By pulsed s-shell resonant excitation of a single quantum dot-micropillar system, we generate long streams of 1000 near-transform-limited single photons with high mutual indistinguishability. The ...Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of two photons is measured as a function of their emission time separation varying from 13 ns to 14.7 μs, where the visibility slightly drops from 95.9(2)% to a plateau of 92.1(5)% through a slow dephasing process occurring at a time scale of 0.7 μs. A temporal and spectral analysis reveals the pulsed resonance fluorescence single photons are close to the transform limit, which are readily useful for multiphoton entanglement and interferometry experiments.
Summary
Background
Various trials have been conducted on the management of male pattern hair loss (MPHL), but the outcomes often seem to be limited. Adjuvant therapies are urgently needed.
Aim
To ...evaluate the efficacy and safety of combined fractional radiofrequency microneedling (FRM) and 5% topical minoxidil in the treatment of male pattern hair loss.
Methods
In total, 19 Chinese men were enrolled in this randomized, controlled, split‐scalp trial. Participants received monotherapy with 5% topical minoxidil twice daily to one half of the scalp, while on the other half of the scalp the treatment with twice‐daily 5% topical minoxidil was combined with five sessions of FRM at 4‐week intervals. Mean hair count and hair thickness, global assessment by the investigators, subject self‐assessment and adverse effects were assessed.
Results
After 5 months of treatment, mean hair count increased from 44.12 ± 21.58 to 73.14 ± 25.45 on the combined‐therapy side and from 46.22 ± 18.77 to 63.21 ± 19.22 on the monotherapy side, while mean hair thickness increased from 53 ± 13 μm to 71 ± 15 μm and from 52 ± 16 μm to 66 ± 14 μm, respectively. Compared with the monotherapy side, the combined‐therapy side had a higher degree of improvement in both hair count (P = 0.01) and hair thickness (P = 0.02).
Conclusions
Combined treatment with fractional radiofrequency microneedle and 5% topical minoxidil could be an effective and safe treatment option for male pattern hair loss.
The CDEX-1 experiment conducted a search of low-mass (< 10GeV/c super(2)) weakly interacting massive particles dark matter at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory using a p-type point-contact ...germanium detector with a fiducial mass of 915 g at a physics analysis threshold of 475 eVee. We report the hardware setup, detector characterization, data acquisition, and analysis procedures of this experiment. No excess of unidentified events is observed after the subtraction of the known background. Using 335.6 kg-days of data, exclusion constraints on the weakly interacting massive particle-nucleon spin-independent and spin-dependent couplings are derived.
Neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) has increasingly become a clinical challenge. The mechanisms by which neuroendocrine (NE) cells arises from prostate adenocarcinoma cells are poorly understood. ...FOXA1 is a transcription factor of the forkhead family that is required for prostate epithelial differentiation. In this study, we demonstrated that FOXA1 loss drives NE differentiation, demarcated by phenotypical changes and NEPC marker expressions. Mechanistically, this is mediated by FOXA1 binding to the promoter of interleukin 8 (IL-8), a chemokine previously shown elevated in NEPC, to directly inhibit its expression. Further, IL-8 upregulation activates the MAPK/ERK pathway, leading to ERK phosphorylation and enolase 2 (ENO2) expression. IL-8 knockdown or ERK inhibition, on the other hand, abolished FOXA1 loss-induced NE differentiation. Analysis of xenograft mouse models confirmed FOXA1 loss in NEPC tumors relative to its adenocarcinoma counterparts. Importantly, FOXA1 is downregulated in human NEPC tumors compared to primary and castration-resistant prostate cancers, and its expression is negatively correlated with that of ENO2. These findings indicate that FOXA1 transcriptionally suppresses IL-8, the expression of which would otherwise stimulate the MAPK/ERK pathway to promote NE differentiation of prostate cancer cells. Our data strongly suggest that FOXA1 loss may play a significant role in enabling prostate cancer progression to NEPC, whereas IL-8 and MAPK/ERK pathways may be promising targets for therapeutic intervention.
Purpose
The function of B cells in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is controversial. The role of B-cell-related tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) is still unclear. Whether B cells exert their ...anti-tumor effect through forming TLS in PTC needs further investigation.
Methods
We detected the percentage of B cells in PTC tissues by multi-parameter flow cytometry. Paraffin-embedded tumor tissues of 125 PTC patients were collected and stained with Haematoxylin–Eosin (H&E) for inflammatory infiltration analysis in combination with clinical features. Multiplexed immunohistochemistry (mIHC) was performed to verify the TLSs in above inflammatory infiltration. Correlation of B cells and TLSs with prognosis was analyzed using the TCGA database.
Results
We observed that PTC patients with higher expression of B lineage cell genes had improved survival and the percentage of B cells in the PTC tumor tissues was variable. Moreover, PTC tumor tissues with more B cells were surrounded by immune cell aggregates of varying sizes. We furtherly confirmed the immune cell aggregates as TLSs with different maturation stages. By analyzing PTC data from TCGA database, we found the maturation stages of TLSs were associated with genders and clinical stages among PTC patients. Moreover, patients with high TLSs survived longer and had a better prognosis.
Conclusion
B cells are associated with the existence of TLSs which have different maturation stages in PTC. Both B cells and TLSs are associated with the survival rate of PTC. These observations indicate that the anti-tumor effects of B cells in PTC are associated with TLSs formation.
