Experimental Generation of Spin-Photon Entanglement in Silicon Carbide.

A solid-state approach for quantum networks is advantageous, as it allows the integration of nanophotonics to enhance the photon emission and the utilization of weakly coupled nuclear spins for long-lived storage. Silicon carbide, specifically point defects within it, shows great promise in this regard due to the easy of availability and well-established nanofabrication techniques. Despite of remarkable progresses made, achieving spin-photon entanglement remains a crucial aspect to be realized. In this Letter, we experimentally generate entanglement between a silicon vacancy defect in silicon carbide and a scattered single photon in the zero-phonon line. The spin state is measured by detecting photons scattered in the phonon sideband. The photonic qubit is encoded in the time-bin degree of freedom and measured using an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Photonic correlations not only reveal the quality of the entanglement but also verify the deterministic nature of the entanglement creation process. By harnessing two pairs of such spin-photon entanglement, it becomes straightforward to entangle remote quantum nodes at long distance.

Single-Shot Readout of a Nuclear Spin in Silicon Carbide.

Solid-state qubits with a photonic interface is very promising for quantum networks. Color centers in silicon carbide have shown excellent optical and spin coherence, even when integrated with membranes and nanostructures. Additionally, nuclear spins coupled with electron spins can serve as long-lived quantum memories. Pioneering work previously has realized the initialization of a single nuclear spin and demonstrated its entanglement with an electron spin. In this Letter, we report the first realization of single-shot readout for a nuclear spin in SiC. We obtain a deterministic nuclear spin initialization and readout fidelity of 94.95% with a measurement duration of 1 ms. With a dual-step readout scheme, we obtain a readout fidelity as high as 99.03% within 0.28 ms by sacrificing the success efficiency. Our Letter complements the experimental toolbox of harnessing both electron and nuclear spins in SiC for future quantum networks.

Redox-Active Two-Dimensional Tetrathiafulvalene-Copper Metal-Organic Framework with Boosted Electrochemical Performances for Supercapatteries.

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted noticeable attention as promising candidates for electrochemical energy storage. However, the lack of electrical conductivity and the weak stability of most MOFs result in poor electrochemical performances. Here, a tetrathiafulvalene (TTF)-based complex, formulated as [(CuCN)2(TTF(py)4)] (1) (TTF-(py)4 = tetra(4-pyridyl)-TTF), is assembled by in situ generation of coordinated CN- from a nontoxic source. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis reveals that compound 1 possesses a two-dimensional layered planar structure, which is further stacked in parallel to form a three-dimensional supramolecular framework. The planar coordination environment of 1 is the first example of a TTF-based MOF. Attributed to the unique structure and redox TTF ligand, the electrical conductivity of 1 is significantly increased by 5 orders of magnitude upon iodine treatment. The iodine-treated 1 (1-ox) electrode displays typical battery-type behavior through electrochemical characterizations. The supercapattery based on the 1-ox positrode and AC negatrode presents a high specific capacity of 266.5 C g-1 at a specific current of 1 A g-1 with a remarkable specific energy of 62.9 Wh kg-1 at a specific power of 1.1 kW kg-1. The excellent electrochemical performance of 1-ox is one of the best among those reported supercapatteries, demonstrating a new strategy for developing MOF-based electrode materials.

Oxidatively Doped Tetrathiafulvalene-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks for High Specific Energy of Supercapatteries.

