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This study aimed to support researchers’ reflective analysis and to identify unexplored topics as possibilities for future research with practical importance about occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMSs). The paper investigates OHSMSs literature by assessing the development of the field and identifying evolution patterns and gaps. With a qualitative approach, this systematic review was developed with the adoption of bibliographic procedures and action research. The intervention instrument ProKnow-C, a structured process guided by the constructivist perspective, was used. 3,130 studies were analyzed. Based on the results, the paper identified prolific authors and the most studied economic sectors. The evolution of safety management systems goals is explained and the evolutionary movement of the systems is compared to Bititci´s. A literature map was illustrated to show the frequency that the aspects related to OHSMSs are being explored. It indicates that integrated systems and ergonomic aspects are the most discussed topics. Furthermore, there is a shortage of longitudinal studies. It is noteworthy to mention that ergonomic indicators are being introduced into OHSMSs and their correlation is a promising topic to be explored. The use of data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning has grown significantly and quickly and has contributed to the evolution of the area. We conclude that developing OHSMS by respecting the decision maker's knowledge throughout the process, incorporating ergonomic aspects and using AI methods is a challenge that will contribute to the advancement of OHSMSs.

The design and synthesis of nitrogen-doped aromatic belts with conjugated structures still remain a challenge. Here, we report the first nitrogen-doped aromatic belt with a [6]cycloparaphenylene skeleton, which is conveniently synthesized from the easily available calix[3]carbazole. The aromatic belt has a rigid conjugated structure and deep cavity, and it can encapsulate one dichloromethane both in solution and in the solid state. Interestingly, the aromatic belt shows strong green fluorescence with a quantum yield of 0.39 and exhibits a narrow HOMO-LUMO energy gap of 2.02 eV. The belt-shaped conjugated structure composed of three carbazole subunits has specific optoelectronic properties that will promote wide applications in supramolecular chemistry and materials science.

The thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties have attracted increasing interest for their applications as the emitters in non-doped organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this work, three quinoline-based TADF molecules 9,9-dimethyl-10-(quinolin-2-yl)-9,10-dihydroacridine (DMAC-QL), 10-(quinolin-2-yl)-10H-phenoxazine (PXZ-QL) and 10-(quinolin-2-yl)-10H-phenothiazine (PTZ-QL) were conveniently synthesized by a one-step reaction starting from commercially available materials. The twisted conformation was confirmed by single crystal analysis, and all the compounds exhibited high thermal stability. Moreover, the ΔEST values of DMAC-QL, PXZ-QL and PTZ-QL were 0.06, 0.10 and 0.04 eV, and their delay lifetimes were 2.15, 1.86 and 15.76 μs, respectively, indicating their excellent TADF properties. They also exhibited typical AIE and aggregation-induced delayed fluorescence (AIDF) properties in THF/H2O solution. The non-doped OLEDs based on the emitters DMAC-QL, PXZ-QL and PTZ-QL were fabricated, and the maximal EQEs of the devices were 7.7, 17.3 and 14.8%, respectively, along with turn-on voltages of 3.2, 2.6 and 2.8 eV. It was further found that the efficiency roll-off of the non-doped device based on PXZ-QL was very small due to its short delay lifetime and excellent AIE and AIDF properties.

Tissue samples are widely used for the study of metabolomics, lipidomics and proteomics due to their abundant useful biomolecular information. Modern analytical mass spectrometry has the ability to directly obtain the molecular information contained in various tissue samples (e.g., plant tissues, animal tissues, and clinical tissues, etc.) in real-time, with minimal or no sample pretreatment. Such features of analytical mass spectrometry promote the throughput of tissue analysis and extend the application of tissue analysis in multiple fields. This review summarizes the applications of mass spectrometry in direct analysis of plant tissues, animal tissues and clinical tissues, and the challenges and perspectives of mass spectrometry in direct analysis of tissue samples are discussed as well.

Sign inversions of circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) for the hydro[5]helicene and [5]helicene derivatives were discovered and studied experimentally and theoretically. The inverted CPL signs from the hydro[5]helicene to [5]helicene derivatives were realized by one-step oxidation. The introduction of triphenylamine (TPA) subunits into the helical skeletons also led to the sign inversion of CPL only when there existed an enhanced intramolecular charge-transfer state with a small enough Egap.

