Synovial inflammation plays an important role in the pathogenesis and progress of osteoarthritis (OA). There is an urgent need to find safe and effective drugs that can reduce the inflammation and regulate the pathogenesis of cytokines of the OA disease. Here, we investigated the effect of icariin, the major pharmacological active component of herb Epimedium on human osteoarthritis fibroblast-like synoviocytes (OA–FLSs). The OA–FLSs were isolated from patients with osteoarthritis and cultured in vitro with different concentrations of icariin. Then, cell viability, proliferation, and migration were investigated; MMP14, GRP78, and IL-1β gene expression levels were detected via qRT-PCR. Icariin showed low cytotoxicity to OA–FLSs at a concentration of under 10 μM and decreased the proliferation of the cells at concentrations of 1 and 10 μM. Icariin inhibited cell migration with concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 1 μM. Also, the expression of three cytokines for the pathogenesis of OA which include IL-1β, MMP14 and GRP78 was decreased by the various concentrations of icariin. These preliminary results imply that icariin might be an effective compound for the treatment of OA disease.

Curvature measurement plays an important role in many fields. Aiming to overcome shortcomings of the existing optical fiber curvature sensors, such as complicated structure and difficulty in eliminating temperature noise, we proposed and demonstrated a simple optical fiber curvature sensor based on surface plasmon resonance. By etching cladding of the step-index multimode fiber and plating gold film on the bare core, the typical Kretschmann configuration is implemented on fiber, which is used as the bending-sensitive region. With increases in the curvature of the optical fiber, the resonance wavelength of the SPR (Surface Plasmon Resonance) dip linear red-shifts while the transmittance decreases linearly. In the curvature range between 0 and 9.17 m⁻¹, the wavelength sensitivity reached 1.50 nm/m⁻¹ and the intensity sensitivity reached −3.66%/m⁻¹. In addition, with increases in the ambient temperature, the resonance wavelength of the SPR dips linearly blueshifts while the transmittance increases linearly. In the temperature range between 20 and 60 °C, the wavelength sensitivity is −0.255 nm/°C and the intensity sensitivity is 0.099%/°C. The sensing matrix is built up by combining the aforementioned four sensitivities. By means of the dual modulation method, the cross-interference caused by temperature change is eliminated. Additionally, simultaneous measurement of curvature and temperature is realized.

In this paper, a fiber Mach Zehnder (MZ) interferometer based on sawtooth structure was proposed. It not only has the ability of bending sensing and bending direction recognition, but also can be applied to multi parameter sensing. Here we established the fiber hetero core structure with single mode fiber-multimode fiber-single mode fiber (MSM), and then fabricated the sawtooth structure on the single mode fiber in the middle by CO ₂ laser. Since part of the cladding on the single-mode fiber was removed, the fiber core was no longer at the neutral plane. When the sensor is bent in the 0° direction or 180° direction, the effective refractive index and optical path length of the core mode will increase or decrease, resulting in the increase or decrease of the optical path difference between the core mode and the cladding mode. And then the interference wavelength will show a red shift or blue shift, so as to realize the curvature sensing with bending direction recognition. Meanwhile, due to the local stress of the sawtooth structure in the bending, the sensitivity of the bending sensor is improved. The testing results indicate that the sensitivity of 0° bending and 180° bending are −15.16 nm/m ⁻¹ and 8.32 nm/m ⁻¹ with the curvature range of 0–1 m ⁻¹ . Moreover, the sawtooth structure sensor has excellent performance in strain, temperature and torsion sensing. The torsional sensitivity of the sensor reaches −0.30 nm/(rad/m) with torsional range of 0–13.96 rad/m, the temperature sensitivity reaches 58.90 pm/°C, and the strain sensitivity reaches −3.62 pm/μϵ. In strain sensing, there are some interference valleys insensitive to strain, which can realize the simultaneous measurement of other parameters and strain.

The heavy metal ions in food usually exist in the form of mixtures and have low concentrations. It is crucial for human health to achieve highly sensitive and specific detection of heavy metal ions in food. In this paper, we propose a fiber SPR sensor that adjusts sensitivity by adjusting the incident angle through fiber microstructure, and uses it for the specific detection of heavy metal nickel ions. By fabricating an S-taper microstructure on a single-mode fiber, adjusting its axial offset and taper area diameter, the sensitivity of the sensor was increased from 2294.50nm/RIU to 3244.62nm/RIU. By modifying double stranded DNA on the surface of the sensing region of the fiber S-taper structure, specific recognition of heavy metal nickel ions was achieved, with a detection sensitivity of 3.587 nm/[lg (mg/mL)] and a detection limit as low as 8.65 pg/mL. The sensitivity of the sensor for detecting other heavy metal ions is lower than 0.44nm/(lg (mg/mL)). The Sensitization specific fiber SPR sensor proposed in this paper provides a new solution for the highly sensitive and specific detection of various heavy metal ions in food.

In this Letter, a high-power diode-side-pumped Nd:YAG laser emitting at $1338\mathrm{nm}$ is described. The output characteristics of the laser using the different output couplers for both the cw mode and the Q-switched mode have been studied. With a pumping power of $555\mathrm{W}$, the average output power decreases from $70\mathrm{W}$ at $50\mathrm{kHz}\text{to}55\mathrm{W}$ (slope efficiency 21.2%, optical conversion efficiency 10%) at $5\mathrm{kHz}$. The highest peak power is up to $73\mathrm{kW}$ with the pulse duration of $150\mathrm{ns}$ at the repetition rate of $5\mathrm{kHz}$. When operated in cw mode, the output power of $100.5\mathrm{W}$ was achieved, corresponding with the optical slope efficiency of 36%.