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Although microplastic (MP) pollution has recently garnered increasing attention, few studies have examined the effects of these small particles on the vascular system.

Two global experiments were carried out to investigate the effects of dynamic vegetation processes on numerical climate simulations from 1948 to 2008. The National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) was coupled with a biophysical model, the Simplified Simple Biosphere model (SSiB) version 2 (GFS/SSiB2), and the same model coupled with a biophysical and dynamic vegetation model, SSiB version 4/Top-down Representation of Interactive Foliage and Flora Including Dynamics (TRIFFID) (GFS/SSiB4/TRIFFID). The effects of dynamic vegetation processes on the simulation of precipitation, near-surface temperature and the surface energy budget were identified on monthly and annual scales by assessing the GFS/SSiB4T/TRIFFID and GFS/SSiB2 results against the satellite-derived leaf area index and albedo and the observed land surface temperature and precipitation. The results show that, compared with the GFS/SSiB2 model, the temporal correlation coefficients between the globally averaged monthly simulated leaf area index and the Global Inventory Monitoring and Modeling System (GIMMS)/Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS) leaf area index in the GFS/SSiB4/TRIFFID simulation increased from 0.31/0.29 (SSiB2) to 0.47/0.46 (SSiB4). The correlation coefficients between the simulated and observed monthly mean near-surface air temperature increased from 0.50 (Africa), 0.35 (Southeast Asia) and 0.39 (South America) to 0.56, 0.41, and 0.44, respectively. The correlation coefficients between the model-simulated and observed monthly mean precipitation increased from 0.19 (Africa), 0.22 (South Asia), and 0.22 (East Asia) to 0.25, 0.27, and 0.28, respectively. The greatest improvement occurred over arid and semiarid areas. The spatiotemporal variability and changes in vegetation and ground surface albedo modeled by the GFS with a dynamic vegetation model were more consistent with the observations. The dynamic vegetation processes contributed to the surface energy and water balance and, in turn, improved the annual variations in the simulated regional temperature and precipitation. The dynamic vegetation processes had the greatest influence on the spatiotemporal changes in the latent heat flux. This study shows that dynamic vegetation processes in Earth system models significantly improve simulations of the climate mean status.

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs), such as, 1,2,5,6-tetrabromocyclooctane (HBCD), 1,2-dibromo-4-(1,2-dibromopropyl)cyclohexane (TBECH), and 1 1,2-bis-(2,4,6-tribromophenoxy)ethane (BTBPE), have garnered increasing attention due to their potent biological effects. In the present study, the toxicity of HBCD, TBECH, and BTBPE in human vascular endothelial cells (ECs) was explored. The data showed that HBCD, TBECH, and BTBPE induced cytotoxicity, namely dose-dependent cell viability reduction, cell membrane permeability and apoptosis increase, migration, and lumen formation inhibition. Moreover, HBCD was found to be more toxic than BTBPE or TBECH. Exposure to HBCD, TBECH, and BTBPE led to the production of reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial superoxide generation, and mitochondrial membrane potential collapse, implying that reactive stress caused the cytotoxicity. The ATP content, glutathione content, superoxide dismutase, and MDA activities were reduced, indicating that mitochondrial dysfunction may be the key mechanisms responsible for apoptosis. The present study suggested that mitochondria are a new target of BFRs in ECs and further deepened our understanding of the developmental toxicity of BFRs.

Investigating the long-term effects of microplastics (MPs) in vivo is necessary for evaluating its biological toxicity. Previously, we showed that MPs elicit vascular dysfunctions in atherosclerotic mice. However, the effects of long-term treatment with environmental levels of MPs on biological functions and RNA expression profiles in wild-type mice are unknown. Here, C57BL/6 mice were administered 1000 μg/L MPs through their drinking water for 180 days. Transcriptomic analyses, biochemical analysis, and histopathological examination were conducted to determine the key signals and molecular mechanisms triggered by MPs in vivo using whole transcriptome sequencing, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and histopathological analysis. Notably, our data revealed that MPs aggravated vascular lesions and organ injuries, particularly liver, kidney, and heart injuries. Additionally, MPs exacerbated oxidative injuries by inhibiting the activities of antioxidant enzymes and increasing the levels of the serum biochemistry indicator of organ damage. RNA sequencing of vascular tissues showed that 674 mRNAs, 39 lncRNAs, 196 miRNAs, and 565 circRNAs were abnormally expressed in MPs-treated mice compared with the untreated group. Pathway enrichment analyses identified pathways linked to the toxicity of MPs, including lysosomal, NOD-like receptor, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor pathways. Additionally, competing endogenous RNA networks were constructed and hub RNAs were identified using bioinformatics analysis. Taken together, our data suggested that toxicity induced by long-term exposure to MPs continually presents with extensive changes in biological features and global gene expression profiles. Our data provides new insights into the biological toxicity of MPs.

