1 × 2 mode-independent polymeric thermo-optic switch based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a multimode interferometer.

We present the design and performances of a broadband 1 × 2 mode-independent thermo-optic (TO) switch based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with multimode interferometer (MMI). The MZI adopts a Y-branch structure as the 3-dB power splitter and a MMI as the coupler, which are designed to be insensitive to the guided modes. By optimizing the structural parameters of the waveguides, mode-independent transmission and switching functions for E11 and E12 modes can be implemented in the C + L band, and the mode content of the outputs is the same as the mode content of the inputs. We proved the working principle of our design based on polymer platform, which was fabricated by using ultraviolet lithography and wet-etching methods. The transmission characteristics for E11 and E12 modes were also analyzed. With the driving power of 5.9 mW, the measured extinction ratios of the switch for E11 and E12 modes are larger than 13.3 dB and 13.1 dB, respectively, over a wavelength range of 1530 nm to 1610 nm. The insertion losses of the device are 11.7 dB and 14.2 dB for E11 and E12 modes, respectively, at 1550 nm wavelength. The switching times of the device are less than 840 µs. The presented mode-independent switch can be applied in reconfigurable mode-division multiplexing systems.

PPARγ As a Potential Target for Adipogenesis Induced by Fine Particulate Matter in 3T3-L1 Preadipocytes.

Mounting evidence has shown that ambient PM2.5 exposure is closely associated with the development of obesity, and adipose tissue represents an important endocrine target for PM2.5. In this study, the 3T3-L1 preadipocyte differentiation model was employed to comprehensively explore the adipogenic potential of PM2.5. After 8 days of PM2.5 exposure, adipocyte fatty acid uptake and lipid accumulation were significantly increased, and adipogenic differentiation of 3T3-L1 cells was promoted in a concentration-dependent manner. Transcriptome and lipidome analyses revealed the systematic disruption of transcriptional and lipid profiling at 10 µg/mL PM2.5. Functional enrichment and visualized network analyses showed that the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) pathway and the metabolism of glycerophospholipids, glycerolipids, and sphingolipids were most significantly affected during adipocyte differentiation. Reporter gene assays indicated that PPARγ was activated by PM2.5, demonstrating that PM2.5 promoted adipogenesis by activating PPARγ. The increased transcriptional and protein expressions of PPARγ and downstream adipogenesis-associated markers (e.g., Fabp4 and CD36) were further cross-validated using qRT-PCR and western blot. PM2.5-induced adipogenesis, PPARγ pathway activation, and lipid remodeling were significantly attenuated by the supplementation of a PPARγ antagonist (T0070907). Overall, this study yielded mechanistic insights into PM2.5-induced adipogenesis in vitro by identifying the potential biomolecular targets for the prevention of PM2.5-induced obesity and related metabolic diseases.

Image-Evoked Emotion Recognition for Hearing-Impaired Subjects with EEG Signals.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the study of emotion recognition through electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. One particular group of interest are individuals with hearing impairments, who may have a bias towards certain types of information when communicating with those in their environment. To address this, our study collected EEG signals from both hearing-impaired and non-hearing-impaired subjects while they viewed pictures of emotional faces for emotion recognition. Four kinds of feature matrices, symmetry difference, and symmetry quotient based on original signal and differential entropy (DE) were constructed, respectively, to extract the spatial domain information. The multi-axis self-attention classification model was proposed, which consists of local attention and global attention, combining the attention model with convolution through a novel architectural element for feature classification. Three-classification (positive, neutral, negative) and five-classification (happy, neutral, sad, angry, fearful) tasks of emotion recognition were carried out. The experimental results show that the proposed method is superior to the original feature method, and the multi-feature fusion achieved a good effect in both hearing-impaired and non-hearing-impaired subjects. The average classification accuracy for hearing-impaired subjects and non-hearing-impaired subjects was 70.2% (three-classification) and 50.15% (five-classification), and 72.05% (three-classification) and 51.53% (five-classification), respectively. In addition, by exploring the brain topography of different emotions, we found that the discriminative brain regions of the hearing-impaired subjects were also distributed in the parietal lobe, unlike those of the non-hearing-impaired subjects.

Mode-selective modulator and switch based on graphene-polymer hybrid waveguides.

