Synthesis and characterizations of highly responsive H2S sensor using p-type Co3O4 nanoparticles/nanorods mixed nanostructures

High-quality p-type semiconducting Co₃O₄ with mixed morphology of nanoparticles/nanorods are synthesized using a hydrothermal route for high response and selective hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) sensor application. XRD and Raman studies revealed the crystal structure and molecular bonding for obtained Co₃O_4, respectively. The nanoparticles/nanorods-like structures were confirmed for Co₃O₄ using FESEM and TEM analysis. The EDS and XPS spectra analysis were carried out for elemental composition and chemical atomic states of Co₃O₄. The Co₃O₄ sensor is investigated for gas sensing properties in dynamic conditions. The sensor exhibited the highest selectivity towards H₂S among various hydrogen-contained gases at 225 °C. The sensor revealed a high response of 357% and 44% for 100 and 10 ppm H₂S gas concentrations, respectively. The Co₃O₄ sensor exhibited a systematic dynamic resistance response for 100–10 ppm range H₂S gas. The excellent dynamic resistance repeatability of the sensor was shown towards 25 ppm H₂S gas. The response of Co₃O₄ sensor was investigated at different operating temperatures and H₂S concentrations. The sensor stability and H₂S sensing mechanism for the Co₃O₄ sensor have been reported. Highly uniform and mixed nanostructures of Co₃O₄ can be the potential sensor material for real-time high-performance H₂S sensor application.     

国际橄榄理事会的定位和使命及相关标准（网络首发、推荐阅读）

The International Olive Council(IOC) is an international intergovernmental organization dedicated to olive oil and table olives, aiming at modernizing olive production, coordinating olive policies, improving the regulation of international trade, defending the quality of the olive sector and promoting olive oil and table olives to increase their consumption. The IOC grants recognition of laboratories and tasting panels in annual trials when they meet the conditions given in the decisions adopting the IOC certificate for laboratories for the physico–chemical testing of olive oil and laboratories for the sensory analysis of virgin olive oils. The IOC establishes analysis methods applying to olive oils and olive pomace oils for purity, quality and organoleptic assessment. The IOC elaborates guides of storage conditions for olive oils and olive pomace oils, of managing virgin olive oil tasting panels and of sensory testing laboratories. In future works, the IOC includes activities to identify analytical criteria for detecting fraud and guaranteeing the quality of olive oils and olive pomace oils.     

Ammonia gas sensing and magnetic permeability of enhanced surface area and high porosity lanthanum substituted Co–Zn nano ferrites

This work reports magnetic permeability and ammonia gas sensing characteristics of La³⁺ substituted Co–Zn nano ferrites possessing chemical formula Co_0.7Zn_0.3La_xFe_2-2xO₄ (x = 0–0.1) synthesized by a sol-gel route. Refinement of X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns of the ferrite powders by the Rietveld technique has revealed the creation of single-phase spinel structure. The tenancy of constituent cations at tetrahedral/octahedral sites was obtained from the refinement of XRD. The crystallite sizes calculated from the W–H method vary from 20 to 24 nm. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) profiles of the ferrite samples were analyzed for the morphological details. The energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX) patterns of the samples were obtained to test the elemental purity of the ferrites within their stoichiometry. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) image of the ferrite (x = 0.1) exhibits the spherical and oval shaped particles with a mean size of 20 nm. Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) spectra were analyzed to confirm the superseding of La³⁺ cations at octahedral sites. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis of nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms of the ferrites was performed to investigate the porous structure and to determine the surface area of the nanocrystalline ferrites. The oxidation states of the constituent ions were confirmed by means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The complex permeability as a function of frequency was studied to explore the effects of structural parameters on the magnetic behaviour of the ferrites. Analysis of gas sensing properties of the ferrites have proved that the Co–Zn–La ferrite with controlled La composition can be utilized as an effective ammonia gas sensing material in commercial gas sensors.     

