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Background Polysaccharides and ethanol extract from Polygonatum sibiricum rhizome were reported to improve high-fat diet (HFD)-fed mouse obesity. However, the effect and potential mechanism of Polygonatum sibiricum rhizome water extract (PSRwe) on HFD-induced obesity mice remains unclear. The present study was sought to comprehensively elucidate that. An obese mouse model was established by feeding HFD and PSRwe were intragastrically administered once a day for 40 days. Changes in body weight, gut microbiota and their metabolites, plasma and liver metabolomics, colonic and liver transcriptomics were explored. The compounds in PSRwe were also examined.Results Body weight was significantly reduced after two weeks of PSRwe administration. Meanwhile, PSRwe treatment has significantly recovered the richness and diversity of gut microbiota in HFD-caused obesity mice. Specifically, beneficial species including Akkermansia muciniphila and functional pathways including fatty acids biosythesis and elongation, pentose phosphate pathway, glycolysis and reductive TCA cycle were significantly enriched in PSRwe group compared with oebsity. RNA-seq revealed that the function of the up-regulated DEGs in liver of PSRwe mice were mainly concentrated on lipid and fatty acid oxidation and metabolism, while the down-regulated DEGs were mainly focused on sterols and sterol biosynthesis and metabolism. In colon, however, the function of up-regulated DEGs were primarily JAK-STAT/PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, regulation of GTPase activity, and response to cation while the down-regulated DEGs were centered on glycolysis, fructose/mannose/pyruvate metabolism, fat digestion and absorption, and PPAR signaling pathway. Metabolomics analysis indicated that betaine, an effective component from PSR water extracts, has showed higher levels in both liver and plasma of PSRwe-treated mice, indicating that it was significantly associated with obesity. In addition, correlation analysis showed that the significantly different species enriched in PSRwe group were negatively correlated with colonic DEGs related on PPAR signaling pathway, glycolysis etc. but positively correlated with JAK-STAT signaling pathway etc. Intriguingly, common metabolites in plasma and liver were negatively correlated with liver DEGs related on steroids and sterols biosynthesis and metabolism but positively correlated with fatty acid metabolism.Conclusions Collectively, our study demonstrated that PSRwe could significantly alleviate HFD-induced mouse obesity via either directly affect lipid metabolism through effective betaine or by changing gut microbiota and their metabolites to alter gene expression associated with fatty acid metabolism in liver and colon, suggesting PSRwe might be a promising therapeutic candidate for obesity in clinical.

The application of catalytic membrane reactors (CMRs) based on a perovskite-type oxygen-permeable membrane has been greatly limited by the instability of a membrane material. In this study, A-site deficient perovskite La0.8Ce0.1Ni0.4Ti0.6O3−δ (LCNT) as a modification porous interlayer (between a Ni/Al2O3 catalyst and membrane) was applied on a Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3−δ (BSCF) four-channel hollow fiber membrane to construct a CMR. Ni nanoparticles were in situ exsolved from the LCNT surfaces and used for partial oxidation of methane (POM). The porous LCNT layer shows excellent attachment, effective protection and enhanced catalytic activity to the BSCF four-channel hollow fiber membrane. The LCNT/BSCF CMR shows a more than 700 h stability in POM which is much higher than that without the modification of the LCNT porous layer (which is less than 150 h). At 900 °C, more than 99% CH4 conversion and CO selectivity have been achieved in the LCNT/BSCF CMR. Our results have demonstrated the feasibility of coupling an in situ exsolution Ni nano-catalyst porous layer with the perovskite-type membrane, providing a new strategy for enhancing both the stability and catalytic activity of CMRs.

Chemical bonds created between cations and oxygen ions perform a critical role in the oxygen permeability of perovskite oxides. Here, fluorine was doped into the O-sites of perovskite to weaken metal-oxygen bonds and successfully synthesize Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.17Y0.03O3-δF0.09 oxides. The crystal structure, morphology, and oxygen permeability of the Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.17Y0.03O3-δF0.09 oxides were investigated. The results indicated that partial substitution of oxygen ions with those of fluorine greatly enhanced the oxygen permeation flux. Both thermogravimetric analysis and O2-TPD results indicated that more O2 escaped from F-doped perovskite and more oxygen vacancies were generated. The O 1s XPS spectra showed that the lower metal-oxygen bond energy was responsible for the improved oxygen permeability of F-doped perovskite. Oxygen permeation flux reached 3.15 ml min−1 cm−2 at 900 °C and was maintained at approximately 3 ml min−1 cm−2 for 1300 h in the oxygen permeation test. A membrane reactor equipped with an F-doped disc membrane was constructed to produce syngas, reaching 99% methane conversion and an 88% carbon monoxide selectivity at 900 °C.

