Optical feedback exists in most laser configurations and strongly affects laser performances depending on the feedback strength, length, and phase. In this paper, we investigate the frequency comb ...behaviour of a semiconductor quantum cascade laser emitting around 4.2 THz with external optical feedback. A periodic evolution of the laser inter-mode beatnote from single-line to multiple-line structures is experimentally observed with a minor change of optical feedback length (phase) on the wavelength scale. The comb stability of the laser with feedback is also measured and compared with the same laser without feedback. Furthermore, our simulations reveal that the dynamical oscillations invoked by optical feedback are responsible for the measured multiple-line beatnotes. It is found that the characteristic feedback period is determined by the half wavelength of the laser, while the comb operation is maintained at most feedback length positions. Therefore, terahertz quantum cascade laser combs are robust against the minor position vibration of the feedback mirror in practice, owing to the much smaller feedback phase change than that of common near-infrared laser diodes.
Climate networks are powerful approaches to disclose tele-connections in climate systems and to predict severe climate events. Here we construct regional climate networks from precipitation data in ...the Amazonian region and focus on network properties under the recent drought events in 2005 and 2010. Both the networks of the entire Amazon region and the extreme networks resulted from locations severely affected by drought events suggest that network characteristics show slight difference between the two drought events. Based on network degrees of extreme drought events and that without drought conditions, we identify regions of interest that are correlated to longer expected drought period length. Moreover, we show that the spatial correlation length to the regions of interest decayed much faster in 2010 than in 2005, which is because of the dual roles played by both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The results suggest that hub nodes in the regional climate network of Amazonia have fewer long-range connections when more severe drought conditions appeared in 2010 than that in 2005.
The molecular mechanisms that regulate fat deposition in bovine adipose tissue have not been well studied. To elucidate the genes and gene networks involved in bovine fat development, transcriptional ...profiles of backfat (BF) tissues from Hereford x Aberdeen Angus (HEAN, n = 6) and Charolais x Red Angus (CHRA, n = 6) steers with high or low BF thickness were characterized by digital gene expression-tag profiling. Approximately 9.8 to 21.9 million tags were obtained for each library, and a total of 18,034 genes were identified. In total, 650 genes were found to be differentially expressed, with a greater than 1.5-fold difference between the 2 crossbreds (Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate ≤ 0.05). The majority of differentially expressed genes that were more highly expressed in CHRA vs. HEAN were associated with development, whereas the differentially expressed genes with greater expression in HEAN vs. CHRA were overrepresented in biological processes such as metabolism and immune response. Thirty-six and 152 differentially expressed genes were detected between animals with high (n = 3) and low (n = 3) BF thickness in HEAN and CHRA, respectively (Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate ≤0.05). The differentially expressed genes between high and low groups in CHRA were related to cell proliferation and development processes. In addition, lipid metabolism was 1 of the top 5 molecular and cellular functions identified in both crossbreds. Ten and 17 differentially expressed genes were found to be involved in fat metabolism in HEAN and CHRA, respectively. Genes associated with obesity, such as PTX3 (pentraxin 3, long) and SERPINE1 (serpin peptidase inhibitor, clade E, member 1), were more highly expressed (P < 0.05) in the subset of CHRA animals with greater BF thickness. Our study revealed that the expression patterns of genes in BF tissues differed depending on the genetic background of the cattle.
