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Several coprinoid fungi have been identified as promotors of Cremastra appendiculata seed germination, while others appear ineffective. This study aimed to discern which genera within the Psathyrellaceae family exhibit this capability and to identify the most effective coprinoid fungi for the cultivation of C. appendiculata. We collected 21 coprinoid fungi from diverse sources and symbiotically cultured them with C. appendiculata seeds. 9 fungi were found to induce seed germination and support seed development, specifically within the genera Coprinellus, Tulosesus, and Candolleomyces. In contrast, fungi that failed to promote germination predominantly belonged to the genera Coprinopsis and Parasola. Notably, four fungi—Coprinellus xanthothrix, Coprinellus pseudodisseminatus, Psathyrella singeri, and Psathyrella candolleana—were documented for the first time as capable of enhancing C. appendiculata seed germination. Strain 218LXJ-10, identified as Coprinellus radians, demonstrated the most significant effect and has been implemented in large-scale production, underscoring its considerable practical value. These findings contribute vital scientific insights for the conservation and sustainable use of C. appendiculata resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioaerosols are airborne suspensions of fine solid or liquid particles containing biological substances such as viruses, bacteria, cellular debris, fungal spores, mycelium, and byproducts of microbial metabolism. The global Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the previous emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and influenza have increased the need for reliable and effective monitoring tools for bioaerosols. Bioaerosol collection and detection have aroused considerable attention. Current bioaerosol sampling and detection techniques suffer from long response time, low sensitivity, and high costs, and these drawbacks have forced the development of novel monitoring strategies. Microfluidic technique is considered a breakthrough for high performance analysis of bioaerosols. In recent years, several emerging methods based on microfluidics have been developed and reported for collection and detection of bioaerosols. The unique advantages of microfluidic technique have enabled the integration of bioaerosol collection and detection, which has a higher efficiency over conventional methods. This review focused on the research progress of bioaerosol collection and detection methods based on microfluidic techniques, with special attention on virus aerosols and bacterial aerosols. Different from the existing reviews, this work took a unique perspective of the targets to be collected and detected in bioaerosols, which would provide a direct index of bioaerosol categories readers may be interested in. We also discussed integrated microfluidic monitoring system for bioaerosols. Additionally, the application of bioaerosol detection in biomedicine was presented. Finally, the current challenges in the field of bioaerosol monitoring are presented and an outlook given of future developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An edge-cloud computing collaborative dust concentration detection architecture is proposed for real-time operation of intelligent algorithms to reduce the warning delay. And, an end-to-end three-channel convolutional neural network (E2E-SCNN) method is proposed in the paper to facilitate intelligent monitoring and management of dust concentration in tobacco production workshops. This model, which includes three sub-networks-a local feature branch, a global feature branch, and a spatial feature branch, learns the detail texture, overall layout, and spatial distribution information of the input image respectively. A fusion of the three complementary features is performed at the end of the network for the final dust concentration regression prediction. The design, when compared with the single network structure that directly regresses the entire image, is shown to more fully represent the overall information of the image and enhance monitoring performance. A richly annotated image dataset of tobacco production workshops is constructed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The prediction error of E2E-SCNN is compared with existing image estimation algorithms, dual-channel networks, and other methods on this dataset using indicators such as Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and R 2 . It is shown by the results that excellent performance is achieved by the E2E-SCNN algorithm, significantly surpassing other comparison methods. The paper demonstrates that the accuracy and robustness of dust concentration prediction can be greatly improved by using a three-channel convolutional neural network spatial information monitoring framework. This achievement provides an effective means for dust supervision and governance during the tobacco production process and offers a technical route that can be referred to for image analysis tasks in other similar fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conducting polymers (CPs) with high conductivity and solution processability have made great advances since the pioneering work on doped polyacetylene1–3, thus creating the new field of ‘organic synthetic metals,4. Various high-performance CPs have been realized, which enable the applications of several organic electronic devices5,6. Nevertheless, most CPs exhibit hole-dominant (p-type) transport behaviour7,8, whereas the development of n-type analogues lags far behind and only a few exhibit