Images perceived by human eyes or recorded by cameras are usually optical patterns with spatially varying intensity or color profiles. In addition to the intensity and color, the information of an ...image can be encoded in a spatially varying distribution of phase or polarization state. Interestingly, such images might not be able to be directly viewed by human eyes or cameras because they may exhibit highly uniform intensity profiles. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an approach to hide a high-resolution grayscale image in a square laser beam with a size of less than half a millimeter. An image with a pixel size of 300 × 300 nm is encoded into the spatially variant polarization states of the laser beam, which can be revealed after passing through a linear polarizer. This unique technology for hiding grayscale images and polarization manipulation provides new opportunities for various applications, including encryption, imaging, optical communications, quantum science and fundamental physics.
Solid electrolyte is regarded as a perfect way to enhance safety issues and boost energy density of lithium batteries. Herein, we developed a type of free-standing poly(propylene ...carbonate)/Li6.75La3Zr1.75Ta0.25O12 composite solid electrolyte for ambient temperature and flexible solid-state lithium batteries. The composite solid electrolyte exhibited excellent comprehensive performance in terms of high ionic conductivity (5.2 10-4 S cm-1) at 20 degree C, a wide electrochemical window (4.6 V), high ionic transference number (0.75) and satisfactory mechanical strength (6.8 MPa). When evaluated as solid electrolyte for an ambient-temperature solid lithium battery, such a composite electrolyte delivered excellent rate capability (5C) at 20 degree C. This superior performance can be comparable to a liquid electrolyte-soaked PP separator-based lithium battery at room temperature. To our knowledge, this is the best rate capability of a solid composite electrolyte for a solid lithium battery at ambient temperature. Moreover, such a composite electrolyte-based flexible LiFePO4/Li4Ti5O12 lithium ion battery delivered excellent rate capability and superior cycling stability. All these fascinating features make poly(propylene carbonate)/Li6.75La3Zr1.75Ta0.25O12 a very promising all-solid-state electrolyte for flexible solid lithium batteries. Our study makes a big step into addressing the challenges of ambient-temperature solid lithium batteries.
Analysis of complex biological functions usually requires tissue-specific genetic manipulations in multicellular organisms. The C. elegans germline plays regulatory roles not only in reproduction, ...but also in metabolism, stress response and ageing. Previous studies have used mutants of rrf-1, which encodes an RNA-directed RNA polymerase, as a germline-specific RNAi tool. However, the rrf-1 mutants showed RNAi activities in somatic tissues. Here we constructed a germline-specific RNAi strain by combining an indel mutation of rde-1, which encodes an Argonaute protein that functions cell autonomously to ensure RNAi efficiency, and a single copy rde-1 transgene driven by the sun-1 germline-specific promoter. The germline RNAi efficiency and specificity are confirmed by RNAi phenocopy of known mutations, knockdown of GFP reporter expression, as well as quantitative RT-PCR measurement of tissue-specific mRNAs upon RNAi knockdown. The germline-specific RNAi strain shows no obvious deficiencies in reproduction, lipid accumulation, thermo-tolerance and life span compared to wild-type animals. By screening an RNAi sub-library of phosphatase genes, we identified novel regulators of thermo-tolerance. Together, we have created a useful tool that can facilitate the genetic analysis of germline-specific functions in C. elegans.
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•Edible protein was prepared from avocado oil processing by-products.•Physicochemical and functional properties of avocado protein were investigated.•Oil-in-water emulsions stabilized ...by avocado protein.•Avocado oil processing by-products is a sustainable protein resource.
Avocado (Persea americana) is a tropical fruit that has drawn great interest its oil for foods and cosmetic industries; however, avocado oil processing by-product is a potential source of edible protein. Herein, edible protein was prepared from defatted avocado meal, and it’s physicochemical, functional and emulsion properties were investigated. The avocado protein showed U-shaped exhibiting strong effect of pH, and a minimum solubility being observed at pH 4.5, confirming the isoelectric point of avocado protein. Nutritionally, the avocado protein contains all the essential amino acids. Avocado protein provided higher water and oil absorption capacities, higher radical scavenging capacity but lower in-vitro digestibility compared with soy protein. Furthermore, the avocado protein as emulsifier afforded a stability oil-in-water emulsion system, resulting in a greater emulsifying stability than that of soy protein. The present results highlight the potential source of edible protein from avocado oil processing by-products for functional food ingredients.
