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Protein-modifying enzymes regulate the dynamics of myriad post-translational modification (PTM) substrates. Precise characterization of enzyme-substrate associations is essential for the molecular basis of cellular function and phenotype. Methods for direct capturing global substrates of protein-modifying enzymes in living cells are with many challenges, and yet largely unexplored. Here, we report a strategy to directly capture substrates of lysine-modifying enzymes via PTM-acceptor residue crosslinking in living cells, enabling global profiling of substrates of PTM-enzymes and validation of PTM-sites in a straightforward manner. By integrating enzymatic PTM-mechanisms, and genetically encoding residue-selective photo-crosslinker into PTM-enzymes, our strategy expands the substrate profiles of both bacterial and mammalian lysine acylation enzymes, including bacterial lysine acylases PatZ, YiaC, LplA, TmcA, and YjaB, as well as mammalian acyltransferases GCN5 and Tip60, leading to discovery of distinct yet functionally important substrates and acylation sites. The concept of direct capturing substrates of PTM-enzymes via residue crosslinking may extend to the other types of amino acid residues beyond lysine, which has the potential to facilitate the investigation of diverse types of PTMs and substrate-enzyme interactive proteomics. Here the authors report a strategy to directly capture substrates of lysine-modifying enzymes via post-translational modification (PTM)-acceptor residue crosslinking in living cells, enabling global profiling of substrates of PTM-enzymes and validation of PTM-sites in a straightforward manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating neurological disorder characterized by high morbidity and disability. However, there is still a lack of effective treatments for it. The identification of drugs that promote autophagy and inhibit apoptosis in neurons is critical for improving patient outcomes following SCI. Previous studies have shown that increasing the activity of silent information regulator 1 (SIRT1) and downstream protein AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in rat models of SCI is highly neuroprotective. Oxymatrine (OMT), a quinolizidine alkaloid, has exhibited neuroprotective effects in various central nervous system (CNS) diseases. However, its explicit effect and molecular mechanism in SCI are still unclear. Herein, we aimed to investigate the therapeutic effects of OMT and explore the potential role of autophagy regulation following SCI in rats. A modified compressive device (weight 35 g, time 5 min) was applied to induce moderate SCI in all groups except the sham group. After treatment with drugs or vehicle (saline), our results indicated that OMT treatment significantly reduced the lesion size, promoted survival of motor neurons, and subsequently attenuated motor dysfunction following SCI in rats. OMT significantly enhanced autophagy activity, inhibited apoptosis in neurons, and increased SIRT1 and p-AMPK expression levels. Interestingly, these effects of OMT on SCI were partially prevented by co-treatment with SIRT1 inhibitor EX527. Furthermore, combining OMT with the potent autophagy inhibitor chloroquine (CQ) could effectively abolish its promotion of autophagic flux. Taken together, these data revealed that OMT exerts a neuroprotective role in functional recovery against SCI in rats, and these effects are potentially associated with OMT-induced activation of autophagy via the SIRT1/AMPK signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new promising HTPB pasty propellant was designed and prepared using PEO-PPO-PEO block copolymer and ultra SiO2 as gelators. Then the gelling mechanism and rheological behaviors of this slurry were respectively studied through molecular simulation and rheological tests, further, an improved constitutive model for the slurry was proposed. Results show that the gels in slurries are formed by the hydrogen bondings between gelators and binder, and micellization of the block copolymer. The characteristics of shear thinning and creep-recovery were found in slurries in the rheological tests, viscosity of the slurry containing more block copolymer is insensitive to shear rate ( γ ° ), moreover, this slurry has higher deformation in the creep process and greater elastic recovery during unloading. The improved structural dynamic model was built by introducing the structural coefficient (λ) related yield stress (τy) and plastic viscosity (μp) into the structural equation, it can describe the relaxation and thixotropic behaviors of slurry well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a correction notice for an article titled "Integrated dynamic spiking neural P systems for fault line selection in distribution network" published in the journal Natural Computing. The correction addresses an error in the author's name, where Fei Li was incorrectly written as Fan Li. The original article has been corrected, and the publisher, Springer Nature, remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims and institutional affiliations. The contact information for the authors is provided, along with their respective affiliations in China. [Extracted from the article]

