Effect of microwave heating time on the gel properties of chicken myofibrillar proteins and their formation mechanism

The present work was conducted to illustrate the mechanism of gel formation of myofibrillar proteins (MPs) under different microwave heating times. The results showed that the denaturation enthalpy (ΔH) of the MPs significantly decreased when the heating time increased from 3 to 9 s and then completely disappeared as the heating time progressed, indicating that the MPs gradually denatured and subsequently aggregated with increasing heating time, which was further verified by the changes in the secondary structure, electrophoretic bands, and gel properties (e.g., water holding capacity and textural profiles) of the MPs. Microstructural images indicated that the MP gel formed under 12 s had the most compact network, indicating that extended microwave heating time could induce quality deterioration of MP gels. Moreover, the hydrophobic forces, electrostatic forces, and disulphide bonds of the MPs gradually intensified with increasing microwave heating time, suggesting that both non-covalent and covalent bonds could promote molecular denaturation and subsequent aggregation of MPs. In addition, correlation analysis revealed that the changes in the molecular conformation of MPs induced by different microwave heating times could effectively regulate the formation of MP gels and their related properties.     

A Highly Sensitive,Reversible, and Bidirectional Humidity Actuator by Calcium Carbonate Ionic Oligomers Incorporated Poly(Vinylidene Fluoride)

Sensitivity and multi-directional motivation are major two factors for developing optimized humidity-response materials, which are promising for sensing, energy production, etc. Organic functional groups are commonly used as the water sensitive units through hydrogen bond interactions with water molecules in actuators. The multi-coordination ability of inorganic ions implies that the inorganic ionic compounds are potentially superior water sensitive units. However, the particle forms of inorganic ionic compounds produced by classical nucleation limit the number of exposed ions to interact with water. Recent progress on the inorganic ionic oligomers has broken through the limitation of classical nucleation, and realized the molecular-scaled incorporation of inorganic ionic compounds into an organic matrix. Here, the incorporation of hydrophilic calcium carbonate ionic oligomers into hydrophobic poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) is demonstrated. The ultra-small calcium carbonate oligomers within a PVDF film endow it with an ultra-sensitive, reversible, and bidirectional response. The motivation ability is superior to other bidirectional humidity-actuators at present, which realizes self-motivation on an ice surface, converting the chemical potential energy of the humidity gradient from ice to kinetic energy.     

Reconstructing gene regulatory networks with a memetic-neural hybrid based on fuzzy cognitive maps

Reconstructing gene regulatory networks (GRNs) plays an important role in identifying the complicated regulatory relationships, uncovering regulatory patterns in cells, and gaining a systematic view for biological processes. In order to reconstruct large-scale GRNs accurately, in this paper, we first use fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs), which are a kind of cognition fuzzy influence graphs based on fuzzy logic and neural networks, to model GRNs. Then, a novel hybrid method is proposed to reconstruct GRNs from time series expression profiles using memetic algorithm (MA) combined with neural network (NN), which is labeled as MANN_FCM-GRN. In MANN_FCM-GRN, the MA is used to determine regulatory connections in GRNs and the NN is used to determine the interaction strength of the regulatory connections. In the experiments, the performance of MANN_FCM-GRN is validated on both synthetic data and the benchmark dataset DREAM3 and DREAM4. The experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of MANN_FCM-GRN and show that MANN_FCM-GRN can reconstruct GRNs with high accuracy without expert knowledge. The comparison with existing algorithms also shows that MANN_FCM-GRN outperforms ant colony optimization, non-linear Hebbian learning, and real-coded genetic algorithms.

     

烟道流量计量标准装置

为了解决我国烟道流量计的量值溯源问题,中国计量科学研究院建立了烟道流量计量标准装置。装置使用可溯源至标准转盘的激光多普勒测速仪作为原级标准器,采用激光多普勒流速剖面扫描和超声流量计波动修正的方式测量标准流量,经校准的8声道超声流量计为工作级标准表,具备了908~104840m3/h的测量能力,扩展不确定度为0.62%(k=2),可对最大口径为1m的流量计进行校准。装置下游测试段包括圆形管段和矩形管段,能够开展烟道流量计测量性能的研究。     

Visual Detection of Adenosine Triphosphate by Taylor Rising: A Simple Point-of-Care Testing Method Based on Rolling Circle Amplification

Rapid and sensitive point-of-care testing (POCT) is an extremely critical mission in practical applications, especially for rigorous military medicine, home health care, and in the third world. Here, we report a visual POCT method for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) detection based on Taylor rising in the corner of quadratic geometries between two rod surfaces. We discuss the principle of Taylor rising, demonstrating that it is significantly influenced by contact angle, surface tension, and density of the sample, which are controlled by ATP-dependent rolling circle amplification (RCA). In the presence of ATP, RCA reaction effectively suppresses Taylor-rising behavior, due to the increased contact angle, density, and decreased surface tension. Without addition of ATP, untriggered RCA reaction is favorable for Taylor rising, resulting in a significant height. With this proposed method, visual sensitive detection of ATP without the aid of other instruments is realized with only a 5 μL droplet, which has good selectivity and a low detection limit (17 nM). Importantly, this visual method provides a promising POCT tool for user-friendly molecular diagnostics.     

基于振动实测的非均质地层钻头失效分析与对策

四川盆地作为国内页岩气开发的重点区域,通过近几年的不断攻关和实践,机械钻速得到了提高,但由于受地层复杂、可钻性差、非均质性强等地质因素的影响,导致井下钻柱系统不良振动剧烈,容易出现钻头损坏严重、钻速较低等问题,严重影响了钻井时效。为了解决上述难题,以该盆地涪陵工区上二叠统龙潭组—中二叠统茅口组为例,采用井下振动高频测量工具的实测手段,测量了钻头—钻柱系统的动态振动加速度参数,结合地层的岩性和矿物组分分析,研究钻头失效原因与对策,并开展了现场试验。研究结果表明:①在非均质地层中钻进的钻头—钻柱系统产生了大于40 m/s~2的高幅值瞬时冲击振动,高幅值的瞬时冲击是导致钻头先期失效的主要原因;②提出了抑制高幅值的瞬时冲击振动采用"减振+增压"工具组合和避免井下工具共振的钻井参数;③采用钻井新参数的试验井比邻井的高幅值瞬时振动降低了17%,单只钻头进尺增加24%,钻头工作环境得到了较大的改善,钻头使用数量减少。结论认为,该研究成果能够有效地改善钻头—钻柱系统的振动状态,有利于达成延长钻头使用寿命的目标。     

Tensor Q-rank: new data dependent definition of tensor rank

Machine Learning - Recently, the $${ Tensor}~{ Nuclear}~{ Norm}~{ (TNN)}$$ regularization based on t-SVD has been widely used in various low tubal-rank tensor recovery tasks. However, these models...