Synthesis of a Trisaccharide Related to the Cytotoxic Triterpenoid Saponins Isolated from the Bark of Albizia procera

Chemical synthesis of a trisaccharide related to the cytotoxic triterpenoid saponins isolated from the bark of Albizia procera has been accomplished through a concise stepwise glycosylation strategy starting from commercially available D ‐xylose, 2‐acetamido‐2‐deoxy‐D ‐glucose and L ‐arabinose. The target trisaccharide was designed with a 4‐methoxyphenyl (MP) aglycone to extend the scope of conversion to suitable glycoconjugates via selective removal of 4‐methoxyphenyl (MP) group. An unexpected phenomenon, i.e., the arabinosyl residue assumed the ¹C₄ conformation instead of the typical ⁴C₁ form, was observed. Deprotection could restore the normal conformation.     

Mass Transfer Analysis of Growth and Substance Metabolism of NSCs Cultured in Collagen-Based Scaffold In Vitro

The aim of this study is to analyze the growth and substance metabolism of neural stem cells (NSCs) cultured in biological collagen-based scaffolds. Mass transfer and metabolism model of glucose, lactic acid, and dissolved oxygen (DO) were established and solved on MATLAB platform to obtain the concentration distributions of DO, glucose, and lactic acid in culture system, respectively. Calculation results showed that the DO influenced their normal growth and metabolism of NSCs mostly in the in vitro culture within collagen-based scaffolds. This study also confirmed that 2-mm thickness of collagen scaffold was capable of in vitro cultivation and growth of NSCs with an inoculating density of 1?×?10⁶ cells/mL.     

Purification and Characterization of a Chymosin from Rhizopus microsporus var. rhizopodiformis

Purification and characterization of a chymosin from Rhizopus microsporus var. rhizopodiformis were investigated in the present study. A newly isolated R. microsporus var. rhizopodiformis F518 produced a high level of milk-clotting activity (1,001 SU/mL). A chymosin from the fungus was purified 3.66-fold with a recovery yield of 33.2 %. The enzyme appeared as a single protein band on sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) with a molecular mass of 37.0 kDa. It was optimally active at 60 °C and was stable up to 40 °C. The purified enzyme was an acid protease with an optimum pH of 5.2 and retained 80 % of residual activity within pH 2.0–8.0. The inhibition of 96 and 100 % by pepstatin A at 0.01 and 0.02 mM, respectively, revealed that the enzyme is an aspartic protease. Thus, high milk-clotting activity of the chymosin with good stability will strengthen the potential use of the chymosin as a substitute for calf rennet in cheese manufacturing.     

A New Near-Infrared Neutral pH Fluorescent Probe for Monitoring Minor pH Changes and its Application in Imaging of HepG2 Cells

A new near-neutral pH near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probe utilizing a fluorophore–receptor molecular framework that can modulate the fluorescence emission intensity through a fast photoinduced electron transfer process was developed. Our strategy was to choose tricarbocyanine (Cy), a NIR fluorescent dye with high extinction coefficients, as a fluorophore, and N-methylpiperazine (MP) as a receptor. The pH titration indicated that MP-Cy can monitor the minor physiological pH fluctuations with a pKa of ～7.10 near physiological pH, which is valuable for intracellular pH researches. The probe responds linearly and rapidly to minor pH fluctuations within the range of 3.05–7.10 and exhibits strong dependence on pH changes. As expected, the real-time imaging of cellular pH and the detection of pH in situ was achieved successfully in living HepG2 cells by this probe. It is shown that the probe effectively avoids the influence of autofluorescence and native cellular species in biological systems and meanwhile exhibits high sensitivity, good photostability, and excellent cell membrane permeability.     

Enhanced mechanical and thermal properties of poly(l-lactide) nanocomposites assisted by polydopamine-coated multiwalled carbon nanotubes

Herein, a facile and noncovalent modification for multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) is adopted by the self-polymerization of dopamine (DOPA). And, the polydopamine-coated MWNTs (D-MWNTs) were further incorporated into poly(l-lactide) (PLLA) matrix through the solvent-casting method. It is found that the D-MWNTs tend to be well dispersed in PLLA matrix than the pristine MWNTs and the D-MWNTs that can act as heterogeneous nucleators that evidently affect the morphology and crystallization behavior of PLLA. In addition, the significant improvement of dispersion and the interface interaction of PLLA/D-MWNTs, via dopamine coating between the MWNTs and PLLA matrix, results in enhanced mechanical and thermal properties and electrical conductivity. This facile methodology is believed to afford broad application potential in carbon nanotubes (CNTs)-based polymer nanocomposites.     

中心切割GC-MS法分析煤液化油中的酚类化合物

使用碱洗提酚法提取煤液化油中的酚类化合物,然后结合Deans Switch装置和LTM色谱柱模块,采用中心切割气相色谱(GC)-质谱(MS)法对提取的酚类化合物进行定性。采用GC建立标准曲线,对煤液化油中主要酚类化合物的质量分数进行测定,并测定了煤液化油中邻甲基苯酚、2-乙基苯酚、4-丙基苯酚和5-茚酚4种酚类化合物的加标回收率。结果表明,在煤液化油中共定性出51种酚类化合物,测定了其中的35种酚类化合物的质量分数,其量占煤液化油总量的2.54(wt)%,苯酚和烷基苯酚占35种酚类化合物的88.2(wt)%。煤液化油中4种酚类化合物的加标回收率高,重复性好。     

ℋ-matrix techniques for approximating large covariance matrices and estimating its parameters

In this work the task is to use the available measurements to estimate unknown hyper-parameters (variance, smoothness parameter and covariance length) of the covariance function. We do it by maximizing the joint log-likelihood function. This is a non-convex and non-linear problem. To overcome cubic complexity in linear algebra, we approximate the discretised covariance function in the hierarchical (ℋ-) matrix format. The ℋ-matrix format has a log-linear computational cost and storage O(knlogn), where rank k is a small integer. On each iteration step of the optimization procedure the covariance matrix itself, its determinant and its Cholesky decomposition are recomputed within ℋ-matrix format. (© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Performance enhancement of straight-bladed vertical axis wind turbines via active flow control strategies: a review

Meccanica - Darrieus-type vertical axis wind turbines (or VAWTs) have the main rotor shaft arranged vertically and the main components can be located at the base of the turbines. Therefore, VAWTs...     

Fixed-time disturbance observer-based robust fault-tolerant tracking control for uncertain quadrotor UAV subject to input delay

Nonlinear Dynamics - This study focuses on the design of a fixed-time disturbance observer-based robust fault-tolerant tracking control scheme for an uncertain quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle...     

名义组分为Y_6Ba_(11)Cu_(16)O_x的纳米超导材料

采用柠檬酸盐热分解法制备了名义组分为Y6Ba11Cu16Ox的纳米超导材料。利用XRD对其粉体进行物相表征,发现其相是Y123和Y211的混合相,并测得两者之间的摩尔比为1∶0.14,同时把其XRD图谱与Y1Ba2Cu3O7-x的XRD图谱进行了对照分析。利用标准的四端引线法对其块体进行R-T分析,测出其起始转变温度Tonset=86.0K,转变宽度△Tc=6.7K,并表现出良好的超导电性,也相应地把其与Y1Ba2Cu3O7-x进行了对比。根据Scherrer公式计算得到样品的平均晶粒尺寸约为67.1nm。文中也分析了所制材料为混合物的原因。