Due to the compensating function of neutral grounded arc suppression coil, fault line selection in distribution network is still facing challenges: the classical models have insufficient learning ability in extracting fault features, and there is an imbalance in the original data used, resulting in low accuracy in fault line selection. In order to address this issue, this paper proposes a novel variant of spiking neural P (SNP) systems called integrated dynamic SNP (IDSNP) systems, which consist of gated neurons, rule neurons, and weighed neurons with different designed rules. Furthermore, according to the IDSNP systems, an IDSNP(FL) model is developed for fault line selection in distribution network, where the number of layers for transmitting weighted neuron spiking information could be dynamically changeable depending on the complexity of the number of stations in the power system. Finally, the proposed model is evaluated on a real-time dispatch dataset of a real power system. The experimental results show that the IDSNP(FL) model achieves the best performance compared with several classical models in deep learning, verifying the effectiveness of the proposed model for fault line selection tasks in distribution network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Central South University is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We synthesized Au@WO3−x hybrids with dual plasmon resonances in visible and near-infrared (NIR) regions induced by two counterparts for enhancing photocatalytic activity. Au cores slightly influence hetero-morphology, significantly modify semiconductor plasmon, and prominently enhance H2 generation of WO3−x shells. As atom ratio of ρW:Au increases from 2 to 10, visible plasmon resonance is weakened with peak blueshifting from 540 to 490 nm, while NIR plasmon resonance strength prominently increases, and eventually average enhancement factor of photocatalytic H2 generation of the Au@WO3−x hybrids with white light illuminations increases from 1.76 to 2.85. Furthermore, the wavelength dependence of H2 generation reveals that the dominant physical mechanism of enhancing the photocatalytic activity of the hybrids is varied from excitation energy transfer to electron transfer from Au cores to WO3−x shells as ρW:Au increases. The construction of this metal-semiconductor hetero-nanostructure with dual plasmon resonances has immediate importance for the applications in solar energy conversions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ag nanoparticles present good antimicrobial activity but with a potential toxicity to the cell, which limits the application. To address this issue, in this work, carbon-encapsulated sliver nanocapsules (Ag@C nanocapsules) were prepared by evaporating pure Ag ingot with the modified arc-discharge technique, and the Ag@C nanocapsules were acidified with nitric acid subsequently to facilitate the silver ion to release. Finally, Ag@C nanocapsules displayed a good and sustained antimicrobial activity against E. coli as a model of Gram-negative bacteria, due to the long-term release of sliver ions from Ag@C nanocapsules. The results obtained in this work indicate that the Ag@C nanocapsules may be a suitable nanomaterial for the bactericidal application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate the adjacent segment kinematics, including the instantaneous axis of rotation (IAR) and range of motion (ROM), after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF), and to compare between ACDF with zero-profile anchored spacer (ACDF-Z) and ACDF with plate (ACDF-P).Methods: Eighty-seven patients (ACDF-Z = 63; ACDF-P = 24) were included. Flexion, extension and neutral cervical radiographs were obtained before operation and at 1-year follow-up. C2-C7 ROM, adjacent segment ROMs, and IARs were measured. Clinical evaluation was based on the Visual Analogue Scale, Neck Disability Index, and Japanese Orthopaedic Association score.Results: After ACDF-Z, location of the superior IAR-AP reduced 1.60 mm, which represents 8% of the vertebral body (P < 0.001), and location of the inferior IAR-SI reduced 2.19 mm, 17% of the vertebral body (P = 0.02). After ACDF-P, location of the superior IAR-AP increased 0.8 mm, which means 6% of the vertebral body (P = 0.008), location of the inferior IAR-AP increased 3.34 mm, 22% of the vertebral body (P = 0.03), and location of the inferior IAR-SI reduced 3.14 mm, 25% of the vertebral body (P = 0.002). C2-C7 ROM significantly decreased after both ACDF-Z and ACDF-P (P < 0.001). Neither ACDF-Z nor ACDF-P significantly affected the adjacent segment ROMs (P > 0.05).Conclusions: Both ACDF-Z and ACDF-P significantly impacted cervical kinematics, although both procedures obtained satisfactory clinical results in the treatment of cervical spondylosis. After both ACDF-Z and ACDF-P, C2-C7 ROM decreased significantly, while adjacent segment ROMs were preserved. ACDF-Z and ACDF-P impact the location of adjacent segment IAR-SI in similar way, while impact the location of adjacent segment IAR-AP in diverse ways. These slides can be retrieved under Electronic Supplementary Material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three series of ursolic acid derivatives containing an aminoguanidine moiety were designed, synthesized, and evaluated for anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory activity. Some compounds displayed potent anti-bacterial activity against Gram-positive bacterial strains (including multidrug-resistant clinical isolates) and Gram-negative bacterial strains, with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values in the range of 2–64 µg/mL. Compounds 3a, 5a, and 7l showed significant inhibitory activity against the Gram-positive bacterial strain Staphylococcus aureus RN 4220, the Gram-negative bacterial strain Escherichia coli 1924, and four