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To analyze etiologic factors of pediatric acute ataxia and to identify the severity of its underlying causes for urgent medical intervention. Clinical data of children diagnosed with acute ataxia between December 2015 and December 2021 from one national medical center were analyzed retrospectively. A total of 99 children (59 boys, 40 girls), median age at disease onset 55 (range: 12–168) months, were enrolled. The median follow period was 46 (range 6–78) months. Eighty-six (86.9 %) children were diagnosed with immune-associated acute ataxia, among which acute post-infectious cerebellar ataxia (APCA) was the most common diagnosis (50.5 %), followed by demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system (18.2 %) and Guillain-Barré syndrome (9.1 %). On cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination, 35/73 (47.9 %) patients had pleocytosis (>5 cells/mm3), and 18/73 (24.7 %) had elevated protein levels. Thirty-one patients (31.3 %) had an abnormal cerebral MRI. Children with other immune-associated acute cerebellar ataxia had more extracerebellar symptoms, intracranial MRI lesions, abnormal CSF results, longer hospital stay, higher recurrence rates and incidence of neurological sequelae than children with APCA. Immune-associated acute ataxia is the main cause of pediatric acute ataxia, among which APCA is the most common phenotype. However, some immune-associated diseases, especially autoantibody-mediated disease, which has a higher recurrence rate and neurological sequelae account for an increasing proportion of pediatric acute ataxia. When children present with extracerebellar symptoms, abnormal cranial MRI or CSF results, and without prodromal infection, prudent differential diagnosis is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of viscoelastic collision mechanics is used to explore the rebound and adhesion mechanisms of single aggregates in shotcrete at the meso-level in this study. Abrasive balls with different radiuses were used, fully considering the characteristics of the aggregates and the sprayed wall, to build multifactor physical models for the shotcrete rebound of the aggregate. The movement trajectories, velocities, and energy dissipations of abrasive balls are analyzed, and the shotcrete-rebound mechanical model of a single aggregate based on wet-mix shotcrete is proposed. The results of the study show that there are obvious differences in the rebound velocity of the aggregate in different collision forms, and the viscoelastic properties of aggregates affect the jet stability of wet-mix shotcrete. According to the quantitative and qualitative analyses, the energy loss during the collision-rebound of the aggregate is inversely proportional to the rebound velocity and proportional to the rebound resistance. The functional relationship between the resistance F and the particle radius R during the rebound and adhesion of aggregate can be expressed as F=CR1/5 , where C is a constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to investigate the variation rule of coarse aggregate and pore structure of shotcrete by adding MWCNTs. In the paper, X-ray computed tomography scans are used to study the coarse aggregate distribution and pore structure of the preparation of shotcrete, high-temperature curing shotcrete and shotcrete with MWCNTs. The distribution pattern of coarse aggregate and pore of shotcrete is obtained. The results show that: the coarse aggregate loss of shotcrete is serious within 30 mm from the wall and the coarse aggregate increases significantly in 30–70 mm. The addition of 0.03% MWCNTs increased the coarse aggregate of shotcrete by 36.63% and the volume of coarse aggregate by 25.64%. The largest increase is in coarse aggregates of 5–7 mm. This show that MWCNTs can improve mortar adhesion and reduce aggregate rebound. The number of shotcrete pores decreases with the increase of pore diameter. The proportion of small pores is up to 85%, the proportion of large pores is only 2%, but the volume of large pores reaches 87%. The addition of 0.03% MWCNTs can reduce the number of small pores in the shotcrete and reduce the mean pore diameter, resulting in a decrease in the porosity of the shotcrete. When the curing temperature is 80℃, the porosity of shotcrete increases, and the pores decrease due to interconnection. The pores around the coarse aggregate account for over 70% of the total porosity, with pores larger than 1 mm accounting for 75%. This paper has a good reference value for the development of shotcrete and the selection of coarse aggregate in the actual working conditions. • The coarse aggregate distribution and pore structure characteristics of shotcrete were revealed. • The influence of MWCNTs on the rebound of shotcrete coarse aggregate was analyzed. • The relationship between pore distribution of shotcrete and coarse aggregate distribution is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The laws of deposition and distribution of