Template Size Research Articles

Mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride for photocatalytic coenzyme regeneration

Efficient regeneration of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) is of great significance for the application of oxidoreductase-catalyzed reactions. Photocatalytic regeneration is advantageous for the utilization of cheap, abundant, and clean solar energy. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has attracted wide attention due to its non-toxicity, wide range of precursors, suitable band gap, and superior chemical and thermal stability. In this work, mesoporous g-C3N4 (MPCN) was prepared using silica with different size as the template. The preparation process of MPCN was optimized and the effect of the template size on the structure and properties of MPCN were investigated. The results demonstrate that the smaller the template size, the larger the specific surface area of MPCN, and thus the better the photocatalytic performance. After optimization, the catalytic activity of MPCN with 7 nm silica as the template (MPCN-7) was 17.4 mM/(g min) and the NADH yield after 40 min was 70.6 %. MPCN-7 was also modified by 3-aminothiophene-2-carbonitrile (ATCN) and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). Under same conditions, the catalytic activity of ATCN-MPCN, PVP-MPCN, and ATCN/PVP-MPCN was upgraded from 10.8 to 49.5, 16.4, 29.2 mM/(g min), respectively. The final yield of NADH rose from 66.9 % (40 min) to 76.3 % (12 min), 72.8 % (25 min) and 82.0 % (15 min).

Development of a CRISPR-Cas12a system for efficient genome engineering in clostridia.

Clostridium species have gained attention in industrial and medical applications, and the development of genetic tools has enabled the advancement of the CRISPR-Cas systems for these bacteria. Compared to the primarily used Cas9 from Streptococcus pyogenes, the utilization of Cas12a (previously known as Cpf1) proteins remains incomplete in clostridia, although they exhibit potential advantages, including T-rich recognition for Clostridium genomes and lower toxicity. In this study, we expanded the CRISPR-Cas tools in clostridia by establishing a CRISPR-Cas12a system with two different cas12a genes (Ascas12a from Acidaminococcus and Fncas12a from Francisella novicida). The optimized tetracycline-inducible systems were initially determined by the glucuronidase reporter and were used to drive expression of the cas12a genes and crRNAs. Our results demonstrate that the CRISPR-FnCas12a system offers flexible target selection in clostridia, and a specific folding pattern of the precursor crRNA is important to enable high mutation generation efficiency. By using sacB (encoding levansucrase) as a negative marker for plasmid curing and determining the optimal size of the donor DNA template for gene integration in the CRISPR-FnCas12a system, we achieved highly efficient and rapid genome modification, exemplified by the successful engineering of clostridia (Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium sporogenes) to produce near-infrared fluorescence from biliverdin and hemin.IMPORTANCEContinued efforts in developing the CRISPR-Cas systems will further enhance our understanding and utilization of Clostridium species. This study demonstrates the development and application of a genome-engineering tool in two Clostridium strains, Clostridium butyricum and Clostridium sporogenes, which have promising potential as probiotics and oncolytic agents. Particular attention was given to the folding of precursor crRNA and the role of this process in off-target DNA cleavage by Cas12a. The results provide the guidelines necessary for efficient genome engineering using this system in clostridia. Our findings not only expand our fundamental understanding of genome-engineering tools in clostridia but also improve this technology to allow use of its full potential in a plethora of biotechnological applications.

Three-Dimensional Printer-Assisted Electrospinning for Fabricating Intricate Biological Tissue Mimics.

