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The chlor‐alkali process is currently the predominant technology for caustic soda production but has several major challenges, such as enormous energy demand and supply–demand imbalance between NaOH and Cl2 in downstream industries. Herein, we propose a novel ion‐injection bipolar membrane electrodialysis (IJBMED) system that is capable of boosting water splitting in a bipolar membrane with an ultrahigh current density while omittance concentration polarization in anion‐ and cation‐exchange membranes. The results indicate that the IJBMED approach enables one‐step conversion of the NaCl‐containing brine stream into 8.12 mol/L NaOH with specific energy consumption of 0.79 kWh/kg NaOH (23 wt.% → 25 wt.%), compared to 2.15 kWh/kg NaOH (28 wt.% → 30 wt.%) for the chlor‐alkali process. The advantages of low energy consumption and omittance of chlorine emissions suggest that IJBMED might be a promising alternative to the chlor‐alkali process, revealing a new route to reshape the chemical industry for caustic soda production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) is being developed as a competitive technology for waste lithium‐ion battery recovery. However, the purity and concentration of lithium hydroxide generated from a BMED plant could not meet the product criteria for ternary lithium batteries, thus requiring additional condensation, purification, evaporation, and crystallization procedures. Herein, bipolar membrane crystallization (BMC) was proposed for the one‐step conversion of sulfate lithium into high‐purity lithium hydroxide monohydrate crystals. By mediating a continuous saturated feedstock in the salt compartment, it is possible to convert Li2SO4 into 5+ mol/L LiOH at a current density higher than 500 A/m2. Therefore, this unique design allows the production of 99.9% LiOH∙H2O by taking the principle of water dissociation in the bipolar membrane and the simultaneous crystallization procedure. This proof‐of‐concept study proves the feasibility and competitiveness of the BMC for waste lithium recovery by abandoning the condensation and evaporation procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electro‐membrane reactors use electro‐membranes for preferentially diffusive/electrophoretic migration or electroosmotic separation of in‐situ reactive products, thereby maximizing the reaction rate and transport efficiencies of the products. These reactors are widely employed in the chemical engineering sectors such as green chemical synthesis, biorefining, electrocatalytic reduction/oxidation, and water treatment. In this review article, we provide an overview of the recent advances in three categories of electro‐membrane reactors in chemical engineering sectors from three categories: (1) Electro‐membrane reactors based on stacked ion‐exchange membranes for resources recovery; (2) Electro‐membrane reactors via Faraday reactions on functional anodes/cathodes for substance transformation; and (3) Closed‐loop chemical reactions and substance separation via coupling of Faraday reactions and stacked membranes. The increasing demand for low‐carbon economy has accelerated the advancement of environmentally friendly chemical engineering and sustainable processes and necessitates the use of electro‐membrane processes. The macro perspective provides a timely reference for researchers and engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: The utilization of cyclobutanones as the synthon in transition metal catalysis has been made great success. Because C(carbonyl)−C bond of cyclobutanones can be cleaved through strain release. Despite those advancements, the main catalysts in literature are Rh catalysts or Ni catalysts and the reaction with C—H bond is still underdeveloped. Herein, we realized the first palladium‐catalyzed skeletal reorganization of cyclobutanones involving successive cleavage of C(carbonyl)−C bonds and C—H bond cleavage, which constitutes an rapid access to diverse indanones. In contrast to the previous Rh‐catalytic system, the Pd‐catalytic system herein involves different mechanism and features several advantages: 1) no need of directing group to facilitate the C(carbonyl)−C bond cleavage; 2) much milder reaction condition and 3) simplified work‐up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) is a promising technique for upgrading traditional manufacturing procedures and achieving a circular economy. However, the industrial applications of BMED technology have been restricted by the large consumption of expensive bipolar membranes and the unmatching behavior between water splitting and ion migration. Herein, we proposed a novel asymmetric bipolar membrane electrodialysis (ABMED) to regulate the water splitting in the bipolar membrane and orientational ion migration in the electrodialysis (ED). It was found that the ABMED exhibited comparable performances to BMED for acid/base production when the area of the bipolar membrane was reduced to 50% of the monopolar membrane. The total process cost of ABMED was 0.78 $/kg NaOH, which is 21% lower than the BMED process. The asymmetric membrane design was capable to boost the water splitting