Ionene and ionene alkyl sulfate stoichiometric complexes: Temperature and humidity sensitive materials

Stoichiometric polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes represent a type of comb-shaped polymers, in which every polymer chain unit has an electrostatically bound "side chain". These complexes are water-insoluble. In the solid state they assemble spontaneously into mesogenic structures. The [X,Y]-ionenes ([(CH2)XN+(CH3)2(CH2)YN+(CH3)2]nBr-2n) investigated formed stoichiometric complexes with alkyl sulfates. The ionene alkyl sulfate complexes display mesogenicity, i.e. optically isotropic dry complexes underwent lyotropic and thermotropic phase transitions to the optically anisotropic phase (and vice versa) under controlled relative humidity. The optically anisotropic phases exhibited hexagonal textures as revealed by polarizing microscopy. A new feature is the lyotropic transition brought about by the uptake of water through the gas phase. The complexes were all sensitive to both humidity and temperature. In principle, the effects can be applied to measure humidity

Ionene and ionene alkyl sulfate stoichiometric complexes: Temperature and humidity sensitive materials

Stoichiometric polyelectrolyte-surfactant complexes represent a type of comb-shaped polymers, in which every polymer chain unit has an electrostatically bound "side chain". These complexes are water-insoluble. In the solid state they assemble spontaneously into mesogenic structures. The [X,Y]-ionenes ([(CH2)XN+(CH3)2(CH2)YN+(CH3)2]nBr-2n) investigated formed stoichiometric complexes with alkyl sulfates. The ionene alkyl sulfate complexes display mesogenicity, i.e. optically isotropic dry complexes underwent lyotropic and thermotropic phase transitions to the optically anisotropic phase (and vice versa) under controlled relative humidity. The optically anisotropic phases exhibited hexagonal textures as revealed by polarizing microscopy. A new feature is the lyotropic transition brought about by the uptake of water through the gas phase. The complexes were all sensitive to both humidity and temperature. In principle, the effects can be applied to measure humidity

Assessment of carbon emission potential of polyvinyl chloride plastics

Plastic pollution has become a global concern, and research has shown that carbon emissions during the lifecycle of plastics are rapidly consuming global carbon credits. This study focuses on the effective assessment of carbon emissions from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics using a life cycle assessment (LCA) method during the production and recycling stages. The greenhouse gas emission potential is evaluated using 1kg PVC plastic as a functional unit. Research has shown that the total carbon emissions during the production stage of PVC plastic are 7.83kg CO2-eq. The carbon emissions during the production stage of hydrochloric acid, acetylene, electricity, and water vapor are 2.340 kg CO2-eq, 4.900 kg CO2-eq, 0.117 kg CO2-eq, and 0.468 kg CO2-eq, respectively. During the recycling phase, the carbon emissions from the power consumption zone are 0.184 kg CO2-eq, followed by 0.156 kg CO2-eq from natural gas. Research has shown that fossil materials contribute the largest carbon emissions during the production stage of PVC plastics. Therefore, how to effectively reduce the use of fossil fuels or seek alternative raw materials can effectively reduce carbon emissions

Prenatal vaccination education intervention improves both the mothers' knowledge and children's vaccination coverage: Evidence from randomized controlled trial from eastern China

Objectives: To verify the effectiveness of prenatal vaccination education intervention on improving mother's vaccination knowledge and child's vaccination status in Zhejiang province, eastern China. Methods: Pregnant women with ≥ 12 gestational weeks were recruited and randomly assigned into the intervention group and the control group. The intervention group were given a vaccination education session while the control group were not. Two round surveys were performed before and 3 months after the intervention. The vaccination status of child was extracted at 12 months of age from immunization information system. The differences of the vaccination knowledge, the coverage, the completeness and the timeliness of vaccination between 2 groups were evaluated. The effectiveness of vaccination education intervention was assessed, under the control of the other demographic variables. Results: Among the 1252 participants, 851 subjects replied to the post-survey. Significant improvements of vaccination knowledge between the pre- and the post- survey in the intervention group were observed (Mean ± S.D:1.8 ± 1.1 vs. 3.7 ± 1.2 for vaccines score and 2.7 ± 1.5 vs. 4.8 ± 1.0 for vaccine policy score, respectively). The coverage of fully vaccination was significantly higher in the intervention group (90.0% vs. 82.9%, P<0.01). The timeliness of fully vaccination was significantly higher in the intervention group (51.9% vs. 33.0%, P<0.01). In the intervention group, pregnant women were more likely to be with high score of knowledge (OR = 5.2, 95%CI: 2.6–8.8), and children were more likely to complete the full series of vaccination (OR = 3.4, 95%CI: 2.1–4.8), and children were more likely to complete the full series of vaccination in a timely manner (OR = 2.3, 95%CI: 1.6–3.5). Conclusions: Vaccination education in the pregnant women can effectively improve the knowledge regarding immunization and increase the coverage, the completeness and the timeliness of childhood vaccination. Strong partnership needs to be established between the obstetricians and the vaccination staff to improve the performance of NIP