Poor electrical conductivity and instability of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have limited their energy storage and conversion efficiency. In this work, we report the application of oxidatively doped tetrathiafulvalene (TTF)-based MOFs for high-performance electrodes in supercapatteries. Two isostructural MOFs, formulated as [M(py-TTF-py)(BPDC)]·2H2O (M = NiII (1), ZnII (2); py-TTF-py = 2,6-bis(4'-pyridyl)TTF; H2BPDC = biphenyl-4,4'-dicarboxylic acid), are crystallographically characterized. The structural analyses show that the two MOFs possess a three-dimensional 8-fold interpenetrating diamond-like topology, which is the first example for TTF-based dual-ligand MOFs. Upon iodine treatment, MOFs 1 and 2 are converted into oxidatively doped 1-ox and 2-ox with high crystallinity. The electrical conductivity of 1-ox and 2-ox is significantly increased by six∼seven orders of magnitude. Benefiting from the unique structure and the pronounced development of electrical conductivity, the specific capacities reach 833.2 and 828.3 C g-1 at a specific current of 1 A g-1 for 1-ox and 2-ox, respectively. When used as a battery-type positrode to assemble a supercapattery, the AC∥1-ox and AC∥2-ox (AC = activated carbon) present an energy density of 90.3 and 83.0 Wh kg-1 at a power density of 1.18 kW kg-1 and great cycling stability with 82% of original capacity and 92% columbic efficiency retention after 10,000 cycles. Ex situ characterization illustrates the ligand-dominated mechanism in the charge/discharge processes. The excellent electrochemical performances of 1-ox and 2-ox are rarely reported for supercapatteries, illustrating that the construction of unique highly dense and robust structures of MOFs followed by postsynthetic oxidative doping is an effective approach to fabricate MOF-based electrode materials.

Improving the understanding of PI-RADS in practice: characters of PI-RADS 4 and 5 lesions with negative biopsy / 亚洲男科学杂志(英文版)

The Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System (PI-RADS) has good ability to identify the nature of lesions on prostate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, some lesions are still reported as PI-RADS 4 and 5 but are biopsy-proven benign. Herein, we aimed to summarize the reasons for the negative prostate biopsy of patients who were assessed as PI-RADS 4 and 5 by biparameter MRI. We retrospectively sorted out the prostate MRI, treatment, and follow-up results of patients who underwent a biparameter MRI examination of the prostate in The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University (Nanjing, China) from August 2019 to June 2021 with PI-RADS 4 and 5 but a negative biopsy. We focused on reviewing the MRI characteristics. A total of 467 patients underwent transperineal prostate biopsy. Among them, biopsy pathology of 93 cases were negative. After follow-up, 90 patients were ruled out of prostate cancer. Among the 90 cases, 40 were considered to be overestimated PI-RADS after review. A total of 22 cases were transition zone (TZ) lesions with regular appearance and clear boundaries, and 3 cases were symmetrical lesions. Among 15 cases, the TZ nodules penetrated the peripheral zone (PZ) and were mistaken for the origin of PZ. A total of 17 cases of lesions were difficult to distinguish from prostate cancer. Among them, 5 cases were granulomatous inflammation (1 case of prostate tuberculosis). A total of 33 cases were ambiguous lesions, whose performance was between PI-RADS 3 and 4. In summary, the reasons for "false-positive MRI diagnosis" included PI-RADS overestimation, ambiguous images giving higher PI-RADS, diseases that were really difficult to distinguish, and missed lesion in the initial biopsy; and the first two accounted for the most.

FOXA1 in prostate cancer / 亚洲男科学杂志(英文版)

Most prostate cancers initially respond to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). With the long-term application of ADT, localized prostate cancer will progress to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), metastatic CRPC (mCRPC), and neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), and the transcriptional network shifted. Forkhead box protein A1 (FOXA1) may play a key role in this process through multiple mechanisms. To better understand the role of FOXA1 in prostate cancer, we review the interplay among FOXA1-targeted genes, modulators of FOXA1, and FOXA1 with a particular emphasis on androgen receptor (AR) function. Furthermore, we discuss the distinct role of FOXA1 mutations in prostate cancer and clinical significance of FOXA1. We summarize possible regulation pathways of FOXA1 in different stages of prostate cancer. We focus on links between FOXA1 and AR, which may play different roles in various types of prostate cancer. Finally, we discuss FOXA1 mutation and its clinical significance in prostate cancer. FOXA1 regulates the development of prostate cancer through various pathways, and it could be a biomarker for mCRPC and NEPC. Future efforts need to focus on mechanisms underlying mutation of FOXA1 in advanced prostate cancer. We believe that FOXA1 would be a prognostic marker and therapeutic target in prostate cancer.

