Prior correlational research demonstrated that in a society with high income inequality, people are more likely to seek high status. The present study aimed to establish a causal relation between income inequality and status seeking by investigating the effects of perceived income inequality on the pursuit of positional goods. Moreover, we investigated whether the relation between perceived income inequality and the pursuit of positional goods is moderated by subjective social status. We manipulated high versus low income inequality and found that perceived income inequality increased the pursuit of positional goods among participants with low social status, but not among participants with high social status. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

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Four crosslinkers were synthesised by the reaction of 1,3,5‐trichloro‐2,4,6‐triazine and polyethylene glycol. Their structures were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectra and mass spectra. A tetraethylene pentamine dye was crosslinked to cotton and silk via covalent bonds by the crosslinking dyeing process. The effects of pH, temperature, concentration and the chain length of the crosslinkers on the dye fixation were investigated in detail. The fixation of the dye using the crosslinkers on cotton and silk was >97%, and the infrared spectra of cotton, the dyed cotton and the crosslinked dyed one were compared with each other, which indicated that a covalent bond had been formed between the crosslinking dyes and fibres through the crosslinkers.

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A variety of hydrothermal or electrochemical methods have been explored to prepare noble metal nanostructures as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates. However, most of those metallic nanoarrays are structurally homogeneous, which makes it laborious to select the highperformance substrates for particular Raman sensing purposes. Here, a highthroughput SERS imaging strategy is demonstrated for the first time for screening chemical sensors with sub-nanomolar sensitivities. Bipolar electrochemistry was applied to generate Au or Au−Ag gradient nanoarrays with diverse chemical compositions, morphologies, and particle dimensions ranging from several nanometers to micrometers. The selected "hot-spots" on the Au− Ag alloy nanoarray exhibited a 660-fold enhancement in SERS intensity compared to those on the pure Au gradient nanoarray. The SERS screening of 4aminothiophenol, 4-nitrothiophenol, and 4-mercaptobenzoic acid was carried out that provided a limit of detection (LOD) between 1 and 5 pM. The distinctive LODs among three thiophenolic Raman probes are ascribed to the differences in the affinity of the probe to the alloy, orientation of the metal−ligand monolayer, or plasmonic environment of the nanoarray surface. As a continuous, rapid, and costeffective manner to fabricate transitional nanostructures and screen out SERS responsive sites, this method not only facilitates controllable synthesis of noble metal nanoarrays but has the potential to provide an alternative tool for ultrasensitive chemical sensing on a wide range of bimetallic substrates.

Microalgal lipids are essential for biofuel and dietary supplement production. Lipid engineering for higher production has been studied for years. However, due to the complexity of lipid metabolism, single-gene engineering gradually encounters bottlenecks. Multiple gene regulation is more beneficial to boosting lipid accumulation and further clarifying the complex regulatory mechanism of lipid biosynthesis in the homeostasis of lipids, carbohydrates, and protein metabolism. Here, three lipid-related genes, DOF, LACS2, and CIS, were co-regulated in Chlamydomonas reinhartii by two circles of transformation to overexpress DOF and knock down LACS2 and CIS simultaneously. With the multiple regulations of these genes, the intracellular lipids and FA content increased by 142% and 52%, respectively, compared with CC849, whereas the starch and protein contents decreased by 45% and 24%. Transcriptomic analysis showed that genes in TAG and FA biosynthesis were up-regulated, and genes in starch and protein metabolism were down-regulated. This revealed that more carbon precursor fluxes from starch and protein metabolism were redirected towards lipid synthesis pathways. These results showed that regulating genes in various metabolisms contributed to carbon flux redirection and significantly improved intracellular lipids, demonstrating the potential of multiple gene regulation strategies and providing possible candidates for lipid overproduction in microalgae.