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Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is known as a complex genetic disease characterized by genetic and environmental factors. The imbalanced intestinal flora and intestinal mucosal barrier are considered to be related to T2DM. Curcumin has been proved to affect the progression of T2DM. T2DM animal was established by low-dose streptozotocin intraperitoneal injection combined with high-fat diet (HFD) feeding. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and transfer electron microscopy (TEM) were used to observe morphological changes of intestinal tissues of T2DM rats. Insulin and glucose tolerance tests were performed to investigate the influence of curcumin on blood glucose. Curcumin significantly improved the intestinal integrity, hyperglycemia and insulin resistance in diabetic rats. The metabolic endotoxemia induced by HFD in diabetic rats was inhibited remarkably. Curcumin reversed gut microbiota dysbiosis in diabetic rats caused by HFD. We demonstrated that curcumin could protect intestinal mucosal barrier, improve insulin resistance and reduce blood glucose in diabetic rats. This study might provide experimental evidence for the prevention and treatment in T2DM.

One kind of phenolic substituted dicyanoisophorone derivative (Is-OL) has been designed and successfully synthesized for the detection of hypochlorite in water samples, test strips and living HeLa cells. The probe Is-OL showed high sensitivity and selectivity to hypochlorite over other competitive ROS and metal ions. Moreover, Is-OL can react instantaneously with hypochlorite (5 s) while exhibiting a significant color change from yellow to colorless, which makes "naked-eye" detection possible with a low detection limit (0.095 μM). The results based on water tests and living HeLa cell experiments showed that Is-OL could be applied as a potential candidate for the detection of hypochlorite.

Grain weight is an important characteristic of grain shape and a key contributing factor to the grain yield in rice. Here, we report that gw2.1, a new allele of the Grain Width and Weight 2 (GW2) gene, regulates grain size and grain weight. A single nucleotide substitution in the coding sequence (CDS) of gw2.1 resulted in the change of glutamate to lysine (E128K) in GW2.1 protein. Complementation tests and GW2 overexpression experiments demonstrated that the missense mutation in gw2.1 was responsible for the phenotype of enlarged grain size in the mutant line jf42. The large grain trait of the near-isogenic line NIL-gw2.1 was found to result from increased cell proliferation during flower development. Meanwhile, NIL-gw2.1 was shown to increase grain yield without compromising the grain quality. The GW2 protein was localized to the cell nucleus and membrane, and interacted with CHB705, a subunit of the chromatin remodeling complex. Finally, the F

Biomaterials that have capacities to simultaneously induce bone regeneration and kill bacteria are in demand because bone defects face risks of severe infection in clinical therapy. To meet the demand, multifunctional biodegradable microspheres are fabricated, which contain vancomycin to provide antibacterial activity and strontium-doped apatite to provide osteocompatibility. Moreover, the strontium component shows activity in promoting angiogenesis, which further favors osteogenesis. For producing the microspheres, vancomycin is loaded into mesoporous silica and embedded in polylactide-based microspheres via the double emulsion technique and the strontium-doped apatite is deposited onto the microspheres via biomineralization in strontium-containing simulated body fluid. Sustained release behaviors of both vancomycin and Sr2+ ions are achieved. The microspheres exhibit strong antibacterial effect against Staphylococcus aureus, while demonstrating excellent cell/tissue compatibility. Studies of differentiation confirm that the introduction of strontium element strengthens the angiogenic and osteogenic expressions of mesenchymal stromal cells. Subcutaneous injection of the microspheres into rabbit's back confirms their effectiveness in inducing neovascularization and ectopic osteogenesis. Finally, an infected rabbit femoral condyle defect model is created with S. aureus infection and the multifunctional microspheres are injected, which display significant antibacterial activity in vivo and achieve efficient new bone formation in comparison with biomineralized microspheres without vancomycin loading. The vancomycin- and strontium-loaded microspheres, being biomineralized, injectable, and biodegradable, are attractive because of their flexibility in integrating multiple functions into one design, whose potentials in treating infected bone defects are highly expected.