Enzalutamide and olaparib synergistically suppress castration-resistant prostate cancer progression by promoting apoptosis through inhibiting nonhomologous end joining pathway / 亚洲男科学杂志(英文版)

Recent studies revealed the relationship among homologous recombination repair (HRR), androgen receptor (AR), and poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP); however, the synergy between anti-androgen enzalutamide (ENZ) and PARP inhibitor olaparib (OLA) remains unclear. Here, we showed that the synergistic effect of ENZ and OLA significantly reduced proliferation and induced apoptosis in AR-positive prostate cancer cell lines. Next-generation sequencing followed by Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analyses revealed the significant effects of ENZ plus OLA on nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) and apoptosis pathways. ENZ combined with OLA synergistically inhibited the NHEJ pathway by repressing DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs) and X-ray repair cross complementing 4 (XRCC4). Moreover, our data showed that ENZ could enhance the response of prostate cancer cells to the combination therapy by reversing the anti-apoptotic effect of OLA through the downregulation of anti-apoptotic gene insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor ( IGF1R ) and the upregulation of pro-apoptotic gene death-associated protein kinase 1 ( DAPK1 ). Collectively, our results suggested that ENZ combined with OLA can promote prostate cancer cell apoptosis by multiple pathways other than inducing HRR defects, providing evidence for the combined use of ENZ and OLA in prostate cancer regardless of HRR gene mutation status.

Association study between haplotypes of WNT signaling pathway genes and nonsyndromic oral clefts among Chinese Han populations / 北京大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#To explore whether WNT signaling pathway genes were associated with non-syndromic oral clefts (NSOC) based on haplotypes analyses among 1 008 Chinese NSOC case-parent trios.@*METHODS@#The genome-wide association study (GWAS) data of 806 Chinese non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P) trios and 202 Chinese non-syndromic cleft palate (NSCP) case-parent trios were drawn from the International Consortium to Identify Genes and Interactions Controlling Oral Clefts (ICOCs) study GWAS data set, whose Chinese study population were recruited from four provinces in China, namely Taiwan, Shandong, Hubei, and Sichuan provinces. The process of DNA genotyping was conducted by the Center for Inherited Disease Research in the Johns Hopkins University, using Illumina Human610-Quad v.1_B Bead Chip. The method of sliding windows was used to determine the haplotypes for analyses, including 2 SNPs haplotypes and 3 SNPs haplotypes. Haplotypes with a frequency lower than 1% were excluded for further analyses. To further assess the association between haplotypes and NSOC risks, and the transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) was performed. The Bonferroni method was adopted to correct multiple tests in the study, with which the threshold of statistical significance level was set as P < 0.05 divided by the number of tests, e.g P < 3.47×10-4 in the current stu-dy. All the statistical analyses were performed by using plink (v1.07).@*RESULTS@#After quality control, a total of 144 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) mapped in seven genes in WNT signaling pathway were included for the analyses among the 806 Chinese NSCL/P trios and 202 Chinese NSCP trios. A total of 1 042 haplotypes with frequency higher than 1% were included for NSCL/P analyses and another 1 057 haplotypes with frequency higher than 1% were included for NSCP analyses. Results from the TDT analyses showed that a total of 69 haplotypes were nominally associated with the NSCL/P risk among Chinese (P < 0.05). Another 34 haplotypes showed nominal significant association with the NSCP risk among Chinese (P < 0.05). However, none of these haplotypes reached pre-defined statistical significance level after Bonferroni correction (P>3.47×10-4).@*CONCLUSION@#This study failed to observe any statistically significant associations between haplotypes of seven WNT signaling pathway genes and the risk of NSOC among Chinese. Further studies are warranted to replicate the findings here.

Tetrathiafulvalene-Cobalt Metal-Organic Frameworks for Lithium-Ion Batteries with Superb Rate Capability.

