational analysis, we selected 12 cases and analyzed selected spots in the ATBF1-A coding region at which mutations have been frequently reported in prostate cancer. Results Forty-three cases that yielded clear profiles of LOH status at both D16S3106 and D16S3018 microsatellites, nearest to the location of the ATBF1-A gene, were regarded as informative and were classified into two groups: LOH (22 cases) and retention of heterozygosity (21 cases). Comparative assessment of the ATBF1-A mRNA levels according to LOH status at the ATBF1-A locus demonstrated no relationship between them. In the 12 cases screened for mutational analysis, there were no somatic mutations with amino acid substitution or frameshift; however, two germ line alterations with possible polymorphisms were observed. Conclusion These findings imply that ATBF1-A mRNA levels are regulated at the transcriptional stage, but not by genetic mechanisms, deletions (LOH), or mutations.</p

Morphology and photoluminescence study of titania nanoparticles

Titania nanoparticles are prepared by sol–gel chemistry with a poly(ethylene oxide) methyl ether methacrylate-block-poly(dimethylsiloxane)-block-poly(ethylene oxide) methyl ether methacrylate triblock copolymer acting as the templating agent. The sol–gel components—hydrochloric acid, titanium tetraisopropoxide, and triblock copolymer—are varied to investigate their effect on the resulting titania morphology. An increased titania precursor or polymer content yields smaller primary titania structures. Microbeam grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering measurements, which are analyzed with a unified fit model, reveal information about the titania structure sizes. These small structures could not be observed via the used microscopy techniques. The interplay among the sol–gel components via our triblock copolymer results in different sized titania nanoparticles with higher packing densities. Smaller sized titania particles, (∼13–20 nm in diameter) in the range of exciton diffusion length, are formed by 2% by weight polymer and show good crystallinity with less surface defects and high oxygen vacancies