multidrug-resistant Gram-positive bacterial strains, with MIC values of 2 and 4 µg/mL. In anti-inflammatory tests, most of the compounds exhibited potent activity, in particular compound 3a displayed the most potent activity with 81.61% inhibition after intraperitoneal administration, which was more potent than ursolic acid and the reference drugs (ibuprofen and indomethacin). The cytotoxic activity of compound 3a was assessed in HeLa, Hep3B, and A549 cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gao et al. have studied the controlled remote preparation of arbitrary two- and three-qubit states via the Brown state as the entangled channel. But these schemes are considered in ideal environment. In this paper, we take the scheme of preparing an arbitrary two-qubit state as an example and reinvestigate it in five-type noises: the bit flip, phase flip, bit-phase flip, phase-damping and amplitude-damping noise. The fidelity is adopted to describe how close the output state with the prepared state are. It is found that the fidelity of the output state is dependent on the coefficients of the prepared state and the noise parameter in five-type noises. Interestingly, the fidelity is irrelated to the participators’ measurement results except in the amplitude-damping noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen-bonded polymer complex films with the thickness ranging from 50 nm to 2400 nm were prepared by layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly of poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (PEOX) and poly(acrylic acid) (PAA). The dewetting behavior of PEOX/PAA films under hydrothermal condition was investigated. It was found that the dewetting occurred at solid-liquid interface, and the typical morphologies such as holes, irregular cellular structure, and droplets were observed. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) revealed the initial rupture of the film. Microscopic Raman and infrared (IR) imaging demonstrated that the PEOX and PAA chains remained association during the dewetting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of cross-linked glycidyl azide polymer with poly(ethylene oxide- co-tetrahydrofuran) (GAP/P(EO- co-THF)) blends were prepared by varying the relative weight ratios of GAP to P(EO- co-THF) using poly-isocyanate mixed curing system (N100/TDI), and by varying the [NCO]/[OH] ratios to find the effects of curing agents on mechanical properties. The compatibility, thermal features and morphological studies of GAP/P(EO- co-THF) polymer networks were described by equilibrium phase diagram, differential scanning calorimeters (DSC) together with thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), respectively. The equilibrium phase figure of the partial miscibility system for GAP/P(EO- co-THF) shows that the system has a lower critical solution temperature (LCST). In addition, the DSC and TGA results indicate that the content of two components is gradually approaching, and the glass transition temperatures of GAP/P(EO- co-THF) blends are less than those of the pure GAP and P(EO- co-THF) polymers, and the initial decomposition temperature and the maximum decomposition rate temperature have greatly increased. Furthermore, the thermal decomposition behavior indicates that the thermal stabilities are improved and the physical entangled networks are strengthened. Moreover, the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show the GAP/P(EO- co-THF) blends form a certain polymer alloy structure, which is the reason for the improved thermal stabilities and the strengthened networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By constructing sets of ingenious measurement bases at the sender's and the controller's locations, we devise two schemes to realize the controlled remote preparation of an arbitrary four-qubit χ-state via partially entangled quantum resource. The success probabilities of the proposed schemes are 50 % and 100 %, respectively. It means that the success probabilities are independent of the coefficients of the entangled channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) with hydroxyl-terminated poly(ethylene oxide-co-tetrahydrofuran) (P(EO- co-THF)) polymer networks of various functional molar ratios ( R) and different GAP contents have been prepared through the step-wise curing process. The step-wise curing condition is determined based on the thermodynamic parameters of each simplex elastomer system, which is 45 °C-3d then 60 °C-4d. The mechanical properties of the elastomers have been improved from 1.88 to 2.11 MPa in W = 50% under that condition, which is caused by the formation of the larger-sized mesh structure and in consequence the effective elastic strands increase. Meanwhile, the dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) reveals that the glass transition temperatures of the elastomers are approximately −62.42 and −26.96 °C, respectively. Moreover, it can be concluded through DMA that the P(EO- co-THF) domains act as the main crosslinking joints compared with the GAP/N100 domains and thus cause the constrained effect. Combining extension test with DMA results, the network model of the elastomers is depicted. In addition, the thermal stabilities of the blending elastomers have also been studied, and their thermal stabilities meet the requirements of military materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of crowded environment with nano particles are studied for polymer translocation through a small pore. The translocation time τ is simulated by Fokker-Planck