The mode-division multiplexing (MDM) is an effective technology with huge development potential to improve the transmission capacity of optical communication system by transmitting multiple modes simultaneously in a few-mode fiber. In traditional MDM technology, the fundamental modes of multiple channels are usually modulated by external individual arranged electro-optic modulators, and then multiplexed into the few-mode fiber or waveguide by a mode multiplexer. However, this is usually limited by large device footprint and high power consumption. Here, we report a mode-selective modulator and switch to individually modulate or switch the TE11, TE12 and TE21 modes in a few-mode waveguide (FMW) to overcome this limitation. Our method is based on the graphene-polymer hybrid platform with four graphene capacitors buried in different locations of the polymer FMW by utilizing the coplanar interaction between the capacitors and spatial modes. The TE11, TE12 and TE21 modes in the FMW can be modulated and switched separately or simultaneously by applying independent gate voltage to different graphene capacitor of the device. Our study is expected to make the selective management of the spatial modes in MDM transmission systems more flexible.

Polymer/silica hybrid 3D waveguide thermo-optic mode switch based on cascaded asymmetric directional couplers.

A polymer/silica hybrid 3D waveguide thermo-optic (TO) mode switch based on cascaded asymmetric directional couplers (ADCs) is theoretically designed and simulated, where the spatial modes of a few-mode silica waveguide can be switched to various single-mode polymer waveguides placed above the few-mode silica waveguide. A beam propagation method is employed to optimize the dimensional parameters of the mode switch to convert the LP11a and LP11b modes of the few-mode silica waveguide to the LP01 mode of two single-mode polymer waveguides using the cascaded ADC 1 and ADC 2. The coupling ratios are higher than 96.4% (93.4%) and 95.1% (92.8%) for the ADC 1 and ADC 2, respectively, under the TE (TM) polarization within the wavelength range from 1530 to 1570 nm, which shows good wavelength independence. Furthermore, the monolayer graphene is introduced as the heating electrode and buried on the surface of the polymer core to increase the heating efficiency and reduce the power consumption. The power consumption for ADC 1 and ADC 2 is 16.69 mW and 17.35 mW, respectively. Compared to the traditional TO switch with an aluminum (Al) heating electrode, the heating efficiency of the presented device can be improved by ∼30%. Moreover, the response speed of the TO mode switch with a 3D waveguide structure was also significantly improved. Compared to the device with Al electrodes, the introduced graphene electrodes can improve the switching speed of the device by ∼60%. The presented TO mode switch with its small size and easy integration should find applications in reconfigurable mode division multiplexing systems.

Whole-genome resequencing reveals candidate mutations for pig prolificacy.

Changes in pig fertility have occurred as a result of domestication, but are not understood at the level of genetic variation. To identify variations potentially responsible for prolificacy, we sequenced the genomes of the highly prolific Taihu pig breed and four control breeds. Genes involved in embryogenesis and morphogenesis were targeted in the Taihu pig, consistent with the morphological differences observed between the Taihu pig and others during pregnancy. Additionally, excessive functional non-coding mutations have been specifically fixed or nearly fixed in the Taihu pig. We focused attention on an oestrogen response element (ERE) within the first intron of the bone morphogenetic protein receptor type-1B gene (BMPR1B) that overlaps with a known quantitative trait locus (QTL) for pig fecundity. Using 242 pigs from 30 different breeds, we confirmed that the genotype of the ERE was nearly fixed in the Taihu pig. ERE function was assessed by luciferase assays, examination of histological sections, chromatin immunoprecipitation, quantitative polymerase chain reactions, and western blots. The results suggest that the ERE may control pig prolificacy via the cis-regulation of BMPR1B expression. This study provides new insight into changes in reproductive performance and highlights the role of non-coding mutations in generating phenotypic diversity between breeds.

Rice Stripe Virus Infection Alters mRNA Levels of Sphingolipid-Metabolizing Enzymes and Sphingolipids Content in Laodelphax striatellus.

