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The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of esmolol (ES) on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced cardiac injury and the possible mechanism.Sepsis was induced by intraperitoneal injection of LPS (10 mg/kg) in male Sprague-Dawley rats pre-treated with ES, 3-methyladenine (3-MA) or rapamycin (RAP). The severity of myocardial damage was analyzed by hematoxylin-eosin staining, and myocardial damage scores were calculated. The concentration of cardiac troponin (cTnI) was measured by ELISA. The expression of autophagy-related proteins (Beclin-1, LC3-II, p-AMPK, p-ULK1, p-mTOR) in myocardial tissue was detected by western blotting. Autophagosome formation and the ultrastructural damage of mitochondria were assessed using transmission electron microscopy.LPS induced an increase of myocardial damage score in a time-dependent manner, accompanied with an increase of autophagy at 3 h and decrease of autophagy at 6, 12 and 24 h. Pre-treatment of LPS-treated rats with ES or RAP reduced myocardial injury (release of cardiac troponin, myocardial damage score) and increased autophagy (LC3-II, Beclin-1, p-AMPK, and p-ULK1 levels and autophagosomes numbers) at 12 and 24 h. In contrast, 3-MA showed no effect.ES alleviates LPS-induced myocardial damage through activating the AMPK/mTOR/ULK1 signal pathway-regulated autophagy.

The nonlocality of an entangled qubit pair can be recycled for several Bell experiments. Here, we go beyond standard Bell scenarios and investigate the recycling of nonlocal resources in a quantum network. First, we show that the ability to recycle nonlocality can be independent of the size of the network. Then, we realize a photonic quantum 3-branch star network in which three sources of entangled pairs independently connect three outer parties with a central node. After measuring, each outer party respectively relays their system to an independent secondary measuring party. We experimentally demonstrate that the outer parties can perform unsharp measurements that are strong enough to violate a network Bell inequality with the central party, but weak enough to maintain sufficient entanglement in the network to allow the three secondary parties to do the same. Moreover, the violations are strong enough to exclude any model based on standard projective measurements on the EPR pairs emitted in the network. Our experiment brings together the research program of recycling quantum resources with that of Bell nonlocality in networks.

Purpose Autophagy is a double-edged sword. The purpose of this study was to investigate the signal transduction pathway of esmolol (ES) interfered with lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced cardiomyocyte autophagy. Methods Sepsis was induced by intraperitoneal injection of LPS (10mg/kg) in male Sprague- Dawley rats (250–300) g, which were treated with ES (15mg/kg·h), 3-methyladenine (3-MA, 15mg/kg) and rapamycin (RAP, 4mg/kg) respectively for twelve hours. The severity of myocardial necrosis was analyzed by hematoxylin- eosin (HE) staining. The expression quantity of autophagy protein in myocardial tissue was detected by Western blotting. Results LPS-induced increase in the expression of p- mTOR as well as decrease in the expression of LC3-II, Beclin-1, p-AMPK and p-ULK1 was also inhibited by pretreatment with ES or rapamycin (agonists of autophagy). On the contrary, 3-MA didn’t play a role in enhancing LPS-induced autophagy inhibition. Conclusion This study suggests that ES may provide a new strategy for treatment of sepsis cardiomyopathy through activating the AMPK/mTOR/ULK1 signal pathway-regulated autophagy.

While Bell nonlocality of a bipartite system is counter-intuitive, multipartite nonlocality in our many-body world turns out to be even more so. Recent theoretical study reveals in a theory-agnostic manner that genuine multipartite nonlocal correlations cannot be explained by any causal theory involving fewer-partite nonclassical resources and global shared randomness. Here we provide a Bell-type inequality as a test for genuine multipartite nonlocality in network by exploiting a matrix representation of the causal structure of a multipartite system. We further present experimental demonstrations that both four-photon GHZ state and generalized four-photon GHZ state significantly violate the inequality, i.e., the observed four-partite correlations resist explanations involving three-way nonlocal resources subject to local operations and common shared randomenss, hence confirming that nature is boundless multipartite nonlocal.

The Jiawula Ag–Pb–Zn deposit is located in the northern part of the Great Xing'an Range metallogenic belt within the eastern segment of the Central Asian Orogenic Belt. Here, we report results from muscovite ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar geochronology and fluid inclusion study and formulate a vertical projection map of the ore grade in this deposit. The muscovite from the Jiawula deposit yields a plateau age of 133.27 ± 0.66 Ma and a ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar isochron age of 131.88 ± 0.83 Ma. The muscovite ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar data indicate a discrete second hydrothermal event postdating the mineralization, which we correlate with post‐collisional extension after the subduction direction of the Palaeo‐Pacific Plate changed. Low‐salinity aqueous fluid inclusions in quartz from the Jiawula deposit represent meteoric water or groundwater. Based on the fluid inclusion study, the fluids were trapped during cooling and decompression, which may have resulted in metal precipitation. We envisage that the copper precipitated from a high‐temperature fluid in the southern domain whereas lead, zinc, and silver precipitated at a lower temperature in the north. The spatial distribution of the ore‐forming elements, therefore, reflects the ore fluid migration‐cooling path from the south to north.