Although regenerative medicine necessitates advanced three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds for organ and tissue applications, creating intricate structures across scales, from nano- to meso-like biological tissues, remains a challenge. Electrospinning of nanofibers offers promise due to its capacity to craft not only the dimensions and surfaces of individual fibers but also intricate attributes, such as anisotropy and porosity, across various materials. In this study, we used a 3D printer to design a mold with polylactic acid for gel modeling. This gel template, which was mounted on a metal wire, facilitated microfiber electrospinning. After spinning, these structures were treated with EDTA to remove the template and were then cleansed and dried, resulting in 3D microfibrous (3DMF) structures, with average fiber diameters of approximately 1 µm on the outer and inner surfaces. Notably, these structures matched their intended design dimensions without distortion or shrinkage, demonstrating the adaptability of this method for various template sizes. The cylindrical structures showed high elasticity and stretchability with an elastic modulus of 6.23 MPa. Furthermore, our method successfully mimicked complex biological tissue structures, such as the inner architecture of the voice box and the hollow partitioned structure of the heart's tricuspid valve. Achieving specific intricate shapes required multiple spinning sessions and subsequent assemblies. In essence, our approach holds potential for crafting artificial organs and forming the foundational materials for cell culture scaffolds, addressing the challenges of crafting intricate multiscale structures.

Knowledge-based multiple point statistics for soil stratigraphy simulation

An accurate representation of subsurface stratigraphy in the form of geotechnical profiles is a prerequisite for optimal underground design and safe construction. This paper proposes a novel knowledge-based multiple point statistics (KMPS) method to simulate the heterogeneities and spatial trends of subsurface strata and to generate geotechnical profiles. This approach incorporates domain knowledge in the form of cone penetration test and standard penetration test data as well as results from laboratory testing to increase simulation accuracy. A novel varying search template size and similarity threshold is adopted to alleviate the computational cost of the simulations. Ablation analyses are used to quantify the improvement of the proposed KMPS algorithm over existing baseline multiple point statistics algorithms. By way of example, the proposed approach is applied to real-world exploration data from the Suzhou No.6 metroline project. The results show that the computational cost of KMPS is effectively minimized whilst the simulation accuracy can be improved by up to 13.3%. The algorithm is further validated by extending the simulation to a test image. With sparse exploration data, the KMPS method is shown to effectively and efficiently predict soil profiles based on prior experience embodied by a training image, thus enabling a reduction in the number of field exploration boreholes.

Boosting Ion Conductivities: Light-Modulated Azobenzene-Based Ionic Liquids in Vertical Nanochannels.

Exploring stimuli-responsive ion-conductive materials is a challenging task, but it has gained increasing attention because of their enormous potential applications in actuators, sensors, and smart electronics. Here, we demonstrate a distinctive photoresponsive ion-conductive device that utilizes azobenzene-based ionic liquids ([AzoCnMIM][Br], where n = 2, 6, and 10), confined in nanochannels of anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates for photoisomerization. The structure of [AzoCnMIM][Br] comprises photoresponsive and hydrophobic azobenzene moieties, hydrophilic imidazolium cations, and negatively charged bromide ions. Therefore, [AzoCnMIM][Br] can form micelles and exhibit photoresponsive ion conductivities. The nanochannels of AAO templates exhibit a confinement effect on the formation of azobenzene-based ionic liquid micelles due to the pore size, thereby preventing the formation of larger micelles that could lead to a decrease in conductivity. Consequently, the ion conductivities of the azobenzene-based ionic liquids are higher in the nanochannels of the AAO templates. The effects of the length of carbon chains on the azobezene-based ionic liquids and the pore size of the AAO templates have also been investigated. Additionally, through irradiation with UV/vis light, [AzoCnMIM][Br] can undergo reversible isomerization, thereby reversibly changing the sizes of the micelles and subsequently altering the ion conductivities.

