Effective Characterization of DNA Ligation Kinetics by High-Resolution Melting Analysis

High-resolution melting (HRM) analysis has been improved and applied for the first time to quantitative analysis of enzymatic reactions. By using the relative ratios of peak intensities of substrates and products, the quantitativity of conventional HRM analysis has been improved to allow detailed kinetic analysis. As an example, the ligation of sticky ends through the action of T4 DNA ligase has been kinetically analyzed, with comprehensive data on substrate specificity and other properties having been obtained. For the first time, the kinetic parameters (k_obs and apparent K_m) of sticky-end ligation were obtained for both fully matched and mismatched sticky ends. The effect of ATP concentration on sticky-end ligation was also investigated. The improved HRM method should also be applicable to versatile DNA-transforming enzymes, because the only requirement is that the products have T_m values different enough from the substrates.     

An improved cuckoo search algorithm and its application in vibration fault diagnosis for a hydroelectric generating unit

This article presents an improved cuckoo search (ICS) algorithm based on the parametric adaptation mechanism and non-uniform mutation. In the ICS algorithm, the biased random walk operator is modified to take advantage of the neighbourhood information of the current solution, and then the control parameters of step size, discovery probability and scaling factor are directly integrated into the optimized problems. Meanwhile, the non-uniform mutation operation is used to adaptively tune the search step of the current optimal solution. To evaluate the feasibility and efficiency of the presented algorithm, three groups of benchmark test functions are employed to perform the validation analysis. Subsequently, to diagnose the vibration fault of a hydroelectric generating unit, a combinational model is built, which combines ICS with a back-propagation neural network (ICSBP). The experimental results indicate that ICS is competitive on the optimization problems, and the ICSBP approach can effectively improve the accuracy of vibration fault diagnosis for a hydroelectric generating unit.     

一种基于MEMS工艺的365 GHz硅微波导垂直转接结构

基于微电子机械系统(MEMS)工艺设计并制作了一种THz垂直转接结构,该结构采用6层硅片堆叠的硅微波导形式。理论分析计算了垂直转接结构的参数,并使用三维电磁场分析软件HFSS对该结构进行了模拟仿真。设计得到了中心频率为365 GHz、带宽为80 GHz、芯片尺寸为10 mm×7 mm×2.7 mm的THz垂直转接结构。给出了一套基于MEMS工艺的硅微波导的制作流程,制作了365 GHz垂直转接结构并对其进行测试。获得的THz垂直转接结构的回波损耗随频率变化的测试结果与仿真结果基本一致。采用MEMS工艺制作的硅微波导垂直转接结构具有精度高、一致性好、成本低的特点,满足THz器件的发展需求。     

Bi-Real Net: Binarizing Deep Network Towards Real-Network Performance

International Journal of Computer Vision - In this paper, we study 1-bit convolutional neural networks (CNNs), of which both the weights and activations are binary. While being efficient, the...     

状态导向与事件导向相结合的二回路管道破裂事故处理规程开发

华龙一号”采用征兆导向应急运行规程（SEOP）进行事故处理。本文对SEOP中二回路管道破裂事故相关规程进行研究，包括规程开发和支持性验证。在规程的开发过程中，构建了合理的规程框架以及不同事故采用的处理规程，并结合“华龙一号”的设计特征，确定了主要恢复策略以及相关的重要定值。在支持性验证过程中，选取典型二回路管道破裂事故进行论证，结果表明，对所选的工况，SEOP提供的缓解策略能够及时有效地将核电厂引导至预期的安全可控状态。此外，通过对不同类型事故规程进行比较，证明了SEOP在涵盖的事故范围和恢复操作的时效性方面的优势。通过本文的研究，为“华龙一号”二回路管道破裂事故处理规程的开发和验证建立了合理的方法。      

Aptamer/Peptide-Functionalized Genome-Editing System for Effective Immune Restoration through Reversal of PD-L1-Mediated Cancer Immunosuppression

Effective reversal of tumor immunosuppression is of critical importance in cancer therapy. A multifunctional delivery vector that can effectively deliver CRISPR-Cas9 plasmid for β-catenin knockout to reverse tumor immunosuppression is constructed. The multi-functionalized delivery vector is decorated with aptamer-conjugated hyaluronic acid and peptide-conjugated hyaluronic acid to combine the tumor cell/nuclear targeting function of AS1411 with the cell penetrating/nuclear translocation function of TAT-NLS. Due to the significantly enhanced plasmid enrichment in malignant cell nuclei, the genome editing system can induce effective β-catenin knockout and suppress Wnt/β-catenin pathway, resulting in notably downregulated proteins involved in tumor progression and immunosuppression. Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) downregulation in edited tumor cells not only releases the PD-1/PD-L1 brake to improve the cancer killing capability of CD8⁺ T cells, but also enhances antitumor immune responses of immune cells. This provides a facile strategy to reverse tumor immunosuppression and to restore immunosurveillance and activate anti-tumor immunity.     

A Flexi-PEGDA Upconversion Implant for Wireless Brain Photodynamic Therapy

Near-infrared (NIR) activatable upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) enable wireless-based phototherapies by converting deep-tissue-penetrating NIR to visible light. UCNPs are therefore ideal as wireless transducers for photodynamic therapy (PDT) of deep-sited tumors. However, the retention of unsequestered UCNPs in tissue with minimal options for removal limits their clinical translation. To address this shortcoming, biocompatible UCNPs implants are developed to deliver upconversion photonic properties in a flexible, optical guide design. To enhance its translatability, the UCNPs implant is constructed with an FDA-approved poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) core clad with fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP). The emission spectrum of the UCNPs implant can be tuned to overlap with the absorption spectra of the clinically relevant photosensitizer, 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA). The UCNPs implant can wirelessly transmit upconverted visible light till 8 cm in length and in a bendable manner even when implanted underneath the skin or scalp. With this system, it is demonstrated that NIR-based chronic PDT is achievable in an untethered and noninvasive manner in a mouse xenograft glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) model. It is postulated that such encapsulated UCNPs implants represent a translational shift for wireless deep-tissue phototherapy by enabling sequestration of UCNPs without compromising wireless deep-tissue light delivery.