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The effect of barium ions on the biomineralization of calcium and magnesium ions is often overlooked when utilizing microbial-induced carbonate precipitation technology for removing barium, calcium, and magnesium ions from oilfield wastewater. In this study, Bacillus licheniformis was used to bio-precipitate calcium, magnesium, and barium ions. The effects of barium ions on the physiological and biochemical characteristics of bacteria, as well as the components of extracellular polymers and mineral characteristics, were also studied in systems containing coexisting barium, calcium, and magnesium ions. The results show that the increasing concentrations of barium ions decreased pH, carbonic anhydrase activity, and concentrations of bicarbonate and carbonate ions, while it increased the contents of humic acids, proteins, polysaccharides, and DNA in extracellular polymers in the systems containing all three types of ions. With increasing concentrations of barium ions, the content of magnesium within magnesium-rich calcite and the size of minerals precipitated decreased, while the full width at half maximum of magnesium-rich calcite, the content of O-C=O and N–C=O, and the diversity of protein secondary structures in the minerals increased in systems containing all three coexisting ions. Barium ions does inhibit the precipitation of calcium and magnesium ions, but the immobilized bacteria can mitigate the inhibitory effect. The precipitation ratios of calcium, magnesium, and barium ions reached 81–94%, 68–82%, and 90–97%. This research provides insights into the formation of barium-enriched carbonate minerals and offers improvements for treating oilfield wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argument pair extraction (APE) is a fine-grained task of argument mining which aims to identify arguments offered by different participants in some discourse and detect interaction relationships between arguments from different participants. In recent years, many research efforts have been devoted to dealing with APE in a multi-task learning framework. Although these approaches have achieved encouraging results, they still face several challenging issues. First, different types of sentence relationships as well as different levels of information exchange among sentences are largely ignored. Second, they solely model interactions between argument pairs either in an explicit or implicit strategy, while neglecting the complementary effect of the two strategies. In this paper, we propose a novel Mutually Enhanced Multi-Scale Relation-Aware Graph Convolutional Network (MMR-GCN) for APE. Specifically, we first design a multi-scale relation-aware graph aggregation module to explicitly model the complex relationships between review and rebuttal passage sentences. In addition, we propose a mutually enhancement transformer module to implicitly and interactively enhance representations of review and rebuttal passage sentences. We experimentally validate MMR-GCN by comparing with the state-of-the-art APE methods. Experimental results show that it considerably outperforms all baseline methods, and the relative performance improvement of MMR-GCN over the best performing baseline MRC-APE in terms of F1 score reaches to 3.48% and 4.43% on the two benchmark datasets, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) for aspect-based sentiment classification has attracted a lot of attention recently due to their promising performance in handling complex structure information. However, previous methods based on GCN focused mainly on examining the structure of syntactic dependency relationships, which were subject to the noise and sparsity problem. Furthermore, these methods tend to focus on one kind of structural information (namely syntactic dependency) while ignoring many other kinds of rich structures between words. To tackle these problems, we propose a novel GCN based model, named Structure-Enhanced Dual-Channel Graph Convolutional Network (SEDC-GCN). Specifically, we first exploit the rich structure information by constructing a text sequence graph and an enhanced dependency graph, then design a dual-channel graph encoder to model the structure information from the two graphs. After that, we propose two kinds of aspect-specific attention, i.e., aspect-specific semantic attention and aspect-specific structure attention, to learn sentence representation from two different perspectives, i.e., the semantic perspective based on the text encoder, and the structure perspective based on the dual-channel graph encoder. Finally, we merge the sentence representations from the above two perspectives and obtain the final sentence representation. We experimentally validate our proposed model SEDC-GCN by comparing with seven strong baseline methods. In terms of the metric accuracy, SEDC-GCN achieves performance gains of 74.42%, 77.74%, 83.30%, 81.73% and 90.75% on TWITTER, LAPTOP, REST14, REST15, and REST16, respectively, which are 0.35%, 4.22%, 1.62%, 0.70% and 2.01% better than