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In this paper, we have reported the manufacture of a novel simple-structured jelly-roll Nb3Al precursor long wire, and its electromagnetic properties and microstructure with different rapid heating and quenching (RHQ) heat-treatments. By comparing three processing methods, it is found that the rolling and drawing (RD) method is more suitable to the fabrication of kilometer-length Nb3Al precursor wire without annealing. Using homemade RHQ equipment, we have successfully carried out RHQ heat-treatment of Nb3Al wire samples with various heating conditions. Based on magnetization and magnetoresistivity measurements, the onset superconducting transition temperature, Tc and upper critical field, Hc2 (0) of optimal Nb3Al wire reach 17.9 K–18.0 K and 29.7 T, respectively. Through microstructure and composition analysis, the Nb3Al superconductor in the optimal wire displays a typical ‘layer-to-layer’ structure, which comprises alternate crystalline Nb3Al and amorphous Nb layers, and the Nb3Al grains sizes are about 100 nm–300 nm. Furthermore, many small holes are dispersed in the Nb3Al superconductor due to the diffusion reaction from Al to Nb site. The work suggests the simple-structured Nb3Al precursor wire with RHQ heat-treatment is very promising for high-field application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study on the use of peripheral blood stem cells (PSBC) as a source of progenitor cells for allogeneic transplantation. The authors describe that recombinant human G-CSF (rhG-CSF) is used to mobilize PBSC for collection by leukapheresis and reports adverse effects of mobilization. It also details a case of intracranial hemorrhage caused by cerebrovascular malformation in a 42-year-old Chinese sibling donor who had undergone PBSC mobilization.

We report that the intraspecific structural colouration variation of the beetle Torynorrhina flammea is a result of diffraction shifting manipulated by a multilayer sub-structure contained in a three-dimensional (3D) photonic architecture. With a perpendicularly 2D quasiperiodic diffraction grating inserted into the multilayer, the 3D photonic structure gives rise to anticrossing bandgaps of diffraction from the coupling of grating and multilayer bands. The angular dispersion of diffraction induced by the multilayer band shift behaves normally, in contrast to the ‘ultranegative’ behaviour controlled by the quasiperiodic grating. In addition, the diffraction wavelength is more sensitive to the multilayer periodicity than the diffraction grating constant, which explains the ‘smart’ biological selection of T. flammea in its intraspecific colouration variation from red to green to blue. The elucidated mechanism could be advantageous for the potential exploration of novel dispersive optical elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report on a single-mode waveguide in lithium niobate produced by 400 keV He ion implantation with a dose of 3 x 1016 ions cm[?]2 at liquid nitrogen temperature. Rutherford backscattering/channelling spectra have been measured in the waveguide before and after annealing and the damage profile has been extracted. The shape of the measured damage profile is similar to that of the ordinary refractive index by the intensity calculation method. The near-field intensity profile in a ridge waveguide is given and the propagation loss for the extraordinary index is estimated to be 1.9 dB cm[?]1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchange bias (EB) and magnetic properties of ferrimagnetic (FI) Fe3O4 and antiferromagnetic (AFM) Cr2O3 nanocomposites prepared by mechanical alloying have been investigated. A large EB field of 2.2 kOe at 10 K is observed in one of the nanocomposites, which may be related to the uncompensated and pinned AFM spins at the interface between FI and AFM phases of the nanocomposites. The EB field varies with the strength of cooling field and the content of the Cr2O3 phase, the phenomena observed are explained in terms of interfacial exchange interaction between the two phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective We used the Study of Etanercept And Methotrexate in Combination or as Monotherapy in Subjects with Psoriatic Arthritis (SEAM-PsA) data set to examine the impact of presence of enthesitis, dactylitis, nail disease and/or psoriasis on treatment response in patients with early psoriatic arthritis (PsA).Methods This post hoc analysis evaluated the effect of baseline Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) Enthesitis Index (EI), Leeds Enthesitis Index (LEI), Leeds Dactylitis Index (LDI), modified Nail Psoriasis Severity Index (mNAPSI) scores and body surface area (BSA) on composite outcomes of minimal disease activity (MDA) responses, Psoriatic Arthritis Disease Activity Score (PASDAS) low disease activity (LDA), PASDAS changes and Good Responses and Disease Activity Index for Psoriatic Arthritis (DAPSA) scores at Week 24.Results Overall, 851 patients completed the SEAM-PsA trial and were included in the analysis. Baseline enthesitis (SPARCC EI>0 vs SPARCC EI=0 or LEI>0 vs LEI=0) was not associated with improved outcomes. Baseline dactylitis (LDI>0 vs LDI=0) was positively associated with improved MDA (OR: 1.4, p=0.0457), PASDAS LDA (OR: 1.8, p=0.0014) and Good Responses (OR: 1.6, p=0.0101) and greater reductions in PASDAS (estimate: –0.9, p1 vs mNAPSI≤1) was positively associated with improved MDA (OR: 1.8, p=0.0233) and PASDAS LDA (OR: 1.8, p=0.0168) responses and greater reduction in PASDAS (estimate: –0.7, p=0.0005) at Week 24.Conclusions Results from our analysis suggest that presence of dactylitis and nail disease, but not enthesitis, are associated with improved outcomes in patients with early PsA who were treated with methotrexate and/or etanercept.