equation at different free energy landscapes F and diffusion coefficients of polymer D. The free energy is calculated using the Rosenbluth-Rosenbluth method, and the diffusion coefficient is followed the relation $D \sim \frac {1}{N} e^{-\triangle F}$ . We find that the free energy is dependent on polymer-nanoparticle interaction, size of the nanoparticle, and position of the nanoparticle. The attractive nanoparticles at the trans side can provide a driving force to polymer by lowering the free energy, but the exclusive effect of nanoparticle can raise the free energy of polymer. There exists an optimum interaction that τ is roughly independent on the size and position of nanoparticles. It is found that these effects are related to the conformational change of polymer chain in crowded environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two controlled remote state preparation protocols via the Brown state as the entangled channel are proposed. One prepares an arbitrary two-qubit state, and the other prepares an arbitrary three-qubit state. It is worth mentioning that Hurwitz matrix equation plays a key role in the construction of measurement basis. Comparing with the previous protocols, the novel schemes have no restriction on the coefficients of the prepared state while keeping the same success probability 50 %. It means that the application of the proposed schemes are more extensive in practice. Moreover, we discuss the special complex coefficient ensembles with unit success probability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the quantum Zeno dynamics, a scheme is presented to implement a Toffoli gate of three separated superconducting qubits (SQs) by one step. Three separated SQs are connected by two resonators. The scheme is insensitive to the resonator decay because the Zeno subspace does not include the state of the resonators being excited. Numerical simulations indicate that the scheme is robust to the fluctuation of the parameters and the Toffoli gate can be implemented with high fidelity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the practicality and safety of a novel explosive dihydroxylamm onium 5,5′-bis (tetrazole)-1,1′-diolate (TKX-50), polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) and polychlorotrifluoroe-thylene (PCTFE) were respectively added to the TKX-50, forming the polymer-bonded explosives (PBX). Interfacial and mechanical properties of PBX were investigated through molecular dynamics (MD) method, desensitizing mechanisms of fluorine-polymers for TKX-50 were researched by compression and bulk shear simulations. Results show that the binding energies ( E) between polymers (PVDF or PCTFE) and TKX-50 surfaces all rank in order of (011) > (100) > (010), shorter interatomic distance and the resulted higher potentials lead to higher E on TKX-50/PVDF interfaces than that on PCTFE/TKX-50 interfaces. Compared with TKX-50, the ductility of PBX is improved due to the isotropic mechanical property and flexibility of fluorine-polymers especially the PCTFE. Desensitizing effect of fluorine-polymers for TKX-50 is found under loading condition, which is attributed to the enhanced compressibility and buffer capacity against external pressure in compression, as well as the improved lubricity to reduce the sliding potentials in bulk shear process. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to prepare arbitrary quantum state is the holy grail of quantum information technology. Previous schemes focus on circuit complexity using implicit decomposition schemes for global evolutions and are difficult in quantum experiments because the generation circuit can be completed for given coefficients each time. One protocol is firstly proposed in this paper in order to deterministically generate arbitrary four-qubit states with any coefficients. In order to complete this scheme with present physical techniques, we present an explicit quantum circuit with unknown coefficients of prepared states using elementary quantum gates. The key of our scheme is constructing the Cartan KAK decomposition of special transformations in $$SO(4)$$ and $$SO(8)$$ . And then, this protocol is extended to arbitrary five-qubit states and six-qubit states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of SCIENCE CHINA Information Sciences is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Considering practical constraints in the single-carrier frequency division multiple access system, this paper proposes a jointed resource allocation and multiuser pairing algorithm with low complexity. It initially schedules the first user and carries out resource allocation and then selects the second and following pairing users in turn. Meanwhile, the proportional fair criterion is considered independently in the scheduling process for every pairing user. The simulation results show that, excluding its considerably lower complexity, the proposed algorithm has better throughput and fairness than the existing algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two schemes via different entangled resources as the quantum channel are proposed to realize remote preparation of an arbitrary four-particle $$\chi $$ -state with high success probabilities. To design these protocols, some useful and general measurement bases are constructed, which have no restrictions on the coefficients of the prepared states. It is shown that through a four-particle projective measurement and two-step three-particle projective measurement under the novel sets of mutually orthogonal basis vectors, the original