Shenyang Normal University

The reconstruction of the Tree of Life has relied almost entirely on concatenation methods, which do not accommodate gene tree heterogeneity, a property that simulations and theory have identified as a likely cause of incongruent phylogenies. However, this incongruence has not yet been demonstrated in empirical studies. Several key relationships among eutherian mammals remain controversial and conflicting among previous studies, including the root of eutherian tree and the relationships within Euarchontoglires and Laurasiatheria. Both bayesian and maximum-likelihood analysis of genome-wide data of 447 nuclear genes from 37 species show that concatenation methods indeed yield strong incongruence in the phylogeny of eutherian mammals, as revealed by subsampling analyses of loci and taxa, which produced strongly conflicting topologies. In contrast, the coalescent methods, which accommodate gene tree heterogeneity, yield a phylogeny that is robust to variable gene and taxon sampling and is congruent with geographic data. The data also demonstrate that incomplete lineage sorting, a major source of gene tree heterogeneity, is relevant to deep-level phylogenies, such as those among eutherian mammals. Our results firmly place the eutherian root between Atlantogenata and Boreoeutheria and support ungulate polyphyly and a sister-group relationship between Scandentia and Primates. This study demonstrates that the incongruence introduced by concatenation methods is a major cause of long-standing uncertainty in the phylogeny of eutherian mammals, and the same may apply to other clades. Our analyses suggest that such incongruence can be resolved using phylogenomic data and coalescent methods that deal explicitly with gene tree heterogeneity.

In this paper, a near-optimal control scheme is proposed to solve the nonzero-sum differential games of continuous-time nonlinear systems. The single-network adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) is utilized to obtain the optimal control policies which make the cost functions reach the Nash equilibrium of nonzero-sum differential games, where only one critic network is used for each player instead of the action-critic dual network used in a typical ADP architecture. Furthermore, the novel weight tuning laws for critic neural networks are proposed, which not only ensure the Nash equilibrium to be reached but also guarantee the system to be stable. No initial stabilizing control policy is required for each player. Moreover, Lyapunov theory is utilized to demonstrate the uniform ultimate boundedness of the closed-loop system. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed near-optimal control scheme.

Various metal-based electrocatalysts from nanocrystals, to clusters and single-atoms, have been well-discovered towards high-efficient power devices and electrocatalytic conversion. To accelerate energy transformation materials discovery, developing high-throughput DFT calculations and machine-learning techniques is of great necessity. This review comprehensively outlines the latest progress of theory-guided design of advanced energy transformation materials. Especially, we focus on the study of single atoms in various power devices, such as fuel cell (oxygen reduction reaction, ORR; acid oxidation reaction; alcohol oxidation reaction), and other reactions for energy-related electrocatalytic conversion of small molecules, such as H2O2 evolution reactions (2e− ORR), water splitting (H2 evolution reaction/O2 evolution reaction, HER/OER), N2 reduction reaction (NRR), and CO2 reduction reactions (CO2RR). Firstly, the electronic structure, interaction mechanism, and reaction activation path are discussed to provide an overall blueprint in electrocatalysis and batteries mentioned above. Thereafter, the experimental synthesis strategies, structural recognition, and electrocatalytic performance for the advanced energy transformation materials are figured out. Finally, some viewpoints into the current issues and future design concept of the advanced energy transformation materials are provided.

Using the photometric redshifts of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), we identify 132,684 clusters in the redshift range of 0.05<z<0.8. Monte Carlo simulations show that the false detection rate is less than 6% for the whole sample. The completeness is more than 95% for clusters with a mass of M_{200}>1.0*10^{14} M_{\odot} in the redshift range of 0.05<z<0.42, while clusters of z>0.42 are less complete and have a biased smaller richness than the real one due to incompleteness of member galaxies. We compare our sample with other cluster samples, and find that more than 90% of previously known rich clusters of 0.05<z<0.42 are matched with clusters in our sample. Richer clusters tend to have more luminous brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). Correlating with X-ray and the Planck data, we show that the cluster richness is closely related to the X-ray luminosity, temperature and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich measurements. Comparison of the BCGs with the SDSS luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample shows that 25% of LRGs are BCGs of our clusters and 36% of LRGs are cluster member galaxies. In our cluster sample, 63% of BCGs of r_{petro}<19.5 satisfy the SDSS LRG selection criteria.

