Nanoparticles are actively exploited as biological imaging probes. Of particular interest are gold nanoparticles because of their nonblinking and nonbleaching absorption and scattering properties that arise from the excitation of surface plasmons. Nanoparticles with anisotropic shapes furthermore provide information about the probe orientation and its environment. Here we show how the orientation of single gold nanorods (25 × 73 nm) can be determined from both the transverse and longitudinal surface plasmon resonance by using polarization-sensitive photothermal imaging. By measuring the orientation of the same nanorods separately using scanning electron microscopy, we verified the high accuracy of this plasmon-absorption-based technique. However, care had to be taken when exciting the transverse plasmon absorption using a large numerical aperture objective as out-of-plane plasmon oscillations were also excited then. For the size regime studied here, being able to establish the nanorod orientation from the transverse mode is unique to photothermal imaging and almost impossible with conventional dark-field scattering spectroscopy. This is important because the transverse surface plasmon resonance is mostly insensitive to the medium refractive index and nanorod aspect ratio allowing nanorods of any length to be used as orientation sensors without changing the laser frequency.gold nanorod | surface plasmon | single-particle spectroscopy | photothermal imaging O ptical probes for biological imaging should yield large photon count rates with little background noise due to autofluorescence or scattering, have a high photostability and good biocompatibility, and cause only minimal interference (1-5). A high degree of polarization anisotropy is also desirable because it gives access to the orientation of the probe, and thereby provides important information about the conformation and dynamics of the biological system (1-3, 5). The surface plasmon (SP) absorption of individual metallic nanoparticles recorded by high-sensitivity photothermal imaging presents an excellent step toward the realization of optimized optical probes with the aforementioned properties (6, 7). Here we show that, by tuning the shape of gold nanoparticles and hence the anisotropy of the SP oscillation, the orientation of single gold nanorods (Au NRs) can be determined very accurately based on the SP absorption. We found excellent agreement for NR orientations determined using SEM compared to polarization-sensitive photothermal imaging of the longitudinal SP mode. Furthermore, our studies show that the transverse SP mode along the smaller NR dimension also yields accurate NR orientations if a low N.A. objective was used. This cannot be accomplished using conventional dark-field scattering spectroscopy (8, 9). In addition, because the transverse SP resonance is insensitive to the NR aspect ratio (10), the orientations of NRs with different lengths in environments with varying local refractive indices can be measured using only one laser frequency.Singl...

Amyloid precursor protein (APP) has eight potential phosphorylation sites in its cytoplasmic domain.Recently, it has demonstrated that the constitutive phosphorylation of APP at T668 (APP695 isoform numbering) was observed specifically in the brain. Neuron-specific phosphorylation of APP at T668 is thought to be important for neuronal functions of APP, although its exact physiological significance remains to be clarified. In this study, we show that the phosphorylation of the APP intracellular domain (AICD) at T668 is essential for its binding to Fe65 and its nuclear translocation and affects the resultant neurotoxicity, possibly mediated through the induction of glycogen synthase kinase 3␤ and tau phosphorylation by enhancing the formation of a ternary complex with Fe65 and CP2 transcription factor. Taken together, these results suggest that the phosphorylation of AICD at T668 contributes to the neuronal degeneration in Alzheimer's disease (AD) by regulating its translocation into the nucleus and then affects neurodegeneration; therefore, the specific inhibitor of T668 phosphorylation might be the target of AD therapy.Amyloid beta peptide (A␤) generated from amyloid precursor protein (APP) is the main component of neuritic plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, and its aggregation is hypothesized to be central to the pathogenesis of AD (28). APP, which is a type I transmembrane protein, is cleaved consecutively, first at the extracellular juxtamembrane region by ␣-or ␤-secretase and then at the intramembrane region by ␥-secretase. Following the first cleavage, a soluble APP fragment (sAPP␣ or sAPP␤) is secreted, and then, following the second cleavage, p3 or A␤ peptides and the AICD (APP intracellular domain) are generated, together with release of the cytoplasmic fragment into the cytoplasm (7,29,31,37,39).APP contains eight potential phosphorylation sites within its cytoplasmic domain (21). Seven of these potential phosphorylation sites were recently shown to be phosphorylated in AD brains, i.e., Y653, S655, T668, S675, Y682, T686, and Y687 (APP695 isoform numbering) (21). The constitutive phosphorylation of APP at T668 is observed specifically in the brain (14).

