As a kind of novel and efficient material, ionic liquids (ILs) are used for capture of acidic gases including SO2 and CO2 from flue gas. Due to very low content of acidic gases in flue gas, it is important to find functional ILs to absorb the acidic gases. However, up to now, there is no criterion to distinguish if the ILs are functional or not before use, which greatly influences the design of functional ILs. In this work, a series of ILs were synthesized and used to determine functional or normal ILs for the capture of acidic gases. It has been found that the pKa of organic acids forming the anion of ILs can be used to differentiate functional ILs from normal ILs for the capture of acidic gases from flue gas. If the pKa of an organic acid is larger than that of sulfurous acid (or carbonic acid), the ILs formed by the organic acid can be called functional ILs for SO2 (or CO2) capture, and it can have a high absorption capacity of SO2 (or CO2) with low SO2 (or CO2) concentrations. If not, the IL is just a normal IL. The pKa of organic acids can also be used to explain the absorption mechanism and guide the synthesis of functional ILs.

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Transcriptional co-activator Yes-associated protein (YAP) and transcriptional co-activator with PDZ-binding motif (TAZ) are key oncogenes in mammalian cells. Activities of YAP and TAZ are largely restricted by the Hippo tumor suppressor pathway through phosphorylation-ubiquitination mechanisms. The involvement of microRNA in cancer progression has recently been reported, though whether they have a role in activating YAP and TAZ in human cancer cells remains unclear. Here, we report a microRNA, miR-129-5p, directly represses YAP and TAZ expression, leading to the inactivation of TEA domain (TEAD) transcription, and the downregulation of Hippo downstream genes, connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) and Cyclin A. Furthermore, we reveal miR-129-5p inhibits ovarian cancer cell proliferation, survival and tumorigenicity, and that downregulation of miR-129-5p in ovarian cancer cells highly correlates with malignant progression and poor survival. Hence, we demonstrate a novel mechanism for YAP and TAZ activation in cancers, indicating not only a potentially pivotal role for miR-129-5p in the progression of ovarian cancer, but also offering new therapeutic strategies to circumvent the disease.