Search

The feasibility and performance of using calcined coal gangue (CCG) to substitute metakaolin (MK) as the precursor to prepare alkali-activated materials (AAMs) were thoroughly evaluated by conducting combined experiments of flowability test, mechanical measurement, calorimetry and microstructure analysis, etc. It was found that the increased substitution ratio of CCG to MK can increase the flowability of the prepared paste by up to 28.1% and decrease its viscosity by up to 55.8%. In addition, a prolonged setting time of up to 31.8% was found with the increased substitution amount of CCG to MK, which can be attributed to the low reactivity of CCG compared to that of MK. Lastly, even though the presence of CCG can lead to a decrease in the early compressive strength of the hardened paste, a highly recovered long-term mechanical property can be found due to the continuous reaction of CCG. All of these results prove the feasibility of using CCG as one co-blended precursor with MK to prepare alkali-activated materials.

The mechanisms governing gene regulation in domestic Yuzhong pigeon breast muscle development remain largely elusive. Here, we conducted a comparative analysis using Iso-seq and RNA-seq data from domestic Yuzhong pigeons and European meat pigeons to uncover signaling pathways and genes involved in breast muscle development. The Iso-seq data from domestic Yuzhong pigeons yielded 131,377,075 subreads, resulting in 16,587 non-redundant high-quality full-length transcripts post-correction. Furthermore, utilizing pfam, CPC, PLEK, and CPAT, we predicted 5575, 4973, 2333, and 4336 lncRNAs, respectively. Notably, several genes potentially implicated in breast muscle development were identified, including tropomyosin beta chain, myosin regulatory light chain 2, and myosin binding protein C. KEGG enrichment analysis revealed critical signaling pathways in breast muscle development, spanning carbon metabolism, biosynthesis of amino acids, glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, estrogen signaling, PI3K-AKT signaling, protein processing in the endoplasmic reticulum, oxidative phosphorylation, pentose phosphate pathway, fructose and mannose metabolism, and tight junctions. These findings offer insights into the biological processes driving breast muscle development in domestic Yuzhong pigeon, contributing to our understanding of this complex phenomenon.

The combined effect and corresponding mechanism of nano calcium carbonate (NC) and aluminum sulfate (AS) on the setting and hardening performance of binary blended cement (ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and calcium sulfoaluminate cement (CSA)) were evaluated through multiple experiments, including setting time, calorimetry, compressive strength, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP). The results showed that, as compared to OPC, OPC-CSA binary blended cement exhibited reduced setting time but decreased early strength, which could be caused by the depressed silicate phase hydration due to the fast supply of aluminate ions during the hydration of aluminate-contained phases contained in CSA. However, through the combined addition of NC and AS, the depressed silicate phase hydration was greatly promoted by NC due to its nucleation effect, and the reduced early strength was significantly improved. Further analysis indicates that the combined addition of NC and AS can promote the formation of C-S-H gel and decrease the porosity of the hardened OPC-CSA binary paste. In this way, one promising repair material with rapid setting and hardening properties was prepared by OPC-CSA binary blended cement with the combined addition of NC and AS.

Obesity has become a serious global public health problem; a deeper understanding of systemic change of chromatin accessibility during human adipogenesis contributes to conquering obesity and its related diseases. Here, we applied the ATAC-seq method to depict a high-quality genome‐wide time-resolved accessible chromatin atlas during adipogenesis of human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs). Our data indicated that the chromatin accessibility drastic dynamically reformed during the adipogenesis of hASCs and 8 h may be the critical transition node of adipogenesis chromatin states from commitment phase to determination phase. Moreover, upon adipogenesis, we also found that the chromatin accessibility of regions related to anti-apoptotic, angiogenic and immunoregulatory gradually increased, which is beneficial to maintaining the health of adipose tissue (AT). Finally, the chromatin accessibility changed significantly in intronic regions of peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor γ during adipogenesis, and these regions were rich in transcription factors binding motifs that were exposed for further regulation. Overall, we systematically analysed the complex change of chromatin accessibility occurring in the early stage of adipogenesis and deepened our understanding of human adipogenesis. Furthermore, we also provided a good reference data resource of genome‐wide chromatin accessibility for future studies on human adipogenesis.

