Bimetallic NiCo Nanoparticles Embedded in Organic Group Functionalized Mesoporous Silica for Efficient Hydrogen Production from Ammonia Borane Hydrolysis.

In this study, bimetallic NiCo nanoparticles (NPs) were encapsulated within the mesopores of carboxylic acid functionalized mesoporous silica (CMS) through the chemical reduction approach. Both NaBH and NHBH were used as reducing agents to reduce the metal ions simultaneously. The resulting composite was used as a catalyst for hydrolysis of ammonia borane (NHBH, AB) to produce H.

Targeted and Oxygen-Enriched Nanoplatform for Enhanced Photodynamic Therapy: In Vitro 2D Cell and 3D Spheroid Model Evaluation.

Hypoxic microenvironment and limited penetration of photosensitizers within solid tumors are two crucial factors that restrict photodynamic therapy (PDT) efficacy. Herein, a new fluorinated mixed micelle (M60@PFC-Ce6) is developed as a tumor-penetrating and oxygen-enriching nanoplatform, which consists of chlorin e6 (Ce6) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs) co-loaded into fluorinated micelles to relieve hypoxia conditions as well as folate as targeting ligand that facilitates the selective biodistribution within tumor solids. The incorporation of fluorinated copolymers into mixed micelles exhibits not only a great increase in the oxygen-loading capacity, but also improves the stability of liquid PFCs emulsion within micelles without leakage.

Circular RNAs Modulate Cancer Hallmark and Molecular Pathways to Support Cancer Progression and Metastasis.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are noncoding products of backsplicing of pre-mRNAs which have been established to possess potent biological functions. Dysregulated circRNA expression has been linked to diseases including different types of cancer. Cancer progression is known to result from the dysregulation of several molecular mechanisms responsible for the maintenance of cellular and tissue homeostasis.

Targeted and oxygen-enriched polymeric micelles for enhancing photodynamic therapy.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has been emerged as an alternative therapeutic modality in treatment of several malignant tumors. However, the therapeutic efficacy of PDT is often limited by the solubility of photosensitizers, tumor hypoxia and lack of target specificity to cancer cells. In this study, we developed a folate-conjugated fluorinated polymeric micelle (PFFA) to deliver the hydrophobic photosensitizer (chlorin e6, Ce6) to overcome these limitations.

Improving Individual Brain Age Prediction Using an Ensemble Deep Learning Framework.

Brain age is an imaging-based biomarker with excellent feasibility for characterizing individual brain health and may serve as a single quantitative index for clinical and domain-specific usage. Brain age has been successfully estimated using extensive neuroimaging data from healthy participants with various feature extraction and conventional machine learning (ML) approaches. Recently, several end-to-end deep learning (DL) analytical frameworks have been proposed as alternative approaches to predict individual brain age with higher accuracy.

Equipment Anomaly Detection for Semiconductor Manufacturing by Exploiting Unsupervised Learning from Sensory Data.

In-line anomaly detection (AD) not only identifies the needs for semiconductor equipment maintenance but also indicates potential line yield problems. Prompt AD based on available equipment sensory data (ESD) facilitates proactive yield and operations management. However, ESD items are highly diversified and drastically scale up along with the increased use of sensors.

Effect of class-based lifestyle intervention on the management of childhood obesity.

Objectives: Childhood obesity is prevalent in southern Taiwan and lifestyle interventions for the management of childhood obesity are challenging. How to overcome the barriers of implementation programs is crucial. We offered lunchtime education and integrated it into education programs.

Adapting and validating a developmental assessment for chinese infants and toddlers: The ages & stages questionnaires: Inventory.

The Chinese government has announced the 2013 Guidelines for developing a national system for early detection of disability among children under 6 years of age. However, given limited resources, challenges exist with developmental measures required in the 2013 Guidelines. In order to meet the needs for a more accurate and cost-efficient measure for developmental assessment, the Ages & Stages Questionnaires: Inventory (ASQ:I) was translated into Simplified Chinese, and validated on a regional sample of 812 Chinese children ages from 1 to 25 months.

Symptoms Relevant to Surveillance for Ovarian Cancer.

To examine how frequently and confidently healthy women report symptoms during surveillance for ovarian cancer. A symptoms questionnaire was administered to 24,526 women over multiple visits accounting for 70,734 reports. A query of reported confidence was included as a confidence score (CS).

