Parenting and family life experiences of mothers diagnosed with schizophrenia within Chinese cultural context.

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT?: Parenting experiences are a great challenge but also a meaningful achievement for mothers diagnosed with schizophrenia (MDWSs). Most previous studies focused on the parenting experiences of Chinese mothers diagnosed with depression rather than those diagnosed with schizophrenia, who usually experience psychiatric symptoms. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: Unlike in Western society, Chinese society is characterised by a family-centred culture.

Interdisciplinary Shadowing and Case Discussion Improve Medical Students' Self-Efficacy and Attitude Toward Discharge Planning.

Background: The Discharge Planning Curriculum (DPC) is a 4-hour course for penultimate-year medical students at a tertiary teaching hospital in Taiwan. The course begins with a 30-minute introduction, followed by the students shadowing discharge planning case managers as they visit patients on the wards. After patient visits, the students engaged in a 1-hour case discussion.

Cytosolic condensates rich in polyserine define subcellular sites of tau aggregation.

Tau aggregates are a hallmark of multiple neurodegenerative diseases and can contain RNAs and RNA-binding proteins, including serine/arginine repetitive matrix protein 2 (SRRM2) and pinin (PNN). However, how these nuclear proteins mislocalize and their influence on the prion-like propagation of tau aggregates is unknown. We demonstrate that polyserine repeats in SRRM2 and PNN are necessary and sufficient for recruitment to tau aggregates.

Biomimetic Total Synthesis of the Spiroindimicin Family of Natural Products.

A unified strategy for the biomimetic total synthesis of the spiroindimicin family of natural products was reported. Key transformations include a one-pot two-enzyme-catalyzed oxidative dimerization of L-tryptophan/5-chloro-L-tryptophan to afford the bis-indole precursors chromopyrrolic acid/5',5''-dichloro-chromopyrrolic acid, and regioselective C3'-C2'' and C3'-C4'' bond formation converting a common bis-indole skeleton to two skeletally different natural products, including (±)-spiroindimicins D and G with a [5,5] spiro-ring skeleton, and (±)-spiroindimicins A and H with a [5,6] spiro-ring skeleton, respectively.

Inherently Area-Selective Atomic Layer Deposition of Manganese Oxide through Electronegativity-Induced Adsorption.

Manganese oxide (MnO) shows great potential in the areas of nano-electronics, magnetic devices and so on. Since the characteristics of precise thickness control at the atomic level and self-align lateral patterning, area-selective deposition (ASD) of the MnO films can be used in some key steps of nanomanufacturing. In this work, MnO films are deposited on Pt, Cu and SiO substrates using Mn(EtCp) and HO over a temperature range of 80-215 °C.

Galactose 1-phosphate accumulates to high levels in galactose-treated cells due to low GALT activity and absence of product inhibition of GALK.

Classic Galactosaemia is a genetic disorder, characterised by galactose intolerance in newborns. It occurs due to recessive mutations in the galactose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase (GALT) gene. One of the main alterations caused by GALT deficiency is the accumulation of galactose 1-phosphate (Gal-1P) in cells.

High-density lipoprotein ameliorates palmitic acid-induced lipotoxicity and oxidative dysfunction in H9c2 cardiomyoblast cells via ROS suppression.

Background: High levels circulating saturated fatty acids are associated with diabetes, obesity and hyperlipidemia. In heart, the accumulation of saturated fatty acids has been determined to play a role in the development of heart failure and diabetic cardiomyopathy. High-density lipoprotein (HDL) has been reported to possess key atheroprotective biological properties, including cellular cholesterol efflux capacity, anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory activities.

Design of Fe-Based Bulk Metallic Glasses with Improved Wear Resistance.

The application of bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) as advanced wear-resistant materials has remained limited despite optimistic expectations. In this work, we develop a series of novel Fe-based BMGs with improved wear resistance by altering the Cr and Mo contents in an Fe-Cr-Mo-C-B-Y glass-forming system. Experimental results demonstrate that increasing Cr and Mo contents enhance the thermal stability and hardness ( H) of the resulting BMGs without reducing their fracture toughness ( K).

Air quality monitoring using mobile microscopy and machine learning.

Rapid, accurate and high-throughput sizing and quantification of particulate matter (PM) in air is crucial for monitoring and improving air quality. In fact, particles in air with a diameter of ≤2.5 μm have been classified as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization.

Toughening Fe-based Amorphous Coatings by Reinforcement of Amorphous Carbon.

Toughening of Fe-based amorphous coatings meanwhile maintaining a good corrosion resistance remains challenging. This work reports a novel approach to improve the toughness of a FeCrMoCBY amorphous coating through in-situ formation of amorphous carbon reinforcement without reducing the corrosion resistance. The Fe-based composite coating was prepared by high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) thermal spraying using a pre-mixed Fe-based amorphous/nylon-11 polymer feedstock powders.

Protective effect of HDL on NADPH oxidase-derived super oxide anion mediates hypoxia-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death of death in Taiwan. Atherosclerosis can lead to serious problems, including heart attack, stroke, or even death. Coronary heart disease (CHD) occurs when plaque builds up in the coronary arteries to cause the ischemic heart disease which will enhance myocardial remodeling and also induce myocardial hypoxia.

A remarkable new species of Gussakovskij, 1932 (Hymenoptera: Sapygidae) from China.

A new species, Polochridium spinosum Yue, Li & Xu, sp. nov. (China: Hunan, Shaanxi, Henan), is described and illustrated.

Reciprocal activation between STAT3 and miR-181b regulates the proliferation of esophageal cancer stem-like cells via the CYLD pathway.

