Effect of Sodium Halide on Micellar and Surface Properties of Cationic Silicone Surfactants

The effect of sodium halide on aggregation behavior of four cationic silicone surfactants, Si₃mamCl, Si₄mamCl, Si₄PyCl, and Si₄minCl, in solution was investigated using surface tension and conductivity measurements. The ability of sodium halide (NaCl, NaBr, and NaI) to reduce critical micelle concentration (CMC) values was in the order NaI > NaBr > NaCl. However, the γ_CMC values of the cationic silicone surfactants, Si₄mamCl, Si₄PyCl and Si₄minCl, in sodium halide solution are almost the same as those of the salt-free system. The values of and are negative, indicating that the micellization process and adsorption of the four cationic silicone surfactants at the air-solution interface are spontaneous.     

Effects of malondialdehyde-induced protein oxidation on the structural characteristics of rice protein

Malondialdehyde (MDA) was selected to represent a secondary by-product of lipid peroxidation during rice ageing. This study aimed to investigate the effects of MDA modification on the structural characteristics of rice protein. The results showed that as MDA concentration increased, rice protein carbonyl and disulphide groups increased, but sulphydryl content decreased. The blue shift of maximum fluorescence peak, the decrease of rice protein intrinsic fluorescence intensity and the reduction of surface hydrophobicity indicated the formation of protein aggregates caused by MDA oxidative modification. The results of molecular weight distribution and particle size distribution showed that MDA modification resulted in the formation of soluble protein aggregates, and the decrease of rice protein solubility indicated that insoluble protein aggregates were formed. Results of protein electrophoresis showed that MDA modification contributed to rice protein aggregation via non-disulphide covalent bonds. The results showed that rice protein gradually aggregated with increasing MDA concentration.     

Identification of hydrogen permeability parameters of membrane materials in an aggregated experiment

The study of the hydrogen permeability of materials for membrane-based separation/purification technologies employs a variety of experimental methods with their own specific features, advantages and shortfalls. The method of penetration with vacuum pumping allows determining the diffusion coefficient from so-called lag time. The accuracy of the estimation depends on the degree of proximity to the DLR (diffusion limited regime) mode. The method of “communicating vessels” is more sensitive to surface processes. The thermal desorption (TDS) technique permits “scanning” the material dynamically across a wide range of temperatures. “Separate” application of these methods leads to a situation where the materials studied are in fact somewhat different (for example, due to different impacts on the surface), and significant differences in parameter estimates ensue. This paper suggests and implements a technique for a combined three-stage ‹‹penetration (with and without vacuum pumping)+TDS›› experiment and the corresponding mathematical toolkit. The informative capacity of the experiments and the accuracy of the estimation of hydrogen permeability parameters (adsorption, dissolution, diffusion and desorption) of the membrane materials under study are thus enhanced.     

Insights into the cross-amyloid aggregation of Aβ40 and its N-terminal truncated peptide Aβ11-40 affected by epigallocatechin gallate

Inhibition of protein misfolding and aggregation is a great challenge in the field of biochemical and biopharmaceutical engineering. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a protein-misfolding disease, and the interactions between 40-amino-acid-residue β-amyloid peptide (Aβ₄₀) and its N-terminal truncated peptide Aβ_11-40 demonstrate that Aβ_11-40 may play an important role in the pathological process of AD. However, the effect of inhibitors on Aβ_11-40 aggregation and on the cross-amyloid aggregation (co-assembly) between Aβ₄₀ and Aβ_11-40 has never been studied. Herein, coaggregation and seeding interactions between Aβ₄₀ and Aβ_11-40 as well as the effect of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a small molecule inhibitor, on the cross-amyloid aggregation have been investigated by extensive analyses. It is found that Aβ_11-40 participates in the aggregation of Aβ₄₀ and leads to the formation of coaggregates that contain less β-sheet structures than pure Aβ₄₀ aggregates. The aggregation kinetics along with morphologies and secondary structures of the coaggregates are also significantly affected by the Aβ₄₀/Aβ_11-40 ratio. EGCG accelerates the nucleation of Aβ₄₀ but retards that of Aβ_11-40 by affecting their elongation and secondary nucleation processes in solution and on solid surfaces. Meanwhile, EGCG makes the conformations of the seeding-induced Aβ aggregates more compact, especially for the homologous seedings. Isothermal titration calorimetry measurement indicates that hydrophobic interactions mainly contribute to the inhibition of the two Aβ isoforms by EGCG. The findings of this research have provided new insights into Aβ aggregation and the effect of an important inhibitor and the results would benefit in the development of potent inhibitors against co-assembly of different amyloid proteins.     

