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Copyright of Rare Metals is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Contamination of soils by Molybdenum (Mo) has raised increasing concern worldwide. Both fulvic acid (FA) and humic acid (HA) possess numerous positive properties, such as large specific surface areas and microporous structure that facilitates the immobilization of the heavy metal in soils. Despite these characteristics, there have been few studies on the microbiology effects of FA and HA. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the Mo immobilization effects of FA and HA, as well as the associated changes in microbial community in Mo-contaminated soils (with application rates of 0%, 0.5% and 1.0%). The result of the incubation demonstrated a decrease in soil pH (from 8.23 ~ 8.94 to 8.05 ~ 8.77). Importantly, both FA and HA reduced the exchangeable fraction and reducible fraction of Mo in the soil, thereby transforming Mo into a more stable form. Furthermore, the application of FA and HA led to an increase in the relative abundance of Actinobacteriota and Firmicutes, resulting in alterations to the microbial community structure. However, it is worth noting that due to the differing structures and properties of FA and HA, these outcomes were not entirely consistent. In summary, the aging of FA and HA in soil enhanced their capacity to immobilization Mo as a soil amendment. This suggests that they have the potential to serve as effective amendments for the remediation of Mo-contaminated soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northern pintail (Anas acuta) is a migratory waterfowl that can transmit various viruses. The genome sequence of a Sobemovirus was determined using metagenomic sequencing from the feces of northern pintail (Anas acuta) in Xinjiang, northwest China. The virus possesses a linear RNA molecule of 4177 bp and is most closely related to isolates SoMV-WA (GenBank accession no. HM163159.1) and ATCC PV-109 (GenBank accession no. GQ845002.2), with a nucleotide identity of 86.7%. The virus encodes four open reading frames (ORF) coding for four proteins, and phylogenetic analysis of capsid protein and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) showed that the strain was clustered into the species Sowbane Mosaic Virus (SoMV). The amino acid sequence identity of capsid protein was 89.6–90.9% to other isolates of SoMV, but 17.6–31.4% similar to other strains in the genus Sobemovirus, indicating a strain of Sowbane Mosaic Virus. This is the first report of SoMV in the feces of wild birds and in China, and it suggested that northern pintail likely plays an alternative role in the transmission of SoMV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantum many-body systems display rich phase structure in their low-temperature equilibrium states1. However, much of nature is not in thermal equilibrium. Remarkably, it was recently predicted that out-of-equilibrium systems can exhibit novel dynamical phases2–8 that may otherwise be forbidden by equilibrium thermodynamics, a paradigmatic example being the discrete time crystal (DTC)7,9–15. Concretely, dynamical phases can be defined in periodically driven many-body-localized (MBL) systems via the concept of eigenstate order7,16,17. In eigenstate-ordered MBL phases, the entire many-body spectrum exhibits quantum correlations and long-range order, with characteristic signatures in late-time dynamics from all initial states. It is, however, challenging to experimentally distinguish such stable phases from transient phenomena, or from regimes in which the dynamics of a few select states can mask typical behaviour. Here we implement tunable controlled-phase (CPHASE) gates on an array of superconducting qubits to experimentally observe an MBL-DTC and demonstrate its characteristic spatiotemporal response for generic initial states7,9,10. Our work employs a time-reversal protocol to quantify the impact of external decoherence, and leverages quantum typicality to circumvent the exponential cost of densely sampling the eigenspectrum. Furthermore, we locate the phase transition out of the DTC with an experimental finite-size analysis. These results establish a scalable approach to studying non-equilibrium phases of matter on quantum processors.A study establishes a scalable approach to engineer and characterize a many-body-localized discrete time crystal phase on a superconducting quantum processor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hierarchical ZnCo2O4@CoSe core–shell composite electrode grown on Ni Foam (NF) was synthesized by hydrothermal method and electrochemical deposition method. No use of binder reduced the resistance of the electrode material. The addition of CoSe not only improves the conductivity of ZnCo2O4, but also forms a unique core–shell structure with