This paper investigated the feasibility of upcycling coal gangue fines (CGF), a secondary waste generated during the production of coal gangue aggregates, as the substitution of fly ash to prepare alkali-activated slag materials (AASM). CGF was thermally activated by calcining CGF at 500–900 ℃ to enhance its reactivity without grinding. The effects of CGF subjected to various temperatures on the flow, hydration heat, hydration products, compressive strength, and microstructure of AASM were experimentally examined. Experimental results confirmed the feasibility of upcycling CGF as the total substitution of fly ash. By adding calcined CGF, the 3 d and 7 d compressive strengths of AASM gained pronounced increases by 7–32 % and 4–27 %, respectively, where 800 °C was the optimal mixture with the highest compressive strength. Moreover, the addition of CGF brought tiny changes to the development of hydration products and microstructure. The proposed technology enables a more promising way to upcycle CGF into useful material and benefits the application of coal gangue aggregates.

Autotoxins secreted by roots into the soil can trigger rhizosphere microecological imbalances and affect root secretory properties resulting in conditions such as replanting disease. However, information on the effect of autotoxins on root secretion characteristics and regulation of the composition of rhizosphere microorganisms by altered root exudates is limited. In this study, autotoxin ρ-hydroxybenzoic acid (4-HBA) was added to the soil of potted grapevine seedlings, CO2 pulse-labeling, and DNA stable isotope probing were used to track the rhizosphere microbiome that assimilates root exudates. Bacterial and fungal microbiomes that assimilated plant-derived carbon were identified by high-throughput sequencing. Results showed that 4-HBA treatment altered bacterial and fungal communities in 13C-labeled organisms, with a lower abundance of beneficial bacteria (e.g., Gemmatimonas, Streptomyces, and Bacillus) and a higher abundance of potential pathogen fungi (e.g., Fusarium, Neocosmospora, Gibberella, and Fusicolla) by changing the composition of root exudates. The exogenous addition of upregulated compound mixtures of root exudates reduced the abundance of beneficial bacterial Bacillus and increased the abundance of potential pathogen fungi Gibberella. These results suggest that 4-HBA can alter root secretion properties and altered root exudates may enrich certain potential pathogens and reduce certain beneficial bacteria, thereby unbalancing the structure of the rhizosphere microbial community.

Spinel LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4, which is considered as one of the most attractive candidates for high energy density battery due to its high voltage platform over 4.7 V, suffers from the side reactions with electrolyte, strong oxidability of Ni4+ and therefore the complicated and frangible Solid Electrolyte Interfaces (SEI) layer that hinders the practical application of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4. In this work, traditional co-precipitation method is applied and improved by anion and cation doping method to construct superior interface on the surface of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 to suppress side reactions especially at high temperature. Detailed properties including structure, morphology and electrochemical performance of pristine sample, single-doped and co-doped samples are probed. Physical characterizations reveal that the co-doped sample with regular octahedron has a moderate grain size and specific surface area between Al and F single doping, and holds the advantages of rate performance and capacity retention causing by Al doping and better stability under high temperature constructing by F. It exhibits the best capacity retention of 92% after 200 cycles under 55 °C, which is higher than that of the pristine sample (87%). Analysis of the electrode after cycling shows that doping reduces the thickness of the electrode interface film and the content of inorganic substances such as LiF to improve the interface characteristics and the high temperature cycling performance. This work has certain significance for the commercial application of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4.

Endophytic fungus represents microorganisms existing within the healthy plant organs, which can significantly influence metabolic product production in plants, a process with great research value and broad prospects for development. To investigate the effect of fermentation with probiotic cultures on the endophytic fungal diversity and composition of Astragalus membranaceus, we used single-molecular, real-time sequencing (Pacific Biosciences) for 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing. The results showed that the endophytic fungi of A. membranaceus mainly belonged to Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cystofilobasidium, Candida, Guehomyces, and Wallemia. Furthermore, the endophytic fungal diversity and abundance of A. membranaceus were more variable after fermentation with Enterococcus faecium and/or Lactobacillus plantarum. Our data lays a solid and comprehensive foundation for further exploration of endophytic fungi from A. membranaceus as potential sources of functional compounds.