Security inspection is extremely important for the safety of public places. In this research, we are trying to propose a novel algorithm and investigated theoretically in the X-ray dataset, which can optimize the relative low detection accuracy and the latent omission detection of smaller objects when using You Only Look Once version 5 (YOLOv5). For one side, the transform detection network is selected to be added at the bottom layer of backbone structure to avoid the loss of useful information during sequential calculation. On another side, we attempt to adjust the existing PANet structural elements of the model, including their connections and other related parameters to improve the detection performance. We integrate an efficient BiFPN with the CA mechanism, which can enhance feature extraction, and named it attention-BiFPN. Experimental consequences demonstrate that the detection accuracy of the proposed model, which we name “TB-YOLOv5,” has obvious advantages in check performance compared with the mainstream one-stage object detection models. Meanwhile, compared with YOLOv5, the data results display an improvement of up to 14.9%, and the average precision at 0.5 IOU even reached 23.4% higher in the region of small object detection. Our purpose was to explore the potential of changing a popular detection algorithm such as YOLO to address specific tasks and provide insights on how specialized adjustments can influence the detection of small objects. Our work can supply an effective method of enhancing the performance of X-ray security inspection and show promising potential for deep learning in related fields.

A composite of cobalt tetracarboxyl phthalocyanine and amino-functionalized manganese octahedral molecular sieve (CNOMS-2) was synthesized in a simple way, and applied for degrading diclofenac in aqueous media by catalyzing of peroxymonosulfate heterogeneously. The experiment results revealed that the CNOMS-2/PMS system was highly efficient for DCF degradation in the pH range of 5-9, and the mechanism involved the generation of OH, SO4⁻ and 1O2 by the activation of PMS. The main reactive oxygen species was found to be 1O2 by radical scavenging experiments and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Further, a carboxylation product of DCF at m/z 340 was found to be a prominent intermediate of the reaction in this system specially, as determined by LC-MS/MS. The reusability and ion leaching concentrations under different pH were also examined to determine the application prospects of the catalyst.

The file named "datashare.zip" includes vegetation fractions, daily soil wetness, daily discharge, evapotranspiration and runoff produced by SSiB4/TRIFFID, SSiB4E/TRIFFID and SSiB4T/TRIFFID.

To solve the problem lack of RGB-D dataset for training, a salient object detection algorithm by cross dataset training only using RGB dataset is proposed. First, a simple convolutional neural network is designed to prediction foreground and background trained on RGB dataset MSRA10k. Then, the SLIC superpixel segmentation method is used to fuse the depth image information and cluster pixels, which can segment the edge of salient object more accurately. Finally, based on the global distribution characteristics of salient objects, superpixels are labeled using kernel probability density estimation. In order to verify the effectiveness, the proposed algorithm is compared with three newer algorithms, which has achieved better detection results in terms of PR curve, AUC and F-Measure. Experimental results show that the proposed method can improve the salient object detection of RGB-D image in the absence of RGB-D images for training.

Up-flow biological activated carbon (BAC) filters have been empirically employed in drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs) to address the challenges of its down-flow counterparts (e.g., high head loss and insufficient use of BAC beds), yet their performances and mechanisms toward ammonia removal are not fully evaluated. This study characterized the occurrence, distribution, and diversities of nitrifiers in up-flow and down-flow BAC filters by investigating 18 full-scale drinking water treatment trains in different geographic locations. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis of gene markers of target microorganisms demonstrated higher numbers of total bacteria, ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), and Nitrospira in the up-flow filters relative to the down-flow filters (P < 0.05), implying enhanced biological activities and nitrification potential within up-flow filters. The dominance of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) over AOB (i.e., 1.3-4.0 log10 gene copies higher) in 17 BAC filters illustrated the critical role of AOA in drinking water nitrification. Stratification of biomass was mainly found in the down-flow filters rather than the up-flow filters, suggesting better mixing of filter media across up-flow filter beds. Analysis of similarity results revealed that the AOA and Nitrospira community compositions were mainly affected by water sources and locations (P < 0.05) but not flow configurations. These results provide insight into nitrification mechanisms in BAC filters with different flow configurations in real-world DWTPs.

