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Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic, synovitis-based inflammatory disease with unknown etiology. Neutrophils play important roles in the pathogenesis of RA. Apoptosis and NETosis of neutrophils are two major mechanisms of programmed cell death that differ in their morphological characteristics and effects on the immune system. In rheumatoid arthritis, delayed neutrophil apoptosis amplifies the inflammatory response; and massive release of NETs and their components may cause tissue damage and provide self-antigens. Emodin is a natural anthraquinone derivative that occurs in many widely used Chinese medicinal herbs. In this study, we evaluated the effect of emodin on a murine adjuvant-induced arthritis (AA) model of RA in vivo and on neutrophil apoptosis and NETosis in vitro. Our results show that emodin alleviated AA by reducing neutrophil infiltration and proinflammatory cytokine (interleukin-6, interferon-gamma and tumor necrosis factor-α) release. Emodin promoted apoptosis and inhibited autophagy and NETosis in neutrophils. These findings indicate that emodin represents a potential therapeutic agent for RA.

Steam generation by efficient utilization of solar energy is a promising strategy in seawater desalination and industrial wastewater treatment. Daikon, a cheap and scaled available crop, was chosen as raw material which was subjected to a carbonization process. The carbonized daikon possesses highly developed honeycomb cellular structure providing numerous interconnected channels. The close-packed pores act as photon traps leading to enhanced solar absorption of more than 95.5% in the visible region and more than 93.5% in the near infrared region. The excellent hydrophilic nature and the interconnected channels of the carbonized daikon provide strong capillary force for the quick transport of water. As a result, under one-sun irradiation, the carbonized daikon delivers a water evaporation rate of 1.57 kg m−2 h−1 and a solar steam efficiency of 85.9%. The carbonized daikon also shows great performance toward water evaporation from seawater and contaminated water, realizing the separation of water from pollutants and indicating its application versatility.

A red phosphor with a broad excitation band in blue region and sharp emission peaks in red region is needed for compensating the red components of white light-emitting diodes (WLEDs) by converting blue light with a yellow phosphor Y3Al5O12:Ce3+ (YAG:Ce). The red phosphor LiSrAlF6:Mn4+ (LSAF:Mn) with morphology of flaky particles about 50 μm in diameter has been synthesized by an ion-exchange reaction route at room-temperature in air. The as-synthesized phosphors were characterized by x-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectra. The excitation spectrum of LSAF:Mn shows a broad-band excitation from 400 to 500 nm that is due to the spin-allowed transition of 4A2g → 4T2g of Mn4+, indicating a potential application for solid state lighting. The optimal PL intensity of the phosphor LSAF:Mn has been obtained by optimizing the synthetic parameters.

Hydrogen production from overall water splitting by photocatalyst is an ultimate clean and renewable energy strategy. Recent developments show that carbon based materials are considerable photocatalysts for overall water splitting under visible light because of their high activity, high stability, low-cost, easy fabrication and structural diversity. However, it still lacks a systematic study and deep understanding on the working mechanism of the carbon based photocatalysts. Herein, we show the fabrication of a carbon photocatalyst with abundant carbon defects created by removing the nitrogen atoms from a N-doped precursor. The active defects bond with water molecules during the photocatalytic reaction, which then work as oxidation sites for O2 generation. We also demonstrate an accessible strategy to produce more defects to observably enhance the photocatalytic activity (around 10 times) as well as to select between the 2-electron/2-electron and the 4-electron pathway water splitting. The synthesized photocatalyst is efficient in photocatalytic visible-light overall water splitting with an optimum H2 and O2 production of 2.54 and 1.25 μmol h−1, respectively. Moreover, the quantum efficiency and solar to hydrogen (STH) efficiency were measured to be 2.04% for wavelength λ = 420 ± 20 nm and 0.1% using AM 1.5 G, respectively.

