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A novel accelerated aging cross dehydrogenative coupling of glycine esters/amides and various nucleophiles under metal-free and solvent-minimal conditions was developed, providing a sustainable strategy to the synthesis of 1,4-DHP and α-substituted glycine derivatives.

The accumulation of antibiotic contaminants harbored on microplastic materials may cause enhanced mammalian liver injury, raising concerns about the potential risks of microplastics to human health.

Funding inputs and research outputs have always been two central issues in the science of science. In recent decades, research funding plays an increasingly important role in scientific research. Thus, it is progressively significant for management authorities to measure the research efficiency of highly funded scientists, which can be helpful for them to make effective policies. However, few researchers use quantitative analysis to study these issues. To promote the research in this field, we begin with collecting a dataset. This dataset contains research funding and other information from 345 highly funded scientists in Mainland China. Next, we use the dataset to measure the efficiency of highly funded scientists based on the data envelopment analysis. In this way, highly funded scientists are placed into several levels according to their research inputs and outputs. We also give their attractiveness and progress scores compared to other grades. The learning path for less efficient scientists is also provided. We find that highly funded scientists have relatively high efficiency in three kinds of projects, such as the Major Research Plan. Besides, the career length and career start year are demonstrated to have a limited impact on the highly funded scientists. These patterns are beneficial for the development of the scientific community and management authorities to make policies.

Growing inputs of microplastics into marine sediment have increased significantly the needs for assessment of their potential risks to the marine benthos. A knowledge gap remains with regard to the effect of microplastics on benthos, such as cephalochordates. By employing amphioxus as a model benthic chordate, here we show that exposure to microplastics for 96 h at doses of 1 mg/L and 100 mg/L results in evident accumulation of the polyethylene microplastics. The accumulated microplastics are as much as 0.027% of body weight upon high-dose exposure, causing an abnormal body-bending phenotype that limits the locomotion capability of amphioxus. Mechanistic insight reveals that microplastics can bring about histological damages in gill, intestine and hepatic cecum; In-depth assay of relevant biomarkers including superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione, pyruvic acid and total cholesterol indicates the occurrence of oxidative damage and metabolic disorder; Further, microplastics exposure depresses the activity of acetylcholinesterase while allowing the level of acetylcholine to rise in muscle, suggesting the emergence of neurotoxicity. These consequences eventually contribute to the muscle dysfunction of amphioxus. This study rationalizes the abnormal response of the vulnerable notochord to microplastics, signifying the dilemma suffered by the ancient lineage under the emerging threat. Given the enrichment of microplastics through marine food chains, this study also raises significant concerns on the impact of microplastics to other marine organisms, and eventually human beings.

Potential evapotranspiration (ETp) and reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo) differ in their developments, concepts, equations and application fields, however, many researchers have mixed the utilization of the two terms. Thus, it is necessary to clarify the terms to guide their proper usage. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive review of the concepts, developments, equations and applications of ETp and ETo. The review shows clearly that the concepts and developments of ETp and ETo have long histories. The original concept of ETp was proposed by Thornthwaite, and that core idea with various improvements has been used up to now. The development of ETo, although initially confused with that of ETp, was formally defined as a standard method. The ETp equations were classified as mass-transfer-based, temperature-based, radiation-based and combination types. While the ETo equations were classified as being temperature-based, radiation-based, combination and pan-evaporation-based. Both terms are connected to evaporation and evapotranspiration, and although there have been ambiguities, ETp has been applied mostly in hydrology, meteorology and climatology, while ETo has been applied mostly in agronomy, agriculture, irrigation and ecology. ETp has been used to estimate drought indices, and ETo has been used in the single and dual crop coefficient methods and the Shuttleworth-Wallace method for estimating actual field evapotranspiration. This review serves to clarify the origins, definitions, and uses of ETp and ETo. It addresses common ambiguities between the terms in order to aid the proper utilization of the terms.

Applications and services such as cloud storage and data sharing cause data owners to fail to control data access. In such open environment, the third-party service providers become the executor, which means traditional centralized access control becomes untrustworthy. The mainstream role-based access control is insufficient in the open environment, while the cryptography-based access control implementation relies heavily on key distribution, so we designed and implemented a role-based access control system based on attribute encryption. The user role assignment and the role permission assignment process are implemented through attribute-based encryption, so that the access decision is no longer dependent on specific policy decision points, ensuring the reliable enforcement of access policies. Meanwhile, our approach adds attributes to the role-based access control model, implements attribute-based user role assignments and role permission assignments, which makes the access control process more flexible. The validation verification and performance testing of a prototype prove the feasibility of our scheme.

Time temperature indicators (TTIs) are devices used for recording thermal history and indicating the remaining shelf life of perishable products throughout their storage, distribution and consumption. This is achieved by the irreversible change of colour resulting from the cumulative effects of time and temperature. When applied in intelligent packaging, TTI can provide visual information that is easily accessible, and thus, consumers can judge from the visual information whether the food has deteriorated, which helps to assure the quality and safety of food. TTI can be classified into several different groups including chemical TTI, physical TTI, biological TTI, and other new types of TTI based upon different principles of colour change. Although these kinds of TTI can basically provide effective information about food quality, there are still a number of problems with them in the food supply chain, such as migration of toxic substances, the inaccuracy of temperature monitoring and the high cost in the area of commercial application. However, there are also some scientific methods to solve the aforementioned problems of TTI. In this paper, the latest research of TTI is summarized, its status and its main problems are elaborated and the prospect of its development is envisaged, aiming to provide reference and support for researchers in this realm. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Early protein 0 (EP0) is especially important for modulating PRV gene expression and reactivation from the latent state, but the mechanisms have not been elucidated. In this study, six monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) against EP0 protein of PRV were generated and their characterizations were investigated. Western blot analysis showed all six MAbs could react with immunizing antigen, but only 2B12 and 2C6 could react with native EP0 protein from PRV-infected cells. ELISA additivity tests revealed that at least three epitopes in EP0 were defined by six MAbs. The epitope recognized by MAb 2B12 was further identified in 287–292 aa of EP0 protein using a series of expressed overlapping peptides. These MAbs may provide valuable tools for further research of the functions of EP0 in PRV infection.