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Abstract Background Large-scale detection has great potential to bring benefits for containing the COVID-19 epidemic and supporting the government in reopening economic activities. Evaluating the true regional mobile severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus nucleic acid testing capacity is essential to improve the overall fighting performance against this epidemic and maintain economic development. However, such a tool is not available in this issue. We aimed to establish an evaluation index system for assessing the regional mobile SARS-CoV-2 virus nucleic acid testing capacity and provide suggestions for improving the capacity level. Methods The initial version of the evaluation index system was identified based on massive literature and expert interviews. The Delphi method questionnaire was designed and 30 experts were consulted in two rounds of questionnaire to select and revise indexes at all three levels. The Analytic Hierarchy Process method was used to calculate the weight of indexes at all three levels. Results The evaluation index system for assessing the regional mobile SARS-CoV-2 virus nucleic acid testing capacity, including 5 first-level indexes, 17 second-level indexes, and 90 third-level indexes. The response rates of questionnaires delivered in the two rounds of consultation were 100 and 96.7%. Furthermore, the authority coefficient of 30 experts was 0.71. Kendall’s coordination coefficient differences were statistically significant (P

ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the associations of genetic variants in the semaphorin 3A (SEMA3A) signaling pathway genes, including SEMA3A, NRP1, PLXNA1, PLXNA2 and PLXNA3 with osteoporosis (OP) risk and bone mineral density (BMD) in a Chinese Han older adult population.Study design and methodA two-stage design was adopted. Total of 47.8kb regions in the 5 genes were sequenced using targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology in the discovery stage, and the discovered OP-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were further genotyped using improved multiple linkage detection reaction technique in the validation stage. Methods of ALP/TRAP staining, real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR, and cell proliferation and apoptosis assays were performed with MC3T3-E1 and RAW 264.7 cell lines to clarify biological effects of observed functional variants in cell lines responsible for bone mass remodeling.ResultsTotal of 400 postmenopausal women (211 OP cases) were involved in the discovery stage, where 6 common and 4 rare genetic variants were found to be associated with OP risk. In the validation stage among another 859 participants (417 women, 270 OP cases), the PLXNA2 rs2274446 T allele was associated with reduced OP risk and increased femoral neck (FN) BMD compared to the C allele. Moreover, significant associations of NRP1 rs2070296 with FN BMD/OP risk and of NRP1 rs180868035 with lumbar spine and FN BMDs were also observed in the combination dataset analysis. Compared to the osteoblasts/osteoclasts transfected with the wild-type NRP1 rs180868035, those transfected with the mutant-type had reduced mRNA expression of osteoblastic genes (i.e., ALP, RUNX2, SP7 and OCN), while elevated mRNA expression of osteoclastic genes (i.e., TRAP, NFATc1 and CTSK). Furthermore, mutant NRP1 rs180868035 transfection inhibited osteoblast proliferation and osteoclast apoptosis, while promoted osteoclast proliferation and osteoblast apoptosis in corresponding cell lines.ConclusionGenetic variants located in NRP1 and PLXNA2 genes were associated with OP risk and BMD. The NRP1 rs180868035 affects bone metabolism by influencing osteoblasts and osteoclasts differentiation, proliferation and apoptosis.

AbstractObjective To investigated the association between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in microRNA-146a (miR-146a) gene and susceptibility of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Methods We systemically extracted the genetic data of miR-146a from previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of RA. Subsequently, we performed a replication study in an independent Chinese cohort for selected variant. A meta-analysis combined the previous GWASs with the replication study was also conducted. The epigenetic annotation and cytokine assay were used for exploring potential variant function.Results The extracted genetic association data from three previous GWASs showed that the allele T of functional SNP rs2431697 increased RA susceptibility. The significant association for the SNP was also found in the Chinese replication cohort (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.06–1.46, p = 8.69E-03). The estimated effect size for this SNP was larger in Asian population than that in European population (Asian meta-analysis: OR = 1.15, 95% CI = 1.09–1.22, p = 4.37E-07; Tran-ethnic meta-analysis: OR = 1.07, 95% CI = 1.04–1.10, p = 1.79E-06). The cytokine assay also showed that the risk allele T of the SNP rs2431697 is inversely associated with plasma TNF-α levels in health controls (p = .016).Conclusions In summary, this study supports that genetic variant in miR-146a gene is associated with RA risk.KEY MESSAGESThe association between SNPs in miR-146a gene and susceptibility of RA was unclear.We investigated the genetic association using GWASs data and a replication study.The SNP rs2431697 in miR-146a gene is associated with RA risk.

