Alumina and Hafnia ALD Layers for a Niobium-Doped Titanium Oxide Photoanode

Niobium-doped titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles were used as a photoanode in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). They showed a high photocurrent density due to their higher conductivity; however, a low open-circuit voltage was exhibited due to the back-reaction of photogenerated electrons. Atomic layer deposition is a useful technique to form a conformal ultrathin layer of Al2O3 and HfO, which act as an energy barrier to suppress the back electrons from reaching the redox medium. This resulted in an increase of the open-circuit voltage and therefore led to higher performance. HfO showed an improvement of the light-to-current conversion efficiency by 74%, higher than the 21% enhancement obtained by utilizing Al2O3 layers

Acute, Multiple-Dose Dermal and Genetic Toxicity of Nu-3: A Novel Antimicrobial Agent

Nu-3 [butyl-phosphate-5′-thymidine-3′-phosphate-butyl] is a modified nucleotide that has been shown to have antimicrobial activity against a range of bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa. However, data on the toxicological profile of Nu-3 are still lacking. In the present study, the toxicity of Nu-3 was evaluated by the following studies: acute oral toxicity, dermal and mucous membrane irritation, multiple-dose toxicity and genotoxicity in vivo and vitro. The acute oral toxicity test in mice showed that Nu-3 had an LD50 of 2001mg/kg body weight. The irritation tests on rats revealed that Nu-3 was not irritant, with an irritation scoring of 0. The multiple-dose toxicity study in rats showed that Nu-3 did not cause significant changes in histology, selected serum chemistry, and hematological parameters compared to the controls. Rats administrated with multiple-doses of Nu-3 showed no visible toxic symptoms. Both in vitro and in vivo, Nu-3 exhibited no notable genetic toxicity. Overall, the data suggest that Nu-3 is hypotoxic or nontoxic antimicrobial compound that warrants being further developed for treating Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection

Creative design inspired by biological knowledge: Technologies and methods

Biological knowledge is becoming an important source of inspiration for developing creative solutions to engineering design problems and even has a huge potential in formulating ideas that can help firms compete successfully in a dynamic market. To identify the technologies and methods that can facilitate the development of biologically inspired creative designs, this research briefly reviews the existing biological-knowledge-based theories and methods and examines the application of biological-knowledge-inspired designs in various fields. Afterward, this research thoroughly examines the four dimensions of key technologies that underlie the biologically inspired design (BID) process. This research then discusses the future development trends of the BID process before presenting the conclusions

Axiom-based Potential Functional Failure Analysis for Risk-free Design

Abstract. Quality and reliability of product is not established completely in detail design process, but is brought out essentially in the course of conceptual design. A potential functional failure analysis method to improve reliability of product based on design axiom in the stage of conceptual design was introduced in this paper. This method provided designers with an analytical and non-probabilistic tool to evaluate the result of conceptual design from the opinion of design axioms. Functional failure modes can be identified by function analysis based on the ideality axiom, the independence axiom and the information axiom. These potential functional failures point out working direction for the latter improving design. A speedy cutting off valve in the TRT (Top Gas Pressure Recovery Turbine) system is studied as an example to illustrate this method's potential

IMPACT OF THE MORPHOLOGY OF TiO 2 FILMS AS CATHODE BUFFER LAYER ON THE EFFICIENCY OF INVERTED-STRUCTURE POLYMER SOLAR CELLS

Semiconducting metal-oxide TiO 2 films were deposited on FTO substrates via a sol-gel method to fabricate inverted polymer solar cells. The pore size of the TiO 2 films was effectively controlled by using the sols different in stirring time. The solar cell was constructed with a fullerene derivative interlayer and a photoactive mixture of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) coated on the TiO 2 films, which were purposely fabricated to have different porosity, referred as dense film, mesoporous film, and macroporous film in this paper. The highest efficiency, ~3.4%, was achieved on the cell with mesoporous film as the cathode buffer layer. It was proposed that, compared with the case of dense film, the mesoporous film leading to power conversion efficiency enhancement resulted from the efficient charge separation introduced by increasing the interface area between an active layer and metal oxide films and thus lowering the recombination rate happened to the excited electrons with holes in the polymer. The cell with macroporous film showing a much low efficiency is attributed to electron trapping during the transport in large grains, leading to lowly efficient electron collection

