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A new sensor | transverse electric (TE) polarized excite surface plasmon resonance (SPR) fiber optic biosensor is proposed. The graphene is the plasma layer. The transfer matrix method and the finite difference time domain method are applied to conduct the numerical simulation of the four layers (fiber core/photonic crystals/graphene/sample) of fiber optic biosensor. The results show that the relationship between refractive index and resonant wavelength is linear and the sensitivity of the fiber optic biosensor reaches 1942 nm/RIU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas L), the herbaceous plant cultivated for its starchy storage roots, has a complex genome (2n = 6x = 90) with the estimated genome size of about 4.5 GB. Albinism, a phenomenon that occurs in plants, is defined as the total pigment loss accompanying with insufficient chloroplast membrane differentiation. For this study, an identified natural albino mutant of Xuzi-8 cultivar was subject to RNA sequencing relative to the green plants of identical cultivar. The results showed that total chlorophyll, chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, and carotenoids were significantly lower in albino plants than in normal green plants. In addition, the CO2 assimilation rate, intercellular CO2 concentration, conductance level, and transpiration rate were significantly higher in normal green plants than in albino mutants. High-quality reads in the total number of 27,520,273-39,862,794 were obtained following the removal of the potentially contaminated or low-quality reads from the albino-mutant and normal green sweetpotato libraries. Later, sequences were matched with the available online data of Ipomoea batatas, and a very low matching degree (2.22%) was obtained, which indicated the very few available data of Ipomoea batatas genome compared with other plants. Additionally, the obtained unigenes were conducted functional annotations and classification, including GO, KOG, and KEGG analyses. The significance level and DEGs differences between albino-mutant and normal green plants were determined according to the thresholds of FDR ≤ 0.001 and log2 FC ≥ 1. A total of 3000 unigenes were upregulated in albino mutants but normally expressed in normal green plants. These genes were involved in facilitating plant nutrition sources depending on the stored carbohydrates and fats. Furthermore, these unigenes were aligned to the DDP family zinc finger protein, glycerophosphodiester phosphodiesterase, beta-galactosidase, GDE-like, and SELMODRAFT PDDEXK. On the other hand, altogether, 2418 unigenes were downregulated in albino-mutant plants compared with normal green plants, which were responsible for chloroplast differentiation and development, chlorophyll degradation, and synthesis of other pigments. Therefore, they might be related to the defect that caused this mutant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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[Objective] The content variations of the main nutrients in storage root during expanding stages and their mutual relationships in orange-fleshed sweet potato (Ipomoea Batatas(L.) Lam) were studied in this paper. [Method] The dynamics of main nutritional ingredients in orange-fleshed sweet potato variety at 40, 70, 100 and 125 days after transplanting were investigated, and these traits included the β carotene content, Fe content, Zn content, starch content, protein content, glucose content, fructose content, and sucrose content. The relationships among these nutrients were analyzed during whole developing stage. [Result] β-carotene content in the whole growth period showed straightly increasing firstly, and then decreasing trend, which was unimodal fluctuation curve. The variation tendency of protein content was gently decreasing firstly and then ascending. The dynamics of starch content was similar to "-carotene content, while the fluctuation was stable. The changing curve of carbohydrate was opposite to starch, showing decreasing firstly and then ascending. Fe content was decreasing all the whole developing stage, falling fast and then slowing down. Moreover, Zn content was plummeting. The sucrose content in fresh storage root had significantly negative correlation with β-carotene content, and had positive correlation with fructose content. Starch content had significantly negative correlation with fructose content, and had positive correlation with Zn content. [Conclusion] These research conclusions could guide the variety to harvest at suitable time, so as to achieve the aim of micronutrition improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objective] This study was performed to investigate the trait changes and their correlations as well as the dynamic changes of biological yield of Xuzishu 