A Tradeoff Between Accuracy and Speed for K-Means Seed Determination

With a sharp increase in the information volume, analyzing and retrieving this vast data volume is much more essential than ever. One of the main techniques that would be beneficial in this regard is called the Clustering method. Clustering aims to classify objects so that all objects within a cluster have similar features while other objects in different clusters are as distinct as possible. One of the most widely used clustering algorithms with the well and approved performance in different applications is the k-means algorithm. The main problem of the k-means algorithm is its performance which can be directly affected by the selection in the primary clusters. Lack of attention to this crucial issue has consequences such as creating empty clusters and decreasing the convergence time. Besides, the selection of appropriate initial seeds can reduce the cluster’s inconsistency. In this paper, we present a new method to determine the initial seeds of the k-mean algorithm to improve the accuracy and decrease the number of iterations of the algorithm. For this purpose, a new method is proposed considering the average distance between objects to determine the initial seeds. Our method attempts to provide a proper tradeoff between the accuracy and speed of the clustering algorithm. The experimental results showed that our proposed approach outperforms the Chithra with 1.7% and 2.1% in terms of clustering accuracy for Wine and Abalone detection data, respectively. Furthermore, achieved results indicate that comparing with the Reverse Nearest Neighbor (RNN) search approach, the proposed method has a higher convergence speed.     

缺水传感器改进设计

针对一种煤矿用本安型缺水传感器在现场安装及维护难度大,以及抽采泵供水状态下管道内有水但传感器检测显示为无水,或抽采泵停止工作时传感器检测显示有水问题,分析原产品中磁体及探头感应装置结构。改进其结构形式,并优化安装,使检测稳定可靠。实现抽采泵管道用缺水传感器的可靠性设计和轻量化设计。     

Adaptation to Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Enhances Resistance of Oral Cancer Cells to Cisplatin by Up-Regulating Polymerase η and Increasing DNA Repair Efficiency

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response is an adaptive program to cope with cellular stress that disturbs the function and homeostasis of ER, which commonly occurs during cancer progression to late stage. Late-stage cancers, mostly requiring chemotherapy, often develop treatment resistance. Chemoresistance has been linked to ER stress response; however, most of the evidence has come from studies that correlate the expression of stress markers with poor prognosis or demonstrate proapoptosis by the knockdown of stress-responsive genes. Since ER stress in cancers usually persists and is essentially not induced by genetic manipulations, we used low doses of ER stress inducers at levels that allowed cell adaptation to occur in order to investigate the effect of stress response on chemoresistance. We found that prolonged tolerable ER stress promotes mesenchymal–epithelial transition, slows cell-cycle progression, and delays the S-phase exit. Consequently, cisplatin-induced apoptosis was significantly decreased in stress-adapted cells, implying their acquisition of cisplatin resistance. Molecularly, we found that proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) ubiquitination and the expression of polymerase η, the main polymerase responsible for translesion synthesis across cisplatin-DNA damage, were up-regulated in ER stress-adaptive cells, and their enhanced cisplatin resistance was abrogated by the knockout of polymerase η. We also found that a fraction of p53 in stress-adapted cells was translocated to the nucleus, and that these cells exhibited a significant decline in the level of cisplatin-DNA damage. Consistently, we showed that the nuclear p53 coincided with strong positivity of glucose-related protein 78 (GRP78) on immunostaining of clinical biopsies, and the cisplatin-based chemotherapy was less effective for patients with high levels of ER stress. Taken together, this study uncovers that adaptation to ER stress enhances DNA repair and damage tolerance, with which stressed cells gain resistance to chemotherapeutics.     

Radiation- and Photo-Induced Oxidation Pathways of Methionine in Model Peptide Backbone under Anoxic Conditions

Within the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated by cellular metabolisms, hydroxyl radicals (HO^•) play an important role, being the most aggressive towards biomolecules. The reactions of HO^• with methionine residues (Met) in peptides and proteins have been intensively studied, but some fundamental aspects remain unsolved. In the present study we examined the biomimetic model made of Ac-Met-OMe, as the simplest model peptide backbone, and of HO^• generated by ionizing radiation in aqueous solutions under anoxic conditions. We performed the identification and quantification of transient species by pulse radiolysis and of final products by LC-MS and high-resolution MS/MS after γ-radiolysis. By parallel photochemical experiments, using 3-carboxybenzophenone (CB) triplet with the model peptide, we compared the outcomes in terms of short-lived intermediates and stable product identification. The result is a detailed mechanistic scheme of Met oxidation by HO^•, and by CB triplets allowed for assigning transient species to the pathways of products formation.