Alendronate, a nitrogen-containing bisphosphate, is commonly used for the treatment of osteoporosis, showing the potential in enhancing osteogenesis. To improve the osteo-promoting effect of injectable biomineralized microspheres for bone tissue engineering applications, in this study, alendronate was incorporated onto the microspheres during their biomineralization procedure in simulated body fluid (SBF). For the purpose, the microspheres were made of biodegradable poly( l -lactide)-poly(ethylene glycol) block copolymer, which had rough surface with gelatin coating via the (W1/O)/W2 emulsion preparation method. Different amounts (25 μM, 50 μM or 100 μM) of alendronate were dissolved in the 5-times SBF and incorporated as calcium minerals depositing onto the microspheres, and thus displaying different release behaviors of alendronate. The cell culture results using bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells (BMSCs) demonstrated that the microspheres prepared from the 50 μM of alendronate had the strongest promotion on osteogenic differentiation, while displayed insignificant adverse effect on cell proliferation and viability. By adding Noggin (an inhibitor for bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)) into the culture systems, it was proposed that BMP signaling pathway was one of the possible pathways for alendronate playing its activating effect. In vivo evaluation was conducted by injecting the alendronate-loaded microspheres subcutaneously into rabbit back, in which, histological and immunohistological analysis were done to assess ectopic neovascularization and osteogenesis. Promisingly, the potential of biomineralized microspheres in promoting osteogenesis was significantly strengthened with the incorporation of alendronate. Therefore, a proper application of alendronate in bone repairing materials can be an effective strategy targeting bone regeneration.

The super capacitor have become the focus in the electrochemical energy storage and successfully applied in many fields in real life, Such as: computer, timer, electric vehicles, military, aviation, new energy and other fields. In this paper use manganese dioxide and graphene composite electrode materials preparation, the first is use graphene oxide and potassium permanganate by hydrothermal method of manganese dioxide and graphene composite electrode materials. Next using the composite of manganese dioxide and graphene oxide to make an electrode sheet. Then constant current charge and discharge method and ac impedance method, such as the mass ratio of manganese dioxide was studied and the oxidation of the graphite energy storage performance.

Supercapacitors have many advantages that electrostatic capacitors and batteries do not such as fast charge and discharge speed, high efficiency, long cycle life, wide operating temperature range, and good reliability. In recent years, they have become a research hotspot in the field of electrochemical energy storage. Supercapacitors have been successfully applied in many fields. Such as: acting as a backup power supply for electronic products such as memory, computers, timers, used in electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, used as auxiliary power supplies for solar and wind power generation devices, and can also be used in military, aerospace and other fields.

We propose and demonstrate a silicon-photonics-based laser that outputs multiple independently tunable wavelengths using a single InP gain element. We use it to generate a C-band tunable source for a coherent transceiver and simultaneously a 1480-nm source to pump an Er-doped fiber amplifier on the transmitter output.

A silicon-photonic tunable laser emitting two tunable wavelengths simultaneously is demonstrated. The laser consists of a single semiconductor optical amplifier that provides shared gain and a silicon-photonic chip that provides wavelength selections. A total optical power of 29.3 mW is shown, with 300 mA of gain current at 40°C. Continuous tuning of frequency spacing from 69.5 GHz to 114.1 GHz is demonstrated. The two simultaneous laser channels show highly correlated phase noise, with a phase noise correlation coefficient of 90.7%.

We experimentally demonstrate a low-chirp high-speed push-pull dual-ring modulator. The device is formed by two parallel cascaded add-drop ring modulators which has a Fabry-Perot resonance spectrally similar as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) effect. Differential drive signals are applied to the two rings to shift the individual resonances towards opposite directions, creating intensity modulation with suppressed frequency chirp. We present static and dynamic characterization of the device, including chirp parameter. We also demonstrate 144 Gb/s PAM-4 data transmission with 1-km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF) with BER below hard-decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold with 7% overhead.

