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Being regarded as one of the most promising desalination technologies, capacitive deionization (CDI) has attracted wide attention due to its low energy consumption, high salt removal efficiency, low cost and non-secondary pollution. However, fabricating electrode materials with low cost but highly efficient CDI performance still remains a huge challenge. Here in this work, we successfully synthesized nitrogen-doped porous hollow carbon nanoboxes (HCNBs) with controllable shell thickness and abundant hierarchical meso- and micropores. Besides Zeolite Socony Mobil-5 (ZSM-5) template-derived micropores, mesopores were newly developed by in situ polymerization of aminophenol and formaldehyde and subsequent carbonization. The prepared HCNBs samples displayed high specific surface area and pore volume, along with impressive electrochemical performances of 192.82 F g−1 at a current density of 1 A g−1. Further, the existing form of uniformly doped nitrogen in the carbon skeleton of HCNBs could be modified by heat treatment so that the conductivity and surface properties could be tailored to improve their capacitive performance and electrochemical stability. Accordingly, HCNB-based electrodes exhibited high deionization capacity of 32.3 mg g−1 at 1.4 V in 500 mg per L NaCl solution as well as high salt removal retention ability up to 95.40% after 50 cycles, suggesting their promising applications in electrochemical desalination in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asini Corii Colla (ACC) and Taurus Corii Colla (TCC) are well-known for their high nutritional value, especially for medicinal purposes. However, the aforementioned are also potential candidates for adulteration because of their low yield and high price. A UPLC-MS/MS approach based on the specific peptide was proposed to detect adulterated gelatin with possible mixed animal species. To explore the antioxidant activity, the peptides were separated to evaluate their effect on ·OH radical and DPPH· scavenging activity, together with PI3K-AKT pathway activation. The results showed that the peptides had excellent DPPH· and ·OH radical scavenging effects, and could alleviate H2O2-induced oxidative stress by promoting the phosphorylation of PI3K and AKT. According to the results of MALDI-TOF/MS, the shared mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) 1466, 1744 and 2382 may serve as a material basis for the antioxidant activity of both ACC and TCC, and contribute to their traditional tonic effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tin oxide (SnO2) was considered as a promising alternative to commonly used graphite anode in energy storage devices thanks to its superior specific capacity. However, its electrochemical property was severely limited due to the inherent poor conductivity and drastic volume variation during the charging/discharging process. To overcome this disadvantage, we grew Sn-MOF directly on graphene oxide (GO) layers to synthesize a double carbon conductive network-encapsulated SnO2 nanoparticles (SnO2/C/rGO) via a facile solvothermal method. During the process, Sn-MOF skeleton transformed into porous carbon shells, in which nanosized SnO2 particles (~8nm) were embedded, while GO template was reduced to highly conductive rGO layer tightly wrapping the SnO2/C particles. This double-carbon structure endowed SnO2/C/rGO anode with enhanced specific capacity and rate property both in lithium ion batteries (LIB) and sodium ion batteries (SIB). The SnO2/C/rGO anode showed a highly reversible specific capacity of 1038.3 mAh g−1 at 100 mA g−1, and maintained a stable capacity of 720.2 mAh g−1 (70.1%) under 500 mA g−1 after 150 cycles in LIBs. Similarly, highly reversible capacity of 350.7 mAh g−1 (81.1%) under 100 mA g−1 after 150 cycles was also achieved in SIBs. This work provided a promising strategy in improving the electrochemical properties of SnO2 nanoparticles (NPs), as well as other potential anode materials suffering from huge volume change and poor conductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The effects of β amyloid (Aβ) on cytoplasmic Ca2+ ([Ca2+]c) have been studied extensively, but the current literature on this aspect is confusing. We reported that 20μM Aβ25–35 significantly inhibited the synchronized spontaneous cytoplasmic Ca2+ transients immediately after application, whereas it had little effect on the baseline [Ca2+]c concentration in neurons. Aβ1–42 had a similar effect on the Ca2+ transients as Aβ25–35, while it increased baseline [Ca2+]c concentration gradually. However, Aβ1–40 had little effect on either Ca2+ transients or baseline [Ca2+]c. Such differential effects of Aβ on Ca2+ signals might explain, at least partially, the confusing observations from the previous studies and provide important therapeutic implications for preventing or reversing early neuron damage in Alzheimer''s disease. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