ZnCo2O4. This core–shell structure provides some help for the improvement of electrochemical performance. The electrode material showed a specific capacitance of 1684.2 F/g (under 1 A/g) and cycle stability of 85.3% capacitance retention after 5000 cycles. Asymmetric supercapacitors fabricated by ZnCo2O4@CoSe/NF and activated carbon could reach an energy density of 58.44 Wh/Kg at power density of 763.32 W/Kg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a three-dimensional (3D) inversion method in the frequency domain based on a time–frequency transformation was developed to improve the efficiency of the 3D inversion of transient electromagnetic (TEM) data. The Fourier transform related to the electromagnetic response in the frequency and time domains becomes a sine or cosine transform under the excitation of downward-step current. We established a transformation matrix based on the digital filtering calculation for the sine transform, and then the frequency domain projection of the TEM data was determined from the linear transformation system using the smoothing constrained least squares inversion method, in which only the imaginary part was used to maintain the TEM data transformation equivalence in the bidirectional projection. Thus, the time-domain TEM inversion problem was indirectly and effectively solved in the frequency domain. In the 3D inversion of the transformed frequency-domain data, the limited-memory Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shannoquasi–Newton (L-BFGS) method was used and modified with a restart strategy to adjust the regularization parameter when the algorithm tended to a local minimum. Synthetic data tests showed that our domain transformation method can stably project the TEM data into the frequency domain with very high accuracy; furthermore, the 3D inversion of the transformed frequency-domain data is stable, can be used to recover the real resistivity model with an acceptable efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface charge properties of an adsorbent always play an important role for the removal of contaminants from water. A cationic surfactant hexadecyl tri-methyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) was involved into adsorptive removal of Orange II (ORII) by bagasse biochars to realize an in-situ modification and an enhanced adsorption capability. Adsorption capacity of biochar (BC600) improved significantly from 1.66 mg/g in the absence of CTAB to 4.42 mg/g in the presence of 2.0 mg/L CTAB. A more hydrophobic surface of bagasse biochar was favorable for the dye uptake in the presence of CTAB. Linear pseudo-second-order kinetic model fitted the kinetics data better at three pH conditions than pseudo-first-order kinetic model, whether in the presence and absence of CTAB. Both nonlinear pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models were suitable to describe the experimental data. The maximal adsorption capacity in the absence of CTAB was very limited (41.4 mg/g), while the adsorption isotherm curve in the presence of CTAB was almost linear, indicating a strong adsorption capability due to the introduction of CTAB. Direct addition of CTAB into wastewater is a potential technique for the enhanced removal of negatively-charged pollutants by bagasse biochar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty is omnipresent in engineering design and manufacturing. This paper dedicates to present a robust topology optimization (RTO) methodology for structural compliance minimization problems considering load uncertainty, which includes magnitude and direction uncertainty subjected to Gaussian distribution. To this end, comprehensible semi-analytical formulations are derived to fleetly calculate the statistical data of structural compliance, which is critical to the probability-based RTO problem. In order to avoid the influence of numerical units on evaluating the robust results, this paper considers a generic coefficient of variation (GCV) as robust index which contains both the expected compliance and standard variance. In addition, the accuracy and efficiency of semi-analytical formulas are validated by the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation; comparison results provide higher calculation efficiency over the MC-based optimization algorithms. Four numerical examples are provided via density-based approach to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Composite adsorbents usually outperform single component adsorbents as they could combine the properties and advantages of each component. In this research, rare earth element Lanthanum was introduced into magnetic substrate by a method of chemical co-precipitation to enhance its adsorption capability. It was found that the La-modified magnetic composite with a presumed La and FeO molar ratio at 1:50 had a better adsorption