As newcomers to the clinical workplace, nursing students will encounter a high degree of role stress, which is an important predictor of burnout and engagement. Professional identity is theorised to ...be a key factor in providing high-quality care to improve patient outcomes and is thought to mediate the negative effects of a high-stress workplace and improve clinical performance and job retention.
To investigate the level of nursing students' professional identity and role stress at the end of the first sub-internship, and to explore the impact of the nursing students' professional identity and other characteristics on role stress.
A cross-sectional study.
Three nursing schools in China.
Nursing students after a 6-month sub-internship in a general hospital (n=474).
The Role Stress Scale (score range: 12–60) and the Professional Identity Questionnaire for Nursing students (score range: 17–85) were used to investigate the levels of nursing students' role stress and professional identity. Higher scores indicated higher levels of role stress and professional identity. Basic demographic information about the nursing students was collected. The Pearson correlation, point-biserial correlation and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyse the data.
The mean total scores of the Role Stress Scale and Professional Identity Questionnaire for Nursing Students were 34.04 (SD=6.57) and 57.63 (SD=9.63), respectively. In the bivariate analyses, the following independent variables were found to be significantly associated with the total score of the Role Stress Scale: the total score of the Professional Identity Questionnaire for Nursing Students (r=−0.295, p<0.01), age (r=0.145, p<0.01), whether student was an only child or not (r=−0.114, p<0.05), education level (r=0.295, p<0.01) and whether student had experience in community organisations or not (r=0.151, p<0.01). In the multiple linear regression analysis, the total score of the Professional Identity Questionnaire for Nursing Students (standardised coefficient Beta: −0.260, p<0.001), education level (standardised coefficient Beta: 0.212, p<0.001) and whether or not student had experience in community organisations (standardised coefficient Beta: 0.107, p<0.016) were the factors significantly associated with the total score of the Role Stress Scale. The multiple linear regression model explained 18.2% (adjusted R2 scores 16.5%) of the Role Stress Scale scores variance.
The nursing students’ level of role stress at the end of the first sub-internship was high. The students with higher professional identity values had lower role stress levels. Compared with other personal characteristics, professional identity and education level had the strongest impact on the nursing students’ level of role stress. This is a new perspective that shows that developing and improving professional identity may prove helpful for nursing students in managing role stress.
A Metal-Organic Framework (MOFs) with large surface area, exposed active site, excellent catalytic performance and high chemical stability has been used as an artificial enzyme and designed for ...nonenzymatic electrochemical sensors. Here, a strategy of using an enhanced electrochemical sensing platform for the detection of nitic oxide (NO) and hydrogen peroxide (H
2
O
2
) was designed
via
a nano-metalloporphyrinic metal-organic framework (NporMOF(Fe)) as an electrode material. By taking advantage of the small size, high surface area and exposed Fe active site, the obtained NporMOF(Fe) displays excellent electrocatalytic activity toward NO and H
2
O
2
. The NporMOF(Fe) modified electrode shows high sensing ability toward the
in situ
generated NO in NO
2
−
containing phosphate buffer (PB) solution with a wide linear detection range of 5 μM to 200 μM and a very low detection limit of 1.3 μM. Moreover, NporMOF(Fe) exhibits high electrocatalytic activity toward the reduction of H
2
O
2
and the practical detection of H
2
O
2
released from HeLa cells. Furthermore, the NporMOF(Fe) modified electrode shows excellent selectivity toward the detection of NO and H
2
O
2
in the presence of other physiologically important analytes. This method shows excellent biosensing performance, implying the universal applicability of MOFs-based artificial nanozymes for biosensors and the potential application for third generation biosensors.
A metal-organic framework with multienzyme activity was designed as an electrochemical material for real-time electrochemical detection of nitric oxide and hydrogen peroxide.
Autophagy is a fundamental adaptive response to amino acid starvation orchestrated by conserved gene products, the autophagy (ATG) proteins. However, the cellular cues that activate the function of ...ATG proteins during amino acid starvation are incompletely understood. Here we show that two related stress-responsive kinases, members of the p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway MAPKAPK2 (MK2) and MAPKAPK3 (MK3), positively regulate starvation-induced autophagy by phosphorylating an essential ATG protein, Beclin 1, at serine 90, and that this phosphorylation site is essential for the tumor suppressor function of Beclin 1. Moreover, MK2/MK3-dependent Beclin 1 phosphorylation (and starvation-induced autophagy) is blocked in vitro and in vivo by BCL2, a negative regulator of Beclin 1. Together, these findings reveal MK2/MK3 as crucial stress-responsive kinases that promote autophagy through Beclin 1 S90 phosphorylation, and identify the blockade of MK2/3-dependent Beclin 1 S90 phosphorylation as a mechanism by which BCL2 inhibits the autophagy function of Beclin 1.
