Activity

electronic properties as silicene, but with the advantage of having kinetic stability in planar form. As for the bonding, the Si-Si bonds are covalent, while theπback donation mechanism occurs for the B-N bonding, in accordance with the B-N bonding in h-BN.A series of green emitting Gd2O3Tb3+ (Tb 0%-10% mol) nanoparticles (NP) were synthesized using the hydrothermal method, then characterized and evaluated for latent fingerprint visualization. X-ray diffraction study (XRD) revealed a cubic structure of the nanoparticles and the total incorporation of the terbium in the Gd2O3 matrix. Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Energy Dispersive x-ray Spectrometry (EDX) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) were used to study the morphology and the elementary composition of the NP. Photoluminescence (PL) studies showed strong green emission around 540 nm due to the transition 5D4 → 7F5. The luminescence color of the synthesized NP was characterized by the CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram. The potential use of the NP powders for the visualization of latent fingerprint under UV irradiation was assessed on various substrates. The latent fingerprint images revealed by the Gd2O3Tb3+ NP powders are clear enough to extract and analyze reliable fingerprint features. The fingerprint quality was evaluated using three fingerprint quality assessment metrics and by extracting and measuring the visibility of the minutiae. The experimental results show very good quality images of the latent fingerprint acquired using the Gd2O3Tb3+ NP and yield good minutiae extraction.The continuing miniaturization of optoelectronic devices, alongside the rise of electromagnetic metamaterials, poses an ongoing challenge to nanofabrication. With the increasing impracticality of quality control at a single-feature (-device) resolution, there is an increasing demand for array-based metrologies, where compliance to specifications can be monitored via signals arising from a multitude of features (devices). To this end, a square grid with quadratic sub-features is amongst the more common designs in nanotechnology (e.g. nanofishnets, nanoholes, nanopyramids, μLED arrays etc). The electrical resistivity of such a quadratic grid may be essential to its functionality; it can also be used to characterize the critical dimensions of the periodic features. While the problem of the effective electrical resistivity ρ eff of a thin sheet with resistivity ρ 1, hosting a doubly-periodic array of oriented square inclusions with resistivity ρ 2, has been treated before (Obnosov 1999 SIAM J. Appl. Math. 59 1267M4PP footprint.Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) is one of the most common types of vision deficiency. People with CVD have difficulty seeing color spectra depending on what types of retina photoreceptors are impaired. In this paper, the Ishihara test with 38 plates was used to examine the Electroencephalogram (EEG) of ten subjects with CVD plus ten healthy individuals. The recording was performed according to the 10-20 international system. Enarodustat The C-based software was programmed so that subjects could select the number or path in each test plate in the software options while recording EEG. Frequency features in different frequency bands were extracted from the EEG signals of the two groups during the Ishihara test. Statistically significant differences (P less then 0.05) between features were assessed by independent samples t-test with False Discovery Rate (FDR) correction. Also, the K-nearest neighbor classifier (KNN) was used to classify the two groups. The results revealed that the most significant difference between the two groups in the Ishihara test images occurred for the electrodes located in the right temporoparietal areas (P4 and T6) of the brain in the Delta, Theta, Beta1, and Beta2 frequency bands. The KNN classifier, using the signals that reported the greatest statistical difference between the two groups, showed that the two groups were distinguishable with 85.2% accuracy. In this way, images from the Ishihara test that would provide the most accurate classification were identified. In conclusion, this research provided new insights into EEG signals of subjects with CVD and healthy subjects based on the Ishihara color vision test.Contacts between black phosphorene (BP) and metal electrodes are critical components of BP-based devices and can dramatically affect device performance. In this paper, we adopted first-principles calculations to explore binding energies, electronic structures, spatial potential distribution of monolayer BP-Ni interfaces in surface contact and edge contact types, and used density functional theoretical coupled with nonequilibrium Green’s function method to investigate the electrical transport properties for transport systems of monolayer BP with Ni electrodes. Our calculated results indicate that contact type between monolayer BP and metal Ni electrodes may much affect the transport properties of monolayer BP-Ni devices. Interfacial interaction between Ni and monolayer BP in edge contact type is stronger than that in surface contact type. The potential distributions indicate that edge contact type is more beneficial for reducing contact resistance of monolayer BP-Ni contacts and conducive to improve the performance of BP-Ni electrode device.Macrophages are vital regulators of skeletal remodeling and osseous repair. Beta-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) is a synthetic ceramic biomaterial that has shown promise as bone substitute. However, whether and how β-TCP affects osteogenesis-related responses of macrophages has rarely been studied. The aims of this study were to explore (a) the effects of β-TCP on osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) co-cultured with macrophages and (b) on macrophage polarization as well as macrophage gene and protein expression profiles. BMSC osteogenic differentiation capacity in vitro was enhanced in β-TCP-induced co-cultured BMSCs compared to that in BMSC monocultures. We also found that macrophages induced with 25 mg ml-1 β-TCP extract had more significant immune responses and switched to the M2 phenotype. Expression levels of the Wnt signaling pathway modulators wingless-type MMTV integration site family, member 6 (WNT6) and Wnt inhibitory factor 1 (WIF1) were upregulated and downregulated, respectively, in macrophages treated with β-TCP extract.