shotcrete-rebound are revealed. • The relationship between rheological properties and rebound of fresh concrete is defined. • The relationship between energy dissipation law and rebound is studied. In order to reveal the laws surrounding the rheological properties of fresh concrete on shotcrete-rebound characteristics, this paper aims to study the relationship between the rebound rate of wet-mix shotcrete and the rheological properties of fresh concrete slump, yield stress, plastic viscosity, etc), as well as the relationship between shotcrete-rebound and energy loss by adding additive components of different types and dosages. The additional components involved in this paper include polypropylene fibre, a polycarboxylic water reducing agent, an alkali-free accelerator, and an organic polymer tackifier. The experimental results show that the shotcrete-rebound materials are distributed in a fan shape, and the coarse aggregate in the rebound materials accounts for the largest proportion. If the amount of accelerator (3%–7%) and tackifier (1%–3%) increases, the rebound rate of the wet-mix shotcrete decreases. Also, if the amount of water reducing agent (0.5%–1.5%) increases, the rebound rate of the wet-mix shotcrete increases. Finally, if the fibre content (0.6 kg/m3–1.8 kg/m3) increases, the rebound rate of wet-mix shotcrete first decreases and then increases. Through the analysis of correlation and multiple linear regression, it has been concluded that changes in the slump, yield stress, and bleeding rate significantly affect the concrete rebound rate, and a multiple linear regression equation for predicting the rebound has been obtained. The energy loss of the shotcrete is proportional to the shotcrete rebound rate, and can also be used as an evaluation index of shotcrete performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A series of 3‑chloro-4 - (pyridin-2-ylmethoxy) aniline derivatives were design and synthesis • The antitumor activity of 7k was twice than imatinib on HL-60, K-562, MCF-7 and A498 cell lines. • Molecular docking analysis of 3‑chloro-4 - (pyridin-2-ylmethoxy) aniline derivatives A series of 3‑chloro-4-(pyridin-2-ylmethoxy) aniline derivatives were synthesized and biologically evaluated for antitumor activities. Among all the compounds, the antitumor activity of 7k was twice than Imatinib on HL-60, K-562, MCF-7 and A498 cell lines. Mechanistic studies revealed that compound 7k displayed significant anti-proliferation, anti-migration and anti-invasion effects on K-562. Molecular docking studies showed that compounds 7k could interact with BCR-ABL kinase. These findings suggest that compound 7 k can be considered as an antitumor drug candidate which deserves to be further investigated for personalized cancer therapy. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel methods to improve the anticancer performance of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is quite necessary for clinical medicines. In the present work, we fabricated a novel type of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs)-based inorganic/organic hybrid nanoparticles covalently attached with poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether methacrylate) (POEGMA) for improved stabilization and targeting peptide (RGD) for targeted delivery with the aim of improving the anticancer performance of 5-FU. Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) initiator functionalized MSN (MSN-Br) was synthesized at first, which was followed by surface-initiated ATRP of water soluble OEGMA and carboxyl-containing monomer (2-succinyloxyethyl methacrylate, SEMA). Functionalization of RGD onto the hydrophilic P(OEGMA- co -SEMA) chains afforded the final hybrid nanoparticle, MSN-P(OEGMA- co -RGD). 5-FU can be effectively loaded into the meso -pores of MSN-P(OEGMA-c o -RGD) (5-FU@MSN-RGD) with drug content ∼7.5 wt%. And the dynamic diameter ( D h ) and zeta potential (ζ) of 5-FU@MSN-RGD were determined to be 199.3 ± 5.4 nm and −8.7 ± 0.5 mV, respectively. It was demonstrated that MSN-P(OEGMA-c o -RGD) exhibited improved internalization into colon cancer cells and enhanced accumulation in tumor tissues. In addition, compared with free 5-FU, 5-FU@MSN-RGD showed enhanced anticancer efficacy both in vitro and in vivo, implying promising clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biometric features, e.g., fingerprints, the iris, and the face, have been widely used to authenticate individuals. However, most biometrics are not cancellable, i.e., once these biometric features are cloned or stolen, they cannot be replaced easily. Unlike traditional biometrics, brain biometrics are extremely difficult to clone or forge due to the natural randomness across different individuals, which makes them an ideal option for identity authentication. Most existing brain biometrics are based on electroencephalogram (EEG), which is usually demonstrated unstable performance due to the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). For the first time, we