Sphingolipids and their metabolites have been implicated in viral infection and replication in mammal cells but how their metabolizing enzymes in the host are regulated by viruses remains largely unknown. Here we report the identification of 12 sphingolipid genes and their regulation by Rice stripe virus in the small brown planthopper (Laodelphax striatellus Fallén), a serious pest of rice throughout eastern Asia. According to protein sequence similarity, we identified 12 sphingolipid enzyme genes in L. striatellus. By comparing their mRNA levels in viruliferous versus nonviruliferous L. striatellus at different life stages by qPCR, we found that RSV infection upregulated six genes (LsCGT1, LsNAGA1, LsSGPP, LsSMPD4, LsSMS, and LsSPT) in most stages of L. striatellus Especially, four genes (LsCGT1, LsSMPD2, LsNAGA1, and LsSMS) and another three genes (LsNAGA1, LsSGPP, and LsSMS) were significantly upregulated in viruliferous third-instar and fourth-instar nymphs, respectively. HPLC-MS/MS results showed that RSV infection increased the levels of various ceramides, such as Cer18:0, Cer20:0, and Cer22:0 species, in third and fourth instar L. striatellus nymphs. Together, these results demonstrate that RSV infection alters the transcript levels of various sphingolipid enzymes and the contents of sphingolipids in L. striatellus, indicating that sphingolipids may be important for RSV infection or replication in L. striatellus.

Using kernelized partial canonical correlation analysis to study directly coupled side chains and allostery in small G proteins.

MOTIVATION: Inferring structural dependencies among a protein's side chains helps us understand their coupled motions. It is known that coupled fluctuations can reveal pathways of communication used for information propagation in a molecule. Side-chain conformations are commonly represented by multivariate angular variables, but existing partial correlation methods that can be applied to this inference task are not capable of handling multivariate angular data. We propose a novel method to infer direct couplings from this type of data, and show that this method is useful for identifying functional regions and their interactions in allosteric proteins. RESULTS: We developed a novel extension of canonical correlation analysis (CCA), which we call 'kernelized partial CCA' (or simply KPCCA), and used it to infer direct couplings between side chains, while disentangling these couplings from indirect ones. Using the conformational information and fluctuations of the inactive structure alone for allosteric proteins in the Ras and other Ras-like families, our method identified allosterically important residues not only as strongly coupled ones but also in densely connected regions of the interaction graph formed by the inferred couplings. Our results were in good agreement with other empirical findings. By studying distinct members of the Ras, Rho and Rab sub-families, we show further that KPCCA was capable of inferring common allosteric characteristics in the small G protein super-family. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: https://github.com/lsgh/ismb15

[The regulatory roles of small RNAs in phytohormone signaling pathways].

Phytohormones are signaling molecules that control plant growth and development. Recent studies revealed that non-coding small RNAs play critical roles in plant development and stress responses via phytohormone signaling pathways. In this review, we summarize the present knowledge on the microRNAs (miRNAs) and secondary short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) involved in phytohormone signaling pathways, which include auxin, gibberellic acid, brassinosteroid and abscisic acid pathways. We also discuss their possible implications in phytohormone crosstalk during specific developmental processes.

Rapid construction of multiple sgRNA vectors and knockout of the Arabidopsis IAA2 gene using the CRISPR/Cas9 genomic editing technology.

IAA2 is a member of the Aux/IAA auxin responsive gene family in Arabidopsis thaliana. No iaa2 mutant has been reported until now, thus hindering its further mechanistic investigations. The normal genomic editing technology of CRISPR/Cas9 (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9) uses only a single guide RNA (sgRNA) to target one site in a specific gene, and the gene knockout efficiency is not high. Instead, multiple sgRNAs can target multiple sites; therefore, the efficiency may be improved. In the present investigation, we used the golden-gate cloning strategy and two rounds of PCR reactions to combine three sgRNAs in the same entry vector. The final expression vector was obtained by LR reactions with the destination vector containing the Cas9 expression cassette. Four out of the six sgRNAs were effective, and we also obtained a lot of insertion and deletion mutations. Compared with one sgRNA approach, multiple sgRNAs displayed higher gene-knockout efficiency and produced more germ-line mutants. Thus, we established a more rapid and efficient method and generated five mutants for further studies of IAA2 functions.

Progress on the autophagic regulators and receptors in plants.

Autophagy is an evolutionarily highly conserved catabolic pathway among eukaryotic cells that protects the organisms against environmental stress. Normally, autophagy is mainly involved with autophagy-related proteins(ATGs) and autophagic regulators including a series of cytoplasmic proteins and small molecules. Besides, the selective autophagy, which targets damaged organalles or protein aggregates, is mediated by the additional receptors to help the ATGs recognize different substrates. In this review, we summarize recent advances in autophagic regulators like ROS(Reactive oxygen species), TOR(Target of rapamycin) and receptors like NBR1(Neighbor of BRCA1 gene protein), RPN10(Regulatory particle non-ATPase 10) as well as their functional mechanisms mainly in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Sparse networks of directly coupled, polymorphic, and functional side chains in allosteric proteins.