SAPHO syndrome is an inflammatory disease invading the skin and bones, whose diagnosis has been difficult due to its low incidence and diversified manifestation. We investigated the serum proteomic profile of SAPHO patients to identify key proteins associated with SAPHO syndrome, trying to find clinical biomarkers or functional molecules for this rare disease. Blood samples from 8 SAPHO patients and 8 healthy controls were detected and analyzed using data independent acquisition (DIA) method to identify differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) specific to SAPHO. A total of 57 differentially expressed proteins were identified (p 0.05, fold change1.2), in which 27 proteins were upregulated and 30 downregulated. DEPs may participate in GO terms such as "lipid particle" and "Notch signaling pathway", as well as KEGG pathways including "complement and coagulation cascades" and "mTOR signaling pathway". The overexpression of inhibitors of the complement system (CFH and C4BP), were verified in a larger cohort (16 SAPHO patients, 8 AS patients and 24 healthy controls) with ELISA, and the combined diagnostic ability of CFH and C4BP was predicted by ROC curve with an AUC of 0.91, which may be molecular candidates for further study on diagnosis and pathology of this rare disease. SIGNIFICANCE: Our research provided the first insight into plasma proteomic profile for SAPHO patients，offering potential biomarkers for disease diagnosis. We found that inhibitors of complement system such as CFH and C4BP were up-regulated in SAPHO syndrome, which may play important roles in the pathogenesis of SAPHO syndrome.

Hydrogen and oxygen produced by water splitting under solar energy are ideal future energy sources. At present, obtaining the efficient, stable and inexpensive photocatalyst for photocatalytic overall water splitting is still a huge challenge. Cobalt phosphate (Co3PO4, CoPi) possesses proper band positions for water splitting. However, the fast recombination of photogenerated electron and hole pairs for CoPi restricts its application. Herein, strongly coupling Co3PO4-carbon dots (CoPi-CDs) composite was constructed as an effective strategy to depress the fast recombination behavior of photogenerated electron and hole pairs. CoPi-CDs show superior photocatalytic water splitting activity than that of single CoPi. When the concentration of CDs in the composite is 0.002 gCDs/gcatalyst, the hydrogen production rate was obtained for approximately 0.592 μmol h−1, as well as the oxygen evolution rate about 0.258 μmol h−1 (with 2:1 stoichiometry), which are both nearly 33 times than that of pristine CoPi. This enhanced photocatalytic activity of CoPi-CDs should ascribe to the efficient coupling effect between CoPi and CDs, which allows fast electron transfer at the interface of CoPi and CDs and thus effectively boosts the photocatalytic water splitting. The strongly coupling nanocomposites should be inspiring for further nanocomposite building for photocatalytic overall water splitting.

Most existing software reliability growth models (SGRMs) often assume software faults are mutually independent and the detected faults can be perfectly removed. However, those two assumptions are not realistic in practice since the dependent faults can also exist in the program. At the same time, it is unlikely to correct all the detected faults in the testing phase due to the limitation of testing resource, the skill and experience of the programmer, and multi-release consideration for software organization. This paper presents a new non-homogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) software reliability model with a pioneering idea by considering software fault dependency and imperfect fault removal. In order to clearly explain software fault dependency, some facts and examples are discussed in Section 1. Two types of software faults are defined, Type I (independent) fault and Type II (dependent) fault, according to fault dependency. Two phases debugging processes, Phase I and Phase II, are proposed according to the debugged software fault type. A small portion of software faults that software testers are not able to remove is also considered in both phases in the proposed model. The illustration of the model effectiveness is based on the three datasets collected from industries. Some limitations of the proposed model are also discussed in the last section.

Temperate steppe is one of the most important natural habitats for the conservation of arthropod and bird biodiversity across the Eurasian Tectonic Plate. Since 1950, fragmentation of the steppe habitat has caused a loss of biodiversity and degradation of the species communities found in natural steppe. Therefore, in this study, both plants and insects were sampled at 56 sites in the steppe biome of northwestern China to explore the effects of plant community on insect community composition and diversity. The insect community structure varied in the four different steppe types (meadow steppe, typical steppe, desert steppe, and steppe desert). Plant cover (diversity) was an important driving force, which could enhance number of families and abundance of an insect community. Aboveground net primary productivity and water content of plants had no significant effects on insect community, although the plant community as a whole did mediate insect composition and community structure. Future research should explore the ecological role of particular functional groups in plant and insect communities. Supplemental sowing to improve plant diversity in steppe habitat may be another strategy to enhance biodiversity and achieve sustainable management.

