Few‐layer van der Waals (vdW) materials have been extensively investigated in terms of their exceptional electronic, optoelectronic, optical, and thermal properties. Simultaneously, a complete ...evaluation of their mechanical properties remains an undeniable challenge due to the small lateral sizes of samples and the limitations of experimental tools. In particular, there is no systematic experimental study providing unambiguous evidence on whether the reduction of vdW thickness down to few layers results in elastic softening or stiffening with respect to the bulk. In this work, micro‐Brillouin light scattering is employed to investigate the anisotropic elastic properties of single‐crystal free‐standing 2H‐MoSe2 as a function of thickness, down to three molecular layers. The so‐called elastic size effect, that is, significant and systematic elastic softening of the material with decreasing numbers of layers is reported. In addition, this approach allows for a complete mechanical examination of few‐layer membranes, that is, their elasticity, residual stress, and thickness, which can be easily extended to other vdW materials. The presented results shed new light on the ongoing debate on the elastic size‐effect and are relevant for performance and durability of implementation of vdW materials as resonators, optoelectronic, and thermoelectric devices.
The in‐plane elastic constants of a few‐layer suspended 2H‐MoSe2 soften about 30% while decreasing the thickness from bulk to three‐layers. The results obtained employing the contactless technique indicate the so‐called negative elastic size‐effect.
Electrostatically mediated protein-protein interactions (PPI) can influence key product properties such as solubility, solution viscosity, and aggregation rates. Predictive models would allow for ...candidates/formulations to be screened with little or no protein material. Three monoclonal antibodies that display qualitatively different experimental PPI were evaluated at a range of pH and ionic strength conditions that are typical of product formulations. PPI parameters (k
, B
, and G
) were obtained from static and dynamic light scattering measurements and spanned from strongly repulsive to strongly attractive net interactions. Coarse-grained (CG) molecular simulations of PPI (specifically, B
) were compared against experimental PPI parameters across multiple pH and salt conditions, using a CG model that treats each amino acid explicitly. Predicted B
values with default model parameters matched experimental B
values semiquantitatively for some cases; others required parameter tuning to account for effects such as ion binding. Experimental PPI values were also analyzed for each monoclonal antibody within the context of single-protein properties such as net charge, and domain-based and global dipole moments. The results show that PPI predicted qualitatively and semiquantitatively by CG molecular modeling of B
can be an effective computational tool for molecule and formulation assessment.
Low light often leads to poor image visibility, which can easily affect the performance of computer vision algorithms. First, this paper proposes the absorption light scattering model (ALSM), which ...can be used to reasonably explain the absorbed light imaging process for low-light images. In addition, the absorbing light scattering image obtained via ALSM under a sufficient and uniform illumination can reproduce hidden outlines and details from the low-light image. Then, we identify that the minimum channel of ALSM obtained above exhibits high local similarity. This similarity can be constrained by superpixels, which effectively prevent the use of gradient operations at the edges so that the noise is not amplified quickly during enhancement. Finally, by analyzing the monotonicity between the scene reflection and the atmospheric light or transmittance in ALSM, a new low-light image enhancement method is identified. We replace atmospheric light with inverted atmospheric light to reduce the contribution of atmospheric light in the imaging results. Moreover, a soft jointed mean-standard-deviation (MSD) mechanism is proposed that directly acts on the patches represented by the superpixels. The MSD can obtain a smaller transmittance than that obtained by the minimum strategy, and it can be automatically adjusted according to the information of the image. The experiments on challenging low-light images are conducted to reveal the advantages of our method compared with other powerful techniques.
•Scattered Light Imaging (SLI) reveals individual nerve fiber directions in the brain.•The simple prototypic setup contains only a standard LED light source and a camera.•SLI reconstructs multiple ...crossing nerve fiber directions within each image pixel.•We measured various brain sections (rodent/monkey/human) with micrometer resolution.•We validated our results against simulated/measured scattering patterns and 3D-PLI.