Although pristine metal-organic framework (MOF) anodes for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) show moderate activities and relatively stable cycling, the poor rate capability of the MOF anodes limited their applications in the development of a new generation of energy storage. Herein, the electric active CoII ion is selected to coordinate with redox-active S-rich tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) derivatives to create two TTF-Co-MOFs, formulated as [Co2(py-TTF-py)2(BDC)2]·2DMF·H2O (TTF-Co-MOF 1) and [Co2(py-TTF-py)2(BPDC)2]·3DMF·3H2O (TTF-Co-MOF 2), where py-TTF-py = 2,6-bis(4'-pyridyl)tetrathiafulvalene, H2BDC = terephthalic acid, H2BPDC = biphenyl-4,4'-dicarboxylic acid, and DMF = N,N-dimethylformamide. Crystallographic characterization indicated that the two MOFs possess similar 2-fold-interpenetrating 3D frameworks but with two different pore sizes. The pore-size-dependent performances of the TTF-Co-MOFs were explored to optimize the MOFs as the anode materials for LIBs. TTF-Co-MOF 1 presents a high reversible specific capacity of 1186.6 mAh g-1 at 200 mA g-1 after 287 cycles. The rate capability is greatly enhanced by the introduction of CoII into TTF-based MOFs with specific capacities of 1028.6 mAh g-1 at 5 A g-1 and 966.5 mAh g-1 at 10 A g-1. On the basis of the series analysis of theoretical calculations, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and crystal structures, it is found that the CoII metal centers play a bridging role in charge transport within the MOF framework, which is beneficial for the transportation of Li ions. The competitive performances of TTF-Co-MOF 1 are attributed to the synergistic effect of the CoII metal centers and S-rich TTF ligand as well as suitable porosity. The study shed some light for the fabrication of advanced energy storage devices through the rational design of MOF-based anode materials.

2D Lead Iodide Perovskite with Mercaptan-Containing Amine and Its Exceptional Water Stability.

Two dimensional (2D) hybrid perovskites have attracted a great deal of interest because of their appropriate photovoltaic efficiency and environmental stability. Although some 2D hybrid perovskites with sulfur-containing amines have been reported, the cation having the mercaptan group has not been well explored yet. In this work, cysteamine (Cya, HS(CH2)2NH2), a mercaptan-containing amine, was introduced into 2D hybrid perovskite. Two 2D lead iodides with different structures, (HCya)2PbI4 (1) and (HCya)7Pb4I15 (2), were isolated as a red low-temperature phase and a yellow high-temperature phase, respectively. X-ray single-crystal structural analysis showed that the red phase 1 is a single layered corner-shared perovskite and that the yellow phase 2 is a corner/edge-shared quasi-2D perovskite. A thermo-induced reversible 1 to 2 phase transition was found in this synthetic system. The configuration of HCya cation greatly influences the crystallization equilibrium, generating different structures of the lead halides. The single-crystal structure of 1 is discussed in comparison with that of (HAE)2PbI4 (AE = HO(CH2)2NH2), an analogue of 1. The different effects of OH and SH groups on the 2D frameworks are studied based on their hydrogen bonding properties. More remarkably, although the two perovskites have similar structures, the (HCya)2PbI4 (1) has an intrinsic water stability that is much more stable than (HAE)2PbI4, which should be attributed to the affinity of the SH group with lead on the surface of the lead halide.

Tetrathiafulvalene-based double metal lead iodides: structures and electrical properties.