This study aimed to investigate the anti-inflammatory effect of astragaloside Ⅳ in mice with ulcerative colitis(UC) and its effect on the percentage of peripheral blood T helper(Th17) cells. Following the establishment of UC mouse model with 2% sodium dextran sulfate(DSS), mice in the positive control group and low-and high-dose astragaloside Ⅳ groups were treated with corresponding drugs by gavage. Disease activity index(DAI) was calculated, and serum interleukin-17(IL-17), tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α), and transforming growth factor-β(TGF-β) levels were assayed by ELISA. The pathological changes in colon tissue were observed by HE staining, and Th17/regulatory T cells(Treg) ratio in the peripheral blood was determined by flow cytometry. Western blot was conducted for detecting the relative protein expression levels of forkhead box protein P3(Foxp3) and retinoic acid-related orphan nuclear receptor γT(ROR-γt). The findings demonstrated that in normal mice, the colonic structure was intact. The goblet cells were not reduced and the glands were neatly arranged, with no mucosal erosion, bleeding, or positive cell infiltration. In the model group, the colonic mucosal structure was seriously damaged, manifested as disordered arrangement or missing of glands, vascular dilatation, congestion, and massive inflammatory cell infiltration. The pathological injury of colon tissue was alleviated to varying degrees in drug treatment groups. Compared with the normal group, the model group exhibited elevated percentage of Th17 cells, increased IL-17 and TNF-α content, up-regulated relative ROR-γt protein expression, lowered TGF-β, reduced percentage of Treg cells, and down-regulated relative Foxp3 protein expression. The comparison with the model group showed that DAI score, pathological score, percentage of Th17 cells, IL-17 and TNF-α content, and relative ROR-γt protein expression in the positive control group, low-dose astragaloside Ⅳ group, and high-dose astragaloside Ⅳ group were decreased, while TGF-β content, percentage of Treg cells, and relative Foxp3 protein expression were increased. The DAI score, pathological score, percentage of Th17 cells, IL-17 and TNF-α content, and relative ROR-γt protein expression in the low-dose astragaloside Ⅳ group were higher than those in the positive control group, whereas the content of TGF-β, percentage of Treg cells, and relative Foxp3 protein expression were lower. DAI score, pathological score, percentage of Th17 cells, IL-17 and TNF-α content, relative ROR-γt protein expression in the high-dose astragaloside Ⅳ group declined in contrast to those in the low-dose astragaloside Ⅳ group, while the TGF-β content, percentage of Treg cells, and relative Foxp3 protein expression rose. There was no significant difference between the positive control group and the high-dose astragaloside Ⅳ group. Astragaloside Ⅳ is able to inhibit inflammatory response and diminish the percentage of Th17 cells in mice with UC.

Background: The combination of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) plus sorafenib prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) than sorafenib or TACE monotherapy for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study assessed the efficacy and safety of radiotherapy (RT) plus monoclonal antibody against programmed cell death 1 (anti-PD1) versus TACE plus sorafenib for patients with advanced HCC.Methods: Patients with advanced HCC who treated with RT plus anti-PD1 and TACE plus sorafenib were enrolled. Objective response rate (ORR), PFS, disease control rate (DCR) and OS were calculated to assess the antitumor response and the treatment-related adverse events to the safety.Results: Between January 2018 to March 2021, 37 patients underwent RT plus anti-PD1 and 41 patients underwent TACE plus sorafenib. The baseline characteristics between the two groups were comparable. The ORR and DCR were significantly higher in the RT+PD1 group than the TACE plus sorafenib group according to RECIST 1.1 (54.05% vs 12.20%, P < 0.001; 70.27% vs 46.37%, P = 0.041; respectively) and according to mRECIST (56.76% vs 31.71%, P = 0.039; 70.27% vs 46.37%, P = 0.041; respectively). RT plus anti-PD1 provided significantly better PFS (HR, 0.51; 95% CI 0.30-0.86; p=0.017) than TACE plus sorafenib. Moreover, patients with RT plus anti-PD1 had significantly higher 3-, 6-, and 9-month OS rates than those with TACE plus sorafenib(97.3% vs 92.30%, P < 0.001; 91.89% vs 68.60%, P < 0.001; 75.5% vs 60.60%, P < 0.001; respectively). The median OS was more favorable 17.4 months for the RT+PD1 group and 11.9 months for the TACE plus sorafenib group. No treatment-related death was observed. Grade 3 or more treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs) occurred significantly less in patients in the RT+PD1 group than the TACE plus sorafenib group (29.7% vs 75.6%, p < 0.001), and all TRAEs were manageable.Conclusions: In this real-world study, RT plus anti-PD1 showed significantly promising efficacy and manageable safety than TACE plus sorafenib in patients with advanced HCC. Toxicities were manageable, with no unexpected safety signals. The study provides evidence on a new therapeutic method in the treatment of advanced HCC.