Recent studies have highlighted the role of coupled side-chain fluctuations alone in the allosteric behavior of proteins. Moreover, examination of X-ray crystallography data has recently revealed new information about the prevalence of alternate side-chain conformations (conformational polymorphism), and attempts have been made to uncover the hidden alternate conformations from X-ray data. Hence, new computational approaches are required that consider the polymorphic nature of the side chains, and incorporate the effects of this phenomenon in the study of information transmission and functional interactions of residues in a molecule. These studies can provide a more accurate understanding of the allosteric behavior. In this article, we first present a novel approach to generate an ensemble of conformations and an efficient computational method to extract direct couplings of side chains in allosteric proteins, and provide sparse network representations of the couplings. We take the side-chain conformational polymorphism into account, and show that by studying the intrinsic dynamics of an inactive structure, we are able to construct a network of functionally crucial residues. Second, we show that the proposed method is capable of providing a magnified view of the coupled and conformationally polymorphic residues. This model reveals couplings between the alternate conformations of a coupled residue pair. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first computational method for extracting networks of side chains' alternate conformations. Such networks help in providing a detailed image of side-chain dynamics in functionally important and conformationally polymorphic sites, such as binding and/or allosteric sites.

Tumor RNA disruption predicts survival benefit from breast cancer chemotherapy.

In a prior substudy of the CAN-NCIC-MA.22 clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT00066443), we observed that neoadjuvant chemotherapy reduced tumor RNA integrity in breast cancer patients, a phenomenon we term "RNA disruption." The purpose of the current study was to assess in the full patient cohort the relationship between mid-treatment tumor RNA disruption and both pCR post-treatment and, subsequently, disease-free survival (DFS) up to 108 months post-treatment. To meet these objectives, we developed the RNA disruption assay (RDA) to quantify RNA disruption and stratify it into 3 response zones of clinical importance. Zone 1 is a level of RNA disruption inadequate for pathologic complete response (pCR); Zone 2 is an intermediate level, while Zone 3 has high RNA disruption. The same RNA disruption cut points developed for pCR response were then utilized for DFS. Tumor RDA identified >fourfold more chemotherapy non-responders than did clinical response by calipers. pCR responders were clustered in RDA Zone 3, irrespective of tumor subtype. DFS was about 2-fold greater for patients with tumors in Zone 3 compared to Zone 1 patients. Kaplan-Meier survival curves corroborated these findings that high tumor RNA disruption was associated with increased DFS. DFS values for patients in zone 3 that did not achieve a pCR were similar to that of pCR recipients across tumor subtypes, including patients with hormone receptor positive tumors that seldom achieve a pCR. RDA appears superior to pCR as a chemotherapy response biomarker, supporting the prospect of its use in response-guided chemotherapy.

Opinion versus practice regarding the use of rehabilitation services in home care: an investigation using machine learning algorithms.

BACKGROUND: Resources for home care rehabilitation are limited, and many home care clients who could benefit do not receive rehabilitation therapy. The interRAI Contact Assessment (CA) is a new screening instrument comprised of a subset of interRAI Home Care (HC) items, designed to be used as a preliminary assessment to identify which potential home care clients should be referred for a full assessment, or for services such as rehabilitation. We investigated which client characteristics are most relevant in predicting rehabilitation use in the full interRAI HC assessment. METHODS: We applied two algorithms from machine learning and data mining - the LASSO and the random forest - to frequency matched interRAI HC and service utilization data for home care clients in Ontario, Canada. RESULTS: Analyses confirmed the importance of functional decline and mobility variables in targeting rehabilitation services, but suggested that other items in use as potential predictors may be less relevant. Six of the most highly ranked items related to ambulation. Diagnosis of cancer was highly associated with decreased rehabilitation use; however, cognitive status was not. CONCLUSIONS: Inconsistencies between variables considered important for classifying clients who need rehabilitation and those identified in this study based on use may indicate a discrepancy in the client characteristics considered relevant in theory versus actual practice.