performance for tetracycline than the magnetic adsorbents at other molar ratios. The La-modified magnetic composite was characterized by scanning electron microscope, X-ray diffractometer, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The results showed that the magnetic adsorbent was nano-sized, and the introduction of La did not change the crystal structure of magnetic substrate. The adsorptive removal of tetracycline was favorable at neutral pH conditions. Kinetic experiments indicated that most of the uptake occurred within the initial 120 min. Chemisorption occurred in the process while rate-determining step might be diffusive in nature. An empirical model (Langmuir model) was applied in this paper, and fitting result indicates that the q value of the magnetic composite reached as much as 145.9 mg/g for the uptake of tetracycline at 298 K. The above indicates that method of La doping could significantly enhance the adsorption capability of an intentionally designed composite adsorbent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted a serological survey to detect antibodies against avian influenza virus (AIV) in Gazella subgutturosa, Canis lupus, Capreolus pygargus, Sus scrofa, Cervus elaphus, Capra ibex, Ovis ammon, Bos grunniens and Pseudois nayaur in Xinjiang, China. Two hundred forty-six sera collected from 2009 to 2013 were assayed for antibodies against H5, H7 and H9 AIVs using hemagglutination inhibition (HI) tests and a pan-influenza competitive ELISA. Across all tested wildlife species, 4.47 % harbored anti-AIV antibodies that were detected by the HI assay. The seroprevalence for each AIV subtype across all species evaluated was 0 % for H5 AIV, 0.81 % for H7 AIV, and 3.66 % for H9 AIV. H7-reactive antibodies were found in Canis lupus (9.09 %) and Ovis ammon (4.55 %). H9-reactive antibodies were found in Gazella subgutturosa (4.55 %), Canis lupus (27.27 %), Pseudois nayaur (23.08 %), and Ovis ammon (4.55 %). The pan-influenza competitive ELISA results closely corresponded to the cumulative prevalence of AIV exposure as measured by subtype-specific HI assays, suggesting that H7 and H9 AIV subtypes predominate in the wildlife species evaluated. These data provide evidence of prior infection with H7 and H9 AIVs in non-avian wildlife in Xinjiang, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examined protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) and tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated 4 (TRAF4) expression in breast cancer to find the interaction mechanism between the two. We examined TRAF4 and PRMT5 expression by immunohistochemistry and found that their expression is positively correlated in breast cancer. Besides, PRMT5 expression was significantly associated with histological type and tumor size ( p < 0.05). PRMT5 nuclear expression was significantly associated with HER2 expression ( p < 0.05). PRMT5 and TRAF4 were both overexpressed in breast cancer tissues and cells, and we found that PRMT5 binds to the zinc finger structures in TRAF4 by coimmunoprecipitation and Western blotting. We also tested the potential regulatory effect between TRAF4 and PRMT5. TRAF4 upregulated PRMT5 expression, which occurred predominantly in the nucleus, on which TRAF4 promotion of cell proliferation in breast cancer is mainly dependent. PRMT5 may play an important role in activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the irreversible deposition of microparticles from electrokinetic microfluidic flow in a 90° bend was examined both computationally and theoretically. The flow and electric fields were firstly simulated by the finite volume method, and then a large number of microparticles were injected and traced by the one-way coupling Lagrangian model, incorporating the electrical, hydrodynamic and near-wall repulsive forces exerted on the microparticles. The simulation results indicate that the microparticles with larger size are repelled to close to the upper region of the outer wall under the effect of dielectrophoresis (DEP) force, and the near-wall repulsive force which prevented particles from colliding with the wall would decrease the particles’ ultimate deposition efficiency. In addition, the specified exponential relationship between the particle deposition efficiency and its relaxation time or particle Stokes number are theoretically derived when the near-wall repulsive force is considered or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new metal-organic framework {[Cd(L)(4,4′-bpy)]·5HO} ( 1) had been synthesized by hydrothermal reaction of 5-(oxidediphenylphosphino)isophthalic acid, Cd(II) nitrate, NaOH and 4,4′-bipyridine (4,4′-bpy) as co-ligand. The novel compound was characterized by single crystal X-ray diffractometry as well as FTIR spectrum. Adjacent eight-member (CCdO) rings are connected each other through pairs of L