The construction of new and efficient chiral TADF materials with red emission and the exploration of their applications in OLED devices still remain a great challenge for the difficulty in molecular design and low efficiency of devices. In this work, we synthesized a couple of 1,8-naphthalimide-based enantiomers (−)-(R,R)-CAI-DMAC and (+)-(S,S)-CAI-DMAC. The enantiomers not only exhibit high thermal stability with decomposition temperature of 405 °C, excellent electrochemical properties, and good thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) properties with small ΔEST of 0.07 eV, but also show obvious mirror-image circular dichroism and circularly polarized luminescence properties. Moreover, by using (−)-(R,R)-CAI-DMAC and (+)-(S,S)-CAI-DMAC as emitters, the OLEDs with the bands both centred at 592 nm achieved high maximum external quantum efficiency of 12.4% and 12.3%, respectively.

Three new 1,8-naphthyridine-based thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters, 2,7-di(9,9-dimethylacridin-10(9H)-yl)-1,8-naphthyridine (DMAC-ND), 2,7-di(10H-phenothiazin-10-yl)-1,8-naphthyridine (PTZ-ND) and 2,7-di(10H-phenoxazin-10-yl)-1,8-naphthyridine (PXZ-ND), were designed and synthesized. They possessed twisted structures and small ΔEST, which could make them show excellent TADF and AIDF properties. Consequently, multi-color organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) based on emitters DMAC-ND, PTZ-ND and PXZ-ND were fabricated, which could achieve a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 14.1, 13.4 and 13.0%, respectively. Moreover, all devices exhibited relatively low turn-on voltages and low efficiency roll-off ranging from 4.5% to 20% at the luminance of 1000 cd m−2 probably owing to the microsecond-scale delayed photoluminescence (PL) and AIDF properties of the emitters. Notably, a DMAC-ND-based non-doped device reached the luminance of 20 000 cd m−2 easily at the voltage of 6.5 V, and exhibited very low efficiency roll-off of 4.5% at the luminance of 1000 cd m−2 and 33.6% at the luminance of 10 000 cd m−2.

A series of contiguous all-carbon quaternary stereocentres with an arene-annulated polycyclic framework were constructed efficiently by a metal-free and atom economic acid-catalyzed method. The reactions could be performed by acid-catalyzed cationic cyclization and rearrangement under mild conditions. Moreover, the resulting polycyclic products showed highly twisted architectures with two perpendicular planes.

Phthalimide-based "D-N-A" emitters o-AI-Cz, m-AI-Cz and p-AI-Cz showed TADF and RTP properties due to their small ΔEST in both film and crystalline states. In particular, o-AI-Cz exhibited an ultralong RTP with a lifetime of 602 ms in air and remarkable afterglow, which could allow it to be used as a security ink for application in anti-counterfeiting materials. Moreover, o-AI-Cz showed intense intramolecular interaction between the donor and the acceptor subunits, while p-AI-Cz could form regular hexagonal pores with a diameter of 13.171 Å in the solid state, which might result in their different RTP properties.

The coexistence of lung cancer and pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) is uncommon in young patients. We report a case of 22-year-old man who presented with a one-month history of chest pain, cough, slight haemoptysis and weight loss. Following two acid fast bacilli positive sputum samples, a diagnosis of TB was concluded. However, his response to anti-TB therapy was inadequate. A CT scan and further laboratory tests assisted the final diagnosis as c-ros oncogene 1 (ROS1) rearranged lung adenocarcinoma and PTB. Despite severe comorbidities, the patient achieved clinical remission following treatment with the anti-cancer drug, crizotinib and anti- TB therapy. Clinicians should be aware that this comorbidity can occur in all age groups and the clinical and radiological symptoms of the two diseases are similar.