Multi-color carbon dots (CDs) were obtained from cis-butenedioic acid (C-BA) and urea by a simple one-step solvothermal route. This is the first report about using C-BA as the raw material to synthesize CDs. The fluorescent properties of as-prepared CDs vary with the ratio of C-BA to urea. And the sample with 1:1 of C-BA and urea exhibits the optimal yellow emission and highest photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 16.17%. Further investigations indicate that the variation of PL properties comes from the different content of surface functional groups such as C C, C O, –COOH, and graphitic N. Both of C O and graphitic N cause the PL redshift, whereas the C C and –COOH groups lead to the blueshift. Based on the above, a solid-state luminescent CDs-based phosphor was obtained by adding alkaline Ca(OH)2 powder to as-prepared yellow CDs solution. In this case, PL intensity is increased to 1.78 times, the corresponding emission redshifts from 553 to 568 nm, and PLQY is improved from 16.17% to 35.12%. Simultaneously, CDs@Ca(OH)2 hybrid phosphor exhibits good thermostability. Finally, a white light-emitting diode (LED) was successfully fabricated by combining the yellow-emission CDs-based phosphor with a blue LED chip. It exhibits a high CRI of 86.9, the CCT of 5388 K, and a luminous efficacy of 15.12 lm/W. The CIE coordinate locates at (0.3341, 0.3075) which is very close to the pure white light of (0.33, 0.33). Thus, as-prepared CDs-based solid-state phosphor is a potential candidate for practical lighting devices.

A novel green/red dual-emission carbon dots-based phosphor (named as GRCDs phosphor) was successfully prepared by introducing calcium hydroxide [Ca(OH)2] as matrix material mixed with green-emitting carbon dots (CDs) for the first time. The addition of Ca(OH)2 not only prevents fluorescent self-quenching caused by polymerization of CDs in the solid state but also promotes the red emission of CDs due to abundant functional groups on the surface. Furthermore, the detailed characterizations of the structure and optical properties show that the hydroxyl groups play a crucial role for the red emission of GRCDs phosphor. As-prepared GRCDs phosphor possesses outstanding thermal stability as well as excellent water stability. This finding provides a new way for the development of CDs-based phosphors.

As the application of the principles of agile and lean software development, software multiple release becomes very common in the modern society. Short iteration and short release cycle have driven the significant changes of the development process of multi-release software product, compared with single release software product. Thus, it is time to conduct a new study investigating the impact level of environmental factors on affecting software reliability in the development of multi-release software to provide a sound and concise guidance to software practitioners and researchers. Statistical learning methods, like principle component analysis, stepwise backward elimination, lasso regression, multiple linear regression, and Tukey method, are applied in this study. Comparisons regarding significant environmental factors during the whole development process, principle components, significant environmental factors in each development phase and significance level of each development phase between the development of single release software and multi-release software are also discussed.

In this work, the structure-property relationship of fused-ring electron acceptors is briefly discussed and the principle of molecular design is presented. Based on this principle, perylene diimide (PDI) was cracked by inserting thiophene and thieno[3,2- b ]thiophene (TT) to design and synthesize a novel A-D-A (acceptor-donor-acceptor) small molecule DNIT-TT2T, which served as a non-fullerene acceptor material in our fabricated organic solar cells (OSCs). DNIT-TT2T shows excellent thermal stability, it possesses a broad absorption by covering the wavelength range of 300–600 nm and relatively high LUMO energy level of −3.75 eV, which is close to the theoretically calculated value. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of OSCs based on the blend of P3HT donor and DNIT-TT2T acceptor (1:1, w/w) is found to be 1.25%, with a high open-circuit voltage ( V oc ) of 0.88 V, indicating that 1,8-naphthalimide (NI) based molecules are promising acceptors for non-fullerene polymer solar cells and excellent photovoltaic properties can be achieved by rationally designing the molecules.

