Carbon Nanotube-Polymer Composites for Energy Storage Applications

Renewable energy has attracted growing attention due to energy crisis and environmental concern. The renewable power is featured by its intermittent and fluctuating nature, which requires large-scale electrical energy storage devices for dispatch and integration. Among the current energy storage technologies (e.g., pumped hydro, fly-wheel, compressed air, superconducting magnet, electrochemical systems), electrochemical storage technologies or batteries that reversely convert electrical energy into chemical energy demonstrate extremely great potential in the stationary and transportation applications. Scale determines the device type. Redox flow batteries (RFBs), as one of the large-scale types, are capable of complying with power station. Meanwhile, portable smart electronic devices promote the development of small-scale energy storage systems, such as Li-ion batteries and supercapacitors. With delicate device configuration, materials play critical roles on pursuing advancing performance, in terms of electrode, current collector, and separator. Carbon nanotube (CNT)/polymer composites exhibit promising potentials in the above key entities, which integrate the merits of conductivity, mechanical strength, flexibility, and cost. Therefore, this chapter is devoted to the design and application of carbon nanotube/polymer composites in different kinds of energy storage systems

Streptomyces Exploration is Triggered by Fungal Interactions and Volatile Signals

It has long been thought that the life cycle of Streptomyces bacteria encompasses three developmental stages: vegetative hyphae, aerial hyphae and spores. Here, we show interactions between Streptomyces and fungi trigger a previously unobserved mode of Streptomyces development. We term these Streptomyces cells ‘explorers’, for their ability to adopt a non-branching vegetative hyphal conformation and rapidly transverse solid surfaces. Fungi trigger Streptomyces exploratory growth in part by altering the composition of the growth medium, and Streptomyces explorer cells can communicate this exploratory behaviour to other physically separated streptomycetes using an airborne volatile organic compound (VOC). These results reveal that interkingdom interactions can trigger novel developmental behaviours in bacteria, here, causing Streptomyces to deviate from its classically-defined life cycle. Furthermore, this work provides evidence that VOCs can act as long-range communication signals capable of propagating microbial morphological switches

security of the redefined liaw's broadcasting cryptosystem

AbstractLiaw proposed a broadcasting cryptosystem [H.T. Liaw, Broadcasting cryptosystem in computer networks, Computers & Mathematics with Applications 37 (Mar. 1999) 85–87] which claims to involve fewer broadcasting messages, and has attracted quite some research efforts on iterative analysis and improvement [H.M. Sun, Security of broadcasting cryptosystem in computer networks, Electronics Letters 35 (Nov. 1999) 2108–2109; Y.M. Tseng, J.K. Jan, Cryptanalysis of Liaw’s broadcasting cryptosystem, Computers & Mathematics with Applications 41 (Jun. 2001) 1575–1578; J.M. Masque, A. Peinado, Cryptanalysis of improved Liaw’s broadcasting cryptosystem, Journal of Information Science and Engineering 22 (Mar. 2006) 391–399]. We show that the redefined Liaw’s broadcasting cryptosystem recently presented in [J.M. Masque, A. Peinado, Cryptanalysis of improved Liaw’s broadcasting cryptosystem, Journal of Information Science and Engineering 22 (Mar. 2006) 391–399] is still insecure in that an unauthorized user is able to obtain the shared secret, which is only intended for certain privileged users

The complete mitogenome of Glyptothorax deqinensis (Siluriformes: Sisoridae)

Glyptothorax deqinensis is a small endangered Sisoridae fish mainly distributed in the southwest of China. In the present study, the complete mitochondrial genome of G. deqinensis was firstly sequenced. The total length of the G. deqinensis mitogenome is 16,542 bp, including 13 protein-coding genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and a control region. Among these genes, 28 are encoded by the H-strand and 9 by the L-strand. The information mitogenome obtained herein will provide useful tools for future studies on population genetic and phylogenetic analyses of this fish

Development and Characterization of New Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Markers from Expressed Sequence Tags in Common Carp (<em>Cyprinus carpio</em>)