metallic state, typically limited by low doping efficiency and ambient instability. Here we present a facilely synthesized highly conductive n-type polymer poly(benzodifurandione) (PBFDO). The reaction combines oxidative polymerization and in situ reductive n-doping, greatly increasing the doping efficiency, and a doping level of almost 0.9 charges per repeating unit can be achieved. The resultant polymer exhibits a breakthrough conductivity of more than 2,000 S cm−1 with excellent stability and an unexpected solution processability without extra side chains or surfactants. Furthermore, detailed investigations on PBFDO show coherent charge-transport properties and existence of metallic state. The benchmark performances in electrochemical transistors and thermoelectric generators are further demonstrated, thus paving the way for application of the n-type CPs in organic electronics.A reaction is described combining oxidative polymerization and in situ reductive n-doping to yield poly(benzodifurandione), a facilely synthesized stable n-type conducting polymer with ultrahigh conductivity, with applications in organic electronics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep and ultra-deep well exploration is rapidly becoming an important means to meet the enormous world oil and gas demands. Currently, many rheology builders exhibit poor salt tolerance and display low thermal stability at elevated temperatures, rendering them inefficient for deep-drilling operations. In this study, synthesis of a suitable polymer-based rheology enhancer with excellent thermal properties for water-based drilling muds (WBMs) was prepared. The novel polyviscosifier (PI) mainly consisted of 2-acrylamido-2-methy-propane sulfonic acid (AMPS), 4-aminostyrene (VA), and a crosslinker divinylbenzene (DVB), synthesized via a free-radical copolymerization method. The experimental conditions were characterized by a combination of analyses namely FTIR, 1H NMR, TEM, TGA, ESEM and elemental analysis. The rheological properties of PI as part of the drilling mud system were evaluated and compared with typical commercial viscosifier 80A51. The experimental results showed that adding the optimum PI concentration (1.5wt %) at the aging temperature of 180 °C can increase the rheological properties of the drilling mud by 81% compared to 41% of 80A51. PI demonstrated superb thermal resistance of up to 230 °C in salt-free condition, with a maximum decomposition temperature of 328 °C, and 180 °C under 15% brine saturated solution. The high thermal stability was induced by the rigid phenyl ring of 4-aminostyrene, whereas the para-amine functionality strongly enhanced the polymer/bentonite interaction in the drilling mud. PI displayed good shear resistance and larger hydrodynamic volume due to electrostatic repulsion and van der waals forces acting between the chains, compared to viscosifier 80A51 in drilling mud formulations. In general, PI exhibits excellent thermal stability and salt tolerance, promising for practical applications as a rheology additive for enhanced deep-oil recovery in industrial scale-up technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cyclin-dependent kinase 9 (CDK9) is a promising prognostic marker and therapeutic target in cancers. Bufalin is an effective anti-tumour agent; however, the clinical application of bufalin is limited due to its high toxicity. Acetyl-bufalin, the bufalin prodrug, was designed and synthesised with higher efficiency and lower toxicity.Methods: Three non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines, a xenograft model and a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model were used to examine the effects of acetyl-bufalin. CDK9/STAT3 involvement was investigated by knockdown with siRNA, proteome microarray assay, western blot analysis and co-immunoprecipitation experiments. Acute toxicity test and pharmacokinetics (PK) study were conducted to assess the safety and PK. The human NSCLC tissues were analysed to verify high CDK9 expression.Results: We showed that CDK9 induced NSCLC cell proliferation and that this effect was associated with STAT3 activation, specifically an increase in STAT3 phosphorylation and transcription factor activity. Acetyl-bufalin is an effective and safety inhibitor of the CDK9/STAT3 pathway, leading to the impediment of various oncogenic processes in NSCLC. Molecular docking and high-throughput proteomics platform analysis uncovered acetyl-bufalin directly binds to CDK9. Consequently, acetyl-bufalin impaired the complex formation of CDK9 and STAT3, decreased the expressions of P-STAT3, and transcribed target genes such as cyclin B1, CDC2, MCL-1, Survivin, VEGF, BCL2, and it upregulated the expression levels of BAX and caspase-3 activity. Acetyl-bufalin inhibited tumour growth in NSCLC xenograft and PDX models.Conclusions: Acetyl-bufalin is a novel blocker of the CDK9/STAT3 pathway thus may have potential in therapy of NSCLC and other cancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, naturally occurring ingredient diosgenin was utilized as an organogelator for structuring canola oil. Results show that stable diosgenin-based organogel can be obtained at only 2% of diosgenin concentration when the gel preparation temperature is 100 °C. Oil binding capacity and rheological properties of the organogel were investigated. Results demonstrate that these two macroscopic characteristics of the organogels can be significantly modified by simply changing the gel preparation temperature or diosgenin concentration. When the preparation temperature was 120 °C and the diosgenin concentration higher than 4%, oil binding