| 1. |
- Beal, Jacob, et al.
(författare)
-
Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2399-3642. ; 3:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data.
|
|
| 2. |
- Bai, Yang, et al.
(författare)
-
Geometry design of tethered small-molecule acceptor enables highly stable and efficient polymer solar cells
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : NATURE PORTFOLIO. - 2041-1723. ; 14:1
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the power conversion efficiency of binary polymer solar cells dramatically improved, the thermal stability of the small-molecule acceptors raised the main concerns on the device operating stability. Here, to address this issue, thiophene-dicarboxylate spacer tethered small-molecule acceptors are designed, and their molecular geometries are further regulated via the thiophene-core isomerism engineering, affording dimeric TDY-alpha with a 2, 5-substitution and TDY-beta with 3, 4-substitution on the core. It shows that TDY-alpha processes a higher glass transition temperature, better crystallinity relative to its individual small-molecule acceptor segment and isomeric counterpart of TDY-beta, and amore stablemorphology with the polymer donor. As a result, the TDY-alpha based device delivers a higher device efficiency of 18.1%, and most important, achieves an extrapolated lifetime of about 35000 hours that retaining 80% of their initial efficiency. Our result suggests that with proper geometry design, the tethered small-molecule acceptors can achieve both high device efficiency and operating stability.
|
|
| 3. |
- Zhang, Yuanyuan, et al.
(författare)
-
Early-life exposure to PM2.5 constituents and childhood asthma and wheezing : Findings from China, Children, Homes, Health study
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Environment International. - : Elsevier. - 0160-4120 .- 1873-6750. ; 165
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Emerging evidence suggests that early-life (in-utero and first-year since birth) exposure to ambient PM2.5 is a risk factor for asthma onset and exacerbation among children, while the hazards caused by PM2.5 compositions remain largely unknown.Objective: To examine potential associations of early-life exposures to PM2.5 mass and its major chemical constituents with childhood asthma and wheezing.Methods: By conducting the Phase II of the China, Children, Homes, Health study, we investigated 30,325 preschool children aged 3-6 years during 2019-2020 in mainland China. Early-life exposure to PM2.5 mass and its constituents (i.e., black carbon [BC], organic matter [OM], nitrate, ammonium, sulfate) were calculated based on monthly estimates at a 1 km x 1 km resolution from satellite-based models. We adopted a novel quantile-based g-computation approach to assess the effect of a mixture of PM2.5 constituents on childhood asthma/wheezing.Results: The average PM2.5 concentrations during in-utero and the first year since birth were 64.7 +/- 10.6 and 61.8 +/- 10.5 mu g/m(3), respectively. Early-life exposures to a mixture of major PM2 center dot 5 constituents were significantly associated with increased risks of asthma and wheezing, while no evident compositions-wheezing associations were found in the first year. Each quintile increases in all five PM2.5 components exposures in utero was accordingly associated with an odds ratio of 1.18 [95% confidence interval: 1.07-1.29] for asthma and 1.08 [1.01-1.16] for wheezing. BC, OM and SO42- contributed more to risks of asthma and wheezing than the other PM2.5 constituents during early life, wherein the effects of BC were only observed during pregnancy. Sex subgroup analyses suggested stronger associations among girls of first-year exposures to PM2.5 components with childhood asthma.Conclusion: Early-life exposures to ambient PM2.5, particularly compositions of BC, OM and SO42-, are associated with an increased risk of childhood asthma.
|
|
| 4. |
- Zhang, Wei, et al.
(författare)
-
Investigation of Triphenylamine (TPA)-Based Metal Complexes and Their Application in Perovskite Solar Cells
- 2017
-
Ingår i: ACS Omega. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2470-1343. ; 2:12, s. 9231-9240
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Triphenylamine-based metal complexes were designed and synthesized via coordination to Ni(II), Cu(II), and Zn(II) using their respective acetate salts as the starting materials. The resulting metal complexes exhibit more negative energy levels (vs vacuum) as compared to 2,2', 7,7'-tetrakis(N, N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene (Spiro-OMeTAD), high hole extraction efficiency, but low hole mobilities and conductivities. Application of dopants typically used for Spiro-OMeTAD was not successful, indicating a more complicated mechanism of partial oxidation besides the redox potential. However, utilization as hole-transport material was successful, giving a highest efficiency of 11.1% under AM 1.5G solar illumination.
|
|
| 5. |
- Zhang, Wei, et al.
