Research on marine flexible biological target detection based on improved YOLOv8 algorithm.

To address the challenge of suboptimal object detection outcomes stemming from the deformability of marine flexible biological entities, this study introduces an algorithm tailored for detecting marine flexible biological targets. Initially, we compiled a dataset comprising marine flexible biological subjects and developed a Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) algorithm, supplemented with a boundary detection enhancement module, to refine underwater image quality and accentuate the distinction between the images' foregrounds and backgrounds. This enhancement mitigates the issue of foreground-background similarity encountered in detecting marine flexible biological entities. Moreover, the proposed adaptation incorporates a Deformable Convolutional Network (DCN) network module in lieu of the C2f module within the YOLOv8n algorithm framework, thereby augmenting the model's proficiency in capturing geometric transformations and concentrating on pivotal areas. The Neck network module is enhanced with the RepBi-PAN architecture, bolstering its capability to amalgamate and emphasize essential characteristics of flexible biological targets. To advance the model's feature information processing efficiency, we integrated the SimAM attention mechanism. Finally, to diminish the adverse effects of inferior-quality labels within the dataset, we advocate the use of WIoU (Wise-IoU) as a bounding box loss function, which serves to refine the anchor boxes' quality assessment. Simulation experiments show that, in comparison to the conventional YOLOv8n algorithm, our method markedly elevates the precision of marine flexible biological target detection.

Characterization of additive gene-environment interactions for colorectal cancer risk.

BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common, fatal cancer. Identifying subgroups who may benefit more from intervention is of critical public health importance. Previous studies have assessed multiplicative interaction between genetic risk scores and environmental factors, but few have assessed additive interaction, the relevant public health measure. METHODS: Using resources from colorectal cancer consortia including 45,247 CRC cases and 52,671 controls, we assessed multiplicative and additive interaction (relative excess risk due to interaction, RERI) using logistic regression between 13 harmonized environmental factors and genetic risk score including 141 variants associated with CRC risk. RESULTS: There was no evidence of multiplicative interaction between environmental factors and genetic risk score. There was additive interaction where, for individuals with high genetic susceptibility, either heavy drinking [RERI = 0.24, 95% confidence interval, CI, (0.13, 0.36)], ever smoking [0.11 (0.05, 0.16)], high BMI [female 0.09 (0.05, 0.13), male 0.10 (0.05, 0.14)], or high red meat intake [highest versus lowest quartile 0.18 (0.09, 0.27)] was associated with excess CRC risk greater than that for individuals with average genetic susceptibility. Conversely, we estimate those with high genetic susceptibility may benefit more from reducing CRC risk with aspirin/NSAID use [-0.16 (-0.20, -0.11)] or higher intake of fruit, fiber, or calcium [highest quartile versus lowest quartile -0.12 (-0.18, -0.050); -0.16 (-0.23, -0.09); -0.11 (-0.18, -0.05), respectively] than those with average genetic susceptibility. CONCLUSIONS: Additive interaction is important to assess for identifying subgroups who may benefit from intervention. The subgroups identified in this study may help inform precision CRC prevention.

Research and implementation of a large-bandwidth real-time radar jamming simulator.

The electromagnetic environment faced by modern radar is becoming increasingly complex. One effective means to improve the performance of radar systems is testing in an anti-jamming ability test chamber, where the increased complexity has also led to higher performance requirements for radar jamming simulators. Based on the requirements for modern radar system testing, this paper presents a study of a large-bandwidth real-time radar jamming simulator and describes its overall design architecture; the simulator covers the L-Ku and Ka frequency bands and the instantaneous bandwidth is ≥2 GHz, which means that the system is able to simulate 11 interference patterns. Synchronous control of the system is realized in 1 ms through use of the reflection memory interrupt mechanism, the synchronous pulse signal mechanism, synchronous timing design, and a real-time control software architecture. An overall design scheme for real-time simulation of a radar target jamming echo is given and baseband signal processing resources are saved through information preprocessing, a large-capacity high-speed storage board is designed to improve the data reading speed, a multiphase filtering structure is used to achieve high sampling rates and save hardware resources, and a high-speed parallel computing method is used to improve computing efficiency; the actual measured baseband signal processing time is less than 500 ns. Finally, a measurement platform is built, and the main interference patterns are verified through experimental measurements.

