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Lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs) are still limited by the shuttle of lithium polysulfides (LiPS) and the slow Li-S reaction. Herein, we demonstrate that when using cobalt sulfide as a catalytic additive, an external magnetic field generated by a permanent magnet can significantly improve the LiPS adsorption ability and the Li-S reaction kinetics. More specifically, the results show both experimentally and theoretically how an electron spin polarization of Co ions reduces electron repulsion and enhances the degree of orbital hybridization, thus resulting in LSBs with unprecedented performance and stability. Under an external magnetic field, LSBs with 0.0084 % per cycle decay rate at 2 C during 8150 cycles are produced. Overall, this work not only demonstrates an effective strategy to promote LiPS adsorption and electrochemical conversion in LSBs at no additional energy cost but also enriches the application of the spin effect in the electrocatalysis fields., This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.: 51572118 and 21975123) and partially by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos.: lzujbky-2021-it33). C. Y. Zhang, C. Q. Zhang, and L. Gong thank the China Scholarship Council for the scholarship support. A. Cabot thanks financial support from the Combenergy project (PID2019-105490RB-C32) from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. The authors also greatly acknowledge the support supported by the Supercomputing Center of Lanzhou University, China., With funding from the Spanish government through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000917-S).

Callicarpa kwangtungensis Chun is a traditional Chinese medicine that has various therapeutic effects. Despite its wide use in Chinese medicine, the study is still quite limited, especially its chemical compositions. In this research, an ultra-high-pressure liquid chromatography coupled with Q Exactive hybrid quadrupole-orbitrap high-resolution accurate mass spectrometry tandem mass spectrometry method was utilized to analyze its chemical compositions for the first time. As a result, a total of 124 compounds, including 20 phenylethanoid glycosides, 31 flavonoids, 36 organic acids, 26 terpenoids and 11 phenols, were identified or tentatively characterized in 30 min. Among them, 49 compounds, including 5 phenylethanoid glycosides, 12 flavonoids, 16 organic acids, 12 terpenoids, and 4 phenols, were identified in Callicarpa kwangtungensis Chun for the first time. Besides, the fragmentation pathways were also discussed. This research established a rapid and reliable method to analyze the chemical compositions of complicated herb without the process of isolation, and provide abundant information on the chemical material basis for further bioactivity and quality control studies.

Mutations in the isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) 1 gene, especially the R132H mutation, have been reported to be associated with a better prognosis in glioma patients. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are not yet well understood. Many factors may contribute to differences in the survival of IDH1 wild-type and IDH1 mutant glioma patients, in which immune components play a potentially important role. In this study, we analyzed The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), and the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) databases, as well as glioma patient-derived tumor samples. We found that there was a higher infiltration of natural killer (NK) cells in IDH1 mutant glioma patients, and this was correlated with a better prognosis. We also showed that IDH1-R132 tumor cells had higher expression levels of the chemokine CX3CL1. This arises as a result of the conversion of α-ketoglutarate to R(-)-2-hydroxyglutarate by the IDH1 mutant and the resultant phosphorylation of nuclear factor kappa B. Knockdown of CX3CL1 decreased the migration of NK cells. In addition, the high levels of expression of CX3CL1 were positively correlated with glioma patient survival in the TCGA and CGGA databases, and in the clinical samples. Overall, our data have identified a novel mechanism in which R132H mutation of the IDH1 gene serves as a tumor suppressor by promoting the recruitment of NK cells through CX3CL1/CX3CR1 chemotaxis.