The settlements in pastoral areas have the spatial distribution characteristics of “broad scattering and small agglomeration”. The extension of range makes their physical information attributes change into a spatial awareness with psychological information attributes. In this paper, the psychological cognitive range in herdsmen’s spatial awareness was taken as the basis for establishing a spatial network and the social network analysis method was used to quantitatively study the spatial network relationship of settlements and the layout of public service facilities in pastoral areas of Inner Mongolia. The results show that the construction of control equilibrium point of interaction between spatial characteristics of settlements and public service facilities in pastoral areas can be rebuilt by using 10 km psychological cognitive range information; the zoning characteristics of spatial settlement network constructed on the basis of Pajek social network and ArcGIS spatial analysis are obvious; It is of great theoretical and practical significance for pastoral areas and low population density areas to take the index of network node degree as the basis of constructing dynamic layer layouts of public service facilities network and to establish “spatial Network + dynamic layout” layer model of public service facilities layout according to the characteristics of spatial network zoning.

Coal gangue is one of the largest discharged industrial solid wastes, which is generated in the processes of coal mining and washing. To accelerate the in-situ utilization of coal gangue, this paper explored coal gangue aggregates (CGA) as the single aggregate source to prepare shotcrete used for coal mine tunnel underground in local. The effects of CGA rates and water/binder ratio (w/b) on CGA shotcrete were experimentally studied by means of the compressive strength, chloride permeability determined by electric flux method, pore structure measured by Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and elastic modulus of interface transition zone (ITZ) investigated by nanoindentation. Besides, the environmental effects were discussed based on the material sustainability indicators. It was found that CGA rate played important roles in affecting the compressive strength and durability of CGA shotcrete. By increasing CGA rate from 62% to 71%, the 28d compressive strength of CGA shotcrete firstly increased and subsequently decreased independent with w/b; and the electric flux can be greatly reduced. The total porosity of CGA shotcrete with CGA rate depends on w/b. When w/b was high like 0.43 or 0.50, with the increase of CGA rate, the total porosity of CGA shotcrete decreased continuously. Due to the porous structure of CGA, it can adjust the water distribution around the aggregates and served as internal curing agents, contributing to stronger elastic modulus of ITZ. By incorporating 71% CGA, the total energy consumption and the CO2 emission of CGA shotcrete have been reduced by 24–32%, and 12–24%, respectively. This paper confirmed the feasibility of using CGA as the single aggregates source for shotcrete, which make significance to the utilization of CGA in a large scale.

Infectious bursal disease (IBD) is a highly contagious immunocompromising disorder that caused great economic losses in the poultry industry. The field-level control over IBD is primarily via vaccination. The development of a highly effective IBV vaccine has drawn great attention worldwide. Chitosan/Calcium Phosphate (CS/CaP) nanoparticle was a newly developed effective biological delivery system for drug and antigen. Ginsenoside Rb1 is one of the main bioactive components of ginseng root extract, which has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunological enhancement effects. Until now, the combined effect of CS/CaP and ginsenoside Rb1 on the chicken immune response had remained unknown. In this study, the GRb1 and IL-4 were encapsulated into Calcium phosphate and chitosan core structure nanoparticles microspheres (GRb1/IL-4@CS/CaP), and the effect of a newly developed delivery system on an infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) attenuated vaccine was further evaluated. The results demonstrated that GRb1/IL-4@CS/CaP treatment could induce the activation of chicken dendritic cells (DCs), with the upregulated expression of MHCII and CD80, and the increased production of IL-1β and TNF-α. Importantly, GRb1/IL-4@CS/CaP could trigger a higher level of IBDV-specific IgG and a higher ratio of IgG2a/IgG1 than the traditional adjuvant groups, promoting the production of cytokine, including IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-4, IL-6, IL-1α, and IL-1β, in chicken serum after 28 d and 42 d post-vaccine. Taken in all, GRb1/IL-4@CS/CaP could elicit prolonged vigorous immune responses for IBDV attenuated vaccine in chicken, which might provide an effective adjuvant system for avian vaccine development.

