TE/TM mode electro-optic conversion based on a titanium diffusion lithium niobate waveguide with a polarization-maintained fiber structure.

For the development of photonic integrated circuits and lithium niobate (L i N b O 3, LN) optical waveguide technology, the implementation and application of polarization devices based on LN are also becoming more widespread, where titanium (Ti)-diffused LN waveguides form the basis of many important electro-optic (EO) integrated optical devices. Moreover, utilizing polarization conversion has the potential to enhance both the effectiveness and capacity of optical transmission. Thus, we have presented an EO polarization mode converter packaging with PANDA polarization-maintaining optical fibers (PMFs) in the broadband wavelength range (1440-1620 nm) to obtain the multiwavelength modulation, featuring the wavelength tunability. Additionally, the fabricated device is able to achieve transverse electric (TE) to transverse magnetic (TM) mode conversion efficiently with the applied voltage of  ±, which provides high conversion efficiency. Importantly, our device also features a high-frequency response of about 600 MHz with overall insertion loss below 5 dB. The rapid development of LN-based polarization devices holds great promise for chip-integrated systems in the field of polarization telecommunication.

OSNR monitoring based on a low-bandwidth coherent receiver and LSTM classifier.

Optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitoring is one of the core tasks of advanced optical performance monitoring (OPM) technology, which plays an essential role in future intelligent optical communication networks. In contrast to many regression-based methods, we convert the continuous OSNR monitoring into a classification problem by restricting the outputs of the neural network-based classifier to discrete OSNR intervals. We also use a low-bandwidth coherent receiver for obtaining the time domain samples and a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network as the chromatic dispersion-resistant classifier. The proposed scheme is cost efficient and compatible with our previously proposed multi-purpose OPM platform. Both simulation and experimental verification show that the proposed OSNR monitoring technique achieves high classification accuracy and robustness with low computational complexity.

NEDD4 Depletion Inhibits Hepatocellular Carcinoma Growth via Targeting PTEN.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Neural precursor cell-expressed developmentally down-regulated gene 4 (NEDD4) plays an important role in tumor cell growth, yet its role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. This study is to establish NEDD4 as a prognostic biomarker by which the survival of HCC patients can be predicted and to reveal the role of NEDD4 in hepatocellular carcinoma cell growth. METHODS: The expression of NEDD4 in 219 HCC specimens was assessed by immunohistochemistry. Postoperative overall survival and time to recurrence were evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses. The roles of NEDD4 in hepatocellular carcinoma cell proliferation and invasion were determined. RESULTS: The patients with low NEDD4 expression tumors had an average cumulative survival of 64.9 ± 6.5 months during follow-up while the patients with high NEDD4 expression tumors had an average cumulative survival of 20.3 ± 15.8 months. NEDD4 silencing inhibited Huh7 cell proliferation and altered cell cytoskeletal assembly, and NEDD4 depletion furthermore seemed to suppress cell migration and invasion. A possible molecular mechanism for the observed effects might be that NEDD4 silence led to an increase in PTEN (phosphatase and tensin homologue) expression, which in turn resulted in the inactivation of STAT3, AKT, and ERK1/2. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that NEDD4 may participate in the HCC progression and may therefore be a potential target for HCC therapy.

Fabrication and caffeine release from Fe3O4/P(MAA-co-NVP) magnetic microspheres with controllable core-shell architecture.

A novel route was proposed to design and construct a magnetic composite microsphere consisting of Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles chemically-covalently encapsulated with pH-smart poly(methacrylic acid-co-N-vinyl pyrrolidone) (P(MAA-co-NVP)) cross-linked co-polymers by a surface-initiated radical dispersion polymerization route. The multistep surface treatment was employed to improve the dispersity and surface-chemical reactivity of Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles, involving introduction of active -NH(2) groups, coupling of 1,1-methylene bis-(4-isocyanato-cyclohexane) and immobilization of 2,2'-azobis[2-methyl-N-(2-hydroxyethyl) propionamide]. The structure and morphological characterization was carried out by FT-IR, TEM, SEM and XRD. The chemically covalent interactions were investigated by FT-IR, TEM, TGA and DSC. The neat Fe(3)O(4) nanoparticles took on an aggregated spherical shape with an average diameter of about 12 nm, while Fe(3)O(4)/P(MAA-co-NVP) magnetic microspheres assumed controllable and monodispersed spheres with a mean dimension of ca. 0.8 µm. The microspheres exhibited superparamagnetic properties. The in vitro caffeine release behavior under varying pH environment was investigated to evaluate the potential of Fe(3)O(4)/P(MAA-co-NVP) magnetic microspheres as a magnetic drug targeting carrier. The results indicated that the microspheres have a faster drug-release rate at pH 7.4 than at pH 1.4, corresponding to their pH swelling. The kinetic modeling demonstrated that the drug release is controlled by a balance between co-polymer chain relaxation and Fickian diffusion process, and the proposed carrier is suitable for a magnetic targeting drug-delivery system.

A novel route to prepare Fe3O4/P(MAA-co-NVP) cross-linked magnetic composite microspheres with core-shell architecture by surface-initiated radical dispersion polymerization.

A novel route was proposed to design and construct a magnetic composite microsphere with a controllable and regular core-shell architecture, which consists of Fe3O4 nanoparticles chemical-covalently encapsulated with pH-smart poly(methacrylic acid-co-N-vinyl pyrrolidone) (P(MAA-co-NVP)) cross-linked copolymers by a surface-initiated radical dispersion polymerization approach. The multistep surface treatment was employed to improve the dispersity and surface-chemical reactivity of Fe3O4 nanoparticles, involving introduction of active -NH2 groups, coupling of 1,1-methylene bis-(4-isocyanato-cyclohexane) and immobilizing of 2,2'-azobis[2-methyl-N-(2-hydroxyethyl) propionamide]. The structure and morphological characterization were carried out by FTIR, TEM, SEM and XRD etc. The neat Fe3O4 nanoparticles take on an aggregated spherical shape with an average diameter of about 12 nm, while Fe3O4/P(MAA-co-NVP) magnetic microspheres assume regularly monodispersed spheres with a mean dimension of ca. 0.8 microm. The dimension of the microspheres is abruptly increased with increasing pH values of the media. The microspheres exhibit superparamagnetic properties. It is expected that this type of novel microspheres can be employed as a magnetic targeted and pH-sensitive drug carrier.