Search

Key message: Overexpressing the copper transporter LbCOPT1 leads to a notable increase in the abundance of mycorrhizal arbuscules that suggests the potential application of LbCOPT1 in breeding programs aimed at enhancing symbiotic nutrient uptake in Lycium barbarum L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing global aging population has led to a continual rise in the prevalence of bone and joint diseases, posing challenges to both the quality of life for patients and healthcare resources. Type II collagen, a pivotal protein for sustaining joint function, has gained substantial attention in recent years. The oral administration of undenatured type II collagen (UC-II) has demonstrated noteworthy advancements in tackling bone and joint diseases. This article presents a comprehensive review of the structure and extraction methods of UC-II, discusses the relationship between UC-II and arthritis, and thoroughly examines its therapeutic role and potential mechanisms in the treatment process. In addition, future perspectives for clinical application of UC-II are discussed. It was found that the oral administration of UC-II, through induction of oral tolerance mechanisms, exhibits promise in alleviating joint inflammation and pain in patients with osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This method can significantly ameliorate joint inflammation and pain, with high patient acceptance and minimal side effects, demonstrating its potential as a well-tolerated treatment option for joint diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a hydrothermal method and subsequent heat treatment, a nitrogen and sulfur co-doped carbon (NSC) coated Li4Ti5O12 composite (referred to as LTO@NSC) is successfully synthesized. Cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) is chosen as the carbon source, thiourea as the sulfur and nitrogen sources for doping ions. The presence of C-S and C-N bonds in XPS spectrums proves that the carbon layer has been doped with sulfur and nitrogen. Some of the sulfur and nitrogen replace the oxygen, which effectively change the cell volume and lattice spacing. Consequently, LTO@NSC greatly changes the structure from the uneven large ball to the nanoparticles and nanosheets. Apart from this, it shortens the length of electron and lithium-ion transport. Among them, the LTO@NSC maintains excellent performance at the rate capability (161 mAh/g at 10 C) and stability in cycling (after 400 cycles, the capacity retention rate was 98.5% at 10 C). The LTO@NSC has a capacity of 119.79 mAh/g with a decline rate of only 0.00552% each cycle, after 1000 cycles at 20 C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought stress, one of the major abiotic stresses, affects plants growth by changing root morphology, impacting leaf water status and photosynthesis, and interrupting the reactive oxygen species (ROS) balance in plants. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and extra potassium can promote plants growth under drought stress. However, it is not clear whether AM fungi and extra potassium application would affect the photosynthesis and antioxidant system, which help Lycium barbarum to alleviate drought stress. In this study, the synergistic effects of AM fungus (Rhizophagus irregularis) and extra potassium (0 mM, 3 mM, and 10 mM K+) on growth, photosynthesis, leaf water status, root morphology, activities of antioxidant enzymes, concentrations of antioxidant substances, and expression of genes of L. barbarum under drought stress (30% field capacity) were evaluated. Under drought stress, inoculation of R. irregularis and application of potassium significantly increased the photosynthesis of L. barbarum and the expression of LbrbcL and LbrbcS, which might be due to the significant increase of the root growth and leaf relative water content. Moreover, the activities of antioxidant enzymes, concentrations of antioxidant substances, and the expression of three genes encoding superoxide dismutase (SOD) were increased. The concentration of proline and expression of LbP5CS were significantly up-regulated by potassium application and down-regulated by R. irregularis inoculation. The concentrations of malondialdehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) were significantly decreased. The results suggested that R. irregularis and extra potassium have a synergistic effect on the enhancement of L. barbarum against drought tolerance through reduction of ROS accumulation and oxidative damage by improving photosynthetic and antioxidant capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the static analysis of ANSYS 19, longitudinal, radial, and tangential beam specimens of spruce, Scots pine, and beech were subjected to stress and strain analysis under symmetrical four-point bending and asymmetrical four-point bending. The effects of wood grain on the surface of the specimen and its stress properties on the transverse and longitudinal strain at the center of the specimen surface were studied experimentally. The