Mesenchymal stromal cells pretreated with pro‐inflammatory cytokines promote skin wound healing through VEGFC ‐mediated angiogenesis

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Extracellular Proteome Analysis and Flavor Formation During Soy Sauce Fermentation

Aspergillus oryzae is an excellent strain for soy sauce fermentation because of its complicated enzyme system, especially protease. The aim of this study was to investigate the key enzymes and flavors during soy sauce fermentation, and a comparative assessment of extracellular enzymes during various fermentation stages at the proteomic level via iTRAQ analysis is presented. Many important enzymes related to the amino acid and glucose metabolisms participated in the material decomposition under high-salt stress. Dipeptidase, dipeptidyl aminopeptidase, leucine aminopeptidase, aspartic protease pep1, and extracellular metalloproteinase played positive roles during the early stage of soybean mash fermentation, whilst leucine aminopeptidase A and extracellular metalloproteinase NpI were the dominant proteolytic enzymes during the later period of fermentation. At the same time, β-glucosidase and β-xylanase exerted great effects upon glucose metabolism throughout the fermentation process. The results show that protease and amylolytic enzymes are complementary in the formation of flavors such as alcohols, acids, esters, aldehydes, furans, and pyrazines during soy sauce fermentation

Microporous Silica Prepared by Organic Templating: Relationship Between the Molecular Template and Pore Structure

Microporous silica materials with a controlled pore size and a narrow pore size distribution have been prepared by sol-gel processing using an organic-templating approach. Microporous networks were formed by pyrolytic removal of organic ligands (methacryloxypropyl groups) from organic/inorganic hybrid materials synthesized by copolymerization of 3-methacryloxypropylsilane (MPS) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS). Molecular simulations and experimental measurements were conducted to examine the relationship between the microstructural characteristics of the porous silica (e.g., pore size, total pore volume, and pore connectivity) and the size and amount of organic template ligands added. Adsorption measurements suggest that the final porosity of the microporous silica is due to both primary pores (those present in the hybrid materials prior to pyrolysis) and secondary pores (those created by pyrolytic removal of organic templates). Primary pores were inaccessible to N{sub 2} at 77 K but accessible to CO{sub 2} at 195 K; secondary pores were accessible to both N{sub 2} (at 77 K) and CO{sub 2} (at 195 K) in adsorption measurements. Primary porosity decreases with the amount of organic ligands added because of the enhanced densification of MPS/TEOS hybrid materials as the mole fraction of trifunctional MPS moieties increases. pore volumes measured by nitrogen adsorption experiments at 77 K suggest that the secondary (template-derived) porosity exhibits a percolation behavior as the template concentration is increased. Gas permeation experiments indicate that the secondary pores are approximately 5 {angstrom} in diameter, consistent with predictions based on molecular simulations

Molecular landscape and clinical significance of exon 11 mutations in KIT gene among patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumor: a retrospective exploratory study

ObjectiveThis aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic significance of KIT exon 11 mutation subtypes in patients with GISTs.MethodsA total of 233 consecutive patients diagnosed with GISTs at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from January 2013 to August 2018 were included in this study. The prevalence and mutation landscape of exon 11 in KIT was presented. The clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis among the different mutation subtypes were analyzed. All the statistical analyses were performed by SPSS22.0.ResultsSomatic mutational analysis indicated that point mutations were the most frequently detected mutations followed by deletions & compound mutations and insertion and tandem duplication mutations in the stomach. Point mutations showed a low mitotic count and a high risk of recurrence, and deletions and compound mutations have a high mitotic count while insertions and tandem duplication mutations showed a low mitotic count with an intermediate recurrence risk. Point mutations and deletions frequently occurred in sequence region codons 550-560 of exon 11, while compound mutations, insertion, and tandem duplication were mainly detected in codons 557-559, 572-580, and 577-581, respectively. The multi-variation analysis demonstrated that tumor diameter and high recurrence risk groups had worse prognostic values. However, mutation types were not significant predictors of relapse-free survival (RFS) in GISTs. Survival analysis suggested no significant difference in RFS between the 557/558 deletion and the other deletions.ConclusionThis study suggested that mutations in exon 11 of the KIT gene were common with intermediate/high recurrence risk in GISTs patients. Tumor diameter ≥5 cm, and deletions mutations might predict a worse prognosis