Nanofabrication of Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Device by an Integrated Block-Copolymer and Nanoimprint Lithography Method

The integration of block-copolymers and nanoimprint lithography presents a novel and cost-effective approach to achieving nanoscale patterning capabilities. The authors demonstrate the fabrication of a surface-enhanced Raman scattering device using templates created by the block-copolymers nanoimprint lithography integrated method

Updated Analysis of a_1 and a_2 in Hadronic Two-body Decays of B Mesons

Using the recent experimental data of $B\to D^{(*)}(\pi,\rho)$, $B\to D^{(*)} D_s^{(*)}$, $B\to J/\psi K^{(*)}$ and various model calculations on form factors, we re-analyze the effective coefficients a_1 and a_2 and their ratio. QCD and electroweak penguin corrections to a_1 from $B\to D^{(*)}D_s^{(*)}$ and a_2 from $B\to J/\psi K^{(*)}$ are estimated. In addition to the model-dependent determination, the effective coefficient a_1 is also extracted in a model-independent way as the decay modes $B\to D^{(*)}h$ are related by factorization to the measured semileptonic distribution of $B\to D^{(*)}\ell \bar\nu$ at $q^2=m_h^2$. Moreover, this enables us to extract model-independent heavy-to-heavy form factors, for example, $F_0^{BD}(m_\pi^2)=0.66\pm0.06\pm0.05$ and $A_0^{BD^*}(m_\pi^2)=0.56\pm0.03\pm0.04$. The determination of the magnitude of a_2 from $B\to J/\psi K^{(*)}$ depends on the form factors $F_1^{BK}$, $A_{1,2}^{BK^*}$ and $V^{BK^*}$ at $q^2=m^2_{J/\psi}$. By requiring that a_2 be process insensitive (i.e., the value of a_2 extracted from $J/\psi K$ and $J/\psi K^*$ states should be similar), as implied by the factorization hypothesis, we find that $B\to K^{(*)}$ form factors are severely constrained; they respect the relation $F_1^{BK}(m^2_{J/\psi})\approx 1.9 A_1^{BK^*}(m^2_{J/\psi})$. Form factors $A_2^{BK^*}$ and $V^{BK^*}$ at $q^2=m^2_{J/\psi}$ inferred from the measurements of the longitudinal polarization fraction and the P-wave component in $B\to J/\psi K^*$ are obtained. A stringent upper limit on a_2 is derived from the current bound on \ov B^0\to D^0\pi^0 and it is sensitive to final-state interactions.Comment: 33 pages, 2 figures. Typos in Tables I and IX are corrected. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Distributed phase-covariant cloning with atomic ensembles via quantum Zeno dynamics

We propose an interesting scheme for distributed orbital state quantum cloning with atomic ensembles based on the quantum Zeno dynamics. These atomic ensembles which consist of identical three-level atoms are trapped in distant cavities connected by a single-mode integrated optical star coupler. These qubits can be manipulated through appropriate modulation of the coupling constants between atomic ensemble and classical field, and the cavity decay can be largely suppressed as the number of atoms in the ensemble qubits increases. The fidelity of each cloned qubit can be obtained with analytic result. The present scheme provides a new way to construct the quantum communication network.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Genomic Islands Confer Heavy Metal Resistance in <i>Mucilaginibacter kameinonensis</i> and <i>Mucilaginibacter rubeus</i> Isolated from a Gold/Copper Mine.