results show that the four-point bending beam method is suitable for testing the elastic modulus, Poisson's ratio and shear modulus of wood. The elastic modulus, Poisson's ratio and shear modulus of larch tangential, larch radial and Sitka spruce transverse specimens were tested by four-point bending beam method. Their effectiveness was verified by the axial tension method, square plate torsional strain method and free rod torsional vibration method. The four-point bending method of the two-group tests with the half bridge measurement method has successfully improved the test accuracy of the Poisson's ratio of wood, and its effectiveness has been verified by axial tension method. The asymmetric four-point bending method adopts the ± 45°strain gauge full bridge measurement method, which is simple and effective in improving the measurement accuracy of wood shear modulus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To investigate the influence of β-arrestin2 on the docetaxel resistance in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms. Methods: PC3 and DU145 cells with stable β-arrestin2 overexpression and C4-2 cells with stable β-arrestin2 knockdown, were constructed via using lentivirus and puromycin selection. MTT and colony formation assays were carried out to investigate the effect of β-arrestin2 expression on the docetaxel resistance of CRPC cells. Glycolysis analysis was used to assess the glycolytic capacity modulated by β-arrestin2. GO enrichment analysis, gene set enrichment analysis and Spearman correlation test were carried out to explore the potential biological function and mechanism via using public data from GEO and TCGA. The expressions of PKM2, Phospho-PKM2, Phospho-ERK1/2 and hnRNP A1 were detected by western blot. Functional blocking experiments were carried out to confirm the roles of PKM2 and hnRNP A1 in the regulation of β-arrestin2's biological functions via silencing PKM2 or hnRNP A1 expression in cells with stable β-arrestin2 overexpression. Finally, nude mice xenograft models were established to confirm the experimental results of cell experiments. Results: β-Arrestin2 significantly decreased the sensitivity of CRPC cells to docetaxel stimulation, through enhancing the phosphorylation and expression of PKM2. Additionally, β-arrestin2 increased PKM2 phosphorylation via the ERK1/2 signaling pathway and induced PKM2 expression in a post-transcriptional manner through an hnRNP A1-dependent PKM alternative splicing mechanism, rather than by inhibiting its ubiquitination degradation. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that the β-arrestin2/hnRNP A1/PKM2 pathway could be a promising target for treating docetaxel-resistant CRPC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bacterial cellulose (BC), a natural biomaterial synthesized by bacteria, has a unique structure of a cellulose nanofiber-weaved three-dimensional reticulated network. BC films can be ultrasoft with sufficient mechanical strength, strong water absorption and moisture retention and have been widely used in facial masks. These films have the potential to be applied to implantable neural interfaces due to their conformality and moisture, which are two critical issues for traditional polymer or silicone electrodes. In this work, we propose a micro-electrocorticography (micro-ECoG) electrode named "Brainmask", which comprises a BC film as the substrate and separated multichannel parylene-C microelectrodes bonded on the top surface. Brainmask can not only guarantee the precise position of microelectrode sites attached to any nonplanar epidural surface but also improve the long-lasting signal quality during acute implantation with an exposed cranial window for at least one hour, as well as the in vivo recording validated for one week. This novel ultrasoft and moist device stands as a next-generation neural interface regardless of complex surface or time of duration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to studying an augmented Lagrangian method for solving a class of manifold optimization problems, which have nonsmooth objective functions and nonlinear constraints. Under the constant positive linear dependence condition on manifolds, we show that the proposed method converges to a stationary point of the nonsmooth manifold optimization problem. Moreover, we propose a globalized semismooth Newton method to solve the augmented Lagrangian subproblem on manifolds efficiently. The local superlinear convergence of the manifold semismooth Newton method is also established under some suitable conditions. We also prove that the semismoothness on submanifolds can be inherited from that in the ambient manifold. Finally, numerical experiments on compressed modes and (constrained) sparse principal component analysis illustrate the advantages of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we design and fabricate a 3D microwave absorber (MA) consists of a square lattice of hybrid cylindrical resonators (LHC) based on epoxy resin loaded with carbon black (CB-EP). First, low cost and light weight microwave absorbing materials based on CB-EP with different carbon black (CB) weight fractions (wt.