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Objective To analyze the effects of Huanglian ointment combined with local hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) spray on radiation-induced skin injury (RISI) and the levels of serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) , tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) in patients with esophageal cancer . Methods A retrospective study was performed on 82 esophageal cancer patients with RISI admitted to Weifang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2021 to January 2022 using convenience sampling method. Forty-one patients who received local hyperbaric oxygens pray were divided into control group, while 41 patients who received Huanglian ointment combined with local hyperbaric oxygens pray were divided into observation group. The following indicators were compared between two groups, including clinical efficacy, skin injury severity grading after treatment, levels of serum IL-6, TNF-α and EGF, dressing changes, skin lesion healing time, modified scoring atopic dermatitis (SCORAD) index, visual analogue scale (VAS) , scarring rate and radiation-induced skin infection rate. Results The total clinical effective rate in observation group was significantly higher than that in control group (95.12% vs 68.29%, P＜0.01) .After treatment, the grading of skin damage in observation group was superior to that in control group (P＜0.05) , the serum levels of IL-6 and TNF in observation group were significantly lower than that in control group (P＜0.05) , and the EGF level was higher than that in control group (P＜0.05) . Compared with control group, the number of dressing changes significantly reduced, and the healing time of skin lesions was shortened significantly in observation group (P＜0.05) . The modified SCORAD score, VAS and radiation-induced skin infection rate (2.44% vs 19.51%) in observation group were statistically lower than those in control group (P＜0.05) . Conclusion Huanglian ointment combined with local HBO spray can effectively improve the skin condition of RISI patients with esophageal cancer, reduce the frequency of dressing changes, shorten the healing time of skin lesions, reduce inflammatory reactions and pain, and reduce the rate of radiation skin infection. The clinical efficacy is significant.

The nonlinear optical properties of silicon have great potentials for developing all-optical switches and modulators, etc. Strategies based on all dielectric silicon photonic crystals and resonators have been proposed to design the nanophotonic devices with high nonlinearity. Nevertheless, the lack of compatible configuration with the mature CMOS technology may hinder the practical applications of the all dielectric devices. In this work, we proposed a metal–silicon hybrid metasurface to generate strong third harmonic signals from an amorphous silicon (α-Si) film. By integrating the α-Si film into a gold plasmonic nanocavity and controlling the periods of the gold meta-atoms, the efficiency of the THG process is expected to be greatly boosted. Compared to the planar α-Si film, the THG signal is enhanced by a factor of ∼370. The presented results in this work may open new routes for developing various silicon photonic devices with high optical nonlinearity.

Simultaneous manipulation of multiple degrees of freedom of light lies at the heart of photonics. Nonlinear wavefront shaping offers an exceptional way to achieve this goal by converting incident light into beams of new frequencies with spatially varied phase, amplitude, and angular momenta. Nevertheless, the reconfigurable control over structured light fields for advanced multimode nonlinear photonics remains a grand challenge. Here, we propose the concept of nonlinear geometric phase in an emerging ferroelectric nematic fluid, of which the second-order nonlinear susceptibility carries spin-dependent nonlinearity phase. A case study with photopatterned q-plates demonstrates the generation of second-harmonic optical vortices with spin-locked topological charges by using cascaded linear and nonlinear optical spin-orbit interactions. Furthermore, we present the dynamic tunability of second-harmonic structured light through temperature, electric field, and twisted elastic force. The proposed strategy opens new avenues for reconfigurable nonlinear photonics, with potential applications in optical communications, quantum computing, high-resolution imaging, etc. The challenge of simultaneously manipulating multiple degrees of freedom of light is central to photonics due to its wide range of applications. Pan et al. introduce an approach using ferroelectric nematic fluids to achieve nonlinear wavefront shaping, offering reconfigurable control over structured light fields for advanced photonic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, health risk attitude and health locus of control were included as dispositional factors in the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) to explain people's protective behavior in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Empirical data involved two waves of data with a sample of 526 adults with full-time jobs from Beijing, China, and structural equation model results confirmed a partial successful extension of the PMT. Specifically, health risk attitude had a direct effect on citizens' protective behavior, but without an indirect effect mediated by threat appraisal toward the COVID-19 pandemic; health locus of control did not directly associate with citizens' protective behavior, but had an indirect effect on it fully via coping appraisal toward the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the PMT has been extended by adding a distal dispositional factor on the impact of coping appraisal on protective behavior. Implications for advancing the government's anti-epidemic strategy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In linear optical processes, compact and effective wavefront shaping techniques have been developed with the artificially engineered materials and devices in the past decades. Recently, wavefront shaping of light at newly generated frequencies was also demonstrated using nonlinear photonic crystals and metasurfaces. However, the nonlinear wave-shaping devices with both high nonlinear optical efficiency and high wave shaping efficiency are difficult to realize. To circumvent this constraint, we propose the idea of metasurface decorated optical crystal to take the best aspects of both traditional nonlinear crystals and photonic metasurfaces. In the proof-of-concept experiment, we show that a silicon nitride metasurface decorated quartz crystal can be used for the wavefront shaping of the second harmonic waves generated in quartz. With this crystal-metasurface hybrid platform, the nonlinear vortex beam generation and nonlinear holography were successfully demonstrated. The proposed methodology may have important applications in nonlinear structured light generation, super-resolution imaging, and optical information processing, etc.