the best performing baseline BiGCN. Similar performance improvements are also observed in terms of the metric macro-averaged F1 score. The ablation study further demonstrates the effectiveness of each component of SEDC-GCN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fiber-reinforced aerogels with excellent properties such as low density and low thermal conductivity are potential thermal insulation materials. The slurry method and the embedding sintering method were used to fabricate MoSi2-aluminoborosilicate glass coatings on the surface of a carbon fiber-reinforced C-Al2O3 aerogel composite under a low-oxygen atmosphere. The microstructure and phase composition of the coatings with different MoSi2 contents before and after static oxidation were investigated. The resulting composite exhibited excellent radiating properties and outstanding oxidation resistance. The total emissivity of the as-prepared coatings was above 0.8185 in the wavelength range of 300–2500 nm. The sample with 40 wt% MoSi2 in the outer coating had superior thermal endurance with a weight loss of only 0.54% after isothermal oxidation at 1200 °C for 180 min. This can be attributed to the optimum viscosity of the binder, which would relieve thermal stress defects and block oxygen diffusion. To further evaluate the thermal protection performance of the coatings, the heat transfer characteristics were simulated using the Fluent software package. Highlights: MoSi2-aluminoborosilicate glass coating was prepared on the C-Al2O3 aerogel composite. The sample exhibited excellent radiating property and outstanding oxidation resistance. The heat transfer characteristics were simulated using the Fluent software package. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic regulation of intestinal epithelial cell (IEC) differentiation is crucial for both homeostasis and the response to helminth infection. SIRT6 belongs to the NAD+-dependent deacetylases and has established diverse roles in aging, metabolism and disease. Here, we report that IEC Sirt6 deletion leads to impaired tuft cell development and type 2 immunity in response to helminth infection, thereby resulting in compromised worm expulsion. Conversely, after helminth infection, IEC SIRT6 transgenic mice exhibit enhanced epithelial remodeling process and more efficient worm clearance. Mechanistically, Sirt6 ablation causes elevated Socs3 expression, and subsequently attenuated tyrosine 641 phosphorylation of STAT6 in IECs. Notably, intestinal epithelial overexpression of constitutively activated STAT6 (STAT6vt) in mice is sufficient to induce the expansion of tuft and goblet cell linage. Furthermore, epithelial STAT6vt overexpression remarkedly reverses the defects in intestinal epithelial remodeling caused by Sirt6 ablation. Our results reveal a novel function of SIRT6 in regulating intestinal epithelial remodeling and mucosal type 2 immunity in response to helminth infection. Host defense against helminth infection is mediated by mucosal type 2 immunity. Using gain- and loss-of-function mouse models, and mouse intestinal organoids, Xiong et al. show that SIRT6 modulates tuft and goblet cell expansion in intestinal epithelium by activating STAT6 to maintain type 2 mucosal immunity in response to helminth infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twinning-induced plasticity (TWIP) steel offers high strength and ductility. However, in this study, deformation-induced detwinning was studied to prove that not all twins significantly benefit the mechanical properties. The quasi in situ observation results indicated that submicron-sized twins were unstable during Charpy impact loading. In contrast to the TWIP concept, analysis of the geometrically necessary dislocation evolution associated with detwinning revealed that unstable twins have negligible influence on the pile-ups of dislocations, offering a limited strengthening effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fact checking is an essential challenge when combating fake news. Identifying documents that agree or disagree with a particular statement (claim) is a core task in this process. In this context, stance detection aims at identifying the position (stance) of a document towards a claim. Most approaches address this task through classification models that do not consider the highly imbalanced class distribution. Therefore, they are particularly ineffective in detecting the minority classes (for instance, 'disagree'), even though such instances are crucial for tasks such as fact-checking by providing evidence for detecting false claims. In this paper, we exploit the hierarchical nature of stance classes which allows us to propose a modular pipeline of cascading binary classifiers, enabling performance tuning on a per step and class basis. We implement our approach through a combination of neural and traditional classification models that highlight the misclassification costs of minority classes. Evaluation results demonstrate state-of-the-art performance of our approach and its ability to significantly improve