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A desuperheater heat recovery system that includes a reversibly used cooling tower (RUCT) was studied by simulation and field tests in subtropical regions in China. This paper presents the field test of a RUCT heating system using heat pump (RUCTHPS) in winter installed in a test office building, which is located in Changsha, Hunan province, a hot summer and cold winter region in China. Instead of using water in summer, aqueous solution was used as circulation medium between the RUCT and the heat pump in this system. Experiments were conducted to study the influence of air mass flow rate, temperature of the inlet air, temperature of the inlet solution, and solution mass flow rate on the performance of the RUCTHPS using heat pump in winter. Based on the field test results it was found that the RUCTHPS can work well when the ambient temperature is near 0°C in the winter. It was also found that the RUCT had big influence on the performance of whole heating system.

A new series of intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) molecules were synthesized by attaching various strong electron-withdrawing groups to a triphenylamine backbone. Relationships between chemical structures and optoelectronic properties of these compounds were investigated with X-ray diffraction, cyclic voltammetry, absorption spectroscopy, and density functional theory calculations. It is shown that the compounds exhibit intensive ICT interactions leading to substantial extension of their absorption spectral response, which may be potentially used for efficient solar cells.

N,N-Dimethyl-N-(pyrenyl-1-methyl) dodecan-1-ammonium has been designed and applied as a fluorescent probe for sensing bacterial endotoxin. Upon assembly with bacterial endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide) in aqueous solution, the probe exhibits a ratiometric and sensitive fluorescence response with a low detection limit (100 nM). Moreover, the probe shows high selectivity for bacterial endotoxin over other related biological species.

A new rhodamine-derived Schiff base (RS) was synthesized and its sensing property to metal ions was investigated by UV/vis and fluorescence spectroscopies. Addition of Hg2+ ions to the aqueous solution of RS gave a visual color change as well as significantly fluorescent enhancement, while other ions including Pb2+, Cd2+, Cr3+, Zn2+, Cu2+, Fe2+, Co3+, Ni2+, Ca2+, Mg2+, K+ and Na+ ions did not induce any distinct color/spectral changes, which constituted a Hg2+-selective fluorescent OFF–ON chemosensor. The Hg2+-induced ring-opening of spirolactam of rhodamine in RS resulted in the dual chromo- and fluorogenic observation.

The mevalonate pathway is an important drug target for the treatment of cancer and cardiovascular disease. We synthesized and studied a new type of nitrogen-containing bisphosphonate analogs and developed a sensitive end point assay method for enzyme FPPS, which was used for inhibitor screening. One potent FPPS inhibitor was discovered, and the structure–activity relationship of bisphosphonates for the enzyme inactivation was studied.

A fluorescent probe (QA) based on quinine bearing two quaternary ammonium groups and a long hydrophobic chain was synthesized, and it showed highly selective recognition of carbenicillin (a typical beta-lactam antibiotic) in 100% aqueous solution via concerted interactions.

We developed a new method for glutathione reductase (GR) enzyme sensing via a metal-controlled spontaneous oxidation reaction. A new complex HgL, composed of 3-benzothiazoliny-7-N,N-diethylaminocoumarin (L) and HgCl2, was used as an example for illustration. It was found that ligand L was released from complex HgL by a ligand exchange process in the presence of GSH, which was enzymatic reduced from GSSG in the presence of NADH. Subsequently, free ligand L was spontaneously oxidated to a laser dye (coumarin-6) with both fluorescence enhancement and color change. A good linear relationship between fluorescent intensity and GSH concentrations (in the range of 10-40 μM) elicits the potential use of HgL in GSH detection. Based on this result, complex HgL was applied to identify GR from other proteins/enzymes with good selectivity and sensitivity. HgL can also determine GR in the concentration range from 0.5 to 10 U/mL with a linear relationship. Furthermore, this novel sensing method was also expected to be a useful example for the design of other biosensing systems.

The relationships among potassium (K), calcium (Ca), sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and manganese (Mn) contents in milled rice (Oryza stavia L.) of 274 genotypes and the relationships between these mineral element contents and other rice quality traits including 3 cooking quality traits, 17 amino acid contents, and protein content were investigated. The results showed that there were significant correlations among most of mineral element contents. Mg, Fe, and Mn contents were significantly correlated with most of the other mineral element contents, while Cu content had significantly negative associations with the K and Mg contents of rice. The relationships between mineral element contents and cooking quality traits showed that gel consistency (GC) was significantly correlated with K, Cu, and Mn contents of rice. Amylose content (AC) was significantly associated with K, Na, Mg, Cu, and Mn contents. The alkali spreading value (ASV) had closely positive relationships with Ca, Mg, and Mn contents. In addition, 8 mineral element contents had obvious correlations with different amino acid contents. Mg, Ca, and Zn contents were significantly correlated with most of the 17 amino acid contents, but Na content did not correlate with amino acid contents except aspartic acid of rice. Furthermore, significant associations were found between protein content and Na, Mg, Zn, Cu, or Mn content. Six principal components were extracted to explain 84.50% of the total variances and contained the information provided by the original 29 variables according to the principal component analysis.

