BackgroundAutism is a severe childhood neurological disorder with poorly understood etiology and pathology. Currently, there is no authentic laboratory test to confirm the diagnosis of autism. Oxidative damage may play a central role in the pathogenesis of autism. Present study is an effort to search for possible biomarkers of autism and further clarify the molecular changes associated with oxidative stress that occurs in the plasma of autistic children.MethodsWe performed redox proteomics analysis to compare carbonylated proteins in the plasma of autistic subjects and healthy controls. Immunoprecipitation and Western blot analysis were used to validate carbonylated proteins identified by the redox proteomics.ResultsProtein carbonylation levels in two proteins, complement component C8 alpha chain and Ig kappa chain C were found to be significantly increased in autistic patients compared with controls. These two proteins were successfully validated via immunoprecipitation and Western blot analysis.ConclusionsThe results further highlight the role of oxidative stress in the pathogenesis of autism and provide some information for the diagnosis and/or monitoring of autism.

A novel terahertz (THz) sensing scheme is proposed based on the photonic spin Hall effect (PSHE). By illumining a paraxial Gaussian THz beam onto a black phosphorus (BP)-based Tamm structure, the reflected beam will undergo in-plane spin splitting, i.e., the centroids of two opposite spin components separate spatially. Due to Tamm plasmon resonance, one of the spin components is very sensitive to the refractive index changes of the analyte layer sandwiched by monolayer BP and distributed Bragg reflector. The sensitivity of the spin-dependent shift can be up to 2804 mm/RIU with a refractive index resolution of ∼10−8 RIU. The sensitivity and dynamic sensing region can be flexibly tuned by the BP rotation angle, thickness of analyte layer, or operation frequency. Therefore, the proposed PSHE-based THz sensing provides a new avenue for the development of high-performance THz sensors; thus, we may find applications in chemical sensing and biosensing.

Self-assembled architectures of soft matter have fascinated scientists for centuries due to their unique physical properties originated from controllable orientational and/or positional orders, and diverse optic and photonic applications. If one could know how to design, fabricate, and manipulate these optical microstructures in soft matter systems, such as liquid crystals (LCs), that would open new opportunities in both scientific research and practical applications, such as the interaction between light and soft matter, the intrinsic assembly of the topological patterns, and the multidimensional control of the light (polarization, phase, spatial distribution, propagation direction). Here, we summarize recent progresses in self-assembled optical architectures in typical thermotropic LCs and bio-based lyotropic LCs. After briefly introducing the basic definitions and properties of the materials, we present the manipulation schemes of various LC microstructures, especially the topological and topographic configurations. This work further illustrates external-stimuli-enabled dynamic controllability of self-assembled optical structures of these soft materials, and demonstrates several emerging applications. Lastly, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of these materials towards soft matter photonics, and envision future perspectives in this field.

Triton identification in the 6 Li(n, t) 4 He reaction measurement with the grid ionization chamber at CSNS Back-n white neutron sourceThe CSNS Back-n collaboration

By driving a 3D transmon with microwave fields, we generate an effective avoided energy-level crossing. Then we chirp microwave frequency, which is equivalent to driving the system through the avoided energy-level crossing by sweeping the avoided crossing. A double-passage chirp produces Landau-Zener-Stückelberg-Majorana interference that agree well with the numerical results. Our method is fully applicable to other quantum systems that contain no intrinsic avoided level crossing, providing an alternative approach for quantum control and quantum simulation.

We report experimental observation of two distinct quantum interference patterns in the absorption spectra when a transmon superconducting qubit, is subject to a bichromatic microwave field with same Rabi frequencies. Within the two-mode Floquet formalism with no dissipation processes, we propose a graph-theoretical representation to model the interaction Hamiltonian for each of these observations. This theoretical framework provides a clear visual representation of various underlying physical processes in a systematic way beyond rotating wave approximation. The presented approach is valuable to gain insights into the behavior of multichromatic field driven quantum two-level systems (qTLS), such as two-level atoms and superconducting qubits. Each of the observed interference patterns are represented by appropriate graph products on the proposed colored-weighted graphs. The underlying mechanisms and the characteristic features of the observed fine structures are identified by the transitions between the graph vertices, which represent the doubly dressed states of the system. The good agreement between the numerical simulation and experimental data confirms the validity of the theoretical method. Such multiphoton interference may be used in manipulating the quantum states and/or generate non-classical microwave photons.

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