With the luminosity upgrade of the LHC machine (SLHC, Super-LHC), the Muon system of the ATLAS experiment at CERN will also need a detector upgrade in the highest rapidity region. MAMMA, Muon ATLAS ...Micromegas Activity, is an ongoing R&D activity with the aim to develop large detectors based on the bulk-Micromegas technology for use in the ATLAS Muon Spectrometer. Micromegas is a good potential candidate for the construction of large muon chambers that combine trigger and tracking capability and can sustain high particle rates expected at the SLHC. A medium size Micromegas prototype, in scale 1:10 of the final chambers, has been built and evaluated in the laboratory and in beam tests at CERN. Results from the analysis of test-beam data are presented. The results indicate that large size Micromegas is a viable candidate for ATLAS Muon upgrade
Significant progress has been made in preventing severe COVID-19 disease through the development of vaccines. However, we still lack a validated baseline predictive biologic signature for the ...development of more severe disease in both outpatients and inpatients infected with SARS-CoV-2. The objective of this study was to develop and externally validate, via 5 international outpatient and inpatient trials and/or prospective cohort studies, a novel baseline proteomic signature, which predicts the development of moderate or severe (vs mild) disease in patients with COVID-19 from a proteomic analysis of 7000 + proteins. The secondary objective was exploratory, to identify (1) individual baseline protein levels and/or (2) protein level changes within the first 2 weeks of acute infection that are associated with the development of moderate/severe (vs mild) disease. For model development, samples collected from 2 randomized controlled trials were used. Plasma was isolated and the SomaLogic SomaScan platform was used to characterize protein levels for 7301 proteins of interest for all studies. We dichotomized 113 patients as having mild or moderate/severe COVID-19 disease. An elastic net approach was used to develop a predictive proteomic signature. For validation, we applied our signature to data from three independent prospective biomarker studies. We found 4110 proteins measured at baseline that significantly differed between patients with mild COVID-19 and those with moderate/severe COVID-19 after adjusting for multiple hypothesis testing. Baseline protein expression was associated with predicted disease severity with an error rate of 4.7% (AUC = 0.964). We also found that five proteins (Afamin, I-309, NKG2A, PRS57, LIPK) and patient age serve as a signature that separates patients with mild COVID-19 and patients with moderate/severe COVID-19 with an error rate of 1.77% (AUC = 0.9804). This panel was validated using data from 3 external studies with AUCs of 0.764 (Harvard University), 0.696 (University of Colorado), and 0.893 (Karolinska Institutet). In this study we developed and externally validated a baseline COVID-19 proteomic signature associated with disease severity for potential use in both outpatients and inpatients with COVID-19.
In this paper, a filtering-error constrained adaptive iterative learning control scheme is proposed to solve the angle tracking problem for a pneumatic artificial muscle-actuated mechanism. The ...adaptive learning controller is designed by a novel barrier Lyapunov function, and the filtering error of pneumatic artificial muscle system is ensured to be constrained during each iteration. The initial position problem of iterative learning control is solved by utilizing time-varying boundary layer method. Fuzzy logic system is applied to approximate the unknown nonparametric uncertainties in the pneumatic artificial muscle system, whose optimal weight is estimated by using difference learning approach. The approximation error of fuzzy logic system is tackled by robust control strategy. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the propose angle tracking adaptive learning fuzzy control scheme.
•GNF added PEO/(PVDF-HFP) polymer electrolyte successfully prepared.•0.005g GNF added polymer electrolyte shows the best electrochemical performances.•GNF leads to generated charge carriers quickly ...insert to TiO2 film.•The ionic conductivity of 0.005g GNF is 8.67×10−4scm−1.•Cell efficiency increased to 4.60% with 0.005g GNF added polymer electrolyte.
The PEO and PVDF-HFP mixtures were used as polymer electrolytes in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Correlation between the ionic conductivity and cell performance by varying the composition of polymer electrolytes was investigated to elucidate the importance of the ionic conductivity in determining the charge transfer and energy conversion efficiency of solid-state DSSCs. In this work, for increasing the ionic conductivity and charge transfer, GNF was added to the polymer electrolyte. The ionic conductivity of polymer electrolyte containing GNF (0.005g) is 8.67×10−4Scm−1 and pristine polymer electrolyte is 3.81×10−4Scm−1. The charge transfer of GNF (0.005g) added DSSCs is faster than the other samples, the electron transport time is 1.53ms and electron life time is 27.20ms. The increase of current density with the polymer electrolyte containing GNF (0.005g) can be possibly attributed to the direct contact between dye/TiO2 and I−/I3− that will improve the charge transportation. The highest energy conversion efficiency of 4.60% is obtained for polymer electrolyte containing GNF (0.005g).