(författare)
-
Organic Salts as p-Type Dopants for Efficient LiTFSI-Free Perovskite Solar Cells
- 2020
-
Ingår i: ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1944-8244 .- 1944-8252. ; 12:30, s. 33751-33758
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite the ubiquity and importance of organic hole-transport materials in photovoltaic devices, their intrinsic low conductivity remains a drawback. Thus, chemical doping is an indispensable solution to this drawback and is essentially always required. The most widely used p-type dopant, FK209, is a cobalt coordination complex. By reducing Co(III) to Co(II), Spiro-OMeTAD becomes partially oxidized, and the film conductivity is initially increased. In order to further increase the conductivity, the hygroscopic co-dopant LiTFSI is typically needed. However, lithium salts are normally quite hygroscopic, and thus, water absorption has been suggested as a significant reason for perovskite degradation and therefore limited device stability. In this work, we report a LiTFSI-free doping process by applying organic salts in relatively high amounts. The film conductivity and morphology have been studied at different doping amounts. The resulting solar cell devices show comparable power conversion efficiencies to those based on conventional LiTFSI-doped Spiro-OMeTAD but show considerably better long-term device stability in an ambient atmosphere.
|
|
| 6. |
- Lensink, Marc F., et al.
(författare)
-
Impact of AlphaFold on structure prediction of protein complexes: The CASP15-CAPRI experiment
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Proteins. - : WILEY. - 0887-3585 .- 1097-0134.
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present the results for CAPRI Round 54, the 5th joint CASP-CAPRI protein assembly prediction challenge. The Round offered 37 targets, including 14 homodimers, 3 homo-trimers, 13 heterodimers including 3 antibody-antigen complexes, and 7 large assemblies. On average similar to 70 CASP and CAPRI predictor groups, including more than 20 automatics servers, submitted models for each target. A total of 21 941 models submitted by these groups and by 15 CAPRI scorer groups were evaluated using the CAPRI model quality measures and the DockQ score consolidating these measures. The prediction performance was quantified by a weighted score based on the number of models of acceptable quality or higher submitted by each group among their five best models. Results show substantial progress achieved across a significant fraction of the 60+ participating groups. High-quality models were produced for about 40% of the targets compared to 8% two years earlier. This remarkable improvement is due to the wide use of the AlphaFold2 and AlphaFold2-Multimer software and the confidence metrics they provide. Notably, expanded sampling of candidate solutions by manipulating these deep learning inference engines, enriching multiple sequence alignments, or integration of advanced modeling tools, enabled top performing groups to exceed the performance of a standard AlphaFold2-Multimer version used as a yard stick. This notwithstanding, performance remained poor for complexes with antibodies and nanobodies, where evolutionary relationships between the binding partners are lacking, and for complexes featuring conformational flexibility, clearly indicating that the prediction of protein complexes remains a challenging problem.
|
|
| 7. |
- Liu, Anbu, et al.
(författare)
-
DDR1/2 enhance KIT activation and imatinib resistance of primary and secondary KIT mutants in gastrointestinal stromal tumors
- 2024
-
Ingår i: Molecular Carcinogenesis. - 0899-1987. ; 63:1, s. 75-93
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are predominantly initiated by KIT mutations. In this study, we observed that discoidin domain receptors 1 and 2 (DDR1 and DDR2) exhibited high expression in GISTs, were associated with KIT, and enhanced the activation of both wild-type KIT and primary KIT mutants. Inhibition of DDR1/2 led to a reduction in the activation of KIT and its downstream signaling molecules, ultimately impairing GIST cell survival and proliferation in vitro. Consequently, treatment of mice carrying germline KIT/V558A mutation with DDR1/2 inhibitor significantly impeded tumor growth, and the combined use of DDR1/2 inhibitor and imatinib, the first-line targeted therapeutic agent for GISTs, markedly enhanced tumor growth suppression. In addition, DDR1/2 inhibition resulted in decreased KIT expression, while KIT inhibition led to upregulation of DDR1/2 expression in GISTs. The presence of DDR1/2 also decreased the sensitivity of wild-type KIT or primary KIT mutants to imatinib, indicating a possible role for DDR1/2 in promoting GIST survival during KIT-targeted therapy. The development of drug-resistant secondary KIT mutations is a primary factor contributing to GIST recurrence following targeted therapy. Similar to primary KIT mutants, DDR1/2 can associate with and enhance the activation of secondary KIT mutants, further diminishing their sensitivity to imatinib. In summary, our data demonstrate that DDR1/2 contribute to KIT activation in GISTs and strengthen resistance to imatinib for both primary and secondary KIT mutants, providing a rationale for further exploration of DDR1/2 targeting in GIST treatment.
|
|
| 8. |
- Liu, Shaohua, et al.