Double epoxy group double quaternary ammonium salts (DEpDQAS) were synthesized by epichlorohydrin (ECH) reacting with N,N,N'N'-tetramethylethylenediamine (TMEDA) and N,N,N'N'-tetramethyl-1,6-hexanediamine (TMHDA), respectively. The results of orthogonal experiments showed that temperature and time were the key factors influencing on epoxy value and quaternarization ratio respectively. The optimal condition for higher epoxy value was the reaction temperature at 15 °C and methanol as solvent. The reaction kinetic process was determined by conductivity, which showed that the reaction had a short induction period and appeared discontinuity in progress that the reaction rate of the first stage was almost constant, while the reaction rate of the second stage decreased gradually. The product was characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR). The results of surface tension testing showed that DEpDQAS-6 with longer spacer chain had better surface activity and lowered the solution surface tension to 26 mN·m−1 at 25 °C and CMC 0.27 mol·L−1. The thermodynamic parameters of micellization were obtained basing on charged pseudo-phase model. The studies of cytotoxicity in vitro and antibacterial activity showed that DEpDQAS was biocompatible and its antibacterial activity was more effective against Escherichia coli than against Staphylococcus aureus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the impact of precore and basal core promoter (BCP) mutations in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) on hepatocyte homeostasis. These mutations are common in chronic hepatitis B patients and are associated with an increased risk of liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The article presents conflicting findings regarding the effects of these mutations on HBsAg and HBcAg accumulation in infected hepatocytes. The authors recommend further research to determine the specific HBV mutations and their impact on hepatocyte damage. They also suggest using models that better replicate real-world conditions to study HBV pathogenesis. [Extracted from the article]

Optical information and communication technologies are essentially based on the ability to shape the light field, either at the transmission or at the reception of the optical signal. Nowadays, wavelength and polarization state are already implemented in current telecom architectures and adding the spatial structuring of the light field as a novel degree of freedom to enhance data rate is desirable. In this context, the development of optical devices to shape optical modes belonging to orthogonal basis remains challenging. Here, in the context of singular optics, this work reports on the design, fabrication, and characterization of modal optical vortex beam shaping of paraxial light in the visible domain, in the framework of the Laguerre–Gauss basis. Both the azimuthal and radial degrees of freedom are univocally shaped via optical spin‐orbit interaction mediated by dielectric metasurfaces by combining the spatial modulation of amplitude, geometric phase, and dynamic phase. These results not only demonstrate the realization of new optical components, but also highlight how metasurface‐based technologies can contribute to optical information processing in the classical or quantum regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A graphene oxide-Ru(bpy)32+-polyaniline-nanocomposite (GO-Ru(bpy)32+-PANI) was prepared to develop a sensitive label-free electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunosensor for mucoprotein 1 (MUC1). Ru(bpy)32+ and PANI were decorated together on graphene oxide for the first time. The GO-Ru(bpy)32+-PANI material was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), absorption spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), fluorescence, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and ECL. The GO-Ru(bpy)32+-PANI exhibited excellent stability. The ECL immunosensor for MUC1 was fabricated by covalently immobilizing anti-MUC1 upon GO-Ru(bpy)32+-PANI modified indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) electrode. In the presence of MUC1, a decrease of ECL was observed due to the formation of the anti-MUC1/MUC1 complex. The immunosensor showed a linear relationship from 1 × 10−13 to 1 × 10−7 mg/mL with a detection limit of 8.2 × 10−14 mg/mL. The immunosensor was applied to the determination of MUC1 in human serum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]