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55Cr17Mo1VN high nitrogen martensitic stainless steel is usually applied to the high-quality mold, which is largely produced by the pressurized electro slag remelting process. The microstructure evolution of quenching and tempering heat treatment were investigated and an optimal heat treatment process to achieve excellent mechanical properties was found out. The main precipitates in the steel included carbon-rich type M23C6 and nitrogen-rich type M2N. With increasing austenitizing temperature, the equivalent diameter of the precipitates got fined, and retained austenite content increased significantly when the austenitizing temperature exceeded 1020 °C. The fracture mode gradually changed from brittle fracture to ductile fracture with increasing tempering temperature from 200 to 550 °C. The experimental steel tempered at 350 °C achieved a good combination of hardness (60.6 HRC) and strength (2299.2 MPa) to meet service requirements. Flake M23C6 precipitated along martensite lath boundaries and the secondary hardening phenomenon occurred when the tempering temperature was 450 °C. Due to the high nitrogen content, M2N precipitated from the inside of laths and matrix when tempered at 550 °C.

Residual stress is easily generated in laser additive manufacturing (LAM) alloys due to high-temperature gradient during preparing, which increases the failure risk of materials. A LAM Hastelloy C22 was prepared by rotating strategy in this study, and the wear mechanism induced by heat treatment was investigated. The microstructural results showed that the columnar structure with the size of 1 ∼ 4 μm and the cellular structures with the size of 0.3 ∼ 1 μm were observed in LAM Hastelloy C22. The samples consist of γ-Ni solid solution. Cr23C6 and the increase of MoSi2 content were found as the heating temperature increased. The mechanical results presented that compared with the as-received LAM Hastelloy C22, the residual stress and wear-rate of the samples heat treated at 600 °C, 750 °C, and 900 °C were reduced by 14%, 49%, 63% and 39.9%, 68.9%, 92.3%, respectively. The wear mechanism showed that heat treatment enhanced the wear resistance of LAM Hastelloy C22 by the integrated oxide layer and supporting effect of MoSi2 and Cr23C6. This research indicated that the microstructural evolution that enhanced the wear resistance of LAM Hastelloy C22 was predominant rather than the reduced effect from relieving residual stress after heat treatment.

Despite that the currently discovered CRISPR-Cas12a system is beneficial for improving the detection accuracy and design flexibility of luminescent biosensors, there are still challenges to extend target species and strengthen adaptability in complicated biological media. To conquer these obstacles, we present here some useful strategies. For the former, the limitation to nucleic acids assay is broken through by introducing a simple functional DNA regulation pathway to activate the unique trans-cleavage effect of this CRISPR system, under which the expected biosensors are capable of effectively transducing a protein (employing dual aptamers) and a metal ion (employing DNAzyme). For the latter, a time-gated luminescence resonance energy transfer imaging manner using a long-persistent nanophosphor as the energy donor is performed to completely eliminate the background interference and a nature-inspired biomimetic periodic chip constructed by photonic crystals is further combined to enhance the persistent luminescence. In line with the above efforts, the improved CRISPR-Cas12a luminescent biosensor not only exhibits a sound analysis performance toward the model targets (carcinoembryonic antigen and Na+) but also owns a strong anti-interference feature to actualize accurate sensing in human plasma samples, offering a new and applicative analytical tool for laboratory medicine.

Owing to their favorable design flexibility and eminent signal amplification ability, DNA nanomachine-supported biosensors have provided an attractive avenue for intracellular fluorescence imaging, especially for DNA walkers. However, this promising option not only suffers from poor controllability but also needs to be supplied with additional driving forces on account of the frequent employment of metal ion-dependent DNAzymes. Aiming at overcoming these obstacles, we introduce some fruitful solutions. On one hand, innovative light-activated walking behavior induced by a photocleavage mode is established on the surfaces of gold nanoparticles, and such a photoselective sensing system can be perfectly prevented from pre-activating during the intracellular delivery process and made to achieve target identification only under irradiation using a moderate ultraviolet light source. On the other hand, this light-switchable sensing frame is encapsulated within a dissociable metal-organic framework (ZIF-8) to facilitate endocytosis and ensure sufficient internal cofactors (Zn2+) to realize a self-driven pattern in the acidic environment of the cell lysosome. Based on the abovementioned efforts, the newly constructed autonomous three-dimensional DNA walkers present satisfactory sensitivity (a limit of detection of down to 19.4 pM) and specificity (even distinguishing single-base changes) toward a model biomarker (microRNA-21). More importantly, the sensing method allows determination of the variations in targets in living cancer cells with exceptional precision and efficiency, offering a powerful assay platform for intracellular imaging.