A novel tren-based tripodal chemosensor 1 bearing a rhodamine and two tosyl groups was synthesized and its sensing behavior toward metal ions was investigated by UV/vis and fluorescence spectroscopies. Addition of a Hg2+ ion to a CH3CN solution of 1 gave a visual color change as well as significantly enhanced fluorescence, while other ions including Pb2+, Zn2+, Cu2+, Ca2+, Ba2+, Cd2+, Co2+, Mg2+, Ag+, Cs+, Li+, and Na+ induced no or much smaller color/spectral changes, which constituted a Hg2+-selective fluorescent chemosensor (OFF−ON).

Developmental instability or noise, defined as the phenotypic imprecision of an organism in the face of internal or external stochastic disturbances, has been thought to play an important role in shaping evolutionary processes and patterns. The genetic studies of developmental instability have been based on fluctuating asymmetry (FA) that measures random differences between the left and the right sides of bilateral traits. In this article, we frame an experimental design characterized by a spatial autocorrelation structure for determining the genetic control of developmental instability for those traits that cannot be bilaterally measured. This design allows the residual environmental variance of a quantitative trait to be dissolved into two components due to permanent and random environmental factors. The degree of developmental instability is quantified by the relative proportion of the random residual variance to the total residual variance. We formulate a mixture model to estimate and test the genetic effects of quantitative trait loci (QTL) on the developmental instability of the trait. The genetic parameters including the QTL position, the QTL effects, and spatial autocorrelations are estimated by implementing the EM algorithm within the mixture model framework. Simulation studies were performed to investigate the statistical behavior of the model. A live example for poplar trees was used to map the QTL that control root length growth and its developmental instability from cuttings in water culture.

[reaction: see text] N-(Rhodamine-6G)lactam-N'-phenylthiourea-ethylenediamine (1) was developed as a fluorescent and colorimetric chemodosimeter in aqueous solution with a broad pH span (5 approximately 10) and high selectivity toward Hg2+ but no significant response toward other competitive cations, such as Fe2+, Co2+, Ni2+, Cu2+, Zn2+, Pb2+, Cd2+, Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, Na+, etc. The Hg2+-promoted ring opening of spirolactam of the rhodamine moiety induced cyclic guanylation of the thiourea moiety, which resulted in the dual chromo- and fluorogenic observation (OFF-ON).

Xiexin decoction, a herbal therapeutic agent commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine, is recognized for its beneficial effects on diabetic nephropathy exerted through the combined action of multiple components, including Rhizoma Coptidis alkaloids (A), Radix et Rhizoma Rhei polysaccharides (P), and Radix Scutellaria flavones (F). Our previous studies have shown that a combination of A, P, and F (APF) exhibits renoprotective effects against diabetic nephropathy. This study was aimed at determining the effects of APF on renal fibrosis in diabetic nephropathy and elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms. To evaluate the effects of APF, in vivo, db/db diabetic mice were orally administered a low or high dose of APF (300 or 600 mg/kg, respectively) once a day for 8 weeks. We evaluated the blood and urine indices of metabolic and renal function, renal tissue histopathology, renal inflammation, and fibrosis. APF treatment significantly ameliorated glucose and lipid metabolism dysfunction, decreased urinary albumin excretion, normalized creatinine clearance, and reduced the morphological changes in renal tissue. Additionally, APF administration in db/db diabetic mice reduced the elevated levels of renal inflammation mediators such as intercellular adhesion molecule-1, monocyte chemotactic protein-1, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-1β, and active nuclear factor κB (NF-κB). APF treatment also reduced type I and IV collagen, transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), and TGF-β1 type II receptor expression levels, and decreased the phosphorylation of Smad2/3 in the kidneys of db/db diabetic mice. These results suggest that APF reduces renal fibrosis in diabetic nephropathy through the NF-κB and TGF-β1/Smad signaling pathways. In vitro, APF treatment reduced cell proliferation and protein expression of α-smooth muscle actin, collagen I, TGF-β1 and NF-κB in mesangial cells cultured with high glucose concentrations. Our findings indicate that treatment with multi-component herbal therapeutic formulations may be a useful approach for the treatment of diabetic nephropathy.

