Functional enrichment analysis has played a key role in the biological interpretation of high-throughput omics data. As a long-standing and widely used web application for functional enrichment analysis, WebGestalt has been constantly updated to satisfy the needs of biologists from different research areas. WebGestalt 2017 supports 12 organisms, 324 gene identifiers from various databases and technology platforms, and 150 937 functional categories from public databases and computational analyses. Omics data with gene identifiers not supported by WebGestalt and functional categories not included in the WebGestalt database can also be uploaded for enrichment analysis. In addition to the Over-Representation Analysis in the previous versions, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis and Network Topology-based Analysis have been added to WebGestalt 2017, providing complementary approaches to the interpretation of high-throughput omics data. The new user-friendly output interface and the GOView tool allow interactive and efficient exploration and comparison of enrichment results. Thus, WebGestalt 2017 enables more comprehensive, powerful, flexible and interactive functional enrichment analysis. It is freely available at http://www.webgestalt.org.

With DNA as a rigid spacer, Ag nanoparticles (NPs) were bridged to CdS quantum dots (QDs) for the stimulation of exciton-plasmon interactions (EPI) in a photoelectrochemical (PEC) system. Due to their natural absorption overlap, the exciton of the QDs and the plasmon of Ag NPs could be induced simultaneously. The EPI resonant nature enabled manipulating photoresponse of the QDs via tuning interparticle distances. Specifically, the photocurrent of the QDs could be greatly attenuated and even be completely damped by the generated EPI. The work opens a different horizon for EPI investigation through an engineered PEC nanosystem, and provides a viable mechanism for new DNA sensing protocol.

The good ex vivo discrimination of histologically vulnerable and stable plaques in this study suggests that NIR spectroscopy has the potential to identify vulnerable atherosclerotic plaques in vivo.

We introduce the "Bluedisk" project, a large program at the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) that has mapped the HI in a sample of 23 nearby galaxies with unusually high HI mass fractions, along with a similar-sized sample of control galaxies matched in stellar mass, size, inclination and redshift. This paper presents the sample selection, observational set-up, data reduction strategy, and a first analysis of the sizes and structural properties of the HI disks. We find that the HI-rich galaxies lie on the same HI mass versus HI size relation as normal spiral galaxies, extending it to total HI masses of 2 × 10 10 M ⊙ and radii R1 of ∼ 100 kpc (where R1 is defined as the radius where the HI column density reaches 1 M ⊙ pc −2 ). HIrich galaxies have significantly larger values of HI-to-optical size ratio at fixed stellar mass, concentration index, stellar and star formation rate surface density compared to the control sample. The disks of HI-rich galaxies are also significantly more clumpy (i.e. have higher HI Gini and ∆Area coefficient) than those of normal spirals. There is no evidence that the disks of HI-rich galaxies are more disturbed: HI-rich galaxies exhibit no difference with respect to control samples in their distributions of HI asymmetry indices or optical/HI disk position angle differences. In fact, the center of the HI distribution corresponds more closely with the center of the optical light in the HI-rich galaxies than in the controls. All these results argue against a scenario in which new gas has been brought in by mergers. It is possible that they may be more consistent with cooling from a surrounding quasi-static halo of warm/hot gas.

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Gold nanoparticle (Au-NP) seeds were adsorbed onto the surface of a self-assembled monolayer (SAM)-modified electrode. With the treatment of this modified electrode by Au-NPs growth solution containing different concentrations of H2O2 or cholesterol along with cholesterol oxidase (ChOx), the Au-NP seeds on the electrode surface were enlarged in varying degrees. As a result, the peak currents in corresponding cyclic voltammograms were inversely proportional to the concentration of H2O2 or cholesterol. ChOx was also further modified onto the surface of Au/SAM/Au-NP electrode to prepare Au/SAM/Au-NP/ChOx electrode. Using the enzyme-modified electrode to detect cholesterol, which also utilized the enlargement of the NPs, an extraordinary low detection limit of 5 x 10(-9) M was achieved and two linear dependence ranges of 7.5 x 10(-8)-1 x 10(-6) and 1 x 10(-6)-5 x 10(-5) M were obtained. Consequently, new kinds of H2O2 and cholesterol biosensors could be fabricated.