A lamellar multilayer grating in a conical diffraction mounting was proposed as a beam splitter for X-ray free-electron lasers. Theoretical calculations demonstrated that the distribution of diffraction efficiency can be adjusted by optimizing the groove depth or d-spacing. A Cr/C multilayer lamellar grating with a line density of approximately 2500 L/mm was fabricated. The performance of the element was measured in the Optics Beamline PM-1 (BESSY-II) at an energy of 1500 eV. A five-order diffraction pattern was recognized, and the diffraction efficiencies of the −/+first-order were approximately 12.6 and 4.4%, respectively. The asymmetric distribution of diffraction efficiency can be caused by the different sidewall angles of the grating groove.

With the rapid development of industrial society, phenolic pollutants already identified in water are severe threats to human health. Traditional detection techniques like chromatography are poor in the ability of cost-effectiveness and on-site detection. In recent years, electrochemical enzymatic biosensors have attracted increasing attention for use in the recognition of phenolic compounds, which is considered an effective strategy for the product transfer of portable analytical devices. Although electrochemical enzymatic biosensors provide a fast, accurate on-site detection technique, the difficulties of enzyme deactivation, poor stability and low sensitivity remain to be solved. Thus, effective immobilization methods of enzymes and nanomaterials with excellent properties have been extensively researched to obtain a high-sensitivity and high-stability biosensing platform. Simultaneous detection of multiple phenols may become the focus of further research. In this review, we provide an overview of recent progress toward electrochemical enzymatic biosensors for the detection of phenolic compounds, including enzyme immobilization approaches and advanced nanomaterials, especially nanocomposites with attractive properties such as good conductivity, high specific surface area, and porous structure. We will comprehensively discuss the features and mechanisms of the main enzymes adopted in the construction of different phenolic biosensors, as well as traditional methods (e.g., adsorption, covalent bonding, entrapment, encapsulation, cross-linking) of enzyme immobilization. The most effective method is based on the properties of enzymes, supports and application objective because there is no one-size-fits-all method of enzymatic immobilization. The emphasis will be given to various advanced nanomaterials, including their special nanostructures, preparation methods and performance. Finally, the main challenges in future research on electrochemical phenolic biosensors will be discussed to provide further perspectives for practical applications in dynamic and on-site monitoring. We believe this review will deliver an important inspiration for the construction of novel and high-performance electrochemical biosensors from enzyme selection to nanomaterial design for the detection of various hazardous materials. We believe this review will deliver an important inspiration on the construction of novel and high-performance electrochemical biosensors from the enzyme selection to the nanomaterial design for detections of various hazardous materials.

Allura red (AR) is a member of azo dyes is commonly used as an additive in foods and soft drinks. However, due to the special harm of the azo structure to the human body, the dosage control of AR becomes particularly necessary. The present detection methods are time-consuming, expensive and complicated. In order to address the above issues, a core-shell nanocubes constructed sensor has been developed to determine the ultrawide detection range and selective recognition of AR with a long-term reusability. The core-shell architecture is composed of carbon material of 12.64 nm thickness covering 600 nm Mn

Bimorph mirrors place stringent requirements on the welding technology of silicon substrates and piezoelectric ceramics to ensure their ultrahigh-vacuum compatibility. Conventional welding techniques usually require high temperature and pressure, which have a high impact on the welding substrate, while the use of organic adhesives for bonding does not guarantee their stability in ultrahigh vacuum. Here, the transient liquid phase bonding technology based on an Au–In metal system was studied to meet the requirement for ultrahigh-vacuum application. The microstructure, chemical composition, and related mechanical properties of the bonding at different welding conditions were investigated. Meanwhile, the piezo ceramics and the bond were baked at 150 °C to test the stability. The results show that a stable bonding was achieved between centimeter-scaled single crystal silicon and lead zirconate titanate ceramics at 200 °C temperature and 2.5 MPa pressure, and the piezo ceramics and the bond are not damaged by baking to 150 °C for 48 h.

