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The gradual depletion of mineral resources has led to the emergence of a new engineering challenge in the field of mineral processing: the effective treatment of low-grade ores. In this study, the low-grade titanium ore leaching solution was employed as the raw material. The extraction ability of a series of hydroxyl extractants for the most common metal iron in minerals was investigated. As a result, a new high-quality processing system for low-grade ore with branched-chain octanol as the core component was constructed. In the treatment of mineral leaching solution, branched-chain octanol has high selectivity and large capacity (111.7 g/L) for iron. It was capable of efficiently removing a significant quantity of iron ions in low-grade ores that were not anticipated to be present. By employing quantum chemical (QC) methodologies, the mechanism for the high selectivity of branched-chain octanol for Fe(Ⅲ) has been elucidated by analyzing the frontier molecular orbital (FMO) energy of acid salts of common metals in minerals. Combined with spectral analysis and slope method, the structure of the extracted complex was confirmed to be [n-R8-OH]2·H·FeCl4. On the basis of system optimization, a three-stage countercurrent extraction and three-stage countercurrent stripping was employed to remove all the Fe(Ⅲ) in the mineral leaching solution. And after detecting, the purity of the obtained Fe(III) solution was greater than 99.5 %. In the treatment of low-grade minerals, especially those containing key metals, the branched-chain octanol extraction system demonstrates high selectivity and reliability, which is a effective means to improve the quality of mineral leaching solution.

Anti-angiogenic tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have been proved to be effective in prolonging progression-free survival in advanced osteosarcoma. However, osteosarcoma stem-like cells persist for a long time and ultimately cause disease recurrence and therapy resistance. Here, we reveal that inefficient accumulation of Apatinib, an anti-angiogenic TKI, induces the expression of ribosome-associated genes in osteosarcoma, and confers apoptosis resistance. An engineered nanoscale delivery system based on hydrophobic poly(ester amide) has been established to effectively deliver Apatinib to improve the treatment. Notably, the considerable uptake by osteosarcoma cells enables this nanodrug to distribute increasingly inside the tumor. Furthermore, the delivered nano-Apatinib can suppress osteosarcoma stemness and enhance osteosarcoma stem-like cell apoptosis, and overcomes the crucial bottleneck of the unfavorable stem-like cell residue for TKI therapy. Importantly, nano-Apatinib significantly inhibits the osteosarcoma stem-like cell-derived tumor growth in contrast with free Apatinib, with minimal side effects. These results suggest that this Apatinib-loaded nano delivery system may serve as a promising strategy to solve the issue of TKI therapeutic resistance existing in advanced osteosarcoma.

Cadmium (Cd) is a hazardous element that may jeopardize environmental safety and human health through biotransfer and trophic accumulation. Here, we tested Cd toxicity on cotton plants, cotton bollworms, and their responses. Results demonstrated that Cd accumulated in plant roots, aerial parts, insect larvae, pupae, and frass in a dose-dependent pattern. The ∼9.35 mg kg–1of Cd in plant aerial parts, ∼3.68 in larvae, ∼6.43 in pupae, and high transfer coefficient (∼5.59) indicate significant mobility. The ∼19.61 mg kg–1of Cd in larvae frass suggests an effective detoxification strategy, while BAFcotton(∼1.14) and BAFworm(∼0.54) indicated low bioaccumulation. Cadmium exposure resulted in compromised plant growth and yield as well as alterations in photosynthetic pigment contents, antioxidant enzyme activities, and certain life history traits of cotton bollworms. Furthermore, carboxylesterase activity and encapsulation rates of insect larvae decreased with increasing Cd concentrations, whereas acetylcholinesterase, phenol oxidase, glutathione S-transferase, and multifunctional oxidase exhibited hormesis responses.

A large genomic toolset culminating in the release of the rat draft genome sequence is developed. The rat draft sequence used data from the Radiation Hybrid(RH) map of the rat along with a variety of assembly package as part of their validation.

Integrative genomics is a mechanism which integrates a large variety of genome maps from several organisms. It helps in projecting physiological knowledge obtained in model system such as the rat onto the human genome to further the research on human disease.

