Search

Producing sustainable anode materials for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) through catalytic graphitization of renewable biomass has gained significant attention. However, the technology is in its early stages due to the bio-graphite's comparatively low electrochemical performance in LIBs. This study aims to develop a process for producing LIB anode materials using a hybrid catalyst to enhance battery performance, along with readily available market biochar as the raw material. Results indicate that a trimetallic hybrid catalyst (Ni, Fe, and Mn in a 1:1:1 ratio) is superior to single or bimetallic catalysts in converting biochar to bio-graphite. The bio-graphite produced under this catalyst exhibits an 89.28% degree of graphitization and a 73.95% conversion rate. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) reveals the dissolution–precipitation mechanism involved in catalytic graphitization. Electrochemical performance evaluation showed that the trimetallic hybrid catalyst yielded bio-graphite with better electrochemical performances than those obtained through single or bimetallic hybrid catalysts, including a good reversible capacity of about 293 mAh g−1 at a current density of 20 mA/g and a stable cycle performance with a capacity retention of over 98% after 100 cycles. This study proves the synergistic efficacy of different metals in catalytic graphitization, impacting both graphite crystalline structure and electrochemical performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feedstock properties play a crucial role in thermal conversion processes, where understanding the influence of these properties on treatment performance is essential for optimizing both feedstock selection and the overall process. In this study, a series of van Krevelen diagrams were generated to illustrate the impact of H/C and O/C ratios of feedstock on the products obtained from six commonly used thermal conversion techniques: torrefaction, hydrothermal carbonization, hydrothermal liquefaction, hydrothermal gasification, pyrolysis, and gasification. Machine learning methods were employed, utilizing data, methods, and results from corresponding studies in this field. Furthermore, the reliability of the constructed van Krevelen diagrams was analyzed to assess their dependability. The van Krevelen diagrams developed in this work systematically provide visual representations of the relationships between feedstock and products in thermal conversion processes, thereby aiding in optimizing the selection of feedstock and the choice of thermal conversion technique. Feedstock properties play a crucial role in thermal conversion processes for power generation, fuel production, or chemical synthesis, but understanding the influence of these many properties on treatment performance is a complex task. Here, a series of van Krevelen diagrams were generated to illustrate the impact of H/C and O/C ratios of feedstock on the products obtained from six commonly used thermochemical processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Taiping coal mining area in Zoucheng City, where there is a focus on agricultural production, a unique collapsed pond has been formed due to the dense population, a high phreatic water level and coal mining subsidence. A one-year field study was undertaken to investigate the concentrations of cations and anions in the pore groundwater, as well as the collapsed water and surface water, to clarify the hydrogeochemical controls, the seasonal cycle characteristics and the intended uses for the groundwater. The results, obtained from a self-organizing feature map, the K-means clustering algorithm and the Durov diagrams, revealed that the hydrochemical dataset could be classified into five clusters, corresponding to a SO4-Na type (Clusters 1 and 2), a mixed type (Cluster 3), a HCO3-Ca type (Cluster 4) and a SO4-Na∙Ca type (Cluster 5), respectively, with clear seasonal changes in the five pore groundwater samples. Based on the Gibbs, Gaillardet and chloro-alkaline index (CAI) diagrams, rock weathering, cation exchange and evaporative crystallization, especially the erosion of silicate rock, were the primary processes controlling the hydrogeochemistry. Meanwhile, the suitability of the groundwater evaluation methods of random forest (RF), genetic algorithm-support vector machine (GA-SVM) and back-propagation (BP) neural network were found to be superior to the traditional Quality Standard for Groundwater of China (SGQC), the Fisher and the F analysis methods. Among them RF has the optimal simulation accuracy and effect. As a result of quality assessment of the groundwater, the quality of the shallow groundwater was generally poor and was only fit for purpose after appropriate treatment. Moreover, it is speculated that the main factors affecting the groundwater quality were the unique mode of collapse of the pond formed as a result of the high phreatic water level, the natural conditions such as rainwater recharge and groundwater runoff, the dense population, mining and agricultural development, and chemical pollution. This innovative study describes an optimization method for assessment of groundwater suitability and highlights the importance of minimizing excessive groundwater extraction, developing continuous water quality monitoring plans, and managing and preventing potential hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the significant features in the cache-enabled networks, in-network caching improves the efficiency of content dissemination by offloading content from the remote content provider onto the network that is closer to the users, and creates an opportunity for multicast. Since the multicast paradigm is a promising method for sending data to multiple users while saving bandwidth, this paper exploits the multi-rate multicast paradigm to address the caching problem in the cache-enabled environment which jointly considers the content caching and transmission rate allocation. The pure caching design, which is developed in most existing works, can only achieve limited performance; therefore, we argue that caching should be jointly designed. Our joint model can accommodate the diverse requirements of users by serving them with content in the nearby cache at different transmission rates, which is different from the single-rate multicast paradigm where users can only share the same rate in the same multicast group. We prove that the proposed maximization problem is a biconvex optimization problem. To solve this problem, we exploit the decomposable structure of the joint maximization to develop a heuristic solution that consists of caching decision and rate allocation algorithms. We reduce the search space of the heuristic algorithm to further reduce computation and communication complexity. We carry out an extensive packet-level simulation to evaluate the performance of our proposal compared with some benchmark schemes. Simulation results show that the proposed heuristic algorithm performs well compared with the benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of industrial civilisation, urban environmental problems are increasingly severe. However, Chinese urban residents' actual adoption level of pro-environment behaviours (PEBs) is still relatively low. In order to improve the residents' PEBs adoption, this paper combined the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the Norm Activation Model and the Attitude-Behaviour-Context theory into a holistic framework to explore the determinants of private-sphere PEBs. In this model, we assess the determinants of private-sphere PEBs from perspectives of intrapersonal and contextual factors and treat private-sphere PEBs as three different types of behaviours, namely environmental purchasing behaviours, environmental transport behaviours and conservation behaviours, rather than aggregated and undifferentiated construct or a single item behaviour. The model was tested empirically by primary data collected from 1,054 citizens in Beijing and Shanghai in China. The results indicate that intrapersonal factors, such as pro-environmental intentions and personal norms, are significant positive factors of private-sphere PEBs adoption; contextual constraints have negative direct effects on the three types of private-sphere PEBs adoption; contextual constraints act as a moderator between pro-environmental intentions and private-sphere PEBs, while the moderating effects are sensitive to the types of private-sphere PEBs. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of residents' adoption of private-sphere PEBs and making more targeted policies accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ebola virus (EBOV), one of the deadliest viruses, is the cause of fatal Ebola virus disease (EVD). The underlying mechanism of viral replication and EBOV-related hemorrhage is not fully understood. Here, we show that EBOV VP35, a cofactor of viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, binds human A kinase interacting protein (AKIP1), which consequently activates protein kinase A (PKA) and the PKA-downstream transcription factor CREB1. During EBOV infection, CREB1 is recruited into EBOV ribonucleoprotein complexes in viral inclusion bodies (VIBs) and employed for viral replication. AKIP1 depletion or PKA-CREB1 inhibition dramatically impairs EBOV replication. Meanwhile, the transcription of several coagulation-related genes, including THBD and SERPINB2, is substantially upregulated by VP35-dependent CREB1 activation, which may contribute to EBOV-related hemorrhage. The finding that EBOV VP35 hijacks the host PKA-CREB1 signal axis for viral replication and pathogenesis provides novel potential therapeutic approaches against EVD. Ebola virus virion protein 35 (VP35) is a cofactor of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, required for viral assembly and IFN antagonist. Here, Zhu et al. provide evidence that EBOV VP35 induces an AKIP1-mediated (human A kinase interacting protein) activation of the PKA-CREB1 signaling pathway and contributes to viral replication and pathogenesis in vitro and in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data Center Networks (DCN), a core infrastructure of cloud computing, place heavy demands on efficient storage and management of massive data. The data storage scheme, which decides how to assign data to nodes for storage, has a significant impact on the performance of the data center. However, most of the existing solutions focus on where to store the data (i.e., the selection of storage node) but have not considered how to store them (i.e., the traffic management such as routing and transmission rate adjustment). By leveraging the Information-Centric Networks (ICN) architecture, this paper tackles the data storage and traffic management issue in Information-Centric Data Center Networks (ICDCN) based on Reinforcement Learning (RL) method, since RL has been developed as a promising solution to address dynamic network issues. We present a global optimization of joint traffic management and data storage and then solve it by the distributed multi-agent Q-learning. In ICDCN, the data is routed based on the data's name, which achieves better routing scalability by decoupling the data and its physical location. Compared with IP's stateless forwarding plane, the stateful forwarding information maintained at every node supports adaptively routing and hop-by-hop traffic control by using the Q-learning method. We evaluate our proposal on an NS-3-based simulator, and the results show that the proposed scheme can effectively reduce transmission time and increase throughput while achieving load-balanced among servers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internet of Things (IoT) provides the opportunity to access devices at any time by connecting hundreds of billions of devices. However, routing among the massive number of devices can be a huge challenge. The increasing network size and dynamics of IoT introduce unmanageable routing overhead caused by the maintaining and query of the routing table. As a future network architecture, Information-Centric Networking (ICN) is raised as a promising networking model for IoT. Thus, in this paper, we leverage the ICN and edge computing paradigm to design a routing scheme for IoT. First, we design a hybrid addressing scheme to assign virtual coordinates. The hybrid addressing not only provides a high routing success ratio but also has low address description complexity (i.e., has a short address). Then, we propose a hyperbolic edge routing scheme based on the virtual coordinate. We evaluate our proposal via an extensive simulation. Simulation results show that the proposed routing scheme has a low path stretch and high routing success ratio. Compared with the existing routing schemes, our proposal can reduce the delay and hop count, while achieving a high cache hit ratio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy optimization has become an emerging concern for cloud service providers. Existing methods focus on reducing the energy consumption of either server inside the data center or data transmission between data centers. Moreover, most of the works are based on assumptions that servers and workloads are homogeneous. This is not in accordance with the fact that modern data centers are built from various classes of servers. In this paper, we consider the joint energy optimization of intra- and inter-data center in both homo- and heterogeneous cases. We first propose an optimization model to minimize the joint energy cost of servers and network sides. To tackle the time-coupling constraint of carbon emission, we apply the Lyapunov optimization framework to transform the original problem into a well-studied queue stability problem. For better scalability of time complexity, we derive a distributed solution by using generalized benders decomposition. Then, we extend the model to deal with the situation where requests and data centers are heterogeneous as data centers are typically built from servers with different specifications. To better deal with the dynamic of the network (e.g., the occurrence of faults), we leverage a deep Q-network (DQN) and propose a fault-tolerant DQN-based solution. Finally, the simulation results show the high efficiency of our proposal in cost-saving and performance-enhancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are different defect combinations in natural rock mass. In the process of underground engineering excavation, the existence of defect combination poses a serious threat to the construction safety. In this paper, the uniaxial compression test of red sandstone with prefabricated defects combination angles of 15°, 30°, 45°, 60° and 90° was conducted by Shimadzu universal testing machine respectively, and the crack propagation law and mechanism of red sandstone with different defects are studied, The test results showed that the red sandstone with different angle defects only produced tensile cracks, there had not shear cracks, and finally resulted in tensile failure. This was due to the existence of defects combination which weakened the local stress concentration and releases part of energy in advance. With the increasing of the defect combination angle, the weakening degree of stress concentration increased, and the uniaxial compressive strength of the specimen decreased as a whole, and with 45° as the boundary. There was an obvious strength area division, and the failure time of the specimen was obviously prolonged, furthermore, the brittle failure characteristics of specimens are obviously weakened. The test results have important guiding significance and reference value for the construction design in the field of underground engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of its vital role of the trust-region subproblem (TRS) in various applications, for example, in optimization and in ill-posed problems, there are several factorization-free algorithms for solving the large-scale sparse TRS. The truncated Lanczos approach proposed by N. I. M. Gould, S. Lucidi, M. Roma, and