Efficient preparation of W and GHZ states encoded in various degrees of freedom of quantum particles is vital in quantum information science. So far, most of the studies have focused on polarization ...encoded photonic W and GHZ states. In this paper, we focus on W- and GHZ-class entangled coherent states, and propose schemes to fuse small W- and GHZ-entangled coherent states into larger ones. Based on successive detuned interactions between optical modes and an ancilla atom, an (N+M−2)-mode entangled coherent W state can be probabilistically prepared from an N-mode and an M-mode entangled coherent W states. This fusion scheme applies to entangled coherent GHZ states too, and it can succeed in a deterministic way. The ancilla atom only interacts with a single optical mode, which avoids the problem of synchronizing many atoms in the previous cavity QED based fusion schemes. The detuning property of the interaction makes the current fusion scheme more feasible that the ones based on resonant atom–light interactions. In addition, the two levels of the ancilla atom for encoding quantum information are two degenerate ground states, and the excited state is adiabatically eliminated during the fusion process, so the atomic decay from excited states does not affect the quality of the fusion process.
•Large-scale entangled coherent W state is generated by fusing small-size ones.•The fusion mechanism is the detuned interaction between optical modes and an ancilla atom.•The fusion process applies to GHZ states too.•The probability for fusing GHZ states is unit.•The atomic decay does not affect the efficiency of the fusion scheme.
Purpose
Results of previous studies on the associations between Forkhead box A1 (FOXA1) expression in breast cancer tissues and the prognosis varied depending on the follow-up durations. The present ...study would investigate whether there is a time-varying effect of FOXA1 in breast cancer tissues on the prognosis.
Methods
FOXA1 expressions were evaluated in 1041 primary invasive breast tumors with tissue microarrays by immunohistochemistry. Cox models with restricted cubic splines and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis were used to examine the associations between FOXA1 and the prognosis. Flexible parametric models were applied to explore the time-varying effect of FOXA1.
Results
Overall, the association between FOXA1 expression and the prognosis was not significant but varied on the time of follow-up. Compared to FOXA1 ≤ 270 of H-score, the hazard ratios (
HR
s) of death for those with 271–285 of FOXA1 expression increased from 0.35 (95%
CI
0.14–0.86) at 6 months after diagnosis to 2.88 (95%
CI
1.35–6.15) at 120 months with a crossover at around 36 months. Similar patterns were also observed for FOXA1 > 285 of H-score and for progression free survival (PFS). Moreover, when allowed both FOXA1 and estrogen receptor (ER) to change over time in the model (considering that ER had a similar time-varying effect), these time-varying effects remained for FOXA1 on both overall survival (OS) (
P
< 0.01) and PFS (
P
= 0.01) but were attenuated for ER (
P
= 0.13 for OS).
Conclusions
This study revealed an independent time-varying effect of FOXA1 on breast cancer prognosis, which would provide an insight into the roles of FOXA1 as a marker of breast cancer prognosis and may help optimize the medication strategies.
We propose schemes for preparing W and GHZ photonic states entangled in polarization via quantum walks, where the trajectory exchanging of identical photons plus postselection induces the coupling ...between their polarization degrees of freedom. Being different from the polarization beam splitter-based approach, the indistinguishability of identical photons provides an alternative for coupling photons, which is more phase stable and may induce richer actions than the traditional polarization beam splitter on input photons. Our schemes demonstrate that this new coupling mechanism for photons is originated from the fact that trajectory-exchanging operation plus postselection can extract entangled states from the initially product states, and this new coupling mechanism may find considerable potential applications in both quantum communication and quantum computation.
Cadmium (Cd) has been confirmed to be associated with breast carcinogenesis, but the mechanism was not clarified yet. Given that epigenetic modification was speculated as underlying mechanism, we ...examined the differential epigenome caused by Cd in breast cancer cells. Profiles of DNA methylation, microRNA (miRNA), long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), and message RNA (mRNA) were derived from Cd-treated and untreated MCF-7 breast cancer cells by microarray. We identified 997 target genes epigenetically regulated by Cd through cross-verification with the differential epigenome and transcriptome, and 400 of them were further validated in a breast cancer cohort. Biological function analyses suggested that several pathways were involved in Cd-induced breast carcinogenesis, such as Wnt signaling, metabolism, and human papilloma virus (HPV) infection. TXNRD1 and CCT3 were further identified as the critical genes based on the degree of expression change, hazard ratio difference, and connectivity. The present study revealed that Cd epigenetically regulated several pathways involving in breast carcinogenesis, particularly the Wnt signaling and metabolic pathways, among which TXNRD1 and CCT3 might play critical roles. It was also suggested that Cd and HPV infection might jointly participate in breast tumorigenesis.
