Dietary resistant potato starch improves growth performance and feather development in Pekin ducks fed a low phosphorus diet.

This study investigated whether dietary resistant potato starch (RPS) inclusion could ameliorate the negative impact of a low nonphytate phosphorus (nPP) diet on growth performance, feather growth, feather follicles (FF) development, and carcass traits by improving nutrient utilization and cecal microbiome fermentation capacity in Pekin ducks. The experiment was performed with a 2 × 2 randomized block design with 2 levels of RPS (0 or 12%) and 2 levels of nPP (low or normal, low: 0.22% at 1-14 d and 0.18% at 15-35 d of age; normal: 0.40% at 1-14 d and 0.35% at 15-35 d of age) for a total of 4 treatments, each with 8 replicate pens per treatment of 12 birds per pen. As regards growth performance and carcass traits, RPS inclusion markedly increased (P < 0.05) BW of 14 and 35 d, BWG and FI of 1-14 d, 15-35 d, and 1-35 d as well as abdominal fat and breast meat percentage of 35 d in ducks fed low nPP diets; moreover, RSP inclusion significantly reduced (P < 0.05) mortality in ducks fed low nPP diets. As regards feather growth and follicles development of 35 d, RPS inclusion significantly increased (P < 0.05) the fourth primary feather length, absolute feather weight, and the density of primary FF in the back skin in ducks fed low nPP diets. In regard to nutrition utilization, RPS supplementation significantly increased (P < 0.05) the availability of DM, CP, and energy, as well as dietary AME at 35 d of age in ducks fed low nPP diets. However, RPS supplementation had no effect (P > 0.05) on the concentration of cecal short-chain fatty acids and the activities of cecal phytase and cellulase in ducks fed low nPP diets. These results indicate that RPS can improve nutrient availability to ameliorate the negative effects on performance and feather development caused by a low nPP diet in Pekin ducks.

[Clinical application of single-port inflatable endoscopic nipple sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction using prosthesis implantation].

Objective: To examine the clinical application value of single-port inflatable endoscopic nipple sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction using prosthesis implantation in the treatment of early breast cancer. Methods: From February 2014 to July 2019, the clinic-pathological data of 34 early breast cancer patients received single-port inflatable endoscopic nipple sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction using prosthesis implantation at Department of General Surgery, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University were retrospectively analyzed and followed up. All the patients were female, with an age of 46(11) years (M(QR)) (range: 26 to 64 years). The radical cure degree of operation, cosmetic effect after operation were evaluated. The satisfaction to operation and personal quality of life after operation was accessed by BREAST-Q scale. Results: All surgical procedures were successfully completed. The operation time was (313.4±11.7) minutes (range: 200 to 485 minutes). The blooding-liquid was (33.8±3.3) ml (range: 10 to 100 ml). There were 5 cases (14.7%) of nipple areola necrosis after operation, of which 1 patient received taking the prosthesis out because of prosthesis exposure. There was no capsular contracture or postoperative bleeding case. The follow-up time was 35(17) months (range: 12 to 77 months), and there was one case suffering local recurrence and metastasis, and another suffering metastasis. The scores of postoperative breast satisfaction, psychosocial status, chest wall status and sexual health were 78.32±2.57 (range: 55 to 100), 89.12±2.30 (range: 82 to 100), 91.47±1.33 (range: 43 to 100), and 78.50±2.68 (range: 39 to 100). Conclusion: Single-port inflatable endoscopic nipple sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction using prosthesis implantation in the treatment of early breast cancer can achieve provided curative and cosmetic effect on patients with breast cancer, with good patients' postoperative quality of life and satisfaction.

Tuning the Kondo effect in thin Au films by depositing a thin layer of Au on molecular spin-dopants.

We report on the tuning of the Kondo effect in thin Au films containing a monolayer of cobalt(II) terpyridine complexes by altering the ligand structure around the Co(2+) ions by depositing a thin Au capping layer on top of the monolayer on Au by magnetron sputtering (more energetic) and e-beam evaporation (softer). We show that the Kondo effect is slightly enhanced with respect to that of the uncapped film when the cap is deposited by evaporation, and significantly enhanced when magnetron sputtering is used. The Kondo temperature (TK) increases from 3 to 4.2/6.2 K for the evaporated/sputtered caps. X-ray absorption spectroscopy and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy investigation showed that the organic ligands remain intact upon Au e-beam evaporation; however, sputtering inflicts significant change in the Co(2+) electronic environment. The location of the monolayer-on the surface or embedded in the film-has a small effect. However, the damage of Co-N bonds induced by sputtering has a drastic effect on the increase of the impurity-electron interaction. This opens up the way for tuning of the magnetic impurity states, e.g. spin quantum number, binding energy with respect to the host Fermi energy, and overlap via the ligand structure around the ions.

Josephson supercurrent through a topological insulator surface state.

The long-sought yet elusive Majorana fermion is predicted to arise from a combination of a superconductor and a topological insulator. An essential step in the hunt for this emergent particle is the unequivocal observation of supercurrent in a topological phase. Here, direct evidence for Josephson supercurrents in superconductor (Nb)-topological insulator (Bi(2)Te(3))-superconductor electron-beam fabricated junctions is provided by the observation of clear Shapiro steps under microwave irradiation, and a Fraunhofer-type dependence of the critical current on magnetic field. Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in magnetic fields up to 30 T reveal a topologically non-trivial two-dimensional surface state. This surface state is attributed to mediate the ballistic Josephson current despite the fact that the normal state transport is dominated by diffusive bulk conductivity. The lateral Nb-Bi(2)Te(3)-Nb junctions hence provide prospects for the realization of devices supporting Majorana fermions.

Tunable doping of a metal with molecular spins.

The mutual interaction of localized magnetic moments and their interplay with itinerant conduction electrons in a solid are central to many phenomena in condensed-matter physics, including magnetic ordering and related many-body phenomena such as the Kondo effect, the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yoshida interaction and carrier-induced ferromagnetism in diluted magnetic semiconductors. The strength and relative importance of these spin phenomena are determined by the magnitude and sign of the exchange interaction between the localized magnetic moments and also by the mean distance between them. Detailed studies of such systems require the ability to tune the mean distance between the localized magnetic moments, which is equivalent to being able to control the concentration of magnetic impurities in the host material. Here, we present a method for doping a gold film with localized magnetic moments that involves depositing a monolayer of a metal terpyridine complex onto the film. The metal ions in the complexes can be cobalt or zinc, and the concentration of magnetic impurities in the gold film can be controlled by varying the relative amounts of cobalt complexes (which carry a spin) and zinc complexes (which have zero spin). Kondo and weak localization measurements demonstrate that the magnetic impurity concentration can be systematically varied up to ∼800 ppm without any sign of inter-impurity interaction. Moreover, we find no evidence for the unwanted clustering that is often produced when using alternative methods.

Strongly luminescent binuclear aluminium chelate with polymer-like molecular packing and solution-processibility.

A binuclear aluminium(III) chelate with rigid and flexible mixed ligands has been synthesized and structurally characterized, which exhibits polymer-like molecular packing and solution-processiblity, as well as high photoluminescence quantum yield for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs); with this new compound as the emissive and host layer, the multi-layer OLEDs prepared via low-cost spin-coating showed encouraging performance.