Shear viscosity coefficient of magnetized QCD medium with anomalous magnetic moments near chiral phase transition

We study the properties of the shear viscosity coefficient of quark matter near the chiral phase transition at finite temperature and chemical potential, and the kinds of high temperature, high density and strong magnetic field background might be generated by high-energy heavy ion collisions. The strong magnetic field induces anisotropy, that is, the quantization of Landau energy levels in phase space. If the magnetic field is strong enough, it will interfere with significant QCD phenomena, such as the generation of dynamic quark mass, which may affect the transport properties of quark matter. The inclusion of the anomalous magnetic moments (AMM) of the quarks at finite density into the NJL model gives rise to additional spin polarization magnetic effects. As the inclusion of AMM of the quarks leads to inverse magnetic catalysis around the transition temperature, we will systematically study the thermodynamic phase transition characteristics of shear viscosity coefficient in QCD media near the phase boundary. The shear viscosity coefficient of the dissipative fluid system can be decomposed into five different components as the strong magnetic field exists. The influences of the order of chiral phase transition and the critical endpoint on dissipative phenomena in such a magnetized medium are quantitatively investigated. It is found that ${\eta}_{1}$, ${\eta}_{2}$, ${\eta}_{3}$, and ${\eta}_{4}$ all increase with temperature. For first-order phase transitions, ${\eta}_{1}$, ${\eta}_{2}$, ${\eta}_{3}$, and ${\eta}_{4}$ exhibit discontinuous characteristics.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figure

2-Anilino-4,6-dimethyl­pyrimidinium chloro­acetate

In the crystal structure of the title compound, C12H14N3 +·C2H2ClO2 −, the chloro­acetate anion is linked to the N-(4,6-dimethyl­pyrimidin-2-yl)aniline cation by N—H⋯O hydrogen bonding. Within the cation, the pyrimidine ring is twisted with respect to the phenyl ring by a dihedral angle of 7.59 (4)°

Controlling Text-to-Image Diffusion by Orthogonal Finetuning

Large text-to-image diffusion models have impressive capabilities in generating photorealistic images from text prompts. How to effectively guide or control these powerful models to perform different downstream tasks becomes an important open problem. To tackle this challenge, we introduce a principled finetuning method -- Orthogonal Finetuning (OFT), for adapting text-to-image diffusion models to downstream tasks. Unlike existing methods, OFT can provably preserve hyperspherical energy which characterizes the pairwise neuron relationship on the unit hypersphere. We find that this property is crucial for preserving the semantic generation ability of text-to-image diffusion models. To improve finetuning stability, we further propose Constrained Orthogonal Finetuning (COFT) which imposes an additional radius constraint to the hypersphere. Specifically, we consider two important finetuning text-to-image tasks: subject-driven generation where the goal is to generate subject-specific images given a few images of a subject and a text prompt, and controllable generation where the goal is to enable the model to take in additional control signals. We empirically show that our OFT framework outperforms existing methods in generation quality and convergence speed.Comment: NeurIPS 2023 (43 pages, 34 figures, project page: https://oft.wyliu.com/

Supramolecular assemblies constructed from inverted cucurbit[7]uril and lanthanide cations: synthesis, structure and sorption properties

The interaction of a series of lanthanide cations (Ln³⁺) with inverted cucurbit[7]uril (iQ[7]) in the presence of [ZnCl₄]²⁻ anions as a structure-directing agent have been investigated. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis has revealed that the [ZnCl₄]²⁻ anions surround the iQ[7] molecules via the outer surface interactions of iQ[7]. This results in the formation of honeycomb-like frameworks, and ultimately linear supramolecular chains of iQ[7] in which Ln³⁺ cations occupy voids within the framework. Moreover, these iQ[7]/Ln³⁺-based supramolecular assemblies exhibit excellent thermal stability as well as permanent porosity, and in one case screening revealed a high CH₃OH uptake capacity compared with other porous organic materials assembled solely through hydrogen bonding under ambient conditions