Treatment of infected bone defects still remains a formidable clinical challenge, and the design of bone implants with both anti-bacterial activity and -osteogenesis effects is nowadays regarded as a powerful strategy for infection control and bone healing. In the present study, bioresorbable porous-structured microspheres were fabricated from an amphiphilic block copolymer composed of poly(l-lactide) and poly(ethyl glycol) blocks. After being surface coated with mussel-inspired polydopamine, the microspheres were loaded with nanosilver via the reduction of silver nitrate and apatite via biomineralization in sequence. At optimized loading amounts, the nanosilver-loaded microspheres showed no unfavorable effects on the proliferation and differentiation of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells despite preserving strong antibacterial activity in in vitro evaluations. For the critical-sized defects (φ = 8 mm) in the rat cranium that was pre-infected with Staphylococcus aureus, the filling of the dual-purpose microspheres demonstrated an effective way to kill bacteria in vivo, and in the meantime, it promoted new bone formation efficiently alongside the degradation of microspheres. Thus, the results suggested that bioresorbable microspheres with both osteoconductive and antibacterial activities were a good choice for treating infected bone defects.

The extraction of gold from ores and electronic waste is an important topic worldwide, as this precious metal has immense value in a variety of fields. However, serious environmental pollution and high energy consumption due to the use of toxic oxidation reagents and harsh reaction conditions is a well-known problem in the gold industry. Herein, we report a new chemical method based on the combined use of N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) and pyridine (Py), which has a greatly decreased environmental impact and reagent cost, as well as mild reaction requirements. This method can directly leach Au0 from gold ore and electronic waste to form AuIII in water. The process is achieved in a yield of approximately 90 % at room temperature and a nearly neutral pH. The minimum dose of NBS/Py is as low as 10 mm, which exhibits low toxicity towards mammalian cells and animals as well as aquatic creatures. The high leaching selectivity of Au over other metals during gold leaching is demonstrated, showing that this method has great potential for practical industrial application towards the sustainable refining of gold from ores and electronic waste.

This paper presents a novel method for selection of chemically responsive dyes and ethanol quantification in mixed volatile organic compounds (VOCs) using a colorimetric sensor array (CSA). Chemically responsive dyes (mainly composed of metalloporphyrins) which were sensitive to volatile ethanol were selected according to their response values when exposed to it. The mechanism by which the chemically responsive dyes combined with volatile ethanol was investigated based on quantum-chemical calculations. Then, a CSA composed of 5,10,15,20-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphine zinc (TPP-Zn) and 5,10,15,20-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphine manganese (TPP-Mn) derivatives, which exhibited specific sensitivity to volatile ethanol, was synthesized for measurement of the volatile ethanol content. A tri-CCD camera was employed to capture images of the CSA. The difference map of the sensor array before and after exposure to VOCs was obtained, and further processed and transformed into digital data for subsequent analysis, and used to build prediction models. The model with the optimal performance displayed a root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 3.101 and a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.9571 in the prediction set. This work presents a newly developed CSA using sensitive dyes based on quantum-chemical calculations, which has significant potential in quantitative analysis of volatile organic compounds.

Aroma of rice greatly affects palatability as well as consumer acceptability and is one of the main factors of rice quality. In this work, gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to investigate the volatile organic compounds (VOC) of rice samples with different storage time. It was found that the compounds of benzaldehyde, 2-fluoro-5-methylaniline increased remarkably during storage, while hexanal, octaethylene glycol and monododecyl ether continuously decreased. And then, colorimetric sensor array composed of 12 sensitive dyes were used for rice sample discrimination. A CCD camera was employed to capture the images of colorimetric sensor array, and the difference map of sensor array before and after exposure VOC was obtained. The red (R), green (G), and blue (B) components images were extracted from the difference map. Moreover, the images were further processed and turned into digital data for subsequent analysis. Recently harvested rice and that stored for 6 and 12 months samples were distinguished with three dimensional spaces personal computer assistant cluster trend. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) model based on PCA scores was used to discriminate the storage time of rice samples, and the result indicates 85 % of samples were correctly identified.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are likely to accumulate around severe bone defects, which jeopardizes activities of surrounding cells and hampers new bone formation. An effective strategy to address this issue is to develop scaffolding biomaterials with both antioxidant and osteoinductive capacities. An aniline tetramer (AT) and glycine ethyl ester co-substituted polyorganophosphazene (PATGP) was synthesized, and expected to meet the demands, since the AT moieties were antioxidant and the phosphorus-rich phosphazene moieties were osteocompatible. Moreover, the AT endowed the PATGP with conductivity to match the electrophysiology of bone tissues. By applying in vitro cell culture and in vivo evaluations, microsphere-type scaffolds made of PATGP were systematically characterized on their capacities including ROS-scavenging effect, cytotoxicity and osteoinductivity, using non-conductive poly[(ethylalanato)(ethylglycinato)]phosphazene (PAGP) and poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microspheres as control groups. Among them, PATGP microspheres demonstrated the strongest promotion effects on up-regulating cellular activities and on speeding up neobone formation in rat calvarial defects. Compared to polyester-type biomaterials, in summary, polyorganophosphazenes demonstrated strong flexibility in functionalization by introducing supplementary features such as antioxidant activity and electroactivity, which made them to be quite efficient in enhancing osteogenesis.

