Brain region changes following a spinal cord injury.

Brain-related complications are common in clinical practice after spinal cord injury (SCI); however, the molecular mechanisms of these complications are still unclear. Here, we reviewed the changes in the brain regions caused by SCI from three perspectives: imaging, molecular analysis, and electrophysiology. Imaging studies revealed abnormal functional connectivity, gray matter volume atrophy, and metabolic abnormalities in brain regions after SCI, leading to changes in the structure and function of brain regions. At the molecular level, chemokines, inflammatory factors, and damage-associated molecular patterns produced in the injured area were retrogradely transmitted through the corticospinal tract, cerebrospinal fluid, or blood circulation to the specific brain area to cause pathologic changes. Electrophysiologic recordings also suggested abnormal changes in brain electrical activity after SCI. Transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, and deep brain stimulation alleviated pain and improved motor function in patients with SCI; therefore, transcranial therapy may be a new strategy for the treatment of patients with SCI.

Field test of quantum key distribution with high key creation efficiency.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) promises unconditional security for communication. However, the random choices of the measurement basis in QKD usually result in low key creation efficiency. This drawback is overcome in the differential-phase-shift QKD, provided that each photon can be prepared in a large number of time slots with a proper waveform. In this work we develop a miniature room-temperature 1550-nm single-photon source to generate narrowband single photon in 50 time slots with a nearly optimal waveform for achieving unity key creation efficiency. By utilizing these single photons in the field test, we demonstrate the differential-phase-shift QKD with a key creation efficiency of 97%. Our work shows that the practical QKD can benefit from the narrowband single photons with controllable waveforms.

Budding uninhibited by benzimidazoles 1 promotes cell proliferation, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition via the Wnt/ß-catenin signaling in glioblastoma.

The pathogenesis and progression of GBM (glioblastoma), as one of the most frequently occurring malignancies of the central nervous system, are regulated by several genes. BUB1 (budding uninhibited by benzimidazoles 1) is a mitotic checkpoint that plays an important role in chromosome segregation as well as in various tumors. However, its role in glioma is unknown. The current study discovered prominently elevated BUB1 in glioma and a significant relationship between BUB1 expression, a high World Health Organization grade, and a poor prognosis in glioma patients. Moreover, BUB1 triggered EMT (epithelial-mesenchymal transition) apart from promoting glioma cell proliferation, migration, and infiltration. Besides, BUB1 promoted EMT by activating the Wnt/ß-catenin axis. As implied by our study, BUB1 probably has the potential as a target for GBM management.

Performance and complexity analysis using a sparse deep learning method for indoor terahertz transmission.

In this Letter, we propose and experimentally validate a sparse deep learning method (SDLM) for terahertz indoor wireless-over-fiber by transmitting a 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signal over a 15-km single-mode fiber (SMF) and a wireless link distance of 60 cm at 135 GHz through a cost-effective intensity-modulated direct detection (IM-DD) communications system. The proposed SDLM imposes the L1-regularized mechanism on the cost function, which not only improves performance but also reduces complexity when compared with traditional Volterra nonlinear equalizer (VNLE), sparse VNLE, and conventional DLM. Our experimental findings show that the proposed SDLM provides viable options for successfully mitigating nonlinear distortions and outperforms conventional VNLE, conventional DLM, and SVNLE with a 76%, 72%, and 61% complexity reduction, respectively, for 8-QAM without losing signal integrity.

MiR-623 links lncRNA RP11-89 and cyclin D1 to regulate the proliferation of glioblastoma cells.