GaAs terahertz schottky barrier diode SBD has been a major technology in terahertz wave multiplexing, mixing and direct detection for decades, due to its high mobility and low capacity. In this paper, T-anode GaAs terahertz SBD was presented with its $C_{\mathrm{j}0}$ scaled into sub-fF range. Scalling C-V measurement showed $C_{\mathrm{j}0}$ without parasitic capacity reached 0.476fF for the $0.5\mu\mathrm{m}$ anode diameter device. With the relative low series resistance R s of $28.8\mathrm{\Omega}$ , cutoff frequency $f_{\mathrm{t}}$ reached 11.6THz. The whole process was based on 4 inch GaAs wafer, guarantee stability and conformity in terahertz GaAs SBD integrated circuits working over 1THz.

An axially chiral TADF emitter, 4tBuCzPN, with a dual emitting core was easily synthesized. Compared with the TADF emitter 2tBuCzPN with the PLQY of 29% and EQE of 5.3%, 4tBuCzPN showed a significantly increased PLQY (74%) and EQE (20.8%) for its OLED. Moreover, the enantiomers of 4tBuCzPN also exhibited mirror-image CD and CPL properties, and the glum values of (+)-4tBuCzPN and (−)-4tBuCzPN were +5.4 × 10−3 and −5.0 × 10−3 in toluene, respectively.

A series of diaryl-substituted [5]helicene derivatives containing aromatic imide moiety were effectively synthesized. From the single crystal of 3 , obviously helical structure with a torsion angle of 65.4° was detected. Compared with their tetrahydro[5]helicene analogues, the [5]helicene derivatives showed longer absorption wavelength and larger molar absorptivity, which might be attributed to the large π-conjugated skeleton that was beneficial to electron delocalization at ground state. Moreover, except for 5k , long emission wavelength (520–545 nm), medium fluorescence quantum yields (14.4–21.6%) and large Stokes shifts (89–95 nm) of the [5]helicene derivatives were also found, which could make them be found wide potential applications in optoelectronic materials.

Chiral self-assembled organic nanoparticles with circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) properties can be utilized as a new kind of chiral luminescent materials for practical applications. However, no such chiral organic nanoparticles with full-color and white CPL properties have been reported so far. Herein, five pairs of self-assembled chiral nanoparticles based on optically stable helical aromatic amide enantiomers were conveniently obtained. The chiral nanoparticles showed about 200 nm uniform sphere, high fluorescence quantum yields, and large Stokes shifts. Especially, the chiral nanoparticles exhibited both obvious mirror-image circular dichroism signals and full-color CPL properties with luminescence dissymmetry factors of about 10–3, which were comparable to those of CPL-active quantum dots. Moreover, the chiral organic nanoparticles with white CPL could also be easily achieved using the three-primary-color enantiomers via intermolecular energy resonance transfer.

A pair of novel circularly polarized thermally activated delayed fluorescence (CP-TADF) enantiomers (+)-(S,S)-CTRI-Cz and (−)-(R,R)-CTRI-Cz based on chiral triptycene scaffold were designed and synthesized. The obtained triptycene-derived enantiomers displayed obvious TADF activities with small singlet-triplet energy gap value (ΔEST) of 0.20 eV and characteristic microsecond delayed lifetime of 15.4 μs. Moreover, the TADF enantiomers showed mirror-image circular dichroism (CD) and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) activities, and their luminescence dissymmetry factors (glum) were about ±0.9 × 10−3. Finally, by using the TADF enantiomers as emitters, the optimized organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) achieved maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEmax), current efficiency (CEmax) and power efficiency (PEmax) of 15.0%, 48.8 cd/A and 46.9 lm/W, respectively.