P. L. Toint [SIAM J. Optim., 1999, 9: 504-525] is a natural extension of the classical Lanczos method for the symmetric linear system and eigenvalue problem and, indeed follows the classical Rayleigh-Ritz procedure for eigenvalue computations. It consists of 1) projecting the original TRS to the Krylov subspaces to yield smaller size TRS’s and then 2) solving the resulted TRS’s to get the approximates of the original TRS. This paper presents a posterior error bounds for both the global optimal value and the optimal solution between the original TRS and their projected counterparts. Our error bounds mainly rely on the factors from the Lanczos process as well as the data of the original TRS and, could be helpful in designing certain stopping criteria for the truncated Lanczos approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HMGB1-TLR4 axis is activated in adult mouse models of acute and chronic seizure. Nevertheless, whether HMGB1 was involved in the pathogenesis of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) remains unknown. In this study, we first measured the dynamic expression patterns of HMGB1 and TLR4 in the hippocampi of a rat model and in children with MTLE, as well as the levels of TNF-α and IL-1β. In addition, HMGB1 was added to mimic the process of inflammatory response in neurons. Neuronal somatic size and dendritic length were measured by immunohistochemistry and digital imaging. The results showed that the expression of HMGB1 and TLR4 as well as the levels of TNF-α and IL-1β were higher in the three stages of MTLE development in the rat model and in the children with MTLE. HMGB1 increased the levels of TNF-α and IL-1β, upregulated the protein level of p-p38MAPK and promoted the growth of cell somatic size and dendritic length in neurons. Pre-treatment with p38MAPK inhibitor SB203580 decreased the levels of TNF-α and IL-1β, while downregulation of TLR4 significantly reduced HMGB1-induced p38MAPK signaling pathway activation. These data demonstrated that the HMGB1-TLR4 axis may play an important role in the pathogenesis of MTLE via the p38MAPK signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate the prevalence and distribution of diverse chromosomal aberrations associated with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) in China. Bone marrow samples were collected from multiple cities in China. Metaphase cytogenetic (MC) analysis and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) were initially used to test chromosomal lesions. Affymetrix CytoScan 750 K genechip platform performed a genome-wide detection of chromosomal aberrations. Chromosomal gain was identified in 76 patients; the most prevalent was trisomy 8(17.9 %). New chromosomal gain was detected on chromosome 9, 19p, and X. Chromosomal loss was detected in 101 patients. The most frequent was loss 5q (21.0 %). Some loss and gain were not identified by MC or FISH but identified by genechip. UPD was solely identified by genechip in 51 patients; the most prevalent were UPD 7q (4.94 %) and UPD 17p (4.32 %). Furthermore, complex chromosomal aberrations were detected in 56 patients. In conclusion, Affymetrix CytoScan 750 K genechip was more precise than MC and FISH in detection of cryptic chromosomal aberrations relevant to MDS. Analysis of the prevalence and distribution of diverse chromosomal aberrations in China may improve strategies for MDS diagnosis and therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Uterine artery occlusion (UAO) is a promising method for the treatment of leiomyoma. This study is intended to demonstrate the discrepancy of ER stress-induced apoptosis in leiomyoma and myometrium as a result of UAO therapy. Methods: Primary cultured leiomyoma and myometrial cells were incubated in low oxygen supply (1 % O2). Then, real time RT-PCR and Western blotting were performed to analyze the mRNA and protein levels of ER stress-related molecules including GRP78, CHOP, JNK, Bax, Bcl-2 and Caspase4. Furthermore, the activity of Caspase4 was detected. Tissues of leiomyoma and myometria were also collected before and 30 min after UAO during surgery and evaluated. Results: The leiomyoma cells and tissues expressed higher ER stress-related molecules compared to myometrial cells or tissues, while the levels of Bcl-2, an anti-apoptotic protein, declined. In myometrial cells, an elevated level of Caspase4 activation as well as its expression was not significant during the first 12 h, suggesting that hypoxia might not intensely affect the myometrium compared with leiomyoma. Conclusion: ER stress-related apoptosis partly accounts for the effects of UAO therapy on uterine leiomyoma, which leads to the death of leiomyoma while maintaining the survival of the uterus itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Catch-up growth is always companied with later development of obesity and osteoporosis that are two interrelated clinical entities. However, the potential mechanism of the link between them during catch-up growth is unknown. Methods: Rats were divided into two groups. Rats of the normal control (NC) group were offered ad libitum access to food, while rats of CUGFR group were food restricted for 4 weeks, and then were allowed full access to food for 0, 2, 4 weeks, respectively. The fat percentage and distribution, bone mineral density, biochemical and histological indexes of bone were detected. Moreover, the