Direct detection system for independent triplet-sideband signals based on a single photodiode.

This paper proposes a novel, to the best of our knowledge, independent triplet-single-sideband (triplet-SSB) transmission system scheme aimed at increasing channel capacity and improving spectrum efficiency. The conventional independent multiband transmission systems are limited by their complexity and high computational requirements, which hinder the improvement of spectrum efficiency and channel capacity. To address these challenges, this scheme uses three independent signals, modulated by an in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) modulator, and transmits them over a 5-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF). At the receiver end, a single photodiode (PD) is used for signal reception, and the signals are separated using digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms. Through simulation and verification, the feasibility and reliability of the system are demonstrated, with the bit error rates (BERs) of all three signals below the hard decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold value of 3.8 × 10-3. This independent triplet-SSB transmission system scheme effectively improves spectrum efficiency and channel capacity, providing a valuable solution for meeting the growing demands of data transmission.

Research Advances on the Role of Lipids in the Life Cycle of Human Coronaviruses.

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are emerging pathogens with a significant potential to cause life-threatening harm to human health. Since the beginning of the 21st century, three highly pathogenic and transmissible human CoVs have emerged, triggering epidemics and posing major threats to global public health. CoVs are enveloped viruses encased in a lipid bilayer. As fundamental components of cells, lipids can play an integral role in many physiological processes, which have been reported to play important roles in the life cycle of CoVs, including viral entry, uncoating, replication, assembly, and release. Therefore, research on the role of lipids in the CoV life cycle can provide a basis for a better understanding of the infection mechanism of CoVs and provide lipid targets for the development of new antiviral strategies. In this review, research advances on the role of lipids in different stages of viral infection and the possible targets of lipids that interfere with the viral life cycle are discussed.

Antiviral efficacy of selective estrogen receptor modulators against SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro and in vivo reveals bazedoxifene acetate as an entry inhibitor.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the seventh member of the coronavirus family that can infect humans. Recently, more contagious and pathogenic variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been continuously emerging. Clinical candidates with high efficacy and ready availability are still in urgent need. To identify potent anti-SARS-CoV-2 repurposing drugs, we evaluated the antiviral efficacy of 18 selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) against SARS-CoV-2 infection. Six SERMs exhibited excellent anti-SARS-CoV-2 effects in Vero E6 cells and three human cell lines. Clomifene citrate, tamoxifen, toremifene citrate, and bazedoxifene acetate reduced the weight loss of hamsters challenged with SARS-CoV-2, and reduced hamster pulmonary viral load and interleukin-6 expression when assayed at 4 days postinfection. In particular, bazedoxifene acetate was identified to act on the penetration stage of the postattachment step via altering cholesterol distribution and endosome acidification. And, bazedoxifene acetate inhibited pseudoviruses infection of original SARS-CoV-2, Delta variant, Omicron variant, and SARS-CoV. These results offer critical information supporting bazedoxifene acetate as a promising agent against coronaviruses.

[Variation of satellite-based spring vegetation phenology and the relationship with climate in the Northern Hemisphere over 1982 to 2009.] / 1982­2009å¹´åŸºäºŽå«æ˜Ÿæ•°æ®çš„åŒ—åŠçƒä¸­é«˜çº¬åœ°åŒºæ¤è¢«æ˜¥å­£ç‰©å€™åŠ¨æ€åŠå ¶ä¸Žæ°”å€™çš„å ³ç³».

In-depth understanding the variation of vegetation spring phenology is important and nece-ssary for estimation and prediction of ecosystem response to climate change. Satellite-based estimation is one of the important methods for detecting the vegetation spring phenology in Northern Hemisphere. However, there are still many uncertainties among different remote sensing models. In this study, we employed NDVI satellite product from 1982 to 2009 to estimate vegetation green-up onset dates in spring across Northern Hemisphere, and further analyzed the phenology spatio-temporal variation and the relationship with climate. Results showed that spatial mean spring phenology significantly advanced by (4.0±0.8) days during this period in the Northern Hemisphere, while spring phenology advanced much faster in Eurasia (0.22±0.04 d·a-1) than in North America (0.03±0.02 d·a-1). Moreover, phenology of different vegetation types changed inconstantly during the period. All five methods consistently indicated that grassland significantly advanced, while forests didn't advance robustly among methods. In addition, the interannual change of spring phenology was mainly driven by spring temperature. The spring phenology advanced (3.2±0.5) days with 1 ℃ increase in temperature. On the contrary, we did not find significant relationship between vegetation spring phenology and spring accumulative precipitation across the Northern Hemisphere (P>0.05) in this study.

Spontaneous formation of hierarchical wrinkles in Cr films deposited on silicone oil drops with constrained edges.

We report on the spontaneous formation of hierarchical wrinkling patterns in Cr films deposited on silicone oil drops with constrained edges. The appearance of the wrinkling patterns is strongly dependent on the film thickness and the size of the silicone oil drop. Because the Cr film at the drop edge is constrained due to the strong adhesion between the film and the glass surface, the wrinkle wavelength merely depends on the distance starting from the drop edge. When the distance increases, the wavelength increases quickly first, and then it slows down gradually in compliance with a simple power law. The evolution of the wrinkle amplitude is similar to that of the wavelength, but it is also closely related to the film thickness and the oil drop size. Based on the fact that the silicone oil is polymerized to form an elastic layer during deposition, the formation and evolution of the hierarchical wrinkling patterns have been analyzed in detail.

Strain driven enhancement of ferroelectricity and magnetoelectric effect in multiferroic tunnel junction.

