复发性抗NMDA受体脑炎的临床特点及转归

目的探讨复发性抗N-甲基-D-天冬氨酸(NMDA)受体脑炎的临床特征、治疗、结局与转归。方法选取2014年12月-2017年12月四川大学华西医院神经内科住院治疗的抗NMDA受体脑炎患者45例。其中复发性抗NMDA受体脑炎患者18例为观察组,随机选取非复发性抗NMDA受体脑炎患者27例为对照组,比较两组患者的临床特征、治疗与预后。结果观察组首发表现为典型脑炎的9例(50%),对照组7例(26%),两组比较差异无统计学意义(P>0.05)。观察组首发表现为癫痫持续状态的4例(22.2%),对照组4例(14.8%),两组比较差异无统计学意义(P>0.05)。两组的脑脊液细胞增多、脑脊液蛋白水平升高、脑电图异常、头部MRI异常例数比较,差异均无统计学意义(P>0.05)。比较脑脊液抗NMDA受体抗体与血清抗NMDA受体抗体检测预测复发的敏感性,差异有统计学意义(P <0.05)。观察组转归良好的患者占72%,对照组转归良好的患者占85%,两组治疗结果及转归差异无统计学意义(P>0.05)。结论复发性和非复发性患者首发临床特点并无差异,出现癫痫持续状态与否与患者复发和预后并无确切联系。在评估是否复发时,脑脊液抗NMDA受体抗体较血清抗NMDA受体抗体更为敏感。抗NMDA受体脑炎复发与否对临床结局无显著影响。早期使用免疫治疗与联合二线免疫治疗可改善临床预后,但与抗NMDA受体脑炎复发率的降低无相关。

A universal design for triggering the precise micro-structure reconstruction through in-situ electro-regulating to boost the pseudocapacitance of MnO_(2)

Developing a precise controllable strategy for modulating the micro-morphology,atom coordination environment,and electronic structure of electrode materials is crucial for the performance in the field of energy storage,yet still a tremendous challenge.Herein,a facile and universal in-situ electrochemical self-optimization design,electro-regulating,is designed to controllably produce electrode materials with abundant defects.Through detailed characterization studies,the microstructure of MnO_(2) is reconstructed after electro-regulating,which exhibits a structure of small fragments with numerous holes due to the partial self-dissolution of acidic oxides under an alkaline operating environment.Furthermore,the electro-regulating strategy not only presents the formation steps of numerous holes but is also accompanies by a number of O vacancies generation process due to the activation of an external electric field.This study provides a new inspiration for reasonably designing advanced functional electrode materials for various electrochemical applications and beyond.

Dynamics of self-hybridized exciton–polaritons in 2D halide perovskites

Excitons,bound electron–hole pairs,in two-dimensional hybrid organic inorganic perovskites(2D HOIPs)are capable of forming hybrid light-matter states known as exciton-polaritons(E–Ps)when the excitonic medium is confined in an optical cavity.In the case of 2D HOIPs,they can self-hybridize into E–Ps at specific thicknesses of the HOIP crystals that form a resonant optical cavity with the excitons.However,the fundamental properties of these self-hybridized E–Ps in 2D HOIPs,including their role in ultrafast energy and/or charge transfer at interfaces,remain unclear.Here,we demonstrate that>0.5µm thick 2D HOIP crystals on Au substrates are capable of supporting multiple-orders of self-hybridized E–P modes.These E–Ps have high Q factors(>100)and modulate the optical dispersion for the crystal to enhance sub-gap absorption and emission.Through varying excitation energy and ultrafast measurements,we also confirm energy transfer from higher energy E–Ps to lower energy E–Ps.Finally,we also demonstrate that E–Ps are capable of charge transport and transfer at interfaces.Our findings provide new insights into charge and energy transfer in E–Ps opening new opportunities towards their manipulation for polaritonic devices.

Efficient production of 2′-fucosyllactose in unconventional yeast Yarrowia lipolytica

2′-Fucosyllactose(2′-FL)has great application value as a nutritional component and the whole cell biosynthesis of 2′-FL has become the focus of current research.Yarrowia lipolytica has great potential in oligosaccharide synthesis and large-scale fermentation.In this study,systematic engineering of Y.lipolytica for efficient 2′-FL production was performed.By fusing different protein tags,the synthesis of 2′-FL was optimized and the ubiquitin tag was demonstrated to be the best choice to increase the 2′-FL production.By iterative integration of the related genes,increasing the precursor supply,and promoting NADPH regeneration,the 2′-FL synthesis was further improved.The final 2′-FL titer,41.10 g/L,was obtained in the strain F5-1.Our work reports the highest 2′-FL production in Y.lipolytica,and demonstrates that Y.lipolytica is an efficient microbial chassis for the synthesis of oligosaccharides.

