Majorana zero modes are localized quasiparticles that obey non-Abelian exchange statistics. Braiding Majorana zero modes forms the basis of topologically protected quantum operations which could, in ...principle, significantly reduce qubit decoherence and gate control errors at the device level. Therefore, searching for Majorana zero modes in various solid state systems is a major topic in condensed matter physics and quantum computer science. Since the first experimental signature observed in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices, this field has witnessed a dramatic expansion in material science, transport experiments and theory. While making the first topological qubit based on these Majorana nanowires is currently an ongoing effort, several related important transport experiments are still being pursued in the near term. These will not only serve as intermediate steps but also show Majorana physics in a more fundamental aspect. In this perspective, we summarize these key Majorana experiments and the potential challenges.
Two-dimensional materials provide extraordinary opportunities for exploring phenomena arising in atomically thin crystals. Beginning with the first isolation of graphene, mechanical exfoliation has ...been a key to provide high-quality two-dimensional materials, but despite improvements it is still limited in yield, lateral size and contamination. Here we introduce a contamination-free, one-step and universal Au-assisted mechanical exfoliation method and demonstrate its effectiveness by isolating 40 types of single-crystalline monolayers, including elemental two-dimensional crystals, metal-dichalcogenides, magnets and superconductors. Most of them are of millimeter-size and high-quality, as shown by transfer-free measurements of electron microscopy, photo spectroscopies and electrical transport. Large suspended two-dimensional crystals and heterojunctions were also prepared with high-yield. Enhanced adhesion between the crystals and the substrates enables such efficient exfoliation, for which we identify a gold-assisted exfoliation method that underpins a universal route for producing large-area monolayers and thus supports studies of fundamental properties and potential application of two-dimensional materials.
Compared with free enzymes, immobilized enzymes are more robust and resistant to environmental changes. In addition, with enhanced stability, immobilized enzymes can be separated from the reaction ...mixture and used for repeated cycles. These advantages prompt their applications in various fields. This review outlines the existing methods and easy separated support materials for enzymes immobilization. After a brief introduction on the immobilized enzyme, the immobilization methods of adsorption, entrapment, covalent attachment and cross-linking are discussed. The emphasis is given on the easy separated support materials of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs), membranes and capillary columns. An outlook on the immobilized enzyme is given at last.
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•Detailed methods for enzymes immobilization are discussed.•MNPs, membranes and capillary columns are presented to solve the separation problems of immobilized enzymes.•Applications of easy separated support matrices in enzymes immobilization are summarized.•Future perspectives of immobilized enzymes are presented.
In this paper, we are interested in the human pose estimation problem with a focus on learning reliable high-resolution representations. Most existing methods recover high-resolution representations ...from low-resolution representations produced by a high-to-low resolution network. Instead, our proposed network maintains high-resolution representations through the whole process. We start from a high-resolution subnetwork as the first stage, gradually add high-to-low resolution subnetworks one by one to form more stages, and connect the mutli-resolution subnetworks in parallel. We conduct repeated multi-scale fusions such that each of the high-to-low resolution representations receives information from other parallel representations over and over, leading to rich high-resolution representations. As a result, the predicted keypoint heatmap is potentially more accurate and spatially more precise. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of our network through the superior pose estimation results over two benchmark datasets: the COCO keypoint detection dataset and the MPII Human Pose dataset. In addition, we show the superiority of our network in pose tracking on the PoseTrack dataset. The code and models have been publicly available at https://github.com/leoxiaobin/deep-high-resolution-net.pytorch.