Introducing electronically active organic components into lower dimensional metal halide compounds is an effective strategy to improve the electronic properties of hybrid metal halide materials. We have previously used this strategy to explore hybrid halides with tetrathiafulvalenes (TTFs) and a series of lead iodides and bismuth halides were isolated. The electronic properties were improved notably using this modification. In this work, we expand the study of TTF based main-group metal halides to double metal halides with mixed lead and copper transition metals. Two hybrid TTF-lead-cuprous iodides, formulated as [TTF]5[Pb2Cu2I10]·H2O (1) and [TTF]2[PbCu2I6] (2), and two monometal analogues of [TTF]2[Cu4I6]·H2O (3) and [TTF]2[Ag4I6] (4) were crystallographically characterized. The anion of 1 is a 0D cluster, while that of the others is a 1D chain structure. The anion structures of 1-4 are novel and are reported for the first time. The TTF moieties are stacked to form a 2D framework in 1 and 1D columns in 2-4. We found that the semiconductor properties of the hybrids are related to electron donation from an anion to a cation. The electronic state of the TTF cations is another significant factor that affects the electronic properties of the materials. More notably, this work proved that the conductivity and photoconductivity of the mixed metal iodides are superior to those of the monometal iodides.

Deep Regionlets: Blended Representation and Deep Learning for Generic Object Detection.

In this article, we propose a novel object detection algorithm named "Deep Regionlets" by integrating deep neural networks and a conventional detection schema for accurate generic object detection. Motivated by the effectiveness of regionlets for modeling object deformations and multiple aspect ratios, we incorporate regionlets into an end-to-end trainable deep learning framework. The deep regionlets framework consists of a region selection network and a deep regionlet learning module. Specifically, given a detection bounding box proposal, the region selection network provides guidance on where to select sub-regions from which features can be learned from. An object proposal typically contains three - 16 sub-regions. The regionlet learning module focuses on local feature selection and transformations to alleviate the effects of appearance variations. To this end, we first realize non-rectangular region selection within the detection framework to accommodate variations in object appearance. Moreover, we design a "gating network" within the regionlet leaning module to enable instance dependent soft feature selection and pooling. The Deep Regionlets framework is trained end-to-end without additional efforts. We present ablation studies and extensive experiments on the PASCAL VOC dataset and the Microsoft COCO dataset. The proposed method yields competitive performance over state-of-the-art algorithms, such as RetinaNet and Mask R-CNN, even without additional segmentation labels.

SibNet: Sibling Convolutional Encoder for Video Captioning.

Visual captioning, the task of describing an image or a video using one or few sentences, is a challenging task owing to the complexity of understanding the copious visual information and describing it using natural language. Motivated by the success of applying neural networks for machine translation, previous work applies sequence to sequence learning to translate videos into sentences. In this work, different from previous work that encodes visual information using a single flow, we introduce a novel Sibling Convolutional Encoder (SibNet) for visual captioning, which employs a dual-branch architecture to collaboratively encode videos. The first content branch encodes visual content information of the video with an autoencoder, capturing the visual appearance information of the video as other networks often do. While the second semantic branch encodes semantic information of the video via visual-semantic joint embedding, which brings complementary representation by considering the semantics when extracting features from videos. Then both branches are effectively combined with soft-attention mechanism and finally fed into a RNN decoder to generate captions. With our SibNet explicitly capturing both content and semantic information, the proposed model can better represent the rich information in videos. To validate the advantages of the proposed model, we conduct experiments on two benchmarks for video captioning, YouTube2Text and MSR-VTT. Our results demonstrate that the proposed SibNet consistently outperforms existing methods across different evaluation metrics.

Impact of preoperative renal function classification on outcomes of total arch replacement for acute type A aortic dissection / 中华胸心血管外科杂志