We evaluated the influence of heat treatment on interfacial properties (adsorption at the oil-water interface and dilatational rheology of interfacial layers) of soy protein isolate. The related structural properties of protein affecting these interfacial behaviors, including protein unfolding and aggregation, surface hydrophobicity, and the state of sulfhydryl group, were also investigated. The structural and interfacial properties of soy protein depended strongly on heating temperature (90 and 120 °C). Heat treatment at 90 °C induced an increase in surface hydrophobicity due to partial unfolding of protein, accompanied by the formation of aggregates linked by disulfide bond, and lower surface pressure at long-term adsorption and similar dynamic interfacial rheology were observed as compared to native protein. Contrastingly, heat treatment at 120 °C led to a higher surface activity of the protein and rapid development of intermolecular interactions in the adsorbed layer, as evidenced by a faster increase of surface pressure and dilatational modulus. The interfacial behaviors of this heated protein may be mainly associated with more flexible conformation and high free sulfhydryl group, even if some exposed hydrophobic groups are involved in the formation of aggregates. These results would be useful to better understand the structure dependence of protein interfacial behaviors and to expand utilization of heat-treated protein in the formulation and production of emulsions.

Two excited state proton transfer mechanisms of 3-hydroxyisoquinoline (3HIQ) in cyclohexane and acetic acid (ACID) were investigated based on the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), suggesting a different double-proton transfer mechanism from the one proposed previously (J. Phys. Chem. B, 1998, 102, 1053). Instead of the formation of keto-enol complexes for 3HIQ self-association in cyclohexane, our theoretical results predicted that 3HIQ self-association exists in two forms: the normal form (enol/enol) and the tautomer form (keto/keto) in cyclohexane. A high barrier (37.023 kcal mol(-1)) between the 3HIQ enol monomer and 3HIQ keto monomer form indicated that the 3HIQ keto monomer in the ground state should not exist. In addition, the constructed potential energy surfaces of the ground state and excited state have been used to explain the proton transfer process. Upon optical excitation, the enol/enol form is excited to the first excited state, then transfers one proton, in turn, transition to the ground state to transfer another proton. A relatively low barrier (8.98 kcal mol(-1)) demonstrates two stable structures in the ground state. In view of the acetic acid solvent effect, two protons of 3HIQ/ACID transfer along the dihydrogen bonds in the first excited state, which is a different transfer mechanism to 3HIQ self-association. In addition, the proton transfer process provides a possible explanation for the fluorescence quenching observed.

Obesity and chronic diet-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancers, and celiac are increasing worldwide. The increasing prevalence of these diseases has led nutritionists and food scientists to pay more attention to the relationship between diet and different disease risks. Among different foods, rice has received increasing attention because it is a major component of billions of peoples' diets throughout the world. Rice is commonly consumed after polishing or whitening and the polished grain is known a high glycemic food because of its high starch content. In addition, the removal of the outer bran layer during rice milling results in a loss of nutrients, dietary fiber, and bioactive components. Therefore, many studies were performed to investigate the potential health benefits for the consumption of whole brown rice (BR) grain in comparison to the milled or white rice (WR). The objective of this work was to review the recent advances in research performed for purposes of evaluation of nutritional value and potential health benefits of the whole BR grain. Studies carried out for purposes of developing BR-based food products are reviewed. BR safety and preservation treatments are also explored. In addition, economic and environmental benefits for the consumption of whole BR instead of the polished or WR are presented. Furthermore, challenges facing the commercialization of BR and future perspectives to promote its utilization as food are discussed.

Lipid peroxidation in oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions leads to rancidity and carcinogen formation. This work attempted to protect lipid droplets of emulsions from peroxidation via manipulation of the emulsions' interface framework using dual-function zein/CH complex particles (ZCPs). ZCP with intermediate wettability was fabricated via a simple antisolvent approach. Pickering emulsions were produced via a simple and inexpensive shear-induced emulsification technique. ZCP was irreversibly anchored at the oil-water interface to form particle-based network architecture therein, producing ultrastable o/w Pickering emulsions (ZCPEs). ZCPE was not labile to lipid oxidation, evidenced by low lipid hydroperoxides and malondialdehyde levels in the emulsions after thermally accelerated storage. The targeted accumulation of curcumin, a model antioxidant, at the interface was achieved using the ZCP as interfacial vehicle, forming antioxidant shells around dispersed droplets. The oxidative stability of ZCPEs was further improved. Interestingly, no detectable hexanal peak appeared in headspace gas chromatography of the Pickering emulsions. The novel interfacial architecture via the combination of steric hindrance from ZCP-based membrane and interfacial cargo of curcumin endowed the emulsions with favorable oxidative stability. This study opens a promising pathway for producing antioxidant emulsions via the combination of Pickering stabilization mechanism and interfacial delivery of antioxidant.

