pH-Dependent shape changes of water-soluble CdS nanoparticles

Annealing of silicon-carbon nanoparticles was performed in argon at atmospheric pressure to enable formation of silicon carbide nanomaterials and/or carbon structures. Three precursor powders with increasing crystallinity and annealing temperatures from 1,900 to 2,600 °C were used to gain information about the effect of precursor properties (e.g. amorphous vs. nanocrystalline, carbon content) and annealing temperature on the produced materials. Three structures were found after annealing, i.e. silicon carbide crystals, carbon sheets and spherical carbon particles. The produced SiC crystals consisted of several polytypes. Low annealing temperature and increasing crystallinity of the precursor promoted the formation of the 3C-SiC polytype. Raman analysis indicated the presence of single-layer, undoped graphene in the sheets. The spherical carbon particles consisted of curved carbon layers growing from the amorphous Si–C core and forming a ‘nanoflower’ with a diameter below 60 nm. To our knowledge, the formation of this kind of structures has not been reported previously. The core was visible in transmission electron microscopy analysis at the annealing temperature of 1,900 °C, decreased in size with increasing temperature and disappeared above an annealing temperature of 2,200 °C. With increasing crystallinity of the precursor material, fewer layers (~5 with the most crystalline precursor) were detected in the carbon nanoflowers. The method presented opens up the possibility to produce new carbon nanostructures whose properties can be controlled by changing the properties of the precursor material or by adjusting an annealing temperature.     

液体阴极辉光放电原子发射光谱法分析硅酸钇镥中痕量杂质元素

采用液体阴极辉光放电原子发射光谱( Solution-cathode glow discharge-atomic emission spectrometry, SCGD-AES)法测定了硅酸钇镥(Lutetium-Yttrium Orthosilicate, LYSO)闪烁晶体材料中痕量元素 Ca,Fe, K, Li, Mg和Na。最佳实验条件是溶液pH为1的HNO3,直流电压为1080 V,溶液流速为2.0 mL/min。本方法对LYSO基体的耐盐量为10 g/L。硅酸钇镥晶体使用HNO3, HF, HClO4溶解后经SCGD-AES分析测定,结果同电感耦合等离子体发射光谱( Inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy, ICP-AES)和电感耦合等离子体质谱( Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy, ICP-MS)分析结果比对,具有较好的一致性。在运用SCGD-AES对LYSO的测定中,未观察到Lu、Y元素的激发谱线,因此测定LYSO中痕量元素时测定的光谱干扰少,Ca, Fe, K, Li, Mg和Na的检出限分别为：1.0,3.0,0.02,0.01,0.02和1.0 mg/kg。     

Unequal Perylene Diimide Twins in a Quadruple Assembly

Natural light-harvesting (LH) systems can divide identical dyes into unequal aggregate states, thereby achieving intelligent “allocation of labor”. From a synthetic point of view, the construction of such kinds of unequal and integrated systems without the help of proteinaceous scaffolding is challenging. Here, we show that four octatetrayne-bridged ortho-perylene diimide (PDI) dyads ( POP s) self-assemble into a quadruple assembly (POP)₄ both in solution and in the solid state. The two identical PDI units in each POP are compartmentalized into weakly coupled PDIs (P520) and closely stacked PDIs (P550) in (POP)₄ . The two extreme pools of PDI chromophores were unambiguously confirmed by single-crystal X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy. To interpret the formation of the discrete quadruple assembly, we also developed a two-step cooperative model. Quantum-chemical calculations indicate the existence of multiple couplings within and across P520 and P550, which can satisfactorily describe the photophysical properties of the unequal quadruple assembly_. This finding is expected to help advance the rational design of dye stacks to emulate functions of natural LH systems.     

Binding study of Flos Lonicerae Japonicae with bovine serum albumin using centrifugal ultrafiltration and liquid chromatography

The screening and analysis of bioactive components in traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) is very important not only for the quality control of Chinese herbs but also for elucidating the therapeutic principles. This study developed a new method for screening and analyzing bioactive compounds from TCMs using centrifugal ultrafiltration coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography. The method was successfully applied in the binding study of Flos Lonicerae Japonicae with bovine serum albumin (BSA), and 11 compounds were found to be bound with the BSA. Eight of them were positively identified as chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, rutin, quercetin-3-O-glucoside, luteolin-7-O-glucoside, lonicerin, 3, 5-di-O-caffeoyl quinic acid and 3,4-di-O-caffeoyl quinic acid. Another three compounds were tentatively identified as two isomers of chlorogenic acid and one isomer of di-O-caffeoyl quinic acid by comparing the UV data and MS data with the previous reports. Based on modern pharmacological study, these compounds are the major bioactive components in Lonicera japonica. Therefore, the proposed method could be a good approach to predicting the potential bioactivities of multiple compounds in TCMs simultaneously.     

Chemistry, bioactivity and geographical diversity of steroidal alkaloids from the Liliaceae family

Plants belonging to the Liliaceae family have been the topic of research in many phytochemical and pharmacological laboratories because they contain structurally complex and biologically fascinating steroidal alkaloids. This review, citing 153 references, summarises the chemistry, bioactivity and geographical diversity of steroidal alkaloids isolated from Veratrum and Fritillaria species, so as to illustrate the chemo-diversity and biological significance of these alkaloids, along with their geographical distribution where this is discernible.     

Fuzzy adaptive unscented Kalman filter control of epileptiform spikes in a class of neural mass models

A new closed-loop control method based on the fuzzy adaptive unscented Kalman filter (FAUKF) is proposed to suppress epileptiform spikes in a class of neural mass models with uncertain measurement noise. The FAUKF is used to estimate the nonlinear system states of the underlying models and amend measurement noise adaptively. The control law is constructed via the estimated states. Numerical simulations illustrate the efficiency of the proposed method.