To investigate the incidence of chromosome polymorphisms and their influence on semen quality and sperm DNA integrity in male patients receiving in vitro fertilization/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI).We retrospectively analyzed the chromosomal karyotypes and the types and incidence rate of chromosome polymorphisms in 2 370 male patients undergoing IVF/ICSI between June 2016 and June 2018. We classified the patients into groups A (with variation in the secondary constriction region in the autosomal long arm), B (with variation in the short arm of the D/G group chromosomes), C (with interbrachial inversion of chromosome 9) and D (with Y chromosome polymorphisms), and compared the semen parameters and sperm DNA fragmentation indexes (DFI) between the patients with chromosome polymorphisms and those with normal chromosomes.Totally, 154 (6.50%) of the patients undergoing IVF/ICSI were found with chromosome polymorphisms, including 34 cases of secondary constriction variation in the long arm of the autosome (1.43% ［34/2 370］, 22.08% ［34/154］), 82 cases of short arm polymorphisms of the D/G group chromosomes (3.46% ［82/2 370］, 53.25% ［82/154］), 26 cases of interbrachial inversion of chromosome 9 (1.10% ［26/2 370］, 16.88% ［26/154］), 10 cases of Y chromosome polymorphisms (0.42% ［10/2 370］, 6.50% ［10/154］), and 2 cases of mixed chromosome polymorphisms (0.08% ［2/2 370］, 1.42% ［2/154］). The total sperm count was lower in group D than in the other polymorphism groups and the normal chromosome group, but with no statistically significant difference among the five groups (P0.05). The sperm progressive motility was also lower in group D than in the other five groups, with statistically significant difference from group B (27.5 ± 13.5 vs. 41.5 ± 21.1, P = 0.027), but not from the other groups (P0.05). No statistically significant difference was observed in the sperm DFI between the polymorphism groups and the normal chromosome group (P0.05), or among the polymorphism groups (P0.05). The proportion of normal semen was lower in group D than in the other four groups, but with no statistically significant difference among the five groups (P0.05). The incidence rate of asthenospermia was higher in group D than in the other four groups, but with no statistically significant difference among the five groups (P0.05), and so was that of oligoasthenospermia, with statistically significant difference from the normal chromosome group (30.0% vs 8.0%, P = 0.041), but not from the other polymorphism groups (P0.05).Short arm polymorphisms of the D/G group chromosomes are the most common type of chromosome polymorphisms in male patients undergoing IVF/ICSI. Polymorphisms of the Y chromosome have a negative effect on semen quality, while those of the other chromosomes do not significantly affect semen quality and sperm DNA integrity.

The details of experimental setup and more experimental results.

The all-photonic quantum repeater (APQR) is a promising repeater scheme to realize long-distance quantum communication. For a practical APQR, an indispensable requirement is the robustness of the repeater graph state (RGS) against photon loss. We propose a new loss-tolerant scheme by applying the generalized Shor code to RGS, which can be experimentally demonstrated with current technology. Experimentally, we first prepare and verify the nine-qubit Shor code. Then, by applying the generalized Shor code to APQR and preparing a simplified encoded RGS with the structure of $1\times2$ based on the Shor code state, the effectiveness of our loss-tolerant scheme and the loss tolerance of the encoded RGS are respectively verified. Our results make an essential step toward a practical APQR and enrich the research of quantum error correction code., 8 pages, 5 figures

Quantum repeaters 1–4 are essential elements for demonstrating global-scale quantum communication. Over the past few decades, tremendous efforts have been dedicated to implementing a practical quantum repeater 5–10 . However, nested purification 1 , the backbone of a quantum repeater, remains a challenge because the capacity for successive entanglement manipulation is still absent. Here, we propose and demonstrate an architecture of nested purification using spontaneous parametric downconversion sources 11 . A heralded entangled photon pair with higher fidelity is successfully purified from two copies of low-fidelity pairs that experience entanglement swapping and noisy channels. By delicately designing the optical circuits, double-pair emission noise is eliminated automatically and the purified state can be used for scalable entanglement connections to extend the communication distance. Combined with a quantum memory, our approach can be applied immediately in the implemention of a practical quantum repeater. A nested purification protocol is developed by combining entanglement purification and swapping. It works for the spontaneous parametric downconversion sources as well as other physical systems that suffer from double-pair emission noise.