Abstract We study the evolution of the scaling relations that compare the effective density ( ) and core density ( kpc) to the stellar masses of star-forming galaxies (SFGs) and quiescent galaxies. These relations have been fully in place since and have exhibited almost constant slope and scatter since that time. For SFGs, the zero points in and decline by only . This fact plus the narrowness of the relations suggests that galaxies could evolve roughly along the scaling relations. Quiescent galaxies follow different scaling relations that are offset to higher densities at the same mass and redshift. Furthermore, the zero point of their core density has declined by only since , while the zero point of the effective density declines by . When galaxies quench, they move from the star-forming relations to the quiescent relations. This involves an increase in the core and effective densities, which suggests that SFGs could experience a phase of significant core growth relative to the average evolution along the structural relations. The distribution of massive galaxies relative to the SFR– M and the quiescent relations exhibits an L-shape that is independent of redshift. The knee of this relation consists of a subset of “compact” SFGs that are the most likely precursors of quiescent galaxies forming at later times. The compactness selection threshold in exhibits a small variation from z = 3 to 0.5, M ⊙ kpc −2 , allowing the most efficient identification of compact SFGs and quiescent galaxies at every redshift.

)-H/N-H cross-dehydrogenative coupling (CDC)-amination with both primary and secondary aliphatic amines at room temperature in air is developed. This photocatalytic reaction allows the direct formation of 3-aminoquinoxalin-2(1 H)-ones via CDC-amination in the absence of any external oxidant added from outside. Preliminary mechanistic studies reveal that the present reaction proceeds through a radical process.

Among dozens of layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), VS2 has attracted particular interest due to its intrinsic magnetism and potential applications as a high-performance functional nanomaterial. The phase stability and electronic properties of the typical crystal structures of both monolayer and bulk VS2 are carefully investigated based on first-principle calculations. The results reveal that the relative stability between different phases is greatly affected by the thickness of the layers and the temperature. Below room temperature, both bulk and monolayer VS2 prefer to exhibit the hexagonal (H) structure instead of the trigonal (T) structure. Interestingly, at room temperature, although the H monolayer VS2 remains more stable than the T-VS2, the bulk T-VS2 becomes more stable than H-VS2. These results reveal that a phase transition between H and T will occur on changing either the thickness of the slab or the temperature. Furthermore, the different crystal structures (H and T) exhibit significantly distinct magnetism: the bulk T-VS2 has the lowest magnetism (0.31 μB), while the monolayer H-VS2 has the largest magnetism (about 1.00 μB) among the structures. Most importantly, our results reveal that the magnetism will increase sharply on the exfoliation of monolayer VS2 from the bulk at room temperature because of the phase transition from T to H. The present results provide an efficient way to modulate the magnetic moment through controlling the crystal structure and the thickness of the VS2 nanosheets.

BACKGROUND: Archaeopteryx is the oldest and most primitive known bird (Avialae). It is believed that the growth and energetic physiology of basalmost birds such as Archaeopteryx were inherited in their entirety from non-avialan dinosaurs. This hypothesis predicts that the long bones in these birds formed using rapidly growing, well-vascularized woven tissue typical of non-avialan dinosaurs. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We report that Archaeopteryx long bones are composed of nearly avascular parallel-fibered bone. This is among the slowest growing osseous tissues and is common in ectothermic reptiles. These findings dispute the hypothesis that non-avialan dinosaur growth and physiology were inherited in totality by the first birds. Examining these findings in a phylogenetic context required intensive sampling of outgroup dinosaurs and basalmost birds. Our results demonstrate the presence of a scale-dependent maniraptoran histological continuum that Archaeopteryx and other basalmost birds follow. Growth analysis for Archaeopteryx suggests that these animals showed exponential growth rates like non-avialan dinosaurs, three times slower than living precocial birds, but still within the lowermost range for all endothermic vertebrates. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The unexpected histology of Archaeopteryx and other basalmost birds is actually consistent with retention of the phylogenetically earlier paravian dinosaur condition when size is considered. The first birds were simply feathered dinosaurs with respect to growth and energetic physiology. The evolution of the novel pattern in modern forms occurred later in the group's history.

