Effects of Gel-based Controlled Release Fertilizers on Agronomic Characteristics and Physiological Indices of Corn

[Objective] This study aimed to investigate the effects of gel-based controlled release fertilizers （CRFs） on agronomic characteristics and physiological indices of corn. [Method] Pot experiment was carried out to investigate the agronomic characteristics and physiological indices of corn fertilized with controlled release fertilizers compared with conventional fertilizer （CF）. [Result] Plant height, stem girth, leaf area and root volume of corn were significantly increased under the CRF treatments; photosynthetic rate and soluble protein content were also improved. Dry matter accumulations under the two CRF treatments were increased by 21.3% and 17.0% compared with CF application at one time （CF1）, and 19.6% and 15.4% with CF application at two times （CF2）, respectively. Accumulation amounts of N, P and K in whole plant under the two CRF treatments were increased by 44.0% -24.7% , 40.0%-25.9% and 20.1% -13.9% ; and the nutrient use efficiencies of N, P and K were improved by 22.9% -13.4% , 11.2% -9.6% and 17.5% -12.1% , respectively. [Conclusion] The results implied that the CRFs could significantly improve nutrient use efficiency and plant yield.

Highly Aligned Ultra-Thick Gel-Based Cathodes Unlocking Ultra-High Energy Density Batteries

Increasing electrode thickness can substantially enhance the specific energy of lithium-ion batteries;however,ionic transport,electronic conductivity,and ink rheology are current barriers to adoption.Here,a novel approach using a mixed xanthan gum and locust bean gum binder to construct ultrathick electrodes is proposed to address above issues.After combining aqueous binder with single-walled carbon nanotubes(SWCNT),active material(LiNi_(0.8)Co_(0.1)Mn_(0.1)O_(2)) and subsequent vacuum freeze-drying,highly aligned,and low-tortuosity structures with a porosity of ca.50%can be achieved with an average pore size of 10μm,whereby the gum binder-SWCNT-NMC811 forms vertical structures supported by tissue-like binder/SWCNT networks allowing for excellent electronic conducting phase percolation.As a result,ultra-thick electrodes with a mass loading of about 511 mg cm^(−2) and 99.5 wt%active materials have been demonstrated with a remarkable areal capacity of 79.3 mAh cm^(−2),which is the highest value reported so far.This represents a>25×improvement compared with conventional electrodes with an areal capacity of about 3 mAh cm^(−2).This route also can be expanded to other electrode materials,such as LiFePO_(4) and Li_(4)Ti_(5)O_(12),and thus opens the possibility for low-cost and sustainable ultra-thick electrodes with increased specific energy for future lithium-ion batteries.

Comparative study of gel-based separated arcdischarge, HiPCO, and CoMoCAT carbon nanotubes for macroelectronic applications

Due to their excellent electrical properties and compatibility with room-temperature deposition/printing processing, high-purity single-walled semiconducting carbon nanotubes hold great potential for macroelectronic applications such as in thin-film transistors and display back-panel electronics. However, the relative advantages and disadvantages of various nanotubes for macroelectronics remains an open issue, despite the great significance. Here in this paper, we report a com- parative and systematic study of three kinds of mainstream carbon nanotubes （arc-discharge, HiPCO, CoMoCAT） separated using low-cost gel-based column chromatography for thin-film transistor applications, and high performance transistors--which satisfy the requirements for transistors used in active matrix organic light-emitting diode displays--have been achieved. We observe a trade-off between transistor mobility and on/off ratio depending on the nanotube diameter. While arc-discharge nanotubes with larger diameters lead to high device mobility, HiPCO and CoMoCAT nanotubes with smaller diameters can provide high on/off ratios （〉 106） for transistors with comparable dimensions. Furthermore, we have also compared gel-based separated nanotubes with nanotubes separated using the density gradient ultracentrifuge （DGU） method, and find that gel-separated nanotubes can offer purity and thin-film transistor performance as good as DGU-separated nanotubes. Our approach can serve as the critical foundation for future carbon nanotube-based thin-film macroelectronics.

Proteomics techniques in protein biomarker discovery

Protein biomarkers represent specific biological activities and processes, so they have had a critical role in cancer diagnosis and medical care for more than 50 years. With the recent improvement in proteomics technologies, thousands of protein biomarker candidates have been developed for diverse disease states. Studies have used different types of samples for proteomics diagnosis. Samples were pretreated with appropriate techniques to increase the selectivity and sensitivity of the downstream analysis and purified to remove the contaminants. The purified samples were analyzed by several principal proteomics techniques to identify the specific protein. In this study, recent improvements in protein biomarker discovery, verification, and validation are investigated. Furthermore, the advantages, and disadvantages of conventional techniques, are discussed. Studies have used mass spectroscopy (MS) as a critical technique in the identification and quantification of candidate biomarkers. Nevertheless, after protein biomarker discovery, verification and validation have been required to reduce the false-positive rate where there have been higher number of samples. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM), parallel reaction monitoring (PRM), and selected reaction monitoring (SRM), in combination with stable isotope-labeled internal standards, have been examined as options for biomarker verification, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for validation.