3, which will help to enhance the yield and anthocyanin content of sweet potato by cultivation. [Method] We systematically measured the agronomic traits, qualitative characters and biological yield of Xuzishu 3 during six growing periods to investigate the dynamic changes of its essential characters and yield accumulation. [Result] The characters of Xuzishu 3 appeared most prosperous after the 90th d except for anthocyanin content. Extremely significant positive correlations were found between every two of the dry matter rates of above-ground parts (including leaf petioles, leaves and stems), reducing sugar content and potato weight per plant. Assimilated product distributed more in stems and leaves than in storage roots before the 90th d in growing period. Photosynthetic capacity and net assimilation rate gradually decreased after the 90th d, but the assimilated product distributing to storage roots increased quickly and maximized in the 135th d. [Conclusion] Xuzishu 3 is a late maturing variety requiring more fertilizer, and the accumulation of anthocyanin fluctuates during the growth period of Xuzishu 3. So yield of Xuzishu 3 can be increased by applying more fertilizer and extending the growth period reasonably, meanwhile the anthocyanin content can be increased by means of controlling temperature, light, water and phytohormone within 60 d after planting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distinct from the common well faceted ZnO nanorods (R-ZnO), ZnO nanotetrapods (T-ZnO) exhibited a remarkable catalytic activity for the thermal decomposition of ammonium perchlorate (AP): the activation energy at high temperature decomposition (HTD) was significantly decreased to 111.9 kJ mol-1, much lower than 162.5 kJ mol-1 for pure AP and 156.9 kJ mol-1 for AP with R-ZnO. This was attributed to more abundant atomic steps on the surface of T-ZnO than that of R-ZnO, as evidenced by HRTEM and density function theory (DFT) calculations. It was shown that the initiation step of perchloric acid (PA) decomposition happened much faster on stepped T-ZnO edges, resulting in the formation of active oxygen atoms from HClO4. The formed oxygen atoms would subsequently react with NH3 to produce HNO, N2O and NO species, thus leading to an obvious decrease in the activation energy of AP decomposition. The proposed catalytic mechanism was further corroborated by the TG-IR spectroscopy results. Our work can provide atomic insights into the catalytic decomposition of AP on ZnO nanostructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sodium bismuth titanate Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) single crystal doped with Nd3+ was grown by a top-seeded solution growth method. Powder x-ray diffraction revealed a pure perovskite structure with the rhombohedral phase. We found that the dielectric and ferroelectric properties were enhanced by the Nd3+ dopant. After poling along the [111] direction, transmittance was enhanced dramatically. The Sellmeier dispersion equation and energy band gaps were obtained. The absorption band around 808 nm has high full-width at half-maximum and large absorption cross-section, which is suitable for AlGaAs diode-laser pumping. A strong emission transition band of Nd3+ at around 1066 nm was observed; a long radiation lifetime 324µs shows a low quenching effect. These results indicate that Nd3+-doped NBT crystal could be applied in photonic or integrated optoelectronic devices as a multi-functional crystal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since most of image databases today are pooly indexed or annotated, there is a great need for developing automated, content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems to help users to get images they want. The focus of our research is mining image features which can represent image in the way of human visual perception. Our image retrieval approach depends on the extracted color and shape features. Vector Quantization (VQ) can provide a way of better exploiting the spatial information to generate different color histograms than scalar color quantization, thus VQ is employed in this work to extract color pattern of images. The shape feature of images is extracted by curvelet transform, as it has been proved that the curvelet transform is an almost optimal sparse representation of objects with edges. The extracted color and shape features are combined and weighted by using Genetic Algorithm (GA), then used for image similarity measurement. Experimental results show that the GA combined features can bring about good retrieval precision and speed simultaneously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To observe the curative effect of needling myofascial trigger points for recurrent humeral epicondylitis. Method: From May to October in 2011, 32 cases of recurrent humeral epicondylitis having