Cascade Enhancement and Efficient Collection of Single Photon Emission under Topological Protection.

High emission rate, high collection efficiency, and immunity to defects are the requirements of implementing on-chip single photon sources. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that both cascade enhancement and high collection efficiency of emitted photons from a single emitter can be achieved simultaneously in a topological photonic crystal containing a resonant dielectric nanodisk. The nanodisk excited by a magnetic emitter can be regarded as a large equivalent magnetic dipole. The near-field overlapping between this equivalent magnetic dipole and edge state enables achieving a cascade enhancement of single-photon emission with a Purcell factor exceeding 4 × 103. These emitted photons are guided into edge states with a collection efficiency of more than 90%, which is also corresponding to quantum yield due to topological antiscattering and the absence of absorption. The proposed mechanism under topological protection has potential applications in on-chip light-matter interactions, quantum light sources, and nanolasers.

Attention-enhanced multiscale feature fusion network for pancreas and tumor segmentation.

BACKGROUND: Accurate pancreas and pancreatic tumor segmentation from abdominal scans is crucial for diagnosing and treating pancreatic diseases. Automated and reliable segmentation algorithms are highly desirable in both clinical practice and research. PURPOSE: Segmenting the pancreas and tumors is challenging due to their low contrast, irregular morphologies, and variable anatomical locations. Additionally, the substantial difference in size between the pancreas and small tumors makes this task difficult. This paper proposes an attention-enhanced multiscale feature fusion network (AMFF-Net) to address these issues via 3D attention and multiscale context fusion methods. METHODS: First, to prevent missed segmentation of tumors, we design the residual depthwise attention modules (RDAMs) to extract global features by expanding receptive fields of shallow layers in the encoder. Second, hybrid transformer modules (HTMs) are proposed to model deep semantic features and suppress irrelevant regions while highlighting critical anatomical characteristics. Additionally, the multiscale feature fusion module (MFFM) fuses adjacent top and bottom scale semantic features to address the size imbalance issue. RESULTS: The proposed AMFF-Net was evaluated on the public MSD dataset, achieving 82.12% DSC for pancreas and 57.00% for tumors. It also demonstrated effective segmentation performance on the NIH and private datasets, outperforming previous State-Of-The-Art (SOTA) methods. Ablation studies verify the effectiveness of RDAMs, HTMs, and MFFM. CONCLUSIONS: We propose an effective deep learning network for pancreas and tumor segmentation from abdominal CT scans. The proposed modules can better leverage global dependencies and semantic information and achieve significantly higher accuracy than the previous SOTA methods.

The zinc-finger transcription factor ZFP8 negatively regulates the drought stress response in Arabidopsis thaliana by inhibiting the transcriptional activity of ABF2.

Drought stress limits plant growth and development. To cope with drought stress, abscisic acid (ABA) accumulates in plants. Although ABA-dependent drought tolerance pathways have been widely investigated, the feedback mechanisms and the negative regulatory roles within these pathways remain largely unknown. Here we characterize the roles of a C2H2 transcription factor, ZFP8, whose expression is repressed by ABA in the tolerance of drought stress. ZFP8-overexpressing plants were hyposensitive to ABA and exhibited less dehydration tolerance while ABA or drought-induced marker genes were more highly expressed in zfp8, suggesting that ZFP8 functions as a negative regulator in the ABA-mediated drought response. A transcriptome assay showed that ZFP8 positively regulates gene expression for cellular function and negatively regulates hormone and stress response gene expression. Moreover, we found that ZFP8 can interact with ABF2, one of the basic leucine zipper (bZIP) family transcription factor members, to inhibit its transcription activity. In conclusion, our results demonstrate a novel negative regulation pathway of ZFP8, which contributes to plants' ability to fine-tune their drought responses.

Artificial intelligence-assisted quantitative CT parameters in predicting the degree of risk of solitary pulmonary nodules.