expression of adipogenic or osteoblastic differentiation-related genes of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) was also determined. Results: Catch-up growth led to a rapid visceral fat accumulation. Although there was no difference in the histological indexes of bone between NC group and CUGFR group, the bone turnover marker, serum Bone Gla-protein (s-BGP), decreased in CUGFR group. The adipogenic differentiation-related gene of MSCs, PPAR-gamma, was significantly higher than that of NC group especially when catch-up growth for 4 weeks. Nevertheless, the osteoblastic differentiation-related gene of MSCs, Runx2, was increased but failed to reach the levels of the controls eventually. Both protein and mRNA of TAZ, a main transcriptional modulator of MSCs differentiation, failed to catch up even after being allowed full access to food for 4 weeks. Conclusion: CUGFR induces the differential differentiation of MSCs, potentially suppressing bone formation and favoring catch-up fat, which might be responsible for the increased risk of osteoporosis and obesity during CUGFR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To study the anticancer effect of Chinese compound recipe FuFangTengLiGen (FFTLG) against transplantation tumor of PG cell and preliminarily explore the connection with connexin43 (Cx43) and epithelial cadherin (E-cad). Model rats of transplantation tumor of human large cell cancer PG were established. The low, medium and high dose groups of FFTLG, the blank control group were set up. After 21 days medication of FFTLG through gastrogavage, the antitumor effect of each group was compared. The gene expressions of Cx43 and E-cad in each group were quantitatively detected and compared by the application of immunohistochemistry technique. FFTLG could significantly inhibit the growth of transplantation tumor. FFTLG could obviously up-regulate the expressions of Cx43 and E-cad, which in the low/medium and high dose groups were separately higher than that in the blank group. FFTLG has definite antitumor effect against human large cell cancer and can obviously up-regulate the expressions of Cx43 and E-cad, which may be correlated with its effect of anti-tumor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The preventive effects of nitroglycerine (NG) on glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis in growing rats were studied. Three-month-old female Wistar rats were randomly divided into control group (CON), dexamethasone group (DXM), DXM plus a low dose NG group (NG-L), DXM plus a middle dose NG group (NG-M) and DXM plus a high dose NG group (NG-H), 8 rats in each group. The rat model of osteoporosis was developed by intramuscular injection of dexamethasone twice a week. NG 0.2, 0.4 and 1.0 mg/kg was administered by oral gavages to the treatment groups every day for 12 weeks. Rats in CON group and DXM group were treated with normal saline of the same amount. After the treatment, the bone mineral density (BMD) and bone metabolism-associated biochemical markers were determined. Compared with CON group, BMD of lumbar spine and femur in DXM group was decreased significantly ( P<0.05 and P<0.01 respectively), blood BGP levels and NO levels reduced (both P<0.01), and TRAP level increased ( P<0.05). As compared with DXM group, BMD, serum BGP and NO were increased, and TRAP decreased in NG-L group and NG-M group, but had no significant difference in comparison to CON group. All the markers other than serum NO and TRAP levels had no significant difference between NG-H group and DXM group. It was concluded that low or middle doses of NG could prevent glucocorticoid-induced bone loss in growing rats, but high dose of NG could not. Supplement with NO donor could be considered as a preventive treatment for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis in a developing skeleton. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze positive rates of the specific proteins CagA,VacA, UreA and UreB of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) in people in Xinin city Qinghai Province, a district with a high prevalence of gastric carcinoma, and to examine the relationship among the incidence, gross diagnosis and pathologic diagnosis. The gastric tissue biopsy specimens taken under endoscopy were examined by CLO,WS and Western Blot to judge the condition of the Hp infection. The positive rates of Hp CagA,VacA,UreA and UreB that had infected patients were evaluated. The positive rate of UreA was markedly lower in chronic superficial gastritis (CSG) than in duodenal ulcer (DU) and compound ulcer, and also lower than in chronic atrophic gastritis(CAG), gastric ulcer(GU) and gastric cancinoma. However the positive rate of UreB was notably lower in duodenal ulcer and gastric ulcer than in chronic superficial gastritis and atrophic gastritis. The rates of UreB found in intestinal epithelial metaplasia, atrophie gastritis and gastric carcinoma were notably lower than in other diseases, however, it was markedly increased in chronic superficial gastritis. No differences ere found among CagA and VacA of specimens with different endoscopie diagnosis or pathologic diagnosis. The UreA in Hp may be relevant to the pathogenic mechanism of severe gastric diseases. However, UreB may have some protective effect on severe gastric diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]