Seasonally Changing Interactions of Species Traits of Termites and Trees Promote Complementarity in Coarse Wood Decomposition.

Complementary resource use by functionally different species may accelerate ecosystem processes. However, how co-variation in plant traits and animal traits promotes complementarity through temporal plant-animal interactions is poorly understood, even less so in detrital systems, thereby hampering our fundamental understanding of decomposition and carbon turnover. We hypothesised that, in seasonal subtropical forests where termites are major deadwood decomposers, trait complementarity of both termite species and tree species should promote overall deadwood decomposition through different seasons and years.

Silver Nano-Inks Synthesized with Biobased Polymers for High-Resolution Electrohydrodynamic Printing Toward In-Space Manufacturing.

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing is an additive manufacturing technique capable of producing micro/nanoscale features by precisely jetting ink under an electric field. However, as a new technique compared to more conventional methods, commercially available inks designed and optimized for EHD are currently very limited. To address this challenge, a new silver nanoink platform was developed by synthesizing silver nanoparticles with biobased polymer 2-hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC).

Rapid Adaptation of Leaves to Crown-Thinning in Giant Panda Ecological Corridor, Niba Mountain.

Leaf traits reflect the ecological strategy in heterogeneous contexts and are widely used to explore the adaption of plant species to environmental change. However, the knowledge of short-term effect of canopy management on understorey plant leaf traits is still limited. Here, we studied the short-term effect of crown-thinning on the leaf morphological traits of bamboo (), an important understorey plant and staple food for the giant panda () of Niba Mountain.

Effects of Lyophilization on the Release Profiles of 3D Printed Delivery Systems Fabricated with Carboxymethyl Cellulose Hydrogel.

Recently, increasing numbers of researchers are becoming interested in 3D bioprinting because it provides customizability and structural complexity, which is difficult for traditional subtractive manufacturing to achieve. One of the most critical factors in bioprinting is the material. Depending on the bio-applications, materials should be bio-inert or bio-active, non-toxic, and along with those characteristics, mechanical properties should also meet the applicational or manufacturing requirement.

Activation and Assembly of Plasmonic-Magnetic Nanosurfactants for Encapsulation and Triggered Release.

Multifunctional surfactants hold great potentials in catalysis, separation, and biomedicine. Highly active plasmonic-magnetic nanosurfactants are developed through a novel acid activation treatment of Au-FeO dumbbell nanocrystals. The activation step significantly boosts nanosurfactant surface energy and enables the strong adsorption at interfaces, which reduces the interfacial energy one order of magnitude.

3D printing of extended-release tablets of theophylline using hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) hydrogels.

An extrusion based 3D printer was used to prepare the semi-solid tablets with different drug loading dosages (75, 100, 125 mg) under ambient temperature. The active pharmaceutical ingredient, theophylline, was uploaded within the hydrogels prepared of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) K4M or E4M. The HPMC concentrations were adjusted to different levels (10 and 12% w/w) to fulfill the requirements for 3D printing.

Development of methylcellulose-based sustained-release dosage by semisolid extrusion additive manufacturing in drug delivery system.

The objective of this study is to fabricate customized dosage forms using extrusion-based 3D printing for the sustained delivery of theophylline. The therapeutic paste was prepared by combining various doses of theophylline (0, 75, 100, and 125 mg) with different concentrations of methylcellulose (MC) A4M (8, 10, and 12%). The paste was then 3D printed into semisolid tablets under optimized printing conditions.