Side-Chain-Type High Dielectric-Constant Dipolar Polyimides with Temperature Resistance.

Innovative dielectric materials with high-temperature resistance and outstanding dielectric properties have attracted tremendous attention in advanced electronical fields. Polyimide(PI) is considered a promising candidate for the modern electronic industry due to its excellent dielectric properties and comprehensive properties. However, the limited-adjustable range of dielectric constant and the difficulty to obtain a high dielectric constant restrict the application of PI as high dielectric materials. Herein, a novel diamine monomer (2,2'-bis((methylsulfonyl)methyl)-[1,1'-biphenyl]-4,4'-diamine (BSBPA)) containing a rigid biphenyl structure and high dipolar sulfonyl pendant groups is designed for high dielectric polyimides. The rigid biphenyl and polar sulfonyl pendant groups can reasonably optimize the molecular structure and orientational polarization of polyimides to improve their dielectric properties and thermal properties. Moreover, the effect of different bridge linkages on the dielectric properties is studied by using the different dianhydrides. Thus, the PI-BSBPA films especially the DSDA-BSBPA film (DSDA: 3,3',4,4'-diphenylsulfonetetracarboxylic dianhydride) achieve great thermal properties (T5%d of 377 °C and Tg of 358 °C) and excellent dielectric properties (6.95 at 1 kHz) along with high discharged energy density of 5.25 J cm-3 and charge-discharge efficiency of 90%. The collaborative control of main-chain and side-chain engineering is effective to endow the polyimides with high-temperature tolerance and high dielectric performance.

Prediction of banana maturity based on the sweetness and color values of different segments during ripening.

To predict the maturity of bananas, the present study used non-destructive methods to analyze changes in the sweetness and color of the stalks, middles, and tips of bananas during ripening. The results indicated that the respective maturation of these three segments did not occur simultaneously, as indicated by the differential enzyme activity and gene expression levels recorded in these segments. A principal component analysis and cluster plots were used to review the classification of banana maturity, highlighting that banana maturation can be divided into six stages. Two distinct maturity prediction algorithms were established using random forest, artificial neural network, and support vector machines, and they also indicated that dividing the maturity of bananas into six stages was adequate. These findings contribute to the development of quality evaluation and of a rapid grading system for processing, which improves the quality and sale of banana fruits and the related processed products.

Real-time guava tree-part segmentation using fully convolutional network with channel and spatial attention.

It is imminent to develop intelligent harvesting robots to alleviate the burden of rising costs of manual picking. A key problem in robotic harvesting is how to recognize tree parts efficiently without losing accuracy, thus helping the robots plan collision-free paths. This study introduces a real-time tree-part segmentation network by improving fully convolutional network with channel and spatial attention. A lightweight backbone is first deployed to extract low-level and high-level features. These features may contain redundant information in their channel and spatial dimensions, so a channel and spatial attention module is proposed to enhance informative channels and spatial locations. On this basis, a feature aggregation module is investigated to fuse the low-level details and high-level semantics to improve segmentation accuracy. A tree-part dataset with 891 RGB images is collected, and each image is manually annotated in a per-pixel fashion. Experiment results show that when using MobileNetV3-Large as the backbone, the proposed network obtained an intersection-over-union (IoU) value of 63.33 and 66.25% for the branches and fruits, respectively, and required only 2.36 billion floating point operations per second (FLOPs); when using MobileNetV3-Small as the backbone, the network achieved an IoU value of 60.62 and 61.05% for the branches and fruits, respectively, at a speed of 1.18 billion FLOPs. Such results demonstrate that the proposed network can segment the tree-parts efficiently without loss of accuracy, and thus can be applied to the harvesting robots to plan collision-free paths.

Food matrixes play a key role in the distribution of contaminants of lipid origin: A case study of malondialdehyde formation in vegetable oils during deep-frying.

Vegetable oils are increasingly replacing animal fats in diets, but malondialdehyde (MDA), a peroxidation product of these oils, has been regarded as toxic; this necessitated investigation of MDA formation during consumption. This study investigated MDA formation in four vegetable oils during frying French fries (FF) and fried chicken breast meat (FCBM) at 180 °C for 7 h. Results showed that MDA contents were lower in oils used for frying foods than in control oils, mainly because MDA was incorporated into the foods. MDA content was lower in FF, but higher in FCBM, due to the different food components. Model oil and food system analyses yielded similar results. MDA bound the hydrophobic helical structure in starch-based FF, but was exhibited greater reactivity with nucleophilic groups in protein-based FCBM, resulting in stronger interaction with FCBM than with FF. Our results indicated the existence of distinct mechanisms underlying MDA migration in different food matrixes.

Quantification of Trace Organophosphorus Pesticides in Environmental Water via Enrichment by Magnetic-Zirconia Nanocomposites and Online Extractive Electrospray Ionization Mass Spectrometry.

A total of 15 representative organophosphorus pesticides (OPPs), a class of water pollutants causing serious global concerns, have been sensitively quantified by internal extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (iEESI-MS) after enrichment with Fe3O4-ZrO2 innovatively synthesized in our lab by a one step coprecipitation method. For the premium enrichment, the amounts of Fe3O4-ZrO2, pH value, adsorption time, type and volume of desorption solvent, and shaking time of desorption were systematically optimized. Under optimized conditions, the proposed method provided low limits of detection (LODs) of 0.14-16.39 ng L-1 with relative standard deviations (RSDs) of less than 8.7%. A wide linear response range of about 4 orders of magnitude was achieved with linear coefficients (R2) of 0.9921-0.9999 for all the analytes tested. The present method also provided good recoveries (85.4-105.9%) with acceptable precision (RSDs < 7.2%) in spiked environmental water samples. Furthermore, multiple analytes including dimethoate, omethoate, etc. were simultaneously detected in a single sample run, which was accomplished within 1 min, resulting in significantly improved analytical throughput for quantitative analysis of bulk amounts of samples. The experimental results demonstrated that Fe3O4-ZrO2-iEESI-MS provided advantages, including high sensitivity, high speed, and reasonable selectivity for the detection of OPPs, showing potential applications in environmental water sample analysis and environmental science.

Coupling of micro-solid-phase extraction and internal extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry for ultra-sensitive detection of 1-hydroxypyrene and papaverine in human urine samples.

Quantification of ultra-trace analytes in complex biological samples using micro-solid-phase extraction followed by direct detection with internal extractive electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (µSPE-iEESI-MS) was demonstrated. 1-Hydroxypyrene (1-OHP) and papaverine at attomole levels in human raw urine samples were analyzed under negative and positive ion detection mode, respectively. The µSPE was simply prepared by packing a disposable syringe filter with octadecyl carbon chain (C18)-bonded micro silica particles, which were then treated as the "bulk sample" after the analytes were efficiently enriched by the C18 particles. Under the optimized experimental conditions, the analytes were readily eluted by isopropanol/water (80/20, V/V) at a high voltage of ± 4.0 kV, producing analyte ions under ambient conditions. The limit of detection (LOD) was 0.02 pg/L (9.2 amol) for 1-hydroxypyrene and 0.02 pg/L (5.9 amol) for papaverine. The acceptable linearity (R2 > 0.99), signal stability (RSD ≤ 10.7%), spike recoveries (91-95%), and comparable results for real urine samples were also achieved, opening up possibilities for quantitative analysis of trace compounds (at attomole levels) in complex bio-samples. Graphical abstract.

Antifungal Activities of Crude Extractum from Camellia semiserrata Chi (Nanshancha) Seed Cake Against Colletotrichum musae, Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and Penicillium italicum in vitro and in vivo Fruit Test.

Antifungal activities of crude extractum of Nanshancha Seed Cake (NSC), to inactivate postharvest pathogens were investigated. Highest inhibitory rate was found against C. musae, C. gloeosporioides and C. papaya P.Henn, which was much stronger than that by tea saponin. Compared to tea saponin, effects of NSC extractum was relatively weak and similar on C. gloeosporioides Penzig and P. italicum. In an in vivo study, best controlling effects by NSC extractum was found with banana anthracnose disease development, which showed no inhibitory effects by tea saponin. NSC extractum controlled in vitro C. musae growth through directly inhibiting germination rate and germ tube elongation, and causing distortation, rupture and indentation of C. musae mycelium. In banana fruit subject to C. musae inoculation, higher PAL, POD, GLU and CHT activity was observed in banana fruit treated with crude NSC extractum than that of water control fruits. Current study proved the best controlling effects of crude NSC extractum in C. musae in vitro and in vivo development, which through direct inhibition of C. musae growth and increasing defense system of the banana fruit.

N'-(4-Diethyl-amino-2-hy-droxy-benzyl-idene)-4-methyl-benzohydrazide.

The title compound, C(19)H(23)N(3)O(2), was prepared by condensing 4-diethyl-amino-2-hy-droxy-benzaldehyde and 4-methyl-benzo-hydrazide in methanol. The asymmetric unit contains two independent mol-ecules in which the two benzene rings make dihedral angles of 30.3 (3) and 18.9 (3)°. Intra-molecular O-H⋯N hydrogen bonds are observed in both mol-ecules. The crystal structure is stabilized by N-H⋯O hydrogen bonds, which form chains along the a axis.

2-Hy-droxy-N'-(4-hy-droxy-benzyl-idene)-3-methyl-benzohydrazide.

The title compound, C(15)H(14)N(2)O(3), was prepared by condensing 4-hy-droxy-benzaldehyde and 2-hy-droxy-3-methyl-benzo-hydra-zide in methanol. The two benzene rings make a dihedral angle of 19.03 (11)°. An intra-molecular O-H⋯O hydrogen bond is observed. The crystal structure is stabilized by inter-molecular O-H⋯O and N-H⋯O hydrogen bonds and C-H⋯O inter-actions, which lead to the formation of a three-dimensional network.

Aboveground to belowground herbivore defense signaling in maize: a two-way street?

Insect pests that attempt to feed on the caterpillar-resistant maize genotype Mp708 encounter a potent, multipronged defense system that thwarts their invasion. First, these plants are on "constant alert" due to constitutively elevated levels of the phytohormone jasmonic acid that signals the plant to activate its defenses. The higher jasmonic acid levels trigger the expression of defense genes prior to herbivore attack so the plants are "primed" and respond with a faster and stronger defense. The second defense is the rapid accumulation of a toxic cysteine protease called Mir1-CP in the maize whorl in response to caterpillar feeding. When caterpillars ingest Mir1-CP, it damages the insect's midgut and retards their growth. In this article, we discuss a third possible defense strategy employed by Mp708. We have shown that foliar caterpillar feeding causes Mir1-CP and defense gene transcripts to accumulate in its roots. We propose that caterpillar feeding aboveground sends a signal belowground via the phloem that results in Mir1-CP accumulation in the roots. We also postulate that the roots serve as a reservoir of Mir1-CP that can be mobilized to the whorl in response to caterpillar assault.