With the widespread application of smart contracts, there is a growing concern over the quality assurance of smart contracts. The data flow testing is an important technology to ensure the correctness of smart contracts. We propose an approach named IABC‐TCG (Improved Artificial Bee Colony‐Test Case Generation) to generate test cases for the data flow testing of smart contracts. With a dominance relations‐based fitness function, an improved artificial bee colony algorithm is used to generate test cases, in which the bee colony search coefficient is adaptively adjusted to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the search. In addition, an improved test case selection and updation strategy is used to avoid unnecessary test cases. The experimental results show that IABC‐TCG achieves 100% coverage for all the test requirements on a dataset of 30 smart contracts and outperforms the baseline approaches in terms of the number of test cases and the execution time. Performing tests with the generated test cases, IABC‐TCG can find more errors with less test cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry working in multiple reaction monitoring mode, an analytical method has been established to simultaneously determine flavonol glycosides, terpene lactones, biflavones, proanthocyanidins, and ginkgolic acids in Ginkgo biloba leaves. Chromatographic separation was carried out on an Acquity BEH C18 column (100¿mm × 2.1¿mm, 1.7¿ ¿ m) with gradient elution of acetonitrile and 0.10% formic acid (v/v) at a flow rate of 0.4¿mL/min, and column temperature 30°C. The developed method was validated in terms of linearity, accuracy, precision, stability, and sensitivity. The optimized method was successfully applied to analyze twenty-two G. biloba leaf samples of fruit cultivars collected from different places in China. Furthermore, hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) was performed to evaluate and classify the samples according to the contents of the twenty-four chemical constituents. All of the results demonstrated that the developed method was useful for the overall evaluation of the quality of G. biloba leaves, and this study was also helpful for the comprehensive utilization and development of G. biloba resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tin oxide (SnO 2 ) was considered as a promising alternative to commonly used graphite anode in energy storage devices thanks to its superior specific capacity. However, its electrochemical property was severely limited due to the inherent poor conductivity and drastic volume variation during the charging/discharging process. To overcome this disadvantage, we grew Sn-MOF directly on graphene oxide (GO) layers to synthesize a double carbon conductive network-encapsulated SnO 2 nanoparticles (SnO 2 /C/rGO) via a facile solvothermal method. During the process, Sn-MOF skeleton transformed into porous carbon shells, in which nanosized SnO 2 particles (~8nm) were embedded, while GO template was reduced to highly conductive rGO layer tightly wrapping the SnO 2 /C particles. This double-carbon structure endowed SnO 2 /C/rGO anode with enhanced specific capacity and rate property both in lithium ion batteries (LIB) and sodium ion batteries (SIB). The SnO 2 /C/rGO anode showed a highly reversible specific capacity of 1038.3 mAh g -1 at 100 mA g -1 , and maintained a stable capacity of 720.2 mAh g -1 (70.1%) under 500 mA g -1 after 150 cycles in LIBs. Similarly, highly reversible capacity of 350.7 mAh g -1 (81.1%) under 100 mA g -1 after 150 cycles was also achieved in SIBs. This work provided a promising strategy in improving the electrochemical properties of SnO 2 nanoparticles (NPs), as well as other potential anode materials suffering from huge volume change and poor conductivity., (© 2021 IOP Publishing Ltd.)

The effects of beta amyloid (Abeta) on cytoplasmic Ca(2+) ([Ca(2+)](c)) have been studied extensively, but the current literature on this aspect is confusing. We reported that 20 microM Abeta(25-35) significantly inhibited the synchronized spontaneous cytoplasmic Ca(2+) transients immediately after application, whereas it had little effect on the baseline [Ca(2+)](c) concentration in neurons. Abeta(1-42) had a similar effect on the Ca(2+) transients as Abeta(25-35), while it increased baseline [Ca(2+)](c) concentration gradually. However, Abeta(1-40) had little effect on either Ca(2+) transients or baseline [Ca(2+)](c). Such differential effects of Abeta on Ca(2+) signals might explain, at least partially, the confusing observations from the previous studies and provide important therapeutic implications for preventing or reversing early neuron damage in Alzheimer's disease.