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T-cells, being the major player in adaptive immune system mediating cellular immunity, have become a central focus for engaging the immune system in fighting against cancer. Their activation is initiated by recognition of antigen/major histocompatibility complexes by the T-cell receptor (TCR) and enhanced by engagement of co-stimulatory receptor. In recent years, various immunotherapies deploying T-cell immunity have made immense progress, including chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T therapy, checkpoint blockage, and CD3-based bispecific antibodies. Here we report the development of a novel trispecific antibody to CD19, CD3, and CD28, with an emphasis on the co-engagement of both CD3/TCR complex and CD28 co-stimulatory receptor for sustained T cell activation. Compared with the BiTE-CD19xCD3 lacking the co-stimulatory domain, the trispecific antibody augmented T cell proliferation and differentiation into memory T cells. It induced faster tumor cell lysis than the bispecific antibody, preferably through direct tumor lysis by CD8 T cells. RNAseq analysis revealed that the trispecific antibody modulates TCR complex-derived signal at multiple aspects, including amplification of transcriptional factors, promoting production of cytokines, positive regulation of cell cycle, and upregulation of anti-apoptotic factors to influence survival of T-cells. Markedly increased tumor inhibition effects and prolonged survival were observed in vivo in humanized mouse model. By extra engagement of a co-stimulatory receptor to prolong the survival of activated T cells, our study has proposed another possibility to extend the pharmacology effect of tandem single-chain variable fragments (scFv)-based antibody, which is worthy of further exploration in clinical trial settings.

Spindle and kinetochore associated (SKA) complex subunit, which maintains the stability of mitotic metaphase, with emerging research implying its effect as a carcinogenic regulator in cancer. However, its potential role in BC has not been fully elucidated. ONCOMINE, UALCAN, GEPIA, Kaplan-Meier Plotter, cBioPortal and TIMER databases were performed to analyze the expression, prognosis, mutation, immune infiltration and potential biological mechanisms of SKA1/2/3 in BC. Our results showed that SKA1/2/3 expression was upregulated in BC. Survival analysis reveals that SKA3 overexpression was associated with poor overall survival (OS), relapse-free survival (RFS), post-progression survival (PPS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS). SKA1 overexpression was associated with poor OS, RFS and DMFS while SKA2 overexpression was only associated with RFS and DMFS. Notably, the results implied that SKA1 has a good prognostic value in HER2-positive BC. Besides, the genetic alterations of SKA were investigated and the altered group correlated with shorter progress-free survival (PFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS). GO and KEGG analysis showed that SKA1/2/3 were implicated in regulating cell cycle, p53 signaling pathway and DNA replication. The 10 Hub genes in the protein network were upregulated in BC and related to poorer prognosis. Additionally, SKA1/2/3 expression was negatively correlated with infiltration of various immune cells with antitumor effects, whereas positively correlated with the expression of immune checkpoints molecules. Further experiments revealed that SKA1/2/3 silencing markedly impeded the proliferation and migration of BC cells. Herein, our study firmly shows that SKA genes may serve as a promising therapeutic target for patients with BC.

Background Pancreatic cancer (PAC) is one of the most devastating cancer types with an extremely poor prognosis, characterized by a hypoxic microenvironment and resistance to most therapeutic drugs. Hypoxia has been found to be one of the factors contributing to chemoresistance in PAC, but also a major driver of the formation of the tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment. However, the method to identify the degree of hypoxia in the tumor microenvironment (TME) is incompletely understood. Methods The mRNA expression profiles and corresponding clinicopathological information of PAC patients were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, respectively. To further explore the effect of hypoxia on the prognosis of patients with PAC as well as the tumor immune microenvironment, we established a hypoxia risk model and divided it into high- and low-risk groups in line with the hypoxia risk score. Results We established a hypoxia risk model according to four hypoxia-related genes, which could be used to demonstrate the immune microenvironment in PAC and predict prognosis. Moreover, the hypoxia risk score can act as an independent prognostic factor in PAC, and a higher hypoxia risk score was correlated with poorer prognosis in patients as well as the immunosuppressive microenvironment of the tumor. Conclusions In summary, we established and validated a hypoxia risk model that can be considered as an independent prognostic indicator and reflected the immune microenvironment of PAC, suggesting the feasibility of hypoxia-targeted therapy for PAC patients.