INTRODUCTION: Artificial intelligence (AI) shows promise for evaluating solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs) on computed tomography (CT). Accurately determining cancer invasiveness can guide treatment. We aimed to investigate quantitative CT parameters for invasiveness prediction. METHODS: Patients with stage 0-IB NSCLC after surgical resection were retrospectively analysed. Preoperative CTs were evaluated with specialized software for nodule segmentation and CT quantification. Pathology was the reference for invasiveness. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression assessed predictors of high-risk SPN. RESULTS: Three hundred and fifty-five SPN were included. On multivariate analysis, CT value mean and nodule type (ground glass opacity vs. solid) were independent predictors of high-risk SPN. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.811 for identifying high-risk nodules. CONCLUSIONS: Quantitative CT measures and nodule type correlated with invasiveness. Software-based CT assessment shows potential for noninvasive prediction to guide extent of resection. Further prospective validation is needed, including comparison with benign nodules.

iGATTLDA: Integrative graph attention and transformer-based model for predicting lncRNA-Disease associations.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have emerged as significant contributors to the regulation of various biological processes, and their dysregulation has been linked to a variety of human disorders. Accurate prediction of potential correlations between lncRNAs and diseases is crucial for advancing disease diagnostics and treatment procedures. The authors introduced a novel computational method, iGATTLDA, for the prediction of lncRNA-disease associations. The model utilised lncRNA and disease similarity matrices, with known associations represented in an adjacency matrix. A heterogeneous network was constructed, dissecting lncRNAs and diseases as nodes and their associations as edges. The Graph Attention Network (GAT) is employed to process initial features and corresponding adjacency information. GAT identified significant neighbouring nodes in the network, capturing intricate relationships between lncRNAs and diseases, and generating new feature representations. Subsequently, the transformer captures global dependencies and interactions across the entire sequence of features produced by the GAT. Consequently, iGATTLDA successfully captures complex relationships and interactions that conventional approaches may overlook. In evaluating iGATTLDA, it attained an area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) of 0.95 and an area under the precision recall curve (AUPRC) of 0.96 with a two-layer multilayer perceptron (MLP) classifier. These results were notably higher compared to the majority of previously proposed models, further substantiating the model's efficiency in predicting potential lncRNA-disease associations by incorporating both local and global interactions. The implementation details can be obtained from https://github.com/momanyibiffon/iGATTLDA.

An electron donor-acceptor complex-initiated C-H trifluoromethylation and perfluoroalkylation of enamides and quinoxalinones.

Facilitated by an electron donor-acceptor (EDA) complex, an efficient ß-trifluoromethylation and perfluoroalkylation of enamides with Togni reagent or perfluoroalkyl iodides is presented under transition-metal-free, photocatalyst-free and mild reaction conditions. Notably, using this photocatalyst-free strategy, direct trifluoromethylation and perfluoroalkylation of quinoxalin-2(1H)-one derivatives was also achieved via a photoactive electron donor-acceptor complex.

Development of chemiluminescent systems and devices for analytical applications.

Chemiluminescence (CL) refers to the light-emitting phenomenon resulting from chemical reactions. Due to its simplicity in terms of instrumentation and high sensitivity, CL plays a critical role in analytical chemistry and has developed rapidly in recent years. In this review, we discuss the efforts made by our group in the field of CL. This includes exploring new luminophores that function under neutral pH conditions, developing oxidant- and reactive oxygen species-based coreactants (e.g. artemisinin and thiourea dioxide) for luminol and lucigenin CL, utilizing nanomaterial-based CL signal amplification and employing innovative ultrasound devices for CL and their analytical applications. We discussed the CL amplification mechanisms of these systems in detail. Finally, we summarize the challenges and prospects for the future development of CL.

Prognostic Value of Plasma Immunoglobulin G N-Glycome Traits in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

BACKGROUND: B-type natriuretic peptide or N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide is the only blood biomarker in established risk calculators for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Profiling systemic-originated plasma immunoglobulin G (IgG) N-glycans, which reflect different components of the pathophysiology of PAH including immune dysregulation and inflammation, may improve PAH risk assessment. OBJECTIVES: This study sought to identify plasma IgG N-glycan biomarkers that predict survival in PAH to improve risk assessment. METHODS: This cohort study examined 622 PAH patients from 2 national centers (Beijing [discovery] cohort: n = 273; Shanghai [validation] cohort: n = 349). Plasma IgG N-glycomes were profiled by a robust mass spectrometry-based method. Prognostic IgG N-glycan traits were identified and validated in the 2 cohorts using Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier survival analyses. The added value of IgG N-glycan traits to previously established risk models was assessed using Harrell C-indexes and survival analysis. RESULTS: Plasma IgG fucosylation was found to predict survival independent of age and sex in the discovery cohort (HR: 0.377; 95% CI: 0.168-0.845; P = 0.018) with confirmation in the validation cohort (HR: 0.445; 95% CI: 0.264-0.751; P = 0.005). IgG fucosylation remained a robust predictor of mortality in combined cohorts after full adjustment and in subgroup analyses. Integrating IgG fucosylation into previously established risk models improved their predictive capacity, marked by an overall elevation in Harrell C-indexes. IgG fucosylation was useful in further stratifying the intermediate-risk patients classified by a previously established model. CONCLUSIONS: Plasma IgG fucosylation informs PAH prognosis independent of established factors, offering additional value for predicting PAH outcomes.