In this article, we designed and fabricated a high linear density concave variable line space holographic grating for the Lyman spectrometer, with level 3 working and the center line density is 3300line/mm. The focus curve is a circle with the grating vertex O as the center and a radius of 900 mm. We analyze the influence of the exposure error on the line density distribution and reduce the harm of errors through the method of multi-error compensation. To improve the diffraction efficiency, we use Finite Element Method software to get the best grating groove parameters. Finally, we initially prepared a holographic grating with a symmetrical arch groove with a groove depth of 175nm and a bottom duty cycle of 0.3.

Glutathione (GSH) level has long been recognized as a valuable tumor biomarker. GSH-mediated activation and release systems have been extensively developed for cancer diagnosis and treatment, but mainly focused on disulfide-based conjugate. We reported here a new thiol-Michael addition based GSH response conjugate TC6, which consists of a unique tricyclic structure containing α, β-unsaturated ketone responsive groups. The conjugate was easily synthesized and showed good selectivity to glutathione with certain stability. The camptothecin delivery experiment of TC6 showed improved anti-tumor ability in cells and tumor-bearing mice. TC6 could be used for the development of antibody or small molecule conjugated drugs.

Yttrium-doped barium cerate (BaCeYO, BCY) is the most widely studied proton conducting material and is frequently fabricated as dense membranes for hydrogen separation. However, the difficulty to prepare dense BCY membranes is the extremely high sintering temperature, normally higher than 1500 oC. Herein, the BCY 7-channel hollow fiber membrane was prepared by one-step thermal processing (OSTP). It proved that adding CoO as sintering aid is beneficial to the densification and 1wt% CoO was the optimum addition to form a homogeneous phase structure. The dense sintering temperature was greatly reduced from over 1500 to 1350 C. The hydrogen permeation flux of the BCY hollow fiber membrane reached up to 0.34 ml mincm at 900 C. The long-term stability test last for 300 h. The properties of OSTP samples were demonstrated to be essentially higher than samples made by conventional ceramic hollow fiber fabrication methods.

The cross-polarization scattering (CPS) system for magnetic fluctuation measurements in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) has been designed and installed. Different from the Doppler reflectometer (DR) system, the CPS system detects the perpendicular polarization of the electromagnetic wave induced by magnetic fluctuations B̃. The CPS system in the EAST has been developed from the existing Doppler reflectometer system, and they are integrated together for simultaneous measurement of magnetic and density fluctuations. Ray-tracing simulations are used to calculate the scattering locations and the wavenumber coverage of the magnetic fluctuation for CPS. In the experiments, the CPS and DR system data were different in Doppler shift, amplitude, and spectrum broadening. In this article, the hardware design, the ray tracing, and the preliminary results of the system in the EAST are presented.

A method comprising near-field holography with an electron beam lithography-written phase mask was developed herein. Soft X-ray varied-line-spacing gratings with a central groove density greater than 3000 lines mm−1 were fabricated using this method., A fabrication method comprising near-field holography (NFH) with an electron beam lithography (EBL)-written phase mask was developed to fabricate soft X-ray varied-line-spacing gratings (VLSGs). An EBL-written phase mask with an area of 52 mm × 30 mm and a central line density greater than 3000 lines mm−1 was used. The introduction of the EBL-written phase mask substantially simplified the NFH optics for pattern transfer. The characterization of the groove density distribution and diffraction efficiency of the fabricated VLSGs indicates that the EBL–NFH method is feasible and promising for achieving high-accuracy groove density distributions with corresponding image properties. Vertical stray light is suppressed in the soft X-ray spectral range.

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) systems consume near infrared (NIR) filters, which are key components for high conversion efficiency. Bandpass filters employing annular aperture array (AAA) on a fused silica substrate are one of candidates for matching GaSb cells in high-temperature TPV. It is often placed independently between the emitter and cell, and thus spectral control and heat insulation are simultaneously realized. For high efficiency, the smaller the characteristic size and the larger the size is beneficial for the filter. Novel sidewall lithography based on conventional interference lithography and ion-beam etching is first proposed and used for cost-effective fabrication. An AAA filter with a 80 nm critical dimension in a 100 mm × 160 mm area has been fabricated successfully. After the annealing process at 500 °C, the peak transmittance is increased to 70% from 65%, and no deformation is observed in the structural parameters of the filter before and after annealing, and calculated results demonstrate that the spectral efficiency is about 61%.