Shell-color polymorphism is a common phenomenon in several mollusk species and has been associated with thermal capacity, developmental stability, shell strength, and immunity. Shell-color polymorphism has been related to the differential expression of genes in several signal transduction pathways; however, the functions of micro-RNAs (miRNAs) in shell-color formation remain unclear. In the present study, we compared high-quality, small-RNA transcriptomes in three strains of the Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum with specific shell-color patterns, artificially selected for six generations. Totals of 114 known and 208 novel miRNAs were identified by high-throughput sequencing, of which nine known and one novel miRNA were verified by stem-loop quantitative real time-polymerase chain reaction. Predicted miRNA targets were subjected to Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses. miR-137 and miR-216b and the Hedgehog signaling pathway and Wnt signaling pathway were identified as being potentially involved in pigment formation and regulation in R. philippinarum. These results may help to clarify the role of miRNAs in shell coloration and shed light on the mechanisms regulating color formation in bivalve shells.

Crispness is an important indicator of crunchy food. However, it cannot be easily quantified by sensory evaluation, due to the high subjectivity of evaluators; instrument measurement of this indicator requires much manpower and time. To improve the efficiency of food crispness prediction, this paper attempts to build a rapid, convenient, and accurate crispness analysis model. Starting with the fracturing sound of crunchy food, the authors collected the fracturing acoustic signal, conducted wavelet denoising, analyzed the eigenvalues in time and frequency domains, and constructed crispness prediction models based on multiple linear regression (MLR) and neural network, respectively. Through fracturing test and acoustic test, cluster analysis was adopted to select the typical eigenvalues of acoustic signal, including the peak amplitude of power spectral density (PSD) curve, amplitude difference, and waveform index. Based on these eigenvalues, a crispness analysis model was established, and used to predict the crispness of four kinds of food, namely, potato, sweet potato, carrot, and turnip. The results show that the BP neural network had a smaller relative error than the MLR; when the threshold was 5%, the BP neural network maintained a prediction accuracy of >90%, and achieved 100% prediction accuracy on two types of food. To sum up, this paper reveals the relationship between the food chewing sound features and food quality, laying the theoretical basis for the research of food chewing sound mechanism.

Transition-metal dichalcogenides with a lamellar structure have been recognized as a class of attractive host materials for Na+ insertion, and intensively investigated as anodes for sodium-ion batteries. However, large-scale applications are severely restricted by their intrinsic inferior conductivity and large volume expansion during deep cycles. Herein, a unique 0D/2D heterostructure of SnS2 quantum dots (QDs) with N-doped Ti3C2Tx MXene (namely, SnS2 QDs/Ti3C2) has been successfully designed via an ingenious solvent spatial confinement growth strategy. During the hydrothermal process, the nucleation and growth of SnS2 nanoparticles can be effectively regulated by N-methyl pyrrolidone, which results in the uniform growth of SnS2 QDs of about 3 nm onto the Ti3C2Tx MXene matrix. Meanwhile, in situ N-doping of Ti3C2Tx MXene can also be realized because of the NH3 released from the decomposition of the sulfur precursor, which greatly enhances the interfacial Na+ transport. Such a rational design endows the newly developed SnS2 QDs/Ti3C2 electrode with fascinating sodium storage properties including a high specific capacity of 763.2 mA h g-1 at 100 mA g-1 and ultrastable cycling stability (345.3 mA h g-1 at 100 mA g-1 after 600 cycles). The experimental and theoretical simulation results demonstrate that the ultrafine SnS2 QDs with abundantly active sites on the interface and stronger Na+ adsorption energy on the heterojunction formed between N-doped Ti3C2 MXenes contribute to the superior sodium storage capability.