propose the use of intracortical brain signals, which have higher resolution and SNR, to realize the construction of the high-performance brain biometrics. Specifically, we put forward a novel brain-based key generation approach called multidimensional Gaussian fitted bit allocation (MGFBA). The proposed MGFBA method extracts keys from the local field potential of ten rats with high reliability and high entropy. We found that with the proposed MGFBA, the average effective key length of the brain biometrics was 938 bits, while achieving high authentication accuracy of 88.1% at a false acceptance rate of 1.9%, which is significantly improved compared to conventional EEG-based approaches. In addition, the proposed MGFBA-based keys can be conveniently revoked using different motor behaviors with high entropy. Experimental results demonstrate the potential of using intracortical brain signals for reliable authentication and other security applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most previous studies confirmed that marine phytoplankton biomass can increased dramatically and then formed blooms along the typhoon track after typhoon passage. However, many events of no significant responses to typhoons were neglected. In order to figure out the most important factor for bloom formation, a coupled physical-biogeochemical model was used to study the biogeochemical phytoplankton responses to all 79 typhoon events that affected the South China Sea (SCS) during 2000–2009. The major factors investigated included typhoon intensity and translation speed, Chlorophyll a concentration (Chl-a) and vertical nitrate transport in the euphotic zone before and after typhoon passage. The results revealed that phytoplankton blooms were triggered after 43 typhoon events, but no significant blooms were found after 36 other typhoons. Of the 43 typhoon events that triggered blooms, 24 were in the open ocean and 19 were on the coast. Subsurface blooms were detected after five typhoon events that did not trigger surface blooms. Over half of the typhoons that affect the oligotrophic SCS can trigger phytoplankton blooms, and contribute to the marine primary productivity. The mechanism of the above results were surveyed, we found that (1) an increased nitrate concentration is the basic and key precondition for phytoplankton blooming in the oligotrophic SCS; (2) typhoon intensity, and translation speed control the upward flux of nitrates together, and translation speed has more effect than intensity; (3) uplifted nitrates could trigger phytoplankton bloom, and Chl-a levels reached a peak 3 days later than nitrate levels; (4) mesoscale eddies and the nutricline depth before a typhoon’s arrival also affects bloom genesis; and (5) the composition of phytoplankton functional groups in the coast was adjusted by typhoon, which have more complex mechanism of bloom formation than that in the open ocean. In summary, the physical driving force that modulates blooms is vertical nutrient transportation in the SCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Infection by hepatitis C virus (HCV) can result in the development of liver fibrosis and may eventually progress into cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, the molecular mechanisms for this process are not fully known. Several genome-wide association studies have been carried out to pinpoint causative variants in HCV-infected patient cohorts, but these variants are usually not the functional ones. The aim of this study was to identify the regulatory single nucleotide polymorphism associated with the risk of HCV-induced liver fibrosis and elucidate its molecular mechanism. Methods We utilized a bioinformatics approach to identify a non-coding regulatory variant, located in an intron of the MERTK gene, based on differential transcription factor binding between the alleles. We validated the results using expression reporter assays and electrophoresis mobility shift assays. Results Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing indicated that transcription factor(s) bind stronger to the A allele of rs6726639. Electrophoresis mobility shift assays supported these findings and suggested that the transcription factor is interferon regulatory factor 1 (IRF1). Luciferase report assays showed lower enhancer activity from the A allele and that IRF1 may act as a repressor. Conclusions Treatment of hepatitis C with interferon-α results in increased IRF1 levels and our data suggest that this leads to an allele-specific downregulation of MERTK mediated by an allelic effect on the regulatory element containing the functional rs6726639. This variant also shows the hallmarks for being the driver of the genome-wide association studies for reduced risk of liver fibrosis and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease at MERTK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser ablation chemical analysis of fly ash samples was studied by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). Ablation was