state can be prepared with the probability 50 and 100 %, respectively. And for the first scheme, the special cases of the prepared state that the success probability reaches up to 100 % are discussed by the permutation group. Furthermore, the present schemes are extended to the non-maximally entangled quantum channel, and the classical communication costs are calculated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, novel schemes for joint remote state preparation are presented, which involve N senders and 2 receivers as well as N senders and 3 receivers. The receivers can simultaneously reconstruct different qubit states containing the joint information from all senders. Compared with the protocols proposed by Su et al. (Int J Quantum Inf 10:1250006 (), the information of the prepared states in our schemes is distributed in a different way. Our protocols can be applied not only to states with real parameters but also ones with complex parameters. Moreover, the N-to-2 protocol is suitable for general qubit states besides equatorial states, and the receivers need not to perform any measurements and CNOT gates to reconstruct the states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between VEGF and mini-TyrRS/mini-TrpRS in angiogenesis in hypoxic culture and to begin to comprehend their mechanism in angiogenesis. We designed a VEGF gene silencing assay by using lentivirus vectors, and then western blotting was used to determine the protein expression of VEGF, VEGFR2 and pVEGFR2 in three groups in hypoxic culture at 3, 6, 12, or 24 h: (1) untransfected human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) (Control); (2) pGCSIL- GFP lentivirus vector-transduced HUVECs (Mock); and (3) pGCSIL- shVEGF lentivirus vector-transduced HUVECs (Experimental). We also detected the effects of mini-TyrRS/mini-TrpRS peptides on HUVEC proliferation, migration and tube formation after lentivirus vector transfection and VEGFR2 antibody injection. The results indicated that expression of the mini-TyrRS protein was increased, whereas that of mini-TrpRS was specifically decreased in hypoxic culture both in control and mock groups. However, this trend in protein levels of mini-TyrRS and mini-TrpRS was lost in the experimental group after transduction with the pGCSIL- shVEGF lentivirus vector. The protein expression of VEGF was increased in hypoxic culture both in control and mock groups. After transduction with the pGCSIL- shVEGF lentivirus vector, the protein level of VEGF was noticeably decreased in the experimental group; however, for VEGFR2, the results showed no significant difference in VEGFR2 protein expression in any of the groups. For pVEGFR2, we found a distinct trend from that seen with VEGF. The protein expression of pVEGFR2 was sharply increased in hypoxic culture in the three groups. The addition of mini-TyrRS significantly promoted proliferation, migration and tube formation of HUVECs, while mini-TrpRS inhibited these processes in both control and mock groups in hypoxic culture. However, these effects disappeared after transduction with the pGCSIL- shVEGF lentivirus vector in the experimental group, but no significant difference was observed after VEGFR2 antibody injection. The protein expression of VEGF is similar to that of mini-TyrRS in hypoxic culture and plays an important role in the mini-TyrRS/mini-TrpRS-stimulated proliferation, migration and tube formation of HUVECs in hypoxia. These results also suggest that the change in mini-TyrRS and mini-TrpRS expression in hypoxic culture is not related to VEGFR2 and that some other possible mechanisms, are involved in the phosphorylation of VEGFR2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hierarchical scheme of feature-based model similarity measurement was proposed, named CSG_D2, in which both geometry similarity and topology similarity were applied. The features of 3D mechanical part were constructed by a series of primitive features with tree structure, as a form of constructive solid geometry (CSG) tree. The D2 shape distributions of these features were extracted for geometry similarity measurement, and the pose vector and non-disappeared proportion of each leaf node were gained for topology similarity measurement. Based on these, the dissimilarity between the query and the candidate was accessed by level-by-level CSG tree comparisons. With the adjustable weights, our scheme satisfies different comparison emphasis on the geometry or topology similarity. The assessment results from CSG_D2 demonstrate more discriminative than those from D2 in the analysis of precision-recall and similarity matrix. Finally, an experimental search engine is applied for mechanical parts reuse by using CSG_D2, which is convenient for the mechanical design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quantum no-cloning theorem and no-deleting theorem may be the most important quantum features for quantum communications or quantum computations. In this paper, we concentrate typical properties of random quantum evolution. We obtain that universal random evolutions change the generic unknown pure states into their orthogonal states approximately. Moreover, typical random evolutions distort the von Neumann entropy with constants. These results are extended to mixed states with a stronger orthogonal preparation ability. These typical characters are very important for quantum information retrieving or various quantum tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that some special mixed quantum resource experience the same property of pure entanglement