Designed Tetranuclear Iron-oxo Clusters with Redox Activity for High-Performance Lithium Storage

Polyoxometalates (POMs) are considered as promising catalysts with unique redox activity at the molecular level for energy storage. However, eco-friendly iron-oxo clusters with special metal coordination structures have rarely been reported for Li-ion storage. Herein, three novel redox-active tetranuclear iron-oxo clusters have been synthesized using the solvothermal method with different ratios of Fe³⁺ and SO₄²⁻. Further, they can serve as anode materials for Li-ion batteries. Among them, cluster H₆[Fe₄O₂(H₂O)₂(SO₄)₇]⋅H₂O, the stable structure extended by SO₄²⁻ with a unique 1D pore, displays a specific discharge capacity of 1784 mAh g⁻¹ at 0.2 C and good cycle performance (at 0.2 C and 4 C). This is the first instance of inorganic iron-oxo clusters being used for Li-ion storage. Our findings present a new molecular model system with a well-defined structure and offer new design concepts for the practical application of studying the multi-electron redox activity of iron-oxo clusters.     

铕(Ⅲ)对伴清蛋白溶液构象的影响

用TNS疏水探针研究了脱铁伴清蛋白(apoOTf)和不同形式的铕伴清蛋白(EuN-OTf,Eu2-OTf)的表面疏水暴露程度,依次为apoOTfEuN-OTfEu2-OTf,表明Eu3+与脱铁伴清蛋白N端结合引起蛋白构象变化大,与C端结合引起蛋白构象变化小.此外,由盐酸胍对3种蛋白变性实验,发现Eu3+与脱铁伴清蛋白的结合稳定了蛋白的结构,稳定性依次为apoOTfEuN-OTfEu2-OTf.离子强度效应也充分表明3种蛋白内部疏水基团相互作用依apoOTfEuN-OTfEu2-OTf顺序增大,稳定性也依次增大.本研究对进一步探讨Eu3+的生物效应提供理论依据.     

Screening and preliminary application of a DNA aptamer for rapid detection of Salmonella O8

We report on a rapid method for the detection of Salmonella O8. It does not require an enrichment step but rather uses an aptamer as a probe that was selected by system evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) assay. Firstly, aptamer against Salmonella O8 was selected from a 78 bp random DNA library that was prepared in-vitro. The binding ability of the aptamers to target bacterium was examined by aptamer-linked immobilized sorbent assay. A high affinity aptamer was successfully selected from the initial random DNA pool, and its secondary structure was also investigated. Next, this high affinity aptamer B10 was used to recognize Salmonella O8 via fluorescence microscopy. The selected aptamer has a high specificity and high affinity against its target. We believe that the resulting fluorescence in-situ labeling assay is a potentially useful alternative in rapid screening and detection of foodborne pathogens.

Highly water-soluble nanocrystal powders of magnetite and maghemite coated with gluconic acid: Preparation, structure characterization, and surface coordination

A simple method was developed to prepare highly water-soluble nanocrystal powders of magnetic iron oxides with different oxidation degree from magnetite (Fe(3)O(4)) to maghemite (γ-Fe(2)O(3)) coated with gluconic acid (GLA). X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy measurements show that the products have a narrow size distribution, and the cores are inverse spinel iron oxides and completely crystallized. Vibrating sample magnetometry measurements reveal that all the samples exhibit superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectra were used to identify the products. It is shown that GLA molecules are immobilized on the nanoparticle surface by chemical bonding and the carboxyl is asymmetrically bound to the surface iron atom, and the vacancies in the γ-Fe(2)O(3) cores are disordered. Compared with FTIR, Raman spectrum analysis is a rapid, simple, and accurate method for identifying inverse spinel iron oxides. The chemical stability and the high solubility of the products are explained in terms of the proposed coordination modes of the surface iron atom with GLA.     