Fabricating dual-phase hollow-fiber membranes via a one-step thermal processing (OSTP) approach is challenging, because of complex sintering kinetics and the subsequent impacts on membrane morphology, phase stability, and permeation properties. In this study, we have demonstrated that Ce0.8Sm0.2O2-δ-SrCo0.9Nb0.1O3-δ (SDC-SCN) four-channel hollow fiber membrane can be manufactured via a single high-temperature sintering process, by using metal oxides and carbonates directly as membrane materials (sources of metal ions). It has been found that use of a low ramping rate reduces grain sizes, increases grain and forming cobalt oxide nanoparticles, a key step to promoting surface exchange process followed by enhancing oxygen permeation. While the grain boundary interface region can be limited to approximately 20–30 nm. At 1173 K oxygen permeation of the SDC-SCN four-channel hollow fiber membrane was measured at approximately 1.2 mL cm−2·min−1 using helium as the sweep gas. Meanwhile, the dual-phase membrane shows a good tolerance to carbon dioxide, with the oxygen permeation flux fully recovered after long-term exposure to carbon dioxide (more than 100 h). This will enable further application of the OSTP approach for preparing dual-phase multi-channel hollow fiber membranes for applications of oxyfuel combustion, catalytic membrane reactors and carbon dioxide capture.

Glutathione (GSH) is the main component of the mitochondrial thiol pool and plays key roles in the biological processes. Many evidences have suggested that cysteine and homocysteine also exist in mitochondria and are interrelated with GSH in biological systems. The fluctuation of the levels of mitochondrial thiols has been linked to many diseases and cells&rsquo, dysfunction. Therefore, the monitoring of mitochondrial thiol status is of great significance for clinical studies. We report here a novel fluorescence resonance energy transfer based two-photon probe MT-1 for mitochondrial thiols detection. MT-1 was constructed by integrating the naphthalimide moiety (donor) and rhodamine B (accepter and targeting group) through a newly designed linker. MT-1 shows a fast response, high selectivity, and sensitivity to thiols, as well as a low limit of detection. The two-photon property of MT-1 allows the direct visualization of thiols in live cells and tissues by two-photon microscopy. MT-1 can serve as an effective tool to unravel the diverse biological functions of mitochondrial thiols in living systems.

Unlike synthetic fiber yarns, due to limited fiber length, natural fiber yarns are made of twisted short natural fibers with various crimping status obeying certain probability distribution. Meanwhile, variations from fiber tensile properties and number of fibers in a yarn also result in scattering of mechanical properties of natural fiber yarns. An analytical model is proposed based on statistic theory to characterize the stochastic tensile properties of natural fiber yarns by defining crimp strain of fibers in a yarn and effective elastic modulus of yarns as random variables. The model is demonstrated on jute fiber yarns. Beta and normal probability distribution functions are selected to describe the statistical distributions of the crimp strain and effective elastic modulus, respectively. Parameters of the model are obtained from tensile testing results of jute yarns through inverse approach. The proposed model can provide accurate prediction bounds for tensile tests of jute yarns. Moreover, the proposed model is extended to predict the tensile response with progressive failure process of unidirectional fabric.

Ceramic oxygen permeable membranes (OPMs) are widely considered the “next generation” technology for pure oxygen separation and catalytic membrane reactors. However, the main issue of OPM is high operating temperature (above 800 °C) and resulting implications for materials, cost, as well as operating complexities (e.g., sealing, creep deformation, and thermal shock during thermal cycling). A new design for coupling OPM La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ with a dielectric barrier discharge plasma (a type of atmospheric pressure non-thermal plasma) is proposed for highly efficient low-temperature (600 °C) oxygen permeation. This study demonstrates that the plasma can activate the surface exchange reactions. Applying 15 W air-plasma can effectively reduce the apparent activation energy of the permeation process from 136.6 to 43.1 kJ mol−1. The oxygen flux is increased by a factor of nearly 30 at 600 °C with a plasma power of 15 W. The newly developed plasma-membrane micro-reactor design enables further performance enhancement at lower operating temperatures and integration with solid oxide fuel cells, catalytic membrane reactors, and oxygen permeable membranes.