A new complex Cu(II)/ L , composed of 2,9-bis(4′-hydroxyphenyl)phenanthroline ( L ) and Cu(II), was synthesized as an efficient chloride-detection fluorescent chemosensor with high selectivity and sensitivity over other halide anions, F − , Br − , I − . The recognition mechanism was discussed primarily.

[reaction: see text]. A novel fluorescent chemosensor (compound 1) containing aminonaphthol, which selectively recognizes fluoride anion with high sensitivity, was synthesized. The fluorescence of compound 1 was quenched rapidly by fluoride ion, and a new peak at a longer wavelength emerged concurrently, which constituted the signature for fluoride detection. The mechanism of exciplex formation was proposed for the interesting observation.

Explore the affecting factors of mentally prisoner's competency to serve a sentence (CSS), establish the base of quantitative study of CSS.Firstly, the researchers compile a questionnaire named legal-psycho ability of competency to serve a sentence questionnaire, then the researchers scaling the object with RTHD, and ask all object complete the questionnaire. there a hypothesis, that the object who are cured in cured ward is incompetent to serve a sentence (ISS), and the other who are stay in rehabilitated ward is competent to serve a sentence (CSS).There are 185 object admitted the study, the ISS group the CSS group have significance between psychiatric and legal aspects.At the influence of psychiatric symptoms, the mentally prisoner's competency to serve a sentence had been impaired, and they should been transferred from prison to hospital.

Previously, we screened a proteoglycan for anti-hyperglycemic, named FYGL, from Ganoderma Lucidum. For further research of the antidiabetic mechanisms of FYGL in vivo, the glucose homeostasis, activities of insulin-sensitive enzymes, glucose transporter expression and pancreatic function were analyzed using db/db mice as diabetic models in the present work. FYGL not only lead to a reduction in glycated hemoglobin level, but also an increase in insulin and C-peptide level, whereas a decrease in glucagons level and showed a potential for the remediation of pancreatic islets. FYGL also increased the glucokinase activities, and simultaneously lowered the phosphoenol pyruvate carboxykinase activities, accompanied by a reduction in the expression of hepatic glucose transporter protein 2, while the expression of adipose and skeletal glucose transporter protein 4 was increased. Moreover, the antioxidant enzyme activities were also increased by FYGL treatment. Thus, FYGL was an effective antidiabetic agent by enhancing insulin secretion and decreasing hepatic glucose output along with increase of adipose and skeletal muscle glucose disposal in the late stage of diabetes. Furthermore, FYGL is beneficial against oxidative stress, thereby being helpful in preventing the diabetic complications.

A novel red (λmaxem = 632 nm) fluorescent probe based on 3-hydroxyflavone was designed and synthesized for thiol recognition with high sensitivity and excellent selectivity. Application of the probe for selective detection of intracellular thiols has been successfully demonstrated.

A fluorogenic organic-inorganic hybrid sensory material (denoted as material III) was successfully prepared by immobilizing disulfide-based receptors within the channels of mesoporous silica MCM-41. The material showed high sensitivity and excellent selectivity towards thiophenols due to appropriate combination of the stronger nucleophilicity of thiophenols and the secondary interactions (hydrophobicity and π–π stacking interactions) provided by the inorganic support. Fluorescence measurements revealed that the emission intensity of material III increased significantly upon addition of thiophenols, while it was not observed for aliphatic thiols and other nucleophiles. The detection limit of this material to p-toluenethiol was estimated to be 7.4 × 10−6 M, and a good linear relationship between the fluorescence intensity and p-toluenethiol concentration (in the range of 0–110 μM) was achieved. The pronounced emission enhancement could be attributed to the following conversion process: a coumarin derivative is released from material III by cleaving the disulfide bonds in the presence of thiophenols, and then oxidized spontaneously to a fluorescent dye (coumarin 6) under ambient conditions. This novel sensing method viadisulfide-based groups as the active site combining with the synergistic effect provided by the inorganic support is expected to open a new avenue for thiophenols sensing.

Two simple intramolecular charge transfer compounds (BzBMN and BzFAN), derived from 2-benzyloxy-4-diethylaminobenzaldehyde, have been synthesized. Unlike typical AIEE molecules, the enhanced emission of these compounds in the solid state is accompanied by large red shifts in emission wavelength. Absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the compounds in solution, film and the X-ray single crystal structures were investigated to understand the mechanism of enhanced emission in the solid state. The results indicate that the bathochromic shift excimer-like emissions originated from dimers induced by the dipole–dipole interaction and long-range ordered arrangement (e.g. J-aggregation), and the enhanced emission is attributed to the restriction of intramolecular rotations caused by multiple intermolecular hydrogen bonding interactions. In addition, it was also observed that BzBMN and BzFAN can facilely form single crystal microbelts and microtubes by a simple reprecipitation method.