Capacitive performance of electrode materials affected by the Cu2O template morphologies in graphene/polyaniline nanotube/ZIF-67 nanocages porous composite

Graphene/polyaniline nanotube/ZIF-67 nanocages (G/PANI-NT/Z) composites were successfully prepared in a co-precipitation manner and used as electrode material for supercapacitor application. ZIF-67 nanocages, including cube and hexapod, were designed via a simple and fast one-step Cu2O template etching route. The properties of the as-synthesized nanoparticles were perused by N2 adsorption–desorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), and electrochemical manners. In particular, the super-capacitive performance of the synthesized materials was perused by changing the morphology of the nanostructures. Results represent that the as-synthesized ZIF-67 nanocages maintain the shape and size of the Cu2O templates with a hollow, which depicts various capacitive demeanors. Amongst, the two morphologies, the G/PANI-NT/Z-hexapod (h) composite has a larger specific capacitance of 4400 mF g−1, while G/PANI-NT/Z-cubic (c) has a lower one of 3630 mF g−1 at 10 mA g−1 current density. This is mainly due to the presence of ZIF-67 nanocages with hexapod morphology and a larger surface area of 73.58 m2/g in the G/PANI-NT/Z-h composite, which leads to fast interfacial electron transfer and an increase in the diffusion rate of electrolyte ions for higher power density. This demonstrates G/PANI-NT/Z-h electrode is promising for applications in renewable energy storage.

Natural Rubber/Hexagonal Mesoporous Silica Nanocomposites as Efficient Adsorbents for the Selective Adsorption of (-)-Epigallocatechin Gallate and Caffeine from Green Tea.

(-)-Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is a bioactive component of green tea that provides many health benefits. However, excessive intake of green tea may cause adverse effects of caffeine (CAF) since green tea (30-50 mg) has half the CAF content of coffee (80-100 mg). In this work, for enhancing the health benefits of green tea, natural rubber/hexagonal mesoporous silica (NR/HMS) nanocomposites with tunable textural properties were synthesized using different amine template sizes and applied as selective adsorbents to separate EGCG and CAF from green tea. The resulting adsorbents exhibited a wormhole-like silica framework, high specific surface area (528-578 m2 g-1), large pore volume (0.76-1.45 cm3 g-1), and hydrophobicity. The NR/HMS materials adsorbed EGCG more than CAF; the selectivity coefficient of EGCG adsorption was 3.6 times that of CAF adsorption. The EGCG adsorption capacity of the NR/HMS series was correlated with their pore size and surface hydrophobicity. Adsorption behavior was well described by a pseudo-second-order kinetic model, indicating that adsorption involved H-bonding interactions between the silanol groups of the mesoporous silica surfaces and the hydroxyl groups of EGCG and the carbonyl group of CAF. As for desorption, EGCG was more easily removed than CAF from the NR/HMS surface using an aqueous solution of ethanol. Moreover, the NR/HMS materials could be reused for EGCG adsorption at least three times. The results suggest the potential use of NR/HMS nanocomposites as selective adsorbents for the enrichment of EGCG in green tea. In addition, it could be applied as an adsorbent in the filter to reduce the CAF content in green tea by up to 81.92%.

A new microarchitecture hardware proposal for the use of the improved template matching method in face similarity detection

Template matching is a technique used in many different areas in the literature to search for a small template image in a larger source image. The execution time of the technique can be quite high depending on the size of the source image, since the search made in the large image is realized pixel by pixel in the form of frames selected in the template size. This situation creates inconveniences in terms of real-time use of the technique. In addition, the results cannot be interpreted correctly due to the fact that there are many fake matches in the region where there are real matches. In this study, the technique was strengthened with a new and simple proposal called neighborhood pool to prevent fake matches. In order to reduce the long scan time to real-time execution time, the reinforced template matching technique was redesigned as an FPGA-based hardware architecture. This new micro-hardware architecture, which includes the neighborhood pool idea, was synthesized and embedded in the FPGA device by time analysis and tested on the device. For the tests of the study, the face matching scenario was chosen and the face image of a particular person was searched in the larger source image. The improved template matching technique in software-based tests reduced the execution time by about 4.5 times compared to the classical template matching method, and about 300 times in hardware testing, and it was observed that the system execution time became compatible with real-time. When the proposed new micro hardware architecture is compared with the CNN and template matching designs in the literature, it is clearly seen that it has a very low hardware requirement compared to them.

