“能源化学”本科专业建设建议

"Energy chemistry" was approved as one of the chemistry majors for undergraduate by the Ministry of Education in 2015. Based on the ideas and ways of emerging engineering education, this paper hereby proposed some of constructive suggestions on the training objectives, graduation requirements, curriculum system, teaching contents, teaching staff and conditions for development of "energy chemistry" major.     

面向化妆品产业升级的江南大学应用化学专业建设思考与实践

Based on the development prospect of cosmetics industry, the advantage of light industry characteristic and the foundation of applied chemistry in Jiangnan University, a systematic upgrading of applied chemistry was carried out through "emerging engineering education (3E)" project "upgrade and practice of chemistry-related majors of local and/or trade university responding to the social developments" supported by the Ministry of Education. On the basis of investigation and analysis, the orientation and training goal of applied chemistry were updated first, and then the curriculum system was determined and the curriculum construction is strengthened, so as to achieve more distinctive characteristics, more solid foundation and more comprehensive quality. In view of the new requirements of the 3E for talent training, some practices have been formed in the aspects of multi-disciplinary integration, multi-angle coordination and close integration to industry. Contributing the development of cosmetics industry and seizing the commanding point of science and technology from the perspective of talent training, will play a unique role in human social progress.     

新工科视阈下石油化工类高校应用化学专业课程体系重构

Taking a typical local and industry-orientated applied chemistry major as an example with focusing on the major changes in the form and content of the petrochemical industry, the way to reform the core curriculum system and teaching contents is presented. Based on the changing tendency of refinement of the petrochemical industry, a complete curriculum system with distinctive industry characteristics is set up according to the principles of the emerging engineering education (3E) with several reasonable suggestions. A new model for the construction of a 3E major in chemistry-related majors is suggested. It is a good reference for the construction of curriculum systems for other local and industry-orientated colleges who want to make 3E reform.     

从能源产业发展和人才需求浅谈“能源化学”新工科改造

Based on building emerging engineering education of "energy chemistry", we investigated the state key petro-chemical enterprises according to the industrial development and the demand of professional talents. The research report summarizes, analyzes and discusses the current priority development fields of industry, the talent training status, curriculum structure and education program of the chemistry and chemical engineering in universities. The ideas on emerging engineering education of "energy chemistry" have been proposed, and it will be beneficial to building a novel education program for talents training, which integrates the principle of chemistry, energy conversion and information science, etc.     

Multiresidue determination of UV filters in water samples by solid‐phase extraction and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry analysis

UV filters, contained in sunscreens and other cosmetic products, as well as in some plastics and industrial products, are nowadays considered contaminants of emerging concern because their widespread and increasing use has lead to their presence in the environment. Furthermore, some UV filters are suspected to have endocrine disruption activity. In the present work, we developed an analytical method based on liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of UV filters in tap and lake waters. Sixteen UV filters were extracted from water samples by solid‐phase extraction employing graphitized carbon black as adsorbent material. Handling 200 mL of water sample, satisfactory recoveries were obtained for almost all the analytes. The limits of detection and quantification of the method were comparable to those reported in other works, and ranged between 0.7–3.5 and 1.9–11.8 ng/L, respectively; however in our case the number of investigated compounds was larger. The major encountered problem in method development was to identify the background contamination sources and reduce their contribution. UV filters were not detected in tap water samples, whereas the analyses conducted on samples collected from three different lakes showed that the swimming areas are most subject to UV filter contamination.     

Trends in the monitoring of legacy and emerging organic pollutants in protected areas

Protected Areas (PAs) are locations for conservation, internationally recognized for their natural, ecological, and/or cultural values. Human presence in PAs is generally limited to minimal or banned exploitation of natural resources. However, different threats to PAs are evident as a result of short and long-range transport of organic pollutants of legacy and emerging concern. There has been a shift of interest in legacy pollutants such as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to emerging compounds, resulting in a need for improved monitoring strategies in PAs. Here, we highlight the main advances in environmental analytical chemistry for legacy and emerging pollution monitoring in PAs. Trends in sampling, sample preparation and instrumental determination of multiclass organic pollutants in biotic and abiotic matrices are presented and discussed. Here, we considered the most relevant and recent literature regarding organic pollutants in PAs from terrestrial to aquatic landscapes collected within 2015 to the present time frame.     