such as Bell state for quantum teleportation. It is shown that one mixed state and three bits of classical communication cost can be used to teleport one unknown qubit compared with two bits via pure resources. The schemes are easily implement with model physical techniques. Moreover, these resources are also optimal and typical for faithfully remotely prepare an arbitrary qubit, two-qubit and three-qubit states with mixed quantum resources. Our schemes are completed as same as those with pure quantum entanglement resources except only 1 bit additional classical communication cost required. The success probability is independent of the form of the mixed resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The critical merits acquired from quantum computation require running in parallel, which cannot be benefited from previous multi-level extensions and are exact our purposes. In this paper, with qutrit subsystems the general quantum computation further reduces into qutrit gates or its controlled operations. This extension plays parallizable and integrable with same construction independent of the qutrit numbers. The qutrit swapping as its basic operations for controlling can be integrated into quantum computers with present physical techniques. Our generalizations are free of elevating the system spaces, and feasible for the universal computation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By constructing some useful measurement bases, we put forward two novel schemes via different entanglement resources to realize remote preparation of a six-particle entangled cluster-type state with high probabilities. It is shown that through a three-particle projective measurement and two-step two-particle projective measurement under the novel sets of mutually orthogonal basis vectors, the original state can be prepared with the probability 50 % and 100 %, respectively. And for the first scheme, the special cases of the prepared state that the success probability reaches up to 100 % are discussed by the permutation group. Compared with the previous proposal, the success probabilities of the proposed schemes are greatly improved. Furthermore, the present schemes are extended to the non-maximally entangled quantum channel, and the classical communication costs are calculated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, several new protocols for the controlled remote state preparation (CRSP) by using the Brown state as the quantum channel are proposed. Firstly, we propose a CRSP protocol of an arbitrary two qubit state. Then, the CRSP protocol of an arbitrary three qubit state, which has rarely been considered by the previous papers, is investigated. The coefficients of the prepared states can be not only real, but also complex. To design these protocols, some useful and general measurement bases are constructed, which can greatly reduce the restrictions for the coefficients of the prepared states. The security analysis is provided in detail. Moreover, receiver's all recovery operations are summarized into a concise formula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our previous work has shown that interleukin-6 (IL-6) implements its neuroprotective effect by inhibiting the intracellular Ca overload in neurons. Here, we examined whether regulation of L-type calcium channels (LCCs) activities is involved in the neuroprotective action of IL-6. In cultured cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs), patch-clamp recording showed that the whole-cell Ca current and LCC current were significantly reduced by IL-6 pretreatment (120 ng/ml, for 24 h). Calcium imaging data indicated that IL-6 significantly suppressed high K-induced intracellular Ca overload and LCC Ca influx. Moreover, expression of the LCC subunit, Ca1.2, was remarkably downregulated by IL-6 in cultured CGNs. These findings suggest that IL-6 exerts a neurotrophic effect by preventing Ca overload, at least partly through inhibition of LCC activity in cultured CGNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have previously shown that interleukin-6 (IL-6)-protected neurons against the suppression of neuronal vitality and overload of intracellular Ca induced by glutamate or N-methyl- d-aspartate (NMDA). Herein we provide further evidence for IL-6 neuroprotection against NMDA-induced apoptosis and explore the signal-transduction mechanisms underlying the anti-apoptotic action of IL-6. Cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs) from postnatal 8-day infant rats were chronically exposed to IL-6 (40 or 120 ng/ml) for 8 days, and stimulated with NMDA (100 μM) for 30 min. To observe the signaling pathways, we employed AG490 (5 or 10 μM), an inhibitor of Janus kinases (JAKs), or LY294002 (5 or 10 μM), an inhibitor of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K), to pretreat the CGNS together with IL-6. The levels of phosphorylation for the downstream effectors of JAKs and PI3K, i.e., phosphorylated STAT3 and Akt, were quantified by Western blot assay. In the cultured CGNs with various drug exposures, the expressions of Bcl-2, Bax, and caspase-3 were measured by real-time PCR and Western blot, and the percentage of apoptotic nuclei was tested by Hoechst 33342 staining. After the CGNs were chronically exposed to IL-6, NMDA stimulation led to an increase in the expression of Bcl-2 mRNA and a decrease in the expression of Bax and caspase-3 mRNAs and proteins when compared with those neurons lacking IL-6 exposure. IL-6 pretreatment of the neurons without NMDA stimulation concentration-dependently