Synthesis,Characterization and Aqueous Properties of a New Hybrid Fluorocarbon Cationic Surfmer

A novel hybrid fluorocarbon cationic surfmer has been synthesized and its aggregation and surface properties have been studied by surface tension, electrical conductivity, steady‐state fluorescence, Rayleigh light scattering, dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy. Through surface tension, electrical conductivity, steady‐state fluorescence and Rayleigh light scattering measurements, the effectiveness of surface tension reduction, the maximum surface excess concentration, the minimum area occupied per surfactant molecule at the air/water interface, the micropolarity and aggregation number of micelles were investigated. The results shows that the surfmer has superior surface activity and lower micropolarity than other surfmers. The critical micelle concentration at different temperatures and a series of thermodynamic parameters (, , and , , , and ) of micellization were evaluated. The thermodynamic parameters showed that the micelle formation was entropy‐driven in the temperature range of 15–40 °C. The size and morphology of the aggregates were also confirmed by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy.     

辛酰丙氨酸镁（Ⅱ）、钙（Ⅱ）及锌（Ⅱ）配合物的溶解性及其聚集行为

采用镁、钙和锌的氢氧化合物分别与辛酰丙氨酸配体[CH3(CH2)6CONHCH(CH3)COOH]反应,合成了辛酰丙氨酸镁、钙和锌表面活性剂配合物。通过配合物的纯溶媒及水/有机溶媒系的溶解性测试发现,镁和钙的配合物均在大部分有机纯溶媒和水/有机溶媒系里有极高的溶解性,而锌的配合物在大部分有机纯溶媒系里有很低的溶解性。此外,通过核磁共振(NMR)光谱、电导、蒸汽压降下(VPO)和FTIR方法研究了溶液中镁、钙和锌表面活性剂配合物的聚集行为。Mg(oct-ala)2、Ca(oct-ala)2和Zn(oct-ala)2配合物在有机溶媒系里吸附水易发生聚集行为,并有形成逆胶束体的倾向。     

Synthesis and Solution Properties of a Double‐Tailed Quaternary Ammonium Surfactant with a Protrudent Head Group

Modification of the molecular structure of surfactants is an effective method for exploring their self‐assembly. A double‐tailed quaternary ammonium surfactant with a protrudent head group, namely 2‐octyldecyltrimethylammonium bromide (2‐ODTAB) was synthesized, and the solution properties were investigated by surface tension, dynamic light scattering, and cryogenic TEM. A comparative study was also performed on the traditional double‐tailed homologue surfactants dioctyldimethylammonium bromide (8–8), didecyldimethylammonium bromide (10–10), and didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (12–12). The results showed that 2‐ODTAB was more effective at lowering surface tension and in forming stable vesicles than traditional double‐tailed surfactants with similar alkyl chain length. The reason is attributed to the improved structure of 2‐ODTAB, in which the two alkyl tails are connected to the ionic head group by one carbon atom. This structure imparts more freedom to the head group and thus favors formation of more stable aggregates at low concentration. In addition, the lower limit of the alkyl chain length of the double‐tailed surfactants for forming stable vesicles was illustrated.     

基于动态频谱接入的载波聚合技术研究与实现

以LTE-Advanced系统为研究背景,提出了一种基于动态频谱接入技术的载波聚合方案(DSA-CA)。该方案的主要思想是使支持载波聚合技术的eNB根据小区的平均负载自适应地调节聚合的载波数量,从而达到合理利用频谱的目的。通过对基于动态频谱接入技术的载波聚合方案在LTE-Advanced 系统中的性能进行仿真研究,结果表明:DSA-CA方案与传统载波聚合方案(CA)相比,可使系统性能在一定程度上得到提高,尤其当一个小区处于高负载、另一个小区处于低负载时,DSA-CA方案的优势更加明显,此时高负载小区系统吞吐量得到明显提高,低负载小区的频谱效率也显著上升。     

Dual-PISA: An index for aggregation operations on time series data

Aggregation operations play an essential role in time series database management. As the number of data increases, it is difficult for current solutions, such as summary table and MapReduce-based methods to respond to such queries with low latency. Other approaches, such as segment tree-based methods, have a poor insertion performance when the data size exceeds the available memory. This paper proposes a Persistent Index for Segmented Aggregations (PISA), which has fast insertion performance and low latency for aggregation queries. PISA uses a forest to overcome the performance disadvantage of insertion in traditional segment trees. By defining two kinds of tags, namely code number and serial number, we propose an algorithm to accelerate queries by avoiding unnecessary reading data on disk. Additionally, we extend it to Dual-PISA to tolerate a range of unordered data, which is very important in the real world. Dual-PISA is stored on disk and is hugely memory-efficient — only takes a few hundred bytes of memory for billions of data points. Dual-PISA can be easily implemented on both traditional databases and NoSQL systems. It handles aggregation queries within milliseconds on a commodity server, for a time range that contains tens of billions of data points.