Alternating-electric-field-enhanced reversible switching of DNA nanocontainers with pH

Macroscopically realizable applications of DNA-based molecular devices require individual molecules to cooperate with each other. However, molecular crowding usually introduces disorder to the system, thus jeopardizing the molecular cooperation and slowing down their functional performance dramatically. A challenge remaining in this field is to obtain both smarter response and better cooperation simultaneously. Here, we report a swift-switching DNA nanodevice that is enhanced by an alternating electric field. The device, self-assembled from folded four-stranded DNA motifs, can robustly switch between closed and open states in smart response to pH stimulus, of which the closed state forms a nanometer-height container that is impermeable to small molecules. This character was used to directly and non-specifically catch and release small molecules emulating mechanical hand in a controllable way. The alternating electric field was used to accelerate molecular cooperative motion during the device switching, which in turn shortened the closing time remarkably to thirty seconds

The association between a body shape index and elevated urinary albumin–creatinine ratio in Chinese community adults

BackgroundObesity, especially visceral obesity, seems to be one of the most decisive risk factors for chronic kidney disease. A Body Shape Index (ABSI) is an emerging body size measurement marker of visceral obesity. This study aimed to explore whether ABSI is associated with albuminuria in Chinese community adults.MethodsThis cross-sectional study enrolled 40,726 participants aged 40 or older from seven provinces across China through a cluster random sampling method. ABSI was calculated by body mass index, waist circumference, and height. Increased albuminuria was defined as urinary albumin–creatinine ratio (UACR) ≥ 30 mg/g, indicating kidney injury. For ABSI, we divided it by quartile cutoff points and tried to determine the association between ABSI levels and UACR by multiple regression analysis. DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) was plotted using literature and expert consensus to identify potential confounding factors.ResultsThe average age of subjects with elevated UACR was 61.43 ± 10.07, and 26% were men. The average age of subjects with normal UACR was 57.70 ± 9.02, and 30.5% were men. Multiple logistic regression analysis was conducted and demonstrated that the ABSI quartiles were related to elevated UACR positively (OR [95% CI] Q2 vs. Q1: 1.094 [1.004, 1.197]; OR [95% CI] Q3 vs. Q1: 1.126 [1.030, 1.231]; OR [95% CI] Q4 vs. Q1: 1.183 [1.080, 1.295], p for trend < 0.001) after adjustments for confounding factors. The stratified analysis further showed that with the mounting for ABSI levels, elevated UACR more easily occurred in the people characterized by the elderly, men, and hypertension.ConclusionsIn Chinese community adults, people with higher ABSI levels can be deemed as high-risk individuals with UACR elevation, and it will be beneficial for them to lose weight and significantly reduce visceral fat

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Measurements of Higgs boson production cross sections and couplings in the diphoton decay channel at root s=13 TeV

Measurements of Higgs boson production cross sections and couplings in events where the Higgs boson decays into a pair of photons are reported. Events are selected from a sample of proton-proton collisions at root s = 13TeV collected by the CMS detector at the LHC from 2016 to 2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1). Analysis categories enriched in Higgs boson events produced via gluon fusion, vector boson fusion, vector boson associated production, and production associated with top quarks are constructed. The total Higgs boson signal strength, relative to the standard model (SM) prediction, is measured to be 1.12 +/- 0.09. Other properties of the Higgs boson are measured, including SM signal strength modifiers, production cross sections, and its couplings to other particles. These include the most precise measurements of gluon fusion and vector boson fusion Higgs boson production in several different kinematic regions, the first measurement of Higgs boson production in association with a top quark pair in five regions of the Higgs boson transverse momentum, and an upper limit on the rate of Higgs boson production in association with a single top quark. All results are found to be in agreement with the SM expectations.Peer reviewe

Search for lepton-flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson in the mu tau and e tau final states in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

A search is presented for lepton-flavor violating decays of the Higgs boson to mu t and et. The dataset corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 137 fb(-1) collected at the LHC in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant excess has been found, and the results are interpreted in terms of upper limits on lepton-flavor violating branching fractions of the Higgs boson. The observed (expected) upper limits on the branching fractions are, respectively, B(H -> mu t) e tau) < 0.22(0.16)% at 95% confidence level.Peer reviewe

<i>Melaleuca alternifolia</i> (Maiden & Betche) Cheel Residues Affect the Biomass and Soil Quality of Plantation

Long-term unreasonable management has led to the continuous decline of soil quality in Melaleuca alternifolia planting areas in southern China, and there is no effective way to improve its soil quality at present. In this study, residues of tea tree oil extraction were returned to the forest to explore its influence on soil quality. Therefore, four test groups (RT, residues were tiled; RS, residues were stacked; RDT, residues were decomposed and tiled; RDS, residues were decomposed and stacked) and one control group (CK, nothing was changed) were designed. We used one-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation analysis to detect 22 physical, chemical, and biological indicators of soil, and then used minimum data set (MDS) and principal component analysis (PCA) to evaluate soil quality. The results show that compared with the CK, BD and pH in the test groups decreases, while CP, TTP, SOM, AN, NN, AP, AK, CEC, MBC, MBN, MBP, catalase, urease, sucrase, and ACP increase or strengthen in different degrees, and the biomass increases by 5.3%~12.8%. The soil quality indexes (SQI) are RDT (0.616) > RT (0.546) > RDS (0.525) > RS (0.452) > CK (0.291). Significant correlation between SQI and biomass indicates that the indicators have high biological significance for the planting areas of Melaleuca alternifolia in the red soil region in southern China. These results show that residues could improve soil quality, and that the soil quality is different among different test groups. This study provides a new path for the management of Melaleuca alternifolia plantation

LSTM-Based Output-Constrained Adaptive Fault-Tolerant Control for Fixed-Wing UAV with High Dynamic Disturbances and Actuator Faults

The unknown disturbances and the changing uncertainties bring difficulties for designing a stable attitude controller for UAV. In this paper, a novel adaptive fault-tolerant attitude control approach is designed based on the long short-term memory (LSTM) network for the fixed-wing UAV subject to the high dynamic disturbances and actuator faults. Firstly, the high dynamic disturbances can be compensated by the adaptive laws. Meanwhile, the actuator faults can be handled by the proposed adaptive fault-tolerant control (AFTC) scheme. Moreover, the LSTM network is introduced to approximate the unknown and time-accumulating nonlinearities. With the introduction of the one-to-one nonlinear mapping (NM), the output constraints in the control system can be guaranteed. Additionally, it can be demonstrated that the boundness of all the signals can be assured. At last, numerical simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method