Whole-Cell Photoenzymatic Cascades to Synthesize Long-Chain Aliphatic Amines and Esters from Renewable Fatty Acids

Long-chain aliphatic amines such as (S,Z)-heptadec-9-en-7-amine and 9-aminoheptadecane were synthesized from ricinoleic acid and oleic acid, respectively, by whole-cell cascade reactions using the combination of an alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) from Micrococcus luteus, an engineered amine transaminase from Vibrio fluvialis (Vf-ATA), and a photoactivated decarboxylase from Chlorella variabilis NC64A (Cv-FAP) in a one-pot process. In addition, long chain aliphatic esters such as 10-(heptanoyloxy)dec-8-ene and octylnonanoate were prepared from ricinoleic acid and oleic acid, respectively, by using the combination of the ADH, a Baeyer–Villiger monooxygenase variant from Pseudomonas putida KT2440, and the Cv-FAP. The target compounds were produced at rates of up to 37 U g⁻¹ dry cells with conversions up to 90 %. Therefore, this study contributes to the preparation of industrially relevant long-chain aliphatic chiral amines and esters from renewable fatty acid resources.     

Water Extract of Fritillariae thunbergii Bulbus Inhibits RANKL-Mediated Osteoclastogenesis and Ovariectomy-Induced Trabecular Bone Loss

Fritillariae thunbergii bulbus has been widely used to treat symptoms of coughs and airway congestion in the chest due to pathological colds and damp phlegm in traditional Chinese medicine. Despite its long history of traditional use, its pharmacological activities on osteoclastogenesis and osteoporosis have not been evaluated. This study investigated the effects of the water extract of Fritillariae thunbergii bulbus (WEFT) on osteoclast differentiation in bone marrow-derived macrophage cells and on ovariectomy (OVX)-induced osteoporosis in mice. We found that WEFT significantly inhibited osteoclastogenesis by downregulating the receptor activator of the NF-κB ligand (RANKL) signaling-induced nuclear factor of activated T-cells cytoplasmic 1 (NFATc1) expression. In an OVX-induced osteoporosis model, WEFT significantly prevented the OVX-induced trabecular loss of femurs, accompanied by a reduction in fat accumulation in the bone marrow and liver. In addition, WEFT significantly prevented weight gain and gonadal fat gain without recovering uterine atrophy. Using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, seven alkaloids (peimisine glucoside, yibeissine, peiminoside, sipeimine-glucoside, peimisine, peimine, and peiminine) were identified in WEFT. The results of this study suggest that WEFT can be a potential pharmacological candidate to reduce menopausal osteoporosis and menopause-related symptoms, such as fat accumulation.     

On the Interfacial Flow Over Porous Media Composed of Packed Spheres: Part 1-Identification of the Effective Slip Length

Transport in Porous Media - The effective slip length at the interface between pure fluid flow and porous media composed of packed spheres has been accurately characterized. In this study, as the...     

Domain-Specific On-Device Object Detection Method

Object detection is a significant activity in computer vision, and various approaches have been proposed to detect varied objects using deep neural networks (DNNs). However, because DNNs are computation-intensive, it is difficult to apply them to resource-constrained devices. Here, we propose an on-device object detection method using domain-specific models. In the proposed method, we define object of interest (OOI) groups that contain objects with a high frequency of appearance in specific domains. Compared with the existing DNN model, the layers of the domain-specific models are shallower and narrower, reducing the number of trainable parameters; thus, speeding up the object detection. To ensure a lightweight network design, we combine various network structures to obtain the best-performing lightweight detection model. The experimental results reveal that the size of the proposed lightweight model is 21.7 MB, which is 91.35% and 36.98% smaller than those of YOLOv3-SPP and Tiny-YOLO, respectively. The f-measure achieved on the MS COCO 2017 dataset were 18.3%, 11.9% and 20.3% higher than those of YOLOv3-SPP, Tiny-YOLO and YOLO-Nano, respectively. The results demonstrated that the lightweight model achieved higher efficiency and better performance on non-GPU devices, such as mobile devices and embedded boards, than conventional models.     

Blue electroluminescent materials based on indeno[1,2-a]arene derivatives for Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

Abstract

In this study, as a continuous effort for searching efficient blue-emitting materials, we designed and synthesized materials based on indeno[1,2-a]arene. OLED devices using these materials were fabricated in the following sequence; ITO (180?nm)/N,N'-diphenyl-N,N'-(2-napthyl)-(1,1'-phenyl)-4,4'-diamine (NPB) (50?nm)/emitting materials (30?nm)/4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline (Bphen) (30?nm)/Liq/Al (2/100?nm). Particularly, a device using 7,7-dimethyl-7H-indeno[1,2-a]pyrene as emitter showed maximum values of luminous efficiency, power efficiency, and external quantum efficiency of 1.10?cd/A, 0.49?lm/W, 1.47% at 20?mA/cm², respectively with CIE (x,y) coordinates of (0.15, 0.08) at 6.0V.     