Objective: To explore the effect of sufentanil combined with propofol and scoline on stress response and immune response in fiberoptic bronchoscopy. Methods: A total of 138 patients with fiberoptic bronchoscopy in the hospital between March 2015 and April 2017 were collected and divided into routine group and scoline group by random number table, 69 cases in each group. Routine group received sufentanil combined with propofol anesthesia, and scoline group received sufentanil, propofol combined with scoline anesthesia. The differences in the levels of stress hormones in serum and immune indexes in alveolar lavage fluid were compared between the two groups before and after examination. Results: Before examination, the differences in the levels of Th1/Th2 cytokines in serum as well as Th1/Th2 cytokines and Th17/Treg cytokines in alveolar lavage fluid were not statistically significant between the two groups; immediately after examination, serum stress hormones Cor, E and NE levels of scoline group were lower than those of routine group; Th1 cytokines IL-2 and IFN-γ levels in alveolar lavage fluid were higher than those of routine group while Th2 cytokines IL-10 and IL-13 levels were lower than those of routine group; Th17 cytokine IL-17 level in alveolar lavage fluid was lower than that of routine group while Treg cytokine IL-23 level was higher than that of routine group. Conclusion: Small-dose scoline for fiberoptic bronchoscopy anesthesia can effectively relieve the systemic stress state and avoid the acute injury of immune response function.

A new class of chiral organic molecules was synthesized with CPL properties based on helical aromatic esters. The molecules not only show blue fluorescence with high quantum yields in solution and films, but also exhibit intense CPL with large glum.

Chiral materials have been widely present in people's lives, and their in-depth application research is underway. Generally, the circularly polarized light obtained from nonpolarized light through filters would result in brightness loss. Scientists have found that chirality can be introduced into organic compounds to obtain circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). Chiral compounds with CPL properties have attracted great attention and interest in recent years for their wide potential applications in 3D information displays, quantum communication, spintronics information storage, CPL lasers, nonlinear optics, biological probes and other fields. It is worth noting that helicene derivatives with twisted extended π-conjugated molecular structures could exhibit special helical chirality and excellent CPL properties. A chiral helix has also proven to be a valuable structural design for exploring small organic molecules with CPL. This review summarizes the recent development of CPL based on helicene derivatives.

New kinds of oxacalixarenes based on the triazine moiety have been synthesized, which showed highly twisted conformations and small ΔEST, as well as temperature-dependent transient PL decay curves, indicating the excellent thermally activated delayed fluorescence properties. Moreover, the oxacalixarenes also exhibited apparent aggregation-induced emission properties in THF/H2O mixtures.

Salbutamol and clenbuterol as β-agonists are illegally added in pig feed, resulting in pork contaminated and even leading excessive excitability of athletes. Therefore, it has a great significance for establishing a new rapid detection method of salbutamol and clenbuterol in pork. In this study, internal extraction electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (iEESI-MS) technique was used for directly qualitative and quantitative analysis of salbutamol and clenbuterol in pork tissues without any sample pretreatment. The results showed that this method had a high sensitivity to salbutamol and clenbuterol analysis with detection limits of (LOD) 6.2 and 9.8 ng kg−1, respectively, while the analysis time for detecting single sample and single index was less than 30 s. In a range of 0.01–1000 μg kg−1, the logarithm of signal intensity (Y) and the logarithm of concentration (X) had a good linear relationship. This method had many advantages such as rapid analysis, low sample consumption and high sensitivity, which was ideal for the rapid detection of trace salbutamol and clenbuterol.

Phospholipids and their metabolites play an important role in a variety of cellular processes including cell-cell adhesion, cell growth and differentiation, apoptosis, phagocytosis as well as storage of energy. In this study, the phospholipid composition of cancer tissue and adjacent normal tissue from humans and animals were analyzed by internal extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (iEESI-MS). Extractive solvent at high voltage (+5.5 kV) was injected into tissue samples using a fused silica capillary at a flow rate of 0.5–1.0 μL min−1, producing fine charged droplets containing analytes of tissue samples at the tip of the sample. Charged droplets were directly sampled to the atmospheric inlet of a mass spectrometer. Out of 21 different ratios of CH3OH-H2O solvent mixture, the ratio CH3OH-H2O (30:70, V/V) showed the optimal phospholipids extraction and visibility in MS. A large number of phospholipids from different tissue samples (such as cancer tissue and adjacent normal tissue of lung cancer, esophageal tissue, pork, beef, porcine heart and porcine lung) were obtained simultaneously by iEESI-MS analysis. The experimental results demonstrated that iEESI-MS was characterized by minimal sample pretreatment, low sample consumption, and rapid analysis (the analysis time per sample was less than 1 min), and the selectivity and sensitivity of iEESI-MS could be improved by choosing proper solvent. Importantly, the experimental results provided new information for further studies of phospholipids in biological tissues.