The main challenge for developing transition metal oxides (TMOs) as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) is to rationally design and synthesize TMO-based hybrid structures and precisely control the transport of ions and electrons. Herein, we propose a facile in situ interfacial growth strategy to achieve a novel sandwich structured P-SnO2/Ti3C2 composite, where SnO2 nanocrystals modified with an ulthathin polypyrrole (PPy) layer of about 3 nm are strongly coupled with Ti3C2Tx Mxene nanosheets through Sn–O–Ti chemical bonds. Uniformly dispersed SnO2 nanocrystals confined in PPy and Ti3C2Tx nanosheets provide abundant acitve sites, while the conductive polymer PPy and Ti3C2Tx serve as robust protective layers alleviating the volume expansion and fast channels for Na ions and electron transport. Thanks to the advantages of structure and composition, the resulting P-SnO2/Ti3C2 anode demonstrates excellent sodium storage properties in terms of long cycle life (325.6 mA h g−1 at 100 mA g−1 after 100 cycles) and outstanding rate performance (204.4 mA h g−1 at 1000 mA g−1). The density functional theory calculations further prove that the P-SnO2/Ti3C2 heterostructure can balance the adsorption and release of Na atoms on the interface, thus boosting the performance of SIBs. This approach developed can also provide valuable guidance for the constuction of more functional TMO-based composites.

Ruditapes philippinarum is an important marine bivalve species. In this study, we conducted the RNA-seq of four different shell color strains of the R. philippinarum and investigated the analysis of the differential expression patterns of specific genes associated with pigmentation. The maximum different genes was 13 between WZ vs O, WZ vs W and WZ vs O have same numbers of different genes, was 5, Z vs W has 4 genes of 18 DEGs, W vs O just have two DEGs, while there is no DEGs between WZ vs Z. The synthesis of melanin plays important roles in the pigmentation of the shell and is closely related to the formation of the surface pattern. We speculate the possible involvement of porphyrin and chlorophyll metabolism combined with calcium signaling pathway in shell color determination. This study sheds light on the pigmentation and coloration mechanism of the Manila clam.

Viable cell count was used to determine whether Metschnikowia sp. C14 can colonize the intestine of juvenile sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus . Sea cucumber individuals were divided into two groups, which were fed the control diet for 38 days or the C14-supplemented diet at 10 5 cells g −1 diet for 28 days, then the control diet from day 29 to day 38. The number of C14 cells in the intestine of sea cucumber fed the C14-supplemented diet significantly increased from day 7 to day 28, and decreased from day 29 to day 38. Sea cucumber fed with the diet containing C14 showed a significant increase in trypsin activity and lipase activity from day 21 to day 33 compared with the control. Feeding C14 significantly improved the phagocytic activity and respiratory burst in coelomocytes from day 21 to day 35 and from day 14 to day 38, respectively. In addition, there was an obvious enhancement in lysozyme activity (from day 21 to day 38 or day 33), phenoloxidase activity (from day 21 to day 28) and total nitric oxide synthase activity (from day 14 to day 38) in coelomic fluid supernatant and/or coelomocyte cell lysate supernatant compared with the control. There were significant positive correlations between the number of C14 cells colonizing the intestine and trypsin activity of the intestine, lysozyme activity of the coelomic fluid supernatant and coelomocyte lysate supernatant from sea cucumber. These data suggested that the number of C14 cells should be maintained at 10 5 cfu (colony-forming units) g −1 intestine material for the maximum benefit.

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most deadly malignancies with high morbidity worldwide. Cancer cells exhibited higher level of glucose catabolism than normal cells to meet the needs for rapid growth. Emerging evidences indicated that hyperglycemia has positive effects on the progression of tumor. As a vital regulator of glycolysis, 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-bisphosphatase 3 (PFKFB3) was confirmed to have a higher expression level in tumor tissue and correlated with the prognosis of GC patients. However, the role of PFKFB3 in GC patients with hyperglycemia remains unclear. The data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) were utilized to analyze the expression level of PFKFB3 and conducted survival analysis of GC patients. Western blot assay was used to detect gene expression at the protein level. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) transfection assay was conducted to down-regulate the expression of PFKFB3. Cell functional assays were carried out to reflect the ability of cell proliferation and migration. The results indicated that PFKFB3 was significantly upregulated and its overexpression was associated with poor prognosis of GC patients. Besides, hyperglycemia stimulated the higher expression of PFKFB3 along with the enhanced proliferation, migration and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) in GC cells. Knocking down of PFKFB3 effectively reversed the effects of high glucose concentration on GC malignant phenotype and the opposite results were gained when miR-26-5p was inhibited. Therefore, PFKFB3 down-regulated by miR-26-5p inhibited the malignant phenotype of GC with hyperglycemia.