[Treatment of Mild-to-moderate Bronchial Asthma (Heat Wheezing Syndrome) Patients at Acute Onset with Western Medicine Combined Danlong Oral Liquid: a Multi-center, Randomized Double- blinded, Positive-controlled Clinical Trial].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the efficacy and safety of Danlong Oral Liquid (DOL) combined Western medicine (WM) in treating mild-to-moderate bronchial asthma patients (heat wheezing syndrome) at acute onset. METHODS: Totally 480 mild-to-moderate bronchial asthma patients (heat wheezing syndrome) at acute onset were randomly assigned to two groups in the ratio 3:1, the treatment group (360 cases) and the control group (120 cases). All patients received basic WM treatment. Patients in the treatment group took DOL, 10 mL each time, 3 times per day for 7 days in total, while those in the control group took Kechuanning Oral Liquid (KOL) , 10 mL each time, 3 times per day for 7 days in total. Efficacy for asthma symptoms, lung functions and scores of TCM syndrome and/or main symptoms were evaluated. RESULTS: The percentage of clinical control and significant effectiveness of asthma symptoms in the treatment group was significantly higher than that of the control group (77.36% vs 56.07%, P < 0.01). The percentage of clinical control and significant effectiveness of lung functions in the treatment group was significantly higher than that of the control group (74.28% vs 50.00%, P < 0.01). The anterior-posterior difference in scores of TCM syndrome was significantly superior in the treatment group than in the control group (-11.26 ± 4.70 vs -9.21 ± 5.09, P < 0.01). The anterior-posterior difference in scores of main symptoms was significantly better in the treatment group than in the control group (-6.58 ± 3.08 vs -5.16 ± 3.45, P < 0.01). The incidence of adverse reactions was significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group [1.73% (6/346 cases) vs 10.17% (12/118 cases) , P < 0.05]. CONCLUSION: DOL combined WM was superior to KOL in treating mild-to-moderate bronchial asthma patients (heat wheezing syndrome) at acute onset.

A node influence based label propagation algorithm for community detection in networks.

Label propagation algorithm (LPA) is an extremely fast community detection method and is widely used in large scale networks. In spite of the advantages of LPA, the issue of its poor stability has not yet been well addressed. We propose a novel node influence based label propagation algorithm for community detection (NIBLPA), which improves the performance of LPA by improving the node orders of label updating and the mechanism of label choosing when more than one label is contained by the maximum number of nodes. NIBLPA can get more stable results than LPA since it avoids the complete randomness of LPA. The experimental results on both synthetic and real networks demonstrate that NIBLPA maintains the efficiency of the traditional LPA algorithm, and, at the same time, it has a superior performance to some representative methods.

[Pathologic bacterial distribution and antibiotic resistance in induced sputum of infants aged from 1 to 3 months with lower respiratory tract infection].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the pathologic bacterial distribution and their antibiotic resistance in infants aged from 1 to 3 months with lower respiratory tract infection, so as to provide instructions for clinical application of antibiotics. METHODS: Induced sputum was extracted from 622 cases of hospitalized infants aged from 1 to 3 months with lower respiratory tract infection between January 2013 and December 2013, and microbial sensitivity test was performed with agar diffusion sensitivity test. RESULTS: A total of 379 (60.9%) strains of bacteria were isolated from induced sputum in the 622 infants. The Gram-negative strains were detected in 325 strains (85.8%), and the Gram-positive strains were found in 50 strains (13.2%) in the 379 strains. The others were Fungal strains (4 strains, 1.1%). The Gram-negative bacteria included Escherichia coli (31.1%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (18.2%), with extended-spectrum ß-lactamases (ESBLs) production of 48.3% and 52.2% respectively. The average rate of antibiotic resistance for ESBLs-producing bacteria was 53%. ESBLs-producing bacteria were highly resistant (100%) to ampicillin and cefotaxime, but sensitive to carbapenems. Staphylococcus aureus (10.0%) was the dominant bacteria in Gram-positive bacteria. A lower proportion of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (1.8%) was observed, however the resistance rate of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus to ß-lactam antibiotics were 100%. CONCLUSIONS: Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae are the main pathogenic bacteria causing lower respiratory tract infection in infants aged from 1 to 3 months. ESBLs-producing bacteria accounted for over 48%, and the antibiotic resistance rate were more than 53% in these infants. These results provide a basis for the first empirical clinical use of antimicrobial in infants with lower respiratory tract infection.