PURPOSE: The tumorigenesis of bladder cancer has been proven to be related to the increased expression of lncRNA RP11-89, the participation of which in glioblastoma (GBM) is unknown. We predicted that RP11-89 could be targeted by miR-623, which targets cyclin D1. We then analyzed the role of RP11-89 in GBM. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Samples of both GBM and paired non-tumor tissue were obtained from 58 GBM patients to analyze the expression of RP11-89 and miR-623 through RT-qPCR. The direct binding of miR-623 to RP11-89 was analyzed with RNA-RNA pull down. The role of RP11-89 and miR-623 in regulating each other's expression was analyzed with overexpression assay. The role of RP11-89 and miR-623 in regulating the expression of cyclin D1 and GBM cell proliferation was analyzed by Western blot and BrdU assay, respectively. RESULTS: RP11-89 was expressed in high amounts in GBM, while miR-623 was expressed in low amounts in GBM. RP11-89 and miR-623 were not closely correlated, while miR-623 directly bound to RP11-89. RP11-89 and miR-623 showed no direct role in each other's expression. RP11-89 suppressed the role of miR-623 in downregulating cyclin D1 and GBM cell proliferation. CONCLUSIONS: Therefore, miR-623 may link lncRNA RP11-89 and cyclin D1 to regulate the proliferation of GBM cells.

Computation efficient sparse DNN nonlinear equalization for IM/DD 112 Gbps PAM4 inter-data center optical interconnects.

In this Letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel, to the best of our knowledge, sparse deep neural network-based nonlinear equalizer (SDNN-NLE). By identifying only the significant weight coefficients, our approach remarkably reduces the computational complexity, while still upholding the desired transmission accuracy. The insignificant weights are pruned in two phases: identifying the significance of each weight by pre-training the fully connected DNN-NLE with an adaptive L2-regularization and then pruning those insignificant ones away with a pre-defined sparsity. An experimental demonstration is conducted on a 112 Gbps PAM4 link over 40 km standard single-mode fiber with a 25 GHz externally modulated laser in O-band. Our experimental results illustrate that, for the 112 Gbps PAM4 signal at a received optical power of -5dBm over 40 km, the proposed SDNN-NLE exhibits promising solutions to effectively mitigate nonlinear distortions and outperforms a conventional fully connected Volterra equalizer (VE), conventional fully connected DNN-NLE, and sparse VE by providing 71%, 63%, and 41% complexity reduction, respectively, without degrading the system performance.

Reducing computation complexity by using elastic net regularization based pruned Volterra equalization in a 80 Gbps PAM-4 signal for inter-data center interconnects.

Volterra equalization (VE) presents substantial performance enhancement for high-speed optical signals but suffers from high computation complexity which limits its physical implementations. To address these limitations, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an elastic net regularization-based pruned Volterra equalization (ENPVE) to reduce the computation complexity while still maintain system performance. Our proposed scheme prunes redundant weight coefficients with a three-phase configuration. Firstly, we pre-train the VE with an adaptive EN-regularizer to identify significant weights. Next, we prune the insignificant weights away. Finally, we retrain the equalizer by fine-tuning the remaining weight coefficients. Our proposed ENPVE achieves superior performance with reduced computation complexity. Compared with conventional VE and L1 regularization-based Volterra equalizer (L1VE), our approach show a complexity reduction of 97.4% and 20.2%, respectively, for an O-band 80-Gbps PAM4 signal at a received optical power of -4 dBm after 40 km SMF transmission.

Doppler-free coherent detection using period-one nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers for OFDM-RoF links.

This study investigates coherent detection that is free from the Doppler frequency shift effect for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing radio-over-fiber (OFDM-RoF) links using period-one (P1) nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers. Even under a dynamically time-varying Doppler frequency shift of up to 100 kHz, corresponding to a relative motion between a transmitter and a receiver with a velocity of more than 3850 km/h at 28 GHz, the microwave carrier of a received OFDM-RoF signal can be successfully regenerated instantaneously and uninterruptedly with its phase highly preserved through the P1 dynamics. No carrier frequency offset (CFO) due to the Doppler frequency shift effect happens if the regenerated microwave carrier is used as a microwave local oscillator for coherent detection of the received OFDM-RoF signal. As a result, a bit-error ratio of around 10-9 is achieved for coherent detection of a 28 GHz OFDM-RoF signal carrying 4 Gb/s 16-quadrature amplitude modulation data. Thus, no digital signal processing, either photonic or electronic, is required to compensate for such a CFO. This all-optical system is capable of operation up to at least 100 GHz.

Photonic microwave carrier recovery using period-one nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers for OFDM-RoF coherent detection.