Xiaobo He,1 Jianfeng Ding,1 Xiao Cheng,2 Maoming Xiong1 1Department of General Surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230022, People’s Republic of China; 2Ningbo Diagnostic Pathology Center Department of Pathology, Ningbo, Zhejiang, 315021, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Maoming Xiong Email aydyfyxmm@126.comBackground: Colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) is a common gastrointestinal tumor and often occurs in the left colon with a poor prognosis. The progression of COAD is closely related to the tumor microenvironment, especially the hypoxia. Currently, few studies have reported the correlation between hypoxia-related genes and the prognosis of COAD patients. Furthermore, we constructed a prognostic model using four hypoxia-related genes to predict the prognosis of COAD patients.Methods: The mRNA expression profiles and corresponding clinicopathological data were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). The string online analysis tool was used to construct a protein–protein interaction network (PPI) of hypoxia-related genes. Kaplan–Meier curve was used to analyze the relationship of hypoxia risk score and the overall survival of COAD patients, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to assess the reliability.Results: We screened out four hypoxia genes, including TKTL1 (transketolase like 1), SLC2A3 (solute carrier family 2 member 3), ALDOB (aldolase, fructose-bisphosphate B) and ENO3 (enolase 3), which were used to construct a hypoxia risk model to predict the overall survival of COAD patients. Besides, we also found that the hypoxia risk score was correlated with the immunosuppression of tumor microenvironment.Conclusion: The model we constructed with four survival-related hypoxia genes, including TKTL1, SLC2A3, ALDOB and ENO3, could be used to predict the overall survival of COAD patients with high stability.Keywords: bioinformatic analysis, hypoxia risk model, tumor microenvironment, colon adenocarcinoma, prognosis

Summary Ruditapes philippinarum is an economically important bivalve with remarkable diversity in its shell coloration patterns. In this study, we sequenced the whole genome of the Manila clam and investigated the molecular basis of its adaptation to hypoxia, acidification, and parasite stress with transcriptome sequencing and an RNA sequence analysis of different tissues and developmental stages to clarify these major issues. A number of immune-related gene families are expanded in the R. philippinarum genome, such as TEP, C3, C1qDC, Hsp70, SABL, and lysozyme, which are potentially important for its stress resistance and adaptation to a coastal benthic life. The transcriptome analyses demonstrated the dynamic and orchestrated specific expression of numerous innate immune-related genes in response to experimental challenge with pathogens. These findings suggest that the expansion of immune- and stress-related genes may play vital roles in resistance to adverse environments and has a profound effect on the clam's adaptation to benthic life., Graphical Abstract, Highlights • We present a new genome assembly of the Manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum • Analysis of gene family expansions and transcriptome characterization were conducted • Tyr and mitf genes were potentially involved in shell color patterns of Manila clam • Expansion of GPCRs and immune-related genes were found in R. philippinarum, Biological Sciences; Genetics; Genomics

We propose an analytical model to evaluate three different methods for generating the optical four-level pulse-amplitude-modulation (PAM-4) signal with a standard silicon Mach–Zehnder (M–Z) optical modulator. With this model, we further use the uniformity of the modulation intervals as the metric to find the optimum operating points to achieve optical PAM-4 signals with uniform intervals for all three methods. We find that to achieve a uniform optical PAM-4 signal, the operating point for the single-arm-driving configuration needs to be farther away from the quadrature point compared with the other driving configurations. We characterize the optical PAM-4 signals generated by the three methods and verify the theoretical analysis using a fabricated 39.2 GHz silicon M–Z optical modulator. A 50 Gbaud optical PAM-4 modulation with open eye is successfully demonstrated using the silicon modulator.

