This article examines a talismanic culture in Japanese religions through the case of the Chintaku reifu 鎮宅霊符 (“numinous talismans for the stabilization of residences”). Whereas previous scholarship ...viewed the set of seventy-two talismans as having an ancient Korean origin or connection to the Onmyōdō 陰陽道 tradition in Japan, my analysis of the talismans suggests that they arrived in Japan directly from Ming China around the late Muromachi period. Once introduced, the talismans were widely adopted across different religious traditions such as Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, and Shugendō under the name Chintaku reifujin 鎮宅霊符神 (the god of Chintaku reifu talismans) in Japan. Locating the talismans as a major force that shaped the medieval and early modern Japanese religious landscape, this article argues that the worship was not an extension or variation of Chinese Big Dipper worship but a sophisticated form of religious mosaic, which allowed an array of different forms of doctrinal thinking, cosmological knowledge, and ritual logics to coexist.
Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have been considered a potentially versatile electrode structure if they are made highly conductive and flexible to stabilize the redox functionality. Although ...conceptually plausible, COF‐based electrodes have rarely satisfied high capacity, cyclability, and rate capability thus far. Incorporating thiazole moieties into the organic scaffold, it is able to fabricate π‐conjugated and crystalline organic electrodes and demonstrate the fast two‐electron transfer in one step using azo functionality. The thiazole‐linked COF electrode performed over 5000 cycles at 10 C and a high power density of ≈2800 W kg−1 is achieved thanks to excellent chemical stability and high out‐of‐plane electrical conductivity. For comparison, COFs carrying β‐ketoenamine and imine linkers underperform due to the lack of structural stability. In this study, it is demonstrated that the design of linkages in the COFs is key to stabilize the redox reaction and show the basic principles of building COF electrodes for high‐performance lithium‐organic batteries.
A linkage‐driven strategy is developed to tune the redox‐activity of azo‐interlocked covalent organic frameworks (COFs) in Li‐organic batteries. Thiazole linkage stabilizes the lithiated and delithiated azo group in the COF backbone as revealed by experimental, computational, and operando investigations. Higher out‐of‐plane conductivity and enhanced structural stability during cycling in thiazole‐linked azo‐COF afford higher power density and long cycle life.
The field of valleytronics has promised greater control of electronic and spintronic systems with an additional valley degree of freedom. However, conventional and two-dimensional valleytronic ...systems pose practical challenges in the utilization of this valley degree of freedom. Here we show experimental evidences of the valley effect in a bulk, ambient, and bias-free model system of Tin(II) sulfide. We elucidate the direct access and identification of different sets of valleys, based primarily on the selectivity in absorption and emission of linearly polarized light by optical reflection/transmission and photoluminescence measurements, and demonstrate strong optical dichroic anisotropy of up to 600% and nominal polarization degrees of up to 96% for the two valleys with band-gap values 1.28 and 1.48 eV, respectively; the ease of valley selection further manifested in their non-degenerate nature. Such discovery enables a new platform for better access and control of valley polarization.
Long-term maintenance of avian primordial germ cells (PGCs) in vitro has tremendous potential because it can be used to deepen our understanding of the biology of PGCs. A transgenic bioreactor based ...on the unique migration of PGCs toward the recipients' sex cord via the bloodstream and thereby creating a germline chimeric bird has many potential applications. However, the growth factors and the signaling pathway essential for inducing proliferation of chicken PGCs are unknown.
Therefore, we conducted this study to investigate the effects of various combinations of growth factors on the survival and proliferation of PGCs under feeder-free conditions. We observed proliferation of PGCs in media containing bFGF. Subsequent characterization confirmed that the cultured PGCs maintained expression of PGC-specific markers, telomerase activity, normal migrational activity, and germline transmission. We also found that bFGF activates the mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase/extracellular-signal regulated kinase (MEK/ERK) signaling. Also, the expression of 133 transcripts was reversibly altered by bFGF withdrawal.
Our results demonstrate that chicken PGCs can be maintained in vitro without any differentiation or dedifferentiation in feeder free culture conditions, and subsequent analysis revealed that bFGF is one of the key factors that enable proliferation of chicken PGCs via MEK/ERK signaling regulating downstream genes that may be important for PGC proliferation and survival.