Pathological examination of histopathological slides is a routine clinical procedure for lung cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Although the classification of lung cancer has been updated to become ...more specific, only a small subset of the total morphological features are taken into consideration. The vast majority of the detailed morphological features of tumor tissues, particularly tumor cells’ surrounding microenvironment, are not fully analyzed. The heterogeneity of tumor cells and close interactions between tumor cells and their microenvironments are closely related to tumor development and progression. The goal of this study is to develop morphological feature–based prediction models for the prognosis of patients with lung cancer.
We developed objective and quantitative computational approaches to analyze the morphological features of pathological images for patients with NSCLC. Tissue pathological images were analyzed for 523 patients with adenocarcinoma (ADC) and 511 patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) from The Cancer Genome Atlas lung cancer cohorts. The features extracted from the pathological images were used to develop statistical models that predict patients’ survival outcomes in ADC and SCC, respectively.
We extracted 943 morphological features from pathological images of hematoxylin and eosin–stained tissue and identified morphological features that are significantly associated with prognosis in ADC and SCC, respectively. Statistical models based on these extracted features stratified NSCLC patients into high-risk and low-risk groups. The models were developed from training sets and validated in independent testing sets: a predicted high-risk group versus a predicted low-risk group (for patients with ADC: hazard ratio = 2.34, 95% confidence interval: 1.12–4.91, p = 0.024; for patients with SCC: hazard ratio = 2.22, 95% confidence interval: 1.15–4.27, p = 0.017) after adjustment for age, sex, smoking status, and pathologic tumor stage.
The results suggest that the quantitative morphological features of tumor pathological images predict prognosis in patients with lung cancer.
Anomaly detection is the first step with a challenging task of securing a communication network, as the anomalies may indicate suspicious behaviors, attacks, network malfunctions, or failures. In ...this paper, we address the problem of not only detecting different anomalies, such as volume based (e.g., DDoS or Flash crowd) and spatial based (e.g., network scan), that arise simultaneously in the wild but also of attributing the anomalous point to a single-anomaly event causing it. Besides, we also tackle the problem of low-detection accuracy caused by the phenomenon of traffic drift. To this end, a novel adaptive profile-based anomaly detection scheme is proposed. More specifically, a more comprehensive metrics set is defined from the dimensions of temporal, spatial, category, and intensity to compose IP traffic behavior characteristic spectrum for fine-grained traffic characterization. Then, the digital signature matrix obtained by using the ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is applied to construct the baseline profile of the normal traffic behavior. Anomalous points are identified and analyzed by using confidence bands and a generic clustering technique, respectively. Finally, a lightweight updating strategy is applied to reduce the number of false positives. Real-world data of China Education Research Network backbone and synthetic data are collected to verify our proposal. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach provides a fine-grained behavior description ability and has significantly increased the detection accuracy compared with other similar alternatives.
Conclusions
In summary, a free-standing MXene/CTS/Cu
2
O electrode was formed through electrostatic interaction of MXene and CTS with opposite charges, followed by the electrodeposition of Cu2O. ...Taking advantage of the synergistic function of MXene/CTS layers and Cu
2
O nanoparticles, this ternary electrode exhibits excellent sensing capabilities for glucose and cholesterol with preferable linear ranges that can cover the full concentration range in clinical diagnosis. For glucose sensing, the sensitivity was 60.295 µA·L/(mmol·cm
2
) with LOD being 52.4 µmol/L (SNR=3), while a sensitivity up to 215.71 µA·L/(mmol·cm
2
) and LOD low to 49.8 µmol/L (SNR=3) were achieved for cholesterol detection. Additionally, this biosensor possesses superior anti-interference ability and reproductivity, and thus exhibits great potential for genuine sample analysis. Accordingly, the as-prepared enzyme-free MXene/CTS/Cu
2
O electrode acts as a biomimetic electrocatalyst with excellent performance for analysis of multiple metabolites, and overcomes the disadvantages of an enzyme-based biosensor. This work has proposed a versatile strategy for designing and fabricating selfassembled nanocomposite materials with tuned structural and functional properties. It is a first attempt which could be easily integrated into portable electrochemical devices, facilitating effective routine monitoring of blood metabolites and paving the way for commercialization and point-of-care testing.
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