Rose rock-shaped nano Cu₂O anchored graphene for high-performance supercapacitors via solvothermal route

Zhang, W.,Yin, Z.,Chun, A.,Yoo, J.,Diao, G.,Kim, Y.S.,Piao, Y. Elsevier Sequoia 2016 Journal of Power Sources Vol.318 No.-

Novel rose rock-shaped cuprous oxide anchored graphene nanocomposite (Cu<SUB>2</SUB>O-GN) is successfully synthesized by a simple and efficient one-step solvothermal method. Notably, the reduction of graphene oxide (GO) and deposition of nano-Cu<SUB>2</SUB>O on GN occur simultaneously during the polyol reaction process. The nanocomposite is systematically characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We also explore the formation mechanism of Cu<SUB>2</SUB>O-GN including the concentration effect of the precursor, precipitation agent, GO, and heating rate on the morphology of the resulting nanocomposite. It is noteworthy that Cu<SUB>2</SUB>O is gradually decorated on the large sheets of GN to form ordered three-dimensional nanostructure with the optimized concentration of GO, which is crucial to the growth of the final nanoarchitectures. In addition, the electrochemical properties of the Cu<SUB>2</SUB>O-GN nanocomposite are investigated by cyclic voltammetry and galvanostatic charge-discharge measurements. The composite shows a favorable electrochemical capacitance (416 F g<SUP>-1</SUP> at 1 A g<SUP>-1</SUP>), rate performance and cycling stability. Also, a high specific capacitance and good retention point to its promising applications as electrode materials in supercapacitors.

Flavonoids Identified from Korean Scutellaria baicalensis Induce Apoptosis by ROS Generation and Caspase Activation on Human Fibrosarcoma Cells

Zhang, J.,Park, H.-S.,Kim, J.-A.,Hong, G.-E.,Nagappan, A.,Park, K.-I.,Kim, G.-S. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CHINESE MEDICINE INC 2014 The American journal of Chinese medicine Vol.42 No.2

The effects of flavonoids from Korean Scutellaria baicalensis on fibrosarcoma HT1080 cells and their underlying molecular mechanism were investigated in this study. Flavonoids affected HT1080 cell proliferation by interrupting cell cycle progress, obviously augmenting the proportion of sub-G1 and diminishing that of G1 phase, and undergoing apoptosis at the tested dosage (100-400 mu g/mL). In addition, the mediated apoptosis was mainly caused by total reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and by up-regulating the ratio of Bax/Bcl-xL, triggering caspase cascades (caspase-3, -9 and -8), and inactivating PARP, dose-dependently. The proteomics results showed that AP-4, ARID 5B, HNRNP K, PLOG, Prdx6, and myosin-1, associated with cell growth, differentiation and development, and overexpressed in gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, etc., were statistically down-regulated after the flavonoids treatment. Taken together, our data demonstrated that flavonoids from Korean S. baicalensis induced apoptosis in HT1080 cells, which involved a hierarchy of cellular pathways and multiple signal proteins, and might be a potential anticancer therapeutic agent.

Geographic and Breed Distribution Patterns of an A/G Polymorphism resent in the Mx Gene Suggests Balanced Selection in Village Chickens

Ommeh, S.,Jin, L.N.,Eding, H.,Muchadeyi, F.C.,Sulandari, S.,Zein, M.S.A.,Danbaro, G.,Wani, C.E.,Zhao, S.G.,Nie, Q.H.,Zhang, X.Q.,Ndila, M.,Preisinger, R.,Chen, G.H.,Yousif, I.A.,Heo, K.-N.,Oh, S.J.,Ta Science Alert 2010 International journal of poultry science Vol.9 No.1

Discretization of nonlinear input-driven dynamical systems using the Adomian Decomposition Method

Zhang, Y.,Chong, K.T.,Kazantzis, N.,Parlos, A.G. Elsevier Science Ltd 2012 Applied mathematical modelling Vol.36 No.12

A numerical decomposition method proposed by Adomian provides solutions to nonlinear, or stochastic, continuous time systems without the usual restrictive restraints. It is applicable to differential, delay differential, integro-differential, and partial differential equations without the need for linearization or other restrictions. It also works through both uncoupled boundary conditions as well as delay systems. In the following paper, a new time discretization method for the development of a sample-data representation of a nonlinear continuous-time input-driven dynamical system is proposed. The proposed method is based on both the zero-order hold (ZOH) assumption as well as the Adomian Decomposition Method which exhibit unique algorithmic and computational advantages. To take advantage of this method, the following steps must be followed. First, the method is applied to a linear input-driven dynamical system to explicitly derive an exact sample-data representation, producing proper results. Second, the method is then applied to a nonlinear input-driven dynamical system, which thereby derives exact and approximate sample-data representations, the latter being most suited for practical applications. To evaluate the performance, the proposed discretization procedure was tested using simulations in a case study which involved an illustrative two-degree-of-freedom mechanical system that exhibited nonlinear behavior considering various control and input variable profiles. In conclusion, the suggested algorithm, in comparison to the results of a Taylor-Lie series expansion method, demonstrated increased performance and efficiency.