Exploring efficient, abundant, cheap and stable materials for the electrolysis of water and supercapacitor is a challenging task. Here, Ni1−xMox nanosheets are obtained on carbon cloth (CC), which can be multi-functional electrodes for electrochemical applications. Impressively, we find that the electrochemical abilities can be optimized by constructing network-like nanosheets and tuning the ratio of Ni and Mo in the alloy. To acquire a current density of 10 mA cm−2 (j10), Ni0.75Mo0.25/CC shows the lowest overpotentials (79 mV for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and 330 mV for oxygen evolution reaction (OER)) in 1 M KOH. Using Ni0.75Mo0.25/CC as both positive and negative poles, the cell only requires a potential of 1.74 V to reach j10 and shows long-term durability. We further show that Ni0.75Mo0.25 electrode exhibits a superior specific capacitance (422 F g−1 at 1 A g−1) and high capacitance retention (108.2 % after 1000 cycles) in 1 M KOH. The super-electrochemical performances of Ni0.75Mo0.25/CC is attributed to its high electronic conductivity, rich active sites, and large surface area. We believe that the Ni0.75Mo0.25/CC electrode with extraordinary electrochemical performances is a hopeful material for practical applications in both electrocatalysis and supercapacitors (SC).

Background Accurate glioma grading plays an important role in patient treatment. Purpose To investigate the influence of varied texture retrieving models on the efficacy of grading glioma with support vector machine (SVM). Study type Retrospective. Population In all, 117 glioma patients including 25, 29, and 63 grade II, III, and IV gliomas, respectively, based on WHO 2007. Field strength/sequence 3.0T MRI/ T1 WI, T2 fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, contrast enhanced T1 , arterial spinal labeling, diffusion-weighted imaging (0, 30, 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000, 3000, and 3500 sec/mm2 ), and dynamic contrast-enhanced. Assessment Texture attributes from 30 parametric maps were retrieved using four models, including Global, gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), gray-level run-length matrix (GLRLM), and gray-level size-zone matrix (GLSZM). Attributes derived from varied models were input into radial basis function SVM (RBF-SVM) combined with attribute selection using SVM-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE). The SVM model was trained and established with 80% randomly selected data of each category using 10-fold crossvalidation. The model performance was further tested using the remaining 20% data. Statistical tests Ten-fold crossvalidation was used to validate the model performance. Results Based on 30 parametric maps, 90, 240, 390, or 390 texture attributes were retrieved using the Global, GLCM, GLRLM, or GLSZM model, respectively. SVM-RFE was able to reduce attribute redundancy as well as improve RBF-SVM performance. Training data were oversampled by applying the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) method to overcome the data imbalance problem; test results were able to further demonstrate the classifying performance of the final models. GLSZM using gray-level 64 was the optimal model to retrieve powerful image texture attributes to produce enough classifying power with an accuracy / area under the curve of 0.760/0.867 for the training and 0.875/0.971 for the independent test. Fifteen attributes were selected with SVM-RFE to provide comparable classifying efficacy. Data conclusion When using image textures-based SVM classification of gliomas, the GLSZM model in combination with gray-level 64 and attribute selection may be an optimized solution. Level of evidence 2 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2019;49:1263-1274.

High-valence metal-doped multimetal (oxy)hydroxides outperform noble metal electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) owing to the modified energetics between 3d metals and high-valence dopants. However, the rational design of sufficient and subtle modulators is still challenging. With a multimetal layered double hydroxide (LDH) as the OER catalyst, this study introduces a series of operando high-valence dopants (Cr, Ru, Ce, and V), which can restrict the 3+ valence states in the LDH template to prevent phase separation and operando transfer to the3+ valence states for sufficient electronic interaction during the OER process. Through density functional theory simulations, ultrathin Cr-doped NiFe (NiFeCr) LDH is synthesized with strong electronic interaction between Cr dopants and NiFe bimetallic sites, evidenced by X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The resulting NiFeCr-LDH catalyzes the OER with ultralow overpotentials of 189 and 284 mV, obtaining current densities of 10 and 1000 mA cm