ADAPTING A PARENT-COMPLETED, SOCIOEMOTIONAL QUESTIONNAIRE IN CHINA: THE AGES & STAGES QUESTIONNAIRES: SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL.

The Ages & Stages Questionnaire: Social-Emotional (ASQ:SE; Squires, Bricker, & Twombly, 2002a), developed in the United States, was translated and adapted for use in China. Lack of valid and reliable instruments for identifying social and emotional delays in young children is a worldwide issue. Professionals in China have recently focused efforts on developing methods for early identification of social, emotional, and behavioral issues in the birth-to-5 population.

Short-range plasmonic nanofocusing within submicron regimes facilitates in situ probing and promoting of interfacial reactions.

In this study, a simple configuration, based on high-index dielectric nanoparticles (NPs) and plasmonic nanostructures, is employed for the nanofocusing of submicron-short-range surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). The excited SPPs are locally bound and focused at the interface between the dielectric NPs and the underlying metallic nanostructures, thereby greatly enhancing the local electromagnetic field. Taking advantage of the surface properties of the dielectric NPs, this system performs various functions.

Astronomical liquid mirrors as highly ultrasensitive, broadband-operational surface-enhanced Raman scattering-active substrates.

In this study, we found that an astronomical liquid mirror can be prepared as a highly ultrasensitive, low-cost, highly reproducible, broadband-operational surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active substrate. Astronomical liquid mirrors are highly specularly reflective because of their perfectly dense-packed silver nanoparticles; they possess a large number and high density of hot spots that experience a very high intensity electric field, resulting in excellent SERS performance. When using the liquid mirror-based SERS-active substrate to detect 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP), we obtained measured analytical enhancement factors (AEFs) of up to 2.

White-Light-Induced Collective Heating of Gold Nanocomposite/Bombyx mori Silk Thin Films with Ultrahigh Broadband Absorbance.

This paper describes a systematic investigation of the phenomenon of white-light-induced heating in silk fibroin films embedded with gold nanoparticles (Au NPs). The Au NPs functioned to develop an ultrahigh broadband absorber, allowing white light to be used as a source for photothermal generation. With an increase of the Au content in the composite films, the absorbance was enhanced significantly around the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) wavelength, while non-LSPR wavelengths were also increased dramatically.

CHD1L Regulated PARP1-Driven Pluripotency and Chromatin Remodeling During the Early-Stage Cell Reprogramming.

PARP1 and poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation (PARylation) have been shown to be essential for the initial steps of cellular reprogramming. However, the mechanism underlying PARP1/PARylation-regulated activation of pluripotency loci remains undetermined. Here, we demonstrate that CHD1L, a DNA helicase, possesses chromatin remodeling activity and interacts with PARP1/PARylation in regulating pluripotency during reprogramming.

Romantic Story or Raman Scattering? Rose Petals as Ecofriendly, Low-Cost Substrates for Ultrasensitive Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering.

In this Article, we present a facile approach for the preparation of ecofriendly substrates, based on common rose petals, for ultrasensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The hydrophobic concentrating effect of the rose petals allows us to concentrate metal nanoparticle (NP) aggregates and analytes onto their surfaces. From a systematic investigation of the SERS performance when using upper and lower epidermises as substrates, we find that the lower epidermis, with its quasi-three-dimensional (quasi-3D) nanofold structure, is the superior biotemplate for SERS applications.

Transparent, broadband, flexible, and bifacial-operable photodetectors containing a large-area graphene-gold oxide heterojunction.

In this study, we combine graphene with gold oxide (AuOx), a transparent and high-work-function electrode material, to achieve a high-efficient, low-bias, large-area, flexible, transparent, broadband, and bifacial-operable photodetector. The photodetector operates through hot electrons being generated in the graphene and charge separation occurring at the AuOx-graphene heterojunction. The large-area graphene covering the AuOx electrode efficiently prevented reduction of its surface; it also acted as a square-centimeter-scale active area for light harvesting and photodetection.

Incident angle-tuned, broadband, ultrahigh-sensitivity plasmonic antennas prepared from nanoparticles on imprinted mirrors.