Single-incision Retroperitoneal Laparoscopic Resection of Adrenal Tumors in Children.

BACKGROUND: We describe our experience with single-incision retroperitoneal laparoscopic (SIRL) for resection of adrenal tumors in pediatric patients and discuss the technique's clinical value. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed clinical data of 27 pediatric patients who underwent SIRL between January 2020 and September 2023. Patients with tumors >5 cm in size and those requiring vascular skeletonization surgery or extensive lymph node dissection were excluded. Demographic, perioperative, and prognostic data were collected, and computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging were used for preoperative tumor assessment. RESULTS: Of 27 patients, 16 were male and 11 were female; mean age 54 ± 45 months and mean body mass index 17.2 ± 3.6 kg/m2. Mean tumor length, width, and height were 4.1 ± 1.8 cm, 3.3 ± 2.1 cm, and 2.9 ± 1.7 cm, respectively. One patient experienced a diaphragmatic tear, three patients incurred peritoneal damage, and one patient developed postoperative renal artery injury, leading to thrombosis and renal atrophy. No surgery was converted to open surgery, and no intraoperative or postoperative blood transfusions were required. Operative time, blood loss, and postoperative dietary recovery time were satisfactory. No local recurrence or distant metastases were detected during the 6-48 months of follow-up involving outpatient and telephone assessments. CONCLUSIONS: Application of SIRL in pediatric patients with adrenal tumors achieved favorable clinical outcomes with an effective, minimally invasive surgical option for treating children with adrenal tumors. This technique demands a high level of surgical expertise, specialized instruments and experienced surgeons. Our findings indicate that SIRL is safe and provides significant postoperative benefits in pediatric patients. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level IV.

Identifying inversions with breakpoints in the Dystrophin gene through long-read sequencing: report of two cases.

BACKGROUND: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is an X-linked disorder caused by mutations in the DMD gene, with large deletions being the most common type of mutation. Inversions involving the DMD gene are a less frequent cause of the disorder, largely because they often evade detection by standard diagnostic methods such as multiplex ligation probe amplification (MLPA) and whole exome sequencing (WES). CASE PRESENTATION: Our research identified two intrachromosomal inversions involving the dystrophin gene in two unrelated families through Long-read sequencing (LRS). These variants were subsequently confirmed via Sanger sequencing. The first case involved a pericentric inversion extending from DMD intron 47 to Xq27.3. The second case featured a paracentric inversion between DMD intron 42 and Xp21.1, inherited from the mother. In both cases, simple repeat sequences (SRS) were present at the breakpoints of these inversions. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that LRS is an effective tool for detecting atypical mutations. The identification of SRS at the breakpoints in DMD patients enhances our understanding of the mechanisms underlying structural variations, thereby facilitating the exploration of potential treatments.

Association of tooth loss and periodontal disease with all-cause mortality in cancer survivors: A cohort study based on NHANES.

