Biochar induces different responses of intracellular and extracellular antibiotic resistance genes and suppresses horizontal transfer during lincomycin fermentation dregs composting.

This study aims to indicate the influence of biochar on extracellular and intracellular ARGs (e/iARGs) variation and proliferation during lincomycin fermentation dregs (LFDs) compost. Biochar addition made iARGs keep reducing but eARGs increase to the maximum at the middle thermophilic phase and reduce at the end of the compost. Compared to control 3.15-log and 5.42-log reduction of iARGs and eARGs were observed, respectively. Biochar addition, bacterial community, and MGEs were the major contributors to iARGs and eARGs removal, with the contribution percentages of 38.4%, 31.0%, 23.7%, and 27.2%, 29.1%, and 34.9%, respectively. Moreover, biochar significantly inhibited eARGs transformation and RP4 plasmid conjugative transfer among E. coli DH5α and Pseudomonas aeruginosa HLS-6. The underlying mechanism involved in broken cell membranes of bacteria, and altered expression of oxidative stress genes and save our souls (SOS) response-related genes. The results indicated that biochar addition in composting could limit the dissemination of ARGs.

Extended autofocusing in dual-wavelength digital holography.

In single-wavelength digital holography (DH), the phase wrapping phenomenon limits the total object depth that can be measured due to the requirement for well-resolved phase fringes. To address this limitation, dual-wavelength DH is proposed, enabling measurement of much deeper objects. In single-wavelength DH, because the object depth is limited, the depth of focus (DOF) of DH's optical system at a reconstruction distance is sufficient to cover the object depth. To date, many autofocusing algorithms have been proposed to obtain a correct reconstruction distance. However, in dual-wavelength DH, because the object depth is extended, the DOF at a reconstruction distance cannot cover the extended object depth. The extended object depth can span multiple DOFs, causing partially out of focus object depth. Therefore, in dual-wavelength DH, relying solely on autofocusing algorithms for a single distance is insufficient. But extended autofocusing algorithms, which can autofocus objects through multiple DOFs, are demanded. However, there are no such extended autofocusing algorithms in dual-wavelength DH. Therefore, we propose an extended autofocusing algorithm for dual-wavelength DH based on a correlation coefficient. The proposed algorithm is able to focus the whole object depth when the depth spans multiple DOFs. Through theoretical analysis, simulations, and experiments, the necessity and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm are verified.

CircLPAR3 Acts as an Oncogene in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Through Regulating the miR-643/HMGB2 Network.

The malignant progression of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has been confirmed to be mediated by a variety of factors, including circular RNA (circRNA). However, the role of circLPAR3 in OSCC development is still unclear. 70 paired OSCC tissues and normal control tissues were obtained from 70 OSCC patients. Quantitative real-time PCR was used to detect the expression of circLPAR3, microRNA (miR)-643, and high-mobility group box 2 (HMGB2). Cell proliferation, apoptosis, metastasis and stemness were assessed using cell counting kit 8 assay, colony-formation assay, flow cytometry, transwell assay and sphere formation assay. Marker protein expression and HMGB2 protein expression were determined by western blot analysis. The interaction between miR-643 and circLPAR3 or HMGB2 was confirmed by RNA pull-down assay, dual-luciferase reporter and RIP assay. The role of circLPAR3 in OSCC tumorigenesis was explored by constructing the xenograft models. Our data showed that circLPAR3 was highly expressed in OSCC tissues and cells. CircLPAR3 silencing suppressed OSCC cell proliferation, metastasis and stemness, while promoted apoptosis. On the mechanism, we discovered that circLPAR3 could sponge miR-643 to positive regulate HMGB2. MiR-643 overexpression had an inhibition effect on OSCC progression, and its inhibitor could reverse the negative regulation of circLPAR3 knockdown on OSCC progression. In addition, overexpressed HMGB2 also reversed the suppressive effect of circLPAR3 silencing on OSCC progression. Animal experiments results showed that downregulated circLPAR3 repressed OSCC tumorigenesis in vivo. Taken together, our data showed that circLPAR3 contributed to OSCC malignant progression through regulating the miR-643/HMGB2 axis.

Spurious fringe processing for dielectric metasurface profile measurement using white-light scanning interferometry.

Dielectric metasurfaces, which are capable of manipulating incident light, have been a novel branch of flat optics. This modulation ability is realized by nanostructures with space-variant geometrical parameters such as height and diameter. Therefore, accurate profile measurement of metasurfaces is of great importance. White-light scanning interferometry is widely used for profile measurement. The step height is retrieved by locating the envelope's peak. However, spurious fringes attached to the desired fringes were observed at the measured area near the edge of nanostructures. Their amplitude distributions vary with the density of nanostructures as well as distance to the edge. Further, anomalous coherence signals with two fringe envelopes are produced, which result in inaccurate measurement results. We attributed this phenomenon to the complex light modulation by the nanostructures. When referring to the anomalous coherence signals for the top of the nanostructures, one envelope is produced by the top, and the other is produced by the bottom; however, it is difficult to distinguish these two, which is the same case for the bottom of the nanostructures. To automatically solve these obstacles, a signal processing method, which integrates the image segmentation technology to identify and divide the anomalous coherence signals, along with a Morlet wavelet transform to extract the fringe envelope, suitable for any measured area of the dielectric metasurface, is proposed. One metasurface belt consisting of seven kinds of nanopillars with varying arrayed densities that produce different coherence signals is measured. The diameter distribution ranges from 500 to 1250 nm with a constant height of 1850 nm. The local periods in the X and Y directions are 3020 and 1740 nm, respectively. Measurement results demonstrate the validity of the proposed method for spurious fringes processing.

Common-path laser interferometer.

A common-path laser interferometer is introduced. Its most important feature is that two optical arms are entirely in a common path. Laser Doppler and laser polarization interference technologies are used in the proposed optical system. An experiment setup is established. The primary experimental result shows that this common path method is very feasible. The resolution is 0.72 nm within a 0.01 mm range, and the highest velocity is 0.56 mm/s. There is much room to improve its performance.