BACKGROUND Accurate glioma grading plays an important role in the clinical management of patients and is also the basis of molecular stratification nowadays. PURPOSE/HYPOTHESIS To verify the superiority of radiomics features extracted from multiparametric MRI to glioma grading and evaluate the grading potential of different MRI sequences or parametric maps. STUDY TYPE Retrospective; radiomics. POPULATION A total of 153 patients including 42, 33, and 78 patients with Grades II, III, and IV gliomas, respectively. FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE 3.0T MRI/T1 -weighted images before and after contrast-enhanced, T2 -weighted, multi-b-value diffusion-weighted and 3D arterial spin labeling images. ASSESSMENT After multiparametric MRI preprocessing, high-throughput features were derived from patients' volumes of interests (VOIs). The support vector machine-based recursive feature elimination was adopted to find the optimal features for low-grade glioma (LGG) vs. high-grade glioma (HGG), and Grade III vs. IV glioma classification tasks. Then support vector machine (SVM) classifiers were established using the optimal features. The accuracy and area under the curve (AUC) was used to assess the grading efficiency. STATISTICAL TESTS Student's t-test or a chi-square test were applied on different clinical characteristics to confirm whether intergroup significant differences exist. RESULTS Patients' ages between LGG and HGG groups were significantly different (P

Volatility monitoring of a tiny amount of organic solvent, which reflects the profound understanding of the micro‐environmental chemical physics effect, plays a significant role in chemical reactions. Common approaches, such as microfluidic technology, undeniably encounter the issue of complicated fabrication or high cost, impeding their large‐scale application for monitoring the processes of chemical physics in micro‐reactions. Herein, a helical polymer film (HPF) molded by a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) is reported to record the helical arrangement. By infiltrating less than 1.0 μL volatile solvent into the HPF and monitoring the corresponding reflection spectral behaviors, an intrinsic dynamic chemical physics process, solvent properties, and molecular interactions between the solvent and the polymer network are quantitatively evaluated. Furthermore, to further explore the underlying interaction mechanism that results in spectral band shift, a dynamical model is established and elucidated, providing remarkable information and understanding of the dynamic chemical physics processes and interfacial molecular interactions between the solvent and the polymer. This work has tied a close bond among chemical engineering, photonics, and soft condensed physics, which can provide an avenue for the new field of application of LC photonics beyond display and optics.

Summary With the fast development of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology, topology optimization involving multiple materials has received ever increasing attention. Traditionally, this kind of optimization problem is solved within the implicit solution framework using the SIMP (Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization) or level set method. This treatment, however, will inevitably lead to a large number of design variables especially when many types of materials are involved and three-dimensional (3D) problems are considered. This is due to the fact that for each type of material, a corresponding density field/level function defined on the entire design domain must be introduced to describe its distribution. In the present paper, a novel approach for topology optimization with multiple materials is established based on the Moving Morphable Component (MMC) framework. With use of this approach, topology optimization problems with multiple materials can be solved with much less numbers of design variables and degrees of freedom. Numerical examples provided demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

The Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) was studied using mesoporous silica-supported bimetallic Co–Ni catalyst in a fixed-bed reactor (FBR) and a slurry continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) under different temperatures (from 280°C to 300°C) with syngas ratio of 2 and a total pressure of 3.5 MPa. The activity of the catalyst was higher in FBR due to complete reduction. The CSTR was found to experience a less degree of catalyst deactivation, and its CO conversion was more sensitive in responding to the variation of temperatures because of its better temperature control. The intraparticle diffusion limitation was much improved in the CSTR system due to employment of smaller particle size of the catalyst. The selectivity of gasoline fraction (C5–C13) was higher in CSTR system than that in FBR at the same baseline condition. The appreciable increases of selectivity in CO2, methane, and longer-chain hydrocarbon were observed in FBR when the comparable CO conversion was set for comparison between FBR and CSTR. Reducing the particle size of the catalyst was more effective in increasing the selectivity of lighter (C2–C6) 1-olefin in CSTR system. The FBR produced higher selectivity of longer chain (C7+) 1-olefin. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2017