Knowledge Graph based Mutual Attention for Machine Reading Comprehension over Anti-Terrorism Corpus

Machine reading comprehension has been a research focus in natural language processing and intelligence engineering.However,there is a lack of models and datasets for the MRC tasks in the anti-terrorism domain.Moreover,current research lacks the ability to embed accurate background knowledge and provide precise answers.To address these two problems,this paper first builds a text corpus and testbed that focuses on the anti-terrorism domain in a semi-automatic manner.Then,it proposes a knowledge-based machine reading comprehension model that fuses domain-related triples from a large-scale encyclopedic knowledge base to enhance the semantics of the text.To eliminate knowledge noise that could lead to semantic deviation,this paper uses a mixed mutual ttention mechanism among questions,passages,and knowledge triples to select the most relevant triples before embedding their semantics into the sentences.Experiment results indicate that the proposed approach can achieve a 70.70%EM value and an 87.91%F1 score,with a 4.23%and 3.35%improvement over existing methods,respectively.

Metabolic engineering:Tools and applications

Metabolic engineering plays a pivotal role in the development of mi-crobial cell factories for efficient production of biofuels,chemicals,and natural products,which facilitate the transition from fossil-resource de-pendent processes to green and sustainable bio-based processes.By do-ing so,we could address global challenges such as sustainability,human health,and climate change.

Compact and broadband multimode waveguide bend by shape-optimizing with transformation optics

Multimode waveguide bend is one of the key components for realizing high-density mode-division multiplexing systems on chip.However,the reported multimode waveguide bends are either large,bandwidth-limited or fabrication-complicated,which hinders their applications in future high-density multimode photonic circuits.Here we propose a compact multimode waveguide bend supporting four TE modes simply by shape-optimizing with transformation optics.The shape of the waveguide is optimized in the virtual space with gradient distribution of the refractive index,so that the scattering loss and intermode cross talk are well suppressed.After conformal mapping back into the physical space,a compact(effective radius of 17μm)multimode bending waveguide is obtained.Simulations show that the proposed multimode waveguide bend has little loss(<0.1 dB)and low cross talk(<−20 dB)throughout an ultrabroad wavelength range of 1.16–1.66μm.We also fabricated the shape-optimized multimode bending waveguide on a silicon-on-insulator wafer.At 1550 nm wavelength,the measured excess losses for the four lowest-order TE modes are less than 0.6 dB,and the intermode cross talks are all below−17 dB.Our study paves the way for realizing high-density and large-scale multimode integrated optical circuits for optical interconnect.

Preparation of modified MFI （ZSM-5 and silicalite-1） zeolites for potassium extraction from seawater

Modified nanosized MFI （ZSM-5 and silicalite- 1 ） zeolites were successfully synthesized by a hydrothermal method using aluminum isopropoxide and tetraethylorthosilicate as the raw materials, The synthetic zeolites were characterized by X-ray diffraction, energy dispersion spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The ZSM-5 and silicalite-1 zeolites exhibited ellipse-like and cubic columns, respectively. The K＋ ion-exchange equilibrium and ion-exchange capacity of the synthetic zeolites in seawater were investigated. The K＋ ion-exchange of synthetic zeolites was rapid and reached an ion-exchange balance in approximately 20 min. The K＋ ion-exchange capacity of ZSM-5 and silicalite-1 in seawater was 56,7 and 48.7 mg/g, respectively. The synthetic zeolites have high selectivity toward K＋, and therefore, they can be used to selectively extract potassium from seawater.

Enhanced complete photonic bandgap in a moderate refractive index contrast chalcogenide-air system with connected-annular-rods photonic crystals

Connected-annular-rods photonic crystals(CARPCs) in both triangular and square lattices are proposed to enhance the two-dimensional complete photonic bandgap(CPBG) for chalcogenide material systems with moderate refractive index contrast. For the typical chalcogenide-glass–air system with an index contrast of 2.8:1, the optimized square lattice CARPC exhibits a significantly larger normalized CPBG of about 13.50%, though the use of triangular lattice CARPC is unable to enhance the CPBG. It is almost twice as large as our previously reported result [IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 22, 4900108(2016)]. Moreover, the CPBG of the square-lattice CARPC could remain until an index contrast as low as 2.24:1. The result not only favors wideband CPBG applications for index contrast systems near 2.8:1, but also makes various optical applications that are dependent on CPBG possible for more widely refractive index contrast systems.

