Fluid dynamics: an emerging route for the scalable production of graphene in the last five years

Bulk applications of graphene in fields such as advanced composites, conductive ink, and energy storage require cheap and scalable graphene. Fortunately, in the last decade, liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite to give pristine graphene has been thought as a promising way to massive production of graphene at high efficiency and low cost, in terms of the cheap and abundant graphite source and a variety of cost-effective exfoliation techniques. Though many exfoliation techniques are available so far, this article will highlight the recent progress of fluid dynamics route which emerges as a promising scalable and efficient way for graphene production in the last five years. The emphasis is set on vortex fluidic devices and pressure- and mixer-driven fluid dynamics, with our perspectives on the latest progress, exfoliation mechanism, and some key issues that require further study in order to realize industrial applications.Comment: 18 figure

Properties of the scalar mesons f0(1370)f_0(1370), f0(1500)f_0(1500) and f0(1710)f_0(1710)

In the three-state mixing framework, considering the possible glueball components of $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$, we investigate the hadronic decays of $f_0(1370)$, $f_0(1500)$ and $f_0(1710)$ into two pseudoscalar mesons. The quarkonia-glueball content of the three states is determined from the fit to the new data presented by the WA102 Collaboration. We find that these data are insensitive to the possible glueball components of $\eta$ and $\eta^\prime$. Furthermore, we discuss some properties of the mass matrix describing the mixing of the isoscalar scalar mesons.Comment: Latex 14 pages including 1 eps figur

Topological responses from chiral anomaly in multi-Weyl semimetals

Multi-Weyl semimetals are a kind of topological phase of matter with discrete Weyl nodes characterized by multiple monopole charges, in which the chiral anomaly, the anomalous nonconservation of an axial current, occurs in the presence of electric and magnetic fields. Electronic transport properties related to the chiral anomaly in the presence of both electromagnetic fields and axial electromagnetic fields in multi-Weyl semimetals are systematically studied. It has been found that the anomalous Hall conductivity has a modification linear in the axial vector potential from inhomogeneous strains. The axial electric field leads to an axial Hall current that is proportional to the distance of Weyl nodes in momentum space. This axial current may generate chirality accumulation of Weyl fermions through delicately engineering the axial electromagnetic fields even in the absence of external electromagnetic fields. Therefore, this work provides a nonmagnetic mechanism of generation of chirality accumulation in Weyl semimetals and might shed new light on the application of Weyl semimetals in the emerging field of valleytronics.Comment: 13 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures, accepted by Physical Review

Renormalization Group Approach to Stability of Two-dimensional Interacting Type-II Dirac Fermions

The type-II Weyl/Dirac fermions are a generalization of conventional or type-I Weyl/Dirac fermions, whose conic spectrum is tilted such that the Fermi surface becomes lines in two dimensions, and surface in three dimensions rather than discrete points of the conventional Weyl/Dirac fermions. The mass-independent renormalization group calculations show that the tilting parameter decreases monotonically with respect to the length scale, which leads to a transition from two dimensional type-II Weyl/Dirac fermions to the type-I ones. Because of the non-trivial Fermi surface, a photon gains a finite mass partially via the chiral anomaly, leading to the strong screening effect of the Weyl/Dirac fermions. Consequently, anisotropic type-II Dirac semimetals become stable against the Coulomb interaction. This work provides deep insight into the interplay between the geometry of Fermi surface and the Coulomb interaction.Comment: Final pulished versio

C-E Translation of Jiang Zilong’s Short Story Mr. Big on the Basis of Functional Equivalence Theory

In recent years, an increasing amount of excellent foreign novels and short stories are translated and introduced into China while limited Chinese short stories are presented overseas. This paper, on the basis of Nida’s functional equivalence theory, analyzes and reviews the translated version of the short story “Mr. Big” written by Jiang Zilong through the application of functional equivalence theory from lexical and syntactic level. The translator, with the target language reader at the core, fully comprehends the original text, emotions, style, and mood of the short story, and appropriately uses various translation methods, such as transliteration with annotation and literal translation for translating culture-loaded words; literal translation, liberal translation, supplementary translation, divided translation, adapted translation, conversed translation, etc. to faithfully reproduce the original content and artistic style of the original work, and achieve functional equivalence. This paper is supposed to enhance the foreign understanding of Jiang Zilong’s short story and to provide reference and inspirations for Chinese-English translation of novels and short stories

Overcoming Tumor Drug Resistance By Activating Amp-Activated Protein Kinase And Destabilizing Oncoproteins