A series of conjugated polymers based on benzo[5]helicene have been synthesized by employing Sonogashira cross coupling, Suzuki–Miyaura cross coupling and Yamamoto homocoupling reactions. The photophysical properties of these polymers and their fluorescence responses to the nitroaromatic compounds have then been investigated. Quantitative analysis of the fluorescence titration profiles of the polymers with nitroaromatics in solution exhibited that these electron-rich conjugated polymers could selectively detect the nitroaromatic explosives among the electron-deficient aromatic compounds, and the polymers displayed different responses to the nitroaromatics with similar structures. Moreover, the thin film of polymer P2 also sensed the saturated vapors of nitroaromatics sensitively and selectively at room temperature, and the sensing process of the film was reproducible. The fluorescence intensity of P2 revealed a reduction of 87% upon exposure to DNT vapor, and of 70% to TNT vapor in only 10 s. Thus, these new conjugated polymers can be excellent fluorescence sensory materials for detecting nitroaromatic explosives.

The photophysical properties of dihydroindeno[2,1-c]fluorene-based imide (DHIFI) derivatives were investigated by steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopy as well as quantum chemical calculations. The hybridized local excited and charge transfer state (HLCT) was introduced to interpret the intercrossing of localized excited (LE) and charge transfer (CT) states. The large extent of CT in the HLCT state of a molecule with a strong electron donor (dimethylaniline) at the terminal site results in strong interaction between the dipole moments of the excited state and polar solvents. Time-resolved spectroscopy results show the formation of a stabilized ICT state in several picoseconds, which results in fluorescence quenching and less possibility of intersystem crossing to the triplet state. In contrast, a molecule with a weak electron donor (benzene) displays less fluorescence quenching. The slowing down of geometry relaxation in the weak-electron-donor molecule increases the possibility of ISC to the triplet state from the unrelaxed HLCT state.

An InGaAs/InP three mesa double heterojunction bipolar transistor demonstrating ft/fmax of 350/532 GHz was fabricated on 3 inch wafer with a 0.5 μm emitter and a composite collector. Base resistance Rbb of around 19 Ω was achieved to sustain a relative high fmax in 0.5 μm linewidth device. Small signal equivalent circuit model was established, and good agreement between measured and simulated values was achieved. Effects of some key parameters were analyzed based on simulated small signal equivalent circuit model. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:2774–2778, 2015

A new organic imide dye based on tetrahydro[5]helicene skeleton was synthesized, and its helical structural feature was confirmed by the crystal structure. It was found that the dye exhibited remarkable and reversible acid/base stimulated fluorescence switching properties in both solution and solid state, in which the dye was changed from "D-A type" to "A-A type" in the presence of TFA, and returned to its original form upon the addition of TEA. This switchable behavior was also evidenced by the H-1 NMR experiments and theoretical calculations. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we study the ground-state and lattice dynamical properties of β-UH--3by means of the first-principles density functional theory within the local spin-density approximation (LSDA)+Uformulism. The lattice constants and electronic structure are correctly described by taking into account the strong on-site Coulomb repulsion among the 5felectrons localized on uranium atoms. Good agreement with experiments is achieved by tuning the effective Hubbard parameter at around 4 eV. The phonon band structure confirms the dynamical stability of β-UH--3, and the Raman-active modes are consistent with Raman spectrum measurements. The substitution of the deuterium (tritium) atom for hydrogen atom makes significant variations in the typical frequency of Raman-active modes. It is found that the Raman-active mode frequency is approximately inversely proportional to the square root of the hydrogen isotope mass. We conclude that Raman spectrum provides a powerful method for detecting hydrogen isotopic effects.