been treated by partial closure or small needle knife treatment were treated by oblique needling at myofascial trigger points. There were 20 males and 12 females; aged from 30 to 56 years old (average 47.5); with a disease duration of 1.5 months to 3 years (average 4.5 months). Pain relief and functional recovery of the elbow joints was observed. Results: 3 months later, according to the Humeral epicondylitis evaluation standard in the Standard of Diagnosis and Curative Effect of TCM Syndromes: 10 cases were cured, 17 were improved and 5 fail to improve. After follow-up at 5 to 8 months (average 6.5 months), it was observed that there were 3 cases of relapse and improvement after surgery. Conclusion: Oblique needling at myofascial trigger points for relapse of external humeral epicondylitis has a reliable curative effect, convenient operation, and is worthy of clinical application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanocrystalline Y2O3:Eu phosphors have been successfully synthesized by a novel combustion method using sucrose as a chelating agent and fuel. The sucrose hydrolysation and complexing mechanisms are discussed. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the cubic phase can be formed at a low temperature of 400?°C, and transmission electron microscopy observations revealed that the phosphor particles were 30-50 nm annealed at 1000?°C. The post-treated Y2O3:Eu nanophosphors yield intense red emission at 610 nm, corresponding to the 5D0-7F2transitions. The luminescence properties of the Y2O3:Eu particles were strongly affected by the annealing temperatures and the sucrose to metal ion ratios. This work demonstrates that the sucrose combustion process can be a quasi-universal medium for the preparation of nanoscale phosphors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xuzishu 2 is a new high-quality table use purple-fleshed sweetpotato cultivar bred from hybrid progenies of AIS35-2 x Xushu 22-5 by Jiangsu Xuzhou Sweetpotato Research Center. In the sweetpotato variety regional trial of Jiangsu Province during 2007-2008, average fresh storage root yield was 30 185. 3 kg/hm²; average dry matter content was 29. 26% ; average dry storage root yield was 8 868. 7 kg/hm². In the sweetpotato variety production test of Jiangsu Province, average fresh storage root yield was 30 683.9 kg/hm²; average dry storage root yield was 9 399.0 kg/hm². Multi-location sampling analysis in the regional trial indicated that the anthocyanin content in fresh storage roots was 104.6 µg/g. Xuzishu 2 was approved by Crop Variety Approval Committee of Jiangsu Province in March 2010, which exhibited high fresh storage root yield, sweet taste, high anthocyanin content, good commodity, root rot resistance, and was tolerant to moisture and easy to store. Therefore, Xuzishu 2 is a high-quality purple-fleshed sweetpotato variety suitable for consumption and food processing, which should be cultivated in medium- and high-fertility fields with management procedures of suitable high density, early planting and early harvest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective extraction of weak features submerged in strong noise that are indicative of structural defects has remained a major challenge. Hence, an adaptive multi-scale noesecontrolled stochastic resonance (SR) method for mechanical fault diagnosis is proposed. This is accomplished by using the adaptive decomposition ability of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and the unique advantage of using SR method. EEMD can adaptively decompose the fault signals into different frequency bands and optimize the data analysis. Through EEMD the noise intensity of different scales can be adjusted to realize the SR detection of weak signals. The validity and practicability of the proposed method is verified by engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synthesis conditions of radiopharmaceutical-［N-methyl-11C］ Choline (11C-Choline, 11C-CH) with home-made 11Cmultifunction synthesis module by LOOP method were studied, which included the alkali equivalent, solvents and the amount of precursor. The optimum condition was 60-150 uL of precursor in LOOP without alkali equivalent and solvent, and at room temperature for synthesis of 11C-CH. It could be got with radiochemical yield of (72.16±2.96)% (n=19, EOS of 11C-CH3I). The radiochemical purity of 11C-CH was higher than 95% and the production radioactivity was (7.59±1.54) GBq(n=19). The synthesis of 11C-CH by LOOP and on-column method on home-made 11C-multifunction synthesis module was compared: by the method of LOOP, it showed that the production efficiency was increased, the output was increased and production cost of synthetic was reduced. The synthetic process was reliable and fully automatic, and the product synthesized by this process was suitable for clinical use.