Fischer-Tropsch synthesis was studied on mesoporous silica supported bimetallic Co-Ni catalyst in the fixed-bed reactor (FBR) and slurry continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) under different CO conversions by fixing other process parameters, for example, reaction temperature (300 degrees C), syngas ratio (2), and total pressure (3 MPa). The CO conversion is more sensitive in responding to the decrease of gas hour space velocity in FBR than that in CSTR. The intra-particle diffusional limitation was much improved in the CSTR system during Fischer-Tropsch synthesis due to the smaller particle size of the catalyst. The selectivity of gasoline fraction (C-5-C-13) was larger in CSTR than that in FBR when it was operated at relatively higher CO conversions (65%). The FBR tends to produce higher selectivity of longer-chain hydrocarbons than that in CSTR when the CO conversion was kept at around 22%. The increased 1-olefin selectivity was observed in both FBR and CSTR as CO conversion decrease with the FBR being more sensitive in responding to the CO conversion variation. The CSTR is found to be more effective in increasing light olefin fraction (C-2-C-6) when the CO conversion varies from 22 to 65%. (C) 2017 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A hybrid porous adsorbent was produced by mixing black liquor lignin (BL) with basic oxygen furnace steelmaking slag (SS) followed by carbonization at 860°C for removal of trace sulfur dioxide (SO2) from air. The effects of BL percentage, carbonization temperature, carbonization duration and the binary combined effect of each individual process parameter on the removal of SO2 have been statistically analyzed. The optimal preparation conditions were 48% = BL/(BL + SS), carbonized at 860°C for 50 minutes (labeled BL-SS-48-860-50). The crystallite CaO and MgO phases remained in the hybrid matrix. A carbonization temperature over 800°C facilitated gasification reaction between the carbon matrix and the CO2 emitted from the decomposition of calcium and magnesium carbonate, which led to the pore formation and enlargement in the carbon matrix. The prepared hybrid adsorbent showed good SO2 removal performance. The kinetic model demonstrated satisfying results in predicting SO2 adsorption kinetics with good prediction within a relative large range of SO2 inlet concentration. The mass transfer coefficient k = 537 (s−1) was obtained by fitting the model to the experimental breakthrough curve. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 36: 1417–1427, 2017

The analytical and numerical description of the effective dissolution kinetics of spherical particles into a solvent is often difficult in chemical and metallurgical engineering. The crucial first step is to identify the dissolution mechanisms, and subsequently, relevant kinetics parameters can be calculated. In this article, three frequently used approximations, i.e., the invariant-field (IF) (Laplace), reverse-growth (RG), and invariant-size (IS) (stationary-interface) approximations, are systematically discussed and compared with numerical simulation results. The relative errors of the dissolution curves and total dissolution time of the three approximations to the numerical simulations are calculated. The results reveal the appropriate application ranges of the approximations for given precision levels. With further experimental validation, this research provides a methodology to properly assess dissolution kinetics and adequately estimate effective diffusion coefficients and activation energy under the experimental uncertainties. (c) 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 2926-2934, 2017

Bimetallic Cu−Ni (Cu/Ni 2/1) silicate hollow spheres with the controllable morphology have been synthesized successfully using one-step sacrificial templating method under hydrothermal conditions. Following with in situ reduction in the hydrogen atmosphere under 350 °C for 5 h, Cu−Ni/SiO2 catalyst was obtained. The as-prepared products were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, BET and TPR. The morphology of Cu−Ni silicate changed from core-shell spheres, yolk-shell spheres to hollow spheres by adjusting the synthetic time. Because of synergistic effect of nickel and copper, the hydrothermal conditions of bimetallic Cu−Ni silicate were changed to 120 °C-3 h, which was the lower temperature and the shorter time in comparison with the synthetic conditions of monometal Ni3Si2O5(OH)4 and CuSiO3. Under different temperature and pressure, the catalytic property of Cu−Ni/SiO2 hollow spheres increased gradually with the temperature and pressure rising. The conversion of nitrobenzene could reach 100 % under 120 °C or 4 Mpa within 3 h.