Regeneration is required to restore the adsorption performance of activated carbon used as an adsorbent in water purification. Conventional thermal and electrochemical regenerations have high energy consumption and poor mineralization of pollutants, respectively. In this study, phenol-saturated activated carbon fiber was regenerated in situ using an electro-peroxymonosulfate (E-PMS) process, which mineralized the desorbed contaminants with relatively low energy consumption. The initial adsorbed phenol (81.90%) was mineralized, and only 4.07% of the initial concentration remained in the solution after 6 h of E-PMS regeneration. The phenol degradation was dominated by hydroxyl radical oxidation. Adding the PMS in three doses at 2 h intervals improves the regeneration performance from 75% to more than 82%. Regeneration retained 60% of its initial effectiveness even in the 10th cycle with 4.40% of the initial concentration of phenol remaining in the solution. These results confirm the E-PMS regeneration process as effective, sustainable, and environmentally friendly for regenerating activated carbon.

The development of photocatalysts with visible light response is of great significance to cope with energy crisis and environmental remediation. In this study, a visible light-driven photocatalyst reduced graphene oxide/ZnIn2S4 (rGO/ZIS) was prepared by a facile one-pot hydrothermal method. The photocatalyst was used for the degradation of naproxen under visible light illumination and it exhibited remarkably degradation efficiency (nearly 99% within 60 min). The improved photocatalytic degradation performance can be attributed to the enhancement of light adsorption capacity and effective separation of photoinduced electron–hole pairs. The reactive species quenching experiments and EPR measurements demonstrated that superoxide radical (O2−) and hole (h+) play a dominant role in the photocatalytic degradation reactions. In addition, the degradation intermediates were identified and the degradation pathway was suggested.

Manganese oxide octahedral molecular sieve (OMS-2) and a series of OMS-2 doped with Co, Cu, and Ce were prepared via a solvent-free method, and tested in heterogeneous activation of peroxymonosulfate (PMS) for diclofenac (DCF) degradation in aqueous solutions. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), N2 adsorption/desorption isotherms, Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were used to characterize the properties of those materials. It was found that (Co + Ce)-OMS-2 seemed to be most efficient and had the best adsorption capacity, which may due to most abundant lattice oxygen and more macropore than other materials caused by cerium ions enter into the channel. Results from XPS suggested that the highly catalytic efficiency possible involved the activation of PMS to sulfate and hydroxyl radical meditated by the redox pair of Mn(IV)/Mn(III) and Co(III)/Co(II) in catalysts. Keywords: Manganese oxide octahedral molecular sieve, Diclofenac, Peroxymonosulfate

Nitrate photolysis can produce reactive species that may affect the fate of coexisting micropollutants in the aquatic environment. In this study, the photo-degradation of naproxen (NPX) in the presence of nitrate was investigated. The observed pseudo-first-order rate constant ( k obs ) increased linearly with the nitrate dosage increasing from 1 mM to 10 mM. According to the EPR analysis and the quenching experiments, hydroxyl radicals (HO•) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS, mainly NO2•) were found to play major roles in NPX degradation at pH 7.0 with the contribution of 34.3% and 40.7%, respectively. The k obs decreased with increasing pH due to the lower contribution of HO• and RNS. Moreover, water matrix components impacted the kinetics of NPX decomposition differently. Natural organic matter (NOM) had an inhibitory effect on the degradation of NPX, while bicarbonate and chloride ions slightly promoted the degradation. Furthermore, the degradation products in the system were identified by UPLC Q-TOF-MS analysis, and the transformation of NPX was shown to be mainly side-chain cleavage, hydroxylation, ring-opening, and nitration, indicating the role of HO• as well as RNS. According to the cytotoxicity assay and the toxicity of identified products predicted by ECOSAR program, the formation of several toxic products with aldehyde and nitro groups led to the increased toxicity during NPX degradation. Our study provides insights into the transformation mechanisms and the toxicity evolution of NPX in the photolysis system.