The common carp (<em>Cyprinus carpio</em>) is an important aquaculture fish worldwide but only limited single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers are characterized from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) in this species. In this study, 1487 putative SNPs were bioinformatically mined from 14,066 online ESTs mainly from the European common carp, with the occurrence rate of about one SNP every 173 bp. One hundred and twenty-one of these SNPs were selected for validation using PCR fragment sequencing, and 48 out of 81 primers could amplify the expected fragments in the Chinese common carp genome. Only 26 (21.5%) putative SNPs were validated, however, 508 new SNPs and 68 indels were identified. The ratios of transitions to transversions were 1.77 for exon SNPs and 1.05 for intron SNPs. All the 23 SNPs selected for population tests were polymorphic, with the observed heterozygosity (Ho) ranging from 0.053 to 0.526 (mean 0.262), polymorphism information content (PIC) from 0.095 to 0.357 (mean 0.246), and 21 SNPs were in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. These results suggest that different common carp populations with geographic isolation have significant genetic variation at the SNP level, and these new EST-SNP markers are readily available for genetics and breeding studies in common carp

Comparative mapping for bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis) against model and non-model fishes provides insights into the genomic evolution of cyprinids

Comparative mapping provides an efficient method to connect genomes of non-model and model fishes. In this study, we used flanking sequences of the 659 microsatellites on a genetic map of bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis) to comprehensively study syntenic relationships between bighead carp and nine model and non-model fishes. Of the five model and two food fishes with whole genome data, Cyprinus carpio showed the highest rate of positive BLAST hits (95.3 %) with bighead carp map, followed by Danio rerio (70.9 %), Oreochromis niloticus (21.7 %), Tetraodon nigroviridis (6.4 %), Gasterosteus aculeatus (5.2 %), Oryzias latipes (4.7 %) and Fugu rubripes (3.5 %). Chromosomal syntenic analyses showed that inversion was the basic chromosomal rearrangement during genomic evolution of cyprinids, and the extent of inversions and translocations was found to be positively correlated with evolutionary relationships among fishes studied. Among the five investigated cyprinids, linkage groups (LGs) of bighead carp, Hypophthalmichthys molitrix and Ctenopharyngodon idella exhibited a one-to-one relationship. Besides, LG 9 of bighead carp and homologous LGs of silver carp and grass carp all corresponded to the chromosomes 10 and 22 of zebrafish, suggesting that chromosomal fission may have occurred in the ancestor of zebrafish. On the other hand, LGs of bighead carp and common carp showed an approximate one-to-two relationship with extensive translocations, confirming the occurrence of a 4th whole genome duplication in common carp. This study provides insights into the understanding of genome evolution among cyprinids and would aid in transferring positional and functional information of genes from model fish like zebrafish to non-model fish like bighead carp

Characterization of the complete mitogenome for the freshwater shrimp Exopalaemon modestus

Natural resources of the freshwater shrimp Exopalaemon modestus declined sharply in China in recent years. However, available genetic information for this shrimp is quite limited presently. In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of E. modestus was firstly determined through Illumina sequencing. The mitogenome is 15,736 bp in length containing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, two rRNA genes and one control region. Twenty-three of these genes were encoded by the H-strand and the remaining 14 ones by the L-strand. Additionally, compared to gene orders of other Caridea, a novel rearrangement of translocation between tRNAPro and tRNAThr was detected in E. modestus. The mitogenomic information obtained herein will be useful for future studies on population genetic and phylogenetic analyses of this shrimp

Growth and survival of Pinctada martensii (Dunker) postlarvae under concurrent variation in temperature, algal ration and stocking density

The growth and survival of pearl oyster postlarvae (Pinctada martensii) were studied under laboratory conditions. A face-centered central composite experimental design was used with 3 factors, temperature (18―34 °C), algal ration (5―100 cells μL―1) and stocking density (0.2―3.0 in.. mL―1). Pearl oyster postlarvae were fed with a 1: 1 mixture of Isochrysis zhanjiangensis and Pavlova viridis during the experiment. Temperature, algal ration and stocking density exerted significant effects on postlarvae growth and survival. Temperature was the most dominant factor, followed by algal ration. Significant interactions among the 3 factors were inhibitory (negative) to growth and survival. Within the ranges of 3 factors tested, growth and survival increased with 3 factors up to a pinnacle, beyond which they began to decrease. The conditions required for the optimal growth could also ensure the optimal survival. Through simultaneously maximizing the reliable models of postlarvae growth and survival, the optimal trifactor culture conditions of 27.86 °C/50.85 cells μL―1/1.60 in.. mL―1 were obtained. These optimal culture conditions resulted in the greatest specific growth of 8.95 % d―1 (95 % confidence interval, 8.73―9.18 % d―1) and survival of 21.5 % (95 % confidence interval, 21.06―21.94 %), with desirability as high as 99.6 %. Due to practical feasibility, the optimal trifactor culture conditions were recommended to apply to practice to maximize growth and survival of the pearl oyster P. martensii postlarvae martensii. This study provides valuable new insights into refining the production efficiency of the pearl oyster postlarvae