Plasmonic sensors are promising for ultrasensitive chemical and biological analysis. Gold nanoplates (Au NPLs) show unique geometrical structures with high ratios of surface to bulk atoms, which display fascinating plasmonic properties but require optimization. This study presented a systematic investigation of the influence of different parameters (shape, aspect ratio, and resonance mode) on localized surface plasmon resonance properties, refractive index (RI, n) sensitivities, and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) enhancement ability of different types of Au NPLs through finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations. As a proof of concept, triangular, circular, and hexagonal Au NPLs with varying aspect ratios were fabricated via a three-step seed-mediated growth method by the experiment. Both FDTD-simulated and measured experimental results confirm that the RI sensitivities increase with the aspect ratio. Furthermore, choosing a lower order resonance mode of Au NPLs benefits higher RI sensitivities. The SERS enhancement abilities of Au NPLs also predicted to be highly dependent on the shape and aspect ratio. The triangular Au NPLs showed the highest SERS enhancement ability, while it drastically decreased for circular Au NPLs after the rounding process. The SERS enhancement ability gradually became more intense as the hexagonal Au NPLs overgrown on circular Au NPLs with increasing volumes of HAuCl4solution. The results are expected to help develop effective biosensors.

Background: Esophagogastric junction adenocarcinoma (EJA) is one of the most common malignant tumors of digestive tract with high mortality worldwide. Given a lack of early diagnosis biomarkers, the prognosis of EJA is poor. Non-invasive biomarkers for early-stage EJA are urgently required.Objective: We aimed at evaluating the early diagnostic value of serum interleukin-8 (IL-8) level in EJA patients.Methods: The IL-8 mRNA expression data were analyzed based on the stomach cardia adenocarcinoma samples of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to measure the concentration of serum IL-8 in 95 EJA patients and 95 normal controls enrolled from 2 different cancer hospitals. The diagnostic accuracy of serum IL-8 was evaluated by applying Mann-Whitney Utest and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.Results: The mRNA expression levels and serum levels of IL-8 in EJA group were significantly higher than those in the normal group (all P< 0.001). The areas under the ROC curve (AUC) were 0.661 (95% CI, 0.583-0.740) and 0.745 (95% CI, 0.606-0.885), with the sensitivities of 43.2% (95% CI, 33.2%-53.7%) and 66.7% (95% CI, 46.0%-82.8%) and the specificities of 87.4% (95% CI, 78.6%-93.1%) in EJA group and early-EJA group, respectively, when the optimal cutoff value was 109.086 pg/mL. The clinical data analysis showed there were significant correlations between patient genders, depth of invasion, lymph node metastasis, TNM stage and the serum level of IL-8 (all P< 0.05).Conclusions: Serum IL-8 represents a potential diagnostic biomarker to identify early-stage EJA.

The coupled Ablowitz-Ladik lattice equations are the integrable discretizations of the Schrödinger equation, which can be used to model the propagation of an optical field in a tight binding waveguide array. In this paper, the discrete N-fold Darboux transformation(DT) is used to derive the discrete breather and bright soliton solutions of coupled Ablowitz–Ladik equations. Soliton interaction structures of obtained solutions are shown graphically. Based on 4 × 4 discrete Lax pairs, the transformation matrix T of DT is constructed. Then, we derive novel discrete one-soliton and two-soliton with the zero and nonzero seed solutions. And the dynamic features of breather and bright solutions are displayed, some soliton interaction phenomena are shown in the coupled Ablowitz-Ladik lattice equations. These results may be useful to explain some nonlinear wave phenomena in certain electrical and optical systems. • The coupled Ablowitz–Ladik lattice equation is completely investigated. • We derive the one-soliton, wo-soliton and N -soliton formulas through Darboux transformation. • We get some novel discrete exact solution, including the bright soliton, breather wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

The nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation has made great achievement, however the coupled nonlocal discrete nonlinear Schrödinger (CNDNLS) equations have less works. In this paper, we investigate the Darboux transformation (DT) method to obtain discrete soliton solutions of CNDNLS equations. We present two different kinds of solutions through choosing different seed solutions, and analysis the relations among them. Further many novel discrete 1-soliton and 2-soliton are derived with the zero and nonzero seed solutions. Meanwhile, the elastic interaction dynamic of two discrete solitons is displayed, it is shown that the amplitudes keep unchanged after the interactions in long time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]