in the bipolar membrane and to eliminate the concentration polarization in the ED process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Piezoelectric vibration suppression technology (PVST) utilizes the inverse piezoelectric effect of piezoelectric materials to suppress the vibration of mechanisms through stress or strain. Cantilever beam, the most widely used mechanical structure, is trapped with the forced and redundant vibration while working which is the hot spot for both academia and industry. This article presents a comprehensive review of the dynamic model via three aspects. From the viewpoint of piezoelectric materials, it is most concerned about the influences of the materials, installation, and operating characteristics of the piezoelectric actuator on the performance of the actuator. Furthermore, this article summarizes and analyzes the existing control system and filtering method from the perspective of quick response and effective suppression. As a consequence, this article summarizes and analyzes the current status and problems of PVST of the cantilever beam, and points out that the PVST has the problems of small size, simplified model, and lack of experiment. It points out that PVST of cantilever beam should be developed in the direction of larger size, high precision, and engineering application. This article systematically summarizes and analyzes the research status and existing problems of PVST in cantilever beam structures for the first time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mycotoxin altertoxin I (ATX‐I) is one of secondary metabolites produced by Alternaria fungi and is frequently detected as food and feed contaminants. Little is known about the genotoxicity of the ATX‐I. In order to evaluate potential genotoxicity and general toxicity of ATX‐I, the novel 28‐day multiendpoint (Pig‐a assay + micronucleus [MN] test + comet assay) genotoxicity platform was applied. Male Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats were randomized to five groups (six rats per group), that is, a positive control group (N‐ethyl‐N‐nitrosourea [ENU], 40 mg/kg.bw/d), two solvent control groups (PBS and corn oil), and two ATX‐I‐treated groups (low‐dose group [1.10 μg/kg.bw/d] and high‐dose group [5.51 μg/kg.bw/d]). Treatments were administered by oral gavage to male SD rats for 28 consecutive days. Histopathological damages in the liver, kidney, and spleen were observed, but without significant changes in hematological and serum biochemical parameters. Genotoxic endpoints indicated that ATX‐I could cause DNA damage. To summarize, in a relatively low‐dose range, ATX‐I may not have direct genotoxicity in vivo but could induce liver, kidney, and spleen damage. General toxicity and genotoxicity of ATX‐I was evaluated with the multiendpoint assay in rats, combining the flow‐cytometric MN test, the comet assay, and the Pig‐a assay, and this is the first report of the in vivo genotoxicity of ATX‐I. The results indicated that constant exposure to ATX‐I could cause DNA damage and induce liver, kidney, and spleen damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Difenoconazole (DFC) is a typical triazole fungicide. Because of its effective bactericidal activity, it has been widely used in agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables. This study revealed the cytotoxic effect of fungicide DFC on mouse monocyte macrophage RAW264.7. The results showed that the IC50 value of DFC on RAW264.7 cells was 37.08 μM (24 h). DFC can significantly inhibit the viability of RAW264.7 cells, induce DNA damage and enhance apoptosis. The established cytotoxicity test showed that DFC‐induced DNA double strand breaks in RAW264.7 cells. DFC‐treated cells showed typical morphological changes of apoptosis, including chromatin condensation and nuclear lysis. In addition, DFC can induce the release of Cyt c, promote the collapse of mitochondrial membrane potential and increase the Bax/Bcl‐2 ratio in RAW264.7 cells. Through this research, people further understand the toxicity of DFC and provide a more scientific basis for its safety application and risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have greatly improved the Face Recognition (FR) performance in recent years. Almost all CNNs in FR are trained on the carefully labeled datasets containing plenty of identities. However, such high‐quality datasets are very expensive to collect, which restricts many researchers to achieve state‐of‐the‐art performance. In this paper, a framework, called SeqFace, for learning discriminative face features is proposed. Besides a traditional identity training dataset, the designed SeqFace can train CNNs by using an additional dataset which includes a large number of face sequences collected from videos. Moreover, the label smoothing regularization (LSR) and a new proposed discriminative sequence agent (DSA) loss are employed to enhance the discrimination power of deep face features via making full use of the sequence data. Only with a single ResNet model, the method achieves very competitive performance on several face recognition benchmarks, including LFW, YTF, CFP, AgeDB, and MegaFace. The code and model are publicly