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It is extremely significant to manufacture materials with simple and low-cost synthetic method for the disposal of large-scale oil spills and environmental pollution caused by the illegal discharge of oily wastewater. In this paper, cerium metal-organic framework (Ce-MOF), 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H perfluorodecyltrimethoxysilane (PFOTS) and cellulose were used as raw materials to prepare polyurethane hydrophobic sponges (PU) interconnected by chemical bonds to improve physical properties performance. The sponge shows excellent superhydrophobicity with a surface water contact angle (WCA) of 152.53 ± 0.8°. It has high mechanical strength and oil absorption capacity for various oils/organic solvents up to 15.0–44.9 times its weight. It is more imortant that C–F–Ce@PU can separate immiscible oil-water mixtures driven by vacuum pump or gravity. Superhydrophobic/oleophilic C–F–Ce@PU can also be used to separate water-in-oil emulsions. The above characteristics provide a reference for its practical application in oil-water separation.

Synthesis is the base of experimental chemistry. Herein, monodisperse K3PMo12O40▪nH2O polyoxometalates (POMs) with different morphologies have been reached by tuning synthetic conditions of the K/POM ratio, stirring speed and time, and reaction temperatures. Among these factors, the K/POM ratio is identified most critical in morphological controls of the K3PMo12O40▪nH2O particles, altering them from cubes to spheres. Additionally, morphological transformations were identified through a self-assembly and Ostwald ripening process, setting a generic synthetic strategy for the POM systems. Such synthetic strategies have substantial applications in catalytic or surface-demanding fields requiring POM materials with controlled morphology.

In this paper, an adaptive fuzzy neural network (AFNN) controller with a state observer approach based on novel adaptive particle swarm optimization-simulated annealing (NAPSO-SA) for a class of non-linear systems is proposed. First, NAPSO-SA is used to adjust the parameters of the FNN, while adaptive laws are used to approximate unknown non-linear functions and the unknown upper bounds of uncertainties respectively. Second, a state observer is applied for estimating all states that are not available for measurement in the system. By using the strictly-positive-real (SPR) stability theorem, the proposed controller not only guarantees the stability of a class of non-linear systems but also maintains good tracking performance. The novel intelligence algorithm generates optimal parameters for the control schemes and is developed to guarantee the asymptotically stability of the system. Finally, simulation results substantiate the fact that the proposed method stands out as offering better properties than the observer-based adaptive fuzzy control (OBAFC) for tracking performance.

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory skin disorder for which few safe and effective systemic treatments are available. To test the clinical and immunomodulatory effects of a crude polysaccharide fraction isolated from Dendrobium huoshanensefor the treatment of AD, we conducted a pilot, uncontrolled case series study. Twenty-seven patients aged 4–18 years (mean±SD, 10.82±4.4) with AD that had not responded to topical therapy were treated with polysaccharide derived from D. huoshanensefor 4 weeks and followed-up for another 4 weeks. Progression of AD was determined with the Lund-Browder chart for children, the Investigator's Global Atopic Dermatitis Assessment (IGADA), and the Scoring Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) at weeks 0, 2, 4, and 8. Serum levels of cytokines were evaluated. Safety was determined with laboratory and clinical tests. The lesion area, IGADA score, total SCORAD result, and score for sleeplessness decreased significantly from weeks 0 to 4, but did not change significantly between weeks 4 and 8. The scores for subjective symptoms and pruritus decreased significantly from week 0 to week 4 and increased significantly from week 4 to week 8. Serum levels of IL-5, IL-13, IFN-γ, and TGF-β1 decreased significantly between weeks 0 and 4 and between weeks 0 and 8. No significant difference in the levels of IL-10 was found. The polysaccharide from D. huoshanensereduced the levels of some cytokines associated with AD and had beneficial effects on symptoms. No serious adverse effects occurred when it was administered orally for 4 weeks.