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer application provides available N and affects indigenous soil N availability, inducing added N interaction (ANI). However, limited information is available on the impacts of inhibitors combined with organic substances on ANI. A microcosm experiment was conducted to examine the effects of the additions of nitrification inhibitor (dicyandiamide [DCD]), urease inhibitor (hydroquinone [HQ]), and glucose on ANI. In non-glucose treatments, positive ANI was observed at the initial stage of incubation. DCD addition generally increased ANI. Conversely, HQ addition decreased ANI. Glucose application led to a significantly negative ANI caused by net microbial immobilization at the beginning. ANI recovered because of the remineralization of immobilized N. Glucose combined with DCD and HQ further decreased ANI up to 24.4% and 30.7% and retarded the appearance of positive ANI by 2.6 and 6.0 days, respectively, compared with the corresponding treatment without inhibitor. ANI was primarily driven by biotic processes, and the contribution of abiotic processes, such as isotope displacement reaction in the fixed ammonium (NH4+) pool, to ANI ranged from 15.6% to 31.0%. This contribution increased with DCD and glucose additions, but decreased with HQ application. Generally, DCD addition tended to hold urea-derived N in soil and enhanced the availability of indigenous soil N, whereas HQ addition resulted in a reverse tendency. Glucose amendment remarkably induced the negative ANI and reduced the availability of N derived from either fertilizer or indigenous soil. These results can provide helpful implications for optimizing N management practices and remaining N availability.

Thioredoxins (Trx) play central roles in cellular redox regulation. Although hundreds of Trx targets have been identified using different approaches, the capture of targets in a quantitative and efficient manner is challenging. Here we report a high-throughput method using cys teine reactive t andem m ass t ag (cysTMT) labeling followed by liquid chromatography (LC)–mass spectrometry (MS) to screen for Trx targets. Compared to existing methods, this approach allows for i) three replicates of pairwise comparison in a single LC–MS run to reduce run-to-run variation; ii) efficient enrichment of cysteine-containing peptides that requires low protein input; and iii) accurate quantification of the cysteine redox status and localization of the Trx targeted cysteine residues. Application of this method in guard cell-enriched epidermal peels from Brassica napus revealed 80 Trx h targets involved in a broad range of processes, including photosynthesis, stress response, metabolism and cell signaling. The adaption of this protocol in other systems will greatly improve our understanding of the Trx function in regulating cellular redox homeostasis. Biological significance Redox homeostasis is tightly regulated for proper cellular activities. Specific protein–protein interactions between redox active molecules such as thioredoxin (Trx) and target proteins constitute the basis for redox-regulated biological processes. The use of cysTMT quantitative proteomics for studying Trx reactions enabled identification of potential Trx targets that provide important insights into the redox regulation in guard cells, a specialized plant cell type responsible for sensing of environmental signals, gas exchange and plant productivity.

It is acknowledged that human activities have initiated and increased steppe habitat loss and fragmentation in Northwest China. Carabid beetles are often used as bioindicators of environmental change because they are extremely sensitive to disturbance. We chose 42 landscapes (18 fragmented and 24 continuous) in two steppe types in Ningxia, Northwest China, to examine the influence of steppe fragmentation on carabid beetles. The results showed that the canonical correlation coefficient between carabid beetles and landscape fragmentation was greatest at a 7-km spatial scale in both desert and typical steppes. Furthermore, the response of carabid beetles to steppe fragmentation was species-specific in both desert and typical steppes. Steppe fragmentation in the desert steppe could significantly enhance the richness and abundance of carabid beetles, which contrasts with the typical steppe. Additionally, steppe fragmentation significantly increased the abundance of two dominant carabid beetles in the desert steppe only. Therefore, the effects of steppe fragmentation on carabid beetles were species-dependent and were also mediated by the plant community and microclimate in the different steppes. The redundancy analysis (RDA) indicated that plant richness and cover were important factors affecting carabid diversity. Finally, these results provide experimental evidence and technical data for biodiversity conservation management in the steppes of Northwest China. Keywords: Steppe, Habitat fragmentation, Carabid beetles, Community, Richness, Abundance

