3D hierarchical graphene matrices enable stable Zn anodes for aqueous Zn batteries.

Metallic zinc anodes of aqueous zinc ion batteries suffer from severe dendrite and side reaction issues, resulting in poor cycling stability, especially at high rates and capacities. Herein, we develop two three-dimensional hierarchical graphene matrices consisting of nitrogen-doped graphene nanofibers clusters anchored on vertical graphene arrays of modified multichannel carbon. The graphene matrix with radial direction carbon channels possesses high surface area and porosity, which effectively minimizes the surface local current density, manipulates the Zn2+ ions concentration gradient, and homogenizes the electric field distribution to regulate Zn deposition. As a result, the engineered matrices achieve a superior coulombic efficiency of 99.67% over 3000 cycles at 120 mA cm-2, the symmetric cells with the composite zinc anode demonstrates 2600 h dendrite-free cycles at 80 mA cm-2 and 80 mAh cm-2. The as-designed full cell exhibits an inspiring capacity of 16.91 mAh cm-2. The Zn capacitor matched with activated carbon shows a superior long-term cycle performance of 20000 cycles at 40 mA cm-2. This strategy of constructing a 3D hierarchical structure for Zn anodes may open up a new avenue for metal anodes operating under high rates and capacities.

Melatonin Attenuates Ropivacaine-Induced Apoptosis by Inhibiting Excessive Mitophagy Through the Parkin/PINK1 Pathway in PC12 and HT22 Cells.

Melatonin, as an endogenous circadian indoleamine secreted by the pineal gland, executes extensive biological functions, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, and neuroprotective effects. Although melatonin has been reported to serve as a potential therapeutic against many nerve injury diseases, its effect on ropivacaine-induced neurotoxicity remains obscure. Our research aimed to explore the impact and mechanism of melatonin on ropivacaine-induced neurotoxicity. Our results showed that melatonin pretreatment protected the cell viability, morphology, and apoptosis of PC12 and HT22 cells, and it also improved ropivacaine-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and the activation of mitophagy. In addition, we found that autophagy activation with rapamycin significantly weakened the protective effect of melatonin against ropivacaine-induced apoptosis, whereas autophagy inhibition with 3-MA enhanced the effect of melatonin. We also detected the activation of Parkin and PINK1, a canonical mechanism for mitophagy regulation, and results shown that melatonin downregulated the expression of Parkin and PINK1, and upregulated Tomm20 and COXIV proteins, so that those results indicated that melatonin protected ropivacaine-induced apoptosis through suppressing excessive mitophagy by inhibiting the Parkin/PINK1 pathway. Melatonin may be a useful potential therapeutic agent against ropivacaine-induced neurotoxicity.

Simultaneous construction of axial and planar chirality by gold/TY-Phos-catalyzed asymmetric hydroarylation.

The simultaneous construction of two different chiralities via a simple operation poses considerable challenge. Herein a cationic gold-catalyzed asymmetric hydroarylation of ortho-alkynylaryl ferrocenes derivatives is developed, which enable the simultaneous construction of axial and planar chirality. The here identified TY-Phos derived gold complex is responsible for the high yield, good diastereoselectivity (>20:1 dr), high enantioselectivities (up to 99% ee) and mild conditions. The catalyst system also shows potential application in the synthesis of chiral biaryl compounds. The cause of high enantioselectivity of this hydroarylation is investigated with density functional theory caculation.

Component Analysis of Gas Mixture Based on One-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Network.

Indoor harmful gases are a considerable threat to the health of residents. In order to improve the accuracy of indoor harmful gas component identification, we propose an indoor toxic gas component analysis method that is based on the combination of bionic olfactory and convolutional neural network. This method uses the convolutional neural network's ability to extract nonlinear features and identify each component of bionic oflactory respense signal. A comparison with the results of other methods verifies the improvement of recognition rate while with the same level of time cost, which proved the effectiveness of the proposed model. The experimental results showed that the recognition rate of different types and concentrations of harmful gas components reached 90.96% and it solved the problem of mutual interference between gases.

Access to P-chiral sec- and tert-phosphine oxides enabled by Le-Phos-catalyzed asymmetric kinetic resolution.

The synthesis of P-stereogenic building blocks is extremely difficult. Herein we report an efficient kinetic resolution of secondary phosphine oxides via a Le-Phos-catalyzed asymmetric allylation reaction with Morita-Baylis-Hillman carbonates. This method provides facile access to enantioenriched secondary and tertiary P-chiral phosphine oxides with broad substrate scope, both of which could serve as P-stereogenic synthons, and can be rapidly incorporated into a given scaffold bearing a P-stereocenter. The highly desirable late stage modifications demonstrate the practicability of our method and can be a critical contribution to obtaining optimal P-chiral catalysts and ligands.

The Odor Characterizations and Reproductions in Machine Olfactions: A Review.

Machine olfaction is a novel technology and has been developed for many years. The electronic nose with an array of gas sensors, a crucial application form of the machine olfaction, is capable of sensing not only odorous compounds, but also odorless chemicals. Because of its fast response, mobility and easy of use, the electronic nose has been applied to scientific and commercial uses such as environment monitoring and food processing inspection. Additionally, odor characterization and reproduction are the two novel parts of machine olfaction, which extend the field of machine olfaction. Odor characterization is the technique that characterizes odorants as some form of general odor information. At present, there have already been odor characterizations by means of the electronic nose. Odor reproduction is the technique that re-produces an odor by some form of general odor information and displays the odor by the olfactory display. It enhances the human ability of controlling odors just as the control of light and voice. In analogy to visual and auditory display technologies, is it possible that the olfactory display will be used in our daily life? There have already been some efforts toward odor reproduction and olfactory displays.

Identification of Chinese Herbal Medicines with Electronic Nose Technology: Applications and Challenges.

This paper provides a review of the most recent works in machine olfaction as applied to the identification of Chinese Herbal Medicines (CHMs). Due to the wide variety of CHMs, the complexity of growing sources and the diverse specifications of herb components, the quality control of CHMs is a challenging issue. Much research has demonstrated that an electronic nose (E-nose) as an advanced machine olfaction system, can overcome this challenge through identification of the complex odors of CHMs. E-nose technology, with better usability, high sensitivity, real-time detection and non-destructive features has shown better performance in comparison with other analytical techniques such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Although there has been immense development of E-nose techniques in other applications, there are limited reports on the application of E-noses for the quality control of CHMs. The aim of current study is to review practical implementation and advantages of E-noses for robust and effective odor identification of CHMs. It covers the use of E-nose technology to study the effects of growing regions, identification methods, production procedures and storage time on CHMs. Moreover, the challenges and applications of E-nose for CHM identification are investigated. Based on the advancement in E-nose technology, odor may become a new quantitative index for quality control of CHMs and drug discovery. It was also found that more research could be done in the area of odor standardization and odor reproduction for remote sensing.

[The automatic iris map overlap technology in computer-aided iridiagnosis].

In the paper, iridology and computer-aided iridiagnosis technologies are briefly introduced and the extraction method of the collarette contour is then investigated. The iris map can be overlapped on the original iris image based on collarette contour extraction. The research on collarette contour extraction and iris map overlap is of great importance to computer-aided iridiagnosis technologies.