%) are prepared. According to the theory of dielectric resonant antenna (DRA), the absorption mechanism and reflection loss of a square lattice of uniform cylindrical resonators (LUC) based on the CB-EP at normal incidence in the X-band (8–12 GHz) are discussed. Furthermore, through the analysis of the absorption mechanism, we proposed an effective method to enhance the absorption intensity of the LUC, i.e., constructing the CB-EP in the form of LHC. The simulation results show that the reflection loss (RL) of LHC for the normal incidence is less than −15 dB in the whole X-band, which is a significant improvement compared with LUC. The prototype of LHC is fabricated and the measurement result of RL agrees well with the simulation, which demonstrates the superiority of the design method. In conclusion, the characteristics of low cost, lightweight, and easy production make the LHC have great potential for stealth applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cement stabilized macadam (CSM) is widely used in pavement bases in China and different countries, but it is prone to shrinkage and fatigue cracking, resulting in a decrease in the service life and quality of the pavement. The resistance to shrinkage and fatigue cracking substantially affects the durability of CSM base. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the vibration mixing technology on the cracking resistance and microstructural characteristics of vibration mixing CSM. The drying shrinkage, temperature shrinkage, and fatigue tests of the vibration mixing CSM and traditional two-cylinder continuous mixing (TTCM) CSM were carried out to analyze their shrinkage strain and fatigue life. The microstructure of the vibration mixing was inspected by the scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the dry and temperature shrinkage performance as well as fatigue performance of the cement stabilized macadam can be improved by the utilization of vibration mixing technology. The long-term shrinkage properties of the vibrating mixing cement stabilized macadam were also better than those of traditional mixing. The temperature shrinkage coefficient of CSM was greatly decreased with the vibration mixing technology, which was more obvious from − 25 to − 10 °C. The fatigue life of the CSM had improved with the vibration mixing technology. The possible reason for the improved shrinkage performance and fatigue characteristics is that the mechanism of the vibration mixing promotes for better distribution of the hydration products, and a three-dimensional network structure is formed in the CSM. In short, the durability and service life of the pavement can be improved with the vibration mixing technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a green approach is developed for the effective conversion of corn stalk cellulose to glycolic acid with MoO3. The effect of different factors (amount of MoO3, reaction temperature, reaction time and the concentration of cellulose) were studied on conversion of cellulose. The total organic acids (glycolic acid, formic acid and lactic acid) yield of 48.2% with 93% conversion was obtained from cellulose at the optimal conditions (0.04 mol MoO3, 2 wt% cellulose concentration, 210 °C, 60 min), and the maximum yield of glycolic acid was 23.4%. Furthermore, the mechanism of MoO3-catalyzed epimerization of glucose to mannose was investigated by performing density functional theory calculations. The results indicated that the coordination between MoO3 and the O1 sites of glucose was optimal, and MoO3 significantly reduces the overall reaction barrier for glucose epimerization, which is the main reason why MoO3 can promote the conversion of cellulose to glycolic acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the multiwavelength observations of an erupting prominence and the associated coronal mass ejection (CME) on 13 May 2013. The event occurs behind the western limb in the field of view of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft. The prominence is supported by a highly twisted magnetic flux rope and shows rapid rotation in the counterclockwise direction during the rising motion. The rotation of the prominence lasts for ∼ 47 minutes. The average period, angular speed, and linear speed are ∼ 806 sec, ∼ 0.46 rad min−1, and ∼ 355 km s−1, respectively. The total twist angle reaches ∼ 7 π , which is considerably larger than the threshold for kink instability. Writhing motion during 17:42 – 17:46 UT is clearly observed by SWAP in 174 Å and Extreme-UltraViolet Imager (EUVI) on board the behind Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft in 304 Å after reaching an apparent height of ∼ 405 Mm. Therefore, the prominence eruption is most probably triggered by kink instability. A pair of conjugate flare ribbons and post-flare loops are created and observed by STA/EUVI. The onset time of writhing motion is consistent