Mahalanobis distance is often recommended to identify patients or clinical sites that are considered unusual in clinical trials. Patients extreme in one or more covariates may be considered outliers in that they reside some distance from the multivariate mean, which can be thought of as the center of the data cloud. Less often discussed, patients whose data are believed to be "too good to be true" are located near the centroid as inliers. In order to efficiently investigate these anomalies for potential lapses in data quality, it is important to understand how the individual variables contribute to each multivariate outlier. There is a lack of literature describing a reasonable workflow for identification of outliers and their subsequent investigation to understand how each variable contributes to an observation being considered extreme. We describe how to identify multivariate inliers and outliers, classify outliers according to varying levels of severity, and summarize the contributions of variables using principal components in a manner that is accessible to a wide audience with straightforward interpretation. We illustrate how numerous data visualizations, including Pareto plots, can facilitate further review even in studies containing numerous observations and variables. We illustrate these methodologies using data from a multicenter clinical trial.

This paper studies the joint time and power allocation in wireless powered communication networks. Unlike the conventional interference-free model in the time-division-multiple-access harvest-then-transmit framework, we propose a novel transmission framework that allows user equipments (UEs) to send data information concurrently in a time splitting manner, which causes mutual interference among UEs. We investigate the system feasibility for the proposed model with both the time and energy constraints. For time feasibility, we investigate the sum of time resource with given data demand and harvest time. For energy feasibility, we focus on the ratio of transmission energy and harvested energy when the data demand and the transmission time is fixed. As an exemplary application of the proposed model, we investigate the minimum throughput maximization problem, which aims at achieving high data rates but also ensures fairness among UEs. Furthermore, we derive the optimal time allocation for information transmission and energy harvesting, and derive a local optimal solution that satisfies the KKT conditions for the transmit power of UEs to the nonconvex and NP-hard sum rate problem. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the theoretical findings and to show the advantage of our proposed schemes compared to previous protocols.

Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) has been widely deemed as the attractive anode candidate for rechargeable lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) on account of its apparently high capacity and intriguing 2‐dimensional (2D) layered structure. In our work, the growth of MoS2 nanoflowers with expanded interlayer spacing onto nitrogen‐doped reduced graphene oxide has been successfully performed via an effective poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) guided assembly route. The theoretical and experimental results indicate that PVP as linker is a major contribution both in regulating the microstructure of MoS2 nanoflowers and improving the electrichemical properties of flower‐like MoS2/N‐graphene (F‐MoS2/NG) composite. When utilized as the anode materials, the as‐made F‐MoS2/NG composite shows the boosted electrochemical performance for reversible lithium storage. It delivers a high reversible capacity of 1060 mAh/g at 100 mA/g even after 150 cycles, much higher than that of control MoS2/G electrode (416 mAh/g). The kinetics analysis reveals that the remarkable rate capability of F‐MoS2/NG is mainly ascribed to the pseudocapacitive process, which is rendered by its unique architecture including well‐defined MoS2 nanoflowers, the doping of nitrogen onto graphene, and the enhanced synergistic effect between them.

In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a five-port optical router based on mode-selective property. It utilizes different combinations of four spatial modes at input and output ports as labels to distinguish its 20 routing paths. It can direct signals from the source port to the destination port intelligently without power consumption and additional switching time to realize various path steering. The proposed architecture is constructed by asymmetric directional coupler based mode-multiplexers/de-multiplexers, multimode interference based waveguide crossings and single-mode interconnect waveguides. The broad optical bandwidths of these constituents make the device suitable to combine with wavelength division multiplexing signal transmission, which can effectively increase the data throughput. Measurement results show that the insertion loss of its 20 routing paths are lower than 8.5 dB and the optical signal-to-noise ratios are larger than 16.3 dB at 1525–1565 nm. To characterize its routing functionality, a 40-Gbps data transmission with bit-error-rate (BER) measurement is implemented. The power penalties for the error-free switching (BER−9) are 1.0 dB and 0.8 dB at 1545 nm and 1565 nm, respectively.