the classification performance of the important 'disagree' class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of SBRT for localized prostate cancer (PCa) with CyberKnife in China. Moreover, it is the largest-to-date pilot study to report 5-year outcomes of SBRT for localized PCa from China. Methods: In this retrospective study, 133 PCa patients in our center were treated by SBRT with CyberKnife (Accuray Inc., Sunnyvale, USA) from October 2012 to July 2019. Follow-up was performed every 3 months for efficacy and toxicity evaluation. Biochemical progression-free survival (bPFS) and toxicities were assessed using the Phoenix definition and the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) v.5.0, respectively. Factors predictive of bPFS were identified with COX regression analysis. Results: 133 patients (10 low-, 21 favorable intermediate-, 31 unfavorable intermediate-, 45 high-, and 26 very high risk cases on the basis of NCCN risk classification) with a median age of 76 years (range 54–87 years) received SBRT. The median dose was 36.25 Gy (range 34–37.5 Gy) in 5 fractions. Median follow-up time was 57.7 months (3.5–97.2 months). The overall 5-year bPFS rate was 83.6% for all patients. The 5-year bPFS rate of patients with low-, favorable intermediate-, unfavorable intermediate-, high-, and very high risk PCa was 87.5%, 95.2%, 90.5%, 86.3%, and 61.6%, respectively. Urinary symptoms were all alleviated after SBRT. All patients tolerated SBRT with 1 (0.8%) patient reporting grade-3 acute and 1 (0.8%) patient reporting grade-3 late genitourinary (GU) toxicity, respectively. There were no grade 4 toxicities. Gleason score (P < 0.001, HR = 7.483, 95%CI: 2.686–20.846) was the independent predictor of bPFS rate after multivariate analysis. Conclusion: SBRT is an efficient and safe treatment modality for localized PCa with high 5-year bPFS rates and acceptable toxicities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sol-gel method was adopted to synthesize novel cobalt and strontium-free Pr0.5Ba0.5Fe1-xNixO3-δ (x = 0 and 0.2, abbreviated as PBF and PBFN) perovskite oxides. It was aimed to discuss the influence of B-site Ni substitution on structure and electrochemical properties of Pr0.5Ba0.5FeO3-δ. The results indicated that PBF-based oxides were both cubic perovskite structure. Ni atoms were successfully doped into the B sites of PBF, resulting in lattice shrinkage. Ni doping could enhance the oxygen reduction activity by increasing the surface oxygen content and the release of lattice oxygen to increase oxygen vacancies. At 700 °C, the cathodic polarization resistance of PBFN (0.0726 Ω·cm2) was lower than PBF (0.122 Ω·cm2), and the maximum power density (PPD) of PBFN (528.79 mW·cm−2) was higher than PBF (259.65 mW·cm−2). After 80 h polarization, the open-circuit voltage did not change significantly. Therefore, PBFN has the potential to be more suitable cathode material of IT-SOFCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel mycovirus belonging to the proposed family "Fusariviridae" was discovered in Alternaria solani by sequencing a cDNA corresponding to double-stranded RNA extracted from this phytopathogenic fungus. The virus was tentatively named "Alternaria solani fusarivirus 1" (AsFV1). AsFV1 has a single-stranded positive-sense (+ssRNA) genome of 6845 nucleotides containing three open reading frames (ORFs) and a poly(A) tail. The largest ORF, ORF1, encodes a large polypeptide of 1,556 amino acids (aa) with conserved RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and helicase domains. The ORF2 and ORF3 have overlapping regions, encoding a putative protein of 522 amino acids (aa) and a putative protein of 105 amino acids (aa), respectively, both of unknown function. A multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis revealed that AsFV1 could be a new member of the "Fusariviridae". This is the first report of the full-length nucleotide sequence of a fusarivirus that infects Alternaria solani. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clustering is an essential data analysis technique and has been studied extensively over the last decades. Previous studies have shown that data representation and data structure information are two critical factors for improving clustering performance, and it forms two important lines of research. The first line of research attempts to learn representative features, especially utilizing the deep neural networks, for handling clustering problems. The second concerns exploiting the geometric structure information within data for clustering. Although both of them have achieved promising performance in lots of clustering tasks, few efforts have been dedicated to combine them in a unified deep clustering framework, which is the research gap we aim to bridge in this work. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, Manifold regularized Deep Embedded Clustering (MDEC), to deal with the aforementioned challenge. It simultaneously models data generating distribution, cluster assignment consistency, as well as geometric structure of data in a unified framework. The proposed method can be optimized by performing mini-batch stochastic gradient descent and back-propagation. We evaluate MDEC on three real-world datasets (USPS, REUTERS-10K, and MNIST), where experimental results demonstrate that our model outperforms baseline models and obtains the state-of-the-art performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To explore standardized relative thresholds of volume-based parameters on FDG PET/CT, and define the optimal prognosticator among the relative thresholds for patients with locally advanced pancreatic head cancer (LAPHC) treated by stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT).Methods: Thirty-five patients with LAPHC were enrolled, and all underwent SBRT and baseline FDG PET/CT scan. Maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) was measured, and metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) were calculated under the relative (30%, 40%, and 50%) thresholds of SUVmax. Survival analysis was performed via univariate and multivariate analyses, and independent prognostic factors were determined by Cox proportional hazard models and corresponding survival curves and scatter diagram were drawn.Results: The median overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were 13.8 and 9.8 months, respectively. On univariate analysis, MTV(40%) < 5.6 cm3, accumulated dose (AD) ≥ 36 Gy and the absence of pancreatic duct (PD) stents were significantly correlated with both superior OS and PFS, TLG (40%) < 29.9 was related to better OS and biological effective dose (BED10) ≥ 57.6 Gy was related to better PFS (all with p < 0.05). Further, multivariate analysis demonstrated both MTV (40%) and AD were independent prognosticators for OS and PFS, and BED10 was an independent predictor for PFS (all with p < 0.05). Scatter diagram showed BED10 to be a stronger clinical prognosis predictor for PFS than AD.Conclusions: MTV (40%) was the optimal prognosticator among the relative thresholds of SUVmax for tumor delineation on PET/CT for LAPHC patients receiving SBRT. AD was also favorable indicators for OS and PFS of patients, and BED10 was more sensitive than AD in predicting the PFS of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fatigue–creep behaviors of 15CrNbTi and 15Cr0.5MoNbTi steels in the simulated automotive exhaust gas and in argon at 800 °C were investigated. The fatigue–creep tests were conducted under stress-controlled mode with a stress ratio of 0.1 at 800 °C in the simulated automotive exhaust gas and in argon on an electrohydraulic servo fatigue testing machine. A trapezoidal waveform was adopted, and when the cyclic stress reached the maximum tension stress, a 10-s hold time was introduced. The tests results show that 15Cr0.5MoNbTi steel has higher cyclic deformation resistance and fatigue life than 15CrNbTi steel in two atmospheres. Compared with the simulated automotive exhaust gas, both experimental materials possess higher cyclic deformation resistance and fatigue life in argon. The cracks of two experimental materials in two atmospheres were both transgranularly initiated from the free surfaces of the steels and propagated in a transgranular manner. The main substructures of two experimental materials after fractured in two atmospheres were sub-grain structures which formed during fatigue–creep tests. The synergistic effects of solid solution strengthening of Mo and precipitation strengthening of fine Fe2Nb phases increased the cyclic deformation resistance and the fatigue life of 15Cr0.5MoNbTi steel at 800 °C in two atmospheres. In addition, Mo element improved the oxidation resistance of 15Cr0.5MoNbTi steel in the simulated automotive exhaust gas, which has a beneficial effect on the prolongation of fatigue life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three percent ( I N i = 31) of the patients without anticoagulants died and 3.4% ( I N i = 20) of the patients with anti-platelet therapy; the group with either DOACs or warfarin showed a nearly twice as high death rate of 7.7% ( I N i = 27). Reference 1 Fenwick A, Pfann M, Mayr J, Antonovska I, Wiedl A, Nuber S, Frch S, Mayr E. Do anticoagulants impact the "in-house mortality" after surgical treatment of proximal femoral fractures - a multivariate analysis. In this study, the authors investigated the influence of anticoagulants on mortality after surgical treatment of proximal femoral fractures. [Extracted from the article]

Activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) has been concentrated on degrading refractory organic pollutants owing to the generation of sulfate radical (S O 4 • − ) with high standard redox potential. In this study, manganese oxide octahedral molecular sieve (OMS-2) with cryptomelane type was synthesized by a new hydrothermal method to activate PMS for the degradation of phenol and methylene blue (MB) in water. The as-prepared composites were fully characterized, and the effects of PMS dosage, OMS-2 dosage, initial pollutant concentration, pH, and chloride on the degradation of phenol were elaborately investigated. Moreover, the phenol degradation was evaluated through the variations of total organic carbon (TOC) and three-dimensional excitation emission matrix (3D-EEM), and reaction intermediates were also investigated. Both electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra and comparative experiments suggested S O 4 • − and hydroxyl radical (HO•) took part in the phenol degradation and S O 4 • − was more significant than HO•. The fine degradation efficiency of phenol in different water source, as well as the stability after continuous use, indicated the possible application of PMS/OMS-2 in real wastewater treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to propose an automatic drawing technique for horizontal projection diagrams of exploration borehole deviation. In this study, a computer program was developed so as to achieve AutoCAD automatic creation of horizontal projection diagrams with low computational complexity. The main procedures include: the original borehole deviation data are used, the coordinates of the measuring points are calculated by using the average zenith angle and azimuth angle, the coordinates of the middle points are determined using the average borehole section length, and the final coordinates and the respective AutoCAD drawing exchange files are outputted. The conclusions are: the drawing exchange files can be called directly by the AutoCAD software, thereby achieving the automatic drawing of the horizontal projection diagrams of the borehole deviations. An example is provided to demonstrate that the proposed automatic drawing method is correct, concise, and efficient. And this automatic drawing technology provides significant advantages, avoiding the shortcomings of inefficient and error-prone method in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel method was explored to improve the waste-activated sludge (WAS) dewaterability using Fe(II) combined with calcium hypochlorite, and the possible mechanisms were investigated simultaneously. Capillary suction time (CST), specific resistance to filtration (SRF) of sludge, and water content (WC) of dewatered sludge cake were selected as the factors to evaluate the sludge dewaterability. The maximum reduction of WC (30.76%) was achieved under the optimal conditions of Ca(ClO)2 0.04 g/g total suspended solids (TSS), FeSO4·7H2O 0.097 g/g TSS, and pH 7.3, while the reduction of CST and SRF reached 91.24 and 99.47%, respectively. Three-dimensional excitation-emission matrix (3D-EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) showed that sludge dewaterability was mainly related to the degradation of tryptophan and tyrosine protein-like substances in sludge EPS. Economic analysis suggested Fe(II) combined with calcium hypochlorite treatment had greater potential on enhancing WAS dewaterability compared with the traditional sludge treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the group of metalloproteins/metalloenzymes in the acetyl-coenzyme A synthesis pathway of anaerobic microbes called Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, including formate dehydrogenase (FDH), corrinoid iron sulfur protein (CoFeSP), acetyl-CoA synthase (ACS) and CO dehydrogenase (CODH). FDH, a key metalloenzyme involved in the conversion of carbon dioxide to methyltetrahydrofolate, catalyzes the reversible oxidation of formate to carbon dioxide. CoFeSP, as a methyl group transformer, accepts the methyl group from CH3-H4 folate and then transfers it to ACS. CODH reversibly catalyzes the reduction of CO2 to CO and ACS functions for acetyl-coenzyme A synthesis through condensation of the methyl group, CO and coenzyme A, to finish the whole pathway. This paper introduces the structure, function and reaction mechanisms of these enzymes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regeneration of periodontal tissues, particularly cementum, is key to regaining periodontal attachment and health. Human periodontal ligament stem cells (hPDLSCs) have been shown to be a good cell source to regenerate periodontal tissues. However, their subpopulations and the differentiation induction in relation to cementogenic lineages is unclear. Thus, we aim to examine the expression of cementum-associated genes in PDLSC subpopulations and determine the effect of broadly used osteogenic stimulus or vitamin C (VC) on the expression of cementogenic and osteogenic genes in PDLSCs. Our real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) analysis showed that cementogenic marker cementum attachment protein (CAP) expressed only slightly higher in STRO-1/CD146, STRO-1/CD146 and STRO-1/CD146 subpopulations than in the original cell pool, while cementum protein 1 (CEMP1) expression in these subpopulations was not different from the original pool. Notably, under the stimulation with osteogenic differentiation medium, CAP and CEMP1 were downregulated while osteogenic markers bone sialoprotein (BSP) and osteocalcin (OCN) were upregulated. Both CAP and CEMP1 were upregulated by VC treatment. Transplantation of VC-treated