酶消解-单颗粒电感耦合等离子质谱法测定农产品中纳米铂颗粒

铂纳米颗粒在汽车行业中被广泛用作汽车尾气催化剂。随着铂纳米颗粒在工业生产中的广泛应用,它在环境中广泛分布并可能从植物累积进入食物链中。因此,建立一种在农产品中的定量分析方法是至关重要的。以酶消解的前处理方法结合单颗粒-电感耦合等离子体质谱法(Single particle ICP-MS,SP-ICP-MS)测定农产品中纳米铂颗粒(PtNPs)粒径分布及颗粒数量浓度。通过优化前处理提取条件,当Macerozyme R-10酶为10 mg、柠檬酸缓冲溶液浓度为5 mmol/L、提取时间36 h时,农产品中PtNPs提取效果较高。PtNPs粒径检出限为20 nm,颗粒浓度检出限为5×10⁵ particle/L,铂颗粒浓度回收率在(81±3)%~(91±4)%,加标后平均粒径(41±3)~(47±2)nm,与50 nm PtNPs标准溶液粒径接近。方法操作简单、检出限低、准确度高,适用于农产品中PtNPs定量分析,为客观评价农产品铂纳米毒性效应提供可靠的分析技术。     

Piceatannol Protects Brain Endothelial Cell Line (bEnd.3) against Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Inflammation and Oxidative Stress

Dysfunction of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) is involved in the pathogenesis of many cerebral diseases. Oxidative stress and inflammation are contributing factors for BBB injury. Piceatannol, a natural ingredient found in various plants, such as grapes, white tea, and passion fruit, plays an important role in antioxidant and anti-inflammatory responses. In this study, we examined the protective effects of piceatannol on lipopolysaccharide (LPS) insult in mouse brain endothelial cell line (bEnd.3) cells and the underlying mechanisms. The results showed that piceatannol mitigated the upregulated expression of adhesion molecules (ICAM-1 and VCAM-1) and iNOS in LPS-treated bEnd.3 cells. Moreover, piceatannol prevented the generation of reactive oxygen species in bEnd.3 cells stimulated with LPS. Mechanism investigations suggested that piceatannol inhibited NF-κB and MAPK activation. Taken together, these observations suggest that piceatannol reduces inflammation and oxidative stress through inactivating the NF-κB and MAPK signaling pathways on cerebral endothelial cells in vitro.     

Intensity and polarization self-pulsations in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

We implement a dynamic model that describes the polarization behavior in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers that contain an absorbing region surrounding the active zone. We find four regions of qualitatively different behavior: stable linearly polarized operation, intensity pulsations of a linearly polarized component, pulsations of both total-intensity and polarization components, and polarization self-pulsation with constant total intensity. We characterize the four regions by computing the polarization-resolved optical and power spectra. The predicted behavior agrees with recent experimental results.     

Mechanisms of polarization switching in single-transverse-mode vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers: thermal shift and nonlinear semiconductor dynamics

We analyze polarization switching in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, taking into account a proper semiconductor frequency-dependent complex susceptibility and spin-flip processes. Thermal effects are included as a varying detuning, and gain differences arise from birefringence splitting. We find that, for large birefringence, gain differences between the two linearly polarized modes are preponderant, and switching occurs owing to thermal shift. For small birefringence polarization switching from the high- to the low-gain mode occurs owing to the combined effect of birefringence and semiconductor phase-amplitude-coupled dynamics for a finite value of the carrier spin-flip rate.     

Theory of nonlinear Gaussian noise

We consider stochastic differential equations of the Langevin type in which the noise enters nonlinearly. In particular we study quadratic gaussian noise and we derive equations for the probability density under different approximations. In the limit of small intensity and small correlation time of the noise we obtain a Fokker-Planck equation which accounts for the main effects of the nonlinear noise. We present some examples and we discuss the consequences of our results in the analysis of an electrohydrodynamic instability in liquid crystals in the presence of external noise.     

Scaling in the structure of directory trees in a computer cluster

We describe the topological structure and the underlying organization principles of the directories created by users of a computer cluster. Users create trees with a scale-free degree distribution whose properties are reproduced by a growth and preferential attachment mechanism with a single parameter. The degree distribution has a nonuniversal exponent associated with different values of the parameter. However, the distribution of branch sizes has a universal exponent analytically obtained from the model.     

Quantum algorithms without initializing the auxiliary qubits

In this Letter, we construct the quantum algorithms for the Simon problem and the period-finding problem, which do not require initializing the auxiliary qubits involved in the process of functional evaluation but are as efficient as the original algorithms. In these quantum algorithms, one can use any arbitrarily mixed state as the auxiliary qubits, and furthermore can recover the state of the auxiliary qubits to the original one after completing the computations. Since the recovered state can be employed in any other computations, we obtain that a single preparation of the auxiliary qubits in an arbitrarily mixed state is sufficient to implement the iterative procedure in the Simon algorithm or the period-finding algorithm.     

Oxygen vacancies on TiO2 (110) from first principles calculations

We have carried out a systematic study of oxygen vacancy formation on the TiO2 (110) surface by means of plane-wave pseudopotential density-functional theory calculations. We have used models with the mean number of vacancies per surface unit cell being theta=0.25 and theta=0.5. The study comprises several kind of vacancies within the outermost layers of the surface. The use of a suitable set of technical parameter is often essential in order to get accurate results. We find that the presence of bridging vacancies is energetically favored in accordance to experimental data, although the formation of sub-bridging vacancies might be possible at moderate temperatures. Surprisingly, the spin state of the vacancy has little influence on the results. Atomic displacements are also analyzed and found to be strongly dependent on the particular arrangement of vacancies.     

Quantum Spectrum of Some Anharmonic Central Potentials: Wave Functions Ansatz

Based on the ansatz to the wave functions, the quasi-exact solutions of the 2D Schrödinger equation with some anharmonic potentials are reviewed and analyzed if admitting restrictions on the parameters of the potential and the angular momentum m. These potentials are taken as the screened Coulomb potential V(r)=a/r+b/(r+), the singular one-fraction power one V(r)=ar ^–1/2+br ^–3/2 and the singular two-fraction one V(r)=ar ^2/3+br ^–2/3+cr ^–4/3. The latter one is found that the hidden symmetry exists if substituting r–ir. It will reverse the signs of E and c of quantum system, leaving the remaining parameters invariant.