The occurrence and development of the dominant unsteady flow structures in a vanless centrifugal pump impeller are revealed by the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) method. The pressure and velocity data of four radial surfaces is selected as the variables of decomposition. The results show that this method is beneficial to the analysis of flow field when there is no strong interaction of flow structures. When the flow rate starts to decrease from the design flow rate, unstable flow phenomenon such as flow separation and wake begin to appear and develop in the impeller. The POD analysis reveals the influence of the main unsteady structures on the flow field when there is no mixed or have little interaction among flow structures. It outlines the development of flow separation near the suction side of impeller and the wake near the trailing edge as the flow rate changes. However, the flow field inside the impeller becomes more and more complex as the operation condition is far away from the design condition, which needs to be combined with other methods to better analyze the flow field.

Objectives We examined patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in The Study of Etanercept And Methotrexate in Patients with Psoriatic Arthritis (PsA); a 48-week, phase 3, randomised controlled trial that compared outcomes with methotrexate (MTX) monotherapy, etanercept monotherapy, and MTX+ etanercept in patients with PsA.Methods Efficacy endpoints included: mean changes from baseline and proportion of patients who reported improvements≥minimal clinically important difference (MCID) at week 24 in treatment groups for Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index, Patient Global Assessment (PtGA), Patient Global Assessment of Joint Pain (PtGAJP) and Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 Questionnaire (SF-36) Physical Component Summary (PCS), and Mental Component Summary, and eight domain scores. PROs were analysed as reported (observed), without multiplicity adjustment; therefore, p values are descriptive.Results At week 24, patients receiving etanercept monotherapy or MTX+ etanercept combination reported greater improvements (p≤0.05) in PtGA, PtGAJP and SF-36 PCS scores compared with those receiving MTX monotherapy. Compared with MTX monotherapy, higher proportions of patients receiving etanercept monotherapy and combination therapy reported improvements≥MCID in PtGA (etanercept vs MTX, p=0.005) and PtGAJP (MTX +etanercept vs MTX, p=0.038). Across PROs, proportions of patients reporting scores≥age and gender-matched normative values at week 24 ranged from 20.8% to 51.0% with MTX monotherapy, 30.9% to 48.8% with etanercept monotherapy, and 30.6% to 52.3% with MTX+ etanercept combination.Conclusions Patients receiving etanercept monotherapy or MTX+ etanercept reported greater improvements from baseline in several PROs compared with those receiving MTX monotherapy. PROs should be incorporated in discussions between patients and clinicians regarding their treatment choices as they can help determine which treatments are more beneficial in patients with PsA.

BackgroundChildren born preterm, particularly at earlier gestations, are at increased risk for mortality and morbidity, but later health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is less well described. Neurodevelopmental impairment and socio-economic status may also influence HRQoL. Our aim was to describe the HRQoL of a cohort of New Zealand children born very and extremely preterm, and how this is related to neurodevelopmental impairment, gestational age, and socio-economic deprivation.MethodsChildren born ResultsData were collected for 127 children, of whom 60 (47%) had neurodevelopmental impairment. Overall, HRQoL was good: mean (SD) CHQ-PF50 physical summary score = 50.8 (11.1), psychosocial summary score = 49.3 (9.1) [normative mean 50 (10)]; HUI-2 dead-healthy scale = 0.92 (0.09) [maximum 1.0]. Neurodevelopmental impairment, lower gestational age, and higher socio-economic deprivation were all associated with reduced HRQoL. However, on multivariable analysis, only intelligence quotient and motor function were associated with psychosocial HRQoL, while intelligence quotient was associated with physical HRQoL.ConclusionsMost seven-year-old children born very and extremely preterm have good HRQoL. Further improvements will require reduced neurodevelopmental impairment.

