Endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis in the penumbra aggravates secondary damage in rats with traumatic brain injury

Neuronal apoptosis is mediated by intrinsic and extrinsic signaling pathways such as the membrane-mediated,mitochondrial,and endoplasmic reticulum stress pathways.Few studies have examined the endoplasmic reticulum-mediated apoptosis pathway in the penumbra after traumatic brain injury,and it remains unclear whether endoplasmic reticulum stress can activate the caspase-12-dependent apoptotic pathway in the traumatic penumbra.Here,we established rat models of fluid percussion-induced traumatic brain injury and found that protein expression of caspase-12,caspase-3 and the endoplasmic reticulum stress marker 78 k Da glucose-regulated protein increased in the traumatic penumbra 6 hours after injury and peaked at 24 hours.Furthermore,numbers of terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated d UTP nick end labeling-positive cells in the traumatic penumbra also reached peak levels 24 hours after injury.These findings suggest that caspase-12-mediated endoplasmic reticulum-related apoptosis is activated in the traumatic penumbra,and may play an important role in the pathophysiology of secondary brain injury.

An easily-prepared impedance matched Josephson parametric amplifier

An impedance matched parametric amplifier(IMPA)with Josephson junctions is fabricated and characterized.A hybrid structure containing coplanar and strip structures is implemented to realize an impedance taper line and a plate capacitor in an LC nonlinear resonator based on Josephson junctions.The upper plate of the capacitor is isolated with SiNx without grounding as well as the strips.Such easily-prepared designs greatly reduce the requirements for lithography alignment and precision,which makes the fabrication process more reliable.The experimental results show that in such IMPA a gain higher than 25 dB with a bandwidth of about 100 MHz can be obtained.This broadband amplifier operates close to the quantum limit.By adjusting the working point,a higher bandwidth of about 400 MHz can be obtained with a gain of about 17 dB.

Compact NbN resonators with high kinetic inductance

We design and fabricateλ/2 coplanar waveguide NbN resonators,the thickness and length of which are only several nanometers and hundred microns,respectively.The quality factor of such compact resonators can reach up to 7.5×10~4 at single photon power level at 30 m K with the resonance frequency around 6.835 GHz.In order to tune the resonant frequency,the resonator is terminated to the ground with a dc-SQUID.By tuning the magnetic flux in the dc-SQUID,the effective inductance of the dc-SQUID is varied,which leads to the change in the resonant frequency of the resonator.The tunability range is more than 30 MHz and the quality factor is about 3×10~3.These compact and tunable NbN resonators have potential applications in the quantum information processing,such as in the precision measurement,coupling and/or reading out the quantum states of qubits.

Superconducting membrane mechanical oscillator based on vacuum-gap capacitor

Using the diluted S1813 UV photoresist as a sacrificial layer, we successfully fabricate a superconducting suspended parallel-plate capacitor, in which the top layer of aluminum film acts as a membrane mechanical resonator. Together with a superconducting octagonal spiral inductor, this parallel-plate capacitor constitutes a superconducting microwave resonator. At m K temperature, the transmission characteristic and spectrum of the microwave resonator are measured.Sideband frequencies caused by the vibration of the membrane mechanical resonator are clearly demonstrated. By downconverting with a mixer, the dependence of fundamental frequency and its harmonics on the input microwave power are clearly demonstrated, which is consistent with the numerical simulation.