PDLSCs into immunocompromised mice resulted in forming significantly more ectopic cementum- and bone-like mineral tissues in vivo. Immunohistochemical analysis of the ectopic growth showed that CAP and CEMP1 were mainly expressed in the mineral tissue and in some cells of the fibrous tissues. We conclude that osteogenic stimulation is not inductive but appears to be inhibitory of cementogenic pathways, whereas VC induces cementogenic lineage commitment by PDLSCs and may be a useful stimulus for cementogenesis in periodontal regeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Query recommendation has long been considered a key feature of search engines, which can improve users' search experience by providing useful query suggestions for their search tasks. Most existing approaches on query recommendation aim to recommend relevant queries, i.e., alternative queries similar to a user's initial query. However, the ultimate goal of query recommendation is to assist users to reformulate queries so that they can accomplish their search task successfully and quickly. Only considering relevance in query recommendation is apparently not directly toward this goal. In this paper, we argue that it is more important to directly recommend queries with high utility, i.e., queries that can better satisfy users' information needs. For this purpose, we attempt to infer query utility from users' sequential search behaviors recorded in their search sessions. Specifically, we propose a dynamic Bayesian network, referred as Query Utility Model (QUM), to capture query utility by simultaneously modeling users' reformulation and click behaviors. We then recommend queries with high utility to help users better accomplish their search tasks. We empirically evaluated the performance of our approach on a publicly released query log by comparing with the state-of-the-art methods. The experimental results show that, by recommending high utility queries, our approach is far more effective in helping users find relevant search results and thus satisfying their information needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a fault-detection method based on the phase space reconstruction and data mining approaches for the complex electronic system. The approach for the phase space reconstruction of chaotic time series is a combination algorithm of multiple autocorrelation and Γ-test, by which the quasi-optimal embedding dimension and time delay can be obtained. The data mining algorithm, which calculates the radius of gyration of unit-mass point around the centre of mass in the phase space, can distinguish the fault parameter from the chaotic time series output by the tested system. The experimental results depict that this fault detection method can correctly detect the fault phenomena of electronic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: We carried out this study to test the efficacy of the olecranon memory connector (OMC) in olecranon fractures. Methods: We designed a prospective randomised controlled trial involving 40 cases of olecranon fractures. From May 2004 to December 2009, 40 patients with olecranon fractures were randomly assigned into two groups. Twenty patients were treated with OMC, while another 20 patients were fixed with locking plates in our hospital. The DASH score, MEP score, range of motion and radiographs were used to evaluate the postoperative elbow function and complications. Results: For MEP score, OMC was better than the locking plate; for DASH score, complication rate, and range of elbow motion, the two methods presented no significant difference. Conclusion: The study showed that OMC could be an effective alternative to treat olecranon fractures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cellulose is an important abundant renewable resource on Earth, and the microbial cellulose utilization mechanism has attracted extensive attention. Recently, some signalling molecules have been found to regulate cellulose utilization and the discovery of underlying signals has recently attracted extensive attention. In this paper, we found that the hydrogen sulfide (H2S) concentration under cellulose culture condition increased to approximately 2.3-fold compared with that under glucose culture condition in Ganoderma lucidum. Further evidence shown that cellulase activities of G. lucidum were improved by 18.2-27.6% through increasing H2S concentration. Then, we observed that the carbon repressor CreA inhibited H2S biosynthesis in G. lucidum by binding to the promoter of cbs, a key gene for H2S biosynthesis, at "CTGGGG". In our study, we reported for the first time that H2S increased the cellulose utilization in G. lucidum, and analyzed the mechanism of H2S biosynthesis induced by cellulose. This study not only enriches the understanding of the microbial cellulose utilization mechanism but also provides a reference for the analysis of the physiological function of H2S signals. Insights into the role and regulation of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in cellulose utilization in