Simultaneous qualitative and quantitative analysis of flavonoids and alkaloids from the leaves of Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. using high‐performance liquid chromatography with quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry

A reliable method, combining qualitative analysis by high‐performance liquid chromatography coupled with quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry and quantitative assessment by high‐performance liquid chromatography with photodiode array detection, has been developed to simultaneously analyze flavonoids and alkaloids in lotus leaf extracts. In the qualitative analysis, a total of 30 compounds, including 12 flavonoids, 16 alkaloids, and two proanthocyanidins, were identified. The fragmentation behaviors of four types of flavone glycoside and three types of alkaloid are summarized. The mass spectra of four representative components, quercetin 3‐O‐glucuronide, norcoclaurine, nuciferine, and neferine, are shown to illustrate their fragmentation pathways. Five pairs of isomers were detected and three of them were distinguished by comparing the elution order with reference substances and the mass spectrometry data with reported data. In the quantitative analysis, 30 lotus leaf samples from different regions were analyzed to investigate the proportion of eight representative compounds. Quercetin 3‐O‐glucuronide was found to be the predominant constituent of lotus leaf extracts. For further discrimination among the samples, hierarchical cluster analysis, and principal component analysis, based on the areas of the eight quantitative peaks, were carried out.     

Investigation on the relationship between leaf water use efficiency and physio-biochemical traits of winter wheat under rained condition

Different statistical methods and path analysis were used to study the relationship between leaf water use efficiency (WUE) and physio-biochemical traits for 19 wheat genotypes, including photosynthesis rate (P_n), stomatal conductance (g_s), transpiration rate (T_r), intercellular concentration of carbon oxide (C_i), leaf water potential (Ψ_w), leaf temperature, wax content, leaf relative water content (RWC), rate of water loss from excised-leaf (RWL), peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities. The results showed that photosynthesis rate, stomatal conductance and transpiration rate were the most important leaf WUE variables under rainfed conditions. Based on the results of five statistical analyses, it is reasonable to assume that high leaf WUE wheat under the rained could be obtained by selecting breeding materials with high photosynthesis rate, low transpiration rate and stomatal conductance.     

Toward Superhydrophobic Polydimethylsiloxane−Silica Particle Coatings

Hydrophobized silica nanoparticles of different sizes, from 16 to 500 nm, were used to impart roughness to a hydrophobic polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) coating with the aim of obtaining superhydrophobic properties. The particle silanization process and the curing process of the PDMS coating were optimized to increase the contact angle (CA) of the particle containing coating. The evaluation of the coatings, by means of water CA measurements and scanning electron microscopy imaging, shows that superhydrophobicity in the adhesive rose state was achieved using combinations of two differently sized particles, with an excess of the small 16 nm ones. Superhydrophobicity in the lotus state was obtained when the filler concentration of 16 nm particles was 40 wt%, but under such conditions the coating was found to partially crack, which is detrimental in barrier applications. The preference for the rose wetting state can be explained by the round shape of the particles, which promotes the superhydrophobic rose wetting state over that of the superhydrophobic lotus state.     

监测小麦叶片氮积累量的新高光谱特征波段及比值植被指数

实时、快速、无损监测作物氮素状况对于精确氮肥管理具有重要意义。传统的氮素估测方法在时间或空间上难以满足要求,新兴的高光谱遥感技术为作物氮素监测提供了有效手段和技术途径。本研究的目的是基于三个田间试验的系统观测资料,探索可用于小麦叶片氮素监测的新的高光谱敏感波段及比值指数。利用减量精细采样法,系统构建了350～2 500 nm范围内所有两两波段形成的比值光谱指数RSI(ratio spectral index),综合分析了小麦叶片氮积累量LNA(leaf nitrogen accumulation)(g N·m-2)与RSI的定量关系,发现了监测叶片氮积累量的新高光谱特征波段(990, 720)和光谱指数RSI(990, 720),建立了相应的监测模型y=5.095x-6.040,模型的决定系数(R2)为0.814。利用独立试验资料检验模型,决定系数(R2)为0.847,相对根均方差(RRMSE)为24.70%,表明模型预测值与观察值之间的符合度较高。因此,利用高光谱比值指数RSI(990, 720)来估算小麦叶片氮积累量是精确可行的。该结果为便携式小麦氮素监测仪的研制开发及遥感信息的快速提取提供了适用可行的波段选择与技术依据。     

Simultaneous qualitative assessment and quantitative analysis of flavonoids in various tissues of lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quad mass spectrometry