enhanced the expressions of Bcl-2 mRNA and protein while attenuating the expressions of Bax and caspase-3 mRNAs and proteins in comparison with control lacking any treatment. Furthermore, IL-6 prevented the increase in the percentage of apoptotic neurons induced by NMDA. The combined pretreatment of the CGNs with AG490 and IL-6 or with LY294002 and IL-6 reduced these anti-apoptotic effects of IL-6. Neither AG490 nor LY294002 exposure alone altered the expressions of Bcl-2, Bax, and cleaved caspase-3 proteins. IL-6 up-regulated the levels of phosphorylated STAT3 and Akt, and this was blocked by AG490 and LY294002, respectively. These results suggest that IL-6 protects neurons against NMDA-induced apoptosis, and that the IL-6 neuroprotection is jointly mediated by JAK-STAT3 and PI3K-Akt signaling pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the pseudo potential plane-wave method of density functional theory (DFT), Ti1− xNb xAl ( x=0, 0.062 5, 0.083 3, 0.125, 0.250) crystals’ geometry structure, elastic constants, electronic structure and Mulliken populations were calculated, and the effects of doping on the geometric structure, electronic structure and bond strength were systematically analyzed. The results show that the influence of Nb on the geometric structure is little in terms of the plasticity, and with the increase of Nb content, the covalent bond strength remarkably reduces, and Ti-Al, Nb-M (M=Ti, Al) and other hybrid bonds enhance; meanwhile, the peak district increases and the pseudo-energy gap first decreases and then increases, the overall band structure narrows, the covalent bond and direction of bonds reduce. The population analysis also shows that the results are consistent with the electronic structure analysis. The density of states of TiAlNb shows that Nb doping can enhance the activity of Al and benefit the form of Al2O3 film. All the calculations reveal that the room temperature plasticity and the antioxidation properties of the compounds can be improved with the Nb content of 8.33%–12.5% (mole fraction). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electronic transport and magnetic properties of nanocomposites, in which nanoparticles of superconducting (SC) molybdenum carbides are embedded in a ferromagnetic (FM) carbon matrix to form a three-dimensional SC-FM network, are studied. The high-resolution transmission electron microscope observation shows that the carbon in the nanocomposites is in both ordered and disordered forms. The magnetic properties of the nanocomposites are ruled by the ferromagnetic carbon matrix. The temperature dependence of electrical resistivity of the nanocomposites is dominated by the carbon matrix, showing the semi-conductivity. The special I-V curves near the zero voltage bias of the nanocomposites are observed at low temperatures, due to the influence of contact barriers between molybdenum carbides and the carbon matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Platinum(Pt)/nanofibrous polyaniline(PANI) electrode was prepared by pulse galvanostatic method and characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The electrochemical behavior of L-cysteine at the Pt/nanofibrous PANI electrode was investigated by cyclic voltammetry. The results indicate that the pH value of the solution and the Pt loading of the electrode have great effect on the electrocatalytic property of the Pt /nanofibrous PANI electrode; the suitable Pt loading of the electrode is 600 μg/cm2 and the suitable pH value of the solution is 4.5 for investigating L-cysteine oxidation. The L-cysteine sensor based on the Pt/nanofibrous PANI electrode has a good selectivity, reproducibility and stability. The Pt/nanofibrous PANI electrode is highly sensitive to L-cysteine, and the linear calibration curve for the oxidation of L-cysteine can be observed in the range of 0.2–5.0 mmol/L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that without any priori knowledge on the scene, camera motion and camera intrinsic parameters, the only constraint between a pair of images is the so-called epipolar constraint, or equivalently its fundamental matrix. For each fundamental matrix, at most two independent constraints on the cameras’ intrinsic parameters are available via the Kruppa equations. Given N images, N( N−1)/2 fundamental matrices appear, and N( N−1) Kruppa constraints are available. However, to our knowledge, a formal proof of how many independent Kruppa constraints exist out of these N( N−1) ones is unavailable in the literature. In this paper, we prove that given N images captured by a pinhole camera with varying parameters and under general motion, the number of independent Kruppa constraints is (5 N−9) ( N > 2), and it is less than that of independent constraints from the absolute quadric by only one. This one-constraint-less property of the Kruppa equations is their inherent deficiency and is independent of camera motion. This deficiency is due to their failure of automatic enforcement of the rank-three-ness on the absolute quadric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stereo vision, motion and structure parameter estimation, and pose determination are three important problems in 3-D computer vision. The first step in all of these problems is to choose and to extract primitives and their features in images. In most of the previous work, people usually use edge points or straight line segments as primitives and their local properties as features. Few methods have been presented in the literature using more compact primitives and their global