Silver Catalysts Supported on High Surface Area α‐Alumina: Effect of Carbohydrate Template Size and Heat Treatment on Phase Purity

Abstractα‐Alumina is a non‐porous metal oxide with applications in ceramics and catalysis. Introducing pores into this material to create catalytically relevant surface area is challenging due to phase transitions over a wide temperature range. Current synthesis strategies involve hard templates such as synthetic polymers, e. g. polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). Here, we compare cellulose and carbonized glucose as low‐cost and natural alternative templates for high surface area α‐alumina with a two‐step heating method. Quantitative XRD was used to methodically investigate alumina phase purity. Increasing the template size in the range of 220–1000 nm improved α‐alumina purity from 75 to 98 %, while maintaining high surface areas (21–29 m2 g−1). Phase purity increases substantially by prolonging the calcination time. The synthesized high surface area α‐alumina was studied as support for silver catalysts in the epoxidation of ethylene and allowed high silver loadings. Ethylene oxide selectivity increased with enhanced α‐alumina phase purity. Our 30 wt % silver catalyst on pure high surface area α‐alumina did not show loss in selectivity compared to a 15 wt % silver catalyst on commercial non‐porous α‐alumina. This shows the potential of carbohydrate templates, the importance of templating parameters and the benefits of pure high surface area α‐alumina as support for silver catalysts.

Fabrication and characterization of field-effect transistors based on MoS2 nanotubes prepared in anodic aluminum oxide templates

Field-effect transistors (FETs) based on MoS2 nanotubes prepared in anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates have been fabricated and demonstrated in this work. MoS2 nanotubes were prepared by the thermal decomposition of (NH4)2MoS4 precursors in the AAO template. The diameter of the MoS2 nanotubes was approximately 80 nm, which corresponded to the size of the AAO template. Schottky-type FETs were prepared with Au and Pt electrodes, and the FETs exhibited n-type behavior, with on/off ratios that exceeded 103 at VSD = 0.5 V.

Finger Vein Template Protection with Directional Bloom Filter

Biometrics has become a widely accepted solution for secure user authentication. However, the use of biometric traits raises serious concerns about the protection of personal data and privacy. Traditional biometric systems are vulnerable to attacks due to the storage of original biometric data in the system. Because biometric data cannot be changed once it has been compromised, the use of a biometric system is limited by the security of its template. To protect biometric templates, this paper proposes the use of directional bloom filters as a cancellable biometric approach to transform the biometric data into a non-invertible template for user authentication purposes. Recently, Bloom filter has been used for template protection due to its efficiency with small template size, alignment invariance, and irreversibility. Directional Bloom Filter improves on the original bloom filter. It generates hash vectors with directional subblocks rather than only a single-column subblock in the original bloom filter. Besides, we make use of multiple fingers to generate a biometric template, which is termed multi-instance biometrics. It helps to improve the performance of the method by providing more information through the use of multiple fingers. The proposed method is tested on three public datasets and achieves an equal error rate (EER) as low as 5.28% in the stolen or constant key scenario. Analysis shows that the proposed method meets the four properties of biometric template protection. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2023-04-02-013 Full Text: PDF

Electroless Deposition of Silver onto Silica Nanoparticles to Produce Lipophilic Core-Shell Nanoparticles

HypothesisThe colloidal stability of noble metal nanoparticles can be tuned for solvents of varying hydrophobicity by modifying the surface chemistry of the particles with different capping agent architectures. Challenges arise when attempting to separately control multiple nanoparticle properties due to the interdependence of this adsorption process on the surface chemistry and metal architecture. A surfactant-mediated, templated synthesis strategy should decouple control over size and stability to produce lipophilic nanoparticles from aqueous reagents. ExperimentsA modified electroless plating process that produces oil-dispersible core–shell silver-silica nanoparticles is presented. Amine-terminated alkanes are utilized as the capping agents to generate lipophilic surface coatings and the particles are temporarily stabilized during the synthesis by adding a Pluronic surfactant that enhances dispersibility in the aqueous reaction medium. The evolution of shell morphology, composition, and colloidal stability was analyzed against capping agent architecture and concentration. The role of particle shape was also tested by interchanging the template geometry. FindingsThe capping agents installed on the silver shell surface displayed both colloidal stability enhancements and a minimum effective capping concentration that is a function of molecular weight without influencing the shell composition. Particle geometry can be controlled by interchanging the silica template size and shape.