Conspectus Oxidative cross-coupling reactions between two nucleophiles are a powerful synthetic strategy to synthesize various kinds of functional molecules. Along with the development of ...transition-metal-catalyzed oxidative cross-coupling reactions, chemists are applying more and more first-row transition metal salts (Fe, Co, etc.) as catalysts. Since first-row transition metals often can go through multiple chemical valence changes, those oxidative cross-couplings can involve single electron transfer processes. In the meantime, chemists have developed diverse mechanistic hypotheses of these types of reactions. However, none of these hypotheses have led to conclusive reaction pathways until now. From studying both our own work and that of others in this field, we believe that radical oxidative cross-coupling reactions can be classified into four models based on the final bond formations. In this Account, we categorize and summarize these models. In model I, one of the starting nucleophiles initially loses one electron to generate its corresponding radical under oxidative conditions. Then, bond formations between this radical and another nucleophile create a new radical, Nu1–Nu2•, followed by a further radical oxidation step to generate the cross-coupling product. The radical oxidative alkenylation with olefin, radical oxidative arylative-annulation, and radical oxidative amidation are examples of this model. In model II, one of the starting nucleophiles loses its two electrons via two steps of single-electron-transfer to generate an electrophilic intermediate, followed by a direct bond formation with the other nucleophile. For example, the oxidative C–O coupling of benzylic sp3 C–H bonds with carboxylic acids and oxidative C–N coupling of aldehydes with amides are members of this model group. For model III, both nucleophiles are oxidized to their corresponding radicals. Then, the radicals combine to form the final coupling product. The dioxygen-involved radical oxidative cross-couplings between sulfinic acids and olefins or alkynes belong to this bond formation model. Lastly, in model IV, one nucleophile loses two electrons to generate an electrophilic intermediate, while the other nucleophile loses one electron to generate a radical. Then, a bond forms between the cation and the radical to generate a cationic radical, followed by a one-electron reduction to afford the final coupling product. The oxidative coupling between arylboronic acids and simple ethers was classified in this model. At the current stage, there are only a few examples presented for models III and IV, but they represent two types of potentially important transformations. More and more examples of these two models will be developed in the future.
Abstract
Black hole (BH) ultracompact X-ray binaries (UCXBs) are potential Galactic low-frequency gravitational wave (GW) sources. As an alternative channel, BH UCXBs can evolve from BH+He star ...binaries. In this work, we perform a detailed stellar evolution model for the formation and evolution of BH UCXBs evolving from the He star channel to diagnose their detectability as low-frequency GW sources. Our calculations found that some nascent BH+He star binaries after the common-envelope (CE) phase could evolve into UCXB-LISA sources with a maximum GW frequency of ∼5 mHz, which can be detected in a distance of 10 kpc (or 100 kpc). Once BH+He star systems become UCXBs through mass transfer, they would emit X-ray luminosities of ∼10
38
erg s
−1
, making them ideal multimessenger objects. If the initial He-star masses are ≥0.7
M
⊙
, those systems are likely to experience two Roche lobe overflows, and the X-ray luminosity can reach a maximum of 3.5 × 10
39
erg s
−1
in the second mass-transfer stage. The initial He-star masses and initial orbital periods of progenitors of Galactic BH UCXB-LISA sources are in the range of 0.32–2.9
M
⊙
and 0.02–0.19 days, respectively. Nearly all BH+He star binaries in the above parameter space can evolve into GW sources whose chirp masses can be accurately measured. Employing a population synthesis simulation, we predict the birthrate and detection number of Galactic BH UCXB-LISA sources evolving from the He star channel are
R
= 2.2 × 10
−6
yr
−1
and 33 for an optimistic CE parameter, respectively.
In this paper, we investigate the optimal caching policy, respectively, maximizing the success probability and area spectral efficiency (ASE) in a cache-enabled heterogeneous network (HetNet), where ...a tier of multi-antenna macro base stations (MBSs) is overlaid with a tier of helpers with caches. Under the probabilistic caching framework, we resort to stochastic geometry theory to derive the success probability and ASE. After finding the optimal caching policies, we analyze the impact of critical system parameters and compare the ASE with traditional HetNet where the MBS tier is overlaid by a tier of pico BSs (PBSs) with limited-capacity backhaul. Analytical and numerical results show that the optimal caching probability is less skewed among helpers to maximize the success probability when the ratios of MBS-to-helper density, MBS-to-helper transmit power, user-to-helper density, or the rate requirement are small, but is more skewed to maximize the ASE in general. Compared with traditional HetNet, the helper density is much lower than the PBS density to achieve the same target ASE. The helper density can be reduced by increasing cache size. With given total cache size within an area, there exists an optimal helper node density that maximizes the ASE.
Medicines for the treatment of 2019-novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) infections are urgently needed. However, drug screening using live 2019-nCoV requires high-level biosafety facilities, which imposes ...an obstacle for those institutions without such facilities or 2019-nCoV. This study aims to repurpose the clinically approved drugs for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a 2019-nCoV-related coronavirus model.