Cryovolcanism on Ceres Ruesch, O.; Platz, T.; Schenk, P. ...
Science,
09/2016, Letnik:
353, Številka:
6303
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Volcanic edifices are abundant on rocky bodies of the inner solar system. In the cold outer solar system, volcanism can occur on solid bodies with a water-ice shell, but derived cryovolcanic ...constructs have proved elusive. We report the discovery, using Dawn Framing Camera images, of a landform on dwarf planet Ceres that we argue represents a viscous cryovolcanic dome. Parent material of the cryomagma is a mixture of secondary minerals, including salts and water ice. Absolute model ages from impact craters reveal that extrusion of the dome has occurred recently. Ceres' evolution must have been able to sustain recent interior activity and associated surface expressions. We propose salts with low eutectic temperatures and thermal conductivities as key drivers for Ceres' long-term internal evolution.
Al–Nb–B master alloy has been regarded as a promising grain refiner that can reduce grain size of hypoeutectic Al–Si casting alloys. However, its grain refinement performance remains to be improved. ...In this work, the grain refinement efficacy of Al–Nb–B master alloy is significantly enhanced by modifying the Nb/B ratio through thermodynamic calculation. An Al–Nb–B master alloy with optimum Nb/B ratio of ~ 10:1 provides a fully equiaxed structure across the sections of the Al–10Si and commercial Al–9Si–0.08Ti alloys with an average grain size below 220 μm. The phenomenon is attributed to the existence of NbAl
3
and the higher number density of NbB
2
at the Nb/B ratio of ~ 10:1, which offers sufficient active nucleating sites to promote the formation of smaller grains. Moreover, the segregation behavior of Si atoms and interfacial energies after doping Si are investigated by first-principles calculations, and the results reveal that Si tends to segregate to the NbAl
3
/α-Al interface, whereas grain refining potency of NbAl
3
for Al remains unchanged. This study has implications for strategic design of Al–Si cast alloy with fine and equiaxed grain structure inoculated by grain refiner.
ABSTRACT Laboratory experiments have been carried out to model the magnetic reconnection process in a solar flare with powerful lasers. Relativistic electrons with energy up to megaelectronvolts are ...detected along the magnetic separatrices bounding the reconnection outflow, which exhibit a kappa-like distribution with an effective temperature of ∼109 K. The acceleration of non-thermal electrons is found to be more efficient in the case with a guide magnetic field (a component of a magnetic field along the reconnection-induced electric field) than in the case without a guide field. Hardening of the spectrum at energies ≥500 keV is observed in both cases, which remarkably resembles the hardening of hard X-ray and γ-ray spectra observed in many solar flares. This supports a recent proposal that the hardening in the hard X-ray and γ-ray emissions of solar flares is due to a hardening of the source-electron spectrum. We also performed numerical simulations that help examine behaviors of electrons in the reconnection process with the electromagnetic field configurations occurring in the experiments. The trajectories of non-thermal electrons observed in the experiments were well duplicated in the simulations. Our numerical simulations generally reproduce the electron energy spectrum as well, except for the hardening of the electron spectrum. This suggests that other mechanisms such as shock or turbulence may play an important role in the production of the observed energetic electrons.
Context.
The astrometric satellite
Gaia
is expected to significantly increase our knowledge as to the properties of the Milky Way. The
Gaia
Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) provides the most precise ...parallaxes for many OB stars, which can be used to delineate the Galactic spiral structure.
Aims.
We investigate the local spiral structure with the largest sample of spectroscopically confirmed young OB stars available to date, and we compare it with what was traced by the parallax measurements of masers.
Methods.
A sample consisting of three different groups of massive young stars, including O–B2 stars, O–B0 stars and O-type stars with parallax accuracies better than 10% was compiled and used in our analysis.
Results.
The local spiral structures in all four Galactic quadrants within ≈5 kpc of the Sun are clearly delineated in detail. The revealed Galactic spiral pattern outlines a clear sketch of nearby spiral arms, especially in the third and fourth quadrants where the maser parallax data are still absent. These O-type stars densify and extend the spiral structure constructed by using the Very Long Baseline Interferometry maser data alone. The clumped distribution of O-type stars also indicates that the Galaxy spiral structure is inhomogeneous.
The properties of quantum materials are commonly tuned using experimental variables such as pressure, magnetic field and doping. Here we explore a different approach using irreversible, plastic ...deformation of single crystals. We show that compressive plastic deformation induces low-dimensional superconductivity well above the superconducting transition temperature (T
) of undeformed SrTiO
, with evidence of possible superconducting correlations at temperatures two orders of magnitude above the bulk T
. The enhanced superconductivity is correlated with the appearance of self-organized dislocation structures, as revealed by diffuse neutron and X-ray scattering. We also observe deformation-induced signatures of quantum-critical ferroelectric fluctuations and inhomogeneous ferroelectric order using Raman scattering. Our results suggest that strain surrounding the self-organized dislocation structures induces local ferroelectricity and quantum-critical dynamics that strongly influence T
, consistent with a theory of superconductivity enhanced by soft polar fluctuations. Our results demonstrate the potential of plastic deformation and dislocation engineering for the manipulation of electronic properties of quantum materials.
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