Thermal diffusion of dilute aqueous NH4Cl,Me4NCl,Et4NCl,n-Pr4NCl,andn-Bu4NCl solutions at 25°C

The Soret effect (thermal diffusion) of dilute aqueous solutions of NH₄Cl, Me₄NCl, Et₄NCl, n-Pr₄NCl, and n-Bu₄NCl has been investigated potentiometrically using the silver, silver chloride thermocell. The molar entropies (heats) of transport have been derived from the initial and final thermoelectric powers. The concentration dependence of the entropy of transport has been examined and the effect of the ionic size on the heat of transport is discussed. The molar entropy of tetrabutylammonium chloride exhibits a sharp minimum in the neighborhood of 0.002M, the reason of which is as yet unclear.     

Soft‐Chemical Exfoliation Route to Layered Cobalt Oxide Monolayers and Its Application for Film Deposition and Nanoparticle Synthesis

A colloidal suspension of exfoliated, layered cobalt oxide nanosheets has been synthesized through the intercalation of quaternary tetramethylammonium ions into protonated lithium cobalt oxide. According to atomic force microscopy, exfoliated nanosheets of layered cobalt oxide show a plateau‐like height profile with nanometer‐level height, underscoring the formation of unilamellar 2D nanosheets. The exfoliation of layered cobalt oxide was cross‐confirmed by X‐ray diffraction, UV/Vis spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The maintenance of the hexagonal in‐plane structure of the cobalt oxide lattice after the exfoliation process was evidenced by selected‐area electron diffraction and Co K‐edge X‐ray absorption near‐edge structure analysis. The zeta‐potential measurements clearly demonstrated the negative surface charge of cobalt oxide nanosheets. Adopting the nanosheets of layered cobalt oxide as a precursor, we were able to prepare the monodisperse CoO nanocrystals with a particle size of ≈10 nm as well as the heterolayered film composed of cobalt oxide monolayer and polycation.     

Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Syngas with Controllable CO/H2 Ratios over Co and Ni Single‐Atom Catalysts

The electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) to yield synthesis gas (syngas, CO and H₂) has been considered as a promising method to realize the net reduction in CO₂ emission. However, it is challenging to balance the CO₂RR activity and the CO/H₂ ratio. To address this issue, nitrogen‐doped carbon supported single‐atom catalysts are designed as electrocatalysts to produce syngas from CO₂RR. While Co and Ni single‐atom catalysts are selective in producing H₂ and CO, respectively, electrocatalysts containing both Co and Ni show a high syngas evolution (total current >74 mA cm^?2) with CO/H₂ ratios (0.23–2.26) that are suitable for typical downstream thermochemical reactions. Density functional theory calculations provide insights into the key intermediates on Co and Ni single‐atom configurations for the H₂ and CO evolution. The results present a useful case on how non‐precious transition metal species can maintain high CO₂RR activity with tunable CO/H₂ ratios.     

Heterostructured composite of NiFe-LDH nanosheets with Ti4O7 for oxygen evolution reaction

Developing oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalyst based on earth-abundant materials holds great promise for ascertaining water-splitting to surmount its deprived kinetics. In this regard, NiFe-LDH (layered double hydroxide) receives considerable attention owing to their layered structure. However, they still suffer from poor electronic conductivity and structural stability. We combined NiFe-LDH nanosheets with Magnéli phase Ti₄O₇ into a heterostructured composite. A series of analyses reveal that decorating Ti₄O₇ facilitates charge transfer to enhance the conductivity of NiFe-LDH-Ti₄O₇. During electrochemical measurement, Ni²⁺ is transformed to metastable Ni³⁺ (Ni (OH)→ NiOOH) before the OER onset potential. Thus, the presence of Ni³⁺ as the main active sites could improve the chemisorption of OH^? to facilitate OER. As a result, the NiFe-LDH-Ti₄O₇ catalyst delivers as low as onset potential (1.43 V). Combining the holey structure (NiFe-LDH and Ti₄O₇) and the defect engineering generated on NiFe-LDH-Ti₄O₇ as a synergistic effect improves the OER performance. The inclusion of Ti₄O₇ in the composite leads to more vacancy sites, as evidenced by the extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) analysis. The obtained defective structure with a low coordination environment would improve the electronic conductivity and facilitate the adsorption process of H₂O onto metal cations, thereby increasing the intrinsic catalytic activity of NiOOH. The strong coupling of NiFe-LDH and Ti₄O₇ also increases the stability, and the heterostructured composite helps maintain the structural robustness of the LDH.     

弹性杆与结构接触冲击的冲击力计算研究

本文提出了一种将杆与结构的接触冲击问题简化为集中力与集中阻尼的常规结构动力学问题的计算模型。对于大型结构，可采用一种特殊的人工边界，只需对人工边界域内的结构用有限元法进行计算。这种人工边界是齐次的，可根据冲击影响区的大小人为地确定