Ionic effect on combing of single DNA molecules and observation of their force-induced melting by fluorescence microscopy

Molecular combing is a powerful and simple method for aligning DNA molecules onto a surface. Using this technique combined with fluorescence microscopy, we observed that the length of lambda-DNA molecules was extended to about 1.6 times their contour length (unextended length, 16.2 micrometers) by the combing method on hydrophobic polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) coated surfaces. The effects of sodium and magnesium ions and pH of the DNA solution were investigated. Interestingly, we observed force-induced melting of single DNA molecules.Comment: 12 page

Model Hamiltonian for Topological Insulators

In this paper we give the full microscopic derivation of the model Hamiltonian for the three dimensional topological insulators in the $Bi_2Se_3$ family of materials ($Bi_2Se_3$, $Bi_2Te_3$ and $Sb_2Te_3$). We first give a physical picture to understand the electronic structure by analyzing atomic orbitals and applying symmetry principles. Subsequently, we give the full microscopic derivation of the model Hamiltonian introduced by Zhang {\it et al} [\onlinecite{zhang2009}] based both on symmetry principles and the ${\bf k}\cdot{\bf p}$ perturbation theory. Two different types of $k^3$ terms, which break the in-plane full rotation symmetry down to three fold rotation symmetry, are taken into account. Effective Hamiltonian is derived for the topological surface states. Both the bulk and the surface models are investigated in the presence of an external magnetic field, and the associated Landau level structure is presented. For more quantitative fitting to the first principle calculations, we also present a new model Hamiltonian including eight energy bands.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, 5 table

MachMap: End-to-End Vectorized Solution for Compact HD-Map Construction

This report introduces the 1st place winning solution for the Autonomous Driving Challenge 2023 - Online HD-map Construction. By delving into the vectorization pipeline, we elaborate an effective architecture, termed as MachMap, which formulates the task of HD-map construction as the point detection paradigm in the bird-eye-view space with an end-to-end manner. Firstly, we introduce a novel map-compaction scheme into our framework, leading to reducing the number of vectorized points by 93% without any expression performance degradation. Build upon the above process, we then follow the general query-based paradigm and propose a strong baseline with integrating a powerful CNN-based backbone like InternImage, a temporal-based instance decoder and a well-designed point-mask coupling head. Additionally, an extra optional ensemble stage is utilized to refine model predictions for better performance. Our MachMap-tiny with IN-1K initialization achieves a mAP of 79.1 on the Argoverse2 benchmark and the further improved MachMap-huge reaches the best mAP of 83.5, outperforming all the other online HD-map construction approaches on the final leaderboard with a distinct performance margin (> 9.8 mAP at least).Comment: The Outstanding Champion and Innovation Award in the Online HD Map Construction Challenge (CVPR2023 Workshop

An Integrated Clinical-mRNA-lncRNA-miRNA Signature for Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer Prognosis

An increasing number of evidence suggests that clinical variables alone are not enough to predict the survival of patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), and the expression of mRNAs, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) also plays an important role in the onset of MIBC. This study aims to establish a more accurate model for predicting the overall survival of MIBC based on clinical information and genetic characteristics. In this study, the RNAs profiles and clinical variable data of patients with MIBC were downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Univariate Cox regression analysis, differential expression analysis and elastic net-regulated Cox regression analysis were used to identify the clinical variables and RNAs (mRNAs, lncRNAs and miRNAs) related to the prognosis of MIBC. Prognostic models of MIBC were established by multivariate Cox regression and ridge regression analysis using the identified prognostic clinical variables and RNAs. Three clinical variables, 25 mRNAs, 3 lncRNAs and 2 miRNAs related to the prognosis of MIBC were identified, and an integrated signature, a clinical variable signature, and an mRNA-lncRNA-miRNA signature were established based on the identified clinical variables and/or RNAs. Among the three models, the integrated signature had the highest predictive accuracy (5-year the area under the curve (AUC)=0.835, 95%CI:0.776-0.894) among the three models (P 0.05). The patients in the TCGA MIBC cohort were classified into high- or low-risk groups by the integrated signature, and it was found that the patients in the low-risk group had a significantly longer overall survival time compared with the patients in the high-risk group (P 0.001). Applying published gene signatures and TCGA data, a new and more accurate integrated clinical-mRNA-lncRNA-miRNA signature for MIBC prognostic was established

Neutron Energy Spectrum Measurements with a Compact Liquid Scintillation Detector on EAST

A neutron detector based on EJ301 liquid scintillator has been employed at EAST to measure the neutron energy spectrum for D-D fusion plasma. The detector was carefully characterized in different quasi-monoenergetic neutron fields generated by a 4.5 MV Van de Graaff accelerator. In recent experimental campaigns, due to the low neutron yield at EAST, a new shielding device was designed and located as close as possible to the tokamak to enhance the count rate of the spectrometer. The fluence of neutrons and gamma-rays was measured with the liquid neutron spectrometer and was consistent with 3He proportional counter and NaI (Tl) gamma-ray spectrometer measurements. Plasma ion temperature values were deduced from the neutron spectrum in discharges with lower hybrid wave injection and ion cyclotron resonance heating. Scattered neutron spectra were simulated by the Monte Carlo transport Code, and they were well verified by the pulse height measurements at low energies.Comment: 19 pages,10 figures, 1 tabl