Ganoderma lucidum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review (with 155 refs.) summarizes the progress made in the past few years in the field of electrochemical sensors based on graphene-derived materials for the determination of heavy metal ions. Following an introduction of this field and a discussion of the various kinds of modified graphenes including graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide, the review covers graphene based electrodes modified (or doped) with (a) heteroatoms, (b) metal nanoparticles, (c) metal oxides, (d) small organic molecules, (e) polymers, and (f) ternary nanocomposites. Tables are provided that afford an overview of representative methods and materials for fabricating electrochemical sensors. Furthermore, sensing mechanisms are discussed. A concluding section presents new perspectives, opportunities and current challenges.Schematic illustration of electrochemical sensor for heavy metal ion sensing based on heteroatom-doped graphene, metal-modified graphene, metal-oxide-modified graphene, organically modified graphene, polymer-modified graphene, and ternary graphene based nanocomposites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the quality and efficiency of Z-directional 3D preform forming, the Z-yarn frictional force distribution model of the preform and its wear mechanism were investigated. In this study, a tensile force measuring device was designed to measure the force required to replace the guide sleeve, which is equivalent to the Z-yarn frictional forces. The frictional force is proportional to the number of preform layers and is applied to the preform decreased from the corner, edge, sub-edge, and middle in order. A back propagation neural network model was established to predict the friction at different positions of the preform with different layers, and the error was within 1.9%. The wear of Z-yarn was studied at different frictional positions and after different times of successive implantation into the preform. The results showed that with an increase in the number of Z-yarn implantations and frictional forces, the amount of carbon fiber bundle hairiness gradually increased, and the tensile fracture strength damage of the fiber was increasingly affected by the frictional forces. In the corner position of the preform, when the number of implantations was 25, the fiber fracture strength decreased non-linearly and substantially; in order to avoid fiber fracturing in the implantation process, the Z-yarn needs to be replaced in time after 20–25 cycles of continuous implantation. This study solves the problem of difficulty in measuring the force required for individual replacements owing to the excessive number of guide sleeves, puts forward the relationship between fiber wear, preform position, and implantation times, solves the phenomenon of fracture in the preform during Z-direction fiber implantation, and realizes the continuous implantation of fibers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel p-Ag2S/n-Nb2O5 heterojunction composites were successfully obtained for the first time by hydrothermal and ion-exchange deposition way. A series of photocatalytic tests and characterization results confirm that the optimized 10 wt% Ag2S/Nb2O5 heterojunction composite exhibits excellent photocatalytic degradation activity for methylene blue (92.8%) under simulated solar light irradiation, which is approximately 2.7 times higher than that of pure Nb2O5 (34.3%) and 2.2 times higher than that of Ag2S (42.0%). The outstanding photocatalytic activity of Ag2S/Nb2O5 heterojunction composites could be ascribed to enhance simulated solar light response and effectively accelerates photo-induced charge separation and migration via a Z-scheme mechanism. Furthermore, the trapping experimental results confirm that both superoxide radicals (·O− 2) and hydroxyl radicals (·OH) play a key role in photocatalytic degradation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most significant parameters in cellular microenvironment, viscosity levels could be used to determine the metabolic process of bioactive substances within cells. Abnormal viscosity levels are closely associated with a series of diseases. Therefore, the design and synthesis of fluorescent probes that can monitor changes of intracellular viscosity in real-time is of great significance for the study of disease development process. Here, a new viscosity-recognized NIR fluorescence probe W1 based on quinoline-malonitrile is synthesized, and it is not susceptible to interference substances. Besides, AIE probe W1 shows fast response, excellent photostability, low cytotoxicity, good linear relationship between fluorescence intensity value and viscosity. Based on the above advantages, probe W1 is used to image the change of viscosity level in the cell model induced by nystatin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present modified modulus-based synchronous multisplitting iteration methods based on multisplittings of the system matrix for solving the large sparse linear