A single-step synthesis of nitrogen-doped graphene sheets decorated with cobalt hydroxide nanoflakes for the determination of dopamine

Nitrogen-doped reduced graphene oxide(NrGO)sheets decorated with Co(OH)_2nanoflakes were prepared by a single-step hydrothermal process.The morphological and structural characterizations of as synthesized Nr GO@Co(OH)_2nanoflakes were performed by field emission scanning electron microscopy(FESEM),EDX-mapping and X-ray diffraction(XRD).Nr GO@Co(OH)_2nanoflakes modified glassy carbon electrode(GCE)was used for electrochemical sensing of dopamine in neutral medium.The nanocomposite modified electrode showed enhanced electrochemical sensing ability for the detection of dopamine and the limit of detection(Lo D)was found to be 0.201μM with a sensitivity value of 0.0286±0.002 m A m M~(-1).Interference studies revealed that Nr GO@Co(OH)_2─GCE endow excellent selectivity for DA detection even in the presence of higher concentration of common co-existing physiological interfering analytes.Additionally,proposed sensor demonstrated excellent performance in urine samples with promising reproducibility and stability.     

A discoidin domain receptor 1 knock-out mouse as a novel model for osteoarthritis of the temporomandibular joint

Discoidin domain receptor 1 (DDR-1)-deficient mice exhibited a high incidence of osteoarthritis (OA) in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) as early as 9 weeks of age. They showed typical histological signs of OA, including surface fissures, loss of proteoglycans, chondrocyte cluster formation, collagen type I upregulation, and atypical collagen fibril arrangements. Chondrocytes isolated from the TMJs of DDR-1-deficient mice maintained their osteoarthritic characteristics when placed in culture. They expressed high levels of runx-2 and collagen type I, as well as low levels of sox-9 and aggrecan. The expression of DDR-2, a key factor in OA, was increased. DDR-1-deficient chondrocytes from the TMJ were positively influenced towards chondrogenesis by a three-dimensional matrix combined with a runx-2 knockdown or stimulation with extracellular matrix components, such as nidogen-2. Therefore, the DDR-1 knock-out mouse can serve as a novel model for temporomandibular disorders, such as OA of the TMJ, and will help to develop new treatment options, particularly those involving tissue regeneration.     

Structural Decomposition Analysis to Investigate the Changes in Energy Consumption in Pakistan

The world energy demand is increasing due to rapid growth in the global economy, industrialization, and urbanization. Pakistan is also confronted with increasing energy demand on one hand and is confronted with the challenge of energy demand-supply gap on the other hand. Since energy is the major driver for growth, it becomes important to investigate the trends of energy consumption in a country and the factors that are most affecting the changes in the use of energy. This particular study aims to investigate the use of energy by all the economic sectors of Pakistan during 2000–2012.The major contribution is the first time application of structural decomposition analysis(SDA) for energy usage along with using Input-Output data for the period of 2002–2012. The results show the fluctuation of the energy intensity of the sectors throughout the study period. Also, the overall effect of energy intensity is negative on energy consumption and it shows a negative contribution value of-80.90% for the study period. Furthermore, the focus on more energy-intensive products like cement,automobiles, iron, steel products and the increasing final demand of the economy contributes to the growth of energy consumption in Pakistan during 2000–2012.     

Molecular evolution of rice S 5 n and functional comparison among different sequences

