No abstract

Recent advances in nanotechnology have prompted the need for tools to accurately and noninvasively manipulate individual nano-objects. Among the possible strategies, optical forces have been widely used to enable nano-optical tweezers capable of trapping or moving a specimen with unprecedented accuracy. Here, we propose an architecture consisting of a nanotip excited with a plasmonic vortex enabling effective dynamic control of nanoparticles in three dimensions. The structure illuminated by a beam with angular momentum can generate an optical field that can be used to manipulate single dielectric nanoparticles. We demonstrate that it is possible to stably trap or push the particle from specific points, thus enabling a new, to the best of our knowledge, platform for nanoparticle manipulation.

The Late Ordovician succession of the Baltic Basin contains a characteristic fine-grained limestone, which is rich in calcareous green algae. This limestone occurs in surface outcrops and drill-cores in an extensive belt reaching from Sweden across the Baltic Sea to the Baltic countries. This limestone, which is known in the literature under several different lithological names, is described and interpreted, and the term "Baltic limestone facies" is suggested. The microfacies, from selected outcrops from the Åland Islands, Finland and Estonia, consists of calcareous green algae as the main skeletal component in a bioclastic mudstone-packstone lithology with a pure micritic matrix. Three types of calcitarch, which range in diameter from c. 100-180 μm, are common. Basinward, the youngest sections of the facies belt contain coral-stromatoporoid patch reefs and Palaeoporella-algal mounds. The Baltic limestone facies can be interpreted as representing the shallow part of an open-marine low-latitude carbonate platform.

Calathid-demosponge carbonate mounds are a feature of Early to Middle Ordovician shallow-marine carbonate depositional environments of tropical to subtropical palaeolatitudes. These mounds contain an important amount of autochthonous non-skeletal microcrystalline calcium-carbonate (automicrite) conventionally considered microbial in origin. Here, the automicrite of calathid-demosponge carbonate mounds (Tarim Basin, north-west China) is broken down into five distinct fabrics: an in situ peloidal-spiculiferous fabric (AM-1), an in situ peloidal fabric (AM-2), an aphanitic-microtubular fabric (AM-3), a minipeloidal fabric (AM-4) and a laminoid-cerebroid fabric (AM-5). Type AM-1 occurs with AM-2 being succeeded by an assemblage of AM-3 and AM-4. Types AM-4 and AM-5 are separated by an erosional disconformity. A good correlation of fluorescence and cathodoluminescence of automicrites indicates that induced and supported organomineralization produced automicrite, probably via the permineralization of non-living organic substrates adsorbing dissolved metal-humate complexes. Using a spreadsheet with six parameters and 17 characters, AM-1 to AM-4 turn out to be non-microbial in origin. Instead, these automicrites represent relics of calcified metazoan tissues, such as siliceous sponges, non-spiculate sponges or the basal attachment structures of stalked invertebrates. Fabric AM-5 is a microbial carbonate but is post-mound in origin forming a drape within a reefal framework established by AM-4. The five automicritic fabrics, individually or as an assemblage, are a common element of Ordovician calathiddemosponge carbonate mounds in general. The reassessment of the origins of these automicritic fabrics holds consequences for understanding of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event in terms of community structure, reef ecology and reef evolution. Episodically, these fabrics are also present in other carbonate build-ups stretching from the Neoproterozoic over the entire Phanerozoic Eon. The massive calcification of metazoan soft tissue (AM-1 to AM-4) characterizes episodes and conditions of enhanced marine calcification and might be of value to refine secular trends of pCO 2 , Ca concentration and Mg/Ca ratio at the scale of individual sedimentary basins.

Chronic kidney disease is becoming a global public health problem, which will usually cause uremia at the end stage of chronic kidney failure. So far, kidney transplant is the most effective and proper therapy for uremia, however, the short supply of matched donor kidney has been a persistent bottleneck for transplantation. HLA matching of HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 loci is very important for the allocation of kidney transplants. In this study, we investigated genotypes of HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 loci based on 1,464 uremia patients and 10,000 unrelated healthy individuals in Henan province of China, and compared the frequency distribution of these HLA alleles and corresponding haplotypes between patient and healthy groups. We detected 23 HLA-A, 49 HLA-B and 17 HLA-DRB1 alleles in total. The predominant alleles of HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 loci in patients are the same as those in healthy group. The seven most frequent alleles account for about 87%, 50%, and 77% at HLA-A, -B and -DRB1 loci, respectively. The haplotypes (combinations of HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1) with significantly different frequency between patients and controls mostly account for less than 1%. Overall, this suggests that HLA matching is not a potential difficulty for kidney transplant of uremia patients. However, three of the top seven frequent HLA-DRB1 alleles have a significantly different distribution in patients and controls, while only one alleles for HLA-B and zero for HLA-A loci. These HLA-DRB1 alleles may be closely associated with uremia. This study sheds new lights on the composition and difference of HLA genotypes in uremia patients and healthy populations in Central China that can serve as a guide to HLA matching for kidney transplants and a resource for HLA typing-related studies.