Reservoir Dynamic Interpretability for Time Series Prediction: A Permutation Entropy View

An echo state network (ESN) is an efficient recurrent neural network (RNN) that is widely used in time series prediction tasks due to its simplicity and low training cost. However, the “black-box” nature of reservoirs hinders the development of ESN. Although a large number of studies have concentrated on reservoir interpretability, the perspective of reservoir modeling is relatively single, and the relationship between reservoir richness and reservoir projection capacity has not been effectively established. To tackle this problem, a novel reservoir interpretability framework based on permutation entropy (PE) theory is proposed in this paper. In structure, this framework consists of reservoir state extraction, PE modeling, and PE analysis. Based on these, the instantaneous reservoir states and neuronal time-varying states are extracted, which are followed by phase space reconstruction, sorting, and entropy calculation. Firstly, the obtained instantaneous state entropy (ISE) and global state entropy (GSE) can measure reservoir richness for interpreting good reservoir projection capacity. On the other hand, the multiscale complexity–entropy analysis of global and neuron-level reservoir states is performed to reveal more detailed dynamics. Finally, the relationships between ESN performance and reservoir dynamic are investigated via Pearson correlation, considering different prediction steps and time scales. Experimental evaluations on several benchmarks and real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed reservoir interpretability framework.     

不同工艺尺寸CMOS器件单粒子闩锁效应及其防护方法

基于建立的不同工艺尺寸的CMOS器件模型,利用TCAD器件模拟的方法,针对不同工艺CMOS器件,开展了不同工艺尺寸CMOS器件单粒子闩锁效应(SEL)的研究。研究表明,器件工艺尺寸越大,SEL效应越敏感。结合单粒子闩锁效应触发机制,提出了保护带、保护环两种器件级抗SEL加固设计方法,并通过TCAD仿真和重离子试验验证防护效果,得出最优的加固防护设计。结果表明,90 nm和0.13 m CMOS器件尽量选用保护带抗SEL结构,0.18 m或更大工艺尺寸CMOS器件建议选取保护环抗SEL结构。     

Multicriteria Group Decision Making Based on Intuitionistic Normal Cloud and Cloud Distance Entropy

The uncertainty of information is an important issue that must be faced when dealing with decision-making problems. Randomness and fuzziness are the two most common types of uncertainty. In this paper, we propose a multicriteria group decision-making method based on intuitionistic normal cloud and cloud distance entropy. First, the backward cloud generation algorithm for intuitionistic normal clouds is designed to transform the intuitionistic fuzzy decision information given by all experts into an intuitionistic normal cloud matrix to avoid the loss and distortion of information. Second, the distance measurement of the cloud model is introduced into the information entropy theory, and the concept of cloud distance entropy is proposed. Then, the distance measurement for intuitionistic normal clouds based on numerical features is defined and its properties are discussed, based on which the criterion weight determination method under intuitionistic normal cloud information is proposed. In addition, the VIKOR method, which integrates group utility and individual regret, is extended to the intuitionistic normal cloud environment, and thus the ranking results of the alternatives are obtained. Finally, the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed method are demonstrated by two numerical examples.     

Expression, refolding, and characterization of GFE peptide-fused human interferon-α2a in Escherichia coli

Interferon-α2a (IFN-α2a) has been used for the treatment of various viral infections and cancers for many years. However some untolerable side effects have limited its application in some aspects. To evaluate whether or not an oligopeptide containing GFE motif can home human IFN-α2a to specific tissues, a fusion gene was constructed by fusing the coding sequence of GFE peptide (CGFECVRQCPERC), which was screened from phage display peptide library, to the 3′ end of human IFN-α2a gene by recombinant DNA technique. Fusion protein rhIFN-α2a-GFE was expressed in Escherichia coli as inclusion bodies using a T7 RNA polymerase expression system, pET-22b, refolded through dialysis and purified to homogeneity to >95% of purity by affinity chromatography. Characterization by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and immunoblotting demonstrated the authenticity of the fusion protein. Purified rhIFN-α2a-GFE was found to be functionally active in terms of its antiviral activity for about 2.5×10⁸ IU/mg in vitro. Yields of the purified fusion protein were about 200 mg/L of culture medium. Tissue distribution assay in mouse showed that at 30 min IFN-α2a could be enriched sevenfold higher in lung in the targeted IFN group of mice than in the standard IFN group of mice, and last for a long time. At 1 h, IFN-α2a in the targeted IFN group was still 4.02-fold higher than that in the standard group. This confirmed that GFE peptide has the ability to selectively deliver its fusion partner IFN-α2a to lungs. The results also showed that the IFN-α2a-GFE could be specifically enriched in kidney and liver. Its distribution in kidney was concordant with the finding of GFE receptor, MDP, in kidney. However, the IFN-α2a-GFE in liver may imply some significance in pharmacology and toxicology.