complementarity problems. The proposed methods extend the existing modulus-based synchronous multisplitting iteration methods to a more general case. We establish the convergence theory of these modified modulus-based synchronous multisplitting iteration methods when the system matrix is an H+-matrix. In particular, we investigate the optimal choice of the parameter matrices in theory. Numerical results confirm that the new iteration methods have higher parallel computational efficiency than the existing modulus-based synchronous multisplitting iteration methods. The proposed methods are applied in reconstruction of two-dimensional image data and show the efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neovascularization and vascular remodeling are functionally important for brain repair after stroke. We show that neutrophils accumulate in the peri-infarct cortex during all stages of ischemic stroke. Neutrophils producing intravascular and intraparenchymal neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) peak at 3–5 days. Neutrophil depletion reduces blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown and enhances neovascularization at 14 days. Peptidylarginine deiminase 4 (PAD4), an enzyme essential for NET formation, is upregulated in peri-ischemic brains. Overexpression of PAD4 induces an increase in NET formation that is accompanied by reduced neovascularization and increased BBB damage. Disruption of NETs by DNase 1 and inhibition of NET formation by genetic ablation or pharmacologic inhibition of PAD increases neovascularization and vascular repair and improves functional recovery. Furthermore, PAD inhibition reduces stroke-induced STING-mediated production of IFN-β, and STING knockdown and IFN receptor-neutralizing antibody treatment reduces BBB breakdown and increases vascular plasticity. Collectively, our results indicate that NET release impairs vascular remodeling during stroke recovery. Following ischemic insult, neovascularization and vascular remodelling play an essential part in the repair of brain damage. Here the authors show that neutrophil extracellular traps serve a detrimental role in the regeneration process, limiting the functional recovery of the brain post injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coherent continuous wave (CW) terahertz spectroscopy is an extremely valuable technique that allows for the interrogation of systems that exhibit narrow resonances in the terahertz (THz) frequency range, such as high-quality (high-Q) THz whispering-gallery mode resonators. Unfortunately, common implementations are impaired by deficiencies in the used data analysis schemes. Here, we show that these deficiencies can be conveniently overcome using the Hilbert transform, and we unveil the theoretical foundations of the method. In particular, by establishing that signals encountered in typical experiments are closely related to analytic signals, we demonstrate that Hilbert transform is applicable even when the envelope varies rapidly compared to the oscillation period. Compelling results from experimental measurements and numerical simulations confirm the broad applicability of the described method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  β-1,3-Glucanases are a group of pathogenesis-related proteins that have been reported to be involved in plant defense against pathogens in many other plant-pathogen systems. However, it was not clear if these genes play similar role in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) against Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (Pst), the stripe rust pathogen. To investigate the role of β-1,3-glucanase (EC 3.2.1.39) in the resistance response of wheat (cv. Suwon 11) to stripe rust, a wheat β-1,3-glucanase gene induced by Pst, designated as TaGlu, was cloned and characterized. TaGlu was predicted to encode a basic protein of 334 amino acids. Quantitative real-time PCR analyses revealed that the transcription of TaGlu was induced during both compatible and incompatible interactions with Pst, but the transcription level was much higher in the incompatible interaction than that in the compatible interaction. TaGlu also showed noticeable induction of gene expression in young green leaf tissues treated with salicylic acid, methyl jasmonate or ethylene. Immunogold labeling assays showed that the enzyme were localized mainly in the host cell wall and over the extrahaustorial matrix, and the labeling densities were found significantly higher in the incompatible interaction than those in the compatible interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rank-one perturbation of arbitrary matrices has many practical applications. In this paper, based on the relationship between the singular values and the eigenvalues, we discuss singular value variations and present two-side bounds of the singular values for rank-one perturbation of arbitrary matrices. Numerical results confirm that the proposed perturbation bounds are sharper than some existing bounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]