Hyperentangled Bell states analysis (HBSA) is an essential building block for certain hyper-parallel quantum information processing. We propose a complete and deterministic HBSA scheme encoded in spatial and polarization degrees of freedom (DOFs) of two-photon system assisted by a fixed frequency-based entanglement and a time interval DOF. The parity information the spatial-based and polarization-based hyper-entanglement can be distinguished by the distinct time intervals of the photon pairs, and the phase information can be distinguished by the detection signature. Compared with previous schemes, the number of the auxiliary entanglements is reduced from two to one by introducing time interval DOF. Moreover, the additional frequency and time interval DOFs suffer less from the collective channel noise., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, and 1 table

Precipitation behavior of P550 steel for non-magnetic drill collars was investigated by microstructure characterization as well as thermodynamic calculation. The results demonstrate that the main precipitate formed at 650–900 °C was cellular Cr2N, and its precipitation depended heavily on the aging temperature. The most sensitive precipitation temperature of cellular Cr2N was 750 °C. At 750 °C, the cellular Cr2N exhibited fast-slow precipitation kinetics with the aging time prolonging. The initial precipitation of cellular Cr2N was governed by the short-range intergranular diffusion of Cr. During long-term aging, its growth was controlled by the long-range bulk diffusion of Cr. In addition, cellular Cr2N induced the precipitation of σ phase ahead of the cell after long period of aging. Increasing the nitrogen content resulted in the increment of both the nucleation site and the driving force for the cellular Cr2N, which jointly promoted its precipitation.

Taking advantage of outstanding precision in target recognition and trans-cleavage ability, the recently discovered CRISPR/Cas12a system provides an alternative opportunity for designing fluorescence biosensors. To fully exploit the analytical potential, we introduce here some meaningful concepts. First, the collateral cleavage of CRISPR/Cas12a is efficiently activated in a functional DNA regulation manner and the bottleneck which largely applicable to nucleic acids detection is broken. After selection of a representative aptamer and DNAzyme as the transduction pathways, the sensing coverage is extended to a small organic compound (ATP) and a metal ion (Na+). The assay sensitivity is significantly improved by utilizing a bead-supported enrichment strategy wherein emerging holographic optical tweezers are used to enhance imaging stability and simultaneously achieve multiflux analysis. Last, a sandwich-structured energy-concentrating upconversion nanoparticle triggered boosting luminescent resonance energy transfer mode is comined to face with complicated biological samples by skillfully confining the emitters into a very limited inner shell. Following the above attempts, the developed CRISPR/Cas12a biosensors not only present an ultrasensitive assay behavior toward these model non-nucleic acid analytes but also can serve as a formidable toolbox for determining real samples including single cell lysates and human plasma, proving a good practical application capacity.

Hyperentangled states can outperform their classical counterparts on solving certain tasks. Here we present a simplified scheme for completely distinguishing two-photon hyperentangled Bell states in polarization, spatial, and time-bin degrees of freedom (DOFs). Unity fidelity can be achieved in principle without strong couple limitation between photon and quantum dot (QD), and the incomplete and imperfect QD-cavity interactions are prevented by single-photon detectors. In addition, auxiliary photons or DOFs are not required in our scheme. The necessary linear optical elements are fewer than the parity-check-based one., 3 figures, 1 table