performed using a 1064 nm Nd:YAG laser in air environment. The molecular emission CN was measured together with the atomic carbon (CI). The combination of atomic and molecular carbon emissions (CI and CN) was available to establish the calibration model for quantitative analysis of the unburned carbon content in fly ash. In order to further improve the measurement accuracy, the matrix effect of fly ash samples was presented and it is found that two lines of the same element in the same order could be used to characterize the plasma temperature. The influence of laser energy on plasmas temperature was studied to estimate the correction factor with the ratio of two Mg ionic lines (Mg II 279.5 nm and Mg II 280.2 nm). The results showed that the combination of carbon atomic and molecular emissions with plasmas temperature correction could improve the accuracy and precision for quantitative analysis of unburned carbon in fly ash samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To figure out current landscaping of Linzhi City, analyze the basic situation of local landscaping quantitatively, and solve related problems in landscaping, this paper applied the "five-point sampling method" for the layered survey of landscape plant communities, investigated landscape plant species and their application in different regions of Tibet, particularly current landscaping, features and problems of Linzhi City, and put forward corresponding measures. The investigation covered 321 species (cultivars) of 196 genera, 87 families. The results showed that (1) Salix alga, Ligustrum x vicaryi, Poa pratensis had the highest importance value in the tree layer, shrub layer and herb layer, respectively, and the Importance value was 68.620, 24.139 and 35.747, respectively (2) Among all landscape plants in Linzhi City, the most applied families were Rosaceae (48), Salicaceae (21), Asteraceae (20), Leguminosae (20), Gramineae (19), Pinaceae (16), Cupressaceae (13) and Oleaceae (12), accounting for 14.95%, 6.54%, 6.23%, 6.23%, 5.92%, 4.98%, 4.05% and 3.73% of the total investigated species. (3) Natural environment of the plateau was the most influential restraint for local landscaping, and the application of landscape plants varied greatly among regions. (4) The local area was endowed with rich landscape plant resources, but these resources were not fully developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of geo-engineering materials of chitosan modified local soil (MLS) on nutrient limitation was studied in comparable whole ponds in Lake Taihu in October 2013. After 20 kg MLS were sprayed in the whole water pond (400 m 2 ), the chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration was decreased from 42 to 18 μg L −1 within 2 h and remained below 20 μg L −1 in the following 15 months, while the average Chl-a was 36 μg L −1 in the control pond throughout the experiment. In situ nutrient addition bioassay experiments indicated that the nutrient limitation was shifted from nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) co-limitation to P limitation after MLS treatment from October 2013 to March 2014 compared to the control pond. In the cyanobacterial bloom season of June 2014, N and P co-limitation remained and N was the primary limiting nutrient and P was a secondary one in the control pond where phytoplankton biomass showed significant increase by N addition and further increase by N + P additions, while both N and P became the limiting nutrient for phytoplankton growth where only combined N and P additions showed significant Chl-a stimulation in the treatment pond. In the next summer (June 2014), a cyanobacteria-dominated state still remained in the control pond but chlorophytes, bacillariophytes and cyanophytes distributed equally and submerged vegetation was largely restored in the treatment pond. Meanwhile, the upper limiting concentration of DIN was enhanced from 0.8 to 1.5 mg L −1 and SRP from 0.1 to 0.3 mg L −1 compared to the control pond. This study indicates that nutrient limitation can be manipulated by using MLS technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To figure out current urban greening of Lhasa City, analyze the basic situation of its landscaping quantitatively, and solve problems in urban greening, this paper applied "five-point sampling method" for the layered survey of landscape plant communities, investigated landscape plant species and application in Tibet comprehensively, elaborated current landscaping, characteristics and problems of Lhasa City, and gave pertinent countermeasures. The investigation covered 159 landscape plant species (varieties), 100 genera and 45 families. The results showed that species with the highest importance value in tree layer, shrub layer and herb layer were Prunus cerasifera f. atropurpurea (49.861), Platycladus orientalis cv Sieboldii (27.756), Poa pratensis (55.386); in the tree and shrub layer, Rosaceae was most applied (27 species), Salicaceae was the second most applied (18 species), followed