CIDEP studies of the photolysis of the lignin model compound α-guaiacoxylacetoveratrone: the role of triplet reactions in aqueous and hydroxylic solvents

Free radical reactions induced by the photolysis of the lignin model compound α-guaiacoxylacetoveratrone have been studied by conventional and time-resolved ESR spectroscopy. In the presence of efficient hydrogen donors such as aqueous and hydroxylic solvents the primary reaction involves photoreduction of the triplet phenacyl ether to form the ketyl radical followed by rapid cleavage to the phenacyl radical and guaiacol. Subsequent formation of polarized guaiacoxyl radicals is due to secondary photo-oxidation. The cleavage of the ketyl radical is retarded in basic media and accelerated in acetic acid. Minor reaction pathways involving excited singlets cannot be ruled out by the current CIDEP observations.     

Direct STM investigation of cinchona alkaloid adsorption on Cu(III)

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) combined with cyclic voltammetry has been employed to investigate the adsorption of cinchonine on Cu(111). Similar to cinchonidine, cinchonine forms a long-range ordered adlayer with (4 x 4) symmetry on the substrate. The structural details on molecular adsorption were obtained by high-resolution STM images. On the basis of the previous results and obtained STM images, the quinoline ring is proposed to lie parallel to Cu(111) and serve as an anchoring group. The chiral quinuclidine moiety extends out of the surface to facilitate the interaction with the prochiral reactants.     

Colloidal adhesion of phospholipid vesicles: high-resolution reflection interference contrast microscopy and theory

High-resolution reflection interference contrast microscopy (HR-RICM) was developed for probing the deformation and adhesion of phospholipid vesicles induced by colloidal forces on solid surfaces. The new technique raised the upper limit of the measured membrane–substrate separation from 1 to 4.5 μm and improved the spatial resolution of the heterogeneous contact zones. It was applied to elucidate the effects of wall thickness, pH and osmotic stress on the non-specific adhesion of giant unilamellar vesicles (ULV) and multilamellar vesicles (MLV) on fused silica substrates. By simultaneous cross-polarization light microscopy and HR-RICM measurements, it was observed that ULV with the wall thickness of a single bilayer would be significantly deformed in its equilibrium state on the substrate as the dimension of its adhesive–cohesive zone was 29% higher than the theoretical value of a rigid sphere with the same diameter. Besides, electrostatic interaction was shown as a significant driving force for vesicle adhesions since the reduction in pH significantly increased the degree of deformation of adhering ULV and heterogeneity of the adhesion discs. The degree of MLV deformation on the solid surfaces was significantly less than that of ULV. When the wall thickness of vesicle increased, the dimension of contact zone was reduced dramatically due to the increase of membrane bending modulus. Most important, the adhesion strength of colloidal adhesion approached that of specific adhesion. Finally, the increase of osmotic stress led to the collapse of adhering vesicles on the non-deformable substrate and raised the area of adhesive contact zone. To interpret these results better, the equilibrium deformation of adhering vesicle was modeled as a truncated sphere and the adhesion energy was calculated with a new theory.     

Novel Coumarin 7-Carboxamide/Sulfonamide Derivatives as Potential Fungicidal Agents: Design,Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation

Coumarin compounds have a variety of biological activities such as anti-tumor, anti-coagulation, anti-HIV, anti-fungal, and insecticidal. Amide and sulfonamide compounds have been used as fungicides for half a century, and dozens of varieties have been developed so far. This study focused on the introduction of carboxamide and sulfonamide moieties in a coumarin core to discover novel derivatives. Based on this strategy, we synthesized two series of novel carboxamide and sulfonamide substituted coumarin derivatives, and their fungicidal activity was also investigated. Some designed compounds possessed potential activities against six phytopathogenic fungi in the primary assays, highlighted by compound 6r. Compound 6r exhibited stronger fungicidal activity against Botrytis cinerea (EC₅₀ = 20.52 µg/mL) and will be the lead structure for further study.     