•Cadmium caused multiple epigenetic modifications in breast cancer cells.•Cadmium-induced epigenome regulated critical pathways related to breast cancer.•TXNRD1 and CCT3 may play key roles in cadmium-induced breast carcinogenesis.
Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a severe spinal deformity that often occurs during puberty. The occurrence of AIS is suggested to be related to abnormal development of cartilage. Our ...previous study found increased serum ghrelin levels in AIS patients that may linked to the development of AIS. However, whether ghrelin affects cartilage in AIS patients is unclear. We used quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry to detect the expression of cartilage-specific genes and the ghrelin receptor, growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR). The mRNA and protein levels of collagen II (COLII), SOX9, AGGRECAN (ACAN) and GHSR were higher in AIS patients than in controls. In addition, the protein levels of GHSR downstream signaling pathway members p-STAT3 (Ser727), and p-ERK1/2 were increased. Furthermore, we treated chondrocytes from AIS patients with 100 nM ghrelin, the cell proliferation assay and Western blotting showed that ghrelin promotes chondrocyte proliferation and enhances COLII, SOX9, ACAN, p-ERK1/2 and p-STAT3 expression, respectively. Interestingly, all these observed alterations were abolished by ghrelin + D-Lys3-GHRP-6 (a ghrelin receptor inhibitor) treatment. And after U0126 (an inhibitor of ERK1/2 phosphorylation) treatment, ERK1/2 and STAT3 (Ser727) phosphorylation was simultaneously suppressed indicating that ERK1/2 is an upstream pathway protein of STAT3 (Ser727). In conclusion, ghrelin plays an important role in upregulating cartilage-specific genes on AIS primary chondrocytes by activating ERK/STAT3 signaling pathway.
•Ghrelin promotes chondrocyte proliferation and upregulates cartilage-specific genes in chondrocytes of AIS patients.•Higher levels of GHSR, p-ERK1/2 and p-STAT3 (Ser727) in chondrocytes from AIS patients than patients without AIS.•Ghrelin activates ERK/STAT3 (Ser727) pathway in the chondrocytes of AIS patients.
Teratozoospermia is the main pathogenic factor of male infertility. However, the genetic etiology of teratozoospermia is largely unknown. This study aims to clarify the relationship between novel ...variations in TENT5D and teratozoospermia in infertile patients.
Two infertile patients were enrolled. Routine semen analysis of patients and normal controls was conducted with the WHO guidelines. Whole-exome sequencing (WES) was conducted to identify pathogenic variants in the two patients. Morphology and ultrastructure analysis of spermatozoa in the two patients was determined by Papanicolaou staining, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The functional effect of the identified variants was analyzed by immunofluorescence staining and western blotting. The expression of TENT5D in different germ cells was detected by immunofluorescence staining.
Two new hemizygous variations, c.101C > T (p.P34L) and c.125A > T (p.D42V), in TENT5D were detected in two patients with male infertility. Morphology analysis showed abnormalities in spermatozoa morphology in the two patients, including multiple heads, headless, multiple tails, coiled, and/or bent flagella. Ultrastructure analysis showed that most of the spermatozoa exhibited missing or irregularly arranged '9+2' structures. Further functional experiments confirmed the abrogated TENT5D protein expression in patients. In addition, both p.P34L and p.D42V substitutions resulted in a conformational change of the TENT5D protein. We precisely analyzed the subcellular localization of TENT5D in germ cells in humans and mice. And we found that TENT5D was predominantly detected in the head and flagellum of elongating spermatids and epididymal spermatozoa.
Our results showed further evidence of a relationship between TENT5D mutation and human male infertility, providing new genetic insight for use in the diagnosis and treatment of male infertility.
Background
Ablation index (AI) has been evaluated as guidance quality marker for pulmonary vein isolation, but not for linear ablation of the cavotricuspid isthmus (CTI) for typical right atrial ...flutter (AFL). We thus studied the feasibility and effectiveness of AI‐guided CTI for AFL.