Quantum networks illustrate the use of connected nodes of quantum systems as the backbone of distributed quantum information processing. When the network nodes are entangled in graph states, such a quantum platform is indispensable to almost all the existing distributed quantum tasks. Unfortunately, real networks unavoidably suffer from noise and technical restrictions, making nodes transit from quantum to classical at worst. Here, we introduce a figure of merit in terms of the number of classical nodes for quantum networks in arbitrary graph states. Such a network property is revealed by exploiting a novel Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen steerability. Experimentally, we demonstrate photonic quantum networks of ${n}_{q}$ quantum nodes and ${n}_{c}$ classical nodes with ${n}_{q}$ up to 6 and ${n}_{c}$ up to 18 using spontaneous parametric down-conversion entanglement sources. We show that the proposed method is faithful in quantifying the classical defects in prepared multiphoton quantum networks. Our results provide novel identification of generic quantum networks and nonclassical correlations in graph states.

Creating large-scale entanglement lies at the heart of many quantum information processing protocols and the investigation of fundamental physics. For multipartite quantum systems, it is crucial to identify not only the presence of entanglement but also its detailed structure. This is because in a generic experimental situation with sufficiently many subsystems involved, the production of so-called genuine multipartite entanglement remains a formidable challenge. Consequently, focusing exclusively on the identification of this strongest type of entanglement may result in an all or nothing situation where some inherently quantum aspects of the resource are overlooked. On the contrary, even if the system is not genuinely multipartite entangled, there may still be many-body entanglement present in the system. An identification of the entanglement structure may thus provide us with a hint about where imperfections in the setup may occur, as well as where we can identify groups of subsystems that can still exhibit strong quantum-information-processing capabilities. However, there is no known efficient methods to identify the underlying entanglement structure. Here, we propose two complementary families of witnesses for the identification of such structures. They are based on the detection of entanglement intactness and entanglement depth, each requires only the implementation of solely two local measurements. Our method is also robust against noises and other imperfections, as reflected by our experimental implementation of these tools to verify the entanglement structure of five different eight-photon entangled states. We demonstrate how their entanglement structure can be precisely and systematically inferred from the experimental data. In achieving this goal, we also illustrate how the same set of data can be classically postprocessed to learn the most about the measured system., 21 pages, 13 figures

Figure S1. RNA-sequencing for Notch1 over-expressing cells. A, The electrophoresis results of RNA extracted from the SACC cell samples implied a satisfactory RNA quality.1 N1 was the cells sample with NOTCH1 overexpressed vector while 1PS was the cells sample with negative vector, 3 N1 and 3PS were the duplicate samples of 1 N1 and 1PS. B, The reads of RNA-seq showed highly consistent in duplicate samples. C, Volcano plot for RNA-sequencing. Differentially expressed genes in each conditions were identified (in red or green), which is statistically significant. D, Heatmap for differentially expressed genes. Figure S2. The effect of HES1 knockdown on cell cycle. A, Representative images of Flow Cytometry analysis of cell cycle after PI staining. B, The percentage of cells in each phase of the cell cycle. Data from 2 independent experiments. (PDF 213 kb)

Using the axiomatic definition of the quantum coherence measure, such as the $$l_{1}$$ norm and the relative entropy, we study the phenomena of two-qubit system quantum coherence through quantum channels where successive uses of the channels are memory. Different types of noisy channels with memory, such as amplitude damping, phase damping, and depolarizing channels effect on quantum coherence have been discussed in detail. The results show that quantum channels with memory can efficiently protect coherence from noisy channels. Particularly, as channels with perfect memory, quantum coherence is unaffected by the phase damping as well as depolarizing channels. Besides, we also investigate the cohering and decohering power of quantum channels with memory.

Quantum simulation is of great importance in quantum information science. Here, we report an experimental quantum channel simulator imbued with an algorithm for imitating the behavior of a general class of quantum systems. The reported quantum channel simulator consists of four single-qubit gates and one controlled-NOT gate. All types of quantum channels can be decomposed by the algorithm and implemented on this device. We deploy our system to simulate various quantum channels, such as quantum-noise channels and weak quantum measurement. Our results advance experimental quantum channel simulation, which is integral to the goal of quantum information processing., Comment: This version is very closed to the published version

Quantum repeaters play a significant role in achieving long-distance quantum communication. In the past decades, tremendous effort has been devoted towards constructing a quantum repeater. As one of the crucial elements, entanglement has been created in different memory systems via entanglement swapping. The realization of j-hierarchy entanglement swapping, i.e., connecting quantum memory and further extending the communication distance, is important for implementing a practical quantum repeater. Here, we report the first demonstration of a fault-tolerant two-hierarchy entanglement swapping with linear optics using parametric down-conversion sources. In the experiment, the dominant or most probable noise terms in the one-hierarchy entanglement swapping, which is on the same order of magnitude as the desired state and prevents further entanglement connections, are automatically washed out by a proper design of the detection setting, and the communication distance can be extended. Given suitable quantum memory, our techniques can be directly applied to implementing an atomic ensemble based quantum repeater, and are of significant importance in the scalable quantum information processing.

We report on the experimental realization of a ten-photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state using thin BiB$_{3}$O$_{6}$ crystals. The observed fidelity is $0.606\pm0.029$, demonstrating a genuine entanglement with a standard deviation of 3.6 $\sigma$. This result is further verified using $p$-value calculation, obtaining an upper bound of $3.7\times10^{-3}$ under an assumed hypothesis test. Our experiment paves a new way to efficiently engineer BiB$_{3}$O$_{6}$ crystal-based multi-photon entanglement systems, which provides a promising platform for investigating advanced optical quantum information processing tasks such as boson sampling, quantum error correction and quantum-enhanced measurement., Comment: Revised for readability and clarity

Silicon single-photon detectors (SPDs) are the key devices for detecting single photons in the visible wavelength range. Here we present high detection efficiency silicon SPDs dedicated to the generation of multiphoton entanglement based on the technique of high-frequency sine wave gating. The silicon single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) components are acquired by disassembling 6 commercial single-photon counting modules (SPCMs). Using the new quenching electronics, the average detection efficiency of SPDs is increased from 68.6% to 73.1% at a wavelength of 785 nm. These sine wave gating SPDs are then applied in a four-photon entanglement experiment, and the four-fold coincidence count rate is increased by 30% without degrading its visibility compared with the original SPCMs., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Review of Scientific Instruments

This paper designed a new band-gap voltage reference circuit with two-stage temperature compensation.It realizes non-linear temperature compensation by using NMOS-pipe leakage current and increases the power supply rejection ratio of the band-gap voltage reference source by introducing negative feedback between the operational amplifier and the power supply. What is more, the paper simulates the band-gap voltage reference source based on CSMC 0.5μm CMOS technique. The result as follow: the band-gap voltage reference source has the temperature coefficient of 8.2ppm/oC among-40-120oC with the supply voltage of 3V, the low-frequency power supply rejection ratio is 83dBat 27oC and the power supply rejection ratio is 71dB in 1KHz, the output voltage regulation is 1.05mV/V in the supply voltage range from 2.4V to 5V.

Quantum entanglement among multiple spatially separated particles is of fundamental interest, and can serve as central resources for studies in quantum nonlocality, quantum-to-classical transition, quantum error correction, and quantum simulation. The ability of generating an increasing number of entangled particles is an important benchmark for quantum information processing. The largest entangled states were previously created with fourteen trapped ions, eight photons, and five superconducting qubits. Here, based on spontaneous parametric down-converted two-photon entanglement source with simultaneously a high brightness of ~12 MHz/W, a collection efficiency of ~70% and an indistinguishability of ~91% between independent photons, we demonstrate, for the first time, genuine and distillable entanglement of ten single photons under different pump power. Our work creates a state-of-the-art platform for multi-photon experiments, and provide enabling technologies for challenging optical quantum information tasks such as high-efficiency scattershot boson sampling with many photons., Comment: 65 pages, supplementary information included, with all raw data. to appear in Physical Review Letters

Secret sharing of a quantum state, or quantum secret sharing, in which a dealer wants to share certain amount of quantum information with a few players, has wide applications in quantum information. The critical criterion in a threshold secret sharing scheme is confidentiality, with less than the designated number of players, no information can be recovered. Furthermore, in a quantum scenario, one additional critical criterion exists, the capability of sharing entangled and unknown quantum information. Here by employing a six-photon entangled state, we demonstrate a quantum threshold scheme, where the shared quantum secrecy can be efficiently reconstructed with a state fidelity as high as 93%. By observing that any one or two parties cannot recover the secrecy, we show that our scheme meets the confidentiality criterion. Meanwhile, we also demonstrate that entangled quantum information can be shared and recovered via our setting, which demonstrates that our implemented scheme is fully quantum. Moreover, our experimental setup can be treated as a decoding circuit of the 5-qubit quantum error-correcting code with two erasure errors., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures

In this paper, we have performed a detailed investigation of the dynamics of the entropic uncertainty relation for a qutrit with and without a memory system under an amplitude damping channel at finite temperature. We focus mainly on how the temperature affects the entropic uncertainty relation. The results show that the dynamics of the entropic uncertainty exhibits a non-monotonic phenomenon. As r increases (r is usually a function of temperature), the amount of the entropic uncertainty will first increase and then subsequently decrease. Moreover, based on measurement reversal from a weak measurement, we have also investigated the reduction of the entropic uncertainty for a qutrit system under decoherence. It has been found that the measurement reversal technique can always reduce the entropic uncertainty effectively at finite temperature, while the prior weak measurement technique is valid only at a lower temperature but fails at a higher channel temperature. Finally, a phenomenological explanation of our results is also presented.