In light of the worthy design flexibility and the good signal amplification capacity, the recently developed DNA motor (especially the DNA walker)-based fluorescent biosensors can offer an admirable choice for realizing bioimaging. However, this attractive biosensing strategy not only has the disadvantage of uncontrollable initiation but also usually demands the supplement of exogenous driving forces. To handle the above obstacles, some rewarding solutions are proposed here. First, on the surface of an 808 nm near-infrared light-excited low-heat upconversion nanoparticle, a special ultraviolet upconversion luminescence-initiated three-dimensional (3D) walking behavior is performed by embedding a photocleavage linker into the sensing elements, and such light-controlled target recognition can perfectly overcome the pre-triggering of the biosensor during the biological delivery to significantly boost the sensing precision. After that, a peculiar self-driven walking pattern is constructed by employing MnO

High-nitrogen (N) austenitic stainless steel (Cr–Mn–N series) is commonly used for non-magnetic drill collars, which exhibits excellent mechanical properties and corrosion resistance. The effects of N content (0.63 to 0.86 wt.%) on the pitting corrosion behavior of the experimental non-magnetic drill collar steel were investigated using the electrochemical tests and immersion tests. Besides, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to analyze the constitution of the passive film. The results show that with the enhancement of N content from 0.63 to 0.86 wt.%, the metastable pitting corrosion sensitivity of the tested materials in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution decreased and the pitting corrosion resistance increased. Meanwhile, the corrosion rate in 6 wt.% FeCl3 solution at 30 °C decreased from 10.40 to 4.93 mm/a. On the other hand, nitrogen was concentrated in the form of ammonia (NH4+ and NH3) on the outermost surface of the passive films. The contents of Cr2O3 and Fe2O3 raised in the passive films, together with the content of CrN, at metal/film interface increased as N content increased from 0.63 to 0.86 wt.%, which facilitated protective ability of the passive films, thus contributing to higher pitting corrosion resistance.

We demonstrate an effective approach to realize active and real-time temperature monitoring around the gold nanobipyramids (AuNBPs)-labeled cancer cell under 808 nm laser irradiation by combining optical tweezers and temperature-sensitive upconversion microparticles (UCMPs). On the one hand, the aptamer-modified AuNBPs that absorb laser at 808 nm not only act as an excellent photothermal reagent but also accurately and specifically bind the target cancer cells. On the other hand, the single optically trapped NaYF4:Yb3+, Er3+ UCMPs with a 980 nm laser exhibit temperature-dependent luminescence properties, where the intensity ratio of emission 525 and 547 nm varies with the ambient temperature. Therefore, real-time temperature variation monitoring is performed by 3D manipulation of the trapped single UCMP to control its distance from the AuNBPs-labeled cancer cell while being photothermally killed. The results show distance-related thermal propagation because the temperature increase reaches as high as 10 °C at a distance of 5 μm from the cell, whereas the temperature difference drops rapidly to 5 °C when this distance increases to 15 μm. This approach shows that the photothermal conversion from AuNBPs is sufficient to kill the cancer cells, and the temperature increase can be controlled within the micrometer level at a certain period of time. Overall, we present a micrometer-size thermometer platform and provide an innovative strategy to measure temperature at the micrometer level during photothermal killing of cancer cells.

Although plentiful advanced fluorescence sensors have achieved to analyze microRNAs (miRNAs) in living cells, the prerequisite relating to nucleic acids specific recognition based sensing principle compels them lack favorable accurancy and stability in such complicated biological mediums. Here, we make a double breakthrough for the two challenges by combining a near-infrared (NIR) light powering process with a DNA tetrahedron (DNAT)-based protection concept. In this sensing system, a special nanomachine is first engineered by conjugating a core-shell-structured upconversion nanoparticle capable of highly converting 808 nm NIR photons into ultraviolet ones with self-assembling DNATs. The newly developed nanostructure not only prevents the sensing pathway from triggering during the intracellular delivery as well as reducing the adverse thermal effect for cell viability but also significantly enhances the enzyme resistance to avoid degradation to produce false signals. Furthermore, a fluorescence resonance energy transfer sensing strategy is rationally designed on this nanomachine. Upon using the powering light to excite the upconversion luminescence to activate the nanomachine in living cells, it can stably trace the precise level changes of miRNA-21 sequences at the reaching position with an "off-on" mode of fluorescence outputs.

