Cu掺杂对有序Sr3YCo4-xCuxO10.5+δ多晶的结构与物理性能的影响

采用固相反应法制备了四方Sr3YCo4-xCuxO10.5+δ(x=0~1.0)多晶。用热重-差示扫描量热分析,X射线衍射研究了多晶的有序化相变及结构。在固溶范围内(x=0~0.4),观察到有序峰(103)和(215),说明四方Sr3YCo4-xCuxO10.5+δ多晶为超结构,这是由于合成时在1000℃以上发生了吸氧(δ)有序化相变；当x=0.6~1.0时,978℃时在晶界处形成了单斜杂相,破坏了Sr3YCo4-xCuxO10.5+δ多晶的有序。当x=0~0.4时,多晶呈半导体输运行为。随着Cu掺杂量的增加,Co4+提供的空穴载流子浓度增大,电阻率明显下降；由于Cu的固溶,自旋熵增加,载流子浓度和自旋熵的共同作用使x=0~0.2多晶的热电势不变,x=0.4的热电势降低。并且Cu掺杂导致的晶格畸变使Co3+离子由高自旋态转变为高/低自旋混合态,磁化强度和铁磁转变温度(Tc)降低,磁结构由G-型反铁磁转变为铁磁。在进行二次烧结后,300K时电阻率明显降低,热电势为一次烧结的2倍,可能是二次烧结使多晶的有序化程度增大,提高了铁磁有序排列。     

子集模拟中马尔可夫链蒙特卡洛抽样算法比较

文章着重研究子集模拟中马尔可夫链蒙特卡洛(MCMC)抽样算法的抽样效率与计算精度。首先，阐述可靠度子集模拟的基本原理与中间状态样本生成的各种MCMC抽样算法，在稳态马尔可夫链构造基础上提出延迟拒绝MMH(Modified Metropolis Hasting)算法，通过在MMH算法上增加备选样本的延迟拒绝步提高MMH算法的抽样效率；阐述基于随机游走与基于扩散方程MCMC方法中建议分布的差异，进一步对备选样本接受率为1的preconditioned Crank-Nicolson(pCN)算法和条件抽样(Conditional sampling, CS)算法开展研究，证明两种算法的等价性；推导有效样本量的计算方法，提出采用有效样本量与总样本量的比值定义MCMC方法的抽样效率。通过复杂目标分布的样本生成研究不同MCMC抽样算法建议分布及其参数对备选样本接受率与抽样效率的影响，最后通过计算实例研究子集模拟过程采用不同MCMC抽样算法得到失效概率的相对误差及其变异性，揭示不同MCMC抽样算法对失效概率计算精度的影响。研究表明：不同MCMC抽样算法生成备选样本的接受率及其自相关性受建议分布及其参数影响较大，对于复杂的目标分布，pCN算法和CS算法的抽样效率较高，延迟拒绝MMH算法次之；采用CS算法和延迟拒绝MMH算法进行子集模拟得到的失效概率精度较高且变异性较低；增加子集模拟中间状态样本量可以提高失效概率计算精度并降低其变异性。     

Effects of non-thermal plasma treating wheat kernel on the physicochemical properties of wheat flour and the quality of fresh wet noodles

The effects of non-thermal plasma (NTP) on the physicochemical properties of wheat flour and the quality of fresh wet noodles ( FWN) were investigated. The results showed that NTP effectively decreased the total plate count (TPC), yeast and mould count (YMC) and Bacillus spp. in wheat flour. Wet gluten contents and the stability time reached the maximum when treated for 20 s. The viscosity of starch increased significantly after treatment due to the increased of damaged starch. The contents of secondary structure were altered to some extent, which was because that the ordered network structure of gluten protein broken. Furthermore, compared with the control, texture properties of FWN were enhanced significantly at 20 s, and the darkening rate of FWN was greatly inhibited due to the low polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity. Consequently, the most suitable treatment was 500 W for 20 s, providing a basis for the application of NTP in flour products.     

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.