BackgroundFew studies have explored the association between water intake and mortality risk, and the findings were inconsistent.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the water intake–mortality association, utilizing the data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and the 2015 public-linked mortality files released by the National Center for Health Statistics.MethodsWe used the diet- and mortality-linked data of a total of 35,463 adults (17,234 men) aged ≥20 years in the NHANESs 1999–2014 to perform a prospective study. The multivariate-adjusted Cox proportional hazards model was used to explore the associations of the amount of water intake (expressed by total water, plain water, beverage, and food water) and water intake proportion (expressed by the percentage of each kind of water) with mortality risks due to all causes, malignant neoplasms/cancer, and heart disease. The restricted cubic spline plots were adopted to clarify the dose–response relationships among them.ResultsWith a median of 88 months (interquartile range: 49–136 months) follow-up, a total of 4,915 all-cause deaths occurred, including 1,073 and 861 deaths from malignant neoplasms/cancer and heart disease, respectively. The amount of water intake in either type was negatively associated with all-cause mortality risk. Additionally, the negative linear dose–response relationships of water intake and all-cause mortality risk were found for all types of water except for food water, which followed a non-linear pattern. Similarly, compared to the lowest quartile (beverage water intake:

Objective: This study aimed to explore the relationships between the common variants of R-spondin/Wnt signaling genes, gut microbiota composition, and osteoporosis (OP) risk in elderly Chinese Han population.Design: Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry was used to obtain the OP-associated measurements at multiple skeleton sites among all 1,168 participants. Genotyping data was obtained by using the next-generation sequencing in the discovery stage (n = 400, 228 OP patients) and SNPscan technology in the replication stage (n = 768, 356 OP patients). Bioinformatic analysis was performed to provide more evidence for the genotype-OP associations. The 16S ribosomal RNA gene high-throughput sequencing technology was adopted to explore OP-associated gut microbiota variations.Results: The genetic variants of rs10920362 in the LGR6 gene (P-FDR = 1.19 × 10–6) and rs11178860 in the LGR5 gene (P-FDR = 1.51 × 10–4) were found to associate with OP risk significantly. Several microbial taxa were associated with the BMDs and T-scores at multiple skeleton sites. The associations between rs10920362 and BMD-associated microbiota maintained significance after adjusting confounders. The rs10920362 CT/TT genotype associated with a decreased relative abundance of Actinobacteria (β = −1.32, P < 0.001), Bifidobacteriaceae (β = −1.70, P < 0.001), and Bifidobacterium (β = −1.70, P < 0.001) compared to the CC genotype.Conclusion: Our findings suggested that the variants loci of LGR6 may be associate with OP pathogenesis via gut microbiota modifications. The relationship between host genetics and gut microbiome provides new perspectives about OP prevention and treatment.

Quantum many-body systems near phase transitions respond collectively to externally applied perturbations. We explore this phenomenon in a laser-driven dissipative Rydberg gas that is tuned to a bistable regime. Here two metastable phases coexist, which feature a low and high density of Rydberg atoms, respectively. The ensuing collective dynamics, which we monitor in situ, is characterized by stochastic collective jumps between these two macroscopically distinct many-body phases. We show that the statistics of these jumps can be controlled using a dual-tone microwave field. In particular, we find that the distribution of jump times develops peaks corresponding to subharmonics of the relative microwave detuning. Our study demonstrates the control of collective statistical properties of dissipative quantum many-body systems without the necessity of fine-tuning or of ultracold temperatures. Such robust many-body phenomena may find technological applications in sensing.