Background: Increasing evidence supports the association between impaired oral health and elevated mortality. However, there is currently a lack of research on the impact of tooth loss and periodontal disease on survival outcomes in cancer survivors. This study aims to clarify the effect of tooth loss and periodontitis on all-cause mortality on cancer survivors. Methods: The clinical data of cancer survivors were collected from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2018. Mortality data were obtained by linking to records in the National Death Index until December 31, 2019. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to determine the optimal threshold for discriminating mortality based on the number of teeth lost. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox regression analysis were performed to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CI) for tooth loss and periodontitis. Results: A total of 3271 cancer survivors were assessed for tooth loss status, while 1267 patients were evaluated for periodontitis status. The prevalence of any tooth loss and CDC-AAP periodontitis was 83.5 % and 47.2 %, respectively. The ROC curve showed the cut-off point of tooth loss for predicting mortality is > 5. Cancer survivors with tooth loss>5 had significantly lower bone density (1.06 vs. 1.13 g/cm2, P < 0.001), elevated C-reactive protein level (0.3 vs. 0.18 mg/dL, P < 0.001), and a trend of lower lean body mass (46.9 vs. 47.6 kg, P = 0.093). Besides, cancer survivors with severe periodontitis also exhibited elevated C-reactive protein level (0.34 vs. 0.21 mg/dL, P = 0.033). All-cause mortality significantly increased in cancer survivors with either tooth loss>5 (HR = 1.290, P = 0.001) or severe CDC-AAP periodontitis (HR = 1.682, P = 0.016) in the multivariate Cox regression analysis. Conclusion: Tooth loss and periodontitis are strong risk factors for reduced overall survival in cancer survivors. Cancer survivors should emphasize diligent oral hygiene and consistent dental check-ups to optimize long-term oral health. The causal relationship between oral health and survival rates in cancer survivors requires further validation through randomized controlled trials.

Surgical Outcomes of Open and Laparoscopic Hartmann Reversal: A Single-Center Comparative Study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Hartmann reversal (HR) is challenging and traditionally requires a large laparotomy wound. With the development of minimally invasive techniques, laparoscopic reversal of Hartmann's operation (HO) was attempted. We aimed to evaluate the outcomes of laparoscopic Hartmann reversal (LHR) versus open Hartmann reversal (OHR). MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, we included 33 patients who underwent HR at Chi Mei Medical Center between January 2015 and March 2023. Ten patients received LHR, while 23 received OHR. We compared patient demographics, perioperative outcomes, early postoperative complications, and late postoperative complications between the two groups. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the baseline demographics of both groups. Compared to the open method, the LHR group had a shorter hospital stay and time to solid diet. The median length of hospital stay in the OHR and LHR groups was 15.00 (Q1-Q3: 13.00-16.00) and 11.5 (Q1-Q3: 10.00-14.00) days (p = 0.028), respectively. The median time to solid diet was 8.00 (Q1-Q3: 7.00-8.00) days in the OHR group and 5.00 (Q1-Q3: 5.00-7.00) days in the LHR group (p = 0.022). No statistical significance between the groups was noticed in early and late postoperative complications. CONCLUSIONS: Whether using a laparoscopic or an open method, HR is challenging. In our study, patients who underwent LHR were associated with reduced hospital stays and faster bowel movements.

A comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of the biomimetic total synthesis of brevianamide A.

Recently, several studies on the chemical synthesis of brevianamide A (BA) were reported. In particular, a highly efficient and remarkably selective synthetic strategy was reported by Lawrence's group. However, a unified mechanistic understanding of these results is still lacking. We have carried out a DFT study and proposed a unified mechanism to understand these experimental results. Starting from intermediate 2, the most favorable reaction sequence is a fast tautomerization, followed by a σ-migration of the base moiety, and a final inverse-electron demanding Diels-Alder reaction, resulting in the formation of the BA product stereoselectively. This reaction mechanism can also be applied to understand the biosynthesis of BA that involves enzymatic catalysis.

Antimicrobial Peptide Hydrogel with pH-Responsive and Controllable Drug Release Properties for the Efficient Treatment of Helicobacter pylori Infection.

Helicobacter pylori is the primary cause of gastric adenocarcinoma, which afflicts more than half of the world's population and seriously affects human health. However, achieving efficient treatment of H. pylori infection by effective drug delivery and bioavailability after oral administration remains a challenge due to the harsh microenvironment, short drug retention time, and physiological barriers in the stomach. Moreover, H. pylori has shown resistance to many clinical antibiotics. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) exhibit substantial therapeutic efficacy against H. pylori, while they are not likely to induce drug resistance, suggesting their potential utility for the treatment of diseases related to H. pylori. In this paper, we report the design and synthesis of an AMP (GE33) hydrogel with pH-responsive and controlled peptide release properties, in which the minimal inhibitory concentration of the AMP against H. pylori is as low as 1 µg/mL. GE33 self-assembles into a stable peptide hydrogel under neutral pH conditions but decomposes into monomers or oligomers under acidic conditions. Upon oral administration of the hydrogel, the acidic gastric environment would facilitate rapid release of active AMP molecules from the hydrogel and immediate targeting of H. pylori in the stomach wall. Additionally, the remaining peptide is protected in the hydrogel, extending its retention time in the stomach, so that persistent drug release is achieved. The controlled and sustained release manner of the active molecule GE33, which enhances drug bioavailability, along with its excellent bactericidal efficacy opens a great potential for treating H. pylori infection.