capacity of at least 90% were obtained. Furthermore, higher gel preparation temperature resulted in higher G′values of the diosgenin-based organogels. According to the results analyzed by polarized light microscopy, XRD and FT-IR, it can be found that the possible gelation mechanism of the diosgenin-based organogels is formation of supramolecular structures by self-assembly of diosgenin molecule crystals via hydrogen bonding interaction. Varying gel preparation conditions of the organogels lead to self-assembly of diosgenin molecules to form different microstructures. Therefore, diosgenin can be considered as a good organogelator for producing functional organogel from canola oil. The novel diosgenin-based organogel is expected to be widely used in bio-related fields such as food and pharmaceutical industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a new two-dimensional (2-D) control volume finite element method (CV-FEM) for transient heat conduction in multilayer functionally graded materials (FGMs). To deal with the mixed-grid problem, 9-node quadrilateral grids and 6-node triangular grids are used. The unknown temperature and material properties are stored at the node. By using quadratic triangular grids and quadratic quadrilateral grids, the present method offers greater geometric flexibility and the potential for higher accuracy than the linear CV-FEM. The properties of the FGMs are described by exponential, quadratic and trigonometric grading functions. Some numerical tests are studied to demonstrate the performance of the developed method. First, the present CV-FEM with mixed high-order girds provides a higher accuracy than the linear CV-FEM based on the same grid size. Second, the material properties defined location is proved to have a significant effect on the accuracy of the numerical results. Third, the present method provides better numerical solutions than the conventional FEM for the FGMs in conjunction with course high-order grids. Finally, the present method is also capable of analysis of transient heat conduction in multilayer FGM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acid fracturing is a key measure to increase production of fracture-cavity reservoirs. Affected by the fracture-cavity system, hydraulic fractures will not propagate in a plane, and the mechanism of hydraulic fracture propagation is complicated. Therefore, considering the characteristics of hydraulic fracture propagation in fracture-cavity reservoirs, we established an extended finite element (XTEM) model for hydraulic fractures in fracture-cavity reservoirs. The simulation discussed hydraulic fracture extension in cases of a single cave and a single natural fracture and revealed the mechanism of dynamic propagation and extension of hydraulic fractures. The results indicated severe stress concentrations near caves, resulting in deflections of the fracture propagation direction. In the case of a single cave, upon shifts of shafts from the central line of the cave, the conditions of penetration of the cave by hydraulic fractures were investigated. It was shown that in the case of small approaching angles, the hydraulic fractures tend to deflect and join natural fractures; also, the hydraulic fractures can deflect and join natural fractures with large approaching angles and weak cementation. Generally small approaching angles and long natural fractures tend to induce hydraulic fractures and assist propagation towards the caves, thus increasing the probability of cave penetration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural fractures have a significant influence on the propagation geometry of hydraulic fractures in fractured reservoirs. True triaxial volumetric fracturing experiments, in which random natural fractures are created by placing cement blocks of different dimensions in a cuboid mold and filling the mold with additional cement to create the final test specimen, were used to study the factors that influence the hydraulic fracture propagation geometry. These factors include the presence of natural fractures around the wellbore, the dimension and volumetric density of random natural fractures and the horizontal differential stress. The results show that volumetric fractures preferentially formed when natural fractures occurred around the wellbore, the natural fractures are medium to long and have a volumetric density of 6–9%, and the stress difference is less than 11 MPa. The volumetric fracture geometries are mainly major multi-branch fractures with fracture networks or major multi-branch fractures (2–4 fractures). The angles between the major fractures and the maximum horizontal in situ stress are 30°–45°, and fracture networks are located at the intersections of major multi-branch fractures. Short natural fractures rarely led to the formation of fracture networks. Thus, the interaction between hydraulic fractures and short natural fractures has little engineering significance. The conclusions are important for field applications and for gaining a deeper understanding of the formation process of volumetric fractures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the hydrothermal carbonization of carbohydrates, such as sucrose as raw material in this study, activated carbon microspheres were synthesized by two steps of hydrothermal carbonization (180 °C) and further heat treatment in nitrogen (1000 °C). The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of additives, such as HPO, ZnCl, SnCl, and CaCl, on the surface characteristics and toluene adsorption ability by adding them into the two processes. The structural, chemical, and adsorption