Extended calculations of energy levels, radiative properties, AJA_{J}, BJB_{J} hyperfine interaction constants, and Land\'e gJg_{J}-factors for nitrogen-like \mbox{Ge XXVI}

Employing two state-of-the-art methods, multiconfiguration Dirac--Hartree--Fock and second-order many-body perturbation theory, highly accurate calculations are performed for the lowest 272 fine-structure levels arising from the $2s^{2} 2p^{3}$, $2s 2p^{4}$, $2p^{5}$, $2s^{2} 2p^{2} 3l$~($l=s,p,d$), $2s 2p^{3}3l$ ($l=s,p,d$), and $2p^{4} 3l$ ($l=s,p,d$) configurations in nitrogen-like Ge XXVI. Complete and consistent atomic data, including excitation energies, lifetimes, wavelengths, hyperfine structures, Land\'e $g_{J}$-factors, and E1, E2, M1, M2 line strengths, oscillator strengths, and transition rates among these 272 levels are provided. Comparisons are made between the present two data sets, as well as with other available experimental and theoretical values. The present data are accurate enough for identification and deblending of emission lines involving the $n=3$ levels, and are also useful for modeling and diagnosing fusion plasmas

Effects of matrine on JAK-STAT signaling transduction pathways in bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis

The current study aims to investigate the effects of matrine on the JAK-STAT signaling transduction pathways in bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis (PF) and to explore its action mechanism. A total of 72 male C57BL/6 mice were randomized into the control, model, and treatment groups. PF models were established by instilling BLM intratracheally. The treatment group was given daily matrine through gastric lavage. Six mice were sacrificed in each group at 3, 7, 14, and28 days. The lung tissues were observed using hematoxylin-eosin staining. The expression of JAK, STAT1, and STAT3 was observed using immunohistochemistry and then determined using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Alveolitis and PF significantly improved in the treatment group compared with the model group (P < 0.05). The expression of JAK, STAT1, and STAT3 in the model group increased at day 7, peaked at day 14 and then decreased, but the expression was still higher than that in the control group at day 28 (P < 0.05). The three indices in the treatment group were significantly lower than those in the model group at any detection time point (P < 0.05). PF causes high expression of JAK, STAT1, and STAT3. Matrine exerts an anti-PF effect by inhibiting the JAK-STAT signaling transduction pathways.Key words: Pulmonary fibrosis, bleomycin, matrine, signaling transduction pathway

WideSee: towards wide-area contactless wireless sensing

Contactless wireless sensing without attaching a device to the target has achieved promising progress in recent years. However, one severe limitation is the small sensing range. This paper presents WideSee to realize wide-area sensing with only one transceiver pair. WideSee utilizes the LoRa signal to achieve a larger range of sensing and further incorporates drone's mobility to broaden the sensing area. WideSee presents solutions across software and hardware to overcome two aspects of challenges for wide-range contactless sensing: (i) the interference brought by the device mobility and LoRa's high sensitivity; and (ii) the ambiguous target information such as location when employing just a single pair of transceivers. We have developed a working prototype of WideSee for human target detection and localization that are especially useful in emergency scenarios such as rescue search, and evaluated WideSee with both controlled experiments and the field study in a high-rise building. Extensive experiments demonstrate the great potential of WideSee for wide-area contactless sensing with a single LoRa transceiver pair hosted on a drone

Has equity in government subsidy on healthcare improved in China? Evidence from the China's National Health Services Survey

Background: Monitoring the equity of government healthcare subsidies (GHS) is critical for evaluating the performance of health policy decisions. China's low-income population encounters barriers in accessing benefits from GHS. This paper focuses on the distribution of China's healthcare subsidies among different socio-economic populations and the factors that affect their equitable distribution. It examines the characteristics of equitable access to benefits in a province of northeastern China, comparing the equity performance between urban and rural areas.Methods: Benefit incidence analysis was applied to GHS data from two rounds of China's National Health Services Survey (2003 and 2008, N = 27,239) in Heilongjiang province, reflecting the information in 2002 and 2007 respectively. Concentration index (CI) was used to evaluate the absolute equity of GHSs in outpatient and inpatient healthcare services. A negative CI indicates disproportionate concentration of GHSs among the poor, while a positive CI indicates the GHS is pro-rich, a CI of zero indicates perfect equity. In addition, Kakwani index (KI) was used to evaluate the progressivity of GHSs. A positive KI denotes the GHS is regressive, while a negative value denotes the GHS is progressive.Results: CIs for inpatient care in urban and rural residents were 0.2036 and 0.4497 respectively in 2002, and those in 2007 were 0.4433 and 0.5375. Likewise, CIs for outpatient care are positive in both regions in 2002 and 2007, indicating that both inpatient and outpatient GHSs were pro-rich in both survey periods irrespective of region. In addition, KIs for inpatient services were -0.3769 (urban) and 0.0576 (rural) in 2002 and those in 2007 were 0.0280 and 0.1868. KIs for outpatient service were -0.4278 (urban) and -0.1257 (rural) in 2002, those in 2007 were -0.2572 and -0.1501, indicating that equity was improved in GHS in outpatient care in both regions but not in inpatient services.Conclusions: The benefit distribution of government healthcare subsidies has been strongly influenced by China's health insurance schemes. Their compensation policies and benefit packages need reform to improve the benefit equity between outpatient and inpatient care both in urban and rural areas

