In DNA points accumulation in nanoscale topography (DNA‐PAINT), capable of single‐molecule localization microscopy with sub‐10‐nm resolution, the high background stemming from the unbound fluorescent ...probes in solution limits the imaging speed and throughput. Herein, we reductively cage the fluorescent DNA probes conjugated with a cyanine dye to hydrocyanine, acting as a photoactivatable dark state. The additional dark state from caging lowered the fluorescent background while enabling optically selective activation by total internal reflection (TIR) illumination at 405 nm. These benefits from “reductive caging” helped to increase the localization density or the imaging speed while preserving the image quality. With the aid of high‐density analysis, we could further increase the imaging speed of conventional DNA‐PAINT by two orders of magnitude, making DNA‐PAINT capable of high‐throughput super‐resolution imaging.
Cage PAINTings: Fluorescent DNA probes conjugated with a cyanine dye are reductively caged to hydrocyanine, acting as a photoactivatable dark state. The additional dark state from caging lowered the fluorescent background while enabling optically selective activation by total internal reflection illumination. With the aid of high‐density analysis, the imaging speed of conventional DNA‐PAINT was increased by two orders of magnitude, making DNA‐PAINT capable of high‐throughput super‐resolution imaging.
We fabricated amorphous InGaZnO thin film transistors (a-IGZO TFTs) with aluminum oxide (Al
O
) as a gate insulator grown through atomic layer deposition (ALD) method at different deposition ...temperatures (
). The Al
O
gate insulator with a low
exhibited a high amount of hydrogen in the film, and the relationship between the hydrogen content and the electrical properties of the TFTs was investigated. The device with the Al
O
gate insulator having a high H content showed much better transfer parameters and reliabilities than the low H sample. This is attributed to the defect passivation effect of H in the active layer, which is diffused from the Al
O
layer. In addition, according to the post-annealing temperature (
), a-IGZO TFTs exhibited two unique changes of properties; the degradation in low
and the enhancement in high
, as explained in terms of H diffusion from the gate insulator to an active layer.
Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the principal inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain; however, the roles of GABA in antimicrobial host defenses are largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that ...GABAergic activation enhances antimicrobial responses against intracellular bacterial infection. Intracellular bacterial infection decreases GABA levels in vitro in macrophages and in vivo in sera. Treatment of macrophages with GABA or GABAergic drugs promotes autophagy activation, enhances phagosomal maturation and antimicrobial responses against mycobacterial infection. In macrophages, the GABAergic defense is mediated via macrophage type A GABA receptor (GABA
R), intracellular calcium release, and the GABA type A receptor-associated protein-like 1 (GABARAPL1; an Atg8 homolog). Finally, GABAergic inhibition increases bacterial loads in mice and zebrafish in vivo, suggesting that the GABAergic defense plays an essential function in metazoan host defenses. Our study identified a previously unappreciated role for GABAergic signaling in linking antibacterial autophagy to enhance host innate defense against intracellular bacterial infection.
Coronary artery disease (CAD) has a high mortality rate worldwide, and continuous health behavior practice and careful management are required owing to risks such as rapid changes in symptoms and ...emergency hospitalization. The utilization of health-related information is an important factor for long-term disease management in patients with CAD. For this purpose, an understanding of health information-seeking behavior is needed first.
This study analyzed data from the 2021 Korea Medical Panel Survey, and logistic regression analysis was conducted to confirm the factors influencing the health information-seeking behavior of patients with CAD.
The health information-seeking behavior of patients with CAD differed according to demographic characteristics, and differences in preferred information use were confirmed. Finally, it was identified that insufficient levels of health literacy were a major reason for CAD patients not engaging in health information-seeking behaviors (OR, 0.17; 95% CI, 0.09-0.33; p < 0.001).
This study suggests that to improve health information-seeking behaviors, the application of education and intervention programs to increase the level of health literacy is necessary.
Aims/hypothesis
The aim of this study was to quantify the relative contributions of increased insulin secretion rate (ISR) and decreased insulin clearance rate (ICR) in the compensatory ...hyperinsulinaemia characteristic of insulin-resistant individuals without diabetes.