Although considerable progress has been achieved in the field of cancer therapeutics, primary or acquired drug resistance remains a fundamental cause of therapeutic failure in cancer therapy. Among different mechanisms characterized that are responsible for tumor drug resistance, there is increasing evidence suggesting that dysregulation of gene expression, especially oncogene or tumor suppressor gene expression, at either gene transcription or protein synthesis level, can contribute to the drug-resistant phenotype. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a well-known major cellular energy sensor, which negatively regulates metabolic pathways such as protein synthesis, fatty acid oxidation and glucose consumption. Activation of AMPK may suppress metabolic activities that are in favor of assisting tumor cell growth and resistance to various anti-tumor drugs. Along this line, I hypothesized that activation of AMPK signaling could help overcoming tumor drug resistance. The data presented in this dissertation strongly support this hypothesis. The hypothesis was investigated in two different types of cancers with resistance to two different types of drugs. The first model system I used to test my hypothesis is prostate cancer cell models. By using androgen-dependent, androgen receptor (AR)-positive LNCaP cell line and its androgen-independent, AR-positive derivative C4-2B cell line, I found that both cell lines responded to pharmacological AMPK activator metformin, regardless of their androgen dependency. Activation of AMPK by metformin caused AR protein level decrease through suppression of AR mRNA expression and promotion of AR protein degradation. On the other hand, I found that AR is an inhibitor of AMPK signaling-mediated growth suppression and cell death in prostate cancer cells. These findings suggest that combination of AR inhibition therapy with metformin or other AMPK activators may benefit the therapeutic outcome of AR-positive prostate cancer. The hypothesis has also been studied in multiple myeloma cell models in which paired parental bortezomib-sensitive multiple myeloma cells and their bortezomib-resistant counterparts generated by chronic drug exposure were used. In this study, I found that paired bortezomib-sensitive and -resistant multiple myeloma cells were about equally sensitive to AMPK activators metformin and AICAR. Although carfilzomib is developed as next-generation proteasome inhibitor to overcome bortezomib resistance; the two bortezomib-resistant multiple myeloma cell lines tested in this study exhibited cross-resistance to carfilzomib. I also found that AMPK signaling is suppressed in bortezomib-resistant multiple myeloma cells and that the suppressed AMPK signaling can be elevated by challenging with an AMPK activator. Finally, I found that AMPK activators were able to overcome not only resistance to bortezomib but also cross-resistance to carfilzomib in bortezomib-resistant multiple myeloma cells. These findings support the further investigation of AMPK signaling in multiple myeloma patient samples and in vivo evaluation of metformin use in multiple myeloma mouse models. Originating from the observation that decrease of AR protein level is a critical step for apoptosis induction in prostate cancer cells, I studied the strategy of destabilizing Bcr-Abl oncoprotein in the scenario of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Bcr-Abl is crucial for the pathogenesis of CML by acting as a proliferation activator and apoptosis suppressor. Our laboratory has previously shown that some proteasome inhibitors can efficiently reduce Bcr-Abl protein level. In my study, I examined the effect of celastrol, a natural product with potent proteasome inhibitory activity, on destabilizing Bcr-Abl protein, and explored the potential combination therapies for Bcr-Abl-driven leukemia. I found that (i) celastrol induced apoptosis and Bcr-Abl degradation in a time-dependent manner; (ii) celastrol-induced apoptosis was not blocked by newly synthesized Bcr-Abl protein once the cells were committed; and (iii) celastrol-induced Bcr-Abl degradation and apoptosis were not prevented by selected protease inhibitors or their mixture under the selected experimental conditions. These findings shed light on the mechanism how celastrol inhibits Bcr-Abl protein expression/function and provide support for the potential application of celastrol in the CML treatment. Taken together, the studies presented in this dissertation will definitely help elucidating the role of AMPK signaling in cancer cells and promote the development of alternative strategies against drug resistance

C-E Translation Practice of the Chapter “Maritime Silk Road of the Indian Ocean” of the Book The Silk Road

The Silk Road written and edited by Professor Liu Yingsheng introduces the origin, rise and decline of the Silk Road and its unique status in world history. Through describing the evolution of the Silk Road and history and geography of countries along the route, this work reproduces the prosperity of the Silk Road at a time dated back to thousands of years ago. The chapter “Maritime Silk Road of the Indian Ocean” excerpted from the book describes intense cultural exchanges between ancient China and India, presenting hard evidence of strong ties between these two civilizations. This paper starts with brief introductions to source text analysis and translation preparations including pre-translation, while-translation and post-translation proofreading are then exemplified. Translation difficulties such as translation of proper names, specifically names of places and nations and of books and translation of classical Chinese are analyzed with examples and solutions proposed for reference