properties of sucrose-derived activated carbon microspheres were characterized using nitrogen adsorption, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, water contact angles, and dynamic adsorption of toluene. Results showed that additives played important roles in the synthesis process. The addition of CaCl in the hydrothermal process, the specific surface area of activated carbon spheres increased up to 1180 m g compared with that of the blank sample (i.e., 724 m g). By contrast, the addition of HPO in the heat treatment process increased the specific surface area to 1529 m g. Moreover, the micromorphology of activated carbon microspheres was more homogeneous when additives were added in the heat treatment process, but the activated carbon microspheres were more hydrophobic when additives were added in the hydrothermal process. These findings may help researchers to understand the influence of additives on the preparation of hydrochar-derived activated carbon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of 4,4'-disubstituted-[2,2']-bipyridines, featuring electron withdrawing/donating functional groups such as amino, chloro, nitro, ethoxycarbonyl, carboxy, methyl, methoxy and hydroxymethyl, have been synthesized and employed in the copolymerization of carbon monoxide(CO)and styrene. The available bipyridine and its derivatives were coordinated with palladium(II)acetate for catalyzing the copolymerization of CO and styrene, and the concomitant polyketone was characterized by means of C NMR, FTIR, differential scanning calorimetry( DSC)and element analysis techniques concerning its structure and thermal performance. The effect of different electron-donating and electron-withdrawing groups on catalyst performance and molecular weight of copolymer was studied under certain experimental condition. It has been proved that the enhancement of electron donating and conjugative effects on bipyridine ligand will not only improve the catalytic activity of the composition, but also increase the molecular weight of the as-prepared polyketone. The catalytic activity is the highest in hydroxymethyl substituted 2,2'-bipyridine ligand(1 356 gSTCO/(gPd · h)), when the molecular weight and polydispersity index of the polyketone are M=8 502, M=1 3440 and M/ M=1.581, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 150-year historical changes in concentrations of pollution elements (Pb, Cu and Zn) in sediment profiles from two riparian freshwater wetlands along the Wusuli River (boundary river between China and Russia) were studied, and the ecological risk of heavy metals and their effects on four riparian wetlands during the urban development from Khanka Lake to Black Bear Island along the Wusuli River were assessed. Results showed that there are sharp increases of the enrichment factor and the ratio of anthropogenic/total of heavy metals in the sediment profiles during the 2000s, which showed that intensive human activities during city development had greatly affected heavy metals distribution since the 1960s. According to the principal component analysis, sediment textures, redox regimes, and organic matter contents accounted for 45.7, 23.6 and 16.5 % of the total variance of element concentrations, respectively. This study also showed that ecological risk of heavy metals was increased along the Wusuli River and closely related to the water quality of the rivers as their hydrological regimes likely affect wetlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A thermo-responsive membrane, PVDF-g-PNIPAAm, was successfully prepared from poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) membrane through surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of a thermo-responsive monomer, N-isopropyl acrylamide (NIPAAm). The effect of the mass ratio of PVDF membrane to NIPAAm monomer on ATRP was studied in detail. The grafting copolymer was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results showed that the NIPAAm was successfully grafted on the PVDF membrane, the membrane pores became smaller and the mass ratio 1:8 of PVDF membrane to NIPAAm was in favor of surface-initiated ATRP. The thermal stability of PVDF membrane and PVDF-g-PNIPAAm membranes was characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Contact angles of membrane surface, water penetration and protein solution permeation were tested. Water contact angles of PVDF membrane reduced after the surface grafting of NIPAAm, which illuminated that the hydrophilicity of the grafted membrane was improved. The PVDF-g-PNIPAAm membranes exhibited good thermo-responsive permeability and antifouling property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(ethylene glycol) monoacrylates (PEGMAs) with a molecular weight between 400 and 1,000 g mol were grafted by ultraviolet initiated photopolymerization on the surface of polycarbonateurethane (PCU) for increasing its hydrophilicity and improving its hemocompatibility. The surface-grafted PCU films were characterized by Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, water contact angle, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy measurements. The surface properties of the modified films were studied in dry and wetted state. Blood compatibility of the surfaces was evaluated by platelet adhesion tests and adhered platelets were determined by SEM. The results showed that the hydrophilicity of the films had been increased significantly by grafting PEGMAs, and platelets adhesion onto the film surface was obviously suppressed. Furthermore, the molecular weight of PEGMAs had a great effect on the hydrophilicity and hemocompatibility