A 2019-nCoV-related pangolin coronavirus GX_P2V/pangolin/2017/Guangxi was described. Whether GX_P2V uses angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as the cell receptor was investigated by using small interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated silencing of ACE2. The pangolin coronavirus model was used to identify drug candidates for treating 2019-nCoV infection. Two libraries of 2406 clinically approved drugs were screened for their ability to inhibit cytopathic effects on Vero E6 cells by GX_P2V infection. The anti-viral activities and anti-viral mechanisms of potential drugs were further investigated. Viral yields of RNAs and infectious particles were quantified by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and plaque assay, respectively.
The spike protein of coronavirus GX_P2V shares 92.2% amino acid identity with that of 2019-nCoV isolate Wuhan-hu-1, and uses ACE2 as the receptor for infection just like 2019-nCoV. Three drugs, including cepharanthine (CEP), selamectin, and mefloquine hydrochloride, exhibited complete inhibition of cytopathic effects in cell culture at 10 μmol/L. CEP demonstrated the most potent inhibition of GX_P2V infection, with a concentration for 50% of maximal effect EC50 of 0.98 μmol/L. The viral RNA yield in cells treated with 10 μmol/L CEP was 15,393-fold lower than in cells without CEP treatment (6.48 ± 0.02 × 10vs. 1.00 ± 0.12, t = 150.38, P < 0.001) at 72 h post-infection (p.i.). Plaque assays found no production of live viruses in media containing 10 μmol/L CEP at 48 h p.i. Furthermore, we found CEP had potent anti-viral activities against both viral entry (0.46 ± 0.12, vs.1.00 ± 0.37, t = 2.42, P < 0.05) and viral replication (6.18 ± 0.95 × 10vs. 1.00 ± 0.43, t = 3.98, P < 0.05).
Our pangolin coronavirus GX_P2V is a workable model for 2019-nCoV research. CEP, selamectin, and mefloquine hydrochloride are potential drugs for treating 2019-nCoV infection. Our results strongly suggest that CEP is a wide-spectrum inhibitor of pan-betacoronavirus, and further study of CEP for treatment of 2019-nCoV infection is warranted.
In recent decades, iodine-catalyzed oxidative coupling reactions utilizing C - H and X - H as nucleophiles have received considerable attention because they represent more efficient, greener, more ...atom-economical, and milder bond-formation strategies over transition-metal-catalyzed oxidative coupling reactions. This Focus Review gives a brief summary of recent development on iodine-catalyzed oxidative coupling reactions utilizing C - H and X - H as nucleophiles.
ADJUVANT-CTONG1104 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01405079), a randomized phase III trial, showed that adjuvant gefitinib treatment significantly improved disease-free survival (DFS) versus ...vinorelbine plus cisplatin (VP) in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (
) mutation-positive resected stage II-IIIA (N1-N2) non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Here, we report the final overall survival (OS) results.
From September 2011 to April 2014, 222 patients from 27 sites were randomly assigned 1:1 to adjuvant gefitinib (n = 111) or VP (n = 111). Patients with resected stage II-IIIA (N1-N2) NSCLC and
-activating mutation were enrolled, receiving gefitinib for 24 months or VP every 3 weeks for four cycles. The primary end point was DFS (intention-to-treat ITT population). Secondary end points included OS, 3-, 5-year (y) DFS rates, and 5-year OS rate. Post hoc analysis was conducted for subsequent therapy data.
Median follow-up was 80.0 months. Median OS (ITT) was 75.5 and 62.8 months with gefitinib and VP, respectively (hazard ratio HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.62 to 1.36;
= .674); respective 5-year OS rates were 53.2% and 51.2% (
= .784). Subsequent therapy was administered upon progression in 68.4% and 73.6% of patients receiving gefitinib and VP, respectively. Subsequent targeted therapy contributed most to OS (HR, 0.23; 95% CI, 0.14 to 0.38) compared with no subsequent therapy. Updated 3y DFS rates were 39.6% and 32. 5% with gefitinib and VP (
= .316) and 5y DFS rates were 22. 6% and 23.2% (
= .928), respectively.
Adjuvant therapy with gefitinib in patients with early-stage NSCLC and
mutation demonstrated improved DFS over standard of care chemotherapy. Although this DFS advantage did not translate to a significant OS difference, OS with adjuvant gefitinib was one of the longest observed in this patient group compared with historic data.
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