with the commencement of the impulsive phase of the related flare. The 3D morphology and positions of the associated CME are derived using the graduated cylindrical shell (GCS) modeling. The kinetic evolution of the reconstructed CME is divided into a slow-rise phase (∼ 330 km s−1) and a fast-rise phase (∼ 1005 km s−1) by the writhing motion. The edge-on angular width of the CME is a constant (60∘), while the face-on angular width increases from 96∘ to 114∘, indicating a lateral expansion. The latitude of the CME source region decreases slightly from ∼ 18∘ to ∼ 13∘, implying an equatorward deflection during propagation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well-designed method for evaluating scientists is vital for the scientific community. It can be used to rank scientists in various practical tasks, such as hiring, funding application and promotion. However, a large number of evaluation methods are designed based on citation counts which can merely evaluate scientists' scientific impact but can not evaluate their innovation ability which actually is a crucial characteristic for scientists. In addition, when evaluating scientists, it has become increasingly common to only focus on their representative works rather than all their papers. Accordingly, we here propose a hybrid method by combining scientific impact with innovation under representative works framework to evaluate scientists. Our results are validated on the American Physical Society journals dataset and the prestigious laureates datasets. The results suggest that the correlation between citation and disruption is weak, which enables us to incorporate them. In addition, the analysis shows that using representative works framework to evaluate scientists is advantageous and our hybrid method can effectively identify the Nobel Prize laureates and several other prestigious prizes laureates with higher precision and better mean ranking. The evaluation performance of the hybrid method is shown to be the best compared with the mainstream methods. This study provides policy makers an effective way to evaluate scientists from more comprehensive dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spam review detection is a popular research problem and researchers have paid much attention to online reviews of hotels, restaurants, hospitals, movies, and retail stores. Existing researches divide reviews into true reviews and spam reviews. In recent years, Douban has become one of the most popular Chinese film review platforms and been attacked by various spammers, including both hired spammers and spontaneously organized spammer formed by netizens who deliberately give high or low scores to movies. According to their attitudes towards movies, they can be divided into spam positive reviews and spam negative reviews. Their positions are different, and the consequences to the movies are also different, but they are both harmful and unfair. Therefore, we need to identify them and give movies fair evaluations. Therefore, we divide the reviews into four categories, namely, true positive reviews, spam positive reviews, true negative reviews, and spam negative reviews. We design a co-attention based neural network model, (including user attention and movie attention) which is very innovative because it can effectively fuse user features, movie features, text representation and matadata features, all of which are designed manually. We compare our model with the baselines to prove that our proposed model is more effective. Through ablation study and case study, we prove each of our attention modules is indispensable and attention mechanism can effectively focus on suspicious content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strong thermal effect is an important factor that hinders the application of nanosecond laser in the fabrication of uniform laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS), though it offers the advantages of low cost and high efficiency. In this study, we show that regular microstructures consisting of LIPSS ribbons can be generated on chromium (Cr) metal via the two-beam interference scanning (TBIS) of a 1064-nm nanosecond laser, whereas LIPSS induced by the single-beam scanning (SBS) of the same laser has poor regularity due to excessive heat accumulation. Compared with SBS, TBIS is beneficial to minimize the undesirable thermal effects in the processing via the periodic intensity modulation, thus to generate homogenous LIPSS on Cr—we propose that the periodic intensity modulation derived from two-beam interference would lead to higher peak intensity that would form desired structures with a smaller effective pulse number, localize the heat-affected zones to benefit the positive grating-coupling feedback, and constrain the randomness of material redeposition during the TBIS processing. The results demonstrate that TBIS of nanosecond laser may provide an alternative way to efficiently fabricate uniform structures on various materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The