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Recently, the production of nanoparticles using biological resources has gained considerable attention due to their application for animal and human well-being. In this study, we used ...agreensynthesis to fabricate gold and silver nanoparticles by reducing HAuCl4 and AgNO3 into AuNPs and AgNPs, respectively, using Dudleya brittonii (DB) extract. The physio-chemical properties of the synthesized nanoparticles were analyzed using a UV–vis spectrophotometer, FESEM, EDX, HR-TEM, AFM and FT-IR. Furthermore, the antimicrobial and cytotoxicity activities of DB-AuNPs and DB-AgNPs against livestock pathogenic bacteria and different cell lines, as well as anti-oxidant activity, were investigated. DB synthesized AuNPs and AgNPs were mostly spherical with a few triangular rods and sizes ranging of 5–25 nm and 10–40 nm, respectively. The in vitro antibacterial and antifungal studies demonstrated the DB-AuNPs and DB-AgNPs have good antibacterial activity against E. coli and other livestock pathogens, including Y. pseudotuberculosis and S. typhi. Cell studies revealed that the higher concentrations of both DB-AuNPs and DB-AgNPs (1 µg/ml to 1 mg/ml) showed potent cytotoxicity in chicken cells after 24 hrs, whereas the middle and lower concentrations of DB-AuNPs and DB-AgNPs did not show cytotoxicity in selected cell lines after 24 hrs.In addition, the DB synthesized AuNPs and AgNPs exhibited good free scavenging activity in a dose-dependent manner. Therefore, the biosynthesized nanoparticles can be utilized by the livestock industry to develop an effective source against livestock microbial infections.
In this study, we synthesized fluorescent europium oxide (Eu2O3) nanosheets (EuNSs) using different approaches such as chemical-based methods and green synthesis, using Dedleya brittonii (DB) extract ...as an effective chelating agent for biological preparation. A modified hydrothermal method was used to synthesize chemical Eu2O3 nanosheets (CH-EuNS) and DB extract-based Eu2O3 nanosheets (DB-EuNS). Field emission scanning electron microscopy and HR-TEM analyses revealed that both EuNS had a sheet-like morphology, with an average thickness of 5–8 nm. The UV–Vis absorbance spectra of CH-EuNS and DB-EuNS showed clear bands at 320 and 325 nm, respectively; the band at approximately 320 nm corresponded to the absorbance of the Eu nanomaterial. The luminescence spectra of CH-EuNS and DB-EuNS showed strong red emission peaks centered at 616 and 612 nm, respectively, which were attributed to (5D0→7F3) and (5D0→7F2), respectively. Pure CH-EuNS and DB-EuNS showed no cytotoxicity against NIH 3 T3 fibroblasts and HeLa cancer cells at a high concentration (2 mg/mL) after 24 hr of exposure. Based on this outcome, unmodified CH-EuNS and DB-EuNS were used to detect ampicillin (AMP) antibiotics. The effectiveness of pure EuNS in detecting the presence of AMP was evaluated in various media, i.e., water, ethanol, and citrate buffer. Depending on the concentration of the different media, CH-EuNS with citrate buffer and ethanol exhibited maximum emission intensity variations of the 5D0 → 7F3 transition in the EuNS and AMP complexes at 618 nm. The luminescence of CH-EuNS and DB-EuNS was quenched in the presence of AMP at different concentrations (50 – 1 µM) in citrate buffer, whereas the luminescence intensity of pure EuNS was significantly higher than that of the EuNS-AMP mixture. The optimal linear concentration range for AMP was assessed under photoluminescence intensities of 0 to 50 µM, and the detection limit was determined to be 5 µM. This study suggests that CH-EuNS and DB-EuNS in a citrate buffer medium could effectively bind with AMP without ligand modification and significantly reduce the emission intensity due to the presence of AMP in the solution. Therefore, unmodified EuNS could be applied to detect AMP in a solution; however, for it to be used to detect AMP in real samples, it had to be optimized using a fluorescent nanomaterial.
Plants sense and respond to light via multiple photoreceptors including phytochrome. The decreased ratio of red to far-red light that occurs under a canopy triggers shade-avoidance responses, which ...allow plants to compete with neighboring plants. The leaf acts as a photoperceptive organ in this response. In this study, we investigated how the shade stimulus is spatially processed within the cotyledon. We performed transcriptome analysis on microtissue samples collected from vascular and nonvascular regions of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) cotyledons. In addition, we mechanically isolated and analyzed the vascular tissue. More genes were up-regulated by the shade stimulus in vascular tissues than in mesophyll and epidermal tissues. The genes up-regulated in the vasculature were functionally divergent and included many auxin-responsive genes, suggesting that various physiological/developmental processes might be controlled by shade stimulus in the vasculature. We then investigated the spatial regulation of these genes in the vascular tissues. A small vascular region within a cotyledon was irradiated with far-red light, and the response was compared with that when the whole seedling was irradiated with far-red light. Most of the auxinresponsive genes were not fully induced by the local irradiation, suggesting that perception of the shade stimulus requires that a wider area be exposed to far-red light or that a certain position in the mesophyll and epidermis of the cotyledon be irradiated. This result was consistent with a previous report that auxin synthesis genes are up-regulated in the periphery of the cotyledon. Hence, auxin acts as an important intraorgan signaling factor that controls the vascular shade response within the cotyledon.
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