Methods
Obese (BMI ≥30 kg/m
2
) individuals without diabetes (
n
= 91) were identified from a registry of volunteers. Volunteers underwent the following measurements: oral glucose tolerance; insulin resistance (steady-state plasma glucose SSPG concentration during the insulin suppression test IST); ISR (using the graded glucose infusion test GGIT); and ICR (using the IST and GGIT). Participants were stratified into tertiles based on SSPG concentration: SSPG-1(insulin-sensitive); SSPG-2 (intermediate); and SSPG-3 (insulin-resistant).
Results
There were no differences in BMI and waist circumference among the SSPG tertiles. Serum alanine aminotransferase concentrations were higher in the SSPG-2 and SSPG-3 groups compared with the SSPG-1 group (
p
= 0.02). Following an oral glucose challenge, there was a progressive increase in the total integrated insulin response from the most insulin-sensitive to the most insulin-resistant tertiles (
p
< 0.001). Following intravenous glucose, the SSPG-3 group had significantly greater integrated glucose (median interquartile range, 32.9 30.8–36.3 mmol/l × h) and insulin responses (1711 1476–2223 mmol/l × h) compared with the SSPG-1 group (30.3 28.8–32.9 mmol/l × h,
p
= 0.04, and 851 600–1057 pmol/l × h,
p
< 0.001, respectively). Furthermore, only the SSPG-3 group had significant changes in both ISR and ICR (
p
< 0.001). In the SSPG-2 group, only the ICR was significantly decreased compared with the SSPG-1 group. Therefore, ICR progressively declined during the IST with increasing insulin resistance (SSPG-1, 0.48 0.41–0.59; SSPG-2, 0.43 0.39–0.50; SSPG-3, 0.34 0.31–0.40).
Conclusions/interpretation
While both increases in ISR and decreases in ICR compensate for insulin resistance, decreases in ICR may provide the first adaptation to decreased insulin sensitivity.
The “short‐circuit effect” in the fire‐through Ag metallization of crystalline Si (c‐Si) solar cells refers to the poor contact formation caused by an electrical short between the Ag gridline and ...underlying Si emitter during contact firing. This study employs two different Ag pastes containing PbO‐ and TeO2‐based glass frits to investigate the dependence of the short‐circuit effect on the length and pattern of the Ag finger lines. The results show that regardless of the employed glass frits, the short‐circuit effect is mitigated even near the short spot and gradually attenuated along the finger line away from the spot as the Ag finger line extends radially longer than the critical length (>35 mm). We demonstrate that this attenuation is independent of the finger line width and predominantly attributed to the ohmic drop of the electrode potential along the Si substrate. The results also show that, regardless of the glass frits, the contact quality is strongly correlated with the density of the Ag crystallites that are formed on the Si emitter surface. The 6‐in full‐cell tests indicate that the isolation of the short spots by segmenting the Ag finger lines does not necessarily result in the mitigation of the short‐circuit effect. We suggest that the reduction of Ag+ on the Si emitter surface should be the key process that must be controlled to achieve high‐quality contacts during contact firing, providing further insights into the electrochemical characteristics of contact firing reactions for the future development of Ag pastes.
The electrochemical nature of the contact firing reactions is studied by short‐circuiting the Ag fingers to the underlying Si emitter. The short‐circuit effect is gradually attenuated along the finger line away from the short‐spot owing to the ohmic drop of the electrode potential along the Si substrate. The contact quality is strongly correlated to the Ag crystallites formed on the emitter surface. The 6‐in full‐cell tests demonstrate that the segmentation of Ag fingers does not necessarily mitigate the short‐circuit effect.
The pursuit of exceptionally high photoluminescence (PL) and stability is critical in the development of novel fluorophores for use in challenging bioimaging and optoelectronic devices. Carbon ...nanodots (CDs) doped with heteroatoms provide a particularly attractive means of effectively tailoring their intrinsic properties and exploiting new phenomena. Here, we report a one-step, scalable synthesis of boron-and-nitrogen co-doped CD (BN-CD) with outstanding optical properties unlike those of nitrogen-doped CD (N-CD) in solid state as well as solution. The detailed mechanistic framework was explored using a series of spectroscopic analyses and ultrafast spectroscopy coupled with density functional theory calculations, which all conclusively confirmed that the presence of more graphitic structures in the core and well-distributed surface states are responsible for the enhanced PL in BN-CD. Furthermore, single-molecule spectroscopy analysis demonstrated that a single BN-CD shows higher PL intensity and enhanced photobleaching time. We anticipate that this study will aid in uncovering the full potential of CDs in various fields.