Growth Hormone-Releasing Hormone and Its Analogues: Significance for MSCs-Mediated Angiogenesis

Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are promising candidates for regenerative medicine because of their multipotency, immune-privilege, and paracrine properties including the potential to promote angiogenesis. Accumulating evidence suggests that the inherent properties of cytoprotection and tissue repair by native MSCs can be enhanced by various preconditioning stimuli implemented prior to cell transplantation. Growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), a stimulator in extrahypothalamus systems including tumors, has attracted great attentions in recent years because GHRH and its agonists could promote angiogenesis in various tissues. GHRH and its agonists are proangiogenic in responsive tissues including tumors, and GHRH antagonists have been tested as antitumor agents through their ability to suppress angiogenesis and cell growth. GHRH-R is expressed by MSCs and evolving work from our laboratory indicates that treatment of MSCs with GHRH agonists prior to cell transplantation markedly enhanced the angiogenic potential and tissue reparative properties of MSCs through a STAT3 signaling pathway. In this review we summarized the possible effects of GHRH analogues on cell growth and development, as well as on the proangiogenic properties of MSCs. We also discussed the relationship between GHRH analogues and MSC-mediated angiogenesis. The analyses provide new insights into molecular pathways of MSCs-based therapies and their augmentation by GHRH analogues

RDCPF: A Redundancy-Based Duty-Cycling Pipelined-Forwarding MAC for Linear Sensor Networks

Existing duty-cycling and pipelined-forwarding (DCPF) protocols applied in battery-powered wireless sensor networks can significantly alleviate the sleep latency issue and save the energy of networks. However, when a DCPF protocol applies to a linear sensor network (LSN), it lacks the ability to handle the bottleneck issue called the energy-hole problem, which is mainly manifested due to the excessive energy consumption of nodes near the sink node. Without overcoming this issue, the lifespan of the network could be greatly reduced. To that end, this paper proposes a method of deploying redundant nodes in LSN, and a corresponding enhanced DCPF protocol called redundancy-based DCPF (RDCPF) to support the new topology of LSN. In RDCPF, the distribution of energy consumption of the whole network becomes much more even. RDCPF also brings improvements to the network in terms of network survival time, packet delivery latency, and energy efficiency, which have been shown through the extensive simulations in comparison with existing DCPF protocols

Study on the Influence of Air-inlet Width on Fire Whirls Combustion Characteristic

AbstractThe size of air-inlets in fire scene influences the air entrainment, and the power of air entrainment has an obvious effect on the formation and the combustion characteristic of fire whirls. In order to study the air-inlet influence on fire whirl combustion characteristic, the experiment in this work used the fire whirl generator with six free-setting horizontal openings to simulate different size of air-inlets in fire scene. The results show that the forming time of fire whirls decreases firstly and increases afterward with the increase of air-inlet width, and accordingly the intensity and stability increase firstly and then decrease. When the air-inlet widths are 20∼30cm, the fire whirls intensity and stability is superior to others, the forming time is the shortest and the lasting time is the longest. In addition, this paper explains preliminarily the reason for the influence that air-inlet width makes on fire whirls combustion characteristic

Responsiveness Expressions of Bitter Taste Receptors Against Denatonium Benzoate and Genistein in the Heart, Spleen, Lung, Kidney, and Bursa Fabricius of Chinese Fast Yellow Chicken

The present study was conducted to investigate the responsiveness expressions of ggTas2Rs against denatonium benzoate (DB) and genistein (GEN) in several organs of the Chinese Fast Yellow Chicken. A total of 300 one-day-old chicks that weighed an average of 32 g were randomly allocated into five groups with five replicates for 56 consecutive days. The dietary treatments consisted of basal diet, denatonium benzoate (5 mg/kg, 20 mg/kg, and 100 mg/kg), and genistein 25 mg/kg. The results of qRT-PCR indicated significantly (p &lt; 0.05) high-level expressions in the heart, spleen, and lungs in the starter and grower stages except for in bursa Fabricius. The responsiveness expressions of ggTas2Rs against DB 100 mg/kg and GEN 25 mg/kg were highly dose-dependent in the heart, spleen, lungs, and kidneys in the starter and grower stages, but dose-independent in the bursa Fabricius in the finisher stage. The ggTas2Rs were highly expressed in lungs and the spleen, but lower in the bursa Fabricius among the organs. However, the organ growth performance significantly (p &lt; 0.05) increased in the groups administered DB 5 mg/kg and GEN 25 mg/kg; meanwhile, the DB 20 mg/kg and DB 100 mg/kg treatments significantly reduced the growth of all the organs, respectively. These findings indicate that responsiveness expressions are dose-dependent, and bitterness sensitivity consequently decreases in aged chickens. Therefore, these findings may improve the production of new feedstuffs for chickens according to their growing stages