Promoting the separation of photo-generated carriers is significantly important to improve the efficiency of photocatalytic hydrogen production. Therefore, we prepared g-C3N4/CeCO3OH/CeO2 (CeCeCN) ternary nanocomposite via an easy synthetic way using g-C3N4 and CeO2 as reactants. A CeCO3OH layer was formed and resulted in the novel ternary photocatalyst. The CeCeCN composite shows superior photocatalytic (PC) H2 generation performance in sunlight excitation. The H2 evolution rate is about 764 μmol h−1 g−1, which is over 11 times larger than those of g-C3N4 and CeO2. Compared with g-C3N4 and CeO2, CeCeCN further shows a larger photo-response current density and a lower charge-transfer resistance. The remarkably increased photocatalytic property of CeCeCN is because of the efficient charge migration induced by the formed heterojunction. Our findings demonstrate that building multi-heterostructures can liberate more excited electrons for efficient hydrogen production under sunlight.

As an emerged efficient polymerization methodology, the click polymerization plays a significant role in the area of polymer and materials sciences. Similar to the click reaction, the click polymerization enjoys the advantages of high efficiency, mild reaction conditions, and high regio- and stereo-selectivity etc. In this highlight, we summarize the recent progress on click polymerizations, with focus on the alkyne-based ones. The challenges and opportunities in this area are also briefly discussed. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2017, 55, 616–621

Praeruptorin A (PA) and B (PB) are two important compounds isolated from Bai-hua Qian-hu and have been reported to exert multiple biochemical and pharmacological activities. The present study aims to determine the inhibition of PA and PB on the activity of important phase II drug-metabolizing enzymes uridine 5'-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase (UGTs) isoforms. In vitro UGT incubation system was used to determine the inhibition potential of PA and PB on the activity of various UGT isoforms. In silico docking was performed to explain the inhibition difference between PA and PB towards the activity of UGT1A6. Inhibition behaviour was determined, and in vitro–in vivo extrapolation was performed by using the combination of in vitro inhibition kinetic parameter (Ki) and in vivo exposure level of PA. Praeruptorin A (100 μM) exhibited the strongest inhibition on the activity of UGT1A6 and UGT2B7, with 97.8% and 90.1% activity inhibited by 100 μM of PA, respectively. In silico docking study indicates the significant contribution of hydrogen bond interaction towards the stronger inhibition of PA than PB towards UGT1A6. Praeruptorin A noncompetitively inhibited the activity of UGT1A6 and competitively inhibited the activity of UGT2B7. The inhibition kinetic parameter (Ki) of PA towards UGT1A6 and UGT2B7 was calculated to be 1.2 and 3.3 μM, respectively. The [I]/Ki value was calculated to be 15.8 and 5.8 for the inhibition of PA on UGT1A6 and UGT2B7, indicating high inhibition potential of PA towards these two UGT isoforms in vivo. Therefore, closely monitoring the interaction between PA and drugs mainly undergoing UGT1A6 or UGT2B7-catalyzed metabolism is very necessary. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A tetraphenylethene (TPE) derivative modified with the strong electron acceptor 2-dicyano-methylene-3-cyano-4,5,5-trimethyl-2,5-dihydrofuran (TCF) was obtained in high yield by a simple two-step reaction. The resultant TPE-TCF showed evident aggregation-induced emission (AIE) features and pronounced solvatochromic behavior. Changing the solvent from apolar cyclohexane to highly polar acetonitrile, the emission peak shifted from 560 to 680 nm (120 nm redshift). In an acetonitrile solution and in the solid powder, the Stokes shifts are as large as 230 and 190 nm, respectively. The solid film emits red to near-IR (red-NIR) fluorescence with an emission peak at 670 nm and a quantum efficiency of 24.8 %. Taking the advantages of red-NIR emission and high efficiency, nanoparticles (NPs) of TPE-TCF were fabricated by using tat-modified 1,2-distearoylsn-glycero-3-phosphor-ethanol-amine-N-[methoxy-(polyethyl-eneglycol)-2000] as the encapsulation matrix. The obtained NPs showed perfect membrane penetrability and high fluorescent imaging quality of cell cytoplasm. Upon co-incubation with 4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) in the presence of tritons, the capsulated TPE-TCF nanoparticles could enter into the nucleus and displayed similar staining properties to those of DAPI.

