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Cu2O nanoparticles decorated TiO2 thin films were fabricated by laser ablation. The effects of Cu2O nanoparticles on the structure, optical properties and photocatalytic performance of TiO2 thin film were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectrometer system, optical absorption and photocatalytic evaluation system, respectively. XRD patterns indicate that the decoration has the effect of lowering the grain orientation of Cu2O. The photocatalytic performance in hydrogen generation of Cu2O decorated TiO2 composite thin film was significantly improved compared with that of either Cu2O nanoparticles or TiO2 single layer thin film with 1.70 and 1.77 times, respectively. The oxidation of Cu2O was demonstrated to dominate the photocatalytic performances of Cu2O/TiO2 composite thin films by varying the laser ablation powers.

BackgroundSpinal cord injury (SCI) is a destructive trauma accompanying with local injury, half of which cause chronic paralysis. Ginsenoside Rg1 exerts anti-apoptosis and anti-autophagy properties. Therefore, our goal was to study the protective mechanism of Rg1 in attenuating cell injury.MethodsMiR-216a-5p inhibitor was transfected into PC-12 cells, then cells were pre-treated by Rg1 and treated with 300 μM hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) for 24 h. CCK-8 and apoptosis experiments were done to test cell activity and apoptosis respectively. Expression of miR-216a-5p and cell damage relative factors was tested via qRT-PCR and western blot experiments, respectively.ResultsH2O2induced cell activity suppression, apoptosis and autophagy well at the concentration of 300 μM, leading cell injury. Rg1 could attenuate cell injury induced by H2O2at the working concentration of 200 μM that it elevated cell activity, attenuated apoptosis and autophagy and activated PI3K/AKT and AMPK signal pathways. Further, miR-216a-5p was up-regulated by Rg1. Rg1 played its role in relieving cell injury by positively regulating miR-216a-5p.ConclusionOur study demonstrated that Rg1 attenuated H2O2-caused cell injury through positively regulated miR-216a-5p.

Sub-wavelength artificial photonic structures can be introduced to tailor and modulate the spectrum of materials, thus expanding the optical applications of these materials. On the basis of SiO2/Cu/ITO arrays, a hybrid coupled resonance (HCR) mechanism, including the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) mode of ITO, local surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) mode and the microstructural gap resonance (GR) mode, was proposed and researched by systematically regulating the array period and layer thickness. The optical absorptions of the arrays were simulated under different conditions by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. ITO films were prepared and characterized to verify the existence of ENZ mode and Mie theory was used to describe the LSPR mode. The cross-sectional electric field distribution was analyzed while SiO2/Cu/ITO multilayers were also fabricated, of which absorption was measured and calculated by Macleod simulation to prove the existence of GR and LSPR mode. Finally, the broad-band tailoring of optical absorption peaks from 673 nm to 1873 nm with the intensities from 1.8 to 0.41 was realized, which expands the applications of ITO-based plasmonic metamaterials in the near infrared (NIR) region.

Silver thin films covered with a graphene oxide (GO) colloid layer were fabricated in this study. The coupling between GO and localized surface plasmons of the silver thin films was investigated by optical absorption and Raman scattering experiments. The absorption spectra showed that the intensity of the plasma edge peak at 320 nm decreased but the intensity of the interband transition peak at 350 nm was enhanced by an increase of the GO colloid concentration. The surface plasmon resonance attributed to the increased absorption of incident light by the GO layer caused an increase of the Raman scattering intensities. Theoretical calculations were performed for the surface plasmon resonance properties of the GO/silver thin films, and the results were in good agreement with the experiments.

The indium tin oxide-graphene oxide (ITO/GO) composite films with different thickness of GO for a mixed ITO thickness was synthesized by a facile solid-liquid thermal recombination. The structure and the optical properties of ITO/GO composites were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectra, ellipsometer and the UV-VIS-NIR double beam spectrophotometer. The nonlinear optical properties of specimen were successfully investigated by a single Z-scan technique. The experimental results showed that the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) wavelength of composites can be tuned from 1225 to 1940 nm by adjusting the thickness of GO. The nonlinear absorption coefficient ( β = − 4.0 × 10 8 cm/GW) for composites is about 1.8 times greater than that of the single-layer ITO films. Additionally, the results of Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) are in good agreement with those of the experiments.

Tunable permittivity of Epsilon-Near-Zero (ENZ) of ITO thin films were realized by Nd: YAG pulse laser irradiation. The effects of different pulsed laser power irradiation on the structure, morphology and optical properties of the samples were investigated via X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, UV-VIS-NIR double beam spectrometer, spectroscopic ellipsometry and Raman system, respectively. Those results indicate that pulse laser irradiation has the effects on the preferential orientation and the permittivity wavelength region of ENZ from 1137 to 2001 nm. The variations of Raman spectra further confirms that the laser irradiation can induce some defects driving the special optical characteristics of ITO films. In addition, the results of Finite-Difference Time-Domain are in good agreement with those of the experiments.

Emerging evidence has demonstrated that the dysregulation of microRNA (miRNA/miR) serves a crucial role in the tumorigenesis and tumor development of osteosarcoma (OS), primarily by affecting various pathological behaviors. Therefore, better knowledge of miRNA in OS may provide novel insights into the pathogenesis of OS, and may facilitate the development of promising therapeutics for patients with this disease. MiRNA‑944 is frequently dysregulated in human cancers. However, the expression levels, functions and underlying mechanisms of miR‑944 in OS remain largely elusive. In the present study, reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT‑qPCR) was performed to detect miR‑944 expression in OS tissues and cell lines. The regulatory influence of miR‑944 in OS proliferation and invasion was determined with MTT and Transwell invasion assays. In addition, the mechanisms underlying the action of miR‑944 in OS cells were elucidated through a series of experiments, including bioinformatics analysis, luciferase reporter assay, RT‑qPCR and western blot analysis. Spearman's correlation analysis was utilized to examine the relationship between miR‑944 and VEGF expression levels, and rescue experiments were applied to further verify whether VEGF mediates the role of miR‑944 in OS. The results demonstrated that miR‑944 was downregulated in cancer tissues and cell lines. Furthermore, exogenous miR‑944 expression inhibited cell proliferation and invasion in OS in vitro. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was identified as a direct target of miR‑944 in OS and was overexpressed in cancer tissues. VEGF expression was inversely correlated with miR‑944 expression in cancer tissues. Rescue experiments demonstrated that overexpression of VEGF partially prevented the miR‑944‑induced inhibition of OS cell proliferation and invasion. These results suggested that miR‑944 may serve a tumor suppressive role in OS by directly targeting VEGF. Therefore, miR‑944 may be a promising target in the treatment of OS.

BACKGROUND The common and effective treatment for degenerative lumbar diseases is lumbar spinal fusion. Controversy still exists on the choice for instrumentation with spinal fusion procedures. Therefore, we conducted this meta-analysis exclusively of RCTs to compare the clinical outcomes of patients receiving bilateral versus unilateral pedicle screw fixation (PSF). MATERIAL AND METHODS After systematic review of published and unpublished literature, a meta-analysis was conducted to compare the 2 treatment strategies. The methodological quality of the literature was assessed using the PEDro critical appraisal tool. RESULTS Data synthesis showed less blood loss (P