The microstructure is the key factor for quality discriminate of coke. In view of the characteristics of coke optical tissue (COT), a segmentation method of coke microstructures based on adaptive clustering was proposed. According to the strategy of multiresolution, adaptive threshold binarization and morphological filtering were carried out on COT images with lower resolution. The contour of the COT body was detected through the relationship checking between contours in the binary image, and hence, COT pixels were picked out to cluster for tissue segmentation. In order to get the optimum segmentation for each tissue, an advanced K-means method with adaptive clustering centers was provided according to the Calinski-Harabasz score. Meanwhile, Euclidean distance was substituted with Mahalanobis distance between each pixel in HSV space to improve the accuracy. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional K-means algorithm, FCM algorithm, and Meanshift algorithm, the adaptive clustering algorithm proposed in this paper is more accurate in the segmentation of various tissue components in COT images, and the accuracy of tissue segmentation reaches 94.3500%.

This study proposes a green, low-cost, and robust method to synthesize spherical calcium hydroxide (CH) nanoparticles based on the co-precipitation of Ca2+ and OH− in the presence of tannic acid (TA), an inexpensive plant-derived polyphenol. It has been found that the morphology and crystalline phase of the produced CH nanoparticles can be controlled by TA. With the increasing dosage of TA, the crystallinity of the CH particles reduces, changing from well crystallization to amorphous phases. Experimental evidence suggests that complexion reaction took place between TA and Ca2+, which gave the Ca2+ a strong bond effect. As a result, the nucleation and growth of CH were significantly affected. CH nanoparticles with sizes of about 50 nm have been successfully synthesized by using 0.3% or more TA.

Abstract The gut microbiota play important roles in the degradation of chemical compounds of herbal medicines (HMs). However, little information regarding the interplay between HMs and the gut microbiota is available. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the composition of the fecal microbiota of young (age, 11 weeks) hens fed a conventional diet containing a crude Astragalus (0.5%) additive for 21 days (group A) vs. controls (group B) that were fed only conventional feed. The fecal contents of 14-week-old hens were collected for DNA extraction, and then the V3 and V4 hyper-variable regions of the 16S rRNA gene were amplified and analyzed using high-throughput sequencing technology. A distinctive difference in microbial diversity was observed between the two groups. The microbial composition of hens fed a diet supplemented with Astragalus was greater than that of the control group. At the genus level, Lactobacillus was more abundant in group A than group B (p

Electrochemically synthesized nanosphere, nanorod and nanotube Fe2(MoO4)3 at optimized temperature and current density are characterized with XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS. Crystal lattices of the three types Fe2(MoO4)3 detected by HRTEM are well matched with the simulation analysis results from Materials Studio 6.0 based on the inorganic crystal structure database (ICSD) data and the modified XRD lattice parameters. The ratios of Fe/Mo on the surface resulted from XPS analysis are 1.47, 1.63 and 2.22 respectively for nanosphere, nanorod and nanotube. The mixture of Fe2(MoO4)3 with polytetrafluoroethylene dispersion are coated on glass carbon substrate as electrode for electrocatalytic performance test by cyclic voltammetries in 0.1 mol/L KOH and 1 mol/L methanol electrolyte. Methanol oxidation peak current density of the Nanotube- Fe2(MoO4)3/GCEs electrode is 3.27 mA/cm2 higher than 2.8 mA/cm2 of platinum foil electrode, which shows enhanced catalytic activity of Nanotube-Fe2(MoO4)3/GCEs. The cyclic stability in terms of peak current retention are 91%, 92% and 88% respectively for Nanosphere-Fe2(MoO4)3/GCE, Nanorod-Fe2(MoO4)3/GCE and Nanotube-Fe2(MoO4)3/GCE electrode after 220 cycles. It is concluded that nanosized Fe2(MoO4)3 could be promising alternative non-noble electro-catalysts for electro-oxidation of methanol in alkaline medium.

Basicity has an important effect on the behavior of high-chromium vanadium-titanium magnetite (HCVTM) sinter. The effect of basicity on sintering, reduction, and softening-melting properties was investigated in an experiment-scale sinter pot. The results showed that with the basicity increasing from 1.7 to 2.5, the vertical sinter speed, the productivity, the particle size, the reduction disintegration index (RDI), and the reducibility index (RI) increased. The yield increased first and then decreased, while the tumble index (TI) had the opposite trend. The perovskite content increased first and then stabilized, and the silico-ferrite of calcium and aluminum (SFCA) increased from the basicity of 2.3. The HCVTM sinter had a better tendency of the softening behavior with the basicity increase. In addition, the melt droplet comprehensive index S increased, which indicated that the increase in basicity negatively affected the droplet performance. As the basicity increased, the comprehensive index value increased. Considering the adverse effect of basicity on softening-melting properties, the best recommended value is 2.3.

The complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of Gymnocypris selincuoensis was determined and analyzed. This mitochondrial genome was 16,728bp in length and consisted of 37genes in the typical vertebrate mitochondrial gene arrangement. Phylogenetic analysis showed that G. selincuoensis is more closely related to G. namensis than to other species.

High-chromium vanadium-titanium magnetite (HCVTM) in the Hongge region has been used as an essential mineral resource in ironmaking. The effects of MgO on sintering performance and metallurgical properties were investigated by sintering pot tests, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). HCVTM sinters with varying MgO contents (2.7−3.5%), which was achieved by adding dolomite, were tested for yield, strength, reduction degradation index (RDI), reduction index (RI), and softening-melting properties. The productivity and the comprehensive index were evaluated. The results show that yield and productivity increased, while the vertical sintering speed and the tumbler index (TI) initially increased then decreased with the increase of MgO content. The mineral structure of HCVTM sinter changed from a non-uniform state to a uniform state with increased MgO content. Most of the Mg2+ entered the magnetite lattice, while a small amount entered the perovskite and the calcium silicate. The increase of MgO content improved RDI and softening-melting properties while reducing RI. The best recommended amount of MgO was 3.3% from the comprehensive index.

The complete mitochondrial DNA sequence of Schizothorax curilabiatus was determined and analyzed. This mitochondrial genome was 16,578bp in length and showed significant AT bias (55.5% AT content, 44.5% GC content). Phylogenetic analysis showed that S. curilabiatus is more closely related to S. oconnori than to other species. The complete mitochondrial genome sequence provides an important dataset for the exploration of mitochondrial inheritance mechanism.

The applications of alkali-activated slag (AAS) face challenges such as poor workability, rapid setting, and high autogenous shrinkage, which require chemical admixtures (CAs) to adjust the performance of AAS. Unfortunately, there are limited specific CAs available to tune AAS properties. To address this gap, this study proposes using a ubiquitous, naturally occurring compound, L-ascorbic acid (LAA), as a multifunctional performanceenhancing additive for AAS to overcome the major challenges of AAS. The findings showed that LAA can function as a retarder, plasticizer, strength enhancer, and autogenous shrinkage reducer for AAS. When 0.5% LAA was added, the compressive strengths of AAS mortars at 3 and 28 days increased by 28.9% and 19.6%, respectively, and the 28-day autogenous shrinkage decreased by 43.1%. Both surface adsorption and ion complexation have been confirmed as the working mechanisms of LAA in hydrated AAS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To determine the efficacy of extracorporeal shock wave (ESW) combined with autologous platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy on knee osteoarthritis (KOA) with meniscus injury in terms of pain relief, functional outcome and complications. Methods: This is a retrospective observational study. Clinical data of 144 patients with KOA accompanied by medial meniscus injury, who received treatment in Jilin Provincial People's Hospital from March 2021 to December 2022, were retrospectively evaluated. A total of 128 patients (81 males and 47 females) were finally included in the study after screening. Of them, 45 patients received PRP treatment (PRP-group), 43 patients received ESW treatment (ESW-group), and 40 patients received ESW combined with PRP treatment (Combined-group). The relief of knee joint pain and functional improvement among three groups of patients were compared. Results: After treatment, visual analogue scale (VAS), Lequesne, and Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) scores of patients in the Combined-group were significantly lower than those in the other two groups (p<0.05). Combined ESW-PRP treatment was associated with significantly greater joint range of motion of patients compared to ESW and PRP alone (p<0.05). The total incidence of related complications in the Combined-group was lower compared to the other two groups (p<0.05). Conclusions: Compared with PRP or ESW treatment alone, ESW combined with PRP for KOA with meniscus injury can better alleviate pain, achieve faster functional recovery, and significantly reduce complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]