The study aimed at investigating the addition effects of P, K, and micronutrient fertilizers on the permeability of N-nutrient fertilizer urea through a representative polymer membrane, which is of great importance in polymer-coated compound fertilizer. Specifically, the permeability of urea through polystyrene membrane was determined experimentally at the nominal temperature of 298 K using the Ussing chamber method for fertilizer solutions of urea–water, urea–NaH2PO4–water, urea–Ca(H2PO4)2–water, urea–KCl–water, and urea–NaCl–water. The experimental data showed that the addition effects of NaH2PO4, KCl, and NaCl on urea permeability were pronounced and could be promotion or suppression depending on the amounts added. The variation of urea permeability with additive concentration could be explained by the ‘solution–diffusion’ model, suggesting that the specific intermolecular and interionic interactions in the permeation solution were an important factor determining the permeability. Using the saturated urea–water solution as basis, the addition of saturated KCl increased the urea permeability by 2.5 times, while the addition of saturated Ca(H2PO4)2 and NaH2PO4 decreased the permeability by 41% and 76%, respectively. © 2016 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A novel and rapid microwave extraction and ultra high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of 25 bioactive constituents (including two new constituents) in Fructus Alpinia oxyphylla. The optimized conditions of the microwave extraction was a microwave power of 300 W, extraction temperature of 80°C, solvent-to-solid ratio of 30 mL/g and extraction time of 8 min. Separation was achieved on a Waters ACQUITY UPLC(®) HSS C18 column (2.1 mm× 50 mm, 1.8 μm) using gradient elution with a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile and 1 mM ammonium acetate at a flow rate of 0.2 mL/min. This is the first report of the simultaneous determination of 25 bioactive constituents in Fructus Alpinia oxyphylla by ultra high performance liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. The method was validated with good linearity, acceptable precision and accuracy. The validated method was successfully applied to determine the contents of 25 bioactive constituents in Fructus Alpinia oxyphylla from different sources and the analysis results were classified by hierarchical cluster analysis, which indicated the effect of different cultivation regions on the contents of constituents. This study provides powerful and practical guidance in the quality control of Alpinia oxyphylla and lays the foundation for further research of Alpinia oxyphylla.

We report the recent progress in the preparation of functional poly(disubstituted acetylene)s (PDSAs) through post-polymerization modification routes. The metathesis polymerization of disubstituted acetylene monomers activated by Mo/W-Sn complex catalysts, which do not tolerate highly polar functionalities, was assumed to be a key step in the polymer synthetic procedures. We and other groups have explored several approaches to prepare PDSAs with latent reactive functionalities, which are inactive to Mo/W-Sn complex catalysts but can be used as highly reactive sites for post-polymerization modification. Click chemistry, Michael-type addition reactions, the use of activated esters and other strategies are demonstrated by recently published examples. These works indicate that post-polymerization modification is an efficient route to the synthesis of various functional PDSAs.