This study investigated the UV/persulfate (UV/PS) and UV/chlorine processes as alternative method for the removal of clofibric acid (CA). The formation of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) during subsequent chlor(am)ination was also evaluated. The degradation of CA followed the pseudo-first order kinetics. The second-order rate constants of CA with SO4 −, OH and Cl were respectively determined as k SO 4 - ,CA = (1.73 ± 0.01) × 109 M−1 s−1, k OH ,CA = (2.72 ± 0.08) × 109 M−1 s−1 and k Cl ,CA = (9.76 ± 0.15) × 1010 M−1 s−1. The degradation rate constant increased with increasing oxidant dosage in UV/PS and UV/chlorine processes. The degradation rate constant was found to be the highest at pH 9 and decreased dramatically at pH 11 in UV/PS process. For UV/chlorine, the rate constant continuously decreased with increasing pH from 3 to 11. Presence of HCO3− and Cl− had different effects (promotion and/or inhibition) on CA degradation in both processes. An inhibition effect was observed in the presence of NOM for the two UV-based processes. The higher CA removal in real water suggested the two processes were suitable for treating water containing CA, and the UV/chlorine was more cost-effective than UV/PS based on the total cost of electrical energy. Compared with the chlor(am)ination of CA, the UV/PS and UV/chlorine pre-oxidation significantly impacted the DBP formation during subsequent chlor(am)ination, which indicated the application of the two UV-based processes needs to be carefully balanced against the downstream effect on DBP formation.

Depth estimation is a fundamental task in light field (LF) related applications. However, conventional light field suffers from the lack of features, which introduces depth ambiguity and heavy computation load to depth estimation. In this paper, we introduce phase light field (PLF), which uses sinusoidal fringes as patterns and the latent phases as the codes. With PLF and the re-formatted phase-epipolar-plane-images (phase EPIs), a global cost minimization framework is proposed to estimate the depth. In general, EPI-based depth estimation tests a set of candidate lines to find the optimal one with most similar intensities, and the slope of the optimal line is converted to disparity and depth. Based on this principle, for phase-EPI, we propose a cost with weighted phase variance in the candidate line, and we prove that the cost is a convex function. After that, the beetle antennae search (BAS) optimization algorithm is utilized to find the optimal line and thus depth can be obtained. Finally, a bilateral filter is incorporated to further improve the depth quality. Simulation and real experimental results demonstrate that, the proposed method can produce accurate depth maps, especially at boundary regions. Moreover, the proposed method achieves an acceleration of about 5.9 times over the state-of-the-art refocus method with comparable depth quality, and thus can facilitate practical applications.

AgCl/Ag 3 PO 4 /g-C 3 N 4 composites with different molar ratios of AgCl were synthesized using a facile anion-exchange method. The characterization analysis indicated that an AgCl film covered the Ag 3 PO 4 nanoparticles in a core-shell structure, and that no Ag 0 was produced in the preparation of hybrid photocatalyst. It was found that the composite photocatalyst AgCl/Ag 3 PO 4 /g-C 3 N 4 (43%) exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity during the decomposition of sulfamethoxazole (SMX). The photogenerated and transferred holes on the valance band of g-C 3 N 4 and produced Cl 0 in AgCl were mainly the reactive oxidation species for SMX photodegradation.

A visible-light-driven heterostructured AgI/g-C3N4 was prepared by a deposition-precipitation method. The composition, structure, morphology, and optical properties of the photocatalyst were characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method (BET), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), UV–vis diffused reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), photocurrent, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), respectively. AgI/g-C3N4 composite photocatalysts exhibited higher photocatalytic activities than those of AgI nanoparticles and g-C3N4 in the degradation of diclofenac (a model anti-inflammatory medicine) under visible light irradiation (λ ≥ 400 nm). When the mass molar ratio of AgI was 45% in AgI/g-C3N4, the reaction rate constant of diclofenac degradation reached 0.561 min−1, which was almost 12.5 and 43.2 times higher than that achieved by AgI (0.045 min−1) and g-C3N4 (0.013 min−1). The h+ and O 2 - were pinpointed as the main reactive species in the photocatalytic reaction using their obligate radical scavengers. Diclofenac was completely degraded and partly mineralized during the photodegradation. The main intermediates were determined by liquid chromatograph mass spectrometer (LC-MS), and toxicological assessments were carried out to evaluate the change of toxicity in the degradation process. In addition, the photocatalysts showed excellent stability over multiple reaction cycles. Finally, a possible photocatalytic and charge separation mechanism was proposed.