Objective:To analyse the effect of preoperative renal function classification on early outcomes for patients with acute type A aortic dissection(AAAD) and to estimate the risk factors of postoperative major adverse events.Methods:From January 2012 to December 2019, 226 patients with AAAD who underwent total arch replacement at our institution were retrospectively analysed, including 146 males and 80 females, aged(54.4±12.5) years old. Stages of preoperative renal function were defined as follows: Normal[estimated glomerular ltration rate(eGFR)≥90 ml·min -1·1.73 m -2, 68 cases], Mild(eGFR 60-89 ml·min -1·1.73 m -2, 73 cases); Moderate(eGFR 30-59 ml·min -1·1.73 m -2, 57 cases), Severe(eGFR<30 ml·min -1·1.73 m -2, 28 cases). The independent risk factors for postoperative death were analyzed by logistic regression analysis. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was used to assess the efficiency of eGFR for predicting the postoperative hemodialysis. Results:In-hospital death occurred in 24(10.6%) cases. Major complications included postoperative hemodialysis in 49(21.7%) cases, stroke in 19(8.4%) cases and tracheotomy in 15(6.6%) cases. The best cut-off value of the eGFR for predicting postoperative hemodialysis was 36.5 ml·min -1·1.73 m -2(area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.793). The following variables were found to be risk factors of in-hospital mortality in multivariate logistic regression analysis: serum creatinine, eGFR<30 ml·min -1·1.73 m -2, neural malperfusion, bowel malperfusion, postoperative stroke and hemodialysis. Conclusion:Total arch replacement can be safely performed in patients with AAAD and mild renal dysfunction. Preoperative renal dysfunction is a risk factor for postoperative hemodialysis, and eGFR is useful for predicting the requirement for hemodialysis after total arch replacement. The severity of preoperative renal dysfunction could greatly influence the outcomes after total arch replacement for AAAD. More importance should be attached to the assessment of preoperative renal function during clinical risk assessment.

Effective-constituent compatibility-based analysis of Bufei Yishen formula, a traditional herbal compound as an effective treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

OBJECTIVE: Critical effective constituents were identified from Bufei Yishen formula (BYF), a traditional herbal compound and combined as effective-constituent compatibility (ECC) of BYF I, which may have potential bioactive equivalence to BYF. METHODS: The active constituents of BYF were identified using four cellular models and categorised into Groups 1 (Bufeiqi), 2 (Bushen), 3 (Huatan) and 4 (Huoxue) according to Chinese medicinal theory. An orthogonal design and a combination method were used to determine the optimal ratios of effective constituents in each group and the ratios of "Groups 1 to 4" according to their pharmacological activity. We also comprehensively assessed bioactive equivalence between the BYF and the ECC of BYF I in a rat model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). RESULTS: We identified 12 active constituents in BYF. The numbers of constituents in Groups 1 to 4 were 3, 2, 5 and 2, respectively. We identified the optimal ratios of effective constituents within each group. In Group 1, total ginsenosides:Astragalus polysaccharide:astragaloside IV ratio was 9:5:2. In Group 2, icariin:schisandrin B ratio was 100:12.5. In Group 3, nobiletin:hesperidin:peimine:peiminine:kaempferol ratio was 4:30:6.25:0:0. In Group 4, paeoniflorin:paeonol ratio was 4:1. An orthogonal design was then used to establish the optimal ratios of Group 1, Group 2, Group 3 and Group 4 in ECC of BYF I. The ratio for total ginsenosides:Astragalus polysaccharide:astragaloside IV:icariin:schisandrin B:nobiletin:hesperidin:peimine:paeoniflorin:paeonol was determined to be 22.5:12.5:5:100:12.5:4:30:6.25:25:6.25. A comprehensive evaluation confirmed that ECC of BYF I presented with bioactive equivalence to the original BYF. CONCLUSION: Based on the ECC of traditional Chinese medicine formula method, the effective constituents of BYF were identified and combined in a fixed ratio as ECC of BYF I that was as effective as BYF itself in treating rats with COPD.

Supplemental Nicotinamide Dose-Dependently Regulates Body Phosphorus Excretion via Altering Type II Sodium-Phosphate Co-Transporter Expressions in Laying Hens.

