In this Review, we aim to provide an updated summary of the research related to hollow micro- and nanostructures, covering both their synthesis and their applications. After a brief introduction to ...the definition and classification of the hollow micro-/nanostructures, we discuss various synthetic strategies that can be grouped into three major categories, including hard templating, soft templating, and self-templating synthesis. For both hard and soft templating strategies, we focus on how different types of templates are generated and then used for creating hollow structures. At the end of each section, the structural and morphological control over the product is discussed. For the self-templating strategy, we survey a number of unconventional synthetic methods, such as surface-protected etching, Ostwald ripening, the Kirkendall effect, and galvanic replacement. We then discuss the unique properties and niche applications of the hollow structures in diverse fields, including micro-/nanocontainers and reactors, optical properties and applications, magnetic properties, energy storage, catalysis, biomedical applications, environmental remediation, and sensors. Finally, we provide a perspective on future development in the research relevant to hollow micro-/nanostructures.
Objective: Mental illness is a growing public concern, particularly for persons in higher education. This research aims to distinguish mental health and stigma experiences between three academic ...communities: undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members. Methods: The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with nineteen individuals who self-identified as a member of one or more of these groups. Findings and discussion: Participants reported experiencing a variety of mental health conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress), and described having diverse cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to internally and externally derived stigma. The findings of this study also provide insights into the ways that academic communities observe and interpret on-campus communication about mental health, and participants offered impressions about ways to improve intervention and awareness messaging. Implications of the findings are discussed.
Database search is the most widely used approach for peptide and protein identification in mass spectrometry-based proteomics studies. Our previous study showed that sample-specific protein databases ...derived from RNA-Seq data can better approximate the real protein pools in the samples and thus improve protein identification. More importantly, single nucleotide variations, short insertion and deletions and novel junctions identified from RNA-Seq data make protein database more complete and sample-specific. Here, we report an R package customProDB that enables the easy generation of customized databases from RNA-Seq data for proteomics search. This work bridges genomics and proteomics studies and facilitates cross-omics data integration.
customProDB and related documents are freely available at http://bioconductor.org/packages/2.13/bioc/html/customProDB.html.
Although the existing protein recognition methods have improved the recognition accuracy of key proteins to a certain extent, they have ignored the biological features of the proteins. In view of ...this shortcoming, this paper constructed a high-order dynamic complex protein network for key protein recognition. At first, this paper presented a method for feature selection and candidate set evaluation of complex protein network; a weighted network was constructed based on the obtained topological features of the complex protein network and the semantic similarity of protein gene ontology annotations. Then, this paper proposed an algorithm for recognizing key proteins in high-order dynamic protein network based on a Fruit fly optimization algorithm. At last, the effectiveness of the proposed model was verified by experimental results.
Trichomes play a key role in the development of plants and exist in a wide variety of species.
In this paper, it was reviewed that the structure and morphology characteristics of trichomes, alongside ...the biological functions and classical regulatory mechanisms of trichome development in plants. The environment factors, hormones, transcription factor, non-coding RNA, etc., play important roles in regulating the initialization, branching, growth, and development of trichomes. In addition, it was further investigated the atypical regulation mechanism in a non-model plant, found that regulating the growth and development of tea (Camellia sinensis) trichome is mainly affected by hormones and the novel regulation factors.
This review further displayed the complex and differential regulatory networks in trichome initiation and development, provided a reference for basic and applied research on trichomes in plants.
Display omitted
•Effect of persulfate on AO7 degradation by DBD plasma was studied.•Persulfate greatly improved the decolorization and mineralization of AO7.•Enhanced degradation of AO7 is attributed ...to SO4− and OH.•Possible degradation pathways of AO7 was tentatively given.
The synergetic degradation performance of Acid Orange 7 (AO7) by dielectric barrier discharge plasma (DBDP) and persulfate (PS) was examined. Addition of PS in AO7 solution hardly degraded any AO7 in 50min, but when DBDP was initiated over the solution surface, PS greatly enhanced the decolorization efficiency of AO7, and the improvement efficacy depended on the addition dosage of PS, the applied voltage, the air discharge gap and the gas discharge atmosphere. An increase in AO7 decolorization efficiency of 60% was obtained for AO7 solution of 5mg/L at a PS addition dosage of 100:1 (molar ratio of PS to AO7) and a discharge power of 3.6W, correspondingly, the decolorization rate of AO7 was accelerated by 6.7 times. The improvement on AO7 degradation mainly attributes to the enhanced production of sulfate radical (SO4−) and hydroxyl radicals (OH) which are produced from the activated PS by DBD plasma. The activators of PS were tentatively speculated as the UV irradiation and heat released in discharge channels, and hydrated electrons may also play a role in the activation process of PS. The intermediates identified by GC–MS and the TOC measurement show that addition of PS into AO7 solution had little effect on the degradation pathways of AO7, but greatly improved the mineralization of AO7, which was mainly due to the increased production of SO4− and OH.
