Trash matters: material strategies for prolonging the life of single-use plastic

Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues. Communities worldwide have addressed the importance of facing the problem of plastic pollution control and issues relevant policies to effectively reduce the use of plastic products. The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 has made the urgency of the problem less significant. Nevertheless, the use of disposable plastics to comply with public health protocols has hugely increased making plastic pollution all the more severe. Through material experimentation, this thesis reappraises different types of single-use plastic waste and attempts to transform them into longer-lasting reused solutions. It focuses on finding alternative materials while, at the same time, proposing find more efficient methods of decomposition

A ThDP-dependent enzymatic carboligation reaction involved in Neocarazostatin A tricyclic carbazole formation

Acknowledgements This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31570033 to Y. Y.) and the Leverhulme Trust-Royal Society Africa Award (AA090088 to K. K and H. D.). Open access via RSC Gold 4 Gold.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

High-Temperature sensor based on peanut flat-end reflection structure

A high-temperature sensor based on a peanut flat-end reflection structure is demonstrated. The sensor can be simply fabricated by splicing the spherical end-faces of two segments of single-mode fibers and then cleaving one other end as a flat reflect surface. The proposed structure works as a reflected interferometer. When the ambient temperature changes, the resonant dip wavelength of the interferometer will shift due to the linear expansion or contraction and the thermo-optic effect. As a result, the temperature measurement can be achieved by monitoring the resonant dip wavelength of the interferometer. Experimental results show that the proposed sensor probe based on the peanut flat-end reflection structure works well and it can measure the temperature range from 100 °C to 900 °C with the sensitivity of 0.098 nm/ °C with R²  =  0.988. When temperature ranges from 400 °C to 900 °C, the sensitivity of 0.11 nm/ °C can be achieved with R² = 0.9995. Due to its compact and simple configuration, the proposed sensor is a good high temperature sensor probe.This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province China under Grant No.LY17F050010

The Development of Hedge Funds and Their Operation in Stock Markets in China

Currently, the term ‘hedge funds’ in China is still a new word to the public. The development of hedge funds is relative slow. This dissertation discusses the development of hedge funds in China and makes an empirical research on the stock market using feasible strategies. It is concluded that not all strategies are feasible in China with regard to the local financial market and regulations; therefore, limitation may exist. The financial market is not mature, for example, there are some barriers of law and the cultivating of talents is imperfect. Finally, suggestions are also given to give a better environment for the development of hedge funds

Research on the Impact of Information Quality on Educational WeChat Official Account Users’ Continued Use Intention: Based on the ECM-IS Model

Along with the vigorous development of WeChat official accounts, the number of education WeChat official accounts is increasing day by day. Society’s emphasis on education issues extends to the WeChat Official Accounts and other social networking platforms. How to attract users and maintain the willingness of users to continue to use is an important issue for the operators of such public accounts to consider. Information is the main content of the educational WeChat official account, and the evaluation of its quality will directly affect the perception of the educational WeChat official account and then affect the user\u27s willingness to use it. Therefore, based on the perspective of information quality and the ECM-IS model as the research model, this paper subdivides information quality into five dimensions, including comprehensiveness, timeliness, accuracy, relevance, and perceived interestingness, and establishes a theoretical model of the influence of educational WeChat public account information quality on college students\u27 willingness to continue using. This study will have a certain reference value for the education of WeChat operators\u27 practical operation and user stickiness