Different long-term fertilization regimes probably influence N supplying capacity and N cycling processes in soils. However, the effects of fertilization regimes on the pathways of N retention and supply and the impacts of these pathways on crop N uptake remain undocumented. In this study, the contributions of different pathways to N retention and supply were investigated on the basis of a long-term experiment that began in 1990, including six treatments: no fertilizer (CK), recycled manure (M), N and P fertilizers (NP), P and K fertilizers (PK), N, P and K fertilizers (NPK), and NPK fertilizers with recycled manure (NPKM). In the maize growth season, soil microbial mineralization–immobilization turnover (MIT) was the primary driving force of N transformation under treatments without synthetic N. Conversely, NH4+ fixation and release by soil clay minerals prominently regulate N retention and supply under treatments with synthetic N. In general, soil microbial biomass N (SMBN) mineralization and fixed NH4+ release accounted for 51 % of the variation in crop N uptake and the contribution of the latter to crop N uptake was 2-fold greater than that of the former. The synchrony between crop N uptake and fixed NH4+release was higher than that between crop N uptake and SMBN mineralization. Therefore, the fixed NH4+ pool was important in synthetic N regulation at a short or medium temporal scale, especially for soils with high 2:1 clay mineral content. By contrast, MIT dominated N cycling at a long temporal scale. Clarification of the pathways of N retention and supply can provide helpful implications for optimizing N fertilizer management and enhancing the synchrony between crop N demand and soil N supply.

Solar water splitting via graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has achieved extensive attention in recent years. However, g-C3N4 usually suffers from low efficiency and poor stability. Besides, the difficulty lying in the gas mixture separation remains as a big challenge. Herein, a one-pot salt-assisted method was proposed to fabricate the cobalt-doped highly mesoporous g-C3N4 (Co-mCN) photocatalysts for efficient overall water splitting into H2 and H2O2. The adjustable Co doping not only improves the charge separation efficiency, but also enhances the tolerance of g-C3N4 against H2O2 poison. The optimal production for Co-mCN catalysts is gained to be 1.82 μmol h−1 and 1.65 μmol h−1 for H2 and H2O2 respectively, while an apparent quantum efficiency (AQE) of 2.2% at 420 nm and a working life for more than 216 h are also achieved. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the produced H2O2 can be easily collected with titanium silicalite molecular sieve (TS-1) as a reusable H2O2 carrier and directly applied in catalyzing cyclohexane oxidation into cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol mixture with 100% selectivity and 0.11% conversion efficiency. This work provides a new thinking and strategy for realizing overall water splitting, manipulating the products and extending the practical applications of g-C3N4 materials in chemical industry.

A microstructure optical fiber with Yb 3 + /Al 3 + co-doped glass core is fabricated using high-temperature laser sintering process combined with stack-capillary-draw technology. No crystal is observed in the core glass and its fluorescence lifetime is measured to be 1.31 ms. The bonding features of glass and fiber, together with the structure of fiber core and cladding, are provided and analyzed. Moreover, the uniform element distributions and the axial stress profiles show a highly symmetrical variation trend which is in good agreement with the intensity distribution of Raman signal in Micro-Raman mapping. Excited by 976-nm LD, the laser slope efficiency of microstructure optical fiber reaches up to 72.5 % at 1032 nm. The near-field beam intensity distribution of fiber laser with spectrum FWHM of 8 nm exhibits an excellent laser beam quality. This work strongly suggests Yb 3 + /Al 3 + co-doped silica preform fabricated by high-temperature sintering method is applicable for the field of high-power laser.