by Oleaceae (9 species), Cupressaceae (8 species) and Leguminosae (6 species), the 5 families accounted for 24.77%, 16.51%, 8.26%, 7.34% and 5.50% of the investigated trees and shrubs; the applied landscape species were not rich, and landscaping development was not even; landscape plants were not reasonably combined, the introduced species accounted for a high ratio, and the ratio of native species was extremely low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biometrics, e.g., fingerprints, the iris, and the face, have been widely used to authenticate individuals. However, most biometrics are not cancellable, i.e., once these traditional biometrics are cloned or stolen, they cannot be replaced easily. Unlike traditional biometrics, brain biometrics are extremely difficult to clone or forge due to the natural randomness across different individuals, which makes them an ideal option for identity authentication. Most existing brain biometrics are based on an electroencephalogram (EEG), which typically demonstrates unstable performance due to the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Thus, in this paper, we propose the use of intracortical brain signals, which have higher resolution and SNR, to realize the construction of a high-performance brain biometric. Significantly, this is the first study to investigate the features of intracortical brain signals for identification. Specifically, several features based on local field potential are computed for identification, and their performance is compared with different machine learning algorithms. The results show that frequency domain features and time-frequency domain features are excellent for intra-day and inter-day identification. Furthermore, the energy features perform best among all features with 98% intra-day and 93% inter-day identification accuracy, which demonstrates the great potential of intracraial brain signals to be biometrics. This paper may serve as a guidance for future intracranial brain researches and the development of more reliable and high-performance brain biometrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) point to regions with associated genetic variants but rarely to a specific gene and therefore detailed knowledge regarding the genes contributing to complex traits and diseases remains elusive. The functional role of GWAS-SNPs is also affected by linkage disequilibrium with many variants on the same haplotype and sometimes in the same regulatory element almost equally likely to mediate the effect. Using ChIP-seq data on many transcription factors, we pinpointed genetic variants in HepG2 and HeLa-S3 cell lines which show a genome-wide significant difference in binding between alleles. We identified a collection of 3713 candidate functional regulatory variants many of which are likely drivers of GWAS signals or genetic difference in expression. A recent study investigated many variants before finding the functional ones at the GALNT2 locus, which we found in our genome-wide screen in HepG2. This illustrates the efficiency of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified a large number of disease-associated SNPs, but in few cases the functional variant and the gene it controls have been identified. To systematically identify candidate regulatory variants, we sequenced ENCODE cell lines and used public ChIP-seq data to look for transcription factors binding preferentially to one allele. We found 9962 candidate regulatory SNPs, of which 16 % were rare and showed evidence of larger functional effect than common ones. Functionally rare variants may explain divergent GWAS results between populations and are candidates for a partial explanation of the missing heritability. The majority of allele-specific variants (96 %) were specific to a cell type. Furthermore, by examining GWAS loci we found >400 allele-specific candidate SNPs, 141 of which were highly relevant in our cell types. Functionally validated SNPs support identification of an SNP in SYNGR1 which may expose to the risk of rheumatoid arthritis and primary biliary cirrhosis, as well as an SNP in the last intron of COG6 exposing to the risk of psoriasis. We propose that by repeating the ChIP-seq experiments of 20 selected transcription factors in three to ten people, the most common polymorphisms can be interrogated for allele-specific binding. Our strategy may help to remove the current bottleneck in functional annotation of the genome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is recalcitrant to degrade and mineralize. Here, the effect of temperature on the photolytic decomposition of PFOA was investigated. The decomposition of PFOA was enhanced from 34% to 99% in 60 min of exposure when the temperature was increased from 25 to 85°C under UV light (201–600 nm). The limited degree of decomposition at 25°C was due to low quantum yield, which was increased by a factor of 12 at 85°C. Under the imposed conditions, the defluorination ratio increased from 8% at 25°C to 50% at 85°C in 60 