Flexible,Stretchable, and Rechargeable Fiber‐Shaped Zinc–Air Battery Based on Cross‐Stacked Carbon Nanotube Sheets

The fabrication of flexible, stretchable and rechargeable devices with a high energy density is critical for next‐generation electronics. Herein, fiber‐shaped Zn–air batteries, are realized for the first time by designing aligned, cross‐stacked and porous carbon nanotube sheets simultaneously that behave as a gas diffusion layer, a catalyst layer, and a current collector. The combined remarkable electronic and mechanical properties of the aligned carbon nanotube sheets endow good electrochemical properties. They display excellent discharge and charge performances at a high current density of 2 A g^?1. They are also flexible and stretchable, which is particularly promising to power portable and wearable electronic devices.     

Multidimensional persistence in biomolecular data

Persistent homology has emerged as a popular technique for the topological simplification of big data, including biomolecular data. Multidimensional persistence bears considerable promise to bridge the gap between geometry and topology. However, its practical and robust construction has been a challenge. We introduce two families of multidimensional persistence, namely pseudomultidimensional persistence and multiscale multidimensional persistence. The former is generated via the repeated applications of persistent homology filtration to high‐dimensional data, such as results from molecular dynamics or partial differential equations. The latter is constructed via isotropic and anisotropic scales that create new simiplicial complexes and associated topological spaces. The utility, robustness, and efficiency of the proposed topological methods are demonstrated via protein folding, protein flexibility analysis, the topological denoising of cryoelectron microscopy data, and the scale dependence of nanoparticles. Topological transition between partial folded and unfolded proteins has been observed in multidimensional persistence. The separation between noise topological signatures and molecular topological fingerprints is achieved by the Laplace–Beltrami flow. The multiscale multidimensional persistent homology reveals relative local features in Betti‐0 invariants and the relatively global characteristics of Betti‐1 and Betti‐2 invariants. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

接触问题的非线性互补－接触柔度法

基于势能互补原理，不引入额外松弛变量，对库仑摩擦定律未做预先线性化近似，提出了三维弹性摩擦接触问题的非线性互补－接触柔度法，收敛性和收敛速率得到了严格理论保证。数值实验结果表明方法可靠、有效、低存储量、高精度     

关于精确结构静力重分析法的注记

结构重分析是与结构优化设计紧密相关的分析环节。位移约束条件、载荷与单元刚度矩阵可修改的精确结构静力重分析是较新的一种方法，文献[1,2]提出其结构静力重分析的列式，这一重分析方法被多篇综述文章引用。本文从另一角度推导结构修改的基本方程，并给出广义柔度矩阵的简便可行算法，推导过程简单明了，力学意义明显。     

构造杂交应力单元的柔度矩阵H对角化方法

证明了杂交元柔度矩阵 H非奇异的充分必要条件是假设应力模式线性无关 ;以及等价应力模式形成相同的杂交元。在此基础上建立了假设应力模式的 Hilbert子空间 ,从而可以利用 Schmidt方法简单地得到等价的正交应力模式 ,实现了柔度矩阵 H对角化 ,使得杂交元形成过程中完全避免了繁杂的矩阵求逆运算 ,提高了杂交元分析的计算效率 ,特别在柔度矩阵不容易显式求逆的材料非线性分析中更具有实际意义     

Evaluation of healthy and sensory indexes of sweetened beverages using an electronic tongue