A series of polyimide/titanium carbide (PI/TiC) composites with different TiC contents were prepared using the ultrasonic dispersion and in situ polymerization method. Atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), mechanical, and electrometer were used to characterize the structure and properties of the obtained composites. The morphological study of composites by AFM and SEM showed that TiC particles had a homogeneous dispersion in polyimide matrix with nanoscale at low filler dosage (≤10% volume content). X-ray diffractions (XRDs) indicated that the doping of TiC slightly reduced the packing density of polyimide and destructed the aggregation structure of polyimide molecules. Experimental results showed that the obtained PI/TiC composites exhibited appropriate mechanical properties and moderate electric breakdown strength. Dielectric investigation evidenced that the dielectric constant and the dielectric loss of these composites increased with the increase of the volume fraction of TiC particles. The composite with 20 vol% TiC particles showed a highest dielectric constant of 37 while retaining an appropriate dielectric loss of 0.026, as compared with the dielectric constant (3–4) of neat polyimide resin. In addition, the dielectric properties of the composites displayed good stability within a wide range of frequency. The results of this work demonstrate the potential use of a PI/TiC composite film in an embedded capacitor. POLYM. COMPOS., 2014. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers

A series of poly(aroxycarbonyltriazole)s (PACTs) with high molecular weights and regioregularities is prepared in excellent yields by the metal-free click polymerization (MFCP) of dipropiolate (1) and diazides (2) in dimethylformamide (DMF) at 100 °C for 6 h. The MFCPs can proceed smoothly in an open atmosphere, without protection from oxygen and moisture. The PACTs show good solubility and processability. They are thermally stable and the temperatures of their 5% weight-loss are higher than 363 °C. The polymers exhibit high optical transparency and refractive indices with low chromatic dispersions. Moreover, the polymer film containing benzophenone units can be cross-linked upon UV irradiation to generate negative photoresist patterns with high resolution.

A tetraphenylethene (TPE) derivative substituted with the electron-acceptor 1,3-indandione (IND) group was designed and prepared. The targeted IND-TPE reserves the intrinsic aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property of the TPE moiety. Meanwhile, owing to the decorated IND moiety, IND-TPE demonstrates intramolecular charge-transfer process and pronounced solvatochromic behavior. When the solvent is changed from apolar toluene to highly polar acetonitrile, the emission peak redshifts from 543 to 597 nm. IND-TPE solid samples show an evident mechanochromic process. Grinding of the as-prepared powder sample induces a redshift of emission from green (peak at 515 nm) to orange (peak at 570 nm). The mechanochromic process is reversible in multiple grinding-thermal annealing and grinding-solvent-fuming cycles, and the emission of the solid sample switches between orange (ground) and yellow (thermal/solvent-fuming-treated) colors. The mechanochromism is ascribed to the phase transition between amorphous and crystalline states. IND-TPE undergoes a hydrolysis reaction in basic aqueous solution, thus the red-orange emission can be quenched by OH(-) or other species that can induce the generation of sufficient OH(-). Accordingly, IND-TPE has been used to discriminatively detect arginine and lysine from other amino acids, due to their basic nature. The experimental data are satisfactory. Moreover, the hydrolyzation product of IND-TPE is weakly emissive in the resultant mixture but becomes highly blue-emissive after the illumination for a period by UV light. Thus IND-TPE can be used as a dual-responsive fluorescent probe, which may extend the application of TPE-based molecular probes in chemical and biological categories.

Progress in mass spectrometry-based methods for veterinary research and diagnostics is lagging behind compared to the human research, and proteome data of domestic animals is still not well represented in open source data repositories. This is particularly true for the equine species. Here we present a first Equine PeptideAtlas encompassing high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry analyses of 51 samples representing a selection of equine tissues and body fluids from healthy and diseased animals. The raw data were processed through the Trans-Proteomic Pipeline to yield high quality identification of proteins and peptides. The current release comprises 24,131 distinct peptides representing 2636 canonical proteins observed at false discovery rates of 0.2 % at the peptide level and 1.4 % at the protein level. Data from the Equine PeptideAtlas are available for experimental planning, validation of new datasets, and as a proteomic data mining resource. The advantages of the Equine PeptideAtlas are demonstrated by examples of mining the contents for information on potential and well-known equine acute phase proteins, which have extensive general interest in the veterinary clinic. The extracted information will support further analyses, and emphasises the value of the Equine PeptideAtlas as a resource for the design of targeted quantitative proteomic studies.