The strain effect on the ferroelectric and magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroic tunnel junction (MFTJ) Co/BaTiO3/Co has been investigated systematically by using first-principles calculations within density functional theory. It is found that both in-plane compressive strain and uniaxial tensile strain lead to the enhancement of ferroelectric polarization stability and intensity of magnetoelectric coupling in the MFTJ. There is a transition from the paraelectric phase to the ferroelectric phase for the BaTiO3 layer in MFTJ when the loaded in-plane compressive strain increases up to -2.8% and the corresponding average ferroelectric polarization is about 0.13 C m(-2). Meanwhile, the calculated surface magnetoelectric coefficients increase with increasing in-plane compressive strain. Similar phenomena have been also observed in the case of uniaxial tensile strain implemented in MFTJ. The results suggest that the ferroelectric polarization and magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroic tunnel junctions can be controlled by strain and we expect that this study can provide a theoretical basis for the design of spintronic devices.

The impact of gender, age and tissues in vitro on estimating postmortem interval by FTIR spectroscopy.

To investigate the influence of such individual factors as gender, age and tissues in vitro to the postmortem interval (PMI) by the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer in animal experiments. SD rats were classified into male and female groups, different age groups (21-day, 42-day and 63-day group), and tissues in vitro and in vivo groups. The rats were sacrificed by cervical dislocation, whose bodies were kept in a controlled environmental chamber set at (20+/-2) degrees C and 50% humidity. The liver, kidney, spleen, myocardium, brain, lung and skeletal muscle tissues were collected for measurement from time zero to 48 h postmortem. With the change of PMI, no obvious changes were found in the main FTIR absorbance peaks and their ratios at different time points. All the experimental groups showed no significant changes when compared with the controls. The gender, age and tissues in vitro were not found to be contributing factors in the estimation of PMI via FTIR spectroscopy.

The impact of gender, age and tissues in vitro on estimating postmortem interval by FTIR spectroscopy / 法医学杂志

To investigate the influence of such individual factors as gender, age and tissues in vitro to the postmortem interval (PMI) by the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer in animal experiments. SD rats were classified into male and female groups, different age groups (21-day, 42-day and 63-day group), and tissues in vitro and in vivo groups. The rats were sacrificed by cervical dislocation, whose bodies were kept in a controlled environmental chamber set at (20+/-2) degrees C and 50% humidity. The liver, kidney, spleen, myocardium, brain, lung and skeletal muscle tissues were collected for measurement from time zero to 48 h postmortem. With the change of PMI, no obvious changes were found in the main FTIR absorbance peaks and their ratios at different time points. All the experimental groups showed no significant changes when compared with the controls. The gender, age and tissues in vitro were not found to be contributing factors in the estimation of PMI via FTIR spectroscopy.

[Impact of pesticide use on the density of Anopheles anthropophagus and malaria incidence].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of the application of chemical pesticides on the distribution of Anopheles anthropophagus in rice fields and the malaria incidence. METHOD: Twenty-four villages from 16 counties in the provinces of Zhejiang, Sichuan and Guangxi were chosen for the surveys in the period of 1983-1987. For the survey of An. anthropophagus, indoor human bait trapping until midnight and catching the mosquitoes in all the nets in early morning were carried out to get the density and population ratio of the mosquitoes. Historical data on Anopheles spp., malaria incidence, acreage of the single or double season cropping of rice and on the quantity of chemical pesticide used in rice fields were collected from the study areas. RESULTS: In Hang-jia-hu region of Zhejiang Province, double season rice cropping was performed at that time, the quantity of pesticides used in 1973 was 45 kg/hm2, which was as high as 50 times than that in the 1950s. The density of An. anthropophagus decreased yearly, no An. anthropophagus could be found at 11 survey points in late 1980s. The malaria incidence dropped to less than 1 per 10000. In Leshan and Yibin areas of Sichuan Province, the major cultivation was single cropping, pesticides were applied in paddy fields since 1960s, and the average quantity of pesticides used was 8.6 kg/hm2 during 1970s-1980s. No significant difference on the density of An. anthropophagus was revealed between 1980s (86.2%) and 1960s (82.2%) (chi2=0.63, P>0.05). After mid-1980s, pesticide use gradually increased, and reached to 18.18 kg/hm2 in average in the years after 2000. The density of An. anthropophagus decreased, no An. anthropophagus was found in 2010 in the area surveyed and no malaria cases were reported as well. With double season cropping in Huanjiang County of Guangxi, the pesticide amount consumed was 1.79kg/hm2, 25.13 kg/hm2 and 7.68 kg/hm2 in paddy fields in 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, respectively. The proportion of An. anthropophagus in anophelines was 52%(1 747/3 392) in the beginning of the 1980s. After the year 2000, the average pesticide use increased to 20.38 kg/hm2 in paddy fields. It was difficult to find An. anthropophagus in human dwellings after 2008. The average annual malaria incidence dropped to 0.14 per 10 000. CONCLUSION: Change of farming activities and especially use of chemical pesticides in high quantity at the rice fields undermine the breeding environments of An. anthropophagus, greatly reduce the mosquito population and therefore the malaria incidence.

Development of a freezing drier for lyophilization of biomaterials / 生物医学工程学杂志

To observe and assess the performance and effect of our self-made FD-1 freezing drier on biomaterials. R502 compressor and R502 refrigerating agent were adopted. In the experiment, FD-1 lyophilized collagen sponge, strain and defibrinogenase. The evaporating-condenser temperature reached -45 degrees C and the small icebox temperature reached -30 degrees C under the loading or free-loading circumstances in the lyophilizing box. The lyophilized collagen sponge had many pores in the structure, and the strain and the defibrinogenase were lyophilized and maintained satisfactorily. This freezing drier is suitable for lyophilizing some biomaterial samples in small or medium batches.