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For developing a detailed network model of the brain based on image reconstructions, it is necessary to spatially resolve crossing nerve fibers. The accuracy hereby depends on many factors, including the spatial resolution of the imaging technique. 3D Polarized Light Imaging (3D-PLI) allows the three-dimensional reconstruction of nerve fiber tracts in whole brain sections with micrometer in-plane resolution, but leaves uncertainties in pixels containing crossing fibers. Here we introduce Scattered Light Imaging (SLI) to resolve the substructure of nerve fiber crossings. The measurement is performed on the same unstained histological brain sections as in 3D-PLI. By illuminating the brain sections from different angles and measuring the transmitted (scattered) light under normal incidence, light intensity profiles are obtained that are characteristic for the underlying brain tissue structure. We have developed a fully automated evaluation of the intensity profiles, allowing the user to extract various characteristics, like the individual directions of in-plane crossing nerve fibers, for each image pixel at once. We validate the reconstructed nerve fiber directions against results from previous simulation studies, scatterometry measurements, and fiber directions obtained from 3D-PLI. We demonstrate in different brain samples (human optic tracts, vervet monkey brain, rat brain) that the 2D fiber directions can be reliably reconstructed for up to three crossing nerve fiber bundles in each image pixel with an in-plane resolution of up to 6.5 μm. We show that SLI also yields reliable fiber directions in brain regions with low 3D-PLI signals coming from regions with a low density of myelinated nerve fibers or out-of-plane fibers. This makes Scattered Light Imaging a promising new imaging technique, providing crucial information about the organization of crossing nerve fibers in the brain.
We established an experimental apparatus by combining polarized light scattering and angle-resolved light scattering measurement technology to rapidly identify the shape of an individual aerosol ...particle. The experimental data of scattered light of Oleic acid, rod-shaped Silicon dioxide, and other particles with typical shape characteristics were analyzed statistically. To better study the relationship between the shape of particles and the properties of scattered light, the partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) method was used to analyze the scattered light of aerosol samples based on the size screening of particles, and the shape recognition and classification method of the individual aerosol particle was established based on the analysis of the spectral data after nonlinear processing and grouping by particle size with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) as reference. The experimental results show that the proposed classification method has a good discrimination ability for spherical, rod-shaped, and other non-spherical particles, which can provide more information for atmospheric aerosol measurement, and has application value for traceability and exposure hazard assessment of aerosol particles.
An improved HPLC–ELSD method has been developed for the analysis of the lipid classes of buttermilk and milk from different species, focused in the phospholipids fraction without a prior ...fractionation step and in a single run. The total lipid profile analysis showed the major and minor lipid compounds as cholesterol esters, triacylglycerides, cholesterol, diacylglycerides, free fatty acids, monoacylglycerides, and also the polar compounds as glucosylceramide, lactosylceramide, phosphatidyl-ethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylcholine, sphingomyelin and lysophosphatidylcholine. The identification and quantification of the different compounds, using calibration curves made with individual standards and the low coefficients of variation obtained in the inter- and intra-assays showed the suitability of the developed method. In this study, we optimized and validated a quantitative HPLC–ELSD method at a concentration level suitable for routine analysis of the major lipid classes in milk and dairy products.
Myosin from bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis) as a main type of fish protein possesses a good emulsifying ability. However, whether bighead carp myosin (BCM) could construct stable Pickering ...emulsions is still unclear. Therefore, myosin particles and Pickering emulsions stabilized by bighead carp myosin (BCMPEs) were analyzed. The surface structure of BCM particles at 0.6 mol/L NaCl treatment was uniform and compact with a contact angle of 86.4 ± 2.7°, exhibiting the potential ability to construct O/W Pickering emulsions. The size and flocculation index (FI) of BCMPEs decreased with the increase in BCM concentrations of 1%–4% (w/v). Reversely, the size of BCMPEs increased with the increase in oil-water ratios. BCM particles could uniformly distribute at the oil-water interface to stabilize BCMPEs at a BCM concentration of 4% (w/v) and an oil-water ratio of 6:4 (v/v). This study could help explore fish proteins to construct Pickering emulsions for the deep processing of fish products.