The early diagnosis and timely intervention of viral myocarditis urgently require a noninvasive detection approach. Therefore, we present a CRISPR/Cas12a-powered biosensor that integrates an exceptionally efficient upconversion luminescent resonance energy transfer (LRET) with a nature-inspired biochip to determine a golden-standard cardiac biomarker (cardiac troponin I). First, a unique sandwich-structured energy-confined upconversion nanoparticle (acting as the energy donor) is synthesized to dramatically reinforce the LRET's ability. Such a structural improvement endows a relatively high quenching efficiency (as much as 93.8%) toward the surface acceptors and enhances the working adaption in complicated biological media. Moreover, a three-dimensional photonic crystal fabricated using a self-assembly of nanospheres is employed to construct a biochip interface, under which the upconversion luminescence is prominently boosted to approximately 27-fold to achieve signal amplification. Finally, the newly developed luminescence sensing method exhibits remarkable assay performance after introducing these attempts into a dual-aptamer-regulated CRISPR/Cas12a system to transduce the target. More importantly, this biosensor can primarily be a quite useful tracer tool to allow dynamic monitoring of the entire myocardial injury process in a coxsackievirus B3 infected mouse model, paving an attractive venue for medical diagnostic techniques.

We propose three schemes to generate polarization W-states of size $$n+m$$ , $$n+m+t$$ , and $$n+m+t+z$$ without qubit loss, i.e., large-sized $$W_{n+m}$$ ( $$W_{n+m+t}$$ and $$W_{n+m+t+z}$$ ) is generated from one $$W_n$$ and one $$W_m$$ (one $$W_n$$ , one $$W_m$$ , and one $$W_t$$ , and one $$W_n$$ , one $$W_m$$ , one $$W_t$$ , and one $$W_z$$ ). The qubit-loss-free fusion mechanism increases the size of the fusion W states essentially, i.e., reduces the fusion steps, which makes the implementations of the schemes possible within current technology. Ancillary photons, controlled-NOT, Toffoli, Fredkin, and partial-SWAP gates are not required in our schemes. In addition, the number of the coherence states is reduced from 3 to 2, and path couplers are not employed. There is no complete failure output, and all garbage states are recyclable in the $$W_{n+m}$$ fusion scheme.

The gross error of the assigned value-classical statistical method was developed that all participants in proficiency testing activities could obtain unbiased evaluation in case of a low number of participants(lt; 17).This developed method was employed to evaluate the testing result of nitrite-N and lead in water from participants along the "Belt and Road", which was organized by CNCA in 2019.Use the specified value gross error-classical statistical method to evaluate the feedback result of 29(15+14) participants with non-normal distribution, 4 out of 15 participants in "Lead in Water" get a "unsatisfied", 5 out of the 14 participants in "Nitrite in Water(as Nitrogen)"get a "unsatisfactory".When the robust statistics and classical statistical method are unable to make objective evaluations respectively, this method could mildly remove outliers and avoid the extreme evaluation of "all satisfied"or "all dissatisfied", which truly reflected the real ability of each participant and could be applied to the proficiency testing activity with low number of participants.

Benefiting from the outstanding signal amplification effect and the admirable construction flexibility, the currently proposed DNA motors (particularly DNA walkers) based biosensing concepts have provided a forceful fluorescence imaging tool for intracellular detection. Even so, this promising sensing means is not only subject to poor controllability and prone to produce false signals but also requires exogenous powering forces owing to the common employment of DNAzyme. In response to these challenges, we are herein motivated to present some meaningful solving strategies. For one thing, the surfaces of gold nanoparticles are conducted with a photo-gated walking behavior by introducing a photocleave mode, under which the light-switchable DNA walkers are capable of being selectively activated via an external ultraviolet source to faultlessly prevent the sensing frame from being pre-initiated during cellular uptake and intracellular delivery. For another, the intracellular biothiols are consumed by MnO2 nanosheets to effectively avoid the competitions to Au-S bonds to eliminate potential false outputs and also self-supply sufficient cofactors (Mn2+) to actualize a self-powered operation pattern as well as facilitate the endocytosis process. Following these breakthroughs, a favorable analysis performance towards a model tumor biomarker (survivin mRNA) is endowed with the newly raised biosensor, whose sensitivity is low to pM level with a sound specificity for identifying single base mismatching. Moreover, the significantly improved autonomous three-dimensional DNA walkers can be used to determine and dynamically trace the targets in live cancer cells with an exceptional precise and efficient manner, commendably impelling the sensing ability of DNA motors in biological specimens.

