Pollen-food allergy syndrome in China

<p>Little is known about pollen-food allergy syndrome (PFS) in China. To investigate the clinical characteristics, as well as sensitization patterns, of PFS in China. Clinical parameters and serum Immunoglobulin E (IgE) responses to prevalent pollens, plant foods and corresponding allergen components were evaluated. The top three most common pollen-associated allergenic foods were peach, apple and pear. Fifty-nine percent of the patients with PFS were allergic to peach. Sixty-one percent of PFS patients developed systemic reactions with or without oral cavity discomfort upon ingestion of the culprit food. Positive IgE responses to nonspecific lipid transfer proteins occurred in 69.9% of PFS patients, which was in accordance with the high prevalence of systemic reactions. Peach was the most common allergenic food in PFS patients. Patients with PFS in China showed an LTP-dominant sensitization profile and usually presented systemic reactions upon consumption of the allergenic foods.</p

Bifurcation diagrams of model I.

<p>(a) The bifurcation diagram with as a control parameter. (b) The codimension two bifurcation diagram with and as control parameters. Other parameter values are , , , , , , and .</p

Bifurcation diagrams of model II.

<p>(a) The bifurcation diagram of model II with as a control parameter. (b) The codimension two bifurcation diagram of model II with and as control parameters. Other parameter values are , , , , , , and .</p

The bifurcation diagrams of the two models at .

<p>(a) The bifurcation diagrams with as the control parameter. (b) The bifurcation diagrams with and as control parameters. Other parameter values are the same as those used in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0017029#pone-0017029-g005" target="_blank">Fig. 5</a>.</p

The bistability region of both models.

<p>(a) The bistability region of model I. (b) The bistability region of model II. The parameter values are , , , , , and .</p

Schematic description of the two scenarios.

<p>(a) Scenario I: post-transcriptional regulation by binding of a sRNA and an mRNA. (b) Scenario II: translational repression by binding of a sRNA and a protein causes inactivation of the protein.</p

The bifurcation diagrams of the two models.

<p>(a) The oscillatory regions of the two systems. (b) The bifurcation diagrams of the first model. (c) The bifurcation diagrams of the second model. The parameter values are , , , , , , and .</p

Bifurcation diagrams of the two systems.

<p>(a) The bifurcation diagrams with and as control parameters. (b) The bifurcation diagrams with and as control parameters. The regions enclosed by dashed and solid lines are the oscillatory regions of the two systems. Other parameter values are , , , , , and .</p

Bifurcation diagrams of the two models with and as control parameters.

<p>The regions enclosed by dashed and solid lines are the bistable regions of the two models. Other parameter values are , , , , , and .</p

Ultralow Thermal Conductivity of a Chalcogenide System Pt₃Bi₄Q₉ (Q = S, Se) Driven by the Hierarchy of Rigid [Pt₆Q₁₂]^12– Clusters Embedded in Soft Bi‑Q Sublattice

Knowledge of structure–property relationships in solids with intrinsic low thermal conductivity is crucial for fields such as thermoelectrics, thermal barrier coatings, and refractories. Herein, we propose a new “rigidness in softness” structural scheme for intrinsic low lattice thermal conductivity (κL), which embeds rigid clusters into the soft matrix to induce large lattice anharmonicity, and accordingly discover a new series of chalcogenides Pt3Bi4Q9 (Q = S, Se). Pt3Bi4S9–xSex (x = 3, 6) achieved an intrinsic ultralow κL down to 0.39 W/(m K) at 773 K, which is considerably low among the Bi chalcogenide thermoelectric materials. Pt3Bi4Q9 contains the rigid cubic [Pt6Q12]12– clusters embedded in the soft Bi-Q sublattice, involving multiple bonding interactions and vibration hierarchy. The hierarchical structure yields a large lattice anharmonicity with high Grüneisen parameters (γ) 1.97 of Pt3Bi4Q9, as verified by the effective scatter of low-lying optical phonons toward heat-carrying acoustic phonons. Consequently, the rigid-soft coupling significantly inhibits heat propagation, exhibiting low acoustic phonon frequencies (∼25 cm–1) and Debye temperatures (ΘD = 170.4 K) in Pt3Bi4Se9. Owing to the suppressed κL and considerable power factor (PF), the ZT value of Pt3Bi4S6Se3 can reach 0.56 at 773 K without heavy carrier doping, which is competitive among the pristine Bi chalcogenides. Theoretical calculations predicted a large potential for performance improvement via proper doping, indicating the great potential of this structure type for promising thermoelectric materials