SiO2 nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning method and incorporated as filler into a hybrid polymer matrix of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and poly(vinylidene fluoride)–hexafluoropropylene ...(PVDF–HFP). The effectiveness of the SiO2 nanofiber-filled matrix as a polymer electrolyte for solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) was evaluated. The SiO2 nanofiber filler was found to increase the ionic conductivity, thereby improving the charge transport of the I−/I3− redox couple in the electrolyte. As a result, the efficiency of the DSCs was increased by up to 24% as compared with a pristine polymer electrolyte. The ionic conductivity was found to be greatest in the polymer electrolyte containing 0.01g of SiO2 nanofiber filler, 9.90×10−4scm−1, which represents a substantial increase over the 3.81×10−4scm−1 of a pristine polymer electrolyte. Furthermore, the addition of 0.01g of SiO2 nanofiber filler also produced the highest electron transport time of 1.47ms, an electron recombination time of 29.41ms, and a charge collection efficiency of 94.99%. The SiO2 nanofiber filler also greatly enhanced the interfacial stability between the polymer electrolyte and the semiconductor electrodes, with the hybrid polymer electrolyte containing 0.01g of SiO2 nanofiber filler exhibiting both the lowest cell impedance (20.96Ω) and the highest solar conversion efficiency (4.85%) in this study.
The molecular mechanisms that regulate fat deposition in bovine adipose tissue have not been well studied. To elucidate the genes and gene networks involved in bovine fat development, transcriptional ...profiles of backfat (BF) tissues from Hereford × Aberdeen Angus (HEAN, n = 6) and Charolais × Red Angus (CHRA, n = 6) steers with high or low BF thickness were characterized by digital gene expression-tag profiling. Approximately 9.8 to 21.9 million tags were obtained for each library, and a total of 18,034 genes were identified. In total, 650 genes were found to be differentially expressed, with a greater than 1.5-fold difference between the 2 crossbreds (Benjamini-Hochberg false discovery rate ≤ 0.05). The majority of differentially expressed genes that were more highly expressed in CHRA vs. HEAN were associated with development, whereas the differentially expressed genes with greater expression in HEAN vs. CHRA were overrepresented in biological processes such as metabolism and immune response. Thirty-six and 152 differentially expressed genes were detected between animals with lngh (n = 3) and low (n = 3) BF thickness in HEAN and (1HRA, respectively (Benjamini-Hochherg false discovery rate ≤ 0.05). The differentially expressed genes between high and low groups in CHRA were related to cell proliferation and development processes. In addition, lipid metabolism was 1 of the top 5 molecular and cellular functions identified in both crossbreds. Ten and 17 differentially expressed genes were found to he involved in fat metabolism in HEAN and CHRA, respectively. Genes associated with obesity, such as PTX9 (pentrax-in 3, long) and SERPINE1 (serpin peptidase inhibitor, clade E, member 1), were more highly expressed (P < 0.05) in the subset of CHRA animals with greater BF thickness. Our study revealed that the expression patterns of genes in BF tissues differed depending on the genetic background of the cattle. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Bacterial strain CCBAU 25048(T) was isolated from root nodules of Kummerowia stipulacea grown in Shandong province of China. Cells of the strain were Gram-negative, strictly aerobic, ...non-spore-forming, motile short rods. Phylogeny of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the strain belonged to the genus Shinella, a member of family Rhizobiaceae. Its closest phylogenetic relatives were Shinella granuli Ch06(T) and Shinella zoogloeoides IAM 12669(T), respectively showing 98.3 and 98.9 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. Strain CCBAU 25048(T) had DNA-DNA relatedness of 43.5 and 34.8 %, respectively, with S. zoogloeoides JCM 20728(T) and S. granuli JCM 13254(T). In addition, in TP-RAPD analysis, different patterns were obtained for these three strains and some rhizobial strains. The nifH, nodC and nodD sequences of CCBAU 25048(T) were identical or very similar to those of bean-nodulating Rhizobium tropici strains. Several phenotypic characteristics, including the use of citrate and d-ribose as carbon sources and growth at pH 11.0, as well as the fatty acid composition, could differentiate CCBAU 25048(T) from the two defined Shinella species. Therefore, a novel species Shinella kummerowiae sp. nov. is proposed, with strain CCBAU 25048(T) (=JCM 14778(T) =LMG 24136(T)) as the type strain.
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