Photonic network-on-chip for high-performance multi-core processors has attracted substantial interest in recent years as it offers a systematic method to meet the demand of large bandwidth, low latency and low power dissipation. In this paper we demonstrate a non-blocking six-port optical switch for cluster-mesh photonic network-on-chip. The architecture is constructed by substituting three optical switching units of typical Spanke-Benes network to optical waveguide crossings. Compared with Spanke-Benes network, the number of optical switching units is reduced by 20%, while the connectivity of routing path is maintained. By this way the footprint and power consumption can be reduced at the expense of sacrificing the network latency performance in some cases. The device is realized by 12 thermally tuned silicon Mach-Zehnder optical switching units. Its theoretical spectral responses are evaluated by establishing a numerical model. The experimental spectral responses are also characterized, which indicates that the optical signal-to-noise ratios of the optical switch are larger than 13.5 dB in the wavelength range from 1525 nm to 1565 nm. Data transmission experiment with the data rate of 32 Gbps is implemented for each optical link.

Data exchange among different mode channels is indispensable for optical communication system adopting mode-division multiplexing. Traditional mode exchange device is complex in procedure and large in footprint, which makes it not suitable for dense and large-scale photonic integration. Utilizing the degree of freedom of silicon meta-structure, we design an ultracompact and optically broadband mode exchange device between TE0 and TE1 modes by the step-by-step inverse-design method considering the axisymmetric constraint. Simulation result shows that it is robust to a temperature variation of 100 K and a fabrication error of ±20 nm. The fabricated device is 4 × 1.6 μm2 in footprint. The simulated conversion efficiencies are over 73% and 71% for TE0 to TE1 and TE1 to TE0 within the whole C-band, and the experimental results are about 10% lower than the simulation. 40 Gbps OOK and 25 GBaud PAM-4 data transmission through the device are carried out, which shows good signal quality. We envision that the device...

We demonstrate a single-drive parallel-push–pull silicon optical modulator. Compared with the serial-push–pull scheme, the parallel-push–pull scheme allows the driving signal to be applied on both the arms without division. It makes the device suitable for low-voltage driving. Since the electrode drives two PN junctions at the same time, we dope the waveguides periodically in order to lower the capacitance per unit length of the loaded PN junction. This design could alleviate the matching requirement of the coplanar waveguide electrode. When optically biased at the quadrature point, the device has an extinction ratio of 3.1 dB at the speed of 20 Gbps and under the driving voltage of 1.8 Vpp. Benefitting from the push–pull scheme, its linearity performance is also improved. Compared with the device adopting the scheme with only one arm being driven, the spurious free dynamic ranges for second-order harmonic distortion and third-order intermodulation distortion increase by 11.5 dB and 2 dB to 101 dB . Hz 1 ∕ 2 and 113 dB . Hz 2 ∕ 3 , respectively.

In this letter, we investigate the joint power control and time allocation scheme in a wireless powered communication network, in which wireless sensors harvest the energy and then transmit information with a time switching protocol. Unlike the time-division-multiple-access scheme, the time switching protocol allows sensors transmit information signal simultaneously. Our purpose is to maximize sum of the user-centric energy efficiency (EE) of the system. However, due to the coupled time and power, the user-centric EE optimization problem is non-convex, which is difficult to be solved directly. We propose an iterative resource management scheme to solve the formulated problem. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the fast convergence and to show the advantage of our proposed algorithm compared with the previous studies.

We demonstrate a four-port optical switch for the fat-tree photonic network-on-chip architecture, which contains four silicon Mach–Zehnder optical switch elements tuned by the plasma dispersion effect. The optical signal-to-noise ratio of the device is over 10.0 dB in the wavelength range from 1525 to 1565 nm. The routing functionality of the device is verified and 50- × 32-Gb/s wavelength-division-multiplexing data transmission for one optical link is demonstrated. The rise and fall times (10%–90% and 90%–10%) of the optical switch element are both ∼2 ns. The average power consumption of the device is ∼56.8 mW.