Reinvestigate the environmental factors and compare the results in this study with previous findings.Provide an up-to-date environmental factors analysis and development life cycle analysis.Principle components are derived to account for 69% of variation of the original environmental factors. Fifteen years ago, Zhang and Pham launched a survey to investigate the impact of software development environmental factors (EFs) on software reliability assessment. Software development has gone through substantial changes during the past fifteen years. How different the environmental factors have become? This paper aims to revisit the 32 environmental factors and analyze their impact on software development and reliability based on a current survey to software development practitioners. The participants of this study come from 20 various organizations and they hold different positions and work on different application areas. Statistical analysis method, such as principle component analysis, relative weighted method, Tukey method, backward elimination, and correlation analysis are applied to analyze these factors. We compare the findings in the two studies and list the most significant factors based on the general ranking and the principle components. The environmental factors in each development phase are also studied. Recommendations such as time allocation during software development process are also made.

Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MPK) cascades are highly conserved signaling pathways that respond to environmental cues. Arabidopsis MPK4 has been identified as a stress-responsive protein kinase. Here we demonstrate that Brassica napus MPK4 (BnMPK4) is activated by hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA). Transient expression of a constitutively active BnMPK4 causes H2O2 production and cell death in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves. However, little is known about how H2O2 contributes to the regulation of MPK4 kinase function. Biochemical analysis revealed that recombinant BnMPK4 autophosphorylates on both threonine and tyrosine residues in the activation loop. In the presence of H2O2, phosphorylation of BnMPK4 caused protein aggregation in vitro. The aggregation of BnMPK4 could be reversed to the monomeric form by reducing reagents. Point-mutation of cysteine codons indicated that cysteine 232 is involved in protein aggregation. Our results suggest that BnMPK4 is involved in reactive oxygen species (ROS) signaling and metabolism, and its aggregation may be modulated by redox.

Here we investigated photo-darkening (PD) effect and its influence on laser performance in Yb3+-doped microstructure optical fiber made through the laser sintering technique (LST). Through measuring the temporal evolution of PD excess loss at 633 nm and fiber lasing characteristics, it was found that the home-made fiber has relatively low PD and high slope efficiency. The obtained PD equilibrium loss αeq at 633 nm is 1.07 dB/m. After 30 h 976 nm laser irradiation, the fiber presents a quite small power degradation of 0.45 %. Moreover, the laser slope efficiency shows a small decline of 0.26 %, from 81.03 % to 80.77 %. The investigation of optical performance demonstrates that Yb3+-doped fiber fabricated by LST has uniform elements distribution, reasonable absorption, low background loss and a relatively low PD behavior, making it a potential application for effective high-power fiber lasers.

Guard cells are highly specialized cells that form tiny pores called stomata on the leaf surface. The opening and closing of stomata control leaf gas exchange and water transpiration as well as allow plants to quickly respond and adjust to new environmental conditions. Mesophyll cells are specialized for photosynthesis. Despite the phenotypic and obvious functional differences between the two types of cells, the full protein components and their functions have not been explored but are addressed here through a global comparative proteomics analysis of purified guard cells and mesophyll cells. With the use of isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) tagging and two-dimensional liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, we identified 1458 non-redundant proteins in both guard cells and mesophyll cells of Brassica napus leaves. Based on stringent statistical criteria, a total of 427 proteins were quantified, and 74 proteins were found to be enriched in guard cells. Proteins involved in energy (respiration), transport, transcription (nucleosome), cell structure, and signaling are preferentially expressed in guard cells. We observed several well characterized guard cell proteins. By contrast, proteins involved in photosynthesis, starch synthesis, disease/defense/stress, and other metabolisms are preferentially represented in mesophyll cells. Of the identified proteins, 110 have corresponding microarray data obtained from Arabidopsis guard cells and mesophyll cells. About 72% of these proteins follow the same trend of expression at the transcript and protein levels. For the rest of proteins, the correlation between proteomics data and the microarray data is poor. This highlights the importance of quantitative profiling at the protein level. Collectively this work represents the most extensive proteomic description of B. napus guard cells and has improved our knowledge of the functional specification of guard cells and mesophyll cells.