High-efficient surface tailoring via reverse atom transfer radical polymerization and reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization in an aqueous system initiated by a monocenter redox pair

The commonly used multi-center initiation methods always lead to the formation of quantities of homopolymer in the surface tailoring based on reverse atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization. In this study, a monocenter redox pair constructed of silica bearing tert-butyl hydroperoxide groups and ascorbic acid (SiO₂-TBHP/AsAc) was applied to substitute the commonly used initiation method of R-supported RAFT grafting polymerization. All the propagating radicals were restricted on the surface of solid particles during the whole procedure theoretically, resulting in a higher grafting efficiency of 95.1% combined with the “controllable” feature at 10 h. This redox pair was also used to initiate the reverse ATRP in miniemulsion successfully with a grafting efficiency of 86.3% at 10 h. The grafting efficiency obtained under this monocenter initiation method was significantly higher than that of the frequently reported surface modification by reverse ATRP and RAFT polymerization. In addition, the high-efficient surface tailoring was traced and confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance, Fourier transform infrared, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, transmission electron microscopy, and other analysis tests. The advantage of this monocenter redox pair will open a new avenue for the potential “high-efficient” surface tailoring of various materials.     

开关型Pickering乳液体系

Pickering乳液以胶体尺寸的固体粒子代替传统表面活性剂作为稳定剂,具有超稳定,生物相容性好以及对环境友好等优点。开关型Pickering乳液可随pH值、CO₂/N₂浓度、温度、磁场强度及光强度等条件的变化而改变固体乳化剂的表面润湿性,实现在“乳化”与“破乳”之间的快速转换,在非均相催化、乳液聚合等诸多领域有广泛的应用前景。本文全面总结了近年来开关型Pickering乳液的研究进展及其在界面催化系统、液膜处理有机废水、药物的包封与释放等方面的应用。     

Free volume characteristics of 2,2-bistrifluoromethyl-4,5-difluoro-1,3-dioxole-co-tetrafluoroethylene copolymers: Effect of composition and molecular weight

2,2-bistrifluoromethyl-4,5-difluoro-1,3-dioxole-co-tetrafluoroethylene (PDD-TFE) copolymer is a good candidate to prepare gas separation membranes with excellent permeability due to its free volume characteristics. However, the influence of PDD-TFE copolymer structure on its free volume characteristics is less studied. In this paper, PDD-TFE copolymers with different compositions and molecular weights were synthesized, and their free volume characteristics were analyzed by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy and a molecular dynamics simulation. It indicated that the molar fraction of PDD in copolymers had a significant effect on free volume characteristics, while the molecular weight of copolymers exerted a slight influence on free volume when the molecular weight exceeded a critical region (intrinsic viscosity [η] > 68 ml g⁻¹). PDD-TFE copolymers with greater PDD molar fractions (i.e., 72% and 84%) showed bimodal distributions in positron lifetime and free volume size distributions, while PDD-TFE copolymers with lower PDD molar fractions (i.e., 27% and 35%) exhibited a single peak. The long-lifetime parameter τ₃ was assigned to micro-cavities formed by [-(TFE)_y-PDD-] segments and τ₄ was attributed to micro-cavities formed by [-(PDD)_x-TFE-] segments. The cis and trans transitions of PDD led to a local multilayer spiral structure with a 2.6–4.3 Å layer spacing, which would also increase the free volume of copolymers.     

CRISPR-Cas12a System for Biosensing and Gene Regulation

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) is a promising technology in the biological world. As one of the CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins, Cas12a is an RNA-guided nuclease in the type V CRISPR-Cas system, which has been a robust tool for gene editing. In addition, due to the discovery of target-binding-induced indiscriminate single-stranded DNase activity of Cas12a, CRISPR-Cas12a also exhibits great promise in biosensing. This minireview not only gives a brief introduction to the mechanism of CRISPR-Cas12a but also highlights the recent developments and applications in biosensing and gene regulation. Finally, future prospects of the CRISPR-Cas12a system are also discussed. We expect this minireview will inspire innovative work on the CRISPR-Cas12a system by making full use of its features and advantages.     

核电结构土-结相互作用分析分区混合计算方法

土-结构相互作用分析是核电结构进行抗震设计和安全评估的重要环节.在核电结构的土-结相互作用分析中,阻尼和非线性是影响结构反应的重要因素. 若采用频域分析,可以方便考虑阻尼,但需通过等效线性化来考虑非线性,不适合于强震作用下的土体非线性.若采用时域分析的逐步积分方法,适合于考虑非线性,但材料阻尼一般采用瑞利阻尼模型,除了紧靠指定阻尼比的少数几个振型外,其他振型的反应将受到瑞利阻尼模型所确定的大阻尼所抑制,造成地震反应与真实情形有较大差异.若采用时域分析的模态叠加法,可合理计入阻尼效应,但模态叠加法不能考虑非线性.因此,如何合理考虑阻尼和非线性是核电结构土-结相互作用分析需要关注的问题.基于此,本文提出一种模态叠加和时步积分结合的土-结相互作用分区算法.其中,出于安全性考虑,地震作用下核电主体结构一般不允许进入非线性,因此结构可采用模态叠加方法,以便合理考虑结构阻尼;土体和基础采用显式时步积分法,可考虑土体非线性;通过人工边界条件考虑无限域的影响 (辐射阻尼).通过简单算例对该方法进行了验证,并用于CAP1400核电结构的土-结相互作用分析中,对比分析了采用模态阻尼和瑞利阻尼时核电结构和场地反应的差异,结果表明结构阻尼模型对场地的反应影响不大,但对结构反应影响明显,在实际工程中应合理选取阻尼模型.      

