Ionic Liquid‐Hemoglobin‐Carbon Paste Composite Bioelectrode and Its Electrocatalytic Activity

A new carbon ionic liquid paste bioelectrode was fabricated by mixing hemoglobin (Hb) with graphite powder, ionic liquid 1‐ethyl‐3‐methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (EMIMBF₄) and liquid paraffin homogeneously. Nafion film was cast on the electrode surface to improve the stability of bioelectrode. Direct electrochemistry of Hb in the bioelectrode was carefully investigated. Cyclic voltammetric results indicated that a pair of well‐defined and quasi‐reversible electrochemical responses appeared in pH 7.0 phosphate buffer solution (PBS), indicating that direct electron transfer of Hb was realized in the modified electrode. The formal potential (E^0′) was calculated as ?0.316 V (vs. SCE), which was the typical characteristic of the electrochemical reaction of heme Fe(III)/Fe(II) redox couple. Based on the cyclic voltammetric results the electrochemical parameters of the electrode reaction were calculated. This bioelectrode showed high electrocatalytic activity towards the reduction of trichloroacetic acid (TCA) with good stability and reproducibility.     

Unraveling the Pressure Effect on Nucleation Processes of Amyloidogenic Proteins

The influence of pressure on the nucleation rate of insulin under fibril‐forming conditions was studied and subsequently analysed using classical nucleation theory. The aim was a better understanding and quantification of the influence of pressure on protein aggregation/fibrillation reactions. The application of pressure has a drastic accelerating effect on the nucleation and growth process of insulin fibrils. We show that this effect arises from a volume decrease upon nucleus formation, due to formation of a less hydrated and more compact transition state that can be quantified extending nucleation theory by a pressure–volume term. Conversely, the absolute values of the lag time and the critical size of the nucleus cannot be satisfactorily described by the classical nucleation theory, which might be due to the presence of secondary effects, such as parallel aggregation pathways or fragmentation processes.     

Concise synthesis of the oxapentacyclic core of cortistatin A

A concise synthetic approach for constructing the oxapentacyclic framework of cortistatin A is described. The synthesis features a furan-oxyallyl [4 + 3] cycloaddition and double-intramolecular aldol reactions. In addition, an interesting core structure was obtained in 11 steps from furan by using our method.     

On the analogy of B-BO and B-Au chemical bonding in B11O- and B10Au- clusters

During photoelectron spectroscopy experiments, the spectra of B(11)O(-) and B(10)Au(-) clusters are found to exhibit similar patterns except for a systematic spectral shift of ～0.5 eV, hinting that they possess similar geometric structures. The electron affinities are measured to be 4.02 ± 0.04 eV for B(11)O and 3.55 ± 0.02 eV for B(10)Au. DFT calculations at the B3LYP level show that B(11)O(-) and B(10)Au(-) adopt similar C(1) ((1)A) ground states, which are based on the quasiplanar B(10) cluster interacting with a BO unit and Au, respectively. The B(11)O(-) and B(10)Au(-) clusters are thus valent isoelectronic because both BO and Au can be viewed as monovalent units, forming highly covalent B-BO and B-Au bonds analogous to the B-H bond in B(10)H(-). For B(10)Au(-), we also find a highly symmetric D(10h) ((1)A(1g)) planar molecular wheel as a minimum on the potential energy surface. However, it is 45 kcal/mol above the ground state at the B3LYP level and not viable for experimental observation. Natural bond orbital analyses reveal interesting covalent versus ionic B-Au bonding in the C(1) B(10)Au(-) and D(10h) B(10)Au(-) structures, respectively, providing insight for the design of D(nh) MB(n) molecular wheels.     

Encapsulation of polyaniline in 3-D interconnected mesopores of silica KIT-6

Composite material PANI/KIT-6, with polyaniline (PANI) chains encapsulated in the 3-D interconnected pore channels of mesoporous silica, KIT-6, has been synthesized via a gas-phase method. The composite formation and the presence of PANI inside the pore channels of KIT-6 were evidenced by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), small-angle X-ray scatter (SAXS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and N₂ adsorption–desorption isotherms. The PANI/KIT-6 composite showed good electrical conductivity (2.4 × 10^?3 S/cm) due to the formation of 3-D networks of PANI inside the 3-D interconnected channels of KIT-6. The resistance of PANI/KIT-6 composite at different relative humidities (RH) was investigated. An essentially linear relationship between the relative resistance of the composite and the relative humidity of the environment was found from 11.3% to 97.3% RH.     

槲皮素酯类衍生物研究进展

健康生活方式特别强调食物质量,多酚在这方面发挥了关键作用。槲皮素是一种天然多酚,是多种植物性食品中发现最丰富的类黄酮类化合物之一。槲皮素是天然的抗氧化剂,可以保护细胞免受自由基造成的损害。槲皮素是一种亲脂性化合物,能够穿过细胞膜,可调节众多与疾病进展、化学预防有关的细胞内和细胞外信号通路。槲皮素具有广泛的药理活性,抗炎、抗菌、抗癌和预防心脑血管疾病,但是它低溶解度和生物利用度限制了在临床上的应用。对槲皮素的结构进行优化修饰获得了溶解性能好、生物利用度高、活性明显改善、抗癌活性增强的槲皮素衍生物。综述了近年来槲皮素酯衍生物的研究进展,为槲皮素衍生物的进一步开发提供参考。     

Red top-emitting organic light-emitting device with improved efficiency and saturated color

In this work, characteristics of microcavity top-emitting red organic light-emitting device (TEROLED) having metallic electrodes had been examined. The TEOLED shows the higher efficiency in comparison with that of the bottom OLED. However, color variation with the increasing view angles is also observed. For the purpose of diminishing the blue-shift of resonant wavelength (RW) in the device with increasing view angle, the effect of out-coupling layer on the emission properties of the TEOLED is discussed in detail. Finally, the out-coupling layer was introduced in theory without sacrificing the efficiency through precise optical simulation.     

Study on inverse taper based mode transformer for low loss coupling between silicon wire waveguide and lensed fiber

We have simulated the coupling loss of three types of Inverse Taper and taper-lensed fiber using three dimensional (3D) semi-vectorial beam propagation methods (BPM) respectively. Our results showed that the performances of exponential inverse taper and quadratic inverse taper were better than the commonly used linear inverse taper. Especially, for TM mode the improvement in the reduction of devices size is 53% and 136% for exponential and quadratic inverse taper compared with the linear inverse taper.     

Transport properties and magnetoresistance in La0.8Te0.2MnO3/ZrO2 composites

The transport properties and magnetoresistance of electron-doped manganate / insulator composites (La_0.8Te_0.2MnO₃)_{1 - x}/(ZrO₂)_x (x=0, 0.3, and 0.5) are investigated. It is found that the metal-insulator transition temperature of this system shifts to a lower value as the ZrO₂ content increases. The introduction of ZrO₂ enhances both the domain scattering and electron relative scattering in the metal transport region. In the adiabatic small polaron hopping transport region, the thermal activation energy seems invariable regardless of the ZrO₂ content. The application of a magnetic field promotes the charge transportation capabilities of the composites, and the magnetoresistance is enhanced with an increase of the ZrO₂ content. This could be attributed to the more remarkable modification effect of magnetic field on ordering degree in the composites than in pure La_0.8Te_0.2MnO₃.