For the Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II) project at SLAC, a 1.3 GHz superconducting rf (SRF) linac is being constructed that will generate 4 GeV electron bunches at a high repetition rate to drive x-ray free electron lasers. The LCLS-II electron source, which comprises the first three meters of the electron injector, includes two normal-conducting, continuous-wave rf cavities: a one-cell, 185.7 MHz gun and a two-cell, 1.3 GHz buncher. It also includes a gun load-lock system that allows photocathodes to be changed under vacuum. The components in this beam-line section were designed and built by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory based on experience from their advanced photoinjector experiment program. In combination with the SLAC UV laser system, the electron source is designed to produce beam rates up to 1 MHz with average currents up to 30 μA initially. The source was installed in mid-2018, well in advance of the SRF linac, which is now nearing completion. The source was commissioned over a two-year period, and this paper presents results including electron beam and dark current characterization.

Vaccination is a widely used therapeutical strategy in aquaculture, but whether vaccination elicits stress responses in the central neuroendocrine system and enhances the crosstalk between the immune and endocrine systems in the brain or pituitary after vaccination is unclear. To answer this question two experiments using two different vaccine exposure routes, i.e., bath or intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection, were carried out on gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata L.). In the first one, the stress responses of fish subjected to waterborne Vibrio anguillarum bacterin were compared with responses after air exposure or their combination. In the second experiment, fish were subjected to an intraperitoneal injection of Lactococcus garvieae bacterin and we assessed the central stress response and also whether or not a significant immune response was induced in brain and pituitary. In both experiments, blood, brain and pituitary tissues were collected at 1, 6, and 24 h post stress for plasma hormone determination and gene expression analysis, respectively. Results indicated that bath vaccination induced a decreased central stress response compared to air exposure which stimulated both brain and pituitary stress genes. In the second experiment, injection vaccination kept unchanged plasma stress hormones except cortisol that raised at 6 and 24 h. In agreement, non-significant or slight changes on the transcription of stress-related genes were recorded, including the hormone genes of the hypothalamic pituitary interrenal (HPI) axis and other stress markers such as hsp70, hsp90, and mt genes in either brain or pituitary. Significant changes were observed, however, in crhbp and gr. In this second experiment the immune genes il1β, cox2, and lys, showed a strong expression in both brain and pituitary after vaccination, notably il1β which showed more than 10 fold raise. Overall, vaccination procedures, although showing a cortisol response, did not induce other major stress response in brain or pituitary, regardless the administration route. Other than main changes, the alteration of crhbp and gr suggests that these genes could play a relevant role in the feedback regulation of HPI axis after vaccination. In addition, from the results obtained in this work, it is also demonstrated that the immune system maintains a high activity in both brain and pituitary after vaccine injection.

Astaxanthin (AST) is a beneficial dietary supplement in shrimp farming. However, the different effects of synthetic AST (S-Ast) and natural AST (N-Ast) on the postlarvae is unclear. These effects were compared by supplementation with a gradient of AST (0, 50, 70, 90, 140 ppm) for 35 days. Growth parameters including weight and length gain, carotenoid content, AST content and isomer composition, antioxidant capacity (superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase), survival rate and mRNA expression levels for antioxidant enzymes in Litopenaeus vannamei postlarvae were measured. The results indicated that postlarvae given N-Ast had significantly higher growth performance and AST content. Although there were different ratios of AST optical isomers in the diets, there was a similar optical isomer content in juvenile shrimp. The cis/trans AST ratio and antioxidant enzyme (SOD and GPx) activities in N-Ast90 were the highest among all groups. Cumulative mortality in N-Ast90, N-Ast140 and S-Ast70 were significantly lower than in the control and N-AST50. The mRNA expression levels for the antioxidant enzymes (cMnSOD and GPx) also increased for N-Ast90-fed shrimp under stress conditions. These results suggest that an epimerase may exist in vivo and that an appropriate level of botanical AST in diets was approximately 90 ppm for L. vannamei postlarvae.

Mizuhopecten yessoensis, one of the most highly favored scallops on the international market, has suffered from massive summer mortalities. Water temperature is an important environmental stressor which has significant effects on the physiological and biochemical response of scallops. Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) plays a key role in defense against various environmental stresses that could damage the cellular and molecular structure of cells. In this study, molecular characterization and expression of HSP90 in M. yessoensis (designated MyHSP90) were analyzed as an indicator to understand the mechanisms of heat shock response in M. yessoensis under temperature stress. The full-length sequence of MyHSP90 cDNA (GenBank accession no. MF196912) is composed of 2639 base pair encoding a 726-amino acid polypeptide with a predicted molecular mass of 83.26 kDa. Tissue expression analysis of MyHSP90 genes revealed ubiquitous expression in each tissue examined, and showed a temperature-dependent response, and the expression level was up-regulated significantly in all the six tissues tested (p < 0.05) except gonad. The results will be useful in furthering the understanding of the massive summer mortalities in M. yessoensis under temperature stress. Additionally, MyHSP90 could be used as a potential biomarker in practice to monitor environmental changes in future studies.