Stress signaling convergence and nutrient crosstalk determine zinc-mediated amelioration against cadmium toxicity in rice

Consumption of rice (Oryza sativa L.) is one of the major pathways for heavy metal bioaccumulation in humans over time. Understanding the molecular responses of rice to heavy metal contamination in agriculture is useful for eco-toxicological assessment of cadmium (Cd) and its interaction with zinc (Zn). In certain crops, the impacts of Cd stress or Zn nutrition on the biophysical chemistry and gene expression have been widely investigated, but their molecular interactions at transcriptomic level, particularly in rice roots, are still elusive. Here, hydroponic investigations were carried out with two rice genotypes (Yinni-801 and Heizhan-43), varying in Cd contents in plant tissues to determine their transcriptomic responses upon Cd15 (15 µM) and Cd15+Zn50 (50 µM) treatments. High throughput RNA-sequencing analysis confirmed that 496 and 2407 DEGs were significantly affected by Cd15 and Cd15+Zn50, respectively, among which 1016 DEGs were commonly induced in both genotypes. Multitude of DEGs fell under the category of protein kinases, such as calmodulin (CaM) and calcineurin B-like protein-interacting protein kinases (CBL), indicating a dynamic shift in hormonal signal transduction and Ca2+ involvement with the onset of treatments. Both genotypes expressed a mutual regulation of transcription factors (TFs) such as WRKY, MYB, NAM, AP2, bHLH and ZFP families under both treatments, whereas genes econding ABC transporters (ABCs), high affinity K+ transporters (HAKs) and Glutathione-S-transferases (GSTs), were highly up-regulated under Cd15+Zn50 in both genotypes. Zinc addition triggered more signaling cascades and detoxification related genes in regulation of immunity along with the suppression of Cd-induced DEGs and restriction of Cd uptake. Conclusively, the effective integration of breeding techniques with candidate genes identified in this study as well as economically and technologically viable methods, such as Zn nutrient management, could pave the way for selecting cultivars with promising agronomic qualities and reduced Cd for sustainable rice production

Early reionization by decaying particles in the light of three year WMAP data

We study the reionization histories where ionizing UV photons are emitted from decaying particles, in addition to usual contributions from stars and quasars, taking account of the fact that the universe is not fully ionized until z = 6 as observed by Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Likelihood analysis of the three-year data from the WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) severely constrains the decaying particle scenario.In particular, the decaying particle with relatively short lifetime is not favored by the polarization data.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Sex-Specific Correlations of Individual Heterozygosity, Parasite Load, and Scalation Asymmetry in a Sexually Dichromatic Lizard

Heterozygosity-fitness correlations (HFCs) provide insights into the genetic bases of individual fitness variation in natural populations. However, despite decades of study, the biological significance of HFCs is still under debate. In this study, we investigated HFCs in a large population of the sexually dimorphic lizard Takydromus viridipunctatus (Lacertidae). Because of the high prevalence of parasitism from trombiculid mites in this lizard, we expect individual fitness (i.e., survival) to decrease with increasing parasite load. Furthermore, because morphological asymmetry is likely to influence individuals\u27 mobility (i.e., limb asymmetry) and male biting ability during copulation (i.e., head asymmetry) in this species, we also hypothesize that individual fitness should decrease with increasing morphological asymmetry. Although we did not formally test the relationship between morphological asymmetry and fitness in this lizard, we demonstrated that survival decreased with increasing parasite load using a capture-mark-recapture data set. We used a separate sample of 140 lizards to test the correlations between individual heterozygosity (i.e., standardized mean d2 and HL based on 10 microsatellite loci) and the two fitness traits (i.e., parasite load and morphological asymmetry). We also evaluated and excluded the possibility that single-locus effects produced spurious HFCs. Our results suggest male-only, negative correlations between individual heterozygosity and parasite load and between individual heterozygosity and asymmetry, suggesting sex-specific, positive HFCs. Male T. viridipunctatus with higher heterozygosity tend to have lower parasite loads (i.e., higher survival) and lower asymmetry, providing a rare example of HFC in reptiles

Non-Abelian anyonic interferometry with a multi-photon spin lattice simulator

Recently a pair of experiments demonstrated a simulation of Abelian anyons in a spin network of single photons. The experiments were based on an Abelian discrete gauge theory spin lattice model of Kitaev. Here we describe how to use linear optics and single photons to simulate non-Abelian anyons. The scheme makes use of joint qutrit-qubit encoding of the spins and the resources required are three pairs of parametric down converted photons and 14 beam splitters.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures. Several references added in v