letter discusses the role of non-ureolytic bacteria in the formation of urinary stones. The authors reference previous research that found non-ureolytic bacteria, particularly Escherichia coli (E. coli), to be the predominant bacteria in both urine and stone cultures of patients with infection stones and calcium oxalate (CaOx) stones. They suggest that further investigation is needed to understand the role of non-ureolytic bacteria in stone formation, and propose the use of advanced technologies such as 16s-rRNA sequencing and metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) to study the microbiota of kidney stone patients. The authors also mention the need to consider the effect of bacteria on stone formation through their impact on the host, and suggest exploring the role of bacteria from urine and the gut microbiome in the formation of urinary tract stones. [Extracted from the article]

In order to solve the shortcomings of volume expansion and poor cycle performance of SnS2 as anode for lithium-ion batteries, we prepared SnS2/porous carbon (PC) composite by a dual-solvent hydrothermal method. By changing the solvent, the SnS2/PC is consisted of a special mesoporous microsphere structure, and PC is used as an additive in the synthesis process of SnS2. In the prepared dual-solvent SnS2/PC composite, the crystal orientation of SnS2 is not unidirectional as a sheet-like structure in a single solvent, but intertwined to form spherical SnS2 particles, and the PC is uniformly attached to the SnS2 particles. Compared with pure SnS2, the dual-solvent SnS2/PC composite has a larger specific capacity (783.2 mAh/g at 0.1 A/g) and long cycle stability (596.5 mAh/g at 1 A/g), with a high capacity retention of 92% from 100th cycle to 1000th cycle. This excellent electrochemical performance is mainly attributed to the existence of PC, which not only prevents the aggregation of SnS2 particles, but also reduces the volume change of SnS2 particles during the charge–discharge cycle. In addition, PC can also improve the conductivity of SnS2 particles. The improvement in cyclic stability and electronic conductivity of SnS2 is of great significance for realizing high-performance lithium-ion batteries. Our present study sheds new light on constructing high-performance electrodes for electrochemical energy storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synchronous parameters algorithms with data parallelism have been successfully utilized to accelerate the distributed training of deep neural networks (DNNs). However, a prevalent shortcoming of the synchronous methods is computation waste resulted from the mutual waiting among the computational workers with different performance and the communication delays at each synchronization. To alleviate this drawback, we propose a novel method, free local stochastic gradient descent (FLSGD) with parallel synchronization, to eliminate the waiting and communication overhead. Specifically, the process of distributed DNN training is firstly modeled as a pipeline which assembly consists of three components: dataset partition, local SGD, and parameter updating. Then, a novel adaptive batch size and dataset partition method based on the computational performance of the node is employed to eliminate the waiting time by keeping the load balance of the distributed DNN training. The local SGD and the parameter updating including gradients synchronization are parallelized to eliminate the communication cost by one-step gradient delaying, and the stale problem is remedied by an appropriate approximation. To our best knowledge, this is the first work focusing on decreasing both distributed training load balancing and communication overhead Extensive experiments are conducted with four state-of-the-art DNN models on two image classification datasets (i.e., CIFAR10 and CIFAR100) to demonstrate that the effectiveness of FLSGD outperforms the synchronous methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To explore in-plane shear failure mode of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panel, this paper carried out relevant research work from the perspective of stress analysis and combined with the crack morphology of the specimen after planar shear. In this study, the load–displacement curve of the hemlock [Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière] CLT specimen was obtained by a three-point bending test or an improved planar shear test, the crack morphology of the CLT vertical layer and the azimuth angle of the crack surface were observed and recorded synchronously. The shear strength values of CLT specimens under the two tests were obtained by corresponding calculation. Then the stress analysis of the CLT vertical layer was combined with the azimuth angle of the crack surface to discuss the failure mode of the CLT vertical layer in planar shear. The results showed that the planar shear strength measured by the three-point bending test and the improved planar shear test was in good agreement, and the results