Molecules in the peculiar age-defying source IRAS 19312+1950

Context. IRAS 19312+1950 is an isolated infrared source that exhibits a characteristic quasi-point-symmetric morphology in the near- and mid-infrared images and is also very bright in molecular radio lines. Because of its unique observational characteristics, various observational studies have been conducted and several hypotheses have been proposed regarding its origin, which is still unclear. So far, it has been suggested that it could be a peculiar evolved star, a young stellar object, or even a red nova remnant. Regardless of which type of object it is ultimately classified as, IRAS 19312+1950 is exceptionally bright in the infrared and molecular radio lines and therefore will undoubtedly be crucial as a prototype of this kind of object having a peculiar nature or unusual evolutionary phase. Aims. This study aims to reveal the molecular composition of the central part of IRAS 19312+1950 by performing an unbiased molecular radio line survey and discussing the origin of the object from a molecular chemical point of view. Methods. We carried out a spectral line survey with the IRAM 30 m telescope towards the center of IRAS 19312+1950 in the 3 and 1.3 mm windows. Results. In total, 28 transition lines of 22 molecular species and those isotopologues are detected towards IRAS 19312+1950, some of which exhibit a broad and a narrow components. Seventeen thermal lines and 1 maser line are newly detected. The molecular species of C$^{17}$O, $^{30}$SiO, HN$^{13}$C, HC$^{18}$O$^{+}$, H$_{2}$CO, and $c$-C$_{3}$H$_{2}$ are detected for the first time in this object. Conclusions. Our results, in combination with previous studies, favor the hypothesis that IRAS 19312+1950 might be a red nova remnant, in which the progenitors that merged to become a red nova may have contained at least two evolved stars with oxygen-rich and carbon-rich chemistry, respectively.Comment: 30 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Parameter-Efficient Orthogonal Finetuning via Butterfly Factorization

Large foundation models are becoming ubiquitous, but training them from scratch is prohibitively expensive. Thus, efficiently adapting these powerful models to downstream tasks is increasingly important. In this paper, we study a principled finetuning paradigm -- Orthogonal Finetuning (OFT) -- for downstream task adaptation. Despite demonstrating good generalizability, OFT still uses a fairly large number of trainable parameters due to the high dimensionality of orthogonal matrices. To address this, we start by examining OFT from an information transmission perspective, and then identify a few key desiderata that enable better parameter-efficiency. Inspired by how the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform algorithm enables efficient information transmission, we propose an efficient orthogonal parameterization using butterfly structures. We apply this parameterization to OFT, creating a novel parameter-efficient finetuning method, called Orthogonal Butterfly (BOFT). By subsuming OFT as a special case, BOFT introduces a generalized orthogonal finetuning framework. Finally, we conduct an extensive empirical study of adapting large vision transformers, large language models, and text-to-image diffusion models to various downstream tasks in vision and language.Comment: Technical Report (33 pages, 18 figures

Mitigation of chronic unpredictable stress–induced cognitive deficits in mice by Lycium barbarum L (Solanaceae) polysaccharides

Purpose: To investigate the neuroprotective effects of Lycium barbarum polysaccharide (LBP) against concomitant cognitive dysfunction and changes in hippocampal CREB-BDNF signaling pathway in chronically unpredictable stressed mice.Methods: The mice were subjected to different unpredictable stressors for a period of 4 weeks. Behavioral tests, including open field (OFT) and Morris water maze (MWMT) tests were used to evaluate pharmacological effects. Serum corticosterone levels, protein expression level of BDNF and pCREB/CREB in hippocampus were assessed by ELISA, Western blot and immunohistochemistry methods, respectively. Morphological changes in pyramidal neurons in the hippocampus were studied by Nissl staining.Results: LBP improved mice performance in MWMT, indicating that it reversed chronic unpredictable stress (CUS)-induced cognitive deficits. LBP treatment reduced serum corticosterone levels and prevented neuron loss in the hippocampus. It maintained expression levels of BDNF and phosphorylation of CREB in hippocampus during CUS procedure.Conclusion: Lycium barbarum polysaccharide protects CREB-BDNF signaling pathway in hippocampus and relieves CUS-induced cognitive deficits. These results suggest that Lycium barbarum polysaccharides is potentially an alternative neuro-protective agent against stress-induced psychopathological dysfunction.Keywords: Lycium barbarum, Polysaccharide, Chronic unpredictable stress, Cognitive deficits, Brainderived neurotrophic factor, Calcium/cyclic-AMP responsive binding protei