ligands to result in a 1D double chain. Such ribbons are interconnected together by 4,4′-bpy to generate a 2D pillared layer, which are further held together by rich O-H···O hydrogen bonds to give a 3D supramolecular network. Solvent water molecules play an important role to bridge adjacent layers to form a 3D supramolecular architecture. The luminescence property and thermogravimetric analysis of title complex were investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bivalent ions equivalent substitution and equimolar substitution for Ag in silver niobate tantalate ceramic were studied, which will result in AgA(NbTa)O and AgA (NbTa)O respectively, where A = Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Cu, Pb. The samples were synthesized by traditional solid method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The effects of a little Ag (in mol ratio 2 %) on the dielectric properties in Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Cu, Pb substituted samples, and the influences of radius and ionic electronegativity on the dielectric properties were discussed. The results showed that the substitution of most bivalent ions except large Ba ions for a little Ag (in mol ratio 2 %) showed no obvious change on the perovskite structure and microstructure of Ag(NbTa)O ceramics. Basically, the dielectric properties of equivalent substituted samples were better than that of equimolar equimolar substituted samples, Ca equivalent substituted samples showed lower dielectric loss, and Cu equivalent substituted samples showed higher dielectric constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The torsional oscillator is the chief instrument for investigating supersolidity in solid He. These oscillators can be sensitive to the elastic properties of the solid helium, which show anomalies over the same range of temperature in which the supersolid phenomenon appears. In this report we present a detailed study of the influence of the elastic properties of the solid on the periods of torsional oscillators for the various designs that have been commonly employed in supersolid measurements. We show how to design an oscillator which measures supersolidity, and how to design one which predominantly measures elasticity. We describe the use of multiple frequency TOs for the separation of the elastic and supersolid phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Acupuncture & Tuina Science is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The objectives of this study were to investigate the radical-scavenging activity of Ligularia fischeri on oxidative damage by the radical 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and to rapidly identify the active components using the bioassay-linked fractionation method. The MeOH extract and fractions of CH2Cl2, BuOH, and H2O from L. fischeri showed DPPH radical-scavenging effects in a dose-dependent manner ( p < 0.01). In particular, the BuOH fraction had the most effective ( p < 0.05) antioxidative capacity. The active constituents from the BuOH fraction of L. fischeri were rapidly isolated by bioassay-linked HPLC method and identified as hyperoside and 2″-acetylhyperoside with potent antioxidant effects against the DPPH radical, with IC50 values of 1.31 and 7.09 μg/mL, respectively. They have not been reported from L. fischeri yet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cisplatin, a potent anticancer drug, is usually causing nephrotoxicity; limiting its therapeutic application and efficiency. Maltol may be used to prevent such toxic effect. The aim of this study was to investigate the underlying protective mechanisms of maltol on nephrotoxicity by cisplatin using a cisplatin-treated mouse model and a cellular toxicity model of HEK293 cells. The blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine (CRE) and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) levels in mice were increased by cisplatin but decreased to normal ranges by maltol pretreatment (50 and 100 mg/kg) for ten days. Besides, maltol pretreatment decreased oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and apoptosis in cisplatin-treated mice. The inhibitory action of maltol on inflammatory responses was achieved by reducing the expressions in NF-κB, IL-1β, iNOS, and TNF-α in the mice in vivo. Additionally, maltol restored the reduction of PI3K/Akt and mTOR levels by cisplatin through increasing AMPK expression in cisplatin-treated HEK293 cells. Maltol also suppressed the expression of Bax and caspase 3 by inhibiting the p53 activity in HEK293 cells. Overall, maltol may serve as a valuable potential drug to prevent cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity, and the underlying molecular mechanisms of maltol action may involve intracellular AMPK/PI3K/Akt and p53 signaling pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]