min. Production of perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs, C7–C5), PFCAs (C4–C3) and TFA (trifluoroacetic acid, C2) accelerated and attained a maximum within 30 to 90 min at 85°C. However, these reactions did not occur at 25°C despite extended irradiation to 180 min. PFOA was decomposed in a step-wise process by surrendering one CF 2 unit. In each cyclical process, increased temperature enhanced the quantum yields of irradiation and reactions between water molecules and intermediates radicals. The energy consumption for removing each μmol of PFOA was reduced from 82.5 kJ at 25°C to 10.9 kJ at 85°C using photolysis. Photolysis coupled with heat achieved high rates of PFOA degradation and defluorination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Site survey was applied to investigate landscape plants in Shigatse City of Tibet, current situation, pattern and problems of landscaping in the city were analyzed, and corresponding moves were proposed. The investigation covered 71 species (including varieties) of 45 genera and 20 families. The results showed that Populus × beijingensis W. Y. Hsu, Platycladus orientals and Poa pratensis had the highest importance value (47.787,86.802,75.700) in the tree layer, shrub layer and herb layer, respectively. Among all landscape plants in the city, Salicaceae is the most applied one, including 15 species; Rosaceae is the second most, including 10 species; and Leguminosae is the third, including 6 species. The three families account for 21.13%, 14.08% and 8.45% of the total investigated plants. The simple compound structures such as "tree + ground cover" and "shrub + ground cover" are major greening patterns of the city. Growth vigor of local plants is poor, and "ensuring the survival rate" is a key task in the urban landscaping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Garden nurseries in Linzhi City, Tibet were comprehensively investigated, 132 garden plant species were covered The investigation showed that garden nurseries in the local area remained in the initial development stage, and the scale of most nurseries was small, and there was blank in many aspects of the landscape architecture industry. Most seedlings were introduced from the interior regions of China, self-bred seedlings in local nurseries accounted for only 32.68%. On the basis of the investigation results, garden nurseries in Linzhi City were analyzed specifically to figure out advantages and deficiencies of local garden nurseries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rotational symmetry is important for many applications in computer graphics, vision, and image processing. However, it remains difficult to design an effective algorithm for automatic symmetry recognition. In this paper, we present a rotational symmetry detection algorithm, which is easy to use and can determine both the center and the radius of the rotational symmetry supporting region without human interaction. Our algorithm is derived from frieze-expansions approach and improved through a radius-based expansion idea. Multiresolution pyramid is used to accelerate this detection process. We also discuss a solution to deal with rotational symmetry detection under slight affine transformation. Experimental results show that the method is effective for most nature images with rotational symmetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyborg intelligence is an emerging kind of intelligence paradigm. It aims to deeply integrate machine intelligence with biological intelligence by connecting machines and living beings via neural interfaces, enhancing strength by combining the biological cognition capability with the machine computational capability. Cyborg intelligence is considered to be a new way to augment living beings with machine intelligence. In this paper, we build rat cyborgs to demonstrate how they can expedite the maze escape task with integration of machine intelligence. We compare the performance of maze solving by computer, by individual rats, and by computer-aided rats (i.e. rat cyborgs). They were asked to find their way from a constant entrance to a constant exit in fourteen diverse mazes. Performance of maze solving was measured by steps, coverage rates, and time spent. The experimental results with six rats and their intelligence-augmented rat cyborgs show that rat cyborgs have the best performance in escaping from mazes. These results provide a proof-of-principle demonstration for cyborg intelligence. In addition, our novel cyborg intelligent system (rat cyborg) has great potential in various applications, such as search and rescue in complex terrains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through investigating Tibetan courtyard landscapes in Linzhi City, Tibet, it was found that Tibetan courtyards attached more importance to flower plants and garden crops, focused on natural style and easy maintenance, but not pruning; Tibetan courtyard landscaping valued shape, color, flower season and visual aesthetics of