available at the website https://github.com/huangyangyu/SeqFace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Permian period of the southern China North Plate, a layer of marine mudstone (source rock) with oil and gas potential has been widely deposited, with a thickness of about 10.4 m, but their formation mechanism remains unclear. Here, through the application of various analysis techniques, the mineral composition of the mudstone and a series of related geochemical data are obtained to investigate their sedimentary environment and tectonic setting. Mineral composition analysis describes that marine mudstone is mainly composed of quartz, illite, kaolinite, montmorillonite, and other silicate minerals, while carbonate components such as calcite are rare. Meanwhile, the higher content of clay minerals promoted the organic matter during the deposition period enrichment. Indicators and diagrams (i.e., chemical index of alteration [CIA] [> 80], index of compositional variability [ICV] [~ 0.6], A‐CN‐K, Th/Sr vs. Zr/Sr) reveal that marine mudstone was deposited for the first time under strong weathering. Some trace element ratios and redox elements provide evidence that in warm and arid climates, mudstones are deposited under oxic‐anoxic conditions based on the participation of seawater, which is consistent with the conclusion of palaeomagnetics. The binary discriminant diagrams of Al2O3 versus TiO2, Hf‐La/Th versus Ni‐TiO2 suggest that the marine mudstone parent rock is felsic igneous rock, and the lithology may be granite. Combining the regional structural evolution and the direction of transgression during the sedimentary period, it is speculated that the provenance of marine mudstone is the North Qinling tectonic belt in the southwest of the study area and the Yinshan ancient land in the north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological ion channels with delicate ion transport functions exist widely in living organisms. Bioinspired solid‐state channels have emerged as promising platforms to mimic the working mechanism of natural channels. These channels help in understanding the mechanism of ion transport in biosystems and pave the way for applications in several interesting areas. Metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs), constructed by connecting metal ions and organic ligands, exhibit high porosity and unique pore structures. They also possess tunable pore sizes and are versatile in their compositions. And there are rich molecule/ion‐specific functional groups in the frameworks, which can intelligently modulate ion transport. Thus, MOFs are promising candidates that mimic biological ion channels. Herein, the recent progress in the design and construction of artificial solid‐state MOF‐based channels is focused on. The excellent ion transport properties of MOF‐based membranes are also summarized, including ionic selectivity, ionic rectification, and ionic gating. Following this, four emerging ion transport applications, namely, energy conversion, ion/molecule separation, biosensing, and water desalination, are highlighted. Finally, an outlook on future developments and challenges in this exciting research area is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To evaluate the effects of fatty acids on endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, oxidative stress, and lipid damage. We treated BRL3A rat liver cells with, linoleic (LA), linolenic, oleic (OA), palmitic (PA), palmitoleic (POA), or stearic (SA) acid for 12 hr. The characteristics of cell lipid deposition, oxidative stress indexes, ER stress markers, nuclear factor κB p65 (NF‐κB p65), lipid synthesis and transport regulators, and cholesterol metabolism regulators were analyzed. Endoplasmic chaperones like glucose‐regulated protein 78, CCAAT‐enhancer‐binding protein, NF‐κB p65, hydrogen peroxide, and malonaldehyde in PA‐ and SA‐treated cells were significantly higher than in other treated cells. Deposition of fatty acids especially LA and POA were significantly increased than in other treated cells. De novo lipogenesis regulators sterol regulatory element‐binding protein 1c, fatty acid synthase, and acetyl‐coenzyme A carboxylase 1 (ACC1) expression were significantly increased in all fatty acid stimulation groups, and PA‐ and SA‐treated cells showed lower p‐ACC1 expression and higher scd1 expression than other fatty acid groups. Very low‐density lipoprotein synthesis and apolipoprotein B100 expression in free fatty acids treated cells were significantly lower than control. PA, SA, OA, and POA had shown significantly increased cholesterol synthesis than other treated cells. PA and SA showed the lower synthesis of cytochrome P7A1 and total bile acids than other fatty acids treated cells. Excess of saturated fatty acids led to severe ER and oxidative stress. Excess unsaturated fatty acids led to increased lipid deposition in cultured hepatocytes. A balanced fatty acid intake is needed to maintain lipid homeostasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Copper-Catalyzed Domino Reactions: Conjugate Alkylative Aldol Addition/Lactonization of α, β-Unsaturated Diesters," by L. Jiang and Z. Li is presented.