The construction of organic-inorganic hybrid ferroelectric materials with larger, high-polarity guest molecules intercalated in kaolinite (K) faces difficulties in terms of synthesis and uncertainty of structure-property relationships. The purpose of the present study was to optimize the synthesis method and to determine the mechanism of ferroelectric behavior of kaolinite intercalated with p-aminobenzamide (PABA), with an eye to improving the design of intercalation methods and better utilization of clay-based ferroelectric materials. The K-PABA intercalation compound (chemical formula Al2Si2O5(OH)4∙(PABA)0.7) was synthesized in an autoclave and then characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (IR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The experimental results showed that PABA expanded the kaolinite interlayer from 7.2 Å to 14.5 Å, and the orientation of the PABA molecule was ~70° from the plane of the kaolinite layers. The amino group of the PABA molecule was close to the Si sheet. The presence of intermolecular hydrogen bonds between kaolinite and PABA and among PABA molecules caused macro polarization of K-PABA and dipole inversion under the external electric field, resulting in K-PABA ferroelectricity. Simulation calculations using the Cambridge Sequential Total Energy Package (CASTEP) and the ferroelectricity test revealed the optimized intercalation model and possible ferroelectric mechanism.

Blood oxygen is an essential component for numerous biological processes of mammalian animals. Milk production of ruminants largely relies on the supply of nutrients, such as glucose, amino acids and fatty acids. To define the regulatory role of blood oxygen availability in regard to milk production, seventy-five healthy Guanzhong dairy goats with similar body weight, days in milk and parities were selected. For each animal, milk yield was recorded and milk sample was collected to determine compositions. Milk vein blood was collected to determine parameters including blood gas, physio-biochemistry and haematology. Another blood sample was prepared for transcriptome and RT-qPCR. Results showed that both pressure of oxygen (pO2) in the milk vein (positively) and numbers of neutrophils in mammary vein (negatively) were associated with milk yield of the animals. To learn the role of pO2 in blood cell functionality, twelve animals (six with higher yield (H-group) and six with lower yield (L-group)) from seventy-five goats were selected. Compared with animals in L-group, goats in H-group were higher in pO2 but lower in pCO2, lactate, lactate dehydrogenase activity and neutrophil abundance in milk vein, compared with L-group. The blood transcriptome analysis suggested that compared with L-group, animals in H-group were depressed in functionality including neutrophil activation and metabolic pathways including glycolysis, NF-κB and HIF-1. Our result revealed that lower milk production could be associated with neutrophil activation responding to low pO2 in the mammary vein. In the meantime, we highlighted the potential importance of blood oxygen as a milk yield regulator.

Poor utilisation efficiency of carbohydrate always leads to metabolic phenotypes in fish. The intestinal microbiota plays an important role in carbohydrate degradation. Whether the intestinal bacteria could alleviate high-carbohydrate diet (HCD)-induced metabolic phenotypes in fish remains unknown. Here, a strain affiliated to Bacillus amyloliquefaciens was isolated from the intestine of Nile tilapia. A basal diet (CON), HCD or HCD supplemented with B. amy SS1 (HCB) was used to feed fish for 10 weeks. The beneficial effects of B. amy SS1 on weight gain and protein accumulation were observed. Fasting glucose and lipid deposition were decreased in the HCB group compared with the HCD group. High-throughput sequencing showed that the abundance of acetate-producing bacteria was increased in the HCB group relative to the HCD group. Gas chromatographic analysis indicated that the concentration of intestinal acetate was increased dramatically in the HCB group compared with that in the HCD group. Glucagon-like peptide-1 was also increased in the intestine and serum of the HCB group. Thus, fish were fed with HCD, HCD supplemented with sodium acetate at 900 mg/kg (HLA), 1800 mg/kg (HMA) or 3600 mg/kg (HHA) diet for 8 weeks, and the HMA and HHA groups mirrored the effects of B. amy SS1. This study revealed that B. amy SS1 could alleviate the metabolic phenotypes caused by HCD by enriching acetate-producing bacteria in fish intestines. Regulating the intestinal microbiota and their metabolites might represent a powerful strategy for fish nutrition modulation and health maintenance in future.

A direct prejudgement strategy that takes the diffraction ring as the analysis target is put forward to predict hot images induced by defects of tens of microns in the main amplifier section of high power laser systems. Analysis of hot-image formation process shows that the hot image can be precisely calculated with the extracted intensity oscillation of the diffraction ring on the front surface of the nonlinear plate. The gradient direction matching (GDM) method is adopted to detect diffraction rings. Recognition of simulated diffraction rings shows that it is feasible to directly prejudge hot images induced by those closely spaced defects and the defects that are far apart from each other. Image compression and cluster analysis are utilized to optimize the performance of the GDM method in recognizing actually collected diffraction images. Results show that hot images induced by defects of tens of microns can be directly prejudged without redundant information.

We consider several different models for generating random fractals including random self-similar sets, random self-affine carpets, and Mandelbrot percolation. In each setting we compute either the almost sure or the Baire typical Assouad dimension and consider some illustrative examples. Our results reveal a phenomenon common to each of our models: the Assouad dimension of a randomly generated fractal is generically as big as possible and does not depend on the measure-theoretic or topological structure of the sample space. This is in stark contrast to the other commonly studied notions of dimension like the Hausdorff or packing dimension.

We investigate theoretically the field-free orientation of CO molecules induced by a single-cycle THz laser pulse train. It is shown that the molecular orientation can be obviously enhanced by applying the pulse train. The laser intensity and pulse number have some effects on the molecular orientation. The high degree of field-free molecular orientation |⟨cosθ⟩|max=0.9246 is obtained at temperature T=0 K. The variations of the maximum orientation degree with the experimentally available pulse number and peak intensity are given. Temperature T has a considerable influence on the field-free molecular orientation. The maximal field-free molecular orientation at T=0, 10, 20 and 30 K for N=14 and E 0=1.8 MV/cm are |⟨cosθ⟩|max=0.9188, 0.7338, 0.6055 and 0.5154 in order, and the corresponding effective duration times of molecular orientation are Δt=0.759, 0.432, 0.297 and 0.117 ps.

A mathematical model to price convertible bonds involving mixed fractional Brownian motion with jumps is presented. We obtain a general pricing formula using the risk neutral pricing principle and quasi-conditional expectation. The sensitivity of the price to changing various parameters is discussed. Theoretical prices from our jump mixed fractional Brownian motion model are compared with the prices predicted by traditional models. An empirical study shows that our new model is more acceptable.

Let α > 0 and let f[α](z) be the αth fractional derivative of an analytic function f on the unit disc D. In this paper we show that f ∈ BMOA if and only if |f[α](z)|2 (l - |z|2)2α−1dA(z) is a Carleson measure and f ∈ VMOA if and only if |f[α](z)|2 (1 − |z|2)2α−1dA(z) is a vanishing Carleson measure, where A denotes the normalised Lebesgue measure on D. Hence a significant extension of familiar characterisations for analytic functions of bounded and vanishing mean oscillation is obtained.

In this paper we obtain a sufficient and necessary condition for an analytic function f on D with Hadamard gaps, that is, for satisfying nk+1/nk ≥ λ 1 for all k, to belong to a kind of space consisting of analytic functions on D. The special cases of these spaces are BMOA and VMOA. In view of our result we can answer the open question given recently by Stroethoff.