A single-arm phase II clinical trial of anlotinib combined with chemotherapy for the treatment of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer

BackgroundAnlotinib is a novel oral small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), which can inhibit angiogenesis. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of anlotinib combined with chemotherapy in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).MethodsThis phase II clinical trial included 40 patients with metastatic TNBC who had previously received anthracycline and/or taxane treatment. All patients received anlotinib combined with chemotherapy. The primary endpoint was progression-free survival (PFS). The secondary endpoints included overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR), clinical benefit rate (CBR), disease control rate (DCR) and safety.ResultsDuring May 1, 2019 and April 30, 2022, there were 40 patients enrolled in this study. The median PFS and median OS were 8.8 months (95% confidence interval [CI] 6.5-11.1 months) and 19.0 months (95% CI, 12.1–25.9 months), respectively. The ORR, CBR and DCR were 40.0% (16/40), 85.0% (34/40) and 95.0% (38/40), respectively. Cox univariate and multivariate analyses demonstrated that having more than 3 metastatic sites (p = 0.001; p = 0.020) was an independent and meaningful unfavorable prognostic factor for PFS. 37.5% of patients had grade 3 to 4 treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs). The grade 3 to 4 TRAEs included neutropenia (22.5%), leukopenia (20.0%), secondary hypertension (10.0%), hand-foot syndrome (5.0%), vomiting (5.0%), proteinuria (5.0%) and thrombocytopenia (2.5%). None of the patients withdrew from the study or died due to TRAEs.ConclusionIn this single-arm study, the treatment of metastatic TNBC with anlotinib combined with chemotherapy showed certain efficacy, and its toxicity was acceptable

Bardoxolone methyl induces apoptosis and autophagy and inhibits epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and stemness in esophageal squamous cancer cells

Natural and synthetic triterpenoids have been shown to kill cancer cells via multiple mechanisms. The therapeutic effect and underlying mechanism of the synthetic triterpenoid bardoxolone methyl (C-28 methyl ester of 2-cyano-3,12-dioxoolean-1,9-dien-28-oic acid; CDDO-Me) on esophageal cancer are unclear. Herein, we aimed to investigate the anticancer effects and underlying mechanisms of CDDO-Me in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) cells. Our study showed that CDDO-Me suppressed the proliferation and arrested cells in G2/M phase, and induced apoptosis in human ESCC Ec109 and KYSE70 cells. The G2/M arrest was accompanied with upregulated p21Waf1/Cip1 and p53 expression. CDDO-Me significantly decreased B-cell lymphoma-extra large (Bcl-xl), B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2), cleaved caspase-9, and cleaved poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) levels but increased the expression level of Bcl-2-associated X (Bax). Furthermore, CDDO-Me induced autophagy in both Ec109 and KYSE70 cells via suppression of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B/mammalian target of rapamycin (PI3K/Akt/mTOR) signaling pathway. There were interactions between the autophagic and apoptotic pathways in Ec109 and KYSE70 cells subject to CDDO-Me treatment. CDDO-Me also scavenged reactive oxygen species through activation of the nuclear factor (erythroid-derived 2)-related factor 2 (Nrf2) pathway in Ec109 and KYSE70 cells. CDDO-Me inhibited cell invasion, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and stemness in Ec109 and KYSE70 cells. CDDO-Me significantly downregulated E-cadherin but upregulated Snail, Slug, and zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox 1 (TCF-8/ZEB1) in Ec109 and KYSE70 cells. CDDO-Me significantly decreased the expression of octamer-4, sex determining region Y-box 2 (Sox-2), Nanog, and B lymphoma Mo-MLV insertion region 1 homolog (Bmi-1), all markers of cancer cell stemness, in Ec109 and KYSE70 cells. Taken together, these results indicate that CDDO-Me is a promising anticancer agent against ESCC. Further studies are warranted to explore the molecular targets, efficacy and safety of CDDO-Me in the treatment of ESCC