Glueball relevant study on isoscalars from Nf=2N_f=2 lattice QCD

We perform a glueball-relevant study on isoscalars based on anisotropic $N_f=2$ lattice QCD gauge configurations. In the scalar channel, we identify the ground state obtained through gluonic operators to be a single-particle state through its dispersion relation. When $q\bar{q}$ operator is included, we find the mass of this state does not change, and the $q\bar{q}$ operator couples very weakly to this state. So this state is most likely a glueball state. For pseudoscalars, along with the exiting lattice results, our study implies that both the conventional $q\bar{q}$ state $\eta_2$ (or $\eta'$ in flavor $SU(3)$) and a heavier glueball-like state with a mass of roughly 2.6 GeV exist in the spectrum of lattice QCD with dynamical quarks.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, talk presented at the 35th International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 18-24 June 2017, Granada, Spai

Preparation, characterization, and antiproliferative activities of biotin-decorated docetaxel-loaded bovine serum albumin nanoparticles

The aim of the present study was to characterize biotin-decorated docetaxel-loaded bovine serum albumin nanoparticles (DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs) and evaluate their antiproliferative activity in vitro. The particle size of prepared DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs was found to be always lower than 200 nm, with sizes of 166.9, 160.3, 159.0, 176.1 and 184.8 nm and the zeta potential was -29.51, -28.54, -36.54, -36.08 and -27.56 mV after redissolution with water for 0, 1, 2, 4 and 8 hours, respectively. The polydispersity index (PDI) was stable in the range of 0.170 - 0.178. In the in vitro drug-release study, the DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs targeted a human breast cancer cell line MCF-7 effectively. The x-ray diffraction spectrum and DSC curve of DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs suggested that docetaxel was in an amorphous or disordered crystalline phase in DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs. In vitro cytotoxicity results showed that DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs inhibits proliferation of MCF-7, SGC7901, LS-174T and A549 cells in a concentration-dependent manner after exposure to DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs for 48 hours. Taken together, these results indicate that DTX-BIO-BSA-NPs may have potential as an alternative delivery system for parenteral administration of docetaxel

A novel approach to CO2 capture in Fluid Catalytic Cracking-Chemical Looping Combustion

Oil refineries collectively account for about 4–6% of global CO2 emissions and Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units are responsible for roughly 25% of these. Although post-combustion and oxy-combustion have been suggested to capture CO2 released from the regenerator of FCC units, Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) is also a potential approach. In this study, the applicability of CLC for FCC units has been explored. A refinery FCC catalyst (equilibrium catalyst-ECat) was mixed mechanically with reduced oxygen carriers; Cu, Cu2O, CoO, and Mn3O4. To identify any detrimental effects of the reduced oxygen carriers on cracking, the catalyst formulations were tested for n-hexadecane cracking using ASTM D3907-13, the standard FCC microactivity test (MAT). To investigate the combustion reactivity of coke with physically mixed oxidised oxygen carriers, CuO, Co3O4 and Mn2O3, TGA tests were conducted on a low volatile semi-anthracite Welsh coal, which has a similar elemental composition to actual FCC coke, with various oxygen carrier to coke ratios over the temperature range 750–900 °C.The results demonstrated that, whereas Cu was detrimental for cracking n-hexadecane with the ECat, Cu2O, CoO, and Mn3O4 have no significant effects on gas, liquid and coke yields, and product selectivity. Complete combustion of the model coke was achieved with CuO, Co3O4 and Mn2O3, once the stoichiometric ratio of oxygen carrier/coke was higher than 1.0 and sufficient time had been provided. These results indicate that the proposed CLC-FCC concept has promise as a new approach to CO2 capture in FCC

Selective low temperature chemical looping combustion of higher alkanes with Cu- and Mn- oxides

Chemical looping combustion (CLC) of n-hexadecane and n-heptane with copper and manganese oxides (CuO and Mn2O3) has been investigated in a fixed bed reactor to reveal the extent to which low temperature CLC can potentially be applicable to hydrocarbons. The effects of fuel to oxygen carrier ratio, fuel feed flow rate, and fuel residence time on the extent of combustion are reported. Methane did not combust, while near complete conversion was achieved for both n-hexadecane and n-heptane with excess oxygen carrier for CuO. For Mn2O3, complete reduction to Mn3O4 occurred, but the extent of combustion was controlled by the much slower reduction to MnO. Although the extent of cracking is relatively small in the absence of cracking catalysts, for the mechanism to be selective for higher hydrocarbons suggests that the reaction with oxygen involves radicals or carbocations arising from bond scission. Sintering of pure CuO occurred after repeated cycles, but this can easily be avoided using a support, such as alumina. The fact that higher hydrocarbons can be combusted selectively at 500 °C and below, offers the possibility of using CLC to remove these hydrocarbons and potentially other organics from hot gas streams