Background. Butylphthalide (NBP), approved by the China National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) for the treatment of ischemic stroke (IS), showed pleiotropic potentials against central nervous system (CNS) diseases, including neuroprotection and cognitive deficits improvement. However, the effects and corresponding modes of action were not fully explored. This study was designed to investigate the potential of NBP against IS-associated CNS diseases based on network pharmacology (NP) and molecular docking (MD). Methods. IS was inputted as the index disease to retrieve the “associated diseases” in DisGeNET. Three-database-based IS genes were obtained and integrated (DisGeNET, Malacards, and OMIM). Then, IS-associated genes were identified by combining these genes. Meanwhile, PubMed references and online databases were applied to identify NBP target genes. The IS-related disease-disease association (DDA) network and NBP-disease regulation network were constructed and analyzed in Cytoscape. In silico MD and references were used to validate the binding affinity of NBP with critical targets and the potential of NBP against certain IS-related CNS disease regulation. Results. 175 NBP target genes were obtained, while 312 IS-related disease genes were identified. 36 NBP target genes were predicted to be associated with IS-related CNS diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), epilepsy, major depressive disorder (MDD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and dementia. Six target genes (i.e., GRIN1, PTGIS, PTGES, ADRA1A, CDK5, and SULT1E1) indicating disease specificity index (DSI) >0.5 showed certain to good degree binding affinity with NBP, ranging from −9.2 to −6.7 kcal/mol. And the binding modes may be mainly related to hydrogen bonds and hydrophobic “bonds.” Further literature validations inferred that these critical NBP targets had a tight association with AD, epilepsy, ALS, and depression. Conclusions. Our study proposed a drug-target-disease integrated method to predict the drug repurposing potentials to associated diseases by application of NP and MD, which could be an attractive alternative to facilitate the development of CNS disease therapies. NBP may be promising and showed potentials to be repurposed for treatments for AD, epilepsy, ALS, and depression, and further investigations are warranted to be carefully designed and conducted.

The presence of asbestos in the environment has caused concern because exposure to asbestos can cause diseases such as stomach and pancreatic cancer. However, suitable up-to-date methods for quantitatively analyzing asbestos and assessing the toxicity of asbestos have not been developed. In this study, asbestos in drinking water was characterized using a stepwise multiple differential infra-red spectra method and a partial least squares method. The in vivo migration of ingested asbestos in mice was then investigated using the technique. The quantification limit of six kinds of asbestos by using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy in water are respectively from 0.0468 to 0.0705 mg/L, from 0.0039 to 0.0064 mg/L. The relative standard deviations were respectively less than 2.85% and 3.81%. The recoveries of the test asbestos were respectively more than 95.10% and 95.38%. Asbestos was found mainly to accumulate in the livers of mice. The Fourier-transform infra-red spectroscopy inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry method can be used to detect and precisely quantify asbestos in water samples and in animal tissues.

Herein, a conceptual approach for significantly enhancing a bead-supported assay is proposed. For the fluorescence imaging technology, optical tweezers are introduced to overcome the fluid viscosity interference and immobilize a single tested bead at the laser focus to guarantee a fairly precise imaging condition. For the selection of fluorescent materials and the signal acquisition means, a type of innovative luminescence confined upconversion nanoparticle with a unique sandwich structure is specially designed to act as an efficient energy donor to trigger the luminescent resonance energy transfer (LRET) process. By further combining the double breakthrough with a molecular beacon model, the newly developed detection strategy allows for achieving a pretty high LRET ratio (≈ 88%) to FAM molecules and offering sound assay performance toward miRNA analysis with a detection limit as low as the sub-fM level, and is capable of well identifying single-base mismatching. Besides, this approach not only is able to accurately qualify the low-abundance targets from as few as 30 cancer cells but also can be employed as a valid cancer early warning tool for performing liquid biopsy.