Comparative pharmacokinetic study of four major bioactive components after oral administration of Zhi‐Zi‐Hou‐Po decoction in normal and corticosterone‐induced depressive rats

A highly selective and efficient LC–MS/MS method was developed to determine the plasma concentration of magnolol, hesperidin, neohesperidin and geniposide following oral administration of Zhi‐Zi‐Hou‐Po decoction in normal and depressed rats. Plasma samples were pretreated by protein precipitation with methanol. Chromatographic separation was performed on an XTerra^® MS C₁₈ column using a gradient elution with a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile–0.1% aqueous formic acid. The proposed method was validated to be specific, accurate and precise for the analytes determination in plasma samples. The calibration curves displayed good linearity over definite concentration ranges for the analytes. The intra‐ and inter‐day precision of the proposed method at three different levels were all within <11.13% and the relative errors ranged from ?8.46 to 8.93%. The recovery of the four compounds ranged from 82.72 to 89.08% and no apparent matrix effect was observed during sample analysis. After full validation, the established method was successfully applied for comparing the pharmacokinetics of four components between normal and depressed rats. The results showed that the AUC and C_max of four analytes in depressed rats were significantly different from those in normal rats and might provide helpful information to guide the clinical use of Zhi‐Zi‐Hou‐Po to treat depression.     

Inverse spectral problems for non-self-adjoint Sturm–Liouville operators with discontinuous boundary conditions

This paper deals with the inverse spectral problem for a non-self-adjoint Sturm–Liouville operator with discontinuous conditions inside the interval. We obtain that if the potential q is known a priori on a subinterval $$ \left[ b,\pi \right] $$ with $$b\in \left( d,\pi \right] $$ or $$b=d$$, then $$h,\,\beta ,\,\gamma $$ and q on $$\left[ 0,\pi \right] $$ can be uniquely determined by partial spectral data consisting of a sequence of eigenvalues and a subsequence of the corresponding generalized normalizing constants or a subsequence of the pairs of eigenvalues and the corresponding generalized ratios. For the case $$b\in \left( 0,d\right) $$, a similar statement holds if $$\beta ,\,\gamma $$ are also known a priori. Moreover, if q satisfies a local smoothness condition, we provide an alternative approach instead of using the high-energy asymptotic expansion of the Weyl m-function to solve the problem of missing eigenvalues and norming constants.     

The comparable structural,elastic anisotropic and thermophysical properties of advanced U–Si fuel to baseline UO2: a DTF method

The European Physical Journal B - Molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo methods are common measurements to study the diffusion coefficients of the fluid particles under restricted conditions. Here,...     

Selective In Situ Analysis of Mature microRNAs in Extracellular Vesicles Using a DNA Cage-Based Thermophoretic Assay

Mature microRNAs (miRNAs) in extracellular vesicles (EVs) are involved in different stages of cancer progression, yet it remains challenging to precisely detect mature miRNAs in EVs due to the presence of interfering RNAs (such as longer precursor miRNAs, pre-miRNAs) and the low abundance of tumor-associated miRNAs. By leveraging the size-selective ability of DNA cages and polyethylene glycol (PEG)-enhanced thermophoretic accumulation of EVs, we devised a DNA cage-based thermophoretic assay for highly sensitive, selective, and in situ detection of mature miRNAs in EVs with a low limit of detection (LoD) of 2.05 fM. Our assay can profile EV mature miRNAs directly in serum samples without the interference of pre-miRNAs and the need for ultracentrifugation. A clinical study showed that EV miR-21 or miR-155 had an overall accuracy of 90 % for discrimination between breast cancer patients and healthy donors, which outperformed conventional molecular probes detecting both mature miRNAs and pre-miRNAs. We envision that our assay can advance EV miRNA-based diagnosis of cancer.     

FI催化剂配体的研究进展

FI催化剂作为一类新型聚烯烃催化剂,具有高活性、耐高温等特性,在催化聚合方面表现出良好的性能,不但可以催化乙烯与极性及非极性单体共聚,而且可以通过改变主催化剂苯氧基亚胺配体的结构,得到具有不同结构的聚合物。本文介绍了FI主催化剂的基本结构、合成方法、结构与催化性能的关系以及基于苯氧基亚胺配体基本结构的新型催化剂的研究进展。