Background: Recent studies have suggested that cancer cells contain subpopulations that can initiate tumor growth, self-renew, and maintain tumor cell growth. However, for esophageal cancer cells, the relationship between STAT3, microRNAs and cancer stem cells remains unclear.

Methods: Serum-free culture was used to enrich esophageal cancer stem-like cells (ECSLC).

Experimental measure of transmission characteristics of low-frequency surface plasmon polaritons in frequency and time domains.

In this work, based on the use of the concept of spoof surface plasmon polaritons (spoof SPPs), we propose a novel kind of microstrips to suppress the interference between bended parallel microstrips. This novel structure is implemented by introducing subwavelength periodic structures onto the sides of a conventional microstrip. We numerically analyze the transmission characteristics of such new microstrips.

High-throughput multiphoton-induced three-dimensional ablation and imaging for biotissues.

In this study, a temporal focusing-based high-throughput multiphoton-induced ablation system with axially-resolved widefield multiphoton excitation has been successfully applied to rapidly disrupt biotissues. Experimental results demonstrate that this technique features high efficiency for achieving large-area laser ablation without causing serious photothermal damage in non-ablated regions. Furthermore, the rate of tissue processing can reach around 1.

Fabrication of three-dimensional multi-protein microstructures for cell migration and adhesion enhancement.

In this study, three-dimensional (3D) multi-component microstructures were precisely fabricated via multiphoton excited photochemistry using a femtosecond laser direct-writing system with proposed repetition positioning and vector scanning techniques. Extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, such as fibronectin (FN), are difficult to stack and form 3D structures larger than several-hundred microns in height due to the nature of their protein structure. Herein, to fabricate complex 3D microstructures with FN, a 3D scaffold was designed and formed from bovine serum albumin (BSA), after which human FN was inserted at specific locations on the BSA scaffold; in this manner, the fabricated ECM microstructure can guide cells in a 3D environment.

Graphene oxide-based micropatterns via high-throughput multiphoton-induced reduction and ablation.

In this study, a developed temporal focusing-based femtosecond laser system provides high-throughput multiphoton-induced reduction and ablation of graphene oxide (GO) films. Integrated with a digital micromirror device to locally control the laser pulse numbers, GO-based micropatterns can be quickly achieved instantly. Furthermore, the degree of reduction and ablation can be precisely adjusted via controlling the laser wavelength, power, and pulse number.

Suppressing the relaxation oscillation noise of injection-locked WRC-FPLD for directly modulated OFDM transmission.

By up-shifting the relaxation oscillation peak and suppressing its relative intensity noise in a weak-resonant-cavity Fabry-Perot laser diode (WRC-FPLD) under intense injection-locking, the directly modulated transmission of optical 16 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) data-stream is demonstrated. The total bit rate of up to 20 Gbit/s within 5-GHz bandwidth is achieved by using the OFDM subcarrier pre-leveling technique. With increasing the injection-locking power from -12 to -3 dBm, the effective reduction on threshold current of the WRC-FPLD significantly shifts its relaxation oscillation frequency from 5 to 7.

10-Gbit/s direct modulation of a TO-56-can packed 600-μm long laser diode with 2% front-facet reflectance.

A 600-μm long-cavity laser diode with a front-facet reflectance of 2% is demonstrated as a colorless OC-192 transmitter for the future DWDM-PON, which is packed in a TO-56-can package of only 4-GHz frequency bandwidth but can be over-bandwidth modulated with 10-Gbit/s non-return-to-zero data-stream. The coherent injection-locking successfully suppresses its side-mode intensity and noise floor level, which further improves its modulation throughput at higher frequencies. With increasing the coherent injection-locking power from -12 to -3 dBm, the side-mode suppression ratio significantly increases from 39 to 50 dB, which also suppresses the frequency chirp from -12 to -4 GHz within a temporal range of 150 ps.

Coherently wavelength injection-locking a 600-μm long cavity colorless laser diode for 16-QAM OFDM at 12 Gbit/s over 25-km SMF.

The coherent injection-locking and directly modulation of a long-cavity colorless laser diode with 1% end-facet reflectance and weak-resonant longitudinal modes is employed as an universal optical transmitter to demonstrated for optical 16-QAM OFDM transmission at 12 Gbit/s over 25 km in a DWDM-PON system. The optimized bias current of 30 mA (~1.5Ith) with corresponding extinction ratio (ER) of 6 dB and the external injection power of -9 dBm is (are) required for such a wavelength-locked universal transmitter to carry the 16-QAM and 122-subcarrier formatted OFDM and data-stream.

20-Gbps WDM-PON transmissions employing weak-resonant-cavity FPLD with OFDM and SC-FDE modulation formats.

Using a colorless weak-resonant-cavity (WRC) FPLD injected by a centralized light source, we have experimentally demonstrated a superior performance of 20-Gbps uplink transmission in a WDM-PON. Even though the typical modulation bandwidth of a WRC-FPLD is only ~1.25 GHz, using spectrally-efficient 32-QAM OFDM or SC-FDE modulation, 20-Gbps uplink signals can achieve the FEC limit after 25-km dispersion-uncompensated single-mode fiber transmission.

Fast multiphoton microfabrication of freeform polymer microstructures by spatiotemporal focusing and patterned excitation.

One of the limits of conventional scanning multiphoton microfabrication is its low throughput due to point-by-point processing. In order to surpass this limit, a multiphoton microfabrication system based on spatiotemporal focusing and patterned excitation has been developed to quickly provide three-dimensional (3D) freeform polymer microstructures. 3D freeform polymer microstructures using Rose Bengal as the photoinitiator are created by sequentially stacking two-dimensional fabricating patterns.