Several laboratory parameters have been investigated for assessing disease activity in children with atopic dermatitis (AD). Analyses of the correlation between these parameters and clinical severity can help to choose a convincing tool. This study compared the significance of serum interleukin-16 (IL-16), serum total immunoglobulin E (IgE), serum eosinophil cationic protein (ECP), and total eosinophil count (TEC) in reflecting AD severity to order to identify the most relevant objective tool for assessing AD activity and to assess the correlation between these laboratory parameters. The Severity Scoring of Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD index) was used for the assessment of disease activity in 48 pediatric patients in the acute exacerbation phase and in the maintenance phase after improvement of clinical findings with conventional treatment for 8 weeks. Serum levels of total IgE, ECP, and IL-16 as well as TEC were measured on the same time points and compared with healthy non-atopic controls. The correlation between SCORAD and each laboratory parameter was tested for significance and compared. Serum levels of ECP and IL-16 of AD patients were significantly higher than those of controls. These serum parameters, except TEC, declined significantly after conventional treatment with clinical improvement. There was positive correlation with SCORAD for serum IgE (r=0.317, p=0.028), TEC(r=0.434, p=0.002), IL-16 (r = 0.321, p=0.026) in the acute exacerbation phase and with SCORAD for serum IgE (r=0.510, p<0.001), TEC(r=0.489, p<0.001), serum ECP (r=0.468, p=0.001) in the maintenance phase. Serum levels of total IgE, IL-16, ECP, and TEC correlated with the SCORAD index in pediatric patients with atopic dermatitis. Thus, they can serve as serum markers for monitoring disease activity in childhood atopic dermatitis.

Abstract: A new lead coordination polymer [Pb(aip)]n (H2aip = 5-aminoisophthalic acid) was synthesized and characterized by IR, elemental and X-ray single-crystal analyses. X-ray crystallographic study of this complex revealed that H2aip ligand adopts a new coordination mode different from any reported modes in the title complex. The thermogravimetric experiment was carried out to examine the thermal stability, and the photoluminescence property of the title complex was investigated.

Alu repeats in K562 cells are unusually hypomethylated and far more actively transcribed than those in other human cell lines and somatic tissues. Also, the level of Alu RNA in K562 cells is relatively insensitive to cell stresses, namely heat shock, adenovirus infection and treatment with cycloheximide, which increase the abundance of Alu RNA in HeLa and 293 cells. Recent advances in understanding the interactions between DNA methylation, transcriptional activation and chromatin conformation reveal reasons for the constitutively high level of Alu expression in K562 cells. Methylation represses transcription of transiently transfected Alu templates in all cell lines tested but cell stresses do not relieve this repression suggesting that they activate Alu transcription through another pathway. A relatively large fraction of the Alus within K562 chromatin is accessible to restriction enzyme cleavage and cell stresses increase the chromatin accessibility of Alus in HeLa and 293 cells. Cell stress evidently activates Alu transcription by rapidly remodeling chromatin to recruit additional templates.

The redox properties of 2,3,7,8-tetramethoxyselenanthrene and 2,3,7,8-tetramethoxythianthrene have been studied in solution in order to compare their potential applicability as charge-transfer donors. The selenium compound is the weaker reductant, yielding a stable radical cation and a reactive dication, the former dimerizing in solution. Electron spin resonance and visible absorption spectra of the stable species were obtained. The 1:1 charge-transfer complexes of the above donors with tetracyanoquinodimethane are found to be insulators.

