No abstract

Currently, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and N-terminal proBNP (NT-proBNP) are widely used as diagnostic biomarkers for heart failure (HF) and cardiac dysfunction in clinical medicine. They are also used as postmortem biomarkers reflecting cardiac function of the deceased before death in forensic medicine. Several previous studies have reviewed BNP and NT-proBNP in clinical medicine, however, few articles have reviewed their application in forensic medicine. The present article reviews the biological features, the research and application status, and the future research prospects of BNP and NT-proBNP in both clinical medicine and forensic medicine, thereby providing valuable assistance for clinicians and forensic pathologists.

A new orange-yellow-emitting Sr9Mg(1.5)(PO4)7:Eu(2+) phosphor was prepared via high-temperature solid-state reaction. The structure and optical properties of it were studied systematically. Sr9Mg(1.5)(PO4)7:Eu(2+) can be well-excited by 460 nm blue InGaN chips and exhibit a wide emission band covering from 470 to 850 nm with two main peaks centered at 523 and 620 nm, respectively, which originate from 5d-4f dipole-allowed transitions of Eu(2+) in different crystallographic sites. The sites attribution, concentration quenching, fluorescence decay analysis, and temperature-dependent luminescence properties were investigated in detail. Furthermore, a warm white LED device was fabricated by combining a 460 nm blue InGaN chip with the optimized orange-yellow-emitting Sr9Mg(1.5)(PO4)7:Eu(2+). The color coordinate, correlated color temperature and color rendering index of the fabricated LED device were (0.393, 0.352), 3437 K, and 86.07, respectively. Sr9Mg(1.5)(PO4)7:Eu(2+) has great potential to serve as an attractive candidate in the application of blue light-excited warm white LEDs.

A series of novel red-emitting Sr1.7Zn0.3CeO4:Eu(3+) phosphors were synthesized through conventional solid-state reactions. The powder X-ray diffraction patterns and Rietveld refinement verified the similar phase of Sr1.7Zn0.3CeO4:Eu(3+) to that of Sr2CeO4. The photoluminescence spectrum exhibits that peak located at 614 nm ((5)D0-(7)F2) dominates the emission of Sr1.7Zn0.3CeO4:Eu(3+) phosphors. Because there are two regions in the excitation spectrum originating from the overlap of the Ce(4+)-O(2-) and Eu(3+)-O(2-) charge-transfer state band from 200 to 440 nm, and from the intra-4f transitions at 395 and 467 nm, the Sr1.7Zn0.3CeO4:Eu(3+) phosphors can be well excited by the near-UV light. The investigation of the concentration quenching behavior, luminescence decay curves, and lifetime implies that the dominant mechanism type leading to concentration quenching is the energy transfer among the nearest neighbor or next nearest neighbor activators. The discussion about the dependence of photoluminescence spectra on temperature shows the better thermal quenching properties of Sr1.7Zn0.3CeO4:0.3Eu(3+) than that of Sr2CeO4:Eu(3+). The experimental data indicates that Sr1.7Zn0.3CeO4:Eu(3+) phosphors have the potential as red phosphors for white light-emitting diodes.

The selective hydrogenolysis of biomass‐derived xylitol to ethylene glycol and propylene glycol was performed on Cu–SiO2 catalysts prepared by a precipitation–gel method with different Cu contents and pretreatment temperatures. As a result of the uniform distribution of Cu particles on these catalysts, their activities and combined selectivities to ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, and glycerol increased consistently with the increasing Cu particle size and reached maximum values at around 11 nm in the range of 4.0–38.0 nm. After the reaction conditions and catalyst pretreatment temperatures were optimized, a high combined yield to the target glycols of up to 70.4 % was achieved on 90 %Cu–SiO2 catalyst at ≈100 % xylitol conversion. The 90 %Cu–SiO2 catalyst can be recycled in successive runs without a significant loss of activity and selectivity by recalcination and reduction treatment after each run.