Intestinal Microbiome-Metabolome Responses to Essential Oils in Piglets

This study investigated the effects of dietary essential oils (EOs) on intestinal microbial composition and metabolic profiles in weaned piglets. The piglets were fed the same basal diet supplemented with EOs (EO) or without EOs (Con) in the current study. The results showed that the body weight gain was significantly increased, while the diarrhea incidence was significantly reduced in the EO group. In addition, EOs could modify the intestinal microbial composition of weaned piglets. The relative abundances of some beneficial bacterial species such as Bacilli, Lactobacillales, Streptococcaceae, and Veillonellaceae were significantly increased in the EO group. Metabolomics analysis indicated that protein biosynthesis, amino acid metabolism, and lipid metabolism were enriched in the EO group. And correlation analysis demonstrated that some gut bacterial genera were highly correlated with altered gut microbiota-related metabolites. Taken together, this study indicated that dietary EOs not only altered microbial composition and function but modulated the microbial metabolic profiles in the colon, which might help us understand EOs’ beneficial effects on intestinal health of weaned piglets

Current separation and upwelling over the southeast shelf of Vietnam in the South China Sea

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 117 (2012): C03033, doi:10.1029/2011JC007150.The high-resolution, unstructured grid Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) was used to examine the physical mechanisms that cause current separation and upwelling over the southeast shelf of Vietnam in the South China Sea (SCS). Process-oriented experiments suggest that the southwesterly monsoon wind is a key physical mechanism for upwelling in that area but not a prerequisite to cause current separation. With no wind forcing, current separation in summer can occur as a result of the encounter of a southward along-shelf coastal current from the north and northeastward buoyancy-driven and stratified tidal-rectified currents from the southwest. The southward current can be traced upstream to the Hong River in the Gulf of Tonkin. This current is dominated by semigeostrophic dynamics and is mostly confined to the narrow shelf along the northern Vietnamese coast. The northeastward currents are generated by tidal rectification and are intensified by the Mekong River discharge and southwesterly monsoon wind forcing. The dynamics controlling this current are fully nonlinear, with significant contributions from advection and vertical turbulent mixing. Upwelling in the current separation zone can be produced by a spatially uniform constant wind field and can be explained using simple wind-induced Ekman transport theory. This finding differs from previous theory in which the regional dipole wind stress curl is claimed as a key mechanism for current separation and upwelling in this coastal region. Our SCS FVCOM, driven by the wind stress, river discharge, and tides, is capable of reproducing the location and tongue-like offshore distribution of temperature as those seen in satellite-derived sea surface temperature imagery.This work was supported by an Office of Naval Research grant through a subcontract from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The development of FVCOM was supported by the NSF Ocean Sciences Division through grants OCE-0234545, OCE-0227679, OCE-0606928, OCE-0712903, OCE- 0726851, and OCE-0814505; the NSF Office of Polar Programs-Arctic Sciences Division through grants ARC0712903, ARC0732084, and ARC0804029; MIT Sea Grant projects 2006-RC-103 and 2010-R/RC- 116; and the NOAA NERACOOS program for the UMASS Dartmouth team. C. Chen’s contribution is also supported by the Shanghai Ocean University International Cooperation Program (A-2302-11-0003), the Program of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (09320503700), the Leading Academic Discipline Project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (project J50702), and Zhi Jiang Scholar and 111 project funds of the State Key Laboratory for Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University. Z. Lai’s contribution is supported by the China MOST Project 2012CB956004 SYSU 985, grant 42000-3181302.2012-09-2

A finite volume numerical approach for coastal ocean circulation studies : comparisons with finite difference models

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 112 (2007): C03018, doi:10.1029/2006JC003485.An unstructured grid, finite volume, three-dimensional (3-D) primitive equation coastal ocean model (FVCOM) has been developed for the study of coastal ocean and estuarine circulation by Chen et al. (2003a). The finite volume method used in this model combines the advantage of finite element methods for geometric flexibility and finite difference methods for simple discrete computation. Currents, temperature, and salinity are computed using an integral form of the equations, which provides a better representation of the conservative laws for mass, momentum, and heat. Detailed comparisons are presented here of FVCOM simulations with analytical solutions and numerical simulations made with two popular finite difference models (the Princeton Ocean Model and Estuarine and Coastal Ocean Model (ECOM-si)) for the following idealized cases: wind-induced long-surface gravity waves in a circular lake, tidal resonance in rectangular and sector channels, freshwater discharge onto the continental shelf with curved and straight coastlines, and the thermal bottom boundary layer over the slope with steep bottom topography. With a better fit to the curvature of the coastline using unstructured nonoverlapping triangle grid cells, FVCOM provides improved numerical accuracy and correctly captures the physics of tide-, wind-, and buoyancy-induced waves and flows in the coastal ocean. This model is suitable for applications to estuaries, continental shelves, and regional basins that feature complex coastlines and bathymetry.This research was supported by the U.S. GLOBEC Northwest Atlantic/Georges Bank program through NSF grants OCE-0234545, OCE-0227679, NOAA grant NA 160P2323, and NSF CoOP grant OCE-0196543 to C. Chen and NSF OCE-0227679 and the WHOI Smith Chair to R. C. Beardsley. H. Huang and Q. Xu were supported by Chen’s Georgia and South Carolina Sea Grant awards NA06RG0029 and NA960P0113. G. Cowles was supported by the SMAST fishery program through NOAA grants DOC/NOAA/NA04NMF4720332 and DOC/NOAA/NA05NMF4721131

