Oxime, whose dynamic nature was reported to be switchable between ON/OFF by tuning the acidity, is employed in a novel type of dynamic covalent approach that is amenable to use in water for self‐assembly of purely organic molecules with complex topology. In strongly acidic conditions, the dynamic nature of oxime is turned ON, allowing occurrence of error‐checking and therefore a catenane and a macrocycle self‐assembled in high yields. In neutral conditions, oxime ceases to be dynamic, which helps to trap the self‐assembled products even when the driving forces of their formation are removed. We envision that this switchable behaviour might help, at least partially, to resolve a commonly encountered drawback of dynamic covalent chemistry, namely that the intrinsic stability of the self‐assembled products containing dynamic bonds, such as imine or hydrazone, are often jeopardized by their reversible nature.

A macrocycle through a dynamic covalent approach relying on reversible hydrazone formation in acidic aqueous solutions at elevated temperatures is constructed. By decreasing the acidity of the solution and lowering the temperature, the structure becomes kinetically inert. The macrocycle is capable of hosting hydrophobic aromatic guest molecules in water.

Using a novel dynamic covalent approach relying on reversible hydrazone formation, a purely organic 3-dimensional prismatic cage was developed in water at elevated temperatures. By lowering the temperature, the hydrazone bond becomes kinetically inert. This self-assembled cage acts as an effective receptor for donor-acceptor pairs, whose interactions are weak in the absence of the cage.

By condensing a trisamino linker with one of the two analogous bisaldehyde ligands, pills and tetrahedrons could be self-assembled. The self-assembled preference could be controlled by tuning the reaction conditions, including the size of side chain, concentration, and temperature. Coordination of silver cation quenches the fluorescence of the fluorene moieties on the pill, opening up opportunities for Ag+ cation detection.

Spin–spin interactions between two identical aromatic radicals have been studied extensively and utilized to establish supramolecular recognition. Here we report that spin-pairing interactions could also take place between two different π-electron radicals, namely a bipyridinium radical cation (BPY+•) and a naphthalene-1,8:4,5-bis(dicarboximide) radical anion (NDI─•). The occurrence of this type of previously unreported hetero radical-pairing interactions is attributed to enhancement effect of Coulombic attraction between these two radicals bearing opposite charges. The Coulombic-enhanced hetero radical pairing interactions are employed to drive host–guest recognition, as well as the reversible switching of a bistable [2]rotaxane.

We experimentally demonstrated a method of generating continuously wavelength-switchable optical vortex beams (OVBs) in an all-fiber laser. A polarization-dependent microknot resonator (MKR) functions as comb filter and accounts for the narrow linewidth (0.018 nm) of multiwavelength channels. The wavelength interval corresponds to the free spectral range of the MKR. We exploit a fused SMF-FMF (single mode fiber-few mode fiber) mode coupler to obtain broadband mode conversion and successfully achieve multiwavelength switchable OVBs. As far as we know, this is the first report about identical multiwavelength vortex beams with topological charges of 1. It has been verified that each channel of the vortex beams preserves the same orbital angular momentum (OAM) properties through their clear spiral interferograms. Multiwavelength vortex beams with identical OAM properties are desirable for multiplexing, exchanging, and routing to further improve the capacity of optical fiber transmission.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is usually accompanied with symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bloody stool, which impair the quality of life of patients. Previous studies have shown that Andrographis paniculata extracts, which have andrographolide (AND) as their main compound, can relieve UC symptoms in patients. The aim of the study was to investigate the alleviating effect of AND on UC using the oxazolone (OXZ)-induced UC rat model. A total of 66 healthy male Sprague Dawley rats were used to evaluate the efficacy and mechanism of AND on UC (n = 11 per group) and grouped into control, model, SASP (sulfasalazine, positive control group, 500 mg/kg), AND-L (40 mg/kg), AND-M (80 mg/kg), and AND-H (120 mg/kg). The colonic disease activity index (DAI), colon length, spleen coefficient, pathological damage, and inflammation-related cytokine and protein expression levels were used as indices for evaluation. Results showed that the AND groups had reduced DAI and mortality, and significantly improved colon length and spleen coefficient compared with the model group. Furthermore, OXZ-induced histological injury was relieved significantly after AND treatment due to an improved crypt structure and reduced infiltration of inflammatory cells. Moreover, AND inhibited myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity and the secretion of interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-13, and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α). The results of the anti-inflammatory mechanism revealed that AND blocked the signal transduction by reducing IL-4/IL-13 specific binding to IL-4 receptor (IL-4R) and inhibiting the phosphorylation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 6 (p-STAT6). In conclusion, aside from natural plants, AND may be a candidate ingredient for UC therapy.

A portable capacitive sensor was designed to assess frying oil degradation by measuring the changes in electrical capacitance. An interdigital electrode (IDE) was designed to be implemented as the testing probe (as IDEs are resistive to parasitic capacitance), together with an adjacent capacitive chip Pcap01 and a further microprocessor STM32, which were used as the data-processing elements. Experimental results demonstrated that viscosity could be a useful frying oil quality indicator, and also proved a preliminary correlation between IDE capacitance and oils’ total polar materials. This implies that IDE capacitance could be a suitable metric for conveniently assessing frying oil degradation. The designed capacitance sensor is light in weight, cost effective, and has excellent potential for simple, inexpensive, on-the-spot testing of the current quality of frying oil.