Overconsumption of sugar-sweetened beverages may increase the risk of health problems and so, the evaluation of their glycemic load and fructose-intolerance level is essential since it may allow establishing possible relations between physiologic effects of sugar-rich beverages and health. In this work, an electronic tongue was used to accurately classify beverages according to glycemic load (low, medium or high load) as well to their adequacy for people suffering from fructose malabsorption syndrome (tolerable or not): 100% of correct classifications (leave-one-out cross-validation) using linear discriminant models based on potentiomentric signals selected by a meta-heuristic simulated annealing algorithm. These results may be partially explained by the electronic tongue’s capability to mimic the human sweetness perception and total acid flavor of beverages, which can be related with glycemic load and fructose-intolerance index. Finally, the E-tongue was also applied to quantify, accurately, healthy and sensory indexes using multiple linear regression models (leave-one-out cross-validation: R_adj > 0.99) in the following dynamic ranges: 4.7 < glycemic load ≤ 30; 0.4 < fructose intolerance index ≤ 1.5; 32 < sweetness perception < 155; 1.3 < total acid flavor, g L⁻¹ < 8.3; and, 5.8 < well-balanced flavor ≤ 74. So, the proposed electronic tongue could be used as a practical, fast, low-cost and green tool for beverage’s healthy and sensory evaluation.     

Spectrophotometric flow injection monitoring of sulfide during sugar fermentation

A spectrophotometric flow injection procedure involving N,N-dimethyl-p-phenylenediamine (DMPD) is applied to the sulfide monitoring of a sugar fermentation by Saccharomyces cerevisiae under laboratory conditions. The gaseous chemical species evolving from the fermentative process, mainly CO₂, are trapped allowing a cleaned sample aliquot to be collected and introduced into the flow injection analyzer. Measurement rate, signal repeatability, detection limit and reagent consumption per measurement were estimated as 150 h⁻¹, 0.36% (n = 20), 0.014 mg L⁻¹ S and 120 μg DMPD, respectively. The main characteristics of the monitoring record are discussed. The strategy is worthwhile for selecting yeast strain, increasing the industrial ethanol production and improving the quality of wines.     

Hydration forces between bilayers in the presence of dissolved or surface-linked sugars

We analyse the experimental evidence of the hydration force near phospholipid bilayers when the “solvent” is a solution of carbohydrates. Two cases must be clearly distinguished: when sugar is dissolved, depletion causes a supplementary attractive force, while in the case of sugar linked to the lipid the contact pressure increases by orders of magnitude. Attractive interaction inferred between bilayers is sometimes derived from indirect evidence, i.e. scattering, attraction between layers adsorbed, shape of phase boundary limits, and without the simultaneous determination of the osmotic compressibility. Generally, water molecules in the first hydration shell of sugar compete with water molecules bound (by more than one kT in free energy) to lipid head-groups. A general result is that the decay length of any repulsive effect remains close to 0.2 nm, even in concentrated sugar solutions. A tentative general explanation of this experimental fact is given together with consequences, such as the possibility of several types of critical points appearing in bilayer stacks. Decay length as well as effective contact pressure is considered with respect to carbohydrate activity.     

Exploring main obstacles of inflexibility in mathematics teachers’ behaviour in accepting new ideas: the case of equivalence between infinite sets

This article seeks to explore the most important obstacles of inflexibility in mathematics teachers’ behaviour in accepting new ideas, especially, while encountering a new situation. In so doing, the concept of equivalence between infinite sets, which is one of the challenging issues in mathematics teaching and learning, was selected as the subject matter of the study. The participants of the study were 64 high-school mathematics teachers. To collect the data, they were exposed to a challenging new situation involving equivalence between infinite sets. Then they were interviewed regarding the decisions they had made. The analysis of the data revealed that the main obstacles to accepting new ideas by mathematics teachers were preference to well-known procedures and tendency to work with methods with a more general extensive domain of the function. In addition, while the spirit of the article seems to imply that teachers are not flexible, in terms of accepting a new method, the data on teacher choices highlighted the positive results of teacher flexibility.     

Syntheses of Chiral Acyclic Natural Products from Sugar

The syntheses of several biologically interesting acyclic natural products such as LTA, 1, LTB₄ 8, mosquito oviposition attractant pheromone 46 and cytotoxic annonaceous acetogenin corossolone 57 and corossoline 58 from sugars in our laboratory are reviewed.