Human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-G has seven isoforms, of which HLA-G1-G4 are membrane-bound and HLA-G5-G7 are soluble. Previous studies reinforced HLA-G expression was strongly related to poor prognosis in different types of cancers. Among these studies, the monoclonal antibody (mAb) 4H84 was used which detects all HLA-G isoform heavy chain; unfortunately, leaves the specific types of isoforms expressed in lesions undistinguished and its clinical significance needs to be clarified. To explore clinical significance of lesion soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), mAb 5A6G7 recognizing HLA-G5/-G6 molecules was used. Tumour cell sHLA-G expression in 131 primary NSCLC lesions (66 squamous cell carcinoma, 55 adenocarcinoma and 10 adenosquamous carcinoma) were analysed with immunohistochemistry. Data showed that sHLA-G expression was observed in 34.0% (45/131) of the NSCLC lesions, which was unrelated to patient age, sex, lymph nodal status, tumour–node–metastasis stage and patient survival. However, tumour cell sHLA-G expression in lesions was predominately observed in adenocarcinoma lesions (73.0%, 40/55) which was significantly higher than that in squamous cell carcinoma (6.0%, 4/66) and adenosquamous carcinoma lesions (10.0%, 1/10, P

Dinaphtho[8,1,2-cde:2',1',8'-uva]pentacene and analogues as a new type of acene derivatives with scorpion-shaped structures were conveniently synthesized. Their structures, photophysical and electrochemical properties were experimentally and theoretically investigated. It was found that the pentacene derivative has a twisted configuration, but shows marked intermolecular π-π interactions, strong electronic delocalization, and a small HOMO-LUMO bandgap, which are different from those of pentacene and pentatwistacene derivatives with similar structures.

A series of dialkoxybenzo[j]fluoranthene derivatives were readily and efficiently synthesized in gram scale starting from the commercial 6- or 7-methoxy-1-tetralone. The crystal structures of the BjF derivatives were described, and their structure–optical properties in solution and in the solid state were investigated. Moreover, this kind of organic material also exhibited excellent optical waveguide behavior owing to their large Stokes shifts and high crystallinity.

By Suzuki coupling reaction, three pairs of chiral conjugated polymers with optically stable helical aromatic ester subunits as the main-chain were designed and synthesized. Polymers (+)-P-P1 and (−)-M-P1, (+)-P-P2 and (−)-M-P2 showed strong fluorescence emission, strong mirror image CD and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) signals in THF. For polymers (+)-P-P3 and (−)-M-P3, containing the tetraphenylethene (TPE) moiety, they not only showed obvious aggregation induced enhancement emission (AIEE), but also exhibited mirror image CD signals and aggregation-induced enhancement CPL signals in THF–water mixtures. Moreover, (+)-P-P3 and (−)-M-P3 could also form chiral nanoparticles by solvent evaporation induced self-assembly. Interestingly, it was further found that the size of the nanoparticles could be controlled by the changing of THF/water ratio, and their CPL properties were also shown.

Both human leukocyte antigen-G (HLA-G) and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) was associated with the pathogenesis of infectious diseases. Whether peripheral MDSCs express HLA-G during virus infection remains unknown. We investigated the frequency of HLA-G+ MDSCs and its subsets in patients infected with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). In this study, frequencies of peripheral MDSCs (Lin1-HLA-DR-CD33+CD11b+) and HLA-G expressing subsets from 50 CHB patients and 27 normal controls were analyzed using flow cytometry. Data revealed the median percentage of MDSCs was not significantly different between the CHB patients and controls (0.30% vs. 0.29%; p=0.884). Among MDSCs, similar frequency was observed for CD14+ monocytic MDSC (mMDSCs; 31.25% vs. 23.35%; p=0.063) and CD15+ granulocytic MDSC (gMDSCs; 22.60% vs. 21.55%; p=0.558) between the two groups. However, HLA-G+ MDSCs was significantly increased in CHB patients compared with that of controls (3.30% vs. 0.50%; p

A highly selective and sensitive fluorescent ‘turn-on’ and chromogenic chemodosimeter based on tetrahydro[5]helicene thioimide has been developed. The chemodosimeter showed not only 200-fold enhancement of the fluorescent intensity in aqueous acetonitrile, but also marked color change of the solution from maroon to yellow-green solution upon the addition of Hg 2+ ion. The detection limit of the chemodosimeter for Hg 2+ was estimated to be 5.0 × 10 −7 M. The response mechanism was resulted from the Hg 2+ -induced desulfurization of the thioimide to its imide precursor.