BACKGROUND: Dietary supplemental nicotinamide is used to treat hyperphosphatemia in humans. However, the mechanisms of its impact on body phosphorus homeostasis remain unclear. OBJECTIVE: This study was to determine effects and molecular mechanisms of 3 dietary nicotinamide concentrations on body phosphorus homeostasis in laying hens. METHODS: Hy-Line Brown layers (total = 21; 40 wk old; body weight: 1,876 ± 24 g) were individually housed (n = 7) and fed a corn-soybean meal-based diet supplemented with nicotinamide at 20 (N20), 140 (N140), and 1000 (N1000) mg/kg for 21 d. Serum phosphorus and fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) concentrations, phosphorus and calcium excretion, and mRNA and/or protein of type II sodium-phosphate co-transporters (NPt2a, NPt2ab) and FGF23 and FGF23 receptors were measured in the intestines, calvaria, kidney, and liver. RESULTS: Hens in the N1000 group had a 16% lower serum phosphorus concentration and 22% greater phosphorus excretion than those in the N20 or N140 group (P ≤ 0.05). Compared with hens in the N20 group, hens in the N140 and N1000 groups, which did not differ, had 15-21% lower serum FGF23 concentrations, 19-22% greater calcium excretion, 43-56% lower ileum NPT2b protein production, and 1.5- to 1.6-fold greater kidney NPT2a protein production, respectively (all differences at P ≤ 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Supplementing high concentrations of nicotinamide in diets for laying hens led to accelerated phosphorus and calcium excretions and decreased serum phosphorus and FGF23 concentrations, which were associated with downregulated intestinal NPt2b protein production. Our findings exclude kidney NPt2a protein production as a primary mechanism for the nicotinamide-induced body phosphorus loss.

Entanglement of two quantum memories via fibres over dozens of kilometres.

A quantum internet that connects remote quantum processors1,2 should enable a number of revolutionary applications such as distributed quantum computing. Its realization will rely on entanglement of remote quantum memories over long distances. Despite enormous progress3-12, at present the maximal physical separation achieved between two nodes is 1.3 kilometres10, and challenges for longer distances remain. Here we demonstrate entanglement of two atomic ensembles in one laboratory via photon transmission through city-scale optical fibres. The atomic ensembles function as quantum memories that store quantum states. We use cavity enhancement to efficiently create atom-photon entanglement13-15 and we use quantum frequency conversion16 to shift the atomic wavelength to telecommunications wavelengths. We realize entanglement over 22 kilometres of field-deployed fibres via two-photon interference17,18 and entanglement over 50 kilometres of coiled fibres via single-photon interference19. Our experiment could be extended to nodes physically separated by similar distances, which would thus form a functional segment of the atomic quantum network, paving the way towards establishing atomic entanglement over many nodes and over much longer distances.

Evaluating the effect of WNT pathway genes considering interactions on the risk of non-syndromic oral clefts among Chinese populations / 北京大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#In this study, we used genome-wide association study (GWAS) data to explore whether WNT pathway genes were associated with non-syndromic oral clefts (NSOC) considering gene-gene interaction and gene-environment interaction.@*METHODS@#We conducted the analysis using 806 non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P) case-parent trios and 202 non-syndromic cleft palate (NSCP) case-parent trios among Chinese populations selected from an international consortium established for a GWAS of non-syndromic oral clefts. Genotype data and maternal environmental exposures were collected through DNA samples and questionnaires. Conditional Logistic regression models were adopted to explore gene-gene interaction and gene-environment in teraction using trio package in R software. The threshold of significance level was set as 3.47×10-4 using Bonferroni correction.@*RESULTS@#A total of 144 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in seven genes passed the quality control process in NSCL/P trios and NSCP trios, respectively. Totally six pairs of SNPs interactions showed statistically significant SNP-SNP interaction (P < 3.47×10-4) after Bonferroni correction, which were rs7618735 (WNT5A) and rs10848543 (WNT5B), rs631948 (WNT11) and rs556874 (WNT5A), and rs631948 (WNT11) and rs472631 (WNT5A) among NSCL/P trios; rs589149 (WNT11) and rs4765834 (WNT5B), rs1402704 (WNT11) and rs358792 (WNT5A), and rs1402704 (WNT11) and rs358793 (WNT5A) among NSCP trios, respectively. In addition, no significant result was found for gene-environment interaction analysis in both of the NSCL/P trios and NSCP trios.@*CONCLUSION@#Though this study failed to detect significant association based on gene-environment interactions of seven WNT pathway genes and the risk of NSOC, WNT pathway genes may influence the risk of NSOC through potential gene-gene interaction.