The wide compatibility gene, S ₅ ⁿ , can overcome embryo sac sterility between indica and japonica subspecies of rice. Therefore, it is very important to characterize the features of the S ₅ ⁿ sequence to reveal the origin and evolution of S ₅ ⁿ . In this paper, 26 cultivated rice haplotypes and 22 wild rice accessions harboring S ₅ ⁿ were used to sequence S ₅ ⁿ . The results showed that 15 genotypes among the 48 materials were fully consistent with control cultivar 02428 (CK). The other 33 accessions had different degrees of variation in the S ₅ ⁿ sequence. Variations in the coding region mainly occurred in the second exon and eight materials showed a 10-bp deletion at 1710?C1719 bp, including wild (O. nivara) and cultivated rice, such as IRW501 and Yuetai B. S ₅ ⁿ sequences were not biased and evolved neutrally. The 48 materials could be divided into 4 categories using a phylogenetic tree of the amino acid sequences. Most of the wild rice clustered together, and the cultivated rice clustered into another group. Eight cultivated rice and O. nivara (wild rice) clustered in another group, which were found to lack 10 consecutive bases in exon 2. Eight rice varieties with high numbers of differences in their S ₅ ⁿ coding regions were crossed with testers (typically indica and japonica) to produced test cross F₁ populations. The F₁s were examined for their ability to overcome indica-japonica hybrid sterility. The result showed that the embryo sac fertility of S ₅ ⁿ -containing hybrids increased significantly compared with control hybrids, but there were no differences among the materials with divergent sequences, indirectly proving that S ₅ ⁿ is a non-functional gene.     

Chaotification in the stretch-twist-fold (STF) flow

Chaotic behavior and detailed parameter analysis of stretch-twist-fold (STF) flow are investigated. STF flow is associated with fluid particle motion which naturally arises in the dynamo theory. It proposes a mechanism, by which a celestial bodies, such as earth and sun, can maintain and amplify the magnetic field continuously. Parameter analysis is performed using linearization theory for different choices of parameters. The existence of Heteroclinic trajectory of Sil’nikov type is proved using an undetermined coefficient method. It connects two non trivial equilibrium points. As a consequence, the Sil’nikov criterion guarantees that STF flow has Smale horseshoes chaos.     

微塑料和全氟辛烷磺酸类物质共暴露对翡翠贻贝滤食率和抗氧化系统的影响

为了探索微塑料和全氟辛烷磺酸类物质(PFOS)在海洋生物体内的复合污染毒性机制, 以翡翠贻贝为研究对象, 在聚苯乙烯微塑料(0.2 μm) 4.55×10⁸个/L以及PFOS浓度为10, 100和1000 μg/L的条件下, 研究PFOS或微塑料单独暴露以及二者复合暴露对翡翠贻贝滤食率、活性氧水平(ROS)、丙二醛(MDA)含量、超氧化物歧化酶(SOD)活性、过氧化氢酶(CAT)活性、谷胱甘肽巯基转移酶(GST)活性和谷胱甘肽还原酶(GR)活性的影响。结果表明, 与溶剂对照组相比, 暴露于微塑料和PFOS后翡翠贻贝的滤食率均没有显著变化。在翡翠贻贝的鳃、内脏团和性腺中, 微塑料或PFOS的胁迫都会引起酶响应的显著变化。与PFOS单独暴露组相比, 微塑料和 1000 μg/L PFOS共同暴露时, ROS水平在鳃和性腺中显著提升, 在内脏团中显著下降; MDA含量在鳃和内脏团中显著提升, 在性腺中显著下降; GST和GR活性在鳃中显著下降, 在性腺中显著提高。研究结果说明微塑料会改变翡翠贻贝对PFOS的氧化应激响应。     

Transmit Power Optimization for Relay-Aided Multi-Carrier D2D Communication

In this paper,we consider the power optimization problem in Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing(OFDM)-based relay-enhanced device-to-device(D2D) communication.In a single cell transmission scenario,dualhop communication is assumed in which each D2D user re-uses the spectrum of just one Cellular User(CU).In this work,we formulate a joint optimization scheme under a Decode-and-Forward(DF) relaying protocol to maximize the sum throughput of D2D and cellular networks via power allocation over different sub-carriers.The problem is thus transformed into a standard convex optimization,subject to individual power constraints at different transmitting nodes.We exploit the duality theory to decompose the problem into several sub-problems and use Karush–Kuhn–Tucker(KKT) conditions to solve each sub-problem.We provide simulation results to validate the performance of our proposed scheme.