measured by the improved planar shear test were more dispersed than those measured by the three-point bending test; Considering the approximation that the in-plane shear of the CLT vertical layer could be treated as pure shear, the three-point bending test was better than the improved planar shear test; For the vertical layer of 63.3% CLT specimens, the azimuth of the crack surface was near the azimuth of the first principal plane obtained by stress analysis; There were two failure modes in the CLT vertical layer in-plane shear: tension failure and shear failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) has proven to be effective in the field of sensory and motor function restoration and in the treatment of neurological disorders. Using a BCI recording system, we can transform current methods of human interaction with machines and the environment, especially to help those with cognitive and mobility disabilities regain mobility and reintegrate into society. However, most reported work has focused on a simple aspect of the whole system, such as electrodes, circuits, or data transmission, and only a very small percentage of systems are wireless. A miniature, lightweight, wireless, implantable microsystem is key to realizing long-term, real-time, and stable monitoring on freely moving animals or humans in their natural conditions. Here, we summarize typical wireless recording systems, from recording electrodes, processing chips and controllers, wireless data transmission, and power supply to the system-level package for either epicortical electrocorticogram (ECoG) or intracortical local field potentials (LFPs)/spike acquisition, developed in recent years. Finally, we conclude with our vision of challenges in next-generation wireless neuronal recording systems for chronic and safe applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting the future career of individual scientists is an important yet challenging problem with numerous applications such as recruitment of scientific research positions, promoting outstanding academic staff, and managing scientific grant proposals. Despite that much effort has been devoted to predict scientists' future performance and success, yet these works focus on the macro future performance of scholars from the perspective of their career ages. A related but different task is to predict the impact and publication date of each future paper. We regard this micro level prediction problem as a dynamic series auto-regression task, and a deep learning method is designed to solve it. The experiments show that our method outperforms the state-of-the-art method in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, many researchers have investigated the distributed adaptive consensus tacking control algorithm of multi-agent systems (MASs). Nevertheless, the existing works involving the command-filter-based adaptive consensus problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems subjected to the unmeasurable states are relatively few. Besides that, the immeasurable states and the input delay will bring few challenging in dealing with the consensus problem for MASs. (1) The radial basis function neural networks (RBF NNs) are utilized to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions and the NN-based observer is established to copy with the unmeasurable states. (2) The backstepping design method of distributed adaptive consensus control is put forward on basis of the command filtering method, which overcomes the complexity explosion problem and eliminates errors by introducing compensation signals. (3) The Pade approximation approach is served to remove the obstacle originating from the input delay. This paper addresses the observer and command-filter-based adaptive tracking control problem for nonlinear multi-agent systems with the unmeasurable states and input delay under the directed graph. The Lyapunov stability theory is utilized to prove that the proposed approach can ensure that all signals in the closed-loop system reach cooperatively semi-globally uniformly ultimately bounded (CSUUB). The simulation result is presented, and it further manifests that the effectiveness of this scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the problem of the event-triggered adaptive containment control for a class of nonlinear multiagent systems (MASs) with prescribed performance and immeasurable states. First, the radial basis function neural networks (RBFNNs) are adopted to approximate the uncertain smooth nonlinear function, and the neural network-based state observer is designed to estimate the unmeasurable state. Besides, to reduce the control resource consumption and get a better balance between the system performance and network constraints, the switching threshold-based event-triggered control strategy is introduced. Based on this, the novel distributed containment controller is designed by utilizing the adaptive backstepping technique and the dynamic surface control (DSC) technique to guarantee that the output of each follower