Threatening Patch Attacks on Object Detection in Optical Remote Sensing Images

Advanced Patch Attacks (PAs) on object detection in natural images have pointed out the great safety vulnerability in methods based on deep neural networks. However, little attention has been paid to this topic in Optical Remote Sensing Images (O-RSIs). To this end, we focus on this research, i.e., PAs on object detection in O-RSIs, and propose a more Threatening PA without the scarification of the visual quality, dubbed TPA. Specifically, to address the problem of inconsistency between local and global landscapes in existing patch selection schemes, we propose leveraging the First-Order Difference (FOD) of the objective function before and after masking to select the sub-patches to be attacked. Further, considering the problem of gradient inundation when applying existing coordinate-based loss to PAs directly, we design an IoU-based objective function specific for PAs, dubbed Bounding box Drifting Loss (BDL), which pushes the detected bounding boxes far from the initial ones until there are no intersections between them. Finally, on two widely used benchmarks, i.e., DIOR and DOTA, comprehensive evaluations of our TPA with four typical detectors (Faster R-CNN, FCOS, RetinaNet, and YOLO-v4) witness its remarkable effectiveness. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to study the PAs on object detection in O-RSIs, and we hope this work can get our readers interested in studying this topic

catena-Poly[[triaqua­zinc(II)]-μ-1H-1,2,4-triazole-3,5-dicarboxyl­ato]

In the title compound, [Zn(C4HN3O4)(H2O)3]n, each ZnII atom adopts a distorted octa­hedral coordination geometry, being surrounded by one chelating and one monodentate 1H-1,2,4-triazole-3,5-dicarboxyl­ate ligand and three water mol­ecules. Adjacent ZnII cations are linked by a 1H-1,2,4-triazole-3,5-dicarboxyl­ate ligand in a μ2,κ3 fashion to form a chain running along the c axis. The crystal packing is stabilized by N—H⋯O, O—H⋯N and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

catena-Poly[manganese(II)-(μ2-3,5-di-2-pyridyl-1,2,4-triazol­ato)-μ2-formato]

Owing to the presence of crystallographic twofold rotation axes (site symmetry 2, Wyckoff letters e and f), the asymmetric unit of the title compound, [Mn(C12H8N5)(CHO2)]n, contains one-half of an MnII cation, one-half of a bpt anion (Hbpt is 3,5-di-2-pyridyl-4H-1,2,4-triazole) and one-half of a formate anion. The bpt and formate ligands occupy the same C 2 symmetry, while the MnII ion resides on another crystallographic twofold rotation axis. Each bpt ligand acts as a cis-bis-chelate to ligate two MnII ions into a one-dimensional chain running along the crystallographic 41 screw axis. Adjacent MnII ions are further bridged by a μ2-formate ligand, completing the distorted octa­hedral coordination geometry of the cation

Biomedical and Forensic Applications of Combined Catalytic Hydrogenation-Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis

Studies of biological molecules such as fatty acids and the steroid hormones have the potential to benefit enormously from stable carbon isotope ratio measurements of individual molecules. In their natural form, however, the body’s molecules interact too readily with laboratory equipment designed to separate them for accurate measurements to be made. Some methods overcome this problem by adding carbon to the target molecule, but this can irreversibly overprint the carbon source ‘signal’. Hydropyrolysis is a newly-applied catalytic technique that delicately strips molecules of their functional groups but retains their carbon skeletons and stereochemistries intact, allowing precise determination of the carbon source. By solving analytical problems, the new technique is increasing the ability of scientists to pinpoint molecular indicators of disease, elucidate metabolic pathways and recognise administered substances in forensic investigations

Rashba-induced transverse pure spin currents in a four-terminal quantum dot ring

By applying a local Rashba spin-orbit interaction on an individual quantum dot of a four-terminal four-quantum-dot ring and introducing a finite bias between the longitudinal terminals, we theoretically investigate the charge and spin currents in the transverse terminals. It is found that when the quantum dot levels are separate from the chemical potentials of the transverse terminals, notable pure spin currents appear in the transverse terminals with the same amplitude and opposite polarization directions. Besides, the polarization directions of such pure spin currents can be inverted by altering structure parameters, i.e., the magnetic flux, the bias voltage, and the values of quantum dot levels with respect to the chemical potentials of the transverse terminals.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Submitted to nanotechnolog