The Mechanism of Disease of Tri-Nucleotide Repeat Expansion Diseases (P9-11.002)

<h3>Objective:</h3> To clarify the mechanism of disease of tri-nucleotide repeat (<b>TNR</b>) expansion diseases such as Huntington’s Disease, Myotonic Dystrophy and Friedreich’s Ataxia. <h3>Background:</h3> The current explanation for TNR expansion diseases is DNA slippage during DNA duplication; however, it does not explain why risk of disease starts with 30–40 TNRs or 90–120 repetitive nucleotides and occurs in non-dividing neurons. An alternative explanation is that (1) TNRs are mutation-prone; (2) a constant environmental factor induces constant DNA damage and mutations independent of DNA duplication; and (3) existing DNA repair mechanisms are prone to fail starting at 90–120 repetitive nucleotides. <h3>Design/Methods:</h3> TNR sequences were evaluated for the presence of mutation-prone DNA: GC-rich sequence and somatic hypermutation (<b>SHM</b>) hotspots. Environmental factors able to cause constant DNA damage independent of geographic location or time were investigated. Existing DNA repair mechanisms were assessed for likelihood of failure at or above a TNR sequence of 90–120 repetitive nucleotides. <h3>Results:</h3> All TNR sequences consist of GC-rich DNA or SHM hotspots. Among environmental factors only oxidative stress from minimum ionizing particle (<b>MIP</b>) radiation has the energy spectrum, constant presence, and geographic distribution required to cause double-strand DNA breaks in unwound, single-strand DNA during transcription. Homologous recombination repair is a repair mechanism for double-strand DNA breaks that is present in terminally differentiated neurons at time of active transcription; it requires the immediate presence of template duplex DNA to initiate repair synthesis. With increasing TNRs, the size of the D-loop template (average length 200 nucleotides) may be larger (often) or smaller (rarely) than the actual number of damaged repeats, explaining expansion or contraction of TNRs in successive generations. <h3>Conclusions:</h3> The combination of mutation-prone GC-rich DNA or SHM hotspots, MIP radiation-related oxidative stress as constant source of mutations, and a DNA repair mechanism that fails with long stretches of TNRs explains the etiology of TNR expansion diseases. <b>Disclosure:</b> The institution of Prof. De Groen has received research support from Pfizer. The institution of Prof. De Groen has received research support from NIH. Prof. De Groen has received intellectual property interests from a discovery or technology relating to health care. Prof. De Groen has received personal compensation in the range of $500-$4,999 for serving as a Invited speaker at annual conference x2 with AAFPE. Prof. De Groen has received personal compensation in the range of $0-$499 for serving as a None with None.

Process and performance of DAAF microspheres prepared by continuous integration from synthesis to spherical coating based on microfluidic system