This study investigates an all-optical scheme based on period-one (P1) nonlinear dynamics of semiconductor lasers, which regenerates the microwave carrier of an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing radio-over-fiber (OFDM-RoF) signal and uses it as a microwave local oscillator for coherent detection. Through the injection locking established between the OFDM-RoF signal and the P1 dynamics, frequency synchronization with highly preserved phase quality is inherently achieved between the recovered microwave carrier and the microwave carrier of the OFDM-RoF signal. A bit-error ratio down to 1.9×10-9 is achieved accordingly using the proposed scheme for coherent detection of a 32-GHz OFDM-RoF signal carrying 4 Gb/s 16-quadrature amplitude modulation data. No electronic microwave generators or electronic phase-locked loops are thus required. The proposed system can be operated up to at least 100 GHz and can be self-adapted to certain changes in the operating microwave frequency.

RF power fading mitigation for an IMDD multicarrier LR-PON.

In an intensity-modulation direct-detection (IMDD) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal format, radio frequency (RF) power fading produces non-uniform receiving performance among the subcarriers due to chromatic dispersion. Hence each subscriber experiences distinct quality of service (QoS) in conventional frequency division multiple access (FDMA). In this paper, a multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) signal along with multicode interference (MCI) cancellation process is proposed and experimentally demonstrated to enhance the receiving performance in an IMDD long reach passive optical network (LR-PON). With the proposed scheme, the receiving performance of each subcarrier can be equalized so that a universal transmitter design at central office (CO) can support all the subscribers with their locations ranging from back-to-back to 100 km. Our experimental results also reveal that, even under 20 dB RF power fading, the proposed scheme can still provide over 21.7 dB power budget and only approximately 2 dB sensitivity deviation is observed in an IMDD LR-PON system.

Over 210 Gb/s PDM multiband DDO-OFDM LR-PON downstream with simple self-polarization diversity.

A simple polarization division multiplexed (PDM) multiband direct-detection optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DDO-OFDM) long reach passive optical network (LR-PON) with net data rate over 210 Gb/s on single wavelength channel is proposed and experimentally demonstrated with self-polarization diversity technique. The proposed self-polarization diversity function is realized at a powered remote node with all passive components to achieve cost-effectiveness and simultaneously double both the channel capacity and subscriber numbers. Meanwhile, this architecture retains the simplicity of direct-detection single receiver-end without any hardware or software modification at the optical network units. The measured power penalty of the proposed PDM multiband DDO-OFDM LR-PON is 0.8 dB over 100 km transmission with respect to that of the ordinary single polarization scheme at a specified forward error correction threshold.

An experimental demonstration for carrier reused bidirectional PON system with adaptive modulation DDO-OFDM downstream and QPSK upstream signals.

A light source centralized bidirectional passive optical network (PON) system based on multiband direct-detection optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (DDO-OFDM) downstream and quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) upstream is experimentally demonstrated. By introducing a simple optical single-side band (SSB) filter at the optical network unit (ONU), all the desired signal bands will be immune from the deleterious signal-signal beating interference (SSBI) noise with only single-end direct-detection scheme. An adaptive modulation configuration is employed to enhance the entire downstream throughput which results in a 150-Gbps downstream data rate with a single optical carrier. In the upstream direction, by recycling the clean downstream optical carrier, a 12.5 Gb/s QPSK format with coherent receiving mechanism in central office is adopted for better receiving sensitivity and dispersion tolerance. With the power enhancement by the long-reach PON architecture, the downstream splitting ratio can achieve as high as 1:1024.

Impact of fiber delay fluctuation on reference injection-locked optoelectronic oscillators.

We demonstrate that the phase shift of a reference injection-locked optoelectronic oscillator (OEO) varies as the change of its fiber delay over a long period of time. The dynamic variation of the fiber delay is monitored using an injected probe signal and is compared with the phase shift. With actively stabilized fiber delays according to the monitored data, the long-term frequency stability of the reference injection-locked OEO is evaluated.

First international two-way satellite time and frequency transfer experiment employing dual pseudo-random noise codes.