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•BCM particles at 0.6 mol/L NaCl exhibited the potential to construct Pickering emulsions.•BCM particles uniformly distributed at the oil-water interface of Pickering emulsions.•BCMPEs exhibited good stability at a BCM concentration of 4% (w/v) and an oil-water ratio of 6:4 (v/v).
•Reentrant phenomenon of BSA coexistence of monovalent cation Na+.•Scattering measurements result phase diagrams of BSA aqueous solution for dissolve/sedimentation/reentrant region.•Coexistence of ...Na+, sedimentation region was narrower but attractive force inter BSA became stronger.
In an aqueous solution, certain charged proteins, which can be seen as macroions, often undergo reentrant condensation in the presence of salt. These macroions aggregate upon adding salt at a specific concentration, and further addition of salt leads to the dissociation of the aggregates. For bovine serum albumin (BSA), it has found that the reentrant phenomenon is caused by YCl3 Zhang et al. 2008. Fujihara and Akiyama have theoretically predicted that the attractive interaction between like-charged macroions induced by coexisting multivalent ions such as Y3+ is weakened by the addition of monovalent ions such as Na+ Fujihara et al.2014. In this paper, the impact of Na+ on the reentrant condensation of BSA in aqueous media is investigated by static light scattering (SLS) measurements. The phase diagram for the reentrant condensation of BSA reveals that the sedimentation range becomes narrow when Na+ is co-added, indicating that the coexistence of monovalent ions suppresses the attractive interaction between BSA induced by Y3+.
Streptococcus pneumoniae bacterial infection can cause serious diseases. Among more than 90 known streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes, more than 30 can cause invasive pneumococcal diseases that could ...lead to morbidity and mortality. Initially, a 23-valent polysaccharide vaccines (PPSV) PNEUMOVAX®23, was developed to generate an antigen-specific immune response and prevent diseases caused by these pneumoniae serotypes. Later, pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV), such as PREVNAR® and VAXNEUVANCE™ have been developed to offer a more robust immune response in the pediatric population.
In our effort to develop novel pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, each serotype of pneumococcal polysaccharide (Ps) is conjugated to a detoxified diphtheria toxin carrier protein CRM197 to form a monovalent conjugate (MVC). MVCs from multiple serotypes are formulated with vaccine adjuvant to form a multi-valent vaccine drug product. During the product development, critical attributes including conjugate molecular weight (Mw), protein and polysaccharide concentration, have been used to monitor process and product quality. To measure these attributes, a size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) method was developed with a series of in-line detectors including UV, multi-angle light scattering (MALS) and refractive index (RI). This SEC-UV-MALS-RI method is employed to characterize and monitor process intermediates and product during process development and for product release and stability testing. With this, we have expanded the multi-attribute SEC method to a 15-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.
Streptococcus pneumoniae
is a highly invasive bacterial pathogen that can cause a range of illnesses. Pneumococcal capsular polysaccharides (CPS) are the main virulence factors that causes invasive ...pneumococcal disease (IPD). Pneumococcal CPS serotype 7F along with a few other serotypes is more invasive and likely to cause IPD. Therefore, 7F is a target for pneumococcal vaccine development, and is included in the two recently approved multi-valent pneumococcal conjugated vaccines, i.e. VAXNEUVANCE and PREVNAR 20.
To support process and development of our 15-valent pneumococcal conjugated vaccine (PCV15), chromatographic methods have been developed for 7F polysaccharide and conjugate characterization. A size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) method with UV, light scattering and refractive index detections was employed for concentration, size and conformation analysis. A reversed-phase ultra-performance liquid chromatography (RP-UPLC) method was used for analysis of conjugate monosaccharide composition and degree of conjugation. The collective information obtained by these chromatographic analysis provided insights into the pneumococcal conjugate and conjugation process.
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