Chemical fixation of CO2 as C1 source at ambient temperature and low pressure is an energy-saving way to make use of the green-house gas, but it still remains a challenge since efficient catalyst with high catalytic active sites is required. Here, a novel monoclinic azo-functionalized Zr-based metal-organic polyhedron (Zr-AZDA) has been prepared and applied in CO2 fixation with epoxides. The inherent azo groups not only endow Zr-AZDA with good solubilization, but also act as basic sites to enrich CO2 showing efficient synergistic catalysis as confirmed by TPD-CO2 analysis. XPS results demonstrate that the Zr active sites in Zr-AZDA possess suitable Lewis acidity, which satisfies both substrates activation and products desorption. DFT calculation indicates the energy barrier of the rate-determining step in CO2 cycloaddition could be reduced remarkably (by ca. 60.9 %) in the presence of Zr-AZDA, which may rationalize the mild and efficient reaction condition employed (80 °C and 1 atm of CO2 ). The work provides an effective multi-functional cooperative method for improvement of CO2 cycloaddition.
  This study examined the association between executive functioning and language in young adults with Down syndrome (DS).
 
  Nineteen young adults with DS (aged 19-24years) completed standardised measures of overall cognition, vocabulary, verbal fluency and executive function skills.
 
  Friedman's analysis of variance (χ
  (3)=28.15, P<.001) and post hoc comparisons indicated that, on average, participants had a significantly lower overall non-verbal than verbal cognitive age equivalent and lower expressive than receptive vocabulary skills. Using Spearman correlations, performance on a verbal measure of cognition inhibition was significantly negatively related to receptive vocabulary (ρ=-.529, adjusted P=.036) and verbal fluency (ρ=-.608, adjusted P=.022). Attention was significantly positively correlated with receptive (ρ=.698, adjusted-p=.005) and expressive (ρ=.542, adjusted P=.027) vocabulary. Verbal working memory was significantly positively associated with receptive vocabulary (ρ=.585, adjusted P=.022 lead to increases in language for young adults with DS.Conservation decisions based on neutral genetic diversity have been observed to promote retention of useful quantitative variation in biological populations. An experiment was undertaken to determine the association between microsatellite marker polymorphisms and phenotypic variation in semen production and cryosurvival traits in bulls.  https://www.selleckchem.com/EGFR(HER).html  Thirty-five ejaculates were collected from ten bulls of two breeds and evaluated before and after cryopreservation for several semen traits. The bulls were also genotyped using a set of sixteen bovine-specific microsatellite marker loci. Fixation indices (FST ), heterozygosity and Nei's genetic distance measures were computed from allele frequency data for each of the bulls. Molecular and phenotypic data were used to compute tri-distance matrices for the ten bulls and correlated using Mantel's test in GenAIEx 6.5. The study revealed extensive heterogeneity in semen traits, heterozygosity and FST values among the bulls. Large pairwise phenotypic and genetic distances were also observed. Correlation between pairwise genetic distances and phenotypic distances was significant and highly positive for sperm viability (r = .61, p .05). A tendency for a triangular-shaped relationship between genetic and phenotypic distances for post-thaw motility and viability traits was also observed. Accordingly, association with neutral genetic diversity was absent for semen production traits and moderate to highly positive for sperm cryosurvival traits. Given these findings, conservation decisions based on neutral genetic diversity may capture variation in some adaptive traits, but not others.The electronic and geometric structures of the water-oxidizing complex of photosystem II in the steps of the catalytic cycle that precede dioxygen evolution remain hotly debated. Recent structural and spectroscopic investigations support contradictory redox formulations for the active-site Mn4 CaOx cofactor in the final metastable S3 state. These range from the widely accepted MnIV 4 oxo-hydroxo model, which presumes that O-O bond formation occurs in the ultimate transient intermediate (S4 ) of the catalytic cycle, to a MnIII 2 MnIV 2 peroxo model representative of the contrasting "early-onset" O-O bond formation hypothesis. Density functional theory energetics of suggested S3 redox isomers are inconclusive because of extreme functional dependence. Here, we use the power of the domain-based local pair natural orbital approach to coupled cluster theory, DLPNO-CCSD(T), to present the first correlated wave function theory calculations of relative stabilities for distinct redox-isomeric forms of the S3 state. Our results enabled us to evaluate conflicting models for the S3 state of the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) and to quantify the accuracy of lower-level theoretical approaches. Our assessment of the relevance of distinct redox-isomeric forms for the mechanism of biological water oxidation strongly disfavors the scenario of early-onset O-O formation advanced by literal interpretations of certain crystallographic models. This work serves as a case study in the application of modern coupled cluster implementations to redox isomerism problems in oligonuclear transition metal systems.
  To improve hospitals disaster preparedness during floods.
 
  The Thai flood disaster in 2011 struck several sectors, including hospitals. It is necessary to build a disaster preparedness system that ensures that hospitals have the capacity to respond effectively to any kind of disaster.
 
  This qualitative study was conducted using content analysis. Purposive sampling was used to select 15 participants, including doctors, nurses and other staff involved in disaster preparedness, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with them. The study was reported according to COREQ guidelines.
 
  Healthcare personnel identified several ways in which flood disaster preparedness of hospitals may be enhanced. Three themes and eight subthemes were identified during the data analysis. The three themes were as follows 1) ongoing efforts for flood prevention and mitigation at a national level; 2) developing operational guidelines to effectively prevent and resolve flood problems at provincial levels; and 3) increasing the levels of flood readiness at the hospital level.