A method of obtaining precision transmission wavefront of large convex lens interferometrically using binary Fresnel zone plate (FZP) was presented. We present the results from a set of experiments that demonstrate the accuracy, flexibility, and the simplicity of performing the FZP test. A direct comparison of the FZP measurement with results from a Fizeau interferometry method shows excellent agreement. Finally, measurement uncertainty of lens due to alignment error and FZP fabrication processes is analyzed. This resulting analysis shows less than λ/10 accuracy for measuring the transmission wavefront of a sphere lens with 31.25 m focal length and Φ410 mm clear aperture.

The phase-field modeling has emerged as an extremely powerful numerical method to simulate crack propagation with significant success. The crack is herein modeled by a field variable that distinguishes between fully broken and undamaged material. In the proposed phase-field model for crack propagation in viscoelastic solids, a model with a fracture threshold similar to gradient damage theories is developed which can distinguish between fracture behavior in compression and tension. A viscoelastic material model in the framework of finite deformations is used for rubber-like material response. The full model is implemented in the framework of the FE program FEAP and allows both a monolithic and a staggered scheme for the numerical solution. Within FEAP a parameter study is realized. Finally, a summary of the results is presented and an outlook for improvements of the modeling for fracture in viscoelastic solids is given.

Technische Mechanik; 38; 3; 286-299; ISSN 2199-9244, Polycrystalline materials are widely used in engineering and material science applications, e.g. automobile, aerospace or renewable energy. The macroscopic defects are generally strongly influenced by the fracture behavior of the polycrystalline materials at meso- and microscopic level. In this paper, the proposed phase-field model for anisotropic fracture, which accounts for the preferential cleavage directions within each randomly oriented crystal, as well as an anisotropic material behavior with cubic symmetries, has been used to simulate the complex crack pattern in solar-grade polycrystalline silicon. Furthermore, the proposed phase-field model allows to distinguish the loading under tension and compression. The finite element implementation of the model has been realized by using a monolithic solution scheme. Three representative numerical examples are carried out, i.e. anisotropic crack propagation (i) in a sole material, (ii) in a bi-material with different crack orientation and (iii) in multi-grains with randomly distributed anisotropy. It is demonstrated that the proposed phase-field model is capable of characterizing fracture propagation in anisotropic solids under static loading.

The cation segregation in a perovskite-type membrane deleteriously affects the membrane performance and durability. Recovery of segregation is a great challenge because of the complexity of segregation products and severe limitations from the stability of perovskite oxide. This work presents a novel approach for reversing the surface cation segregation by hydrogen-induced annealing which further shows the ability of healing defects and cracks in the oxide bulk. Ba0.3Sr0.7Fe0.9Mo0.1O3-δ (BSFM) four-channel hollow fiber membranes were prepared by one-step thermal processing. A low hydrogen concentration (5 vol %) and a mild temperature (900 °C) were used to anneal the as-prepared BSFM hollow fiber membrane and served to trigger outright reverse segregation of massive complex oxide precipitations at grain boundaries and a self-healing of cracks formed during the sintering stage. The reverse segregation significantly alters the composition and structure which directly affects the performance of BSFM membrane, such as mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, oxygen permeability, and stability. A maximum breaking load of 31.6 N is reached for the hydrogen-induced membrane which is approximately 6 times of the as-prepared BSFM membrane. Hydrogen-induced membranes, having high oxygen permeation flux and low activation energy, can operate stably in partial oxidation of methane catalytic membrane reactor for more than 120 h. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of hydrogen-induced reverse segregation and crack self-healing in the perovskite-type dense membrane, suggesting new directions to design the high-performance materials based on perovskite oxides for application in catalysis, electrocatalysis, and separations in the future.

The binary fused silica gratings (BFSGs) with high diffraction efficiency are presented for large astronomical ground-based telescopes. Calculations demonstrate that the BFSGs could obtain high diffraction efficiency in a wider wavelength range and angle of incident (AOI) range compared with volume phase holographic gratings. Several gratings with a size of 60 m m × 60 m m have been fabricated by holographic lithography and reactive ion-beam etching technology. The measured peak diffraction efficiency reaches 94%, and results show that there are 130 nm wavelength bandwidth and 12° AOI bandwidth in which diffraction efficiency is higher than 70%. The stray light causes the diffraction efficiency to decrease by about 0.48%. All measurements have indicated good consistency with the simulation results.