Exploring parent-of-origin effects for non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate on PTCH1, PTCH2, SHH, SMO genes in Chinese case-parent trios / 北京大学学报(医学版)

OBJECTIVE@#Non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NSCL/P) is a common birth defect, affecting 1.4 per 1 000 live births, and multiple genetic and environmental risk factors influencing its risk. All the known genetic risk factors accounted for a small proportion of the heritability. Several authors have suggested parent-of-origin effects (PoO) may play an important role in the etiology of this complex and heterogeneous malformation. To clarify the genetic association between PTCH1, PTCH2, SHH and SMO in hedgehog (HH) pathway and NSCL/P, as well as testing for potential PoO effects in Chinese case-parent trios.@*METHODS@#We tested for transmission disequilibrium tests (TDT) and PoO effects using 83 common single nucleotide polymorphic (SNP) markers of HH pathway genes from 806 NSCL/P case-parent trios. These trios were drawn from an international consortium established for a genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of non-syndromic oral clefts of multiple ethnicities. DNA samples were collected from each trio. Single marker and haplotype based analysis were performed both in TDT tests and PoO effects. SNPs were excluded if they (ⅰ) had a call rate of < 95%, (ⅱ) had a minor allele frequency (MAF) of < 0.05, (ⅲ) had Mendelian errors over all trios of >5%, (ⅳ) had a genotype distribution in the parents that deviated from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) (<i>P</i> < 0.000 1). The process was done using Plink (version 1.07, <a href="http://pngu.mgh.harvard.edu/~purcell/plink/data.shtml" target="_blank">http://pngu.mgh.harvard.edu/~purcell/plink/data.shtml</a>). TDT test was performed in Plink v1.07. A log-linear model was used to explore PoO effects using Haplin v6.2.1 as implemented in R package v3.4.2. Significance level was assessed using the Bonferroni correction.@*RESULTS@#A total of 18 SNPs were dropped due to low MAF, thus leaving 65 SNPs available for the analysis. Thus the Bonferroni threshold was 7.7×10-4 (0.05/65). Nominal significant association with NSCL/P was found at a SNP (rs4448343 in PTCH1, P=0.023) and six haplotypes (rs10512249-rs4448343, rs1461208-rs7786445, rs10512249-rs4448343, rs16909865-rs10512249-rs4448343, rs1461208-rs7786445-rs12698335, and rs288756-rs288758-rs1151790, P < 0.05). A total of six haplotypes (rs288765-rs1233563, rs12537550-rs11765352, rs872723-rs288765-rs1233563, rs288765-rs1233563-rs288756, rs6459952-rs12537550-rs11765352, and rs12537550-rs11765352-rs6971211) showed PoO effect (P < 0.05). None of the results remained significant after the Bonferroni correction (P>7.7×10-4).@*CONCLUSION@#Neither significant association between SNPs within HH pathway and the risk of NSCL/P nor PoO effects was seen in this study.

Dual-Ionically Bound Single-Site Rhodium on Porous Ionic Polymer Rivals Commercial Methanol Carbonylation Catalysts.

Novel porous polymers can serve as self-supporting solid carriers and provide abundant coordination or charged sites for single-site metals, and thus are emerging as advanced functional materials in heterogeneous catalysis for various transformations traditionally catalyzed by homogeneous systems. A brief overview of the development of this heterogenization given, including the recent advances regarding electrovalent bonds by employing charged supports represented by porous ionic polymers (PIPs), which is exemplified herein with a novel single-site Rh1 /PIP catalyst, featuring a new active site [Rh(CO)I3 ]2- dual-ionically bound onto a quaternary phosphonium cationic framework polymer, different from the single-ionically bound [Rh(CO)2 I2 ]- in previous studies. Such a unique metal configuration of Rh1 /PIP leads to excellent performance in vapor-phase methanol carbonylation, outperforming commercial homo- and heterogeneous catalysts.