This paper reports measurements of the surface tension of ionic liquid EMISE (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium ethyl sulfate) using the forced bubble method at 278.15 to 323.15 K and densities of EMISE using a Westphal balance at 278.15 to 338.15 K. At the same time, a new theoretical model, the interstice model, is put forward. Applying the model, an expression of the average volume of the interstices, v, was obtained. The calculated volume fraction of the total interstices is 0.12 for ionic liquid EMISE and is in good agreement with that of the majority of materials which exhibit a 10∼15% volume expansion in transition from the solid to liquid state. The value of the thermal expansion coefficient calculated from the model is 5.24 × 10−4 K−1 and is in good agreement with the experimental value 5.37 × 10−4 K−1 at 298.15 K.

Despite the wide use of aryl radicals in organic synthesis, current methods to prepare them from aryl halides, carboxylic acids, boronic acids, and diazonium salts suffer from limitations. Aryl triflates, easily obtained from phenols, are promising aryl radical progenitors but remain elusive in this regard. Inspired by the single electron transfer process for aryl halides to access aryl radicals, we developed a simple and efficient protocol to convert aryl triflates to aryl radicals. Our success lies in exploiting sodium iodide as the soft electron donor assisted by light. This strategy enables the scalable synthesis of two types of important organic molecules, i.e., aryl boronates and aryl iodides, in good to high yields, with broad functional group compatibility in a transition-metal-free manner at room temperature. This protocol is anticipated to find potential applications in other aryl-radical-involved reactions by using aryl triflates as aryl radical precursors.

This paper attempts to provide an up-to-date depiction and analysis of the consumer’s attitude towards sustainability of fast fashion products in the UK. Four related strands of literature are reviewed to establish a tri-component model of attitude (ABC), i.e., Affective, Behavioural and Cognitive. A wide set of determinants for attitude is identified, including income, price, gender, culture, religion, age, etc. Based on this conceptual framework, an online questionnaire is designed and sent to university students and alumni in the UK, returning 128 valid responses. Both descriptive statistics and regression analysis (oprobit) are employed to shed light on the three components of attitude towards sustainability. It is found that cognitive and behavioural components converge across cultures and religions, but the affective component remains significantly diverse. Employment status contributes to the awareness, decision and feeling of sustainability features, but gender only matters for purchase decisions. In general, there is an improved cognitive and affective awareness of sustainability, but this does not automatically translate to purchase behaviour. Policy interventions like taxes and subsidies are still needed to foster sustainability in the fast fashion industry.

Abstract Heterogeneous catalysts with single‐atom active sites offer a means of expanding the industrial application of noble metal catalysts. Herein, an atomically dispersed Pt 1 ‐Co 3 O 4 catalyst is presented, which exhibits an exceptionally high efficiency for the total oxidation of methanol. Experimental and theoretical investigations indicate that this catalyst consists of Pt sites with a large proportion of occupied high electronic states. These sites possess a strong affinity for inactive Co 2+ sites and anchor over the surface of (111) crystal plane, which increases the metal–support interaction of the Pt 1 ‐Co 3 O 4 material and accelerates the rate of oxygen vacancies regeneration. In turn, this is determined to promote the coadsorption of the probe methanol molecule and O 2 . Density functional theory calculations confirm that the electron transfer over the oxygen vacancies reduces both the methanol adsorption energy and activation barriers for methanol oxidation, which is proposed to significantly enhance the dissociation of the CH bond in the methanol decomposition reaction. This investigation serves as a solid foundation for characterizing and understanding single‐atom catalysts for heterogeneous oxidation reactions.

Using the photometric redshifts of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), we identify 132,684 clusters in the redshift range of 0.05<z<0.8. Monte Carlo simulations show that the false detection rate is less than 6% for the whole sample. The completeness is more than 95% for clusters with a mass of M_{200}>1.0*10^{14} M_{\odot} in the redshift range of 0.05<z<0.42, while clusters of z>0.42 are less complete and have a biased smaller richness than the real one due to incompleteness of member galaxies. We compare our sample with other cluster samples, and find that more than 90% of previously known rich clusters of 0.05<z<0.42 are matched with clusters in our sample. Richer clusters tend to have more luminous brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). Correlating with X-ray and the Planck data, we show that the cluster richness is closely related to the X-ray luminosity, temperature and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich measurements. Comparison of the BCGs with the SDSS luminous red galaxy (LRG) sample shows that 25% of LRGs are BCGs of our clusters and 36% of LRGs are cluster member galaxies. In our cluster sample, 63% of BCGs of r_{petro}<19.5 satisfy the SDSS LRG selection criteria.