We have used a direct imprint-in-metal method that is cheap and rapid to prepare incident angle-tuned, broadband, ultrahigh-sensitivity plasmonic antennas from nanoparticles (NPs) and imprinted metal mirrors. By changing the angle of incidence, the nanoparticle-imprinted mirror antennas (NIMAs) exhibited broadband electromagnetic enhancement from the visible to the near-infrared (NIR) regime, making them suitable for use as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-active substrates. Unlike other SERS-active substrates that feature various structures with different periods or morphologies, the NIMAs achieved broadband electromagnetic enhancement from single configurations.

Single-shot laser treatment provides quasi-three-dimensional paper-based substrates for SERS with attomolar sensitivity.

In this study, an eco-friendly and ultrasensitive paper substrate is developed for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with performance approaching single molecule detection. By exploiting the laser-induced photothermal effect, paper fibrils with hybrid micro- and nanostructures can facilitate the formation of highly dense metal nanoparticles (NPs) after a single shot of laser illumination. Metal films deposited on the paper substrates feature discontinuous morphologies, with the fragments acting as multiple nucleation sites.

Plasmonic nanoparticle-film calipers for rapid and ultrasensitive dimensional and refractometric detection.

In this study, we develop an ultrasensitive nanoparticle (NP)-film caliper that functions with high resolution (angstrom scale) in response to both the dimensions and refractive index of the spacer sandwiched between the NPs and the film. The anisotropy of the plasmonic gap mode in the NP-film caliper can be characterized readily using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE) without the need for further optical modeling. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to report the use of SE to study the plasmonic gap modes in NP-film calipers and to demonstrate that SE is a robust and convenient method for analyzing NP-film calipers.

Nondestructive characterization of the structural quality and thickness of large-area graphene on various substrates.

We demonstrate an inspection technique, based on only one ellipsometric parameter, Ψ, of spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), for the rapid, simultaneous identification of both the structural quality and thicknesses of large-area graphene films. The measured Ψ spectra are strongly affected by changes in the out-of-plane absorption coefficients (αTM); they are also correlated to the ratio of the intensities of the D and G bands in Raman spectra of graphene films. In addition, the electronic transition state of graphene within the UV regime assists the characterization of the structural quality.

Highly reflective liquid mirrors: exploring the effects of localized surface plasmon resonance and the arrangement of nanoparticles on metal liquid-like films.

In this paper, we describe a high-reflectance liquid mirror prepared from densely packed silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) of two different sizes. We controlled the particle size during the synthetic process by controlling the temperature. Varying the concentration of the ligand also allowed us to optimize the arrangement of the AgNPs to achieve liquid mirrors exhibiting high specular reflectance.

Silicon-based broadband antenna for high responsivity and polarization-insensitive photodetection at telecommunication wavelengths.

Although the concept of using local surface plasmon resonance based nanoantenna for photodetection well below the semiconductor band edge has been demonstrated previously, the nature of local surface plasmon resonance based devices cannot meet many requirements of photodetection applications. Here we propose the concept of deep-trench/thin-metal (DTTM) active antenna that take advantage of surface plasmon resonance phenomena, three-dimensional cavity effects, and large-area metal/semiconductor junctions to effectively generate and collect hot electrons arising from plasmon decay and, thereby, increase photocurrent. The DTTM-based devices exhibited superior photoelectron conversion ability and high degrees of detection linearity under infrared light of both low and high intensity.

Laser-induced jets of nanoparticles: exploiting air drag forces to select the particle size of nanoparticle arrays.

In this study, we developed a new method-based on laser-induced jets of nanoparticles (NPs) and air drag forces-to select the particle size of NP arrays. First, the incident wavelength of an excimer laser was varied to ensure good photo-to-thermal energy conversion efficiency. We then exploited air drag forces to select NPs with sizes ranging from 5 to 50 nm at different captured distances.

Ultralow reflection from a-Si nanograss/Si nanofrustum double layers.

A double-layer nanostructure comprising amorphous Si nanograss on top of Si nanofrustums (NFs) with a total height of 680 nm exhibits ultralow reflection. Almost near-unity absorption and near-zero reflectance result in this layered nanostructure, over a broad range of wavelengths and a wide range of angles of incidence, due to the low packing density of a-Si and the smooth transition of the refractive index from the air to the Si substrate across both the nanograss and NF layers.