features. This article presents an approach using conics as primitives. For stereo vision, a closed-form solution is provided for both establishing the correspondence of conics in images and the reconstruction of conics in space. With this method, the correspondence is uniquely determined and the reconstruction is global. It is shown that the method can be extended for higher degree ( degree≥3) planar curves. For motion and structure parameter estimation, it is shown that, in general, two sequential images of at least three conics are needed in order to determine the camera motion. A complicated nonlinear system must be solved in this case. In particular, if we are given two images of a pair of coplanar conics, a closed-form solution of camera motion is presented. In a CAD-based vision system, the object models are available, and this makes it possible to recognize 3-D objects and to determine their poses from a single image. For pose determination, it is shown that if there exist two conics on the surface of an object, the object's pose can be determined by an efficient one-dimensional search. In particular, if two conics are coplanar, a closed-form solution of the object's pose is presented. Uniqueness analysis and some experiments with real or synthesized data are presented in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metal-semiconductor heterostructures integrate multiply functionalities beyond those of their individual counterparts. Great efforts have been devoted to synthesize heterostructures with controlled morphologies for the applications ranging from photocatalysis to photonic nanodevices. Beyond the morphologies, the interface between two counterparts also significantly influences the performance of the heterostructures. Here, we synthesize Au/CdSe Janus nanostructures consisting of two half spheres of Au and CdSe separated by a flat and high-quality interface. Au/CdSe with other morphologies could also be prepared by adjusting the overgrowth conditions. The photocatalytic hydrogen generation of the Au/CdSe Janus nanospheres is measured to be 3.9 times higher than that of the controlled samples with CdSe half-shells overgrown on the Au nanospheres. The highly efficient charge transfer across the interface between Au and CdSe contributes to the improved photocatalytic performance. Our studies may find the applications in the design of heterostructures with highly efficient photocatalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum computation offers potential advantages in solving a number of interesting and difficult problems. Several controlled logic gates, the elemental building blocks of quantum computer, have been realized with various physical systems. A general technique was recently proposed that significantly reduces the realization complexity of multiple-control logic gates by harnessing multi-level information carriers. We present implementations of a key quantum circuit: the three-qubit Toffoli gate. By exploring the optical selection rules of one-sided optical microcavities, a Toffoli gate may be realized on all combinations of photon and quantum spins in the QD-cavity. The three general controlled-NOT gates are involved using an auxiliary photon with two degrees of freedom. Our results show that photons and quantum spins may be used alternatively in quantum information processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal quantum logic gates are important elements for a quantum computer. In contrast to previous constructions of qubit systems, we investigate the possibility of ququart systems (four-dimensional states) dependent on two DOFs of photon systems. We propose some useful one-parameter four-dimensional quantum transformations for the construction of universal ququart logic gates. The interface between the spin of a photon and an electron spin confined in a quantum dot embedded in a microcavity is applied to build universal ququart logic gates on the photon system with two freedoms. Our elementary controlled-ququart gates cost no more than 8 CNOT gates in a qubit system, which is far less than the 104 CNOT gates required for a general four-qubit logic gate. The ququart logic is also used to generate useful hyperentanglements and hyperentanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting code, which may be available in modern physical technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT), a widely studied biodegradable material, has not effectively addressed the problem of plastic waste. Taking into consideration the cost-effectiveness, upcycling PBAT should take precedence over direct composting degradation. The present work adopts a chain breaking-crosslinking strategy, upcycling PBAT into dual covalent adaptable networks (CANs). During the chain-breaking stage, the ammonolysis between PBAT and polyethyleneimine (PEI) established the primary crosslinked network. Subsequently, styrene maleic anhydride copolymer (SMA) reacted with the hydroxyl group, culminating in the formation of dual covalent adaptable networks. In contrast to PBAT, the PBAT-dual-CANs exhibited a notable Young’s modulus of 239 MPa, alongside an inherent resistance to creep and solvents. Owing to catalysis from neighboring carboxyl group and excess hydroxyl groups, the PBAT-dual-CANs exhibited fast stress relaxation. Additionally, they could be recycled through extrusion and hot-press reprocessing, while retaining their biodegradability. This straightforward strategy offers a solution for dealing with plastic waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]