Detecting microwave signals over a wide frequency range is endowed with numerous advantages as it enables simultaneous transmission of a large amount of information and access to more spectrum resources. This capability is crucial for applications such as microwave communication, remote sensing and radar. However, conventional microwave receiving systems are limited by amplifiers and band-pass filters that can only operate efficiently in a specific frequency range. Typically, these systems can only process signals within a three-fold frequency range, which limits the data transfer bandwidth of the microwave communication systems. Developing novel atom-integrated microwave sensors, for example, radio-frequency (RF) chip–coupled Rydberg atomic receiver, provides opportunities for a large working bandwidth of microwave sensing at the atomic level. In the current work, an ultra-wide dual-band RF sensing scheme was demonstrated by space-division multiplexing two RF-chip-integrated atomic receiver modules. The system can simultaneously receive dual-band microwave signals that span a frequency range exceeding 6 octaves (300 MHz and 24 GHz). This work paves the way for multi-band microwave reception applications within an ultra-wide range by RF-chip-integrated Rydberg atomic sensor.

Objectives: The present study aimed to discover novel susceptibility loci associated with risk of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Methods: We performed a new genome-wide association study (GWAS) in Chinese subjects (1027 RA cases and 2879 controls) and further conducted an expanded meta-analysis with previous GWAS summary data and replication studies. The functional roles of the associated loci were interrogated using publicly available databases. Dual-luciferase reporter and cytokine assay were also used for exploring variant function.Results: We identified five new susceptibility loci (IL12RB2, BOLL-PLCL1, CCR2, TCF7 and IQGAP1; pmeta <5.00E-08) with same effect direction in each study cohort. The sensitivity analyses showed that the genetic association of at least three loci was reliable and robust. All these lead variants are expression quantitative trait loci and overlapped with epigenetic marks in immune cells. Furthermore, genes within the five loci are genetically associated with risk of other autoimmune diseases, and genes within four loci are known functional players in autoimmunity, which supports the validity of our findings. The reporter assay showed that the risk allele of rs8030390 in IQGAP1 have significantly increased reporter activity in HEK293T cells. In addition, the cytokine assay found that the risk allele of rs244672 in TCF7 was most significantly associated with increased plasma IL-17A levels in healthy controls. Finally, identified likely causal genes in these loci significantly interacted with RA drug targets.Conclusion: This study identified novel RA risk loci and highlighted that comprehensive genetic study can provide important information for RA pathogenesis and drug therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rydberg atoms are sensitive to microwave signals and hence can be used to detect them. Here the authors demonstrate a Rydberg receiver enhanced by deep learning, Rydberg atoms acting as antennae, to receive, extract, and decode the multi-frequency microwave signal effectively.

Infrared optical measurement has a wide range of applications in industry and science, but infrared light detectors suffer from high costs and inferior performance than visible light detectors. Four-wave mixing (FWM) process allows detection in the infrared range by detecting correlated visible light. We experimentally investigate the stimulated FWM process in a hot 85Rb atomic vapor cell, in which a weak infrared signal laser at 1,530 nm induces the FWM process and is amplified and converted into a strong FWM light at 780 nm, the latter can be detected more easily. We find the optimized single- and two-photon detunings by studying the dependence of the frequency of input laser on the generated FWM light. What’s more, the power gain increases rapidly as the signal intensity decreases, which is consistent with our theoretical analysis. As a result, the power gain can reach up to 500 at a signal laser power of 0.1 μW and the number of detected photons increased by a factor of 250. Finally, we experimentally prove that our amplification process can work in a broad band in the frequency domain by exploring the response rate of our stimulated FWM process.

Engineering vector spatial modes of photons is an important approach for manipulating high-dimension photonic states in various quantum optical experiments. In this work, we demonstrate the generation of heralded single photons with well-defined vector spatial modes by using a self-stable polarizing interferometer comprising a spatial light modulator. Specifically, it is shown that, by carefully tailoring and compensating the spatial and temporal amplitudes of manipulated photons, one can exactly convert ultrafast single photons into desired spin-orbit states with an extremely high purity. This compact and robust device provides a versatile way for not only the generation, but also the manipulation and characterization of arbitrary photonic spin-orbit states.