A rationally designed, coumarin-based fluorescent sensor imino-coumarin (IC) displays high selectivity for Cu(2+) over a variety of competing metal ions in aqueous solution with a significant fluorescence increase. DFT/TDDFT calculations support that the fluorescence 'turn-on' of IC originates from blocking the electron transfer of the nitrogen lone pair upon complexation with Cu(2+). IC was successfully applied to microscopic imaging for detection of Cu(2+) in LLC-MK2 cells (in vitro) and several living organs (in vivo).

Background NOD26-like intrinsic proteins (NIPs) that belong to the aquaporin superfamily are plant-specific and exhibit a similar three-dimensional structure. Experimental evidences however revealed that functional divergence should have extensively occurred among NIP genes. It is therefore intriguing to further investigate the evolutionary mechanisms being responsible for the functional diversification of the NIP genes. To better understand this process, a comprehensive analysis including the phylogenetic, positive selection, functional divergence, and transcriptional analysis was carried out. Results The origination of NIPs could be dated back to the primitive land plants, and their diversification would be no younger than the emergence time of the moss P. patens. The rapid proliferation of NIPs in plants may be primarily attributed to the segmental chromosome duplication produced by polyploidy and tandem duplications. The maximum likelihood analysis revealed that NIPs should have experienced strong selective pressure for adaptive evolution after gene duplication and/or speciation, prompting the formation of distinct NIP groups. Functional divergence analysis at the amino acid level has provided strong statistical evidence for shifted evolutionary rate and/or radical change of the physiochemical properties of amino acids after gene duplication, and DIVERGE2 has identified the critical amino acid sites that are thought to be responsible for the divergence for further investigation. The expression of plant NIPs displays a distinct tissue-, cell-type-, and developmental specific pattern, and their responses to various stress treatments are quite different also. The differences in organization of cis-acting regulatory elements in the promoter regions may partially explain their distinction in expression. Conclusion A number of analyses both at the DNA and amino acid sequence levels have provided strong evidences that plant NIPs have suffered a high divergence in function and expression during evolution, which is primarily attributed to the strong positive selection or a rapid change of evolutionary rate and/or physiochemical properties of some critical amino acid sites.

Proper development of a seed requires coordinated exchanges of signals among the three components that develop side by side in the seed. One of these is the maternal integument that encloses the other two zygotic components, i.e., the diploid embryo and its nurturing annex, the triploid endosperm. Although the formation of the embryo and endosperm contains the contributions of both maternal and paternal parents, maternally and paternally derived alleles may be expressed differently, leading to a so-called parent-of-origin or imprinting effect. Currently, the nature of how genes from the maternal and zygotic genomes interact to affect seed development remains largely unknown. Here, we present a novel statistical model for estimating the main and interaction effects of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) that are derived from different genomes and further testing the imprinting effects of these QTLs on seed development. The experimental design used is based on reciprocal backcrosses toward both parents, so that the inheritance of parent-specific alleles could be traced. The computing model and algorithm were implemented with the maximum likelihood approach. The new strategy presented was applied to study the mode of inheritance for QTLs that control endoreduplication traits in maize endosperm. Monte Carlo simulation studies were performed to investigate the statistical properties of the new model with the data simulated under different imprinting degrees. The false positive rate of imprinting QTL discovery by the model was examined by analyzing the simulated data that contain no imprinting QTL. The reciprocal design and a series of analytical and testing strategies proposed provide a standard procedure for genomic mapping of QTLs involved in the genetic control of complex seed development traits in flowering plants.

A genetic model for quantitative traits of seeds in diploid plants was applied to estimate the genetic main effects and genotype × environment (GE) interaction effects for protein content (PC) of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) by using 2 years of experimental data with a diallel mating design of 8 parents. Results showed that PC of rapeseed was simultaneously controlled by genetic effects of embryo, cytoplasm, and maternal plant, of which the maternal genetic effects were most important, followed by embryo and cytoplasmic genetic effects. Therefore, improvement of PC of rapeseed would be more efficient when selection is based on maternal plants than that on single seeds. Since the GE interaction effects accounted for about 60.10% of total genetic effect, they were more important than the genetic main effects, and selection for PC might be influenced by environmental conditions. The total narrow-sense heritability for PC was 64.17%, of which the interaction heritability was larger than the general heritability. Selection for improving PC can therefore be conducted in early generations. Maternal heritability (41.59%) was most important for PC, followed by cytoplasmic heritability (17.62%) and then by embryo heritability (5.25%). Based on prediction of genetic effects, parent Youcai 601 was better than others for increasing PC in rapeseed breeding.