By using multifunctional optical tweezers (OT) equipped with a 980 nm continuous-wave single-mode diode laser and multiple detectors, we are able to trap single upconversion nanoparticles stably as...

Metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) has been applied to construct biosensing systems in the recent decades owing to its favorable optical properties. Herein, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are used to enhance fluorescence of gold nanoclusters (AuNCs), by fabricating a core-shell composite nanostructure Ag@SiO2-AuNCs consisting of a silver core, a silica shell and an outer conjugated layer of AuNCs. The core-shell MEF-capable nanoparticles possess water dispersibility, high stability and good biocompatibility. The interaction between AuNCs on the surface of the outer silica shell and the silver core, significantly improves the excitation efficiency, and thus enhances the fluorescence emission, photostability and quantum yield of the AuNCs. The composite nanoparticle Ag@SiO2-AuNCs provides a fluorescence enhancement of up to 3.21-fold when the separation distance (the thickness of the silica shell) is about 10 nm. Finally, the composite nanostructures have further been applied to develop a sensing platform for multi-component detection based on the MEF capability and the OFF-ON-OFF switching nature of the fluorescence signal, and the detection limits for Cu2+, inorganic pyrophosphate (PPi) and pyrophosphatase (PPase) are 39 nM, 78.7 nM and 0.976 mU, respectively. This platform has been applied to detect Cu2+, PPi and PPase with satisfactory results in living cells.

We report a new upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) based luminescent resonance energy transfer (LRET) analytical platform by making use of optical tweezers technology. The LRET model is designed by simultaneously conjugating Yb3+ and Er3+ co-doped UCNPs (as the donors) and tetramethyl rhodamine (TAMRA) molecules (as the acceptors) on microspheres to fabricate complex microspheres. Upon a single complex microsphere entering the three-dimensional potential well formed with a tightly focused 980 nm Guassian-shaped laser beam, it is optically trapped and concurrently the upconversion emission is excited, whereby the donor signals are transferred to the acceptors. As a proof-of-concept investigation, microRNA-21 sequences are selected as the targets, by which the distance between the two perfectly matched luminophors is controlled to several nanometers via nucleic acid hybridization. Without the involvement of luminescence amplification strategies, the proposed single microsphere based LRET method shows highly competitive sensitivity with a limit of detection down to 114 fM and satisfactory specificity towards microRNAs detection. Moreover, its practical working ability is demonstrated by credibly quantifying the absolute contents of miRNA-21 sequences in three cancer cell lines and even tracing the targets in as few as 100 cancer cells. Thus, this favorable analytical methodology provides an alternative for bioassays and holds certain potential in biomedical applications.

Asbestos fibres are recognized as a group one carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and may cause environmental pollution and potential health hazards upon entering drinking water sources. However, few studies have investigated asbestos in drinking water because of limited methods for such analyses. Additionally, the existing electron microscopy methods are usually expensive and may not be easily accessible in many laboratories. In this study, phase contrast microscopy (PCM) and micro Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (micro-FTIR) were proposed to identify asbestos in water for the first time. Water samples were qualitatively analysed using micro-FTIR, and the presence of asbestos fibres was confirmed. Phase contrast microscopy was then used to enumerate the asbestos fibres. The results obtained using the developed method were verified by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis. The results indicated that the combined PCM-FTIR represents an economical method for rapidly determining the presence of asbestos fibres in drinking water and their quantitative analysis. The proposed protocol is a potential alternative to electron microscopy for the analysis of asbestos fibres in drinking water and is easier to apply in the laboratory.

Apart from gene editing capacity, the newly discovered CRISPR/Cas systems offer an exciting option for biosensing field because of their excellent target recognition accuracy. However, the currently constructed sensors are not only limited to nucleic acid analysis but also suffer from poor adaptability in complex samples and unsatisfying sensitivity. We herein introduce some advanced concepts to break through these bottlenecks. First, the sensing targets are extended by skillfully designing a functional DNA such as aptamer (for protein) and DNAzyme (for metal ion) to regulate the transduction of non-nucleic acid species and further activate the trans cleavage of CRISPR/Cas12a. Second, a boosting upconversion luminescent resonance energy is triggered by using a peculiar energy-confining notion, whereby the luminescence domain is intensively restricted in a very narrow space (~2.44 nm) and up to 92.9% of the green emission can be quenched by the approaching BHQ-1 modified reporters. Third, a bio-inspired periodic arrangement biomimetic chip (photonic crystal) is employed to selectively reflect the upconversion luminescence to achieve noteworthy signal enhancement (~35-fold). By utilizing very simple detection devices (a 980 nm portable laser and a smartphone), the CRISPR/Cas12a biosensor shows commendable sensitivity and specificity toward model targets (ATP and Na+, limits of detection are ~ 18 nM and ~0.37 μM, respectively). More importantly, the analysis of real complex samples demonstrate that the as-proposed platform can work as a powerful toolbox for monitoring the ATP fluctuation in single cell and point-of-care testing Na+ in human plasma, enabling a broad application prospect.

We incorporate three conceptual components including luminescence-concentrating upconversion nanoparticles, optical tweezers, and DNA walkers into bead carriers to establish a new imaging analysis.

To enhance signal acquisition stability and diminish background interference for conventional flow bead-based fluorescence detection methods, we demonstrate here an exceptional microfluidic chip assisted platform by integrating near-infrared optical tweezers with upconversion luminescence encoding. For the former, a single 980 nm laser is employed to perform optical trapping and concurrently excite upconversion luminescence, avoiding the fluctuation of the signals and the complexity of the apparatus. By virtue of the favorable optical properties of upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), the latter is carried out by employing two-color UCNPs (Er-UCNPs and Tm-UCNPs) with negligible spectral overlaps. With the assistance of the double key techniques, we fabricated complex microbeads referred to a UCNPs-miRNAs-microbead sandwich construct by a one-step nucleic acid hybridization process and then obtained uniform terrace peaks for the automatic and simultaneous quantitative determination of miRNA-205 and miRNA-21 sequences with a detection limit of pM level on the basis of a special home-built flow bead platform. Furthermore, the technique was successfully applied for analyzing complex biological samples such as cell lysates and human tissue lysates, holding certain potential for disease diagnosis. In addition, it is expected that the flow platform can be utilized to investigate many other biomolecules of single cells and to allow analysis of particle heterogeneity in biological fluid by means of optical tweezers.

Hyperparallel quantum information processing outperforms its traditional parallel one in terms of channel capacity, low loss rate, and processing speed. We present a way for implementing a robust hyper-parallel optical controlled-phase-flip gate through microcavities. The gate acts on polarization and spatial degrees of freedom (DOFs) simultaneously, and the incomplete and undesired interactions between photons and quantum dots are prevented. Interestingly, the unity fidelity of the gate can be achieved in principle, and the success of the gate is heralded by the single-photon detectors., Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures

Background: Patients with schizophrenia exhibit a higher mortality rate compared with the general population. This mortality has been attributed predominantly by the high risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in the patients. We aimed to assess the inherent risk of glucose metabolism abnormalities in first-episode drug-naïve schizophrenia. Subjects and methods: We searched English database (PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library databases) and Chinese database (Wan Fang Data, CBM disc, VIP, and CNKI) from their inception until Jul 2018 for case-control studies examining glucose metabolism abnormalities. Measurements, such as fasting plasma glucose levels, fasting plasma insulin levels, insulin resistance and HbA1c levels in first episode antipsychotic-naive patients were used to test for prediabetes. Standardized/weighted mean differences and 95% confidence intervals were calculated and analyzed. Results: 19 studies (13 in English and 6 in Chinese) consisting of 1065 patients and 873 controls were included. Fasting plasma glucose levels (95% CI; 0.02 to 0.29; P=0.03), 2 h plasma glucose levels after an OGTT (95% CI; 0.63 to 1.2; P