Two-way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTFT) is one of the main techniques used to compare atomic time scales over long distances. To both improve the precision of TWSTFT and decrease the satellite link fee, a new software-defined modem with dual pseudo-random noise (DPN) codes has been developed. In this paper, we demonstrate the first international DPN-based TWSTFT experiment over a period of 6 months. The results of DPN exhibit excellent performance, which is competitive with the Global Positioning System (GPS) precise point positioning (PPP) technique in the short-term and consistent with the conventional TWSTFT in the long-term. Time deviations of less than 75 ps are achieved for averaging times from 1 s to 1 d. Moreover, the DPN data has less diurnal variation than that of the conventional TWSTFT. Because the DPN-based system has advantages of higher precision and lower bandwidth cost, it is one of the most promising methods to improve international time-transfer links.

Enhancing long-term stability of the optoelectronic oscillator with a probe-injected fiber delay monitoring mechanism.

Optoelectronic oscillators (OEOs), based on optical fiber loops to act as a high-Q cavity, are capable of generating stable radio-frequencies (RF). The long-term frequency stability of the OEO is then limited by the cavity variation that is mainly induced by temperature sensitivity of the optical fiber. In order to actively stabilize the OEO cavity, we employ the technique of RF transfer over optical fibers. We propose and experimentally demonstrate a dual-loop-OEO scheme to enhance the long-term stability with an injected probe signal to monitor the phase variation in the fiber loops. The experimental results show that the resulting spread-spectrum signal is useful in monitoring the fiber delay without observable interference. The relationships between the measured frequency and the monitored delay are theoretically and numerically discussed. We also estimate the long-term stability of the proposed OEO scheme with the cavity phase correction. The corrected result shows the long-term frequency stability of the proposed OEO is within 8.4×10(-8) at one day.

Multi-function all optical packet switch by periodic wavelength arrangement in an arrayed waveguide grating and wideband optical filters.

By utilizing the cyclic filtering function of an NxN arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel multi-function all optical packet switching (OPS) architecture by applying a periodical wavelength arrangement between the AWG in the optical routing/buffering unit and a set of wideband optical filters in the switched output ports to achieve the desired routing and buffering functions. The proposed OPS employs only one tunable wavelength converter at the input port to convert the input wavelength to a designated wavelength which reduces the number of active optical components and thus the complexity of the traffic control is simplified in the OPS. With the proposed OPS architecture, multiple optical packet switching functions, including arbitrary packet switching and buffering, first-in-first-out (FIFO) packet multiplexing, packet demultiplexing and packet add/drop multiplexing, have been successfully demonstrated.

Study of cross-phase modulation and free-carrier dispersion in silicon photonic wires for Mamyshev signal regenerators.

A numerical study on Mamyshev signal regeneration realized on silicon photonic wires is reported. Unlike fiber-optics Mamyshev regenerators employing cross-phase modulation, silicon photonic wires have to include two-photon absorption and the two-photon-absorption-induced free-carrier effect. By well adjusting time delay between the co-propagating signal and clock pulses, both cross-phase modulation and free-carrier dispersion could induce nonlinear wavelength shift, which is essential for signal recovery in the Mamyshev regeneration scheme. A simulation result shows the quality factor of signal eye diagram improved by more than 4 dB for Return-to-Zero signals with pulse width 10 ps, peak power 6.5 W, and operation speed 10 Gbit/s through a 1-cm silicon photonic wire.

Joint compensation of CD and PMD in direct-detected OFDM transmission using polarization-time coding.

We propose and demonstrate a polarization-time coding (PTC) method which can effectively compensate both the CD and first order PMD in direct-detected OFDM transmission. Compared with the previous methods, the proposed PTC not only alleviates the need for the complex dynamic polarization controller but also exhibits superior transparencies to both the OFDM format and transmission data rate. For the proposed PTC method, we have analytically derived the transmission model with CD and first order PMD, and theoretically prove the PTC indeed can jointly compensate both CD and PMD. The numerical results show that, with the PTC method, both the previously proposed gapped and interleaved OFDM formats behave virtually immune to both CD and PMD with a price of 3-dB OSNR penalty in back-to-back (BtB). Aimed to mitigate this BtB 3-dB penalty, further partial PTC approach is proposed for trading the PMD tolerance with the BtB OSNR sensitivity. The interleaved OFDM system is found to gain profits in terms of lower sensitivity with the partial coding.