张元济赴日访书与民族记忆的修复

1928年张元济赴日本访书前后历时一个半月之久,其间他遍访东京、京都等地公私藏家,寓目珍籍之多,借影过程之复杂,成功商借数目之大,史所罕见,堪称中日文化交流史上的华章。有关张元济此次日本访书,已有论述大多依据郑贞文的回忆文章,认为张元济回国时已携回46种珍本秘籍的摄影底片。事实上,张元济回国时借影远没有完成,甚至连拟借影的书目清单也是回上海后才最后确定的,并在具体的借影过程中不断有所调整,实际的借影交涉极其复杂、艰难。但由于行前准备充分,又有熟悉日本公私收藏的马宗荣全程陪同,并负责接洽借影有关古籍事宜,同时还得到日本汉学家诸桥辙次、长泽规矩也、内藤湖南等一大批日本友人协助,此次访书收获巨大,总共成功借影了61种珍稀古籍,其中大多是“中土久佚之书”。这些珍本秘籍后来相继被编入他主持编纂的大型古籍丛书,使沈�h数百年之久、离散于异域的古本逸编得以复见于故土,并重新楔入中华民族的历史与记忆。因此,它的意义绝不仅限于版本的价值,更重要的是它关系到民族记忆的修复和民族精神的再构。     

Design and Investigation of a Dynamic Auto-Adjusting Ejector for the MED-TVC Desalination System Driven by Solar Energy

Ejectors have been widely used in multi-effect distillation, thermal vapor compression (MED-TVC) desalination systems due to their simple structures and low energy consumption. However, traditional fixed geometry ejectors fail to operate under unstable working conditions driven by solar energy. Herein, a dynamic auto-adjusting ejector, equipped with a needle at the nozzle throat, is proposed to improve the ejector’s performance under changeable operating conditions. A two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is built to analyze the performance and flow field of the ejector. It is found that the achievable entrainment ratio gradually increases as the needle approaches the nozzle, and the entrainment ratio of the ejector is relatively stable, varying slightly between 1.1–1.2 when the primary pressure changes from 2.5 to 4 bar. Besides, the performance comparison between the proposed ejector and the traditional ejector is studied under the same primary pressure range. The entrainment ratio of the designed ejector was 1.6 times higher than that of the conventional ejector at a primary pressure of 2.5 bar. Furthermore, the average entrainment ratio of the designed ejector is 1.14, as compared to 0.84 for the traditional ejector. Overall, the proposed auto-adjusting ejector could be potentially used in MED-TVC desalination systems under variable conditions.     

Enhancement of Optomechanical Squeezing of Light Using the Optical Coherent Feedback

A coherent feedback scheme is used to enhance the degree of squeezing of the output field in a cavity optomechanical system. In the feedback loop, a beam splitter (BS) plays the roles of both a feedback controller and an input–output port. To realize effective enhancement, the output quadrature should take the same form as the input quadrature, and the system should operate at the deamplification situation in the meantime. This can be realized by choosing an appropriate frequency-dependent phase angle for the generalized quadrature. Additionally, both the transmissivity of the BS and the phase factor induced by time delays in the loop affect optical squeezing. For the fixed frequency, the optimal values of transmissivity and phase factor can be used to achieve the enhanced optical squeezing. The effect of optical losses on squeezing is also discussed. Optical squeezing is degraded by the introduced vacuum noise owing to the inefficient transmission in the loop. We show that the enhancement of squeezing is achievable with the parameters of the current experiments.     

