Search

As an efficient flocculant, polyacrylamide (PAM) is widely used in water treatment process. The acrylamide monomer (AM) produced by depolymerization of residual PAM has been listed as a class IIA carcinogen, and its treatment is imminent. Flotation tailing (TC) was used as raw material to prepare a modified tailing matrix by alkali excitation. Nano-TiO2 was loaded onto the modified tailing matrix by hydrothermal method to prepare tailing-based nano-TiO2 composite (TiO2/TC) and Pb-doped tailing-based nano-TiO2 composite (Pb-TiO2/TC). The photocatalytic degradation properties of TC, modified coal matrix, TiO2/TC and Pb-TiO2/TC were analyzed with PAM as the target pollutant. The samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, UV-vis and BET, and the degradation products were analyzed and studied by high performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The degradation mechanism of PAM was explored. The results show that TC is irregular and the surface is rough; the surface of TiO2/TC is loose, the pore structure is obvious, and the fine tubular TiO2 is uniformly coated on the surface of modified tailings. The structure of Pb-TiO2/TC is more fluffy, and the modified coal matrix is loaded with more tubular TiO2. The band gap of TiO2/TC was 3.16 eV, and Pb2+ doping reduced the band gap of Pb-TiO2/TC to 3.08 eV. The specific surface area of TiO2 is 286.66 m2/g, the specific surface area of TiO2/TC and Pb-TiO2/TC are 360.33 m2/g and 358.54 m2/g. The higher specific surface area provides more active sites for the reaction, and the adsorption-catalytic synergistic effect significantly improves the photocatalytic efficiency. The degradation rates of PAM by TC and modified tailing matrix were 3.39% and 4.68%. The degradation rates of polyacrylamide by TiO2/TC and Pb-TiO2/TC loaded with TiO2 increased to 38.92% and 63.87%. After five cycles, the photocatalytic properties of TiO2/TC and Pb-TiO2/TC remained basically unchanged. In the degradation process of PAM, the macromolecular PAM breaks into small molecular weight PAM molecules, and further decomposes into NO3−, acrylic acid, acetamide and acetic acid.

Abstract Antenna arrays have gained significant interest in millimetre‐wave communication systems as an enabling technology to achieve higher capacity and mitigate the high propagation loss. Such arrays with a large bandwidth need to be efficiently calibrated to maximise their performance. An antenna array calibration method based on a stochastic approximation algorithm and simultaneous perturbation has been developed and the procedures to implement it in both frequency and time domains have been presented. The approaches to define objective functions and establish gradient approximations to fulfill a successful convergence for acquiring calibration coefficients in both domains have been explored. In the time domain implementation, only a fraction of the measurement time was required to calibrate an antenna array of ultrawide bandwidth compared with other methods using a perturbation technique. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been validated via numerical experiments in both domains.

Recent studies reveal that tumor microenvironment contributes to breast cancer (BRCA) development, progression, and therapeutic response. However, the contribution of the tumor microenvironment-related genes in routine diagnostic testing or therapeutic decision making for BRCA remains elusive. Immune/stromal/ESTIMATE scores calculated by the ESTIMATE algorithm quantify immune and stromal components in a tumor, and thus can reflect tumor microenvironment. To investigate the association of the tumor microenvironment-related genes with invasive BRCA prognosis, here we analyzed the immune/stromal/ESTIMATE scores in combination with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database in invasive BRCA. We found that immune/stromal/ESTIMATE scores were significantly correlated with the invasive BRCA clinicopathological factors. Based on the immune/stromal/ESTIMATE scores, we extracted a series of differential expression genes (DEGs) related to the tumor microenvironment. Survival analysis was further performed to identify a list of high-frequency DEGs (HF-DEGs), which exhibited prognostic value in invasive BRCA. Importantly, consistent with the results of bioinformatics analysis, immunohistochemistry results showed that high SASH3 expression was associated with a good prognosis in invasive BRCA patients. Our findings suggest that the tumor microenvironment-related HF-DEGs identified in this study have prognostic values and may serve as potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets for invasive BRCA.

OBJECTIVES: Parkinson’s disease (PD) and the parkinsonian variant of multiple system atrophy (MSA-P) are distinct neurodegenerative disorders that share similar clinical features of parkinsonism. The morphological alterations of these diseases have yet to be understood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate gray matter atrophy in PD and MSA-P using regions of interest (ROI)-based measurements and voxel-based morphometry (VBM). METHODS: We studied 41 patients with PD, 20 patients with MSA-P, and 39 controls matched for age, sex, and handedness using an improved T1-weighted sequence that eased gray matter segmentation. The gray matter volumes were measured using ROI and VBM. RESULTS: ROI volumetric measurements showed significantly reduced bilateral putamen volumes in MSA-P patients compared with those in PD patients and controls (p

Purpose: To investigate the neuroprotective effects of deloratine A on liposaccharide (LPS)-induced microglia activation in vitro and in a rat model of ischemia-reperfusion injury. Methods: LPS-induced microglial activation was successfully established in mouse microglia BV2 cell line. Then, the cells were randomly divided into model group, 2.5 μM delavatine A group, 5 μM delavatine A group, and 10 μM delavatine A group. The effect of delavatine A on the release of NO, TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 in BV2 cells was determined. In the vivo studies, 21 male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were used to establish a rat model of ischemia-reperfusion injury, and effect of delavatine A on neural function and cerebral infarction area was determined. Results: The NO content was significantly higher in LPS-induced microglial activation model than in blank control, but it was significantly lower in the 3 delavatine A groups than in model group (p < 0.05). The expression levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 were significantly higher in model group than in blank control group, but they were significantly and dose-dependently lower in delavatine A groups than in model group (p < 0.05). In the in vivo rat studies, neural function score and cerebral infarction area in the model group were significantly higher than those in the sham group, while cerebral infarction area in delavatine A groups were significantly lower than that in the model group (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Delavatine A significantly reduces the inflammation associated with LPS-induced microglial activation, mitigates loss of neural function, and reduces cerebral infarction area in rats with ischemia-reperfusion injury. These findings may lead to the development of new neuroprotective drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correlations for nucleate boiling heat transfer should be improved, or in the long term possibly be replaced, by the development of mechanistic simulations that include the non-uniform spacing and variable characteristics of the nucleation sites and non-linear interactions between the sites. This paper discusses the interactions that should be included in simulations and some lessons from a first attempt to validate a particular simulation against experimental spatio-temporal data for wall temperature. Input data for nucleation site positions and characteristics are a particular problem and the prospects for obtaining this data from measurements that are independent of boiling are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]