Template-free synthesis and characterization of K-phillipsite for use in potassium extraction from seawater

Kbphillipsite was prepared using a hydrothermal method. Soluble glass and sodium aluminate were used as raw materials in the absence of an organic template. Investigations regarding the K＋ ions were con- ducted at room temperature to determine the ion-exchange capacity in the seawater sample and the selectivity coefficient of the mixed K＋-Na~ solution. The sample was characterized by X-ray diffraction （XRD）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, and energy dispersion spectroscopy （EDS）. The K＋ ion- exchange capacity is 51 mg/g in seawater and the selectivity coefficient is 75.1 in the mixed K＋-Na＋ solution. The sample has a selectivity preference for K＋, and therefore can be used to selectively extract potassium from seawater. The sample composed of Si, Al, K, Na, and O exhibits a cross-like shape and is a typical K-phillipsite structure.

Engineering ultra-flattened-dispersion photonic crystal fibers with uniform holes by rotations of inner rings

We present a novel method for engineering ultra-flattened-dispersion photonic crystal fibers with uniform air holes by rotations of inner air-hole rings around the fiber core.By choosing suitable rotation angles of each inner ring,theoretical results show that normal,anomalous,and nearly zero ultra-flattened-dispersion fibers in wide spectra ranges of interest can be obtained alternatively.Moreover,in our dispersion sensitive analysis,these types of fibers are robust to variations from optimal design parameters.The method is suitable for the accurate adjustment of fiber dispersion within a small range,which would be valuable for the fabrication of ultra-flattened-dispersion fibers and also have potential applications in wide-band high-speed optical communication systems.

Complete photonic bandgap in silicon nitride slab assisted by effective index difference between polarizations

The slab effective index difference between the transverse-electric(TE)and transverse-magnetic(TM)polarizations was utilized to obtain complete photonic bandgap(CPBG)in a silicon nitride(Si_(x)N_(y))photonic crystal slab.For this,coincident frequency range in the TE photonic bandgap(PBG)and TM PBG,which denotes the CPBGs of the slab,must be found with the same structure.Through adjusting the effective index pair of TE and TM polarizations by changing the thickness of the Si_(x)N_(y)core layer,and also optimizing the structure parameters within the photonic crystal plane,a large normalized CPBG of 5.62%was theoretically obtained in a slab of Si_(x)N_(y)with a refractive index of 2.5.Moreover,based on the obtained CPBG,a microcavity which could support both TE and TM polarization was theoretically demonstrated.The cavity modes for different polarizations were both well confined,which proved the reliability of the CPBG.In addition,using the same method,the lowest refractive index of Si_(x)N_(y)on silica slab for a CPBG could be extended to as low as 2.The results indicate that there is potential for development of various high-performance CPBG devices based on Si_(x)N_(y)slab technology.

Creating an oil yeast from brewing yeast

Engineering microorganisms for sustainable production of fuels and chemicals are attractive because it is a renewable process and has potential to replace fossil based production.The cost-efficient production of fuels and chemicals needs to achieve high yields with low by-product production,which requires high metabolic flux toward the desired products.However,microorganisms have evolved robust natural habitat,and their tight regulation of metabolism make it challenging to rewire the flux[1].For instance,as a potential cell factory,Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been engineered for the production of a variety of fuels,chemicals,and pharmaceuticals,whereas the inherent ethanol production hinders the overproduction of desired chemicals.S.cerevisiae is a Crabtree-positive organism,and ethanol production is prodominate even under aerobic condition when glucose is in excess[2].Completely blocking ethanol production leads to growth defects when using glucose as the sole carbon source,due to the lack of cytosolic acetyl-CoA for synthesis of cellular essential components such as lipids[2].Therefore,it is very difficult to completely redirect the flux from ethanol accumulation toward the product of interest only through rational engineering.Recently,the group headed by Professor Jens Nielsen at Chalmers University of Technology,who has pioneered on yeast synthetic biology,solved this through combining metabolic engineering with adaptive evolution,which resulted a synthetic oil yeast with high fatty acid production and abolished ethanol accumulation[3].This study represents an important milestone in engineering of yeast for production of fuels,chemicals,and pharmaceuticals and shows the great potential metabolic engineering in rewiring the natural metabolic networks.