Purification Process and In Vitro and In Vivo Bioactivity Evaluation of Pectolinarin and Linarin from Cirsium japonicum

Pectolinarin and linarin are two major flavone O-glycosides of Cirsium japonicum, which has been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine. Pharmacological research on pectolinarin and linarin is meaningful and necessary. Here, a process for the purification of pectolinarin and linarin from C. japonicum was established using macroporous resin enrichment followed by prep-HPLC separation. The results show the purity of pectolinarin and linarin reached 97.39% and 96.65%, respectively. The in vitro bioactivities result shows the ORAC values of pectolinarin and linarin are 4543 and 1441 µmol TE/g, respectively, meanwhile their inhibition rate of BSA-MGO-derived AGEs is 63.58% and 19.31% at 2 mg/mL, which is 56.03% and 30.73% in the BSA-fructose system, respectively. The COX-2 inhibition rate at 50 µg/mL of linarin and pectolinarin reached 55.35% and 40.40%, respectively. Furthermore, the in vivo bioassay combining of histopathologic evaluation and biochemical analysis of liver glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase, serum creatinine and TNF-α show pectolinarin can alleviate lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute liver and kidney injury in mice. Metabolomics analysis shows that pectolinarin attenuates LPS-challenged liver and kidney stress through regulating the arachidonic acid metabolism and glutathione synthesis pathways. Collectively, our work presents a solid process for pectolinarin and linarin purification and has discovered a promising natural therapeutic agent—pectolinarin.     

Non-Covalent Dimer as Donor Chromophore for Constructing Artificial Light-Harvesting System in Water

Dynamic emissive materials in aqueous media have received much attention owing to their ease of preparation, tunable luminescence and environmental friendliness. However, hydrophobic fluorophores usually suffer from aggregation-caused quenching in water. In this work, we constructed an artificial light-harvesting system by using a non-covalent aggregation-induced emission dimer as antenna and energy donor. The dimer is quadruple hydrogen bonded from a ureidopyrimidinone derivative (M) containing a tetraphenylethylene group. The dispersed nano-assemblies based on the dimer in aqueous media were fabricated with the help of surfactant. By loading a hydrophobic acceptor molecule DBT into the nano-assemblies, man-made light-harvesting nanoparticles were fabricated, showing considerable energy transfer efficiency and a relatively high antenna effect. Additionally, the fluorescence color of the system can be gradually tuned by varying the content of the acceptors. This study provides a general way for the construction of an aqueous light-harvesting system based on a supramolecular dimer, which is important for potential application in luminescent materials.     

Efficient Degradation of Tetracycline Antibiotics by Engineered Myoglobin with High Peroxidase Activity

Tetracyclines are one class of widely used antibiotics. Meanwhile, due to abuse and improper disposal, they are often detected in wastewater, which causes a series of environmental problems and poses a threat to human health and safety. As an efficient and environmentally friendly method, enzymatic catalysis has attracted much attention. In previous studies, we have designed an efficient peroxidase (F43Y/P88W/F138W Mb, termed YWW Mb) based on the protein scaffold of myoglobin (Mb), an O₂ carrier, by modifying the heme active center and introducing two Trp residues. In this study, we further applied it to degrade the tetracycline antibiotics. Both UV-Vis and HPLC studies showed that the triple mutant YWW Mb was able to catalyze the degradation of tetracycline, oxytetracycline, doxycycline, and chlortetracycline effectively, with a degradation rate of ~100%, ~98%, ~94%, and ~90%, respectively, within 5 min by using H₂O₂ as an oxidant. These activities are much higher than those of wild-type Mb and other heme enzymes such as manganese peroxidase. As further analyzed by UPLC-ESI-MS, we identified multiple degradation products and thus proposed possible degradation mechanisms. In addition, the toxicity of the products was analyzed by using in vitro antibacterial experiments of E. coli. Therefore, this study indicates that the engineered heme enzyme has potential applications for environmental remediation by degradation of tetracycline antibiotics.     

Ultrabright AIEdots with tunable narrow emission for multiplexed fluorescence imaging

