With the rapid development of mobile electronics and electric vehicles, future electrochemical capacitors (ECs) need to store as much energy as possible in a rather limited space. As the core component of ECs, dense electrodes that have a high volumetric energy density and superior rate capability are the key to achieving improved energy storage. Here, the significance of and recent progress in the high volumetric performance of dense electrodes are presented. Furthermore, dense yet porous electrodes, as the critical precondition for realizing superior electrochemical capacitive energy, have become a scientific challenge and an attractive research focus. From a pore-engineering perspective, insight into the guidelines of engineering the pore size, connectivity, and wettability is provided to design dense electrodes with different porous architectures toward high-performance capacitive energy storage. The current challenges and future opportunities toward dense electrodes are discussed and include the construction of an orderly porous structure with an appropriate gradient, the coupling of pore sizes with the solvated cations and anions, and the design of coupled pores with diverse electrolyte ions.

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This document has been produced by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Epidemiology Working Group and the participants at the Global Meeting on the Epidemiology of SARS, 16-17 May 2003.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a serious infectious threat to public health. To create a novel trial vaccine and evaluate its potency, we attempted to generate a SARS inactivated vaccine using SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) strain F69 treated with formaldehyde and mixed with Al(OH)3. Three doses of the vaccine were used to challenge three groups of BALB/c mice. We found that the mice exhibited specific IgM on day 4 and IgG on day 8. The peak titers of IgG were at day 47 in low-dose group (1:19,200) and high-dose group (1:38,400) whereas in middle-dose group (1:19,200), the peak was at day 40. On day 63, the IgG levels reached a plateau. Neutralization assay demonstrated that the antisera could protect Vero-E6 cells from SARS-CoV's infection. Analysis of the antibody specificity revealed that the mouse antisera contained a mixture of antibodies specifically against the structure proteins of SARS-CoV. Furthermore, the mouse antisera conferred higher amount of antibodies against protein N, polypeptide S4 and S2 than those of proteins M and 3CL. These findings suggest that the inactivated SARS-CoV could preserve its antigenicity and the inactivated vaccine can stimulate mice to produce high levels of antibodies with neutralization activity. Results also suggest that polypeptides originating from protein N or S might be a potential target for the generation of a recombinant SARS vaccine.

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Background: Agaro-oligosaccharides derived from red seaweed polysaccharide have been reported to possess antioxidant activity. In order to assess the live protective effects of agaroligosaccharides, we did both in vitro and in vivo studies based on own-made agaro-oligosaccharides, and the structural information of this oligosaccharide was also determined.

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An exhaustive qualitative and quantitative profiling of the photosynthetic glycerolipids in three strains of the marine diatom Skeletonema sp. was carried out by ultra performance liquid chromatography-electrospray ionizationquadrupole-time of flight-mass spectrometry. In the diatom thylakoid membrane, monogalactosyldiacylglycerol (MGDG) and digalactosyldiacylglycerol (DGDG) account for about 45-70% and 5-15% of the total membrane lipids, respectively. The anionic sulfoquinovosyldiacylglycerol (SQDG) as well as the likewise anionic phosphatidylglycerol (PG) contribute between 10-40% and 4-10% each. The predominant species of MGDG were those with C 16:3 /C 16:3 , C 20:5 / 16:1 , and C 20:5 /C 16:3 . Three main molecular species of DGDG contained C 20:5 /C 16:1 , C 20:5 /C 16:2 , and C 16:1 /C 16:1 . The major molecular species of SQDG were those containing combinations of C 14:0 /C 14:0 , C 14:0 /C 16:0, C 14:0 /C 16:1 , and C 14:0 /C 16:3 . All the PG classes contained the C 18:1 /C 18:1 as the main molecular species. Based on the fatty acid species in sn-2 position, it is indicated that MGDG and DGDG are biosynthesized through prokaryotic pathway exclusively within the chloroplast, whereas PG and SQDG have a typical mixed biosynthetic pathway (both prokaryotic pathway and eukaryotic pathways). The chemical characteristics of photosynthetic glycerolipids related with ecological physiology are discussed.