Methods
Procedural and 6‐month outcomes of ablation for AFL were retrospectively compared between consecutive patients undergoing either AI‐guided ablation of CTI (n = 43; AI target of 500 for anterior 2/3 segments and 400 for posterior 1/3 segments) or contact force (CF)‐guided ablation (n = 42) at a single center. Each Visitag dataset from all patients in each group was analyzed.
Results
AI guidance vs CF guidance was associated with: higher first‐pass conduction block of CTI (93.0% vs 76.2%, P = .03) with similar ablation time; similar acute spontaneous CTI reconnection 2.3% vs 9.5%, P = .343); fewer radiofrequency (RF) applications (10.1 ± 2.8 vs 11.5 ± 3.0, P = .031) needed to achieve CTI directional block; significantly higher mean ablation time, impedance drop, force time integral and AI and similar mean CF and power of each VisiTag point. One inguinal hematoma and one pseudoaneurysm developed in the AI and CF groups, respectively. Recurrent AFL was recorded in two (4.7%) AI‐group patients and four (9.5%) CF‐group patients (P = .650).
Conclusion
AI‐guided ablation of CTI line for AFL appears feasible and effective with similar ablation time, fewer RF applications, a higher rate of first‐pass conduction block, and no additional complications.
Tsallis-q entanglement is a bipartite entanglement measure which is the generalization of entanglement of formation for q tending to 1. We first expand the range of q for the analytic formula of ...Tsallis-q entanglement. For , we prove the monogamy relation in terms of the squared Tsallis-q entanglement for an arbitrary multi-qubit systems. It is shown that the multipartite entanglement indicator based on squared Tsallis-q entanglement still works well even when the indicator based on the squared concurrence loses its efficacy. We also show that the μ-th power of Tsallis-q entanglement satisfies the monogamy or polygamy inequalities for any three-qubit state.
This paper introduces a new type of intelligent window automatic control system. With single-chip microcomputer STC89C52 as the central control unit and wind speed sensing, raindrop sensing, ...temperature and humidity sensing, CO sensing, CO2 sensing and formaldehyde sensing as the signal detection unit, it operates with the dual energy supply of solar energy and power grid to sense outdoor meteorological changes and indoor and outdoor air quality in real time, and performs data processing through single-chip microcomputer. The stepper motor is controlled to open and close the window to improve indoor air quality in an environmentally friendly way. At the same time, the other end of the window is connected to the display screen, which concretely displays the data and status of the window operation. The control system has the functions of automatically closing the window on rainy days, automatically opening the window when the indoor harmful gas exceeds the standard, and remote infrared control of the window opening/closing.
Usnic acid is a dibenzofuran derivative found in several lichen species, which has been shown to possess several activities, including antiviral, antibiotic, antitumoral, antipyretic, analgesic, ...antioxidative and anti-inflammatory activities. However, there were few reports on the effects of usnic acid on LPS-induced acute lung injury (ALI). The aim of our study was to explore the effect and possible mechanism of usnic acid on LPS-induced lung injury. In the present study, we found that pretreatment with usnic acid significantly improved survival rate, pulmonary edema. In the meantime, protein content and the number of inflammatory cells in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) significantly decreased, and the levels of MPO, MDA, and H2O2 in lung tissue were markedly suppressed after treatment with usnic acid. Meanwhile, the activities of SOD and GSH in lung tissue significantly increased after treatment with usnic acid. Additionally, to evaluate the anti-inflammatory activity of usnic acid, the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines including tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10, and chemokines interleukin-8 (IL-8) and macrophage inflammatory protein-2 (MIP-2) in BALF were studied. The results in the present study indicated that usnic acid attenuated the expression of TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8 and MIP-2. Meanwhile, the improved level of IL-10 in BALF was observed. In conclusion, these data showed that the protective effect of usnic acid on LPS-induced ALI in mice might relate to the suppression of excessive inflammatory responses and oxidative stress in lung tissue. Thus, it was suggested that usnic acid might be a potential therapeutic agent for ALI.
•Intratracheal instillation of LPS has been accepted as an ideal model of ALI.•Usnic acid improves survival rate, lung edema and cell counts in BALF.•Usnic acid suppresses inflammatory responses in mice with ALI.•Usnic acid improves oxidative stress in mice with ALI.
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