of the PCU films after surface modification and increased with increasing molecular weight of PEGMAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate (PEGMA) was introduced into a polyurethane (PU) solution in order to prepare hemocompatible electrospun membranes for potential application as small diameter vascular scaffolds. Crosslinked PU/PEGMA hybrid nanofibers were fabricated by a reactive electrospinning process with N,N′-methylenebisacrylamide (MBAm) as crosslinker and benzophenone (BP) as photoinitiator. The photoinduced polymerization and crosslinking reaction took place simultaneously during the electrospinning process. No significant difference in the membrane morphology was found by SEM when PEGMA content was less than 20 wt%. The crosslinked fibrous membranes of PU/PEGMA exhibit higher hydrophilicity and mechanical strength than PU membrane. These nanofibrous membranes are potential substitutes for artificial vascular scaffolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of a multi-path channel under the water greatly decreases the accuracy of the short baseline positioning system. In this paper, the application of a time reversal mirror to the short baseline positioning system was investigated. The time reversal mirror technique allowed the acoustic signal to better focus in an unknown environment, which effectively reduced the expansion of multi-path acoustic signals as well as improved the signal focusing. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the time reversal operator greatly increased and could be obtained by ensonifying the water. The technique was less affected by the environment and therefore more applicable to a complex shallow water environment. Numerical simulations and pool experiments were used to demonstrate the efficiency of this technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By utilizing fractal dimension as one of the parameters to characterize rocks, a mathematical model was derived to predict the production rate by spontaneous imbibition. This fractal production model predicts a power law relationship between spontaneous imbibition rate and time. Fractal dimension can be estimated from the fractal production model using the experimental data of spontaneous imbibition in porous media. The experimental data of recovery in gas-water-rock and oil-water-rock systems were used to test the fractal production model. The rocks (Berea sandstone, chalk, and The Geysers graywacke) in which the spontaneous water imbibition experiments were conducted had different permeabilities ranging from 0.5 to over 1000 md. The results demonstrate that the fractal production model can match the experimental data satisfactorily in the cases studied. The fractal dimension data inferred from the model match were approximately equal to the values of fractal dimension measured using a different technique (mercury-intrusion capillary pressure) in Berea sandstone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thrombus formation and blood coagulation are serious problems associated with blood contacting products, such as catheters, vascular grafts, artificial hearts, and heart valves. Recent progresses and strategies to improve the hemocompatibility of biomaterials by surface modification using photochemical immobilization and photograft polymerization are reviewed in this paper. Three approaches to modify biomaterial surfaces for improving the hemocompatibility, i.e., bioinert surfaces, immobilization of anticoagulative substances and biomimetic surfaces, are introduced. The biomimetic amphiphilic phosphorylcholine and Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) sequence are the most effective and most often employed biomolecules and peptide sequence for improving hemocompatibility of material surfaces. The RGD sequence can enhance adhesion and growth of endothelial cells (ECs) on material surfaces and increase the retention of ECs under flow shear stress conditions. This surface modification is a promising strategy for biomaterials especially for cardiovascular grafts and functional tissue engineered blood vessels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of samples of hexagonal boron nitride-aluminum nitride ceramic composites with different amounts of CaF2 as sintering aid were prepared by spark plasma sintered at 1700–1850 °C for 5 min. The addition of CaF2 effectively lowered the sintering temperature and promoted the densification of AlN-BN composites. With the increase of sintering temperature, the density increased, and the contiguity of AlN grains enhanced in AlN-BN composites. Thermal conductivity of AlN-BN composites increased with the increase in CaF2 content and sintering temperature, and there is a maximum value of 78.6 W·m−1·K−1 when the sample with 3wt% CaF2 sintered at 1800 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel method was used to fabricate AlN coating on graphite substrate. This approach included two steps: firstly, the emulsion composed of BN and anhydrous ethanol was sprayed on the surface of the graphite substrate; secondly, AlN coating was formed through the in-situ reaction of Al with the sprayed BN. The reaction was investigated by thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), and the phase composition in the synthetic process was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the morphology, and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) was used to observe the distribution of the elements. The experimental results show that the AlN coating is dense and bonded with graphite tightly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]