Plants, in general, appear to be able to detect the presence of incompatible Pseudomonas syringae strains by a hypothetical cell-cell recognition process to initiate inducible defense mechanisms that contribute to disease resistance. A 25-kb hrp/hrm gene cluster isolated from P. syringae pv. syringae 61(pHIR11) enables Escherichia coli to elicit a hypersensitive response (HR), a plant response generally considered to be a manifestation of recognition and resistance. To identify the nature of the HR-eliciting signal produced by E. coli cells carrying pHIR11, bacterial surface features were surveyed by immunological and biochemical procedures. No immunoreactive epitopes or outer membrane proteins were detected that were associated with expression of the P. syringae pv. syringae 61 hrp/hrm cluster in E. coli MC4100. Phenotypic expression of the P. syringae pv. syringae 61 hrp/hrm cluster in E. coli MC4100, however, was found to be dependent upon ompC and ompF, which control outer membrane permeability to hydrophilic solutes. The results suggest that deployment of the HR-eliciting signal occurs via outer membrane porins and imply that a low-molecular-weight, hydrophilic factor mediates signal exchange between the bacterium and the responding plant cell.

Raman spectra acquired from spherical, cubic, and cuboid SnO_2 nanocrystals (NCs) reveal a morphologically independent Raman mode at ∼302?cm^−1. The frequency of this mode is slightly affected by the NC size, but the intensity increases obviously with decreasing NC size. By considering the dipole changes induced by oxygen vacancies and derivation based on the density functional theory and phonon confinement model, an oxygen vacancy density larger than 6% is shown to be responsible for the transformation of the IR to Raman active vibration mode, and the intensity enhancement is due to strong phonon confinement.

Glycerol-passivated 3C–SiC nanocrystal (NC) solid films with tunable blue photoluminescence show abnormal longitudinal optical (LO) phonon behavior. As the NC size increases, the LO phonon intensity increases in the Raman spectra of the solid films and is even larger than that of the transverse optical mode. The Raman spectra cannot be fitted by using only the phonon confinement model. When further considering the coupling between the LO phonon and plasmon induced by the surface deformation potential in the glycerol layer, good agreement is achieved between the experiments and theory. This indicates that the coupled LO phonon–plasmon effect arising from the surface bonding structure plays a crucial role in the modified LO phonon behavior.

The peak position and linewidth of the low-frequency Raman mode observed from amorphous silica films embedded with Ge nanocrystals doped with Si show a size-independent behavior. Spectral analysis reveals the formation of a thin amorphous GeSi layer on the surface of the Ge nanocrystal. Theoretical calculation based on a modified three-region model discloses that the acoustic impedance of the interfacial GeSiO layer is responsible for the size-independent behavior. During high-temperature annealing, Ge atoms are segregated from the interface into the core, and the GeSiO interface layer is converted to SiO_2, leading to disappearance of the size-independent vibration mode.

Dun and Feng1have demonstrated with amphibian preparations that contrary to general belief nerve fibers, but more particularly motor nerve endings after treatment with veratrine, give prolonged repetitive discharges to a single stimulus. We have extended their work and found that mammalian motor nerve endings after vera-trinization likewise show prolonged repetitive discharges which can be readily recorded from the ventral root. We have furthermore ascertained that in a cat which has received an intravenous injection of a suitable amount of veratrine, such as 2 cc of 0.1% solution, the nerve fibers in the nerve trunk can also show prolonged repetitive firing. In the course of our work we had occasion to make various control tests, some of which dealt with possibilities which at first seemed very remote. One of the tests consisted of stimulating one ventral root bundle and leading off from another ventral root bundle of the same segment and side, both bundles being sectioned centrally at their exit from the cord. In a normal cat, in view of Blair and Erlanger's work,2one would naturally expect to lead off nothing but stimulus artifact in this way; but in a veratrinized animal one could not be so sure. In fact we have found that in a veratrinized cat in which the motor nerve endings and the nerve fibers in the sciatic nerve trunk were giving prolonged abundant after-discharges, some discharges could generally be led off from one ventral root when another ventral root was stimulated with a single shock. Such discharges have characteristic long and rather irregular delays in their onset; their shortest latency being about 4 msec and the longest exceeding 30 msec. This long latency, in addition to other reasons, excludes the possibility that the discharges might be due to the escape of the stimulating current from one root to the other; and there is left only one reasonable interpretation that they result from cross-excitation between nerve fibers.