Flavonoid composition and concentration were investigated in 12 different tissues of ‘Ti-1’ lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) by high performance liquid chromatography equipped with photodiode array detection tandem electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HPLC-DAD-ESI-MSⁿ). A total of 20 flavonoids belonging to six groups (myricetin, quercetin, kaempferol, isohamnetin, diosmetin derivatives) were separated and identified. Myricetin 3-O-galactoside, myricetin 3-O-glucuronide, isorhamnetin 3-O-glucuronide and free aglycone diometin (3′,5,7-trihydroxy-4′-methoxyflavone) were first reported in lotus. Flavonoid composition varied largely with tissue type, and diverse compounds (5–15) were found in leaf and flower stalks, flower pistils, seed coats and embryos. Flower tissues including flower petals, stamens, pistils, and, especially, reproductive tissue fruit coats had more flavonoid compounds (15–17) than leaves (12), while no flavonoids were detectable in seed kernels. The flavonoid content of seed embryos was high, 730.95 mg 100 g⁻¹ DW (dry weight). As regards the other tissues, mature leaf pulp (771.79 mg 100 g⁻¹ FW (fresh weight)) and young leaves (650.67 mg 100 g⁻¹ FW) had higher total flavonoid amount than flower stamens (359.45 mg 100 g⁻¹ FW) and flower petals (342.97 mg 100 g⁻¹ FW), while leaf stalks, flower stalks and seed coats had much less total flavonoid (less than 40 mg 100 g⁻¹ FW).     

Application of ionic liquids based microwave-assisted extraction of three alkaloids N-nornuciferine, O-nornuciferine, and nuciferine from lotus leaf

The application of ionic liquids based microwave-assisted extraction (ILMAE) was successfully developed for extracting three alkaloids N-nornuciferine, O-nornuciferine, and nuciferine from lotus leaf. Seven kinds of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium with different cations and anions were investigated in this work and 1.0 M 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide ([C₆MIM]Br) solution was selected as solvent. In addition, the microwave parameters including irradiation power, extraction time and solid-liquid ratio were optimized. Compared with the regular MAE and conventional heat-reflux extraction (HRE), the proposed approach exhibited higher efficiency (0.9-43.7% enhanced) and shorter extraction time (from 2 h to 2 min), which indicated ILMAE was an efficient, rapid and simple sample preparation technique. Moreover, the proposed method was validated by the linearity, reproducibility, and recovery experiments. Good linearity was observed with the regression coefficients (r²) between 0.9998 and 0.9999. The recoveries of all methods were in the range of 94.6% and 105.5% with RSD lower than 6.6%, which indicated that the proposed method was credible.     

Superhydrophobic wind turbine blade surfaces obtained by a simple deposition of silica nanoparticles embedded in epoxy

Samples of wind turbine blade surface have been covered with a superhydrophobic coating made of silica nanoparticles embedded in commercial epoxy paint. The superhydrophobic surfaces have a water contact angle around 152°, a hysteresis less than 2° and a water drop sliding angle around 0.5°. These surfaces are water repellent so that water drops cannot remain motionless on the surface. Examination of coated and uncoated surfaces with scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy, together with measurements of water contact angles, indicates that the air trapped in the cavity enhances the water repellency similarly to the lotus leaf effect. Moreover, this new coating is stable under UVC irradiation and water pouring. The production of this nanoscale coating film being simple and low cost, it can be considered as a suitable candidate for water protection of different outdoor structures.     

Some remarks about leaf roots

Nishimura et al. [On graph powers for leaf-labeled trees, J. Algorithms 42 (2002) 69-108] define a k-leaf root of a graph G=(V_G,E_G) as a tree T=(V_T,E_T) such that the vertices of G are exactly the leaves of T and two vertices in V_G are adjacent in G if and only if their distance in T is at most k. Solving a problem posed by Niedermeier [Personal communication, May 2004] we give a structural characterization of the graphs that have a 4-leaf root. Furthermore, we show that the graphs that have a 3-leaf root are essentially the trees, which simplifies a characterization due to Dom et al. [Error compensation in leaf power problems, Algorithmica 44 (2006) 363-381. (A preliminary version appeared under the title “Error compensation in leaf root problems”, in: Proceedings of the 15th Annual International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2004), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3341, pp. 389-401)] and also a related recognition algorithm due to Nishimura et al. [On graph powers for leaf-labeled trees, J. Algorithms 42 (2002) 69-108].     

Some new leaf normal-angle distribution models and their influence on geometry functions and area scattering phase functions related to radiative transfer problems in vegetative canopies

This note is devoted to the study of some new analytic leaf angle distribution models by a linear combination of idealized models primarily developed to study realistic light scattering processes for radiative transfer in a vegetative canopy medium.     

融合冠层水分特征的光谱参数NCVI及反演玉米LAI

精确反演农作物冠层叶面积指数对指导作物管理和作物估产具有非常重要的意义。以吉林市郊区玉米种植区为试点,考虑冠层叶片水分含量对LAI的贡献,在NDVI的基础上结合表征冠层叶片水分含量的植被指数DSWI,提出一种归一化综合植被指数NCVI,以此建立模型反演LAI,并对模型进行检验。结果表明:NCVI模型反演LAI值与实测值之间存在良好的对应关系,此模型突破了传统经验模型对稠密冠层LAI反演的局限,对LAI值大于3的冠层反演效果良好;另外,NCVI模型对土壤水环境十分敏感,在干旱半干旱地区的反演效果明显优于一般区域。