We demonstrate a directed XNOR/XOR optical logic circuit based on silicon Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The device with the symmetric arm design is wavelength-insensitive in a wavelength range of 40 nm. The device has an electro-optical bandwidth of around 20 GHz. When the device is optically biased at the maximum or minimum transmission points by tuning the heater on one of its arms, it can perform the XNOR or XOR operations respectively at a speed up to 20 Gbps. The high-speed and reconfigurable abilities of the device make it suitable for the future programmable optical logic array.

Ruditapes philippinarum is an economically important marine bivalve species. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) play significant roles in the immune response of aquatic animals in defending against diverse environmental threats or stresses. In this study, a full length cDNA of HSP70 was cloned from the clam and expression profiles were performed in different color strain of R. philippinarum. The complete HSP70 genes of R. philippinarum were identified and characterized. The complete open reading frame (ORF) fragments of HSP70 were 1875 bp encoding 624 amino acids residues. Based on the amino acid sequence analysis and phylogenetic analysis, the RpHSP70 gene was identified as a member of the cytoplasmic HSP70 family, being the constitutive expression. The mRNA levels of RpHSP70 under acute high temperature and low salinity stresses were analyzed by real-time PCR. The relative expression of RpHSP70 in different color strains were up-regulated after being treated with heat shock in the first 12 h, and reached 7.46-fold compared with the blank at 12 h after challenge in wild R. philippinarum, while reached 3.56, 9.21, and 3.62 for zebra, white, and orange strain, respectively. These results indicate that RpHSP70 expression in gill was inducible under thermal stress and low salinity stress, and the increase of RpHSP70 mRNA presumably reflected the cellular requirement for more HSP70 protein to promote the refolding and renaturation of abnormal proteins. All the findings will contribute to better understanding the biological function of HSPs in defending against environmental challenge and further exploring the innate immune response in R. philippinarum.

Most existing resource management problem models arise from the original desire of allocating resources in either a user-centric or network-centric manner. The difference between their objectives is obvious: user-centric methods attempt to optimize the utility of individual users, whereas network-centric models intend to optimize the collective utilities of the entire network. In this paper, from the above two aspects, we analyze the robust power control problem in device-to-device (D2D) communication underlaying cellular networks, where two types of channel uncertainty set (e.g., ellipsoidal and column-wise) are considered. In the user-centric method, we formulate the problem into the form of a Stackelberg game, where the energy efficiency (EE) of each user is the ingredient of utility function. In order to protect the cellular user equipment's (CUE) uplink transmission, we introduce a price based cost function into the objectives of D2D user equipment (DUE). The existence and uniqueness of the game with the influence of channel uncertainty and price are discussed. In the network-centric method, we aim to maximize the collective EE of CUEs and DUEs. We show that by the appropriate mathematical transformation, the network-centric D2D power control problem has the identical local solution to that of a special case of the user-centric problem, where price plays a key role. Numerical results show the performance of the robust power control algorithms in the user-centric and network-centric models.

In the area of interference management, many works have used interference alignment (IA) to tackle interference in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). However, few work has been done from the energy-efficiency (EE) aspect. In this study, the authors address the joint EE resource allocation and IA problem for HetNets where several femtocells underlay within the coverage of a macrocell, and take into account the service requirements of macro cell user (MU). A mixed integer and non-convex optimisation framework is adopted to investigate the EE maximisation problem which is a multi-dimensional resource management problem. To solve the problem, the authors propose a user scheduling scheme to determine the transmission sequence as well as encoding and decoding matrices for each user. Then an iterative power control algorithm is proposed to optimise the EE of the networks. Simulation results validate the convergence and performance of proposed scheme.

We demonstrate physical random bit (PRB) generation from two chaotic optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs) with silicon Mach–Zehnder and microring resonator modulators. The carrier-injection modulation and the beam interference provide the nonlinearity for the OEO. We digitalize the chaotic waveforms from the two OEOs at 40 GS/s with 8-bit resolution and use self-delay bitwise exclusive-or operation as a post-processing method. The randomness of the resulting 320 Gbps PRB sequences is verified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-22 statistical tests. With the progress of silicon photonic circuits, there is a potential to fabricate a monolithic chaotic OEO chip for compact PRB generation.