Effect of 1-methylcyclopropene and modified atmosphere packaging on chilling injury and antioxidative defensive mechanism of sweet pepper

Some sweet peppers (Capsicum annuum L.) are chilling sensitive and can develop injury when stored at temperatures less than 7°C. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP) (650 ppb) and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) on chilling injuries (CI) of sweet pepper during 30 days storage at 4°C. The results showed that, 1-MCP and MAP reduced chilling injury symptoms which were correlated with decreased electrolyte leakage and malondialdehyde content. The combination of 1-MCP and MAP further reduced chilling injury. Atomic force microscope (AFM) images showed that, the surface of the sweet peppers with 1-MCP and MAP treatments were smoother than of the control samples. The activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POD) of sweet peppers were also influenced by 1-MCP and MAP. SOD, CAT and POD activities of sweet peppers were 87.3, 28.97 and 0.248 U·g-1, respectively at the beginning of the storage. The activities decreased during the first 15 days of storage followed by an increase during the later period of storage. Treatment with 1-MCP, MAP alone and in combination frequently reduced the activities of those enzymes during storage. These results suggested that, combination of 1-MCP treatment and MAP is a promising treatment for reducing chilling injuries of peppers stored at 4°C.Key words: 1-MCP, chilling injuries, modified atmosphere packaging, sweet pepper

Electric Field Effect in Multilayer Cr2Ge2Te6: a Ferromagnetic Two-Dimensional Material

The emergence of two-dimensional (2D) materials has attracted a great deal of attention due to their fascinating physical properties and potential applications for future nanoelectronic devices. Since the first isolation of graphene, a Dirac material, a large family of new functional 2D materials have been discovered and characterized, including insulating 2D boron nitride, semiconducting 2D transition metal dichalcogenides and black phosphorus, and superconducting 2D bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide, molybdenum disulphide and niobium selenide, etc. Here, we report the identification of ferromagnetic thin flakes of Cr2Ge2Te6 (CGT) with thickness down to a few nanometers, which provides a very important piece to the van der Waals structures consisting of various 2D materials. We further demonstrate the giant modulation of the channel resistance of 2D CGT devices via electric field effect. Our results illustrate the gate voltage tunability of 2D CGT and the potential of CGT, a ferromagnetic 2D material, as a new functional quantum material for applications in future nanoelectronics and spintronics.Comment: To appear in 2D Material

New Insights into Traffic Dynamics: A Weighted Probabilistic Cellular Automaton Model

From the macroscopic viewpoint for describing the acceleration behavior of drivers, this letter presents a weighted probabilistic cellular automaton model (the WP model, for short) by introducing a kind of random acceleration probabilistic distribution function. The fundamental diagrams, the spatio-temporal pattern are analyzed in detail. It is shown that the presented model leads to the results consistent with the empirical data rather well, nonlinear velocity-density relationship exists in lower density region, and a new kind of traffic phenomenon called neo-synchronized flow is resulted. Furthermore, we give the criterion for distinguishing the high-speed and low-speed neo-synchronized flows and clarify the mechanism of this kind of traffic phenomena. In addition, the result that the time evolution of distribution of headways is displayed as a normal distribution further validates the reasonability of the neo-synchronized flow. These findings suggest that the diversity and randomicity of drivers and vehicles has indeed remarkable effect on traffic dynamics.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Europhysics Letter

Ser1369Ala Variant in Sulfonylurea Receptor Gene ABCC8 Is Associated With Antidiabetic Efficacy of Gliclazide in Chinese Type 2 Diabetic Patients

OBJECTIVE—The purpose of this study was to investigate whether genetic variants could influence the antidiabetic efficacy of gliclazide in type 2 diabetic patients

Spin Injection and Inverse Edelstein Effect in the Surface States of Topological Kondo Insulator SmB6

There has been considerable interest in exploiting the spin degrees of freedom of electrons for potential information storage and computing technologies. Topological insulators (TI), a class of quantum materials, have special gapless edge/surface states, where the spin polarization of the Dirac fermions is locked to the momentum direction. This spin-momentum locking property gives rise to very interesting spin-dependent physical phenomena such as the Edelstein and inverse Edelstein effects. However, the spin injection in pure surface states of TI is very challenging because of the coexistence of the highly conducting bulk states. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the spin injection and observe the inverse Edelstein effect in the surface states of a topological Kondo insulator, SmB6. At low temperatures when only surface carriers are present, a clear spin signal is observed. Furthermore, the magnetic field angle dependence of the spin signal is consistent with spin-momentum locking property of surface states of SmB6.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, Accepted to Nature Communications (In Press

Constraints on Spin-Independent Nucleus Scattering with sub-GeV Weakly Interacting Massive Particle Dark Matter from the CDEX-1B Experiment at the China Jin-Ping Laboratory

We report results on the searches of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with sub-GeV masses ($m_{\chi}$) via WIMP-nucleus spin-independent scattering with Migdal effect incorporated. Analysis on time-integrated (TI) and annual modulation (AM) effects on CDEX-1B data are performed, with 737.1 kg$\cdot$day exposure and 160 eVee threshold for TI analysis, and 1107.5 kg$\cdot$day exposure and 250 eVee threshold for AM analysis. The sensitive windows in $m_{\chi}$ are expanded by an order of magnitude to lower DM masses with Migdal effect incorporated. New limits on $\sigma_{\chi N}^{\rm SI}$ at 90\% confidence level are derived as $2\times$10$^{-32}\sim7\times$10$^{-35}$ $\rm cm^2$ for TI analysis at $m_{\chi}\sim$ 50$-$180 MeV/$c^2$, and $3\times$10$^{-32}\sim9\times$10$^{-38}$ $\rm cm^2$ for AM analysis at $m_{\chi}\sim$75 MeV/$c^2-$3.0 GeV/$c^2$.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure