Inappropriate selection of animal dietary patterns may lead to experimental systematic errors and paradoxical results.Recent decades have witnessed flourishing prosperity of III-nitride emitters in solid-state lighting and high-resolution displays. As one of the widely used substrates, sapphire shows superiority for heteroepitaxial growth of III-nitride light-emitting diode (LED) structure, due to the advantages of stability, low cost, high mechanical strength, as well as mature fabrication technology. However, realization of efficient LEDs grown on sapphire substrate is impeded by high density of defects in epilayers and low light extraction efficiency. The emergence of patterned sapphire substrate (PSS) turns out to be a promising and effective technology to overcome these problems and enhance the LED performances. In this review, we first introduce the background and recent advances of PSS applied in III-nitride visible and ultraviolet LEDs are. Then, we summarize the fabrication methods of PSS, together with novel methods to define nanometre-scale patterned structures. We further demonstrate the effect of PSS that contributes to reduce the threading dislocation density (TDD) of epilayers in detail. Meanwhile, mechanism of light extraction efficiency enhancement by adopting PSS is presented based on numerical analysis. Next, we explore the influence of PSS structural parameters (e.g. pattern size, pattern shape and aspect ratio) on LED performances, spanning from visible to deep ultraviolet UV emission region. Finally, challenges and potential prospects in PSS for future LED development are proposed and forecasted as well.A ruthenium-catalyzed oxidative coupling of vinylene carbonate with isoxazoles has been developed to achieve the direct C-H formylmethylation of a diverse array of arylisoxazoles utilizing the isoxazole ring as the directing group. A simple manipulation of the established reaction conditions leads to the formation of fused-anthranils. Importantly, the vinylene carbonate functions as both a formylmethyl cation equivalent through a decarboxylation process and an acetylene equivalent. Control experiments were conducted to elucidate a plausible mechanism. This methodology is expected to provide a facile and expeditious approach for the synthesis of formylmethyl isoxazoles and fused-anthranils.This work presents the OH-initiated oxidation kinetics of 1,4-cyclochexadiene (1,4-CHD). The temperature dependence of the reaction was investigated by utilizing a laser flash photolysis flow reactor and laser-induced fluorescence (LPFR/LIF) technique over the temperature range of 295-438 K and a pressure of ∼50 torr. The kinetics of the reaction was followed by measuring the LIF signal of OH radicals near 308 nm. The reaction of OH radicals with 1,4-CHD exhibited a clear negative temperature dependence. To discern the role of various channels, ab initio and RRKM-based ME calculations (RRKM-ME) were performed over temperatures of 200-2000 K and pressures of 0.76-7600 torr. The computed energy profile revealed that the reaction proceeds via the formation of a pre-reaction van der Waals complex at the entrance channel. The complex was found to be more stable than that usually seen in other alkenes + OH reactions. Both the addition channel and the abstraction reaction of allylic hydrogen were found to have negative energy barriers. Interestingly, the abstraction reaction exhibited a negative temperature dependence at low temperatures and contributed significantly (∼37%) to the total rate coefficients even under atmospheric conditions. At T ≥ 900 K, the reaction was found to proceed exclusively (>95%) via the abstraction channel. Due to the competing channels, the reaction of OH radicals with 1,4-CHD displays complicated kinetic behaviours, reflecting the salient features of the energy profile. The role of competing channels was fully characterized by our kinetic model. The calculated rate coefficients showed excellent agreement with the available experimental data.As the hub of major signaling pathways, Ras proteins are implicated in 19% of tumor-caused cancers due to perturbations in their conformational and/or catalytic properties. Despite numerous studies, the functions of the conformational substates for the most important isoform, KRas, remain elusive. In this work, we perform an extensive simulation analysis on the conformational landscape of KRas in its various chemical states during the GTP hydrolysis cycle the reactant state KRasGTP·Mg2+, the intermediate state KRasGDP·Pi·Mg2+ and the product state KRasGDP·Mg2+. The results from enhanced sampling simulations reveal that State 1 of KRasGTP·Mg2+ has multiple stable substates in solution, one of which might account for interacting with GEFs. State 2 of KRasGTP·Mg2+ features two substates „Tyr32in” and „Tyr32out”, which are poised to interact with effectors and GAPs, respectively. For the intermediate state KRasGDP·Pi·Mg2+, Gln61 and Pi are found to assume a broad set of conformations, which might account for the weak oncogenic effect of Gln61 mutations in KRas in contrast to the situation in HRas and NRas. Finally, the product state KRasGDP·Mg2+ has more than two stable substates in solution, pointing to a conformation-selection mechanism for complexation with GEFs. Based on these results, some specific inhibition strategies for targeting the binding sites of the high-energy substates of KRas during GTP hydrolysis are discussed.Thin films of a chiral diketopyrrolopyrrole derivative were imaged with spatially-defined Mueller Matrix Polarimetry, focussing on the Circular Dichroism signal, giving unique insight into the impact that deposition techniques and thermal annealing can have on chiral supramolecular structures in the solid state, where homogeneity was observed for spun-coated films while drop-coating afforded chiroptical diversity in the material, a feature invisible to absorption spectroscopy or optical microscopy.The Gd2.994Ce0.006Ga3Al2O12 and Gd2.964Ce0.006Dy0.03Ga3Al2O12 nanopowders were prepared using the sol-gel method. The nanocrystalline powders were used for sintering ceramics by low-temperature sintering at high pressure (LTHP). This technique allows maintaining the crystallite size or in some cases even decreases it, leading to interesting physical properties often different compared to the starting material. This study describes the structural and spectroscopic properties of the powders as well as changes in the physical properties of the ceramics induced by the sintering pressure. Particular attention was paid to study the influence of pressure applied during sintering on changes in the persistent luminescence. A mechanism for the persistent luminescence is proposed taking into account the changes induced in ceramics.Ferrofluids investigated along for about five decades are ultrastable colloidal suspensions of magnetic nanoparticles, which manifest simultaneously fluid and magnetic properties. Their magnetically controllable and tunable feature proved to be from the beginning an extremely fertile ground for a wide range of engineering applications. More recently, biocompatible ferrofluids attracted huge interest and produced a considerable increase of the applicative potential in nanomedicine, biotechnology and environmental protection. This paper offers a brief overview of the most relevant early results and a comprehensive description of recent achievements in ferrofluid synthesis, advanced characterization, as well as the governing equations of ferrohydrodynamics, the most important interfacial phenomena and the flow properties. Finally, it provides an overview of recent advances in tunable and adaptive multifunctional materials derived from ferrofluids and a detailed presentation of the recent progress of applications in the field of sensors and actuators, ferrofluid-driven assembly and manipulation, droplet technology, including droplet generation and control, mechanical actuation, liquid computing and robotics.Numerous attempts have been made to develop efficient systems to purify trace amounts of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood samples. However, current technologies are limited by complexities in device fabrication, system design, and process operability. Here we describe a facile, scalable, and highly efficient approach to physically capturing CTCs using a rationally designed microfluidic isolator with an array of microslit channels. The wide but thin microslit channels with a depth of several micrometers selectively capture CTCs, which are larger and less deformable than other blood cells, while allowing other blood cells to just flow through. We investigated in detail the effects of the microchannel geometry and operating parameters on the capture efficiency and selectivity of several types of cultured tumor cells spiked in blood samples as the CTC model. Additionally, in situ post-capture staining of the captured cells was demonstrated to investigate the system’s applicability to clinical cancer diagnosis. The presented approach is simple in operation but significantly effective in capturing specific cells and hence it may have great potential in implementating cell physics-based CTC isolation techniques for cancer liquid biopsy.Current HIV antiretroviral therapy (ART) or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) therapy adherence monitoring relies on either patient self-reported adherence or monitored drug dispensing, which are not reliable. We report a proof-of-concept adherence monitoring assay which directly measures nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) concentration using a reverse transcription isothermal amplification inhibition assay. We measure the concentration of Tenofovir diphosphate (TFV-DP) – an NRTI that functions as a deoxyadenosine triphosphate (dATP) analog and long-term adherence marker for PrEP – by measuring the inhibition of the reverse transcription of an RNA template. The completion or inhibition of reverse transcription is evaluated by recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA), an isothermal nucleic acid amplification assay commonly used for point-of-care diagnostics. We present and validate a model that predicts the amplification probability as a function of dATP and TFV-DP concentrations, nucleotide insertion sites on the RNA template, and RNA template concentration. The model can be used to rationally design and optimize the assay to operate at clinically relevant TFV-DP concentrations. We provide statistical analysis that demonstrates how the assay may be used as a qualitative or semi-quantitative tool for measuring adherence to NRTI drugs and used to support patient compliance. Due to its simple instrumentation and short runtime ( less then 1 hour), this assay has the potential for implementation in low-complexity laboratories or point-of-care settings, which may improve access to ART and PrEP adherence monitoring.Due to oxidative instability, arylboronic acids are not compatible with the solid-phase synthesis of nucleic acids. We solved this problem and, based on these findings, developed siRNA prodrugs activated in the presence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in vivo. These prodrugs can be used for specific targeting of ROS-rich cancer cells.