Risk Factors Analysis and Pathogen Distribution of Urinary Tract Infection in Patients Undergoing Cutaneous Ureterostomy After Radical Cystectomy for Bladder Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Postoperative urinary tract infection is a common complication that not only significantly prolongs the hospital stay and amplifies the economic burden on patients, but also affects their quality of life and prognosis. This study aimed to investigate risk factors and distribution of pathogenic bacteria in urinary tract infections among bladder cancer patients who underwent cutaneous ureterostomy following radical cystectomy. METHODS: A total of 137 bladder cancer patients, who underwent cutaneous ureterostomy after radical cystectomy at our hospital from November 2018 to October 2022, were enrolled in this retrospective study. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were employed to investigate the risk factors associated with postoperative urinary tract infection and the distribution of pathogenic bacteria among the infected patients. RESULTS: The results of both univariate and multivariate analyses confirmed that age, proficiency in ostomy knowledge, frequency of ureteral stent tube replacement, ureteral stent tube dislodgement, urine immersion at the outer end of the ureteral stent tube, and the interval of ostomy bag replacement were independent risk factors for urinary tract infection after radical cystectomy and cutaneous ureterostomy in bladder cancer patients. A total of 55 pathogenic bacteria were isolated from 52 patients with infections. Predominantly, these were gram-negative bacteria (34 strains, 61.8%), with Proteus mirabilis having the highest proportion. CONCLUSION: Urinary tract infections after radical cystectomy and cutaneous ureterostomy predominantly involve gram-negative bacteria. This is correlated with factors such as the age of bladder cancer patients, the level of nursing education, the duration of ureteral stent tubes and ostomy bag usage, as well as issues related to impaired urine drainage.

Association of specific pectin methylesterases with Al-induced root elongation inhibition in rice.

The negative charges of cell wall pectin molecules attributed by pectin methylesterase (PME, EC 3.1.1.11) contribute to Al binding capacity. We examined the expression profiles of 35 members of the PME gene family in the root apex of an Al-sensitive rice 'Zhefu802' under Al stress. While root elongation was inhibited by 40% after 3-h exposure to 25 µM Al, cell wall PME activity and the abundance of eight PME genes transcripts were increased. The same Al treatment which had almost no effect on root elongation of an Al-resistant rice ssp. japonica 'Nipponbare' did not change the expression patterns of these eight PME genes. However, when Al concentration was increased to 50 µM, by which the root elongation of 'Nipponbare' was inhibited by 40% too, the expression of these PME genes were also upregulated except two genes with no signal. These suggest a possible correlation between the upregulated genes and Al-induced inhibition of root elongation in rice. Furthermore, these eight PME genes behaved differently when subjected to CdCl2 and LaCl3 treatments, implying the specificity of different PME genes in response to different metal toxicities. The transgenic rice overexpressing one of these eight PME genes OsPME14 showed higher PME activity and Al content in root tip cell wall, and became more sensitive to Al stress, verifying the involvement of the specific PME gene in Al toxicity. Therefore, our results provided the molecular evidence to connect the expression of specific PME genes with the Al-induced inhibition of root elongation in rice.

Preparation and optical properties of YH2:Er2+ and Y2O3:Er3+ nanoparticles.

The rare earth hydride nanoparticles have been prepared successfully by a novel method of hydrogen plasma-metal reaction. The YH2:Er2+ nanoparticles of 40-50 nm were polycrystalline and in hexagonal shape. The Y2O3:Er3+ nanoparticles were fabricated by annealing the hydride nanoparticles in air at 300, 500 and 700 degrees C, respectively. The influence of the sintering temperature on the size, crystal structure and optical properties of these nanoparticle samples were investigated. After annealing, the Y2O3:Er3+ nanoparticles became single crystalline and spherical shape, and the mean particle size of these particles did not change apparently upon the annealing temperature up to 700 degrees C. With the increase of the annealing temperature, the absorption intensity of YH2 in the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectra decreased and the peak position moved to high-frequency, whereas the absorption intensity of Y2O3 was enhanced. The intensity of the near-IR fluorescence spectra of the Y2O3:Er3+ nanoparticles increased remarkably with the increase of the annealing temperature from 300 to 700 degrees C. The Y2O3:Er3+ sample sintered at 700 degrees C exhibited a strong photoluminescent intensity at the wavelength of about 1535 nm, with a narrow full width of 6 nm at the half maximum. This makes the Y2O3:Er3+ nanoparticles promising for the applications in the optical communication devices.