AIEgen doped fluorescent nanodots (AIEdots) have attracted lots of attention, due to their superior characteristics as fluorescent probes, such as excellent photostability, large Stokes shift, high brightness and tunable emission. Unfortunately, most of the currently available AIEdots exhibit broad emission bandwidth, which limits their applications in multiplexed fluorescence imaging and detection. In this work, the strategy of designing and fabricating narrow emissive AIEdots (NE-AIEdots) with tunable wavelengths was presented by constructing a light-harvesting system with high energy transfer efficiency. Efficient intra-particle energy transfer from highly doped AIEgens, serving as the light-harvesting antenna, to the lightly doped narrow emissive fluorophore, resulted in high brightness and narrow emission. The emission band of NE-AIEdots with the full-width-at-half-maximum varied from 18 to 36 nm was 3–6.3 times narrower than that of traditional AIEdots. The single-particle brightness of NE-AIEdots was over 5-times that of commercial quantum dots under the same excitation and collection conditions. Taking advantage of the superior performance of these NE-AIEdots, multiplexed fluorescence imaging of lymph nodes in living mice was realized, which supported the future applications of NE-AIEdots for in vivo multiplexed labeling and clinical surgery.

AIEdots with high brightness and narrow emission bandwidth were developed for multiplexed in vitro and in vivo fluorescence imaging.     

New lead-iodide formates with a strong second-harmonic generation response and suitable birefringence obtained by the substitution strategy

Nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals featuring a strong second-harmonic generation (SHG) response and suitable birefringence to achieve phase-matching are in urgent demand in industrial and commercial applications. Based on the substitution strategy, two new NLO lead-iodide formates, K₂[PbI₂(HCOO)₂] and Rb₂[PbI₂(HCOO)₂], have been successfully synthesized using a moderate mixed-solvothermal method. K₂[PbI₂(HCOO)₂] and Rb₂[PbI₂(HCOO)₂] exhibit strong phase-matching SHG responses of 8 and 6.8 × KDP, respectively, a suitable birefringence and transparent window covering most of the visible light and mid-IR region. Crystal structures and theoretical calculations unveil that the origins of the strong SHG response and suitable birefringence can be credibly attributed to the oriented arrangement of the highly distorted [PbI₂O₄] hexa-coordinated polyhedra, which are consistent in their local dipole moments, as well. This research provides a new strategy to explore high-performance NLO crystals.

K₂[PbI₂(HCOO)₂] and Rb₂[PbI₂(HCOO)₂] with highly distorted [PbI₂O₄] polyhedra in an oriented arrangement exhibit a very strong phase-matching SHG response, suitable birefringence, wide transparent windows and good thermal stability.     

A vending machine for drug-like molecules – automated synthesis of virtual screening hits

As a result of high false positive rates in virtual screening campaigns, prospective hits must be synthesised for validation. When done manually, this is a time consuming and laborious process. Large “on-demand” virtual libraries (>7 × 10¹² members), suitable for preparation using capsule-based automated synthesis and commercial building blocks, were evaluated to determine their structural novelty. One sub-library, constructed from iSnAP capsules, aldehydes and amines, contains unique scaffolds with drug-like physicochemical properties. Virtual screening hits from this iSnAP library were prepared in an automated fashion for evaluation against Aedes aegypti and Phytophthora infestans. In comparison to manual workflows, this approach provided a 10-fold improvement in user efficiency. A streamlined method of relative stereochemical assignment was also devised to augment the rapid synthesis. User efficiency was further improved to 100-fold by downscaling and parallelising capsule-based chemistry on 96-well plates equipped with filter bases. This work demonstrates that automated synthesis consoles can enable the rapid and reliable preparation of attractive virtual screening hits from large virtual libraries.

A compact and operationally simple automation technology can prepare virtual screening hits from a large on-demand library of drug-like molecules.     

哈密顿系统正则变换在时变最优控制中的应用

利用哈密顿系统正则变换和生成函数理论求解线性时变最优控制问题,构造了新的最优控制律形式并提出了控制增益计算的保结构算法. 利用生成函数求解最优控制导出的哈密顿系统两端边值问题,并构造线性时变系统的最优控制律,由第2类生成函数所构造的最优控制律避免了末端时刻出现无穷大反馈增益. 控制系统设计中需求解生成函数满足的时变矩阵微分方程组. 根据生成函数与哈密顿系统状态转移矩阵之间的关系,从正则变换的辛矩阵描述出发,导出了求解这组微分方程组的保结构递推算法.为了保持递推计算中的辛矩阵结构,哈密顿系统状态转移矩阵的计算中利用了Magnus级数.