In order to improve the energy output consistency of 3, 3′-diamino-4, 4′-azoxyfurazan (DAAF) in the new insensitive booster and the safety and efficiency in the preparation process, a continuous preparation system of DAAF from synthesis to spherical coating was designed and established in this paper, which combined ultrasonic micromixing reaction with microdroplet globular template. In the rapid micromixing stage, the microfluidic mixing technology with ultrasonic was used to synergistically strengthen the uniform and rapid mass transfer mixing reaction between raw materials to ensure the uniformity of DAAF particle nucleation-growth, and to prepare high-quality DAAF crystals with uniform structure and morphology and concentrated particle size distribution. In the microdroplet globular template stage, the microfluidic droplet technology was used to form a droplet globular template with uniform size under the shear action of the continuous phase of the dispersed phase solution containing DAAF particles and binder. The size of the droplet template was controlled by adjusting the flow rate ratio between the continuous phase and the dispersed phase. In the droplet globular template, with the diffusion of the solvent in the dispersed phase droplets, the binder precipitates to coat the DAAF into a ball, forming a DAAF microsphere with high sphericity, narrow particle size distribution and good monodispersity. The problem of discontinuity and DAAF particle suspension in the process was solved, and the coating theory under this process was studied. DAAF was coated with different binder formulations of fluororubber (F2604), nitrocellulose (NC) and NC/glycidyl azide polymer (GAP), and the process verification and evaluation of the system were carried out. The balling effects of large, medium and small droplet templates under different binder formulations were studied. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) results show that the three droplet templates under the three binder formulations exhibit good balling effect and narrow particle size distribution. The DAAF microspheres were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermo-gravimetric (TG) and sensitivity analyzer. The results showed that the crystal structure of DAAF did not change during the process, and the prepared DAAF microspheres had lower decomposition temperature and lower mechanical sensitivity than raw DAAF. The results of detonation parameters show that the coating of DAAF by using the above three binder formulations will not greatly reduce the energy output of DAAF, and has comparable detonation performance to raw DAAF. This study proves an efficient and safe continuous system from synthesis to spherical coating modification of explosives, which provides a new way for the continuous, safe and efficient preparation of spherical explosives.

Biomorphic porous TiO2 with wood template size scaling for improved adsorption and photocatalysis performance

Biomorphic porous TiO2 with wood template size scaling for improved adsorption and photocatalysis performance

Siam Deep Feature KCF Method and Experimental Study for Pedestrian Tracking.

The tracking of a particular pedestrian is an important issue in computer vision to guarantee societal safety. Due to the limited computing performances of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems, the Correlation Filter (CF) algorithm has been widely used to perform the task of tracking. However, it has a fixed template size and cannot effectively solve the occlusion problem. Thus, a tracking-by-detection framework was designed in the current research. A lightweight YOLOv3-based (You Only Look Once version 3) mode which had Efficient Channel Attention (ECA) was integrated into the CF algorithm to provide deep features. In addition, a lightweight Siamese CNN with Cross Stage Partial (CSP) provided the representations of features learned from massive face images, allowing the target similarity in data association to be guaranteed. As a result, a Deep Feature Kernelized Correlation Filters method coupled with Siamese-CSP(Siam-DFKCF) was established to increase the tracking robustness. From the experimental results, it can be concluded that the anti-occlusion and re-tracking performance of the proposed method was increased. The tracking accuracy Distance Precision (DP) and Overlap Precision (OP) had been increased to 0.934 and 0.909 respectively in our test data.

Upper Extremity Wounds Treated with Biodegradable Temporizing Matrix versus Collagen-Chondroitin Silicone Bilayer

Objective This study aims to compare outcomes between Novosorb Biodegradable Temporizing Matrix (BTM) and Integra collagen-chondroitin silicone for upper-extremity wound reconstruction.Methods This retrospective study analyzed adult patients who underwent wound reconstruction with either BTM or Integra at our institution between 2015 and 2020.Results Forty-eight patients were included: 31 (64.6%) BTM and 17 (35.4%) Integra. Mean age was 44.0 (range: 18–68) years. Age, race, sex, smoking, comorbidities, and defect size were similar between groups. Wound etiologies included 12 (25.0%) burn, 22 (45.8%) trauma, and others. Median template size was 133 cm2 for BTM and 104 cm2 for Integra (p = 0.526). Skin grafting was performed after 14 (45.2%) and 14 (82.4%) wounds treated with BTM and Integra, respectively (p = 0.028). Template complications of infection and dehiscence were comparable. Skin-graft complications occurred in five (35.7%) and three (21.4%) wounds in BTM and Integra, respectively (p = 0.031). Skin-graft failure rates were comparable (p = 0.121). Mean number of secondary procedures required after template placement was higher in the Integra group (BTM, 1.0; Integra, 1.9; p = 0.090). Final healing was achieved in 17 (54.8%) BTM and 11 (64.7%) Integra wounds (p = 0.694). Median time to healing was 4.1 months after BTM and 2.6 months after Integra placement (p = 0.014).Conclusion Compared with Integra, BTM achieved comparable wound healing and complication rates. Fewer secondary procedures and skin grafts were observed in BTM wounds, likely as a result of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. At our institution, 100 cm2 of product costs $850 for BTM and $3,150 for Integra, suggesting BTM as an economical alternative to fulfill the high functional and aesthetic requirements of upper-extremity wounds.