This work presents a real-time ethanol content measurement method during the solid-state fermentation of “Zhenjiang” Aromatic vinegar. 5, 10, 15, 20-Tetraphenyl-21H, 23H-porphine zinc (ZnTPP) which was sensitive to ethanol was employed to capture VOC from semi-solid state vinegar during fermentation. Various self-assembled nanostructures of ZnTPP based was be synthesized, while the effect of aging time and the pH on the morphology of nanoporphyrin has been studied. The result of self-assembled was characrized by change of UV spectra. After self-assembled, the colorimetric signal of ethanol VOC was, significantly enhanced. Furthermore, colorimetric sensor array made up of four colorimetric dyes with porphyrin and nanostructure porphyrin were used for VOC detection during vinegar fermentation. Meanwhile, when it is combined with back-propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN), volatile gas messages of vinegar substrate present an high relevance with alcoholic strength measured by Gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Therefore, the colorimetric sensor array based on ZnTPP nanoparticles could be well used in monitoring the ethanol content during the solid-state fermentation.

Bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation are the primary causes of implant-associated infection, which is difficult to eliminate and may induce failure in dental implants. Chimeric peptides with both binding and antimicrobial motifs may provide a promising alternative to inhibit biofilm formation on titanium surfaces. In this study, chimeric peptides were designed by connecting an antimicrobial motif (JH8194: KRLFRRWQWRMKKY) with a binding motif (minTBP-1: RKLPDA) directly or via flexible/rigid linkers to modify Ti surfaces. We evaluated the binding behavior of peptides using quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques and investigated the effect of the modification of titanium surfaces with these peptides on the bioactivity of Streptococcus gordonii (S. gordonii) and Streptococcus sanguis (S. sanguis). Compared with the flexible linker (GGGGS), the rigid linker (PAPAP) significantly increased the adsorption of the chimeric peptide on titanium surfaces (p0.05). Concentration-dependent adsorption is consistent with a single Langmuir model, whereas time-dependent adsorption is in line with a two-domain Langmuir model. Additionally, the chimeric peptide with the rigid linker exhibited more effective antimicrobial ability than the peptide with the flexible linker. This finding was ascribed to the ability of the rigid linker to separate functional domains and reduce their interference to the maximum extent. Consequently, the performance of chimeric peptides with specific titanium-binding motifs and antimicrobial motifs against bacteria can be optimized by the proper selection of linkers. This rational design of chimeric peptides provides a promising alternative to inhibit the formation of biofilms on titanium surfaces with the potential to prevent peri-implantitis and peri-implant mucositis.

This paper presents a single-carrier optical coherent transmitter that synthesizes high-fidelity waveforms from N spectral slices with the state-of-the-art electrical drivers. The synthesis technique overcomes the electronic speed bottlenecks and produces an optical waveform bandwidth that is N times the electrical bandwidths. Using two 32 GHz slices, we synthesized and transmitted a 60-GBd polarization-division multiplexed, quadrature phase-shift keying (PDM-QPSK) waveform over 4480 km with a Q2-factor of 8.71 dB. To demonstrate high-fidelity waveform synthesis, we generated a 60-GBd PDM 16-QAM and observed a 2.5-dB implementation penalty at BER of 1×10–2. To address scalability, we also developed the phase mismatch compensation algorithm for the transmitter that uses photonic integrated circuits.