Trends in biosensing platforms for SARS-CoV-2 detection: A critical appraisal against standard detection tools

In this ongoing theme of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, highly sensitive analytical testing platforms are extremely necessary to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA and antiviral antibodies. To limit the viral spread, prompt and precise diagnosis is crucial to facilitate treatment and ensure effective isolation. Accurate detection of antibodies (IgG and IgM) is imperative to understand the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in public and to inspect the proportion of immune individuals. In this review, we demonstrate and evaluate some tests that have been used commonly to detect SARS-CoV-2. These include nucleic acid and serological tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and specific antibodies in infected people. Moreover, the vitality of biosensing technologies emphasizing on optical and electrochemical biosensors toward the detection of SARS-CoV-2 has also been discussed here. The early diagnosis of COVID-19 based on detection of reactive oxygen species overproduction because of virus-induced dysfunctioning of lung cells has also been highlighted.     

An analysis of cross-correlations in an emerging market

We apply random matrix theory to compare correlation matrix estimators C$C$ obtained from emerging market data. The correlation matrices are constructed from 10 years of daily data for stocks listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange (JSE) from January 1993 to December 2002. We test the spectral properties of C$C$ against random matrix predictions and find some agreement between the distributions of eigenvalues, nearest neighbour spacings, distributions of eigenvector components and the inverse participation ratios for eigenvectors. We show that interpolating both missing data and illiquid trading days with a zero-order hold increases agreement with RMT predictions. For the more realistic estimation of correlations in an emerging market, we suggest a pairwise measured-data correlation matrix. For the data set used, this approach suggests greater temporal stability for the leading eigenvectors. An interpretation of eigenvectors in terms of trading strategies is given, as opposed to classification by economic sectors.     

Operational risk: Emerging markets,sectors and measurement

The role of decision support systems in mitigating operational risks in firms is well established. However, there is a lack of investment in decision support systems in emerging markets, even though inadequate operational risk management is a key cause of discouraging external investment. This has also been exacerbated by insufficient understanding of operational risk in emerging markets, which can be attributed to past operational risk measurement techniques, limited studies on emerging markets and inadequate data.     

Wide-scope screening of polar contaminants of concern in water: A critical review of liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry-based strategies

The number of chemicals with potential to reach the environment is still largely unknown, which poses great challenges for both environmental scientists and analytical chemists. Liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) is currently the instrumentation of choice for identification of wide-scope polar chemicals of concern (CECs) in water. This review critically evaluates all steps involved in screening for polar CECs in water, including sampling and extraction, analysis by LC-HRMS, data (pre-)treatment, evaluation and reporting. Passive samplers and direct injection, in combination with LC-HRMS, provide new opportunities compared with conventional grab water sampling, as do instrumental advances such as ion-mobility spectrometry coupled to HRMS (IM-HRMS). In this paper, we argue that target, suspect and non-target screening should not be viewed as three separate principles, but rather as conceptual approaches to general data treatment strategies that can be linked together. Due to the large amount of data generated, smart prioritisation strategies are needed, in particular for non-target screening, to reduce complexity and focus on data of high interest. We critically evaluate existing strategies and consider that each prioritisation step will result in data loss (as any other step in a screening study), requiring compromises depending on the research question to be tackled. Many different data treatment strategies have been developed in recent years, but structure elucidation remains a challenging and time-consuming task. We discuss current and potential future trends, e.g. effect-based methods that can be used as future prioritisation tools, technological advances like IM-HRMS and improved software solutions that can enable new data treatment strategies.