(författare)
-
Synthesis of chiral TiO2 nanofibre with electron transition-based optical activity
- 2012
-
Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 3, s. 1215-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The optical chirality induced at the absorption bands due to electronic exciton coupling of the transition dipole moments between chromophores in close proximity is ubiquitous in helical organic materials. However, inorganic materials with optical activity resulting from electronic transitions have not been explored. Here we report the synthesis of chiral TiO2 fibres via transcription of the helical structure of amino acid-derived amphiphile fibres through coordination bonding interactions between the organics and the TiO2 source. Upon calcination, the as-prepared amorphous TiO2 double-helical fibres with a pitch length of ~100 nm were converted to double-helical crystalline fibres with stacks of anatase nanocrystals in an epitaxial helical relationship. Both the amorphous and anatase crystalline helical TiO2 fibres exhibited optical response to circularly polarized light at the absorption edge around ~350 nm. This was attributed to the semiconductor TiO2-based electronic transitions from the valence band to the conduction band under an asymmetric electric field.
|
|
| 9. |
- Liu, Yi, et al.
(författare)
-
Porous, robust, thermally stable, and flame retardant nanocellulose/polyimide separators for safe lithium-ion batteries
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Journal of Materials Chemistry A. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 2050-7488 .- 2050-7496. ; 11:43, s. 23360-23369
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The safety of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) is paramount for all users. One effective way to improve safety is incorporating heat-resistant polyimide (PI) separators, which can increase the thermal stability of batteries and minimize the risk of thermal runaway. However, preparing PI separators with both an ideal pore structure and adequate mechanical properties remains as a challenge. Here, we introduced decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE) and cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) into PI and produced a hybrid separator with an outstanding pore structure and excellent mechanical properties. Aided with DBDPE, the separators attain a well-defined and uniform pore size (20 nm), while demonstrating high porosities (78%) through phase inversion processes. Owing to the addition of CNFs, the mechanical properties of the separators were significantly improved, with a tensile strength of 25.4 MPa and an elastic modulus of 550.1 MPa. Moreover, the separators demonstrate high ion conductivity (0.45 mS cm-1), excellent thermal-dimensional stability (up to 200 degrees C), remarkable flame retardancy, and outstanding electrolyte wettability. At room temperature, the batteries with the separators demonstrate comparable performance with those of polypropylene (PP) separators. However, when subjected to thermal shock treatments, the batteries with the separators outperform those with PP, showcasing their superior performance. The work introduces a novel strategy for designing high-performance separators, thereby paving the way for advancements in the fabrication of LIBs with enhanced safety features. A porous, robust, and thermally stable hybrid separator was developed to solve the dilemma between desired pore structures and mechanical properties in polyimide separators by introducing decabromodiphenyl ethane and cellulose nanofibers.
|
|
| 10. |
- Qiao, Yuanyuan, et al.
(författare)
-
A hybrid Markov-based model for human mobility prediction
- 2018
-
Ingår i: Neurocomputing. - : Elsevier BV. - 0925-2312 .- 1872-8286. ; 278:SI, s. 99-109
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Human mobility behavior is far from random, and its indicators follow non-Gaussian distributions. Predicting human mobility has the potential to enhance location-based services, intelligent transportation systems, urban computing, and so forth. In this paper, we focus on improving the prediction accuracy of non-Gaussian mobility data by constructing a hybrid Markov-based model, which takes the non-Gaussian and spatio-temporal characteristics of real human mobility data into account. More specifically, we (1) estimate the order of the Markov chain predictor by adapting it to the length of frequent individual mobility patterns, instead of using a fixed order, (2) consider the time distribution of mobility patterns occurrences when calculating the transition probability for the next location, and (3) employ the prediction results of users with similar trajectories if the recent context has not been previously seen. We have conducted extensive experiments on real human trajectories collected during 21 days from 3474 individuals in an urban Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, and the results demonstrate that the proposed model for non-Gaussian mobility data can help predicting people’s future movements with more than 56% accuracy.
|
|