Synthesis of hierarchical mesoporous cerium titanate brannerite and uranyl adsorption properties at pH 3.8.

Cerium titanates possessing brannerite structure are produced by employing soft and hard templates via sol-gel processing. Powders synthesized with various hard template sizes and template to brannerite weight ratios are composed of nanoscale 'building blocks' with size ∼20-30 nm and characterized on macro-, nano- and atomic scales. These polycrystalline oxide powders exhibit specific surface area up to ∼100 m2 g-1, pore volume ∼0.4 cm3 g-1, and uranyl adsorption capacity ∼0.221 mmol (53 mg) U per gram powder. Remarkably, the materials possess significant proportion of mesopores with 5-50 nm pores representing 84-98% of total pore volume, which facilitate fast accessibility of the adsorbate to the internal surfaces of the adsorbent with adsorbed uranyl reaching over 70% of the full capacity within 15 min of contact. These mesoporous cerium titanate brannerites synthesized by the soft chemistry route are highly homogenous, stable at least in 2 mol L-1 acidic or basic solution, and may attract attention for other applications like catalysis at high temperature.

Notice of Removal: Robust and Efficient Finger Vein Recognition Using Binarized Difference of Gabor Jet on Grid

In practical applications, the biometric authentication system requires a lower error rate, higher speed, and smaller template size. To satisfy such requirements, we propose a robust and efficient finger vein recognition method, consisting of three stages: preprocessing, feature extraction, and comparison. During the preprocessing, geometric and photometric variations are suppressed. The feature extraction is based on a high-level descriptor derived from the binarized difference of Gabor jet (BDGJ) extracted from predefined grid points in the finger region. In the descriptor, the feature vectors at the vertices of the grid are weighted according to their position relative to the finger region. This descriptor provides a high discrimination ability with robustness. The comparison is conducted in a coarse-to-fine approach based on the Hamming distance, with remaining horizontal shifts and finger rolling compensated. The experimental results show that the proposed method has state-of-the-art performance and efficiency for practical applications. In particular, the method’s equal error rate (EER) is 0.00% on some famous public databases, and its computational cost is so low that the method can be run on a mobile processor with high speed.

Analysis of Template Variations on RNA Synthesis by Respiratory Syncytial Virus Polymerase.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a significant threat to infants and elderly individuals globally. Currently, there are no effective therapies or treatments for RSV infection because of an insufficient understanding of the RSV viral machinery. In this study, we investigated the effects of the template variations on RNA synthesis by the RSV polymerase through in vitro RNA synthesis assays. We confirmed the previously reported back-priming activity of the RSV polymerase, which is likely due to the secondary structure of the RNA template. We found that the expansion of the hairpin loop size of the RNA template abolishes the RSV polymerase back-priming activity. At the same time, it seemingly does not affect the de novo RNA synthesis activities of the RSV polymerase. Interestingly, our results show that the RSV polymerase also has a new primer-based terminal extension activity that adds nucleotides to the template and primer in a nonspecific manner. We also mapped the impact of the RNA 5' chemical group on its mobility in a urea-denaturing RNA gel shift assay. Overall, these results enhance our knowledge about the RNA synthesis processes of the RSV polymerase and may guide future therapeutic efforts to develop effective antiviral drugs for RSV treatment.