The effect of self-focusing and defocusing of the optical beam, which is caused by the interaction between a strong light field and medium, plays an important role in nonlinear optics. The difference in the spatial structure of the strong control beam with orbital angular momentum (OAM) and the Gaussian mode will have different effects on self-focusing and defocusing, which has the potential for realizing the modulation of the self-focusing and the defocusing process of the probe light with OAM. In this work, we report the influence of the spatial structure of the control beam on the self-focusing and defocusing process of the probe beam in a hot rubidium vapor cell with a lambda-type configuration. Under the same experimental condition, the control beam with the Laguerre-Gaussian mode contributes more to self-defocusing, while the Gaussian mode promotes the defocusing effect. The result is promising for manipulating the optical beam with OAM.

Establishing multi-degree-of-freedom entangled memories is important for high-capacity quantum communications and computing. Here, authors experimentally demonstrate hyper- and hybrid entanglement between two atomic ensembles in multiple degrees of freedom including path and orbital angular momentum.

Cavity-free optical nonreciprocity components, which have an inherent strong asymmetric interaction between the forward- and backward-propagation direction of the probe field, are key to produce such as optical isolators and circulators. According to the proposal presented by Xia et al., [Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 203602 (2018)]PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.121.203602, we experimentally build a device that uses cross-Kerr nonlinearity to achieve a cavity-free optical isolator and circulator. Its nonreciprocal behavior arises from the thermal motion of N-type configuration atoms, which induces a strong chiral cross-Kerr nonlinear response for the weak probe beam. We obtain a two-port optical isolator for up to 20 dB of isolation ratio in a specially designed Sagnac interferometer. The distinct propagation directions of the weak probe field determine its cross-phase shift and transmission, by which we demonstrate the accessibility of a four-port optical circulator.

Far-from-equilibrium dynamics that lead to self-organization are highly relevant to complex dynamical systems not only in physics but also in life, earth, and social sciences. However, it is challenging to find systems with sufficiently controllable parameters that allow quantitatively modeling of emergent properties. Here, we study a nonequilibrium phase transition and observe signatures of self-organized criticality in a dilute thermal vapor of atoms optically excited to strongly interacting Rydberg states. Electromagnetically induced transparency provides excellent control over the population dynamics and enables high-resolution probing of the driven-dissipative dynamics, which also exhibits phase bistability. Increased sensitivity compared to previous work allows us to reconstruct the complete phase diagram, including in the vicinity of the critical point. We observe that interaction-induced energy shifts and enhanced decay only occur in one of the phases above a critical Rydberg population. This case limits the application of generic mean-field models; however, a modified, threshold-dependent approach is in qualitative agreement with experimental data. Near threshold, we observe self-organized dynamics in the form of population jumps that return the density to a critical value.

The spatial modes of light have grasped great research interests because of its great potentials in optical communications, optical manipulation and trapping, optical metrology and quantum information processing. Here we report on generating of photon pairs in Hermite-Gaussian (HG) mode in a type-I optical parametric oscillator operated far below threshold. The bandwidths of the photon pairs are 11.4 MHz and 20.8MHz for two different HG modes respectively, therefore the photons can be stored in cold Rubidium atomic ensembles. The non-classical properties of HG modes are clearly verified by the violation of Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Our study provides an effective way to generate photon pairs with narrow bandwidth in high order spatial modes for high dimensional quantum communication.

We report on an experimental observation of a two-photon ghost interference experiment. A distinguishing feature of our experiment is that the photons are generated via a non-degenerated spontaneous four-wave mixing process in a hot atomic ensemble; therefore the photon has narrow bandwidth. Besides, there is a large difference in frequency between two photons in a pair. Our works may be important to achieve more secure, large transmission capacity long-distance quantum communication.