A Calixarene Assembly Strategy of Combined Anti-Neuroinflammation and Drug Delivery Functions for Traumatic Brain Injury Therapy

Excessive inflammatory reaction aggravates brain injury and hinders the recovery of neural function in nervous system diseases. Microglia, as the major players of neuroinflammation, control the progress of the disease. There is an urgent need for effective non-invasive therapy to treat neuroinflammation mediated by microglia. However, the lack of specificity of anti-inflammatory agents and insufficient drug dose penetrating into the brain lesion area are the main problems. Here, we evaluated a series of calixarenes and found that among them the self-assembling architecture of amphiphilic sulfonatocalix[8]arene (SC8A12C) had the most potent ability to suppress neuroinflammation in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, SC8A12C assemblies were internalized into microglia through macropinocytosis. In addition, after applying the SC8A12C assemblies to the exposed brain tissue, we observed that SC8A12C assemblies penetrated into the brain parenchyma and eliminated the inflammatory factor storm, thereby restoring neurobiological functions in a mouse model of traumatic brain injury.     

Room-Temperature Magnetism Realized by Doping Fe into Ferroelectric LiTaO3

We synthesize LiTal-x FexO3-σ （LTFO） remain single phase up to x = 0.09 ceramics by the conventional solid-state reaction method. The samples The magnetic measurements show that the doping of Fe successfully realizes ferromagnetism of LTFO at room temperature. The dielectric measurements indicate that LTFO is ferroelectric, similarly to LiTaO3 （LTO）, but its ferroelectric Curie temperature seems to decrease with the increasing Fe content. By means of doping Fe ions into LTO, the coexistence of spontaneous electric polarization and spontaneous magnetic moment is realized at room temperature.     

Interaction of light filaments in air

This paper analytically investigates the interaction of light filaments generated by a femtosecond laser beam in air. It obtains the Hamiltonian of a total laser field and interaction force between two filaments with different phase shifts and crossing angles. The property of the interaction force, which leads the attraction or repulsion of filaments, is basically dependent on the phase shift between filaments. The crossing angle between two filaments can only determine the magnitude of the interaction force, but does not change the property of the force.     

Effects of Organic Acids on the Release of Fruity Esters in Water: An Insight at the Molecular Level

It is well known that organic acids (OAs) could affect the flavour of fruit juices and beverages. However, the molecular mechanism of aroma release is still unclear. In this study, the effects of citric acid (CA), L-(-)-malic acid (MA) and L-lactic acid (LA) on the release of six selected esters and their sensory perception were investigated by means of HS-GC-MS analyses and odour detection threshold determination, respectively. Meanwhile, the density functional theory (DFT) calculation was employed to explore the interaction modes between esters and OAs. HS-GC-MS analyses showed that the concentration and the type of OAs regulated the release of esters. The results were basically consistent with the detection threshold change of those esters. The DFT calculation suggested that the main intermolecular interaction was hydrogen bonds, and several esters could form a ternary ring structure with OAs through hydrogen bonds. The interactions can induce the different release behaviours of esters in OAs water solution. The number of carboxyl functional groups in OAs and the spatial conformation of esters appeared to influence the magnitude of the interaction. The above results demonstrated the mechanism of OAs affecting the release of esters and indicated a possible flavour control way by using different OAs and OA concentrations.     

Multilayer Films with Nanocontainers: Redox‐Controlled Reversible Encapsulation of Guest Molecules

Stable multilayer films with cucurbit[8]uril have been fabricated on the basis of the alternating layer‐by‐layer assembly of a novel side‐chain pseudopolyrotaxane and a photoreactive polyanion. The as‐prepared multilayer films exhibit good properties as surface‐imprinted multilayers, because cucurbit[8]uril molecules that are locked inside the multilayers can act as nanocontainers with specific binding to certain guest molecules, and the loading and release of the guest is redox‐controllable and reversible.     

Generation of stable and high-quality frequency-locked carriers based on improved re-circulating frequency shifter

An optical multicarrier generator based on the improved re-circulating frequency shifter (RFS) to generate a larger number of frequency-locked carriers with high-quality has been studied. By eliminating the third-order crosstalk components, the output carrier's number and optical signal-to-noise-ratio (OSNR) of the generator have been improved significantly. In addition, the maximum output OSNR and optimal radio-frequency drive voltages in the cases of different desired carrier numbers have been obtained. Using the improved configuration, 130-tone with high-quality (tone-to-noise ratio ～20 dB and superior flatness <3 dB) where the drive voltage is only around 0.5Vπ can be achieved. The simulation results show a good agreement with the theoretical analysis. The multicarrier generator based on the improved RFS has the potential application in the terabit superchannel optical transmission.