The development of cancer combination therapies, many of which rely on nanoscale theranostic agents, has received increasing attention in recent years. In this work, polyethylene glycol (PEG) ...modified mesoporous silica (MS) coated single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are fabricated and utilized as a multifunctional platform for imaging guided combination therapy of cancer. A model chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin (DOX), could be loaded into the mesoporous structure of the obtained SWNT@MS‐PEG nano‐carriers with high efficiency. Upon stimulation under near‐infrared (NIR) light, photothermally triggered drug release from DOX loaded SWNT@MS‐PEG is observed inside cells, resulting in a synergistic cancer cell killing effect. As revealed by both photoacoustic (PA) and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, we further uncover efficient tumor accumulation of SWNT@MS‐PEG/DOX after intravenous injection into mice. In vivo combination therapy using this agent is further demonstrated in a mouse tumor model, achieving a remarkable synergistic anti‐tumor effect superior to that obtained by mono‐therapy. Our work presents a new type of theranostic nano‐platform, which could load therapeutic molecules with high efficiency, be responsive to external NIR stimulation, and at the same time serve as a diagnostic imaging agent.
Mesoporous silica coated single‐wall carbon nanotubes with polyethylene glycol functionalization and anti‐cancer drug loading are developed as a multifunctional theranostic platform. Upon systemic administration of such nano‐agent, combined photothermal and chemotherapy, which is under the guidance of multimodal magnetic resonance and photoacoustic imaging, is conducted on an animal tumor model, achieving a great synergistic therapeutic effect.
Display omitted
•Degradation of p-nitrophenol by DBD plasma/PS/Fe2+ was studied.•PS and Fe2+ improved the degradation of p-nitrophenol by DBD.•Fe2+ and DBD plasma synergistically activates PS into ...radical species.•SO4− and OH are the important radical species for p-nitrophenol degradation.•Besides Fe2+, electron and heat from DBD may be responsible for activating PS.
Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma in situ generates reactive species (e*, OH, O, H, H2O2, O3, etc.), UV irradiation and local high temperature. These physiochemical effects can non-selectively destroy aqueous organic contaminants, but the energy efficiency of DBD plasma for water decontamination can be further improved. Persulfate (S2O82-, PS) and ferrous ions (Fe2+) were employed for enhancing the degradation of p-nitrophenol (PNP). An addition of both S2O82- (<2.5 mM) and Fe2+ (<36 µM) in PNP solution apparently promoted the degradation efficiency of PNP and energy efficiency compared to discharge plasma alone, due to a more production of active OH and SO4·- through Fenton-like reactions and PS activation process. Moreover, the tertiary system of plasma/PS/Fe2+ (81.1%) presented higher PNP degradation efficiency after 50 min treatment than discharge plasma alone (34.8%) and the binary systems of plasma/PS (63.6%), plasma/Fe2+ (69.6%) and PS/Fe2+ (13.7%). However, an excessive addition of S2O82- (2.5–3.6 mM) and Fe2+ (36–360 µM) had unobvious or even harmful influence on PNP degradation, possibly due to the enhanced recombination or consumption of OH and SO4·- by radical side reactions. The effect of radical scavengers on PNP degradation indicates that OH was the most important radical species in plasma system for PNP degradation, but SO4·- was also very important for PNP degradation when PS was present in solution. Besides Fe2+ and the heat effect from discharge plasma, the electrons produced by electric discharge may also be one of the important contributors to the activation of PS.
Plasmonic metal nanostructures have attracted considerable attention for solar energy harvesting due to their capability in photothermal conversion. However, the narrow resonant band of the ...conventional plasmonic nanoparticles greatly limits their application as only a small fraction of the solar energy can be utilized. Herein, a unique confined seeded growth strategy is developed to synthesize black silver nanostructures with broadband absorption in the visible and near-infrared spectrum. Through this novel strategy, assemblages of silver nanoparticles with widely distributed interparticle distances are generated in rod-shaped tubular spaces, leading to strong random plasmonic coupling and accordingly broadband absorption for significantly improved utilization of solar energy. With excellent efficiency in converting solar energy to heat, the resulting black Ag nanostructures can be made into thin films floating at the air/water interface for efficient generation of clean water steam through localized interfacial heating.
•Weather stressors can affect fall phenology of many deciduous tree species.•These phenological responses to weather stressors are species-specific.•Diverse fall phenological shifts are projected for ...species under climate change.•Shorter leaf coloration seasons are projected, mainly due to future heat stress.•Models including variation among individuals, species and sites improve prediction.
Shifts in the timing of autumnal leaf coloration and leaf drop in temperate forests with climate change can have substantial impacts on community and ecosystem processes (e.g. altered carbon/nitrogen cycling and biotic interactions). However, the environmental control of autumn phenology remains significantly understudied in striking contrast to spring phenology. In this study, we used linear mixed effects model with ground-based phenology observations in northeastern USA and found that both weather stressors (e.g. heat- and drought-stress and heavy rainfall) during the growing season and spring phenology significantly affected inter-annual variation in autumn phenology of twelve dominant deciduous tree species. While warm temperatures and drought lead to later fall phenology for most species, heavy rainfall and heat stress lead to earlier leaf coloration and leaf drop. We also found that the phenological sensitivities to weather stressors are diversely species-specific. Under future climate change projections, we predicted that greater summer heat-stress in the future will cause abbreviated leaf coloration seasons for most species. Our mixed-effects modeling framework suggested that accounting for phenological variations among individual trees, species and sites largely improved model predictions, which should not be overlooked in phenological model development. Our study improves our understanding of how species-specific autumnal phenology responds to weather stresses, and describes a new modeling framework to investigate both inter-annual phenological changes and local variations among trees, species, and sites. Our predictions on autumn phenological shifts will help in assessing the effects of climate change on forest community and ecosystem processes in the future.
PDF