converges to the convex hull formed by multileader. Moreover, the containment errors can be converged to the prescribed boundary and all signals in closed-loop system are semi-global uniformly ultimately bounded (SGUUB) as well. Finally, the simulation examples are carried out to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CaO/Ca(OH)2 thermochemical energy storage system can store heat through reversible reactions for long term and transport energy for long distance, and thus can solve the mismatching between energy supply and demand. In this study, a one-dimensional model is developed for the physical–chemical–thermal processes during the hydration reaction of CaO/Ca(OH)2 system in an indirect fixed bed reactor, and the corresponding governing equations are solved by the tridiagonal matrix method with self-developed program parallelized by Message Passing Interface. The characteristics and complicated coupling mechanisms of the vapor flow, heat transfer, mass transport and reaction processes are analyzed. Then effects of inlet pressure, convective heat transfer, reactant porosity, reactant permeability and reactor size on the reaction performance are discussed, respectively. It is found that higher inlet pressure, heat transfer coefficient, permeability and porosity can enhance the heat and mass transfer processes, thus accelerating the reaction efficiently. Finally, the reaction performance under different conditions is comprehensively evaluated by four indicators including the reaction time, average power, temperature plateau duration and standard deviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glycopolypeptides as analogs of glycoproteins or glycosaminoglycans represent attractive building blocks for the construction of biomimetic biomaterials. However, the effects of amino acid chirality on the conformation and enzymatic degradation of glycopolypeptides are often overlooked. Here, we synthesized and characterized a range of glycopolypeptides composed of galactosylated poly(γ-propargylglutamate)s containing L- and/or D-glutamate residues. Glycopolypeptides containing pure L-glutamate residues were predominantly α-helical, and the helicity increased over the degree of polymerization of the polypeptide backbones (24 to 44). The glycopolypeptide with pure D-glutamate residues adopted a mirrored α-helical conformation, whilst apparent random coil conformation was observed for the glycopolypeptide with equally mixed enantiomeric residues. The enzymatic degradation rates of the glycopolypeptides were markedly reduced following the introduction of D-glutamate residues into backbones. Galactoside pendants on these glycopolypeptides maintained their binding to peanut agglutinin. These structure-property relationships provide new insight for the design of biomimetic biomaterials containing glycopolypeptides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a novel amphiphilic flocculant TP-ADL was synthesized using acrylamide, methacryloxyethyltrimethyl ammonium chloride and lauryl acrylate as monomers through UV-light-initiating template copolymerization technology. Copolymerization conditions were optimized towards higher intrinsic viscosity and conversion rate. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) analysis confirms the functional groups composition in TP-ADL, and the thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis indicates its good thermal stability. Furthermore, the detailed 1H NMR and TGA analysis confirms the microblock structure in polymer chain. The amphiphilic rheological characteristics of copolymer were detected according to apparent viscosity. TP-ADL displayed superior flocculation efficiency towards oily wastewater in terms of oil and turbidity removal rate, and zeta potential. The median floc size (d50) and fractal dimension (Df) results indicate a large and compact floc structure. The synergistic effect between cationic microblock structure and inter-molecular hydrophobic association is the main reason for the better treatment efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modified natural biosorbents have been the research hot spot in wastewater treatment field. Natural polyphenol compounds, tannins with many functional groups can be easily modified to produce biosorbents. This work presents an environmentally friendly tannin-based dithiocarbamate (TDTC) with enhanced function of adsorption. TDTC was successfully synthesized by a two-step method involving Mannich reaction and esterification. The structure and synthetic mechanisms of TDTC were discussed through instrumental analysis. The BET-specific surface area analysis results showed that TDTC exhibited a mesoporous structure with an increased surface area. Parameters affecting adsorption such as initial pH, adsorbent dosage, contact time, initial concentration, and temperature were systematically examined. Results showed that the maximum adsorption capacity toward Ni(II) of TDTC was 112.49 mg/g. In addition, TDTC exhibited a fast adsorption rate and 80% of the Ni(II) was removed within just 20 min. The adsorption kinetics and adsorption isotherm were well described by the pseudo-second-order model and Langmuir model, respectively. Moreover, TDTC could be easily regenerated without obvious loss of adsorption capability after five adsorption-desorption cycles. All these results indicate that TDTC is an ideal candidate for the efficient removal of Ni(II). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key element in the research of solar activities is the coronal magnetic field, which is however difficult to measure directly. Filament (or prominence) oscillations offer a new approach to derive important information of the coronal magnetic field, which is called prominence seismology. However, it is vital to determine the oscillation mode before applying the prominence seismology since for a given magnetic structure of a filament, the two different modes of oscillation, namely, the longitudinal and transverse, have different eigen frequencies. In low-resolution observations, it is hard to distinguish the oscillation mode since both modes of oscillations are associated with lateral displacements, and the subtle difference between the two modes becomes unresolvable. On 2013 March 15, there is a filament oscillation event with a period of ∼63 minutes and a decay timescale of ∼105 minutes, which was explained in the literature to be a transverse oscillation or a mixture of both transversal and longitudinal components with the same period. With the analysis of the high-resolution SDO/AIA data, we reexamine the filament oscillation event, and argue that this event is a longitudinal oscillation. We tentatively propose a new method on how to identify the oscillation mode when the observational resolution is not so high. A numerical simulation is also provided in order to match the observations, which leads to the ratio between the depth and the width of the magnetic dip being 0.1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a novel composite coagulant polyferric titanium sulfate (PFTS) was synthesized and the kaolin-fulvic acid simulated water was employed to verify the coagulation efficiency. To obtain the optimal conditions for preparing the composite coagulant, the parameters affecting the coagulation performance such as Ti/Fe, P/Fe, OH/Fe, and oxidizer dosage were evaluated by single factor experiments and response surface methodology. The structure and morphology of PFTS were investigated by some conventional methods and those affecting coagulation-flocculation behaviors such as coagulant dosage, water sample initial pH, were also examined. Flocs properties of PFTS were investigated by Mastersizer 2000. The results indicated that PFTS presented a porous and a compacted gel network structure, in which some major phase structure and chemical bonds were discovered. The jar tests demonstrated the superior coagulation performance at coagulant dosage of 20-30 mg/L and the optimum pH range of 7-8. The optimum synthetic conditions were Ti/Fe, P/Fe, OH/Fe molar ratio and oxidant adding speed of 0.13, 0.25, 0.29, and 4 mL/min, respectively. Under the optimal condition, the residual turbidity, (Dissolved organic matter) DOC removal and residual iron of 0.82, 53 %, and 0.08 mg/L, respectively, could be acquired by PFTS. The flocs analysis results manifested that the dominant mechanism in flocs growth is absorption-bridging and sweeping coagulation, while charge neutralization mechanisms is the primary in the formation of compact flocs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insulin-like growth factor 2 mRNA-binding protein 2 ( IFG2BP2) belongs to an mRNA-binding protein family involved in the development and stimulation of insulin action, which has attracted considerable attention as a candidate gene for type 2 diabetes (T2D) since it was first identified through genome-wide association approach. The relationship between IFG2BP2 and T2D has been reported in various ethnic groups; however, these studies have yielded contradictory results. To investigate this inconsistency, we performed a meta-analysis of 35 studies involving a total of 175,965 subjects for two wildly studied polymorphisms (rs4402960 and rs1470579) of the IFG2BP2 to evaluate the effect of IFG2BP2 on genetic susceptibility for T2D. An overall random-effects per-allele OR of 1.13 (95% CI: 1.12-1.15; P < 10) and 1.09 (95% CI: 1.07-1.12; P < 10) was found for the two variants, respectively. Significant results were also observed using dominant or recessive genetic model. No significant results between study heterogeneity were found in most of the comparison. In the subgroup analysis by ethnicity, sample size, diagnostic criterion and mean age and BMI of cases, significantly increased risks were found for these polymorphisms in almost all genetic models. This meta-analysis demonstrated that these two common polymorphisms is a risk factor for developing T2D, but these associations vary in different ethnic populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]