Variation in the flowering gene SELF PRUNING 5G promotes day-neutrality and early yield in tomato

Soyk, Sebastian,Mü,ller, Niels A,Park, Soon Ju,Schmalenbach, Inga,Jiang, Ke,Hayama, Ryosuke,Zhang, Lei,Van Eck, Joyce,Jimé,nez-Gó,mez, José,M,Lippman, Zachary B Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan P 2017 Nature genetics Vol.49 No.1

<P>Plants evolved so that their flowering is triggered by seasonal changes in day lengths. However, day-length sensitivity in crops limits their geographical range of cultivation, and thus modification of the photoperiod response was critical for their domestication(2-11). Here we show that loss of day-length-sensitive flowering in tomato was driven by the florigen paralog and flowering repressor SELF-PRUNING 5G (SP5G). SP5G expression is induced to high levels during long days in wild species, but not in cultivated tomato because of cis-regulatory variation. CRISPR/Cas9-engineered mutations in SP5G cause rapid flowering and enhance the compact determinate growth habit of field tomatoes, resulting in a quick burst of flower production that translates to an early yield. Our findings suggest that pre-existing variation in SP5G facilitated the expansion of cultivated tomato beyond its origin near the equator in South America, and they provide a compelling demonstration of the power of gene editing to rapidly improve yield traits in crop breeding.</P>

Relativistic jet activity from the tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole

Burrows, D. N.,Kennea, J. A.,Ghisellini, G.,Mangano, V.,Zhang, B.,Page, K. L.,Eracleous, M.,Romano, P.,Sakamoto, T.,Falcone, A. D.,Osborne, J. P.,Campana, S.,Beardmore, A. P.,Breeveld, A. A.,Chester, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan P 2011 Nature Vol.476 No.7361

Supermassive black holes have powerful gravitational fields with strong gradients that can destroy stars that get too close, producing a bright flare in ultraviolet and X-ray spectral regions from stellar debris that forms an accretion disk around the black hole. The aftermath of this process may have been seen several times over the past two decades in the form of sparsely sampled, slowly fading emission from distant galaxies, but the onset of the stellar disruption event has not hitherto been observed. Here we report observations of a bright X-ray flare from the extragalactic transient Swift J164449.3+573451. This source increased in brightness in the X-ray band by a factor of at least 10,000 since 1990 and by a factor of at least 100 since early 2010. We conclude that we have captured the onset of relativistic jet activity from a supermassive black hole. A companion paper comes to similar conclusions on the basis of radio observations. This event is probably due to the tidal disruption of a star falling into a supermassive black hole, but the detailed behaviour differs from current theoretical models of such events.

Improvement of lower hybrid current drive systems for high-power and long-pulse operation on EAST

Wang M.,Liu L.,Zhao L.M.,Li M.H.,Ma W.D.,Hu H.C.,Wu Z.G.,Feng J.Q.,Yang Y.,Zhu L.,Chen M.,Zhou T.A.,Jia H.,Zhang J.,Cao L.,Zhang L.,Liang R.R.,Ding B.J.,Zhang X.J.,Shan J.F.,Liu F.K.,Ekedahl A.,Gonich 한국원자력학회 2022 Nuclear Engineering and Technology Vol.54 No.11

Aiming at high-power and long-pulse operation up to 1000 s, some improvements have been made for both 2.45 GHz and 4.6 GHz lower hybrid (LH) systems during the recent 5 years. At first, the guard limiters of the LH antennas with graphite tiles were upgraded to tungsten, the most promising material for plasma facing components in nuclear fusion devices. These new guard limiters can operate at a peak power density of 12.9 MW/m2 . Strong hot spots were usually observed on the old graphite limiters when 4.6 GHz system operated with power >2.0 MW [B. N. Wan et al., Nucl. Fusion 57 (2017) 102019], leading to a reduction of the maximum power capability. With the new limiters, 4.6 GHz LH system, the main current drive (CD) and electron heating tool for EAST, can be operated with power >2.5 MW routinely. Long-pulse operation up to 100 s with 4.6 GHz LH power of 2.4 MW was achieved in 2021 and the maximal temperature on the guard limiters measured by an infrared (IR) camera was about 540 C, much below the permissible value of tungsten material (~1200 C). A discharge with a duration of 1056 s was achieved and the 4.6 GHz LH energy injected into the plasma was up to 1.05 GJ. Secondly, the fully-activemultijunction (FAM) launcher of 2.45 GHz system was upgraded to a passive-active-multijunction (PAM), for which the density of optimum coupling was relatively low (below the cut-off value). Good coupling with reflection coefficient ~3% has been achieved with plasma-antenna distance up to 11 cm for the new PAM. Finally, in order to eliminate the effect of ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) wave on 4.6 GHz LH wave coupling, the location of the ICRF launcher was changed to a port that is located 157.5 toroidally from the 4.6 GHz LH system and is not magnetically connected