The NOD-like receptor proteins (NLRP) is an important genes primarily involved in innate immunity. In this study, we identified a novel NLRP gene designated as AjNLRP3 (GenBank accession number MF663701) in Apostichopus japonicus using transcriptome sequencing and the rapid amplification of cDNA ends approach. The full-length of AjNLRP3 is 3642 bp and a putative open reading frame of 2424 bp encodes a polypeptide with 807 amino acid residues. The predicted molecular mass of the protein sequence predicted for AjNLRP3 is 93.03 kDa and its theoretical pI is 6.14. AjNLRP3 contains two low complexity regions, two internal repeat regions, and a NACHT domain. Spatial distribution expression analysis detected AjNLRP3 in all of the tissues tested, with greater expression levels in the body wall, moderate expression in the respiratory tree, and weaker levels in the intestine, tube feet, celomocytes, and longitudinal muscle. The expression levels of AjNLRP3 increased by 2.60-fold in the celomocytes and decreased by 0.87-fold in the respiratory tree of diseased sea cucumbers compared with those in healthy sea cucumbers. Time-course expression analysis under bacterial challenge in celomocytes showed that the expression of AjNLRP3 was significantly decreased by 0.23-fold at 8 h and by 0.20-fold at 24 h. In conclusion, this study showed that the AjNLRP3 protein found in the sea cucumber has a similar structure and biological function to that in other organisms, where it appears to be involved with the innate immune responses against bacterial infection.

In this paper, we investigated production and growth of new particles in the marine atmosphere during two cruise campaigns in China Seas using a Fast Mobility Particle Sizer. Only eight new particle formation (NPF) events (> 30 min) occurred on 5 days out of 31 sampling days, and the subsequent growth of new particles was observed only in five events. Apparent formation rates of new particles (in the range of 5.6–30 nm) varied from 0.3 to 15.2 particles cm−3 s−1 in eight events, and growth rates ranged from 2.5 to 10 nm h−1 in five NPF events. Modeling results simulated by US EPA Community Multi-scale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) showed that ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) was newly formed in the atmosphere over the corresponding sea zone during 2 out of 5 events, in which new particles partially or mostly grew over 50 nm. However, in the remaining three events, new particles cannot grow over 30 nm, and the modeling results showed that no NH4NO3 was newly formed in the corresponding marine atmosphere. Modeling results also showed that formation of secondary organics occurred through all new particle growth periods. Difference between the two types of new particle growth patterns suggested that a combination of ammonium nitrate and organics newly formed likely contributed to the growth of new particles from 30 nm to larger size. However, the findings were obtained from the limited data, and the simulations of CMAQ also suffered from several weaknesses such as only having three size bins for different particles, lack of marine aerosol precursors, etc. More future studies are thereby needed for confirmation.

We report a novel method of measuring the spin polarization of alkali-metal atoms by detecting the NMR frequency shifts of noble gases. We calculated the profile of 87Rb D1 line absorption cross sections. We then measured the absorption profile of the sample cell, from which we calculated the 87Rb number densities at different temperatures. Then we measured the frequency shifts resulted from the spin polarization of the 87Rb atoms and calculated its polarization degrees at different temperatures. The behavior of frequency shifts versus temperature in experiment was consistent with theoretical calculation, which may be used as compensative signal for the NMRG closed-loop control system.

Objective: Noncoding RNAs are emerging as important players in gene regulation and cardiovascular diseases. Their roles in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis are not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to determine the role played by a previously uncharacterized long noncoding RNA, RP11-728F11.4, in the development of atherosclerosis and the mechanisms by which it acts. Approach and Results: Expression microarray analysis revealed that atherosclerotic plaques had increased expression of RP11-728F11.4 as well as the cognate gene FXYD6 (FXYD domain containing ion transport regulator 6), which encodes a modulator of Na + /K + -ATPase. In vitro experiments showed that RP11-728F11.4 interacted with the RNA-binding protein EWSR1 (Ewings sarcoma RNA binding protein-1) and upregulated FXYD6 expression. Lentivirus-induced overexpression of RP11-728F11.4 in cultured monocytes-derived macrophages resulted in higher Na + /K + -ATPase activity, intracellular cholesterol accumulation, and increased proinflammatory cytokine production. The effects of RP11-728F11.4 were enhanced by siRNA-mediated knockdown of EWSR1 and reduced by downregulation of FXYD domain containing ion transport regulator 6. In vivo experiments in apoE knockout mice fed a Western diet demonstrated that RP11-728F11.4 increased proinflammatory cytokine production and augmented atherosclerotic lesions., Conclusions: RP11-728F11.4 promotes atherosclerosis, with an influence on cholesterol homeostasis and proinflammatory molecule production, thus representing a potential therapeutic target. Graphic Abstract: A graphic abstract is available for this article.