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Brief Conversation: A highly polymorphic caprine keratin-associated proteins gene recognized and it is effect on cashmere qualities.
VHH-based immunosorbents are an emerging and promising tool for the removal of toxic substances from plasma. However, the small size of VHHs is a double-edged sword, bringing both benefits and drawbacks to the immunosorbent. The small size of the VHH allows a higher coupling density, while the closer distance to the resin might create steric hindrance for paratope access. The latter could be avoided by inserting a linker between the VHH and the gel attachment site. Here, we report an approach to improve the activity retention of the immobilized VHH by selecting suitable linkers between the VHH and the site-specific immobilization site on the resin. Seven peptide linkers differing in length and flexibility were fused to the VHH and contained the formylglycine generating enzyme (FGE) recognition sequence. These constructs were expressed in the cytoplasm of bacteria and purified, the VHH production yield and affinity for its cognate antigen was measured. Furthermore, the fGly conversion, the immobilization of the aldehyde-containing nanobodies, the immobilization on resin and the antigen binding activity of the VHH-based immunoadsorbents was monitored. The VHH with longer and rigid, proline-rich linkers exhibited good expression yield of approximately 160 mg/L of culture, a fGly conversion of up to 100%, and the highest activity retention rate of more than 68%. This study unveiled two suitable linkers for the preparation of VHH-based immunosorbents that will assist the development of their clinical application.Evolutions of two typical types of nonmetallic inclusions, i.e., inclusions based on CaO-SiO2-Al2O3 and MnO-SiO2-Al2O3 of 304 stainless steel were investigated in laboratory-scale experiments under isothermal heat treatment at 1250 °C for 0, 30, 60 and 120 min. Results show inclusion population density increases at the first stage and then decreases while their average size decreases and then increases. Moreover, almost no Cr2O3 content within the inclusion before the heat treatment, but Cr2O3 content increases gradually along with increasing heat treatment time. Furthermore, the increasing of Cr2O3 content in the inclusions would increase their melting points and reduce their plasticities. The experimental results and thermodynamic analysis indicate that there are three steps for inclusion evolution during the heat treatment process, in which Ostwald ripening plays an important role in inclusion evolution, i.e., inclusions grow by absorbing the newly formed small-size MnO-Cr2O3 inclusions.Tunable diffraction gratings and phase filters are important functional devices in optical communication and sensing systems. Polarization gratings, in particular, capable of redirecting an incident light beam completely into the first diffraction orders may be successfully fabricated in liquid crystalline cells assembled from substrates coated with uniform transparent electrodes and orienting layers that force a specific molecular distribution. In this work, the diffraction properties of liquid crystal (LC) cells characterized by a continually rotating cycloidal director pattern at the cell substrates and in the bulk, are studied theoretically by solving a relevant set of the Euler-Lagrange equations. The electric tunability of the gratings is analyzed by estimating the changes in liquid crystalline molecular distribution and thus in effective birefringence, as a function of external voltage. To the best of our knowledge, such detailed numerical calculations have not been presented so far for liquid crystal polarization gratings showing a cycloidal director pattern. Our theoretical predictions may be easily achieved in experimental conditions when exploiting, for example, photo-orienting material, to induce a permanent LC alignment with high spatial resolution. The proposed design may be for example, used as a tunable passband filter with adjustable bandwidths, thus allowing for potential applications in optical spectroscopy, optical communication networks, remote sensing and beyond.Indica-japonica hybrid rice cultivars show great yield potential but poor eating quality and require more nitrogen (N) input relative to japonica rice. However, the effect of N levels on the eating quality of indica-japonica hybrid rice is little known. A field experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of four N levels on two indica-japonica hybrid rice cultivars (Yongyou12 and Yongyou17) differing in eating quality. The results showed that the contents of amylose chains and water-insoluble storage proteins, especially prolamin, increased largely under a high N level, leading to deterioration of the rice-eating quality, although a low N level (100 N kg/ha) had a less negative effect on the eating quality. Moreover, both of the indica-japonica hybrids had high ratios of inferior grains (IG), and the ratio of IG increased with the N level. Grain weight and the immature ratio of IG were reduced and increased with the N level, respectively, which are also factors for deterioration of the eating quality. The two cultivars differed greatly in the responses of eating quality to the N level, with Yongyou17 being more sensitive than Yongyou12. The current results indicated that a high N level deteriorates the eating quality of indica-japonica hybrid rice mainly due to a large increase of IG.In this paper, we present a new type of guided-mode resonance (GMR)-based sensor that utilizes a planar waveguide structure (PWS). Monocrotaline chemical structure We employed a PWS with an asymmetric three-layer waveguide structure consisting of substrate/Au/photoresist. The ellipsometric characterization of the structure layers, the simulated reflectance spectra, and optical field distributions under GMR conditions showed that multiple waveguide modes can be excited in the PWS. These modes can be used for refractive index sensing, and the theoretical analysis of the designed PWS showed a sensitivity to the refractive index up to 6600 nm per refractive index unit (RIU) and a figure of merit (FOM) up to 224 RIU-1. In response to these promising theoretical results, the PWS was used to measure the relative humidity (RH) of moist air with a sensitivity up to 0.141 nm/%RH and a FOM reaching 3.7 × 10-3%RH-1. The results demonstrate that this highly-sensitive and hysteresis-free sensor based on GMR has the potential to be used in a wide range of applications.
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