Polymeric immunoglobulin receptor promotes Th2 immune response in the liver by increasing cholangiocytes derived IL-33: a diagnostic and therapeutic biomarker of biliary atresia.

BACKGROUND: Biliary atresia (BA) is a devastating neonatal cholangiopathy with an unclear pathogenesis, and prompt diagnosis of BA is currently challenging. METHODS: Proteomic and immunoassay analyses were performed with serum samples from 250 patients to find potential BA biomarkers. The expression features of polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (PIGR) were investigated using human biopsy samples, three different experimental mouse models, and cultured human biliary epithelial cells (BECs). Chemically modified small interfering RNA and adenovirus expression vector were applied for in vivo silencing and overexpressing PIGR in a rotavirus-induced BA mouse model. Luminex-based multiplex cytokine assays and RNA sequencing were used to explore the molecular mechanism of PIGR involvement in the BA pathogenesis. FINDINGS: Serum levels of PIGR, poliovirus receptor (PVR), and aldolase B (ALDOB) were increased in BA patients and accurately distinguished BA from infantile hepatitis syndrome (IHS). Combined PIGR and PVR analysis distinguished BA from IHS with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.968 and an accuracy of 0.935. PIGR expression was upregulated in the biliary epithelium of BA patients; Th1 cytokines TNF-α and IFN-γ induced PIGR expression in BECs via activating NF-κB pathway. Silencing PIGR alleviated symptoms, reduced IL-33 expression, and restrained hepatic Th2 inflammation in BA mouse model; while overexpressing PIGR increased liver fibrosis and IL-33 expression, and boosted hepatic Th2 inflammation in BA mouse model. PIGR expression promotes the proliferation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and reduced the apoptosis of BECs. INTERPRETATION: PIGR participated in BA pathogenesis by promoting hepatic Th2 inflammation via increasing cholangiocytes derived IL-33; PIGR has the value as a diagnostic and therapeutic biomarker of BA. FUNDING: This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82170529), the National Key R&D Program (2021YFC2701003), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82272022).

2-Arylbenzofurans from the stems and leaves of Artocarpus tonkinensis and their potential antiproliferative activities.

Phytochemical study on the stems and leaves of Artocarpus tonkinensis led to the isolation of a new 2-arylbenzofuran, artocartone (1), as well as seven known 2-arylbenzofurans (2-8). The chemical structure of 1 was established by means of comprehensive spectroscopic analyses and the known compounds were determined by comparing their MS and NMR data with those reported data in literature. The antiproliferative activities of all isolates 1-8 against five human cancer cell lines: HL-60, SMMC-7721, A-375, MCF-7 and SW480 in vitro were evaluated. As a result, compounds 1- 8 displayed notable antiproliferative activities against various human cancer cell lines with IC50 values in the range of 0.28 ± 0.05-26.89 ± 0.18 µM.

Development of a cost-effective confocal Raman microscopy with high sensitivity.

Confocal Raman microscopy is a powerful technique for identifying materials and molecular species; however, the signal from Raman scattering is extremely weak. Typically, handheld Raman instruments are cost-effective but less sensitive, while high-end scientific-grade Raman instruments are highly sensitive but extremely expensive. This limits the widespread use of Raman technique in our daily life. To bridge this gap, we explored and developed a cost-effective yet highly sensitive confocal Raman microscopy system. The key components of the system include an excitation laser based on readily available laser diode, a lens-grating-lens type spectrometer with high throughput and image quality, and a sensitive detector based on a linear charge-coupled device (CCD) that can be cooled down to -30 °C. The developed compact Raman instrument can provide high-quality Raman spectra with good spectral resolution. The 3rd order 1450 cm-1 peak of Si (111) wafer shows a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) better than 10:1, demonstrating high sensitivity comparable to high-end scientific-grade Raman instruments. We also tested a wide range of different samples (organic molecules, minerals and polymers) to demonstrate its universal application capability.