Molten salt-ceramic dual-phase membranes have great prospects in the selective separation of nitrogen oxides. A gas-tight KNO3–Ba0.5Sr0·5Co0·8Fe0·2O3-δ (KNO3-BSCF) four-channel hollow fiber membrane was developed in this study. A wide operating temperature window of 350–500 °C with high nitrogen oxides permeance was achieved. The maximum nitrogen oxides permeance reached 9.2 × 10−9 mol m−2 s−1 Pa−1 under the condition of 1% NO2, 1% CO2 and 20% O2 at 500 °C. The presence of nitrogen oxides was able to suppress the reaction of BSCF oxide with CO2 to form carbonates. Insights on the transport mechanism of nitrogen oxides transport were provided and the existence of nitrite route for nitrogen oxides transport was firstly demonstrated by experiments. An 1800 h long-term nitrogen oxides permeation was running on the KNO3-BSCF hollow fiber membrane while the permeance increased by a factor of ~40 (5.2 × 10−10 mol m−2 s−1 Pa−1 to 2.2 × 10−8 mol m−2 s−1 Pa−1 at 450 °C) due to the partial decomposition of nitrate into nitrite. This nitrite route was also verified in KNO3/KNO2-BSCF hollow fiber membrane constructed by preloading 30 wt% nitrite in molten salt.

Most perovskite oxides are commonly recognized as less tolerance to sulfur and sulfur-containing species. In a hollow fiber fabrication, polymer binders (sulfur-containing polyether sulphone (PES) and sulfur-free polyetherimide (PEI)) are expected to have different impacts on the membrane performance in terms of both permeability and stability. In this study, BaCo 0.7 Fe 0.22 Nb 0.08 O 3-δ (BCFN) 4-bore hollow fibers using PES and PEI as binders were prepared by a phase inversion and sintering technique. The sintering behavior, mechanical strength, crystal structure, morphology, composition, oxygen permeation and long-term stability were investigated systematically. Formation of sulfate was identified on the surface and in the bulk of the membrane fabricated via the PES route. The sulfur poisoning was confirmed taking place during not only the sintering stage but also the operation stage. The sulfur-containing PES contributed to a lower oxygen permeation flux than the sulfur-free PEI and also a severe degradation of permeation flux that there was more than 65% decrease over the original value within the first 100 h at 650 °C. Membrane fabricated via the PEI route can operate for more than 300 h without obvious degradation.

Significance The multiple types of efficient oxygen transport paths were demonstrated in high-mechanical-strength hepta-bore Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ hollow fiber membranes. These types of paths play a prominent role in enhancing oxygen permeation fluxes (17.6 mL min−1 cm−2 at 1223 K) which greatly transcend the performance of state-of-the-art Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ hollow fiber membranes, showing a good commercialization prospect. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 4273–4277, 2017

In this work, we experimentally investigate the surface nano-roughness during the inductively coupled plasma etching of fused silica, and discover a novel bi-stage time evolution of surface nano-morphology. At the beginning, the rms roughness, correlation length and nano-mound dimensions increase linearly and rapidly with etching time. At the second stage, the roughening process slows down dramatically. The switch of evolution stage synchronizes with the morphological change from dual-scale roughness comprising long wavelength underlying surface and superimposed nano-mounds to one scale of nano-mounds. A theoretical model based on surface morphological change is proposed. The key idea is that at the beginning, etched surface is dual-scale, and both larger deposition rate of etch inhibitors and better plasma etching resistance at the surface peaks than surface valleys contribute to the roughness development. After surface morphology transforming into one-scale, the difference of plasma resistance between surface peaks and valleys vanishes, thus the roughening process slows down.

Here we report a general method for the de novo synthesis of a bicyclo[6.1.0]nonyne group containing an amino acid, and used Marfey's reagent for chiral analysis. This unnatural amino acid offered exceptional reactivity in the inverse electron demand Diels–Alder cycloaddition with tetrazine containing amino acids. The subsequent selective labeling of living cells at low dye concentrations demonstrated the usefulness of the new amino acid for future imaging studies. This work also laid the foundation for introducing this unnatural amino acid into peptides based on the solid-phase synthesis method.

