Quantum entanglement in plasmonic waveguides with near-zero mode indices

We investigate the quantum entanglement between two quantum dots in a plasmonic waveguide with near-zero mode index, considering the dependence of concurrence on interdot distance, quantum dot-waveguide frequency detuning and coupling strength ratio. High concurrence is achieved for a wide range of interdot distance due to the near-zero mode index, which largely relaxes the strict requirement of interdot distance in conventional dielectric waveguides or metal nanowires. The proposed quantum dot-waveguide system with near-zero phase variation along the waveguide near the mode cutoff frequency shows very promising potential in quantum optics and quantum information processing

Optimismo más allá de problemas: la cooperación de BRICS en educación superior desde la perspectiva china

Multilateral cooperation in higher education among BRICS countries has been under way for 7 years, since 2013. Scholars have different views and judgments, some positive and optimistic, some negative and pessimistic, regarding the significance, progress and prospects of BRICS higher education cooperation (BRICS HEC). What are the views and judgments of participants from Chinese universities? This question has not yet been answered due to a lack of relevant empirical research. To answer this question, six experts in Chinese universities who are involved in organizing or/and researching BRICS HEC were interviewed in this study. The study found that the six experts clearly recognized the necessity and significance of BRICS HEC. They identified the main achievements of this cooperation, including the establishment of two cooperation platforms (i.e., the BRICS Network University and the BRICS University League) and the development of a series of collaborations in student exchanges and research. They also pointed out existing problems, such as the difficulty of achieving multilateral cooperation, difficulty of establishing the mutual recognition of credits and qualifications, and the insufficient enthusiasm among potential participants. Despite these problems, five of the six experts evaluated the progress of such cooperation positively and were optimistic about its prospects. The positive and optimistic views of Chinese experts are contrasted with the problems, obstacles and pessimistic expectations dominant in previous studies, indicating that BRICS HEC is not only supported by the Chinese government but also accepted by Chinese participants. This constitutes an important driving force for the sustainable development of BRICS HEC in the future.La cooperación multilateral en educación superior entre los países BRICS se ha llevado a cabo durante 7 años, desde 2013. Los académicos tienen diferentes puntos de vista y juicios cerca de la importancia, el progreso y las perspectivas de la cooperación en educación superior entre los BRICS (CES BRICS), algunos positivos y optimistas, otros negativos y pesimistas. ¿Cuáles son las opiniones y juicios de los participantes de las universidades chinas? Esta pregunta aún no ha sido respondida por la falta de investiga- ción empírica relevante. Para responderla, en este estudio se entrevistó a seis expertos de las universidades chinas que participan en la organización o investigación de CES BRICS, comprobando que los seis expertos reconocían completamente la necesidad y la importancia de cooperación. Identificaron los logros principales de la cooperación, incluido el establecimiento de dos proyectos (la Universidad de Red de BRICS y la Liga de Universidades de BRICS) y el desarrollo de una serie de cooperación en el intercambio de estudiantes y en la investigación científica. También señalaron los problemas exis- tentes, como las dificultades de cooperación multilateral y de confirmación mutua de créditos y calificaciones, y el entusiasmo insuficiente entre los posibles participantes. A pesar de estos problemas, cinco de los seis expertos hicieron comentarios positivos sobre el progreso de dicha cooperación y se mostraron optimistas sobre sus perspectivas. Las opiniones positivas y optimistas de los expertos chinos se contrastan con los problemas, obstáculos y expectativas pesimistas dominantes en los estudios anteriores, lo que indica que CES BRICS no solo cuenta con el apoyo del gobierno chino, sino también con la aceptación de los participantes chinos, que constituirá una importante fuente de motiva- ción para el desarrollo sostenible de CES BRICS

Clinical Assistant Diagnosis for Electronic Medical Record Based on Convolutional Neural Network

Automatically extracting useful information from electronic medical records along with conducting disease diagnoses is a promising task for both clinical decision support(CDS) and neural language processing(NLP). Most of the existing systems are based on artificially constructed knowledge bases, and then auxiliary diagnosis is done by rule matching. In this study, we present a clinical intelligent decision approach based on Convolutional Neural Networks(CNN), which can automatically extract high-level semantic information of electronic medical records and then perform automatic diagnosis without artificial construction of rules or knowledge bases. We use collected 18,590 copies of the real-world clinical electronic medical records to train and test the proposed model. Experimental results show that the proposed model can achieve 98.67\% accuracy and 96.02\% recall, which strongly supports that using convolutional neural network to automatically learn high-level semantic features of electronic medical records and then conduct assist diagnosis is feasible and effective.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, Accepted by Scientific Report

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressively paralytic neurodegenerative disease that can be caused by mutations in Cu/Zn-superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1). Transgenic mice that overexpress mutant SOD1 develop paralysis and accumulate aggregates of mutant protein in the brainstem and spinal cord. Bee venom (BV), which is also known as apitoxin, is extracted from honeybees and is commonly used in oriental medicine for the treatment of chronic rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether BV affects misfolded protein aggregates such as alpha-synuclein, which is a known pathological marker in Parkinson disease, and ubiquitin-proteasomal activity in hSOD1G93A mutant mice. BV was bilaterally administered into a 98-day-old hSOD1G93A animal model. We found that BV-treated hSOD1G93A transgenic mice showed reduced detergent-insoluble polymerization and phosphorylation of α-synuclein. Furthermore, phosphorylated or nitrated α-synuclein was significantly reduced in the spinal cords and brainstems of BV-treated hSOD1G93A mice and reduced proteasomal activity was revealed in the brainstems of BV-treated symptomatic hSOD1G93A. From these findings, we suggest that BV treatment attenuates the dysfunction of the ubiquitin-proteasomal system in a symptomatic hSOD1G93A ALS model and may help to slow motor neuron loss caused by misfolded protein aggregates in ALS models