Syringaresinol Alleviates Oxaliplatin-Induced Neuropathic Pain Symptoms by Inhibiting the Inflammatory Responses of Spinal Microglia

Oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy (OIPN) is a serious side effect that impairs the quality of life of patients treated with the chemotherapeutic agent, oxaliplatin. The underlying pathophysiology of OIPN remains unclear, and there are no effective therapeutics. This study aimed to investigate the causal relationship between spinal microglial activation and OIPN and explore the analgesic effects of syringaresinol, a phytochemical from the bark of Cinnamomum cassia, on OIPN symptoms. The causality between microglial activation and OIPN was investigated by assessing cold and mechanical allodynia in mice after intrathecal injection of the serum supernatant from a BV-2 microglial cell line treated with oxaliplatin. The microglial inflammatory response was measured based on inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (p-ERK), and phosphorylated nuclear factor-kappa B (p-NF-κB) expression in the spinal dorsal horn. The effects of syringaresinol were tested using behavioral and immunohistochemical assays. We found that oxaliplatin treatment activated the microglia to increase inflammatory responses, leading to the induction of pain. Syringaresinol treatment significantly ameliorated oxaliplatin-induced pain and suppressed microglial expression of inflammatory signaling molecules. Thus, we concluded that the analgesic effects of syringaresinol on OIPN were achieved via the modulation of spinal microglial inflammatory responses.     

QuatJND: A Robust Quaternion JND Model for Color Image Watermarking

Robust quantization watermarking with perceptual JND model has made a great success for image copyright protection. Generally, either restores each color channel separately or processes the vector representation from three color channels with the traditional monochromatic model. And it cannot make full use of the high correlation among RGB channels. In this paper, we proposed a robust quaternion JND Model for color image watermarking (QuatJND). In contrast to the existing perceptual JND models, the advantage of QuatJND is that it can integrate quaternion representation domain and colorfulness simultaneously, and QuatJND incorporates the pattern guided contrast masking effect in quaternion domain. On the other hand, in order to efficiently utilize the color information, we further develop a robust quantization watermarking framework using the color properties of the quaternion DCT coefficients in QuatJND. And the quantization steps of each quaternion DCT block in the scheme are optimal. Experimental results show that our method has a good performance in term of robustness with better visual quality.     

基于Visco-SCRAM模型的侵彻装药点火研究

针对弹体侵彻过程中装药的安全性,基于黏弹性统计裂纹力学(visco-statistical crack mechanics, Visco-SCRAM)模型计算装药整体温升、装药裂纹摩擦生热以及弹体装药与壳体摩擦生热,考察这3种机制对装药温升的贡献以及侵彻装药的点火机制,得到了装药点火对应的弹体侵彻临界初始速度。结果表明：(1)装药与弹体内壁摩擦生热对装药温升有一定贡献,随着弹体初始撞击速度的提高,摩擦生热对温升的贡献逐渐增大;(2)黏性、损伤和绝热体积变化导致的装药整体温升对装药点火的作用有限; (3)裂纹摩擦形成热点是侵彻装药点火的物理机制;(4)采用Visco-SCRAM模型可预测低强度、长脉冲载荷作用下的装药点火响应。

     

基于FPGA的微型直流电机控制器IP核设计

为了实现阵列天线波束高效控制和系统小型化, 实现多轴微型直流伺服系统达到高速、并行控制, 根据Nios Ⅱ处理器的Avalon总线规范, 利用Verilog硬件描述语言, 设计了一种基于现场可编程逻辑门阵列(FPGA)的微型直流电机控制器IP核。该控制器采用了有限状态机的方法, 分多模块实现硬件控制功能。针对微型直流电机特性, 采用了比例-积分-微分（PID）算法、分段控制及启停监测等控制策略。最后利用软件Quartus Ⅱ及DE0开发板进行了仿真和实验验证, 实验表明, 该控制器具有响应速度快、定位精度高、可靠性高、体积小等特点, 可以可靠地对各路微型直流电机进行独立控制, 且控制性能良好, 能够实现天线单元快速、准确的相位控制。