Background To assess the association between serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels and mortality in intensive care unit patients. Materials & methods A total of 1981 patients in the eICU Collaborative Research Database were divided into four groups according to quartiles of LDH levels. Logistic regressions were performed. Results Elevated LDH levels were significantly associated with higher mortality (intensive care unit mortality Q2 vs Q1 1.046 [0.622-1.758]; Q3 vs Q1 1.667 [1.029-2.699]; and Q4 vs Q1 1.760 [1.092-2.839]). Similar results persisted in patients with different acute physiology and chronic health evaluation IV scores, and with or without sepsis. Conclusion The serum LDH level may aid in the early identification of mortality risk in critically ill patients.Huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening disease, is the most serious disease of citrus worldwide and is associated with plant infection by "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus" (CLas) and other Liberibacter species. CLas is transmitted by Diaphorina citri, the Asian citrus psyllid, in a circulative propagative manner. Circulative propagative transmission is a complex process comprising at least three steps movement of the pathogen into vector tissues, translocation and replication of the pathogen within the vector host, and pathogen inoculation of a new host by the vector. In this work, we describe an excised leaf CLas acquisition assay, which enables precise measurements of CLas acquisition by D. citri in a streamlined lab assay. Briefly, healthy 4th and 5th instar D. citri nymphs acquire CLas from excised CLas-positive leaves, where the insects also complete their developmental cycle. CLas titer in the resulting adults is measured using qPCR and CLas-specific 16S rDNA gene primers. We observed positive correlations between CLas titer in each leaf replicate and the CLas titer that developed in the insects after acquisition (rs = 0.78, P = 0.0002). This simple assay could be used to detect CLas acquisition phenotypes and their underlying genotypes, facilitate assessment of plant factors that impact acquisition, and screen for compounds that interfere with CLas acquisition by delivering these compounds through the excised leaf.Quantum confinement leads to the emergence of several magnon modes in ultrathin layered magnetic structures. We probe the lifetime of these quantum confined modes in a model system composed of three atomic layers of Co grown on different surfaces. We demonstrate that the quantum confined magnons exhibit nonlinear decay rates, which strongly depend on the mode number, in sharp contrast to what is assumed in the classical dynamics. Combining the experimental results with those of linear-response density-functional calculations we provide a quantitative explanation for this nonlinear damping effect. The results provide new insights into the decay mechanism of spin excitations in ultrathin films and multilayers and pave the way for tuning the dynamical properties of such structures.In situ femtosecond x-ray diffraction measurements and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations were performed to study the liquid structure of tantalum shock released from several hundred gigapascals (GPa) on the nanosecond timescale. The results show that the internal negative pressure applied to the liquid tantalum reached -5.6 (0.8)  GPa, suggesting the existence of a liquid-gas mixing state due to cavitation. This is the first direct evidence to prove the classical nucleation theory which predicts that liquids with high surface tension can support GPa regime tensile stress.The bulk photovoltaic effect (BPVE) refers to current generation due to illumination by light in a homogeneous bulk material lacking inversion symmetry. In addition to the intensively studied shift current, the ballistic current, which originates from asymmetric carrier generation due to scattering processes, also constitutes an important contribution to the overall kinetic model of the BPVE. In this Letter, we use a perturbative approach to derive a formula for the ballistic current resulting from the intrinsic electron-phonon scattering in a form amenable to first-principles calculation. We then implement the theory and calculate the ballistic current of the prototypical BPVE material BaTiO_3 using quantum-mechanical density functional theory. The magnitude of the ballistic current is comparable to that of the shift current, and the total spectrum (shift plus ballistic) agrees well with the experimentally measured photocurrents. Furthermore, we show that the ballistic current is sensitive to structural change, which could benefit future photovoltaic materials design.We use our recent electric dipole moment (EDM) measurement data to constrain the possibility that the HfF^+ EDM oscillates in time due to interactions with candidate dark matter axionlike particles (ALPs). We employ a Bayesian analysis method which accounts for both the look-elsewhere effect and the uncertainties associated with stochastic density fluctuations in the ALP field. We find no evidence of an oscillating EDM over a range spanning from 27 nHz to 400 mHz, and we use this result to constrain the ALP-gluon coupling over the mass range 10^-22-10^-15  eV. This is the first laboratory constraint on the ALP-gluon coupling in the 10^-17-10^-15  eV range, and the first laboratory constraint to properly account for the stochastic nature of the ALP field.The 7×7 reconstruction of the Si(111) surface represents arguably the most fascinating surface reconstruction so far observed in nature. Yet, the atomistic mechanism underpinning its formation remains unclear after it was discovered sixty years ago. Experimentally, it is observed post priori so that analysis of its formation mechanism can only be carried out in analogy with archaeology. Theoretically, density-functional theory (DFT) correctly predicts the Si(111)-(7×7) ground state but is impractical to simulate its formation process; while empirical potentials failed to produce it as the ground state. Developing an artificial neural-network potential of DFT quality, we carried out accurate large-scale simulations to unravel the formation of the Si(111)-(7×7) surface. We reveal a possible step-mediated atom-pop rate-limiting process that triggers massive nonconserved atomic rearrangements, most remarkably, a critical process of collective vacancy diffusion that mediates a sequence of selective dimer, corner-hole, stacking-fault, and dimer-line pattern formation, to fulfill the 7×7 reconstruction. Our findings may not only solve the long-standing mystery of this famous surface reconstruction but they also illustrate the power of machine learning in studying complex structures.We analyze the quantum trajectory dynamics of free fermions subject to continuous monitoring. For weak monitoring, we identify a novel dynamical regime of subextensive entanglement growth, reminiscent of a critical phase with an emergent conformal invariance. For strong monitoring, however, the dynamics favors a transition into a quantum Zeno-like area-law regime. Close to the critical point, we observe logarithmic finite size corrections, indicating a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless mechanism underlying the transition. This uncovers an unconventional entanglement transition in an elementary, physically realistic model for weak continuous measurements. In addition, we demonstrate that the measurement aspect in the dynamics is crucial for whether or not a phase transition takes place.New field content beyond that of the standard model of particle physics can alter the thermal history of electroweak symmetry breaking in the early Universe. In particular, the symmetry breaking may have occurred through a sequence of successive phase transitions. We study the thermodynamics of such a scenario in a real triplet extension of the standard model, using nonperturbative lattice simulations. Two-step electroweak phase transition is found to occur in a narrow region of allowed parameter space with the second transition always being first order. The first transition into the phase of nonvanishing triplet vacuum expectation value is first order in a non-negligible portion of the two-step parameter space. A comparison with two-loop perturbative calculation is provided and significant discrepancies with the nonperturbative results are identified.It is well known that waves with frequencies within the forbidden gap inside a crystal are transported only over a limited distance-the Bragg length-before being reflected by Bragg interference. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/ml-si3.html Here, we demonstrate how to send waves much deeper into crystals in an exemplary study of light in two-dimensional silicon photonic crystals. By spatially shaping the wave fronts, the internal energy density-probed via the laterally scattered intensity-is enhanced at a tunable distance away from the front surface. The intensity is up to 100× enhanced compared to random wave fronts, and extends as far as 8× the Bragg length, which agrees with an extended mesoscopic model. We thus report a novel control knob for mesoscopic wave transport that pertains to any kind of waves.We compute the cosmological reduction of the fourth powers of the Riemann tensor claimed to arise in string theory at order α^'^3, with an overall coefficient proportional to ζ(3), and show that it is compatible with an O(9,9) symmetry. This confirms the general result in string theory, due to Sen [O(d)×O(d) symmetry of the space of cosmological solutions in string theory, scale factor duality and two-dimensional black holes, Phys. Lett. B 271, 295 (1991)PYLBAJ0370-269310.1016/0370-2693(91)90090-D], that classical string theory with d-dimensional translation invariance admits an O(d,d) symmetry to all orders in α^'.High-pressure chemistry is known to inspire the creation of unexpected new classes of compounds with exceptional properties. Here, we employ the laser-heated diamond anvil cell technique for synthesis of a Dirac material BeN_4. A triclinic phase of beryllium tetranitride tr-BeN_4 was synthesized from elements at ∼85  GPa. Upon decompression to ambient conditions, it transforms into a compound with atomic-thick BeN_4 layers interconnected via weak van der Waals bonds and consisting of polyacetylene-like nitrogen chains with conjugated π systems and Be atoms in square-planar coordination. Theoretical calculations for a single BeN_4 layer show that its electronic lattice is described by a slightly distorted honeycomb structure reminiscent of the graphene lattice and the presence of Dirac points in the electronic band structure at the Fermi level. The BeN_4 layer, i.e., beryllonitrene, represents a qualitatively new class of 2D materials that can be built of a metal atom and polymeric nitrogen chains and host anisotropic Dirac fermions.A quantum system subject to continuous measurement and postselection evolves according to a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. We show that, as one increases the strength of postselection, this non-Hermitian Hamiltonian can undergo a spectral phase transition. On one side of this phase transition (for weak postselection), an initially mixed density matrix remains mixed at all times, and an initially unentangled state develops volume-law entanglement; on the other side, an arbitrary initial state approaches a unique pure state with low entanglement. We identify this transition with an exceptional point in the spectrum of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian, at which PT symmetry is spontaneously broken. We characterize the transition as well as the nontrivial steady state that emerges at late times in the mixed phase using exact diagonalization and an approximate, analytically tractable mean-field theory; these methods yield consistent conclusions.