Herein, we report novel macroporous membranes doped with micro-mesoporous β-cyclodextrin polymers (β-CDP), named β-CDP membranes, for water decontamination by the flow-through process. These membranes combine excellent adsorption behavior of β-CDP and the advantages of membranes filtration including low energy consumption and easy scale-up. Filtration adsorption results demonstrated that the optimal β-CDP membrane removed > 99.9% of bisphenol A with ultrahigh water flux (3000 L m−2 h−1) or high concentration (50 mg L−1). The dynamic adsorption capacity of the membrane was close to the static maximum adsorption capacity of membrane, suggesting the effective accessibility of adsorption sites. The outstanding adsorption performance was attributed to the synergistic effect of the fast adsorption of β-CDP, abundant β-CDP nanoparticles and large contact area offered by spongy pores. Furthermore, not only single other organic micropollutants but also mixture was completely removed by the β-CDP membranes. In addition, the membranes were easily regenerated by simple ethanol filtration.

This paper reports the development of a critical-angle transmission (CAT) grating fabrication process based on metal-assisted chemical etching (MACE), from which grating prototypes with a period of 1 μm were fabricated. The prototype was composed of four 5 mm × 5 mm membrane cells, each of which comprising freestanding grating lines and a large-period cross-support structure. The support structure had a 60 μm period and a 4.5 μm line width. The grating line width was about 200 nm, the duty cycle was about 0.2, and the aspect ratio was up to 50. The effective open grating area reached 92.5%, and the grating sidewall had a roughness less than 0.8 nm and a perpendicularity reaching 89.2°. For the MACE process, the influence of etching solution ratio on the grating sidewall roughness and perpendicularity was explored on a 〈100〉 silicon wafer.

This study aims to analyze the relationship between clinicopathological characteristics and survival in young patients (≤35 years old) with resected breast cancer. A total of 173 cases were included in this study. The clinicopathological factors potentially associated with prognosis were evaluated. Furthermore, we categorized patients into different groups to evaluate the prognosis according to hormone receptor status or important risk factors. Younger age (≤30 years) was an independent predictor for poor disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Besides, PR negative status, tumor grade, and advanced lymph nodes postsurgery were independent prognostic factors of DFS, while PR negative status and advanced lymph nodes postsurgery were independent prognostic factors of OS. For hormone receptor-positive patients, people with ER+ or PR+ and HER2−/+ showed poorer prognosis than the other 2 levels. Risk factor grouping based on the ER, PR, HER2, Ki-67 status, tumor grade, and lymph nodes postsurgery showed that patients in highest score group received the poorest prognosis. Grading system based on the hormone status or the risk factor grouping may offer a useful approach to assess which subgroups of young breast cancer present poorer prognosis.

Dual-phase composite oxide 60 wt% Ce 0.8 Sm 0.2 O 2 − δ -40 wt% SrCo 0.9 Nb 0.1 O 3 − δ (60SDC-40SCN) which exhibits high oxygen permeability and good CO 2 tolerance was developed. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and dense surface topography observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed a good compatibility of the two oxides. A high oxygen permeation flux of 1.54 mL min − 1 cm − 2 through the as-prepared dual-phase membrane (0.8 mm in thickness) was obtained under the gradient of air/He at 1223 K. In situ high-temperature X-ray diffraction demonstrated that SDC and SCN in 60SDC-40SCN membrane could retain their original phase structure from room temperature to 1223 K in CO 2 -containing atmosphere. The oxygen permeation fluxes of 60SDC-40SCN membrane showed a good reversibility when switching the sweep gas between CO 2 and He. Comparing with single-phase SCN membrane, oxygen permeation flux of dual-phase 60SDC-40SCN membrane was more than twice when pure CO 2 acted as the sweep gas, and the oxygen permeation flux could remain stable for 120 h. All the experimental results imply that dual-phase 60SDC-40SCN membrane has a great potential in oxy-fuel combustion process.

To reduce the alignment difficulty and achieve high diffraction efficiency, a self-aligned method for fabricating large-aperture multi-level Fresnel membrane optic is proposed. Using this method, the rigorous alignment is avoided during fabrication process and high diffraction efficiency is achieved. A 4-level Fresnel diffractive polyimide membrane optic in 200 mm diameter and 20 μm thickness was manufactured by this method, which exhibits about 63% diffraction efficiency into the +1 order. The thickness variation of the membrane has a RMS of 30 nm.