Heavy metals (HMs) are compounds that can be hazardous and impair growth of living organisms. Bacteria have evolved the capability not only to cope with heavy metals but also to detoxify polluted environments. Three heavy metal-resistant strains of &lt;i&gt;Mucilaginibacer rubeus&lt;/i&gt; and one of &lt;i&gt;Mucilaginibacter kameinonensis&lt;/i&gt; were isolated from the gold/copper Zijin mining site, Longyan, Fujian, China. These strains were shown to exhibit high resistance to heavy metals with minimal inhibitory concentration reaching up to 3.5 mM Cu &lt;sup&gt;(II)&lt;/sup&gt; , 21 mM Zn &lt;sup&gt;(II)&lt;/sup&gt; , 1.2 mM Cd &lt;sup&gt;(II)&lt;/sup&gt; , and 10.0 mM As &lt;sup&gt;(III)&lt;/sup&gt; . Genomes of the four strains were sequenced by Illumina. Sequence analyses revealed the presence of a high abundance of heavy metal resistance (HMR) determinants. One of the strain, &lt;i&gt;M. rubeus&lt;/i&gt; P2, carried genes encoding 6 putative P &lt;sub&gt;IB-1&lt;/sub&gt; -ATPase, 5 putative P &lt;sub&gt;IB-3&lt;/sub&gt; -ATPase, 4 putative Zn &lt;sup&gt;(II)&lt;/sup&gt; /Cd &lt;sup&gt;(II)&lt;/sup&gt; P &lt;sub&gt;IB-4&lt;/sub&gt; type ATPase, and 16 putative resistance-nodulation-division (RND)-type metal transporter systems. Moreover, the four genomes contained a high abundance of genes coding for putative metal binding chaperones. Analysis of the close vicinity of these HMR determinants uncovered the presence of clusters of genes potentially associated with mobile genetic elements. These loci included genes coding for tyrosine recombinases (integrases) and subunits of mating pore (type 4 secretion system), respectively allowing integration/excision and conjugative transfer of numerous genomic islands. Further in silico analyses revealed that their genetic organization and gene products resemble the &lt;i&gt;Bacteroides&lt;/i&gt; integrative and conjugative element CTnDOT. These results highlight the pivotal role of genomic islands in the acquisition and dissemination of adaptive traits, allowing for rapid adaption of bacteria and colonization of hostile environments

\psi(2S) Decays into \J plus Two Photons

Using \gamma \gamma J/\psi, J/\psi \ra e^+ e^- and $\mu^+ \mu^-$ events from a sample of $14.0\times 10^6$ \psip decays collected with the BESII detector, the branching fractions for \psip\ra \pi^0\J, \eta\J, and \psi(2S)\ar\gamma\chi_{c1},\gamma\chi_{c2}\ar\gamma\gamma\jpsi are measured to be B(\psip\ra \pi^0\J) = (1.43\pm0.14\pm0.13)\times 10^{-3}, B(\psip\ra \eta\J) = (2.98\pm0.09\pm0.23)%, B(\psi(2S)\ar\gamma\chi_{c1}\ar\gamma\gamma\jpsi) = (2.81\pm0.05\pm 0.23)%, and B(\psi(2S)\ar\gamma\chi_{c2}\ar\gamma\gamma\jpsi) = (1.62\pm0.04\pm 0.12)%.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. submitted to Phys. Rev.

The Boltzmann equation without angular cutoff in the whole space: III, Qualitative properties of solutions

This is a continuation of our series of works for the inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation. We study qualitative properties of classical solutions, precisely, the full regularization in all variables, uniqueness, non-negativity and convergence rate to the equilibrium. Together with the results of Parts I and II about the well posedness of the Cauchy problem around Maxwellian, we conclude this series with a satisfactory mathematical theory for Boltzmann equation without angular cutoff

Accurate Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer Based On Histopathology Images Using Artificial Intelligence

Background: Accurate and robust pathological image analysis for colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnosis is time-consuming and knowledge-intensive, but is essential for CRC patients’ treatment. The current heavy workload of pathologists in clinics/hospitals may easily lead to unconscious misdiagnosis of CRC based on daily image analyses. Methods: Based on a state-of-the-art transfer-learned deep convolutional neural network in artificial intelligence (AI), we proposed a novel patch aggregation strategy for clinic CRC diagnosis using weakly labeled pathological whole-slide image (WSI) patches. This approach was trained and validated using an unprecedented and enormously large number of 170,099 patches, \u3e 14,680 WSIs, from \u3e 9631 subjects that covered diverse and representative clinical cases from multi-independent-sources across China, the USA, and Germany. Results: Our innovative AI tool consistently and nearly perfectly agreed with (average Kappa statistic 0.896) and even often better than most of the experienced expert pathologists when tested in diagnosing CRC WSIs from multicenters. The average area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) of AI was greater than that of the pathologists (0.988 vs 0.970) and achieved the best performance among the application of other AI methods to CRC diagnosis. Our AI-generated heatmap highlights the image regions of cancer tissue/cells. Conclusions: This first-ever generalizable AI system can handle large amounts of WSIs consistently and robustly without potential bias due to fatigue commonly experienced by clinical pathologists. It will drastically alleviate the heavy clinical burden of daily pathology diagnosis and improve the treatment for CRC patients. This tool is generalizable to other cancer diagnosis based on image recognition