ObjectivesThis retrospective study was performed to evaluate the clinical impact of diabetes mellitus on the prognosis in secondary space infection.Materials and MethodsMedical records, radiographic images, computed tomography, and microbial studies of 51 patients (25 diabetic patients and 26 non-diabetic patients) were reviewed. Patients were diagnosed as secondary fascial space infections with odontogenic origin and underwent treatment at Chonnam National University Hospital, in Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, from January 2007 to February 2009.ResultsCompared to patients without diabetes, patients with diabetes were presented with the following characteristics: older age (diabetic patients: 62.9 years, non-diabetic patients, 47.8 years), more spaces involved (diabetic patients, 60%; non-diabetic patients, 27.3%), more intense treatment, longer hospitalization (diabetic patients, 28.9 days; non-diabetic patients, 15.4 days), higher white blood cell and C-reactive protein values, higher incidence of complication (diabetic patients, 40%; non-diabetic patients, 7.7%), and distinctive main causative microorganisms.ConclusionThese results suggest that the prognosis of diabetic patients is poorer than that of non-diabetic patients in secondary space infections since they had greater incidence rates of involved spaces, abnormal hematologic findings, more complications, and additional procedures, such as tracheostomy.

This study is to figure the relations of the heart rate variability, body component analysis and accompanying symptoms of 350 insomnia patients. Methods : For this study we evaluated Heart Rate Variability(HRV) and body component analysis on 350 insomnia patients who visited Dongeui oriental hospital of Dongeui university from January 2008 to March 2012. The accompanying symptoms was collected based on each patient's progress note. Results : 1. There was no difference between PR, LF and VLF of male and female groups. HF was higher in the patients' of female group and LF/HF ratio was higher in the male group. The patients' group of age under 39 had higher HF, LF, VLF and LF/HF ratio than the group over 39. 2. The average of LF was the smallest, and the average of VLF was in the middle, while the average of HF was the largest. 3. Regarding patients' age and gender, as the patients' age increased, their HF, LF, VLF and LF/HF ratio decreased significantly. HF, LF, VLF, and LF/HF ratios were, however, independent on the patients' gender. As the patients' age increased, their BMI increased, while the patients' gender did not affect on their BMI. The amount of visceral fat increased with the patients' age, but wasn't dependent on the patients' gender. 4. As the patients' BMI increased, PR and LF decreased. As the patients' amount of visceral fat increased, PR, HF, LF and VLF decreased. 5. The most frequent accompanying symptoms of the insomnia patients was headache. Neither HF nor LF/HF ratio was dependant on any of the accompanying symptoms. Patients with anxiety showed significantly higher LF than those without anxiety. Patients with fatigue and physical pain showed significantly higher VLF than those without either of them. Conclusions : The study showed that as the insomnia patients age increased, the HF, LF, VLF, LF/HF ratio significantly decreased, but the BMI and visceral fat increased. The HF, LF, VLF, LF/HF ratio BMI, or the visceral fat was independent on the gender. As BMI increased, PR and LF decreased. As visceral fat increased, PR HF, LF and VLF decreased. Patients presenting anxiety had higher LF. Patients either with fatigue or physical pain had higher VLF. Neither HF nor LF/HF ratio had any significant correlation with any of the accompanying symptoms.

Objectives :This study was to investigate the correlation of the Percepted Maternal Love and the characteristics of personality showed on MMPI scale, of the Oriental Medical University students. Methods :For this study we carried out the MMPI profiling and Percepted Maternal Love Scale on self-check test term, among 46 senior students who are attending Oriental Medical University. After collecting the data, we studied the correlation between the two measures.Results :1. As the Percepted Maternal Love score increased, the Depression and Social Introversion score decreased conversely. 2. As the Percepted Maternal Love score increased, the Avoidant personality disorder score decreased. 3. As the Percepted Maternal Love score increased, Narcissistic personality disorder score increased as well. 4. As the scale of percepted mother's increased, the depressed, socially introverted character, and avoidant personality of the children decreased, and the self-loving personality character increased on the contrary. Conclusions :By the above results, we can come to the conclusion that in order to nurture the children to be self-loving and not to be depressed or intimidated, the mother must try to make sure that her children actually do perceive how much they are loved.