The sensitivity of existing fingerprint sensors (FPSs) can decrease considerably owing to environmental factors and parasitic capacitance. In order to overcome this limitation, this paper proposes a ...highly-sensitive 300 dpi mutual-capacitive transparent fingerprint sensor (FPS) with uniquely designed reference lines for device security. Specifically, the reference lines of the FPS induce capacitance cancellation. Images of fingertips under dry, wet, and oily surface conditions were obtained in the presence and absence of the reference lines. The results showed that the fingerprints were significantly distorted in anomalous surface environments when the reference lines were not used. However, when the reference lines were used, the sensitivity improved irrespective of the environmental conditions. With the edge-detection processing, the proposed FPS exhibited 9.25 %, 61.49 %, and 8.60 % increase in the ridge sensing improvement (RSI) of dry, oil, and wet condition, respectively, thus significantly enhancing the sensing capability. Therefore, we believe the proposed FPS can increase device security owing to its excellent performance.
Background
While histologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NChT) is the major prognostic factor for osteosarcoma treatment, evaluating that response is difficult.
Purpose
To evaluate the ...feasibility of the blood oxygen level‐dependent (BOLD) technique to assess the response to NChT.
Study Type
Prospective.
Population
Twelve patients with osteosarcoma undergoing NChT.
Field Strength/Sequence
3 T; T2*‐weighted BOLD, dynamic contrast‐enhanced (DCE) and diffusion‐weighted (DW) (b values of 0, 400, and 1400 seconds/mm2) sequences.
Assessment
Examination was performed before treatment (first), after each cycle of treatment (second and third). At each time point, spin dephasing rates (R2*) from BOLD magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), parameters from DCE‐MRI (volume transfer constant Ktrans, reflux rate kep, volume fraction of the extravascular extracellular matrix ve, and blood plasma volume vp), and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) from DW‐MRI were measured.
Statistical Tests
Wilcoxon's signed rank test, Spearman's correlation coefficient (ρ) were used. A P‐value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results
The difference and relative difference of the R2* values between the first/third MRIs in the extraosseous portion were statistically significant. Only the differences in the kep values between the first/second and between the first/third MRIs in the extraosseous portion were significant. The differences in the ADCs in the extraosseous and osseous portions were not statistically significant (P = 0.151, P = 0.733 each in extraosseous portion and P = 0.569, P = 0.129 each in osseous portion). The relative difference in R2* values in the extraosseous portion between the first/third MRI (ρ = 0.706) was significantly better correlated with the pathologic grade than those of kep and ADC over the same period (ρ = 0.286 and ρ = −0.091, respectively).
Data Conclusion
The R2* from the BOLD MRI technique could be a useful biomarker for evaluating treatment response in osteosarcoma treated with NchT.
Level of Evidence
5
Technical Efficacy
Stage 2
The ability to cope adaptively with emotional events by volitionally altering one's emotional reactions is important for psychological and physical health as well as social interaction. Cognitive ...regulation of emotional responses to aversive events engages prefrontal regions that modulate activity in emotion-processing regions such as the amygdala. However, the neural correlates of the regulation of positive emotions remain largely unexplored. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural correlates of cognitively increasing and decreasing emotional reactions to positive and negative stimuli. Participants viewed negative, positive, and neutral pictures while attempting to increase, decrease, or not alter their emotional reactions. Subjective reactions were assessed via on-line ratings. Consistent with previous studies, increasing negative and positive emotion engaged primarily left-lateralized prefrontal regions, whereas decreasing emotion activated bilateral prefrontal regions. Different activations unique to increasing versus decreasing emotion were observed for positive and negative stimuli: Unique increase-related activations were observed only for positive stimuli, whereas unique decrease-related activations were observed only for negative stimuli. Regulation also modulated activity in the amygdala, a key emotion-processing region. Regulation effects on amygdala activity were larger for positive than for negative stimuli, potentially reflecting a greater malleability of positive emotional reactions. Increasing and decreasing positive and negative emotion can thus increase and decrease subjective reactions and associated amygdala activity in line with regulatory goals, and is associated with different patterns of prefrontal activation as a function of emotional valence and regulatory goal.