Due to digitalization, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have significantly enhanced their efficiency and productivity in the past few years. The process to automate SME transaction execution is getting highly multifaceted as the number of stakeholders of SMEs is connecting, accessing, exchanging, adding, and changing the transactional executions. The balanced lifecycle of SMEs requires partnership exchanges, financial management, manufacturing, and productivity stabilities, along with privacy and security. Interoperability platform issue is another critical challenging aspect while designing and managing a secure distributed Peer-to-Peer industrial development environment for SMEs. However, till now, it is hard to maintain operations of SMEs' integrity, transparency, reliability, provenance, availability, and trustworthiness between two different enterprises due to the current nature of centralized server-based infrastructure. This paper bridges these problems and proposes a novel and secure framework with a standardized process hierarchy/lifecycle for distributed SMEs using collaborative techniques of blockchain, the internet of things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) with machine learning (ML). A blockchain with IoT-enabled permissionless network structure is designed called "B-SMEs" that provides solutions to cross-chain platforms. In this, B-SMEs address the lightweight stakeholder authentication problems as well. For that purpose, three different chain codes are deployed. It handles participating SMEs' registration, day-to-day information management and exchange between nodes, and analysis of partnership exchange-related transaction details before being preserved on the blockchain immutable storage. Whereas AI-enabled ML-based artificial neural networks are utilized, the aim is to handle and optimize day-to-day numbers of SME transactions; so that the proposed B-SMEs consume fewer resources in terms of computational power, network bandwidth, and preservation-related issues during the complete process of SMEs service deliverance. The simulation results present highlight the benefits of B-SMEs, increases the rate of ledger management and optimization while exchanging information between different chains, which is up to 17.3%, and reduces the consumption of the system's computational resources down to 9.13%. Thus, only 14.11% and 7.9% of B-SME's transactions use network bandwidth and storage capabilities compared to the current mechanism of SMEs, respectively.

Few attempts have been made to study the alleviating effects of signal molecules on zoysiagrass (Zoysiajaponica) under drought stress. Calcium chloride has been shown to ameliorate the adverse effects of drought stress on many plants. It is necessary to investigate how to enhance drought tolerance of zoysiagrass using calcium chloride. The study elucidated the effects of calcium chloride on zoysiagrass under drought conditions by investigating the following parameters: biomass, chlorophyll (Chl) content, net photosynthetic rate (Pn), chlorophyll fluorescence, antioxidant enzymes, proline content, and malondialdehyde (MDA) content. Experimental conditions consisted of an aqueous CaCl2 solution at 5, 10, and 20 mM sprayed on zoysiagrass leaves for 3 d, following by an inducement of drought conditions by withholding water for 16 d. Under drought conditions, all CaCl2 pretreatments were found to increase the above-ground fresh biomass, as well as below-ground fresh and dry biomass. The resulting Chl (a, b, a+b) contents of the 5 and 10 mM CaCl2 pretreatment groups were higher than those of the control. In the later stages of drought conditions, the chlorophyll fluorescence parameter Fv/Fm was higher in leaves treated with 10 mM CaCl2 than in the leaves of the other two treatment groups. Zoysiagrass pretreated with 10 mM CaCl2 possessed both the maximum observed Pn and antioxidant enzyme activities. Meanwhile, lower MDA and proline contents were recorded in the plants pretreated with 5 and 10 mM CaCl2 under drought conditions. As a whole, the drought tolerance of zoysiagrass was improved to some extent by the application of a moderate calcium concentration.

Poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) and poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) ultrafine fibers were prepared by electrospinning. The influence of cationic and anionic surfactants on their enzymatic degradation behavior was investigated by measuring weight loss, molecular weight, crystallinity, and melting temperature of the fibers as a function of degradation time. Under the catalysis of proteinase K, the PLLA fibers containing the anionic surfactant sodium docecyl sulfate (SDS) exhibited a faster degradation rate than those containing cationic surfactant triethylbenzylammonium chloride (TEBAC), indicating that surface electric charge on the fibers is a critical factor for an enzymatic degradation. Similarly, TEBAC-containing PCL fibers exhibited a 47% weight loss within 8.5 h whereas SDS-containing PCL fibers showed little degradation in the presence of lipase PS. By analyzing the charge status of proteinase K and lipase PS under the experimental conditions, the importance of the surface charges of the fibers and their interactions with the charges on the enzymes were revealed. Consequently, a "two-step" degradation mechanism was proposed: (1) the enzyme approaches the fiber surface; (2) the enzyme initiates hydrolysis of the polymer. By means of differential scanning calorimetry and wide-angle X-ray diffraction, the crystallinity and orientation changes in the PLLA and PCL fibers during the enzymatic degradation were investigated, respectively.