2023 roadmap for potassium-ion batteries

The heavy reliance of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) has caused rising concerns on the sustainability of lithium and transition metal and the ethic issue around mining practice. Developing alternative energy storage technologies beyond lithium has become a prominent slice of global energy research portfolio. The alternative technologies play a vital role in shaping the future landscape of energy storage, from electrified mobility to the efficient utilization of renewable energies and further to large-scale stationary energy storage. Potassium-ion batteries (PIBs) are a promising alternative given its chemical and economic benefits, making a strong competitor to LIBs and sodium-ion batteries for different applications. However, many are unknown regarding potassium storage processes in materials and how it differs from lithium and sodium and understanding of solid–liquid interfacial chemistry is massively insufficient in PIBs. Therefore, there remain outstanding issues to advance the commercial prospects of the PIB technology. This Roadmap highlights the up-to-date scientific and technological advances and the insights into solving challenging issues to accelerate the development of PIBs. We hope this Roadmap aids the wider PIB research community and provides a cross-referencing to other beyond lithium energy storage technologies in the fast-pacing research landscape

Tidal dynamics in the Gulf of Maine and New England Shelf : an application of FVCOM

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): C12010, doi:10.1029/2011JC007054.The unstructured-grid, Finite-Volume Community Ocean Model (FVCOM) was used to simulate the tides in the Gulf of Maine (GoM) and New England Shelf (NES) for homogeneous and summer stratified conditions. FVCOM captures the near-resonant nature of the semidiurnal tide and energy flux in the GoM and the complex dynamics governing the tide in the NES. Stratification has limited impact on tidal elevation, but can significantly modify the tidal current profile. Internal tides are energetic in the stratified regions over steep bottom topography, but their contribution to the total tidal energy flux is only significant over the northeast flank of Georges Bank. The model suggests that the tidal flushing-induced eddy east of Monomoy Island is the dynamic basis for the locally observed phase lead of the M2 tide. The southward propagating tidal wave east of Cape Cod encounters the northeastward propagating tidal wave from the NES south of Nantucket Island, forming a zone of minimum sea level along a southeast-oriented line from Nantucket Island. These two waves are characterized by linear dynamics in which bottom friction and advection are negligible in the momentum balance, but their superposition leads to a strong nonlinear current interaction and large bottom stress in the zone of lowest sea elevation.This research is supported by the U.S. GLOBEC Northwest Atlantic/Georges Bank Program NSF (OCE-0234545, 0227679, 0606928, 0726851 and 0814505) to Changsheng Chen and Qixchun Xu and NSF grant (OCE-02-27679) and the WHOI Smith Chair to Robert Beardsley and Richard Limeburner. The tidal model-data comparison on Nantucket Sound/Shoals is partially the result of research sponsored by the MIT Sea Grant College Program, under NOAA grant NA06OAR4170019, MIT SG project 2006-R/RC-102, 2006-R/RC-103, 2006-R/RC-102, 2006-R/RC-107, 2008-R/RC-107), 2010-R/RC-116 and the NOAA NERACOOS Program for the UMASS team. C. Chen’s contribution is also supported by Shanghai Ocean University International Cooperation Program (A-2302-11-0003), the Program of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (09320503700), the Leading Academic Discipline Project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (project J50702), and Zhi jiang Scholar and 111 project funds of the State Key Laboratory for Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University (ECNU).2012-06-1

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Organic Cocrystals: Beyond Electrical Conductivities and Field‐Effect Transistors (FETs)

Organic cocrystals based on noncovalent intermolecular interactions (weak interactions) have aroused interest owing to their unpredicted and versatile chemicophysical properties and their applications. In this Minireview, we highlight recent research on organic cocrystals on reducing the aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect, tuning light emission, ferroelectricity and multiferroics, optical waveguides, and stimuli-responsiveness. We also summarize the progress made in this field including revealing the structure-property relationships and developing unusual properties. Moreover, we provide a discussion on current achievements, limitations and perspectives as well as some directions and inspiration for further investigation on organic cocrystals.Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)Ministry of Education (MOE)Accepted versionQ.Z. acknowledges financial support from AcRF Tier 1 (RG111/17, RG 2/17, RG 114/16, RG 8/16) and Tier 2 (MOE2017-T2-1-021 and MOE2018-T2-1-070), Singapore.Q.Z. and Z.C.acknowledge financial support from A*STAR funding (SERC 1528000048), Singapore

Recent progress on organic donor-acceptor complexes as active elements in organic field-effect transistors

Recently, organic donor–acceptor complexes (co-crystals) have been strongly explored as active elements in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) due to their tunable energy level and different stacking modes. The performance of co-crystal-based FETs can be enhanced through the design and synthesis of novel complexes, the control of the self-assembling morphology of co-crystals on substrates, and the optimization of the fabrication conditions of devices. In this review, we will summarize the recent progress on the methods to prepare donor (D)–acceptor (A) co-crystals and their films, present their structure–property relationships, and discuss their potential applications in OFETs according to the co-crystals with different acceptors, namely, (a) tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ) and derivatives; (b) fullerene derivatives (such as C60 and C70); and (c) naphthalenediimide and perylenediimide derivatives. Moreover, co-crystal-based solid solutions and their FET performance are also mentioned.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore