Enhancing the Nucleolytic Resistance and Bioactivity of Functional Nucleic Acids by Diverse Nanostructures through in Situ Polymerization-Induced Self-assembly

Functional nucleic acids (FNAs) are garnering tremendous interest owing to their high modularity and unique bioactivity. Three-dimensional FNAs have been developed to overcome the issues of nuclease degradation and limited cell uptake. We have developed a new facile approach to the synthesis of multiple three-dimensional FNA nanostructures by harnessing photo-polymerization-induced self-assembly. Sgc8 aptamer and CpG oligonucleotide were modified as macro chain-transfer reagents to mediate in situ polymerization and self-assembly. Diverse structures, including micelles, rods, and short worms, afford these two FNAs afford these two FNAs with higher nuclease resistance in serum serum, greater cellular uptake efficiency, and increased bioactivity.     

Pressure Combined with Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury Induces Deep Tissue Injury via Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress in a Rat Pressure Ulcer Model

Pressure ulcer is a complex and significant health problem in long-term bedridden patients, and there is currently no effective treatment or efficient prevention method. Furthermore, the molecular mechanisms and pathogenesis contributing to the deep injury of pressure ulcers are unclear. The aim of the study was to explore the role of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and Akt/GSK3β signaling in pressure ulcers. A model of pressure-induced deep tissue injury in adult Sprague-Dawley rats was established. Rats were treated with 2-h compression and subsequent 0.5-h release for various cycles. After recovery, the tissue in the compressed regions was collected for further analysis. The compressed muscle tissues showed clear cellular degenerative features. First, the expression levels of ER stress proteins GRP78, CHOP, and caspase-12 were generally increased compared to those in the control. Phosphorylated Akt and phosphorylated GSK3β were upregulated in the beginning of muscle compression, and immediately significantly decreased at the initiation of ischemia-reperfusion injury in compressed muscles tissue. These data show that ER stress may be involved in the underlying mechanisms of cell degeneration after pressure ulcers and that the Akt/GSK3β signal pathway may play an important role in deep tissue injury induced by pressure and ischemia/reperfusion.     

Experimental Investigation on the Mechanical Instability of Superelastic NiTi Shape Memory Alloy

In this paper, primary attention is paid to the mechanical instability of superelastic NiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) during localized forward transformation at different temperatures. By inhibiting the localized phase transformation, we can obtain the up-down-up mechanical response of NiTi SMA, which is closely related to the intrinsic material softening during localized martensitic transformation. Furthermore, the material parameters of the up-down-up stress-strain curve are extracted, in such a way that this database can be utilized for simulation and validation of the theoretical analysis. It is found that during forward transformation, the upper yield stress, lower yield stress, Maxwell stress, and nucleation stress of NiTi SMA exhibit linear dependence on temperature. The relation between nucleation stress and temperature can be explained by the famous Clausius-Clapeyron equation, while the relation between upper/lower yield stress and temperature lacks theoretical study, which needs further investigation.     

Application Aware Topology Generation for Surface Wave Networks-on-Chip

The networks-on-chip （NoC） communication has an increasingly larger impact on the system power consumption and performance. Emerging technologies, like surface wave, are believed to have lower transmission latency and power consumption over the conventional wireless NoC. Therefore, this paper studies how to optimize the network performance and power consumption by giving the packet-switching fabric and traffic pattern of each application. Compared with the conventional method of wire-linked, which adds wireless transceivers by using the genetic algorithm （GA）, the proposed maximal declining sorting algorithm （MDSA） can effectively reduce time consumption by as much as 20.4% to 35.6%. We also evaluate the power consumption and configuration time to prove the effective of the proposed algorithm.     

浅谈民用建筑电气工程中的节能设计

建筑的节能设计已经成为了当前建筑设计的一个潮流和趋势。本文在分析民用建筑电气工程节能设计原则的基础上，对民用建筑电气工程节能设计的方法做出了一定的研究。     

Anisotropic thermal expansion behaviors of copper matrix in β-eucryptite/copper composite

A β-eucryptite/copper composite was fabricated by spark plasma sintering process. The thermal expansion behaviors of Cu matrix of the composite were studied by in situ X-ray diffraction during heating process. The results show that Cu matrix exhibits anisotropic thermal expansion behaviors for different crystallographic directions, the expansion of Cu{1 1 1} plane is linear in the temperature range from 20 °C to 300 °C and the expansion of Cu{2 0 0} is nonlinear with a inflection at about 180 °C. The microstructures of Cu matrix before and after thermal expansion testing were investigated using transmission electronic microscope. The anisotropic thermal expansion behavior is related to the deformation twinning formed in the matrix during heating process. At the same time, the deformation twinning of Cu matrix makes the average coefficient of thermal expansion of the composite increase.     

Effect of nitrogen–phosphorus fire retardant blended with Mg(OH)2/Al(OH)3 and nano‐SiO2 on fire‐retardant behavior and hygroscopicity of poplar

The aim of the study was to screen any possible synergistic effects related to the combination of nitrogen–phosphorus fire retardant and Mg(OH)₂/Al(OH)_3. This combination is used to improve fire performance, especially smoke suppression of poplar through ultrasonic wave impregnation after microwave treatment. In this study, nano‐SiO₂ was used to impregnate poplar treated with nitrogen–phosphorus fire retardant and form a hydrophobic layer on wood cells in order to improve hygroscopicity and reduce water uptake. Cone tests and thermal analysis showed that poplar treated with blended fire retardant had improved behavior. Results show that a 20% and 25% nitrogen–phosphorus fire‐retardant solution (blended by adding 10% Mg(OH)₂/Al(OH)₃ based on the dry weight of nitrogen–phosphorus fire retardant) was more effective for smoke suppression. The heat release rate, total heat release, and total smoke production of a 25% nitrogen–phosphorus fire‐retardant solution blended by adding 10% Mg(OH)₂/Al(OH)₃ showed significant reduction. The char residual yield showed a marked increase to 35.5%. Fourier transform infrared analysis suggested a –CH₂–Si–CH₂– and Si–O–C stretching vibration in nano‐SiO₂ treated poplar, which greatly decreased the hygroscopicity of fire‐retardant‐treated poplar. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influence of Substrate Temperature on Stress and Morphology Characteristics of Co Doped ZnO Films Prepared by Laser-Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Znl_xCoxO （x = 0.05） thin films are deposited on sapphire （0001） substrates by laser-molecular beam epitaxy technique at different substrate temperatures. The structural, stress and morphology evolution features are investigated by means of X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. The surface parameters of roughness exponent α, root mean square （RMS） roughness w and autocorrelation length ~ are calculated and the surface parameters are preliminarily analyzed. The values of ~ vary from 0.7 to 0.9. The RMS roughness w is less than 2.2 nm, and it increases with increasing Ts from 300 to 400 °C, and then decreases when Ts is 500 °C. The autocorrelation length ~ decreases monotonously with the increase in Ts from 300 to 500 °C, which indicates that the increase in Ts restrains the spread of the surface fluctuations until Ts is higher than 400 °C.     

Identification of Wiener systems based on the variable forgetting factor multierror stochastic gradient and the key term separation

The identification of Wiener systems is very difficult because of the output nonlinearity and the parameter product term. To identify the Wiener system, a novel stochastic gradient algorithm based on the multierror and the key term separation is proposed. Firstly, the Wiener system is parameterized as a pseudo-linear model to avoid the products of the parameters. Secondly, a parzen window is used to estimate the probability density function of the error. Thirdly, a stochastic information gradient algorithm with the multierror is adopted to estimate the parameters. The multierror takes the place of the scalar error by the stacked error, which accelerates the algorithm greatly. Fourthly, a variable forgetting factor considering errors is integrated to further speed the algorithm up. Finally, the proposed algorithm is validated by a numerical example and an industrial case. The estimation results indicate that the proposed algorithm can obtain accurate estimates with fast convergence speed.