Influence of the Novel Urease Inhibitor Hydroquinone on Growing Lamb Nitrogen Utilization

Zhang, Y.G.,Shan, A.S.,Bao, J. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2002 Animal Bioscience Vol.15 No.7

Two in vivo experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of novel urease inhibitor hydroquinone (HQ) on ammonia release rate from urea hydrolysis, nitrogen balance, nutrient digestibility and efficiency of microbial protein synthesis. In Exp. 1, twelve crossbred cannulated lambs were randomly assigned within initial body weight block to one of four HQ treatments, which included 0 (control), 30, 60 or 80 mg HQ/kg DM intake. Ammonia concentration and pH of ruminal fluid were immediately measured at 0, 2, 4, 6 and 8 h after feeding. Increasing the dose of HQ tended (p<0.15) to linearly decrease NH3 formation. The ammonia peak concentration (2 h post-feeding) in animals receiving HQ was approximately one-half of that in animals not receiving HQ (p<0.01), and a relatively sustained ammonia release could be obtained at the dose of 30 or 60 mg HQ/kg DM. In Exp. 2, sixteen intact crossbred lambs (weight $40{\pm}0.8kg$) were used in a $2{\times}2$ factorial design experiment. The four rations consisting of soybean meal-based (SBM) or urea-based (Urea) nitrogen source with or without HQ (S1, S0, U1 and U0) were fed in digestion and N balance trials. Apparent digestibility of major nutrients except that of ADF was not affected by either nitrogen source or addition of HQ. Regardless of nitrogen source, supplementation of HQ significantly improved ADF digestibility (p<0.05). The various ration had no effects on N metabolism in the presence of HQ. There was significant difference between total purine derivatives (PD), estimated efficiency of microbial N synthesis (p<0.05) and urea-N excretion (p<0.01) in the urine for the SBM ration and for the Urea ration. However, HQ had little influence on efficiency of microbial N synthesis as proportion of daily intake of total tract digestible OM (p>0.05). No interactions between main nitrogen source and HQ were measured throughout the trial. Results of this study suggest that addition of HQ to ration may improve ADF digestion with having no negative effect on N metabolism and microbial protein production.

Multiscale finite element method applied to detached-eddy simulation for computational wind engineering

Yue Zhang,Rooh A. Khurram,Wagdi G. Habashi 한국풍공학회 2013 한국풍공학회지 Vol.17 No.1

A multiscale finite element method is applied to the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model based detached-eddy simulation (DES). The multiscale arises from a decomposition of the scalar field into coarse (resolved) and fine (unresolved) scales. It corrects the lack of stability of the standard Galerkin formulation by modeling the scales that cannot be resolved by a given spatial discretization. The stabilization terms appear naturally and the resulting formulation provides effective stabilization in turbulent computations, where reaction-dominated effects strongly influence near-wall predictions. The multiscale DES is applied in the context of high-Reynolds flow over the Commonwealth Advisory Aeronautical Council (CAARC) standard tall building model, for both uniform and turbulent inflows. Time-averaged pressure coefficients on the exterior walls are compared with experiments and it is demonstrated that DES is able to resolve the turbulent features of the flow and accurately predict the surface pressure distributions under atmospheric boundary layer flows.

Effects of Graded Levels of Dietary Saccharomyces cerevisiae on Growth Performance and Meat Quality in Broiler Chickens

Zhang, A.W.,Lee, B.D.,Lee, K.W.,Song, K.B.,An, G.H.,Lee, C.H. Asian Australasian Association of Animal Productio 2005 Animal Bioscience Vol.18 No.5

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of various dietary levels of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SC) on the growth performance and meat quality (i.e., tenderness and oxidative stability) of Ross broiler chickens. Two hundred and forty dayold broiler chicks were fed four experimental diets with graded levels of SC at 0.0, 0.3, 1.0 and 3.0%. Each treatment consisted of six cages with 10 chicks per cage. Feed and water were provided ad libitum throughout the experiment that lasted for 5 wk. Birds were switched from starter to finisher diets at 3 wk of age. The average BW gains of broiler chickens increased (linear p<0.05) during either 0-3 or 0-5 wk of age as dietary SC levels increased. A linear effect (p<0.05) of SC on feed intake during either 4-5 wk or 0-5 wk of ages was also monitored. The addition of SC to the control diet significantly lowered shear forces in raw breast, raw thigh, and boiled drumstick meats (linear p<0.05). Upon incubation, 2-thio-barbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) values increased gradually in breast and thigh meats while more dramatic increase was noted in skin samples. The TBARS values of either breast or thigh meats were not significantly affected (p>0.05) by dietary treatments up to 10 d of incubation. At 15 d of incubation, TBARS values of breast and thigh meats from all SC-treated groups were significantly lower (p<0.05) than those of the control. It appears that dietary SC could enhance growth performance of broiler chickens, and improve tenderness and oxidative stability of broiler meats.