flowers, tried to build "gardens" with flower configuration as the major content, similar aesthetic concepts and landscaping style with European gardens; moreover, it paid more attention to plants, but not waterscape design; in Tibetan gardens, lawns occupied a secondary position next to flowering plants, fruit trees and garden crops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new environmental friendly method was developed for cyanobacterial bloom mitigation using local lake shore soil modified by protein with high isoelectric point (pI) and chitosan jointly. Results suggested that 5 mg L lysozyme- (pI ≈11) and 100 mg L bromelain (pI ≈9.5)-modified 10 mg L soil can both reduce the surface charge of Microcystis aeruginosa, the dominant species forming cyanobacterial blooms, from −26 to −10 mV and remove 73 and 60 % of algal cells in 30 min, respectively. The limited improvement of removal efficiency was due to the small flocs (<60 μm) formed by charge neutralization, which need more than 90 min to settle in static condition. However, when the small flocs were linked and bridged by the other modifier, chitosan with long polymer chain, large flocs of about 800 and 300 μm were formed and more than 80 % of algal cells were removed in 5 and 30 min by lysozyme-chitosan-modified soil and bromelain-chitosan-modified soil, respectively. The lower removal ability of bromelain-modified soil was due to the lower charge density leading to less powerful in destabilization of algal cells. Depending on the bicomponent modification mechanism including charge neutralization of proteins with high pI and netting and bridging function of chitosan with long polymer chain, it is possible to flocculate cyanobacterial blooms in natural waters effectively using locally available materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To figure out current landscaping of Tibet, analyze local garden landscaping quantitatively, and solve greening problems, this paper adopted "five-point sampling method" for the stratified survey of garden plant communities, investigated species and application of garden plants in Tibet comprehensively, discussed current situation, characteristics and problems of local landscaping, and proposed corresponding measures. According to the investigation, (1) There arc 368 applied garden plant species (including varieties) of 207 genera, 91 families; (2) In the tree layer, shrub layer and herb layer, Picea likiangensis var. likiangensis, Buxus megistophylla, Poa pratensis have the highest importance value, i.e., 43.050, 25.128, 45.950; (3) The most applied families in local landscaping are Rosaceae (53), Salicaceae (23), Compositae (21), Leguminosae (20), Gramineae (19), Pinaceae (16), Oleaceae (14) and Cupressaceae (12), accounting for 14.40%, 6.25%, 5.71%, 5.43%, 5.16%, 4.35%, 3.80% and 3.26% of the total, respectively; (4) The total landscaping level is poor and uneven, application of landscaping plants varies greatly among regions, garden application is poor; (5) Proportion of garden landscapes is unreasonable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved unprecedented success in many domains. The numerous parameters allow CNNs to learn complex features, but also tend to hinder generalisation by over‐fitting training data. Despite many previously proposed regularisation methods, over‐fitting is one of many problems in training a robust CNN. Among many factors that may lead to over‐fitting, the numerous parameters of fully connected layers (FCLs) of a typical CNN are a contributor to the over‐fitting problem. The authors propose SparseConnect, which alleviates over‐fitting by sparsifying connections to FCLs. Experimental results on three benchmark datasets MNIST and CIFAR10 show SparseConnect outperforms several state‐of‐the‐art regularisation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two Zn(II)-containing complexes based on fluconazole, {[Zn(HFlu)2(IPA)]·9H2O}n(1), {[Zn(HFlu)2(OH-BDC)]·8H2O}n(2) (HFlu = fluconazole; 2-(2,4-difluoro- phenyl)-1,3-bis(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)-propan-2-ol; H2IPA = isophthalic acid; OH-H2BDC = 5-hydroxyisophthalic acid) have been synthesized and structurally characterized. Complex1and2are both a one-dimensional (1D) tubular structure with the distorted dinuclear zinc rectangular-shaped cavity, and large free water molecules involved in strong O‒H···O and O‒H···N hydrogen bonds are accommodated in the 1D tubular structure. The thermal stabilities and photoluminescent properties of the coordination polymers have also been investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The aim of this study is to compare preoperative and postoperative conditions of GMP-140 concentration, the aggregation and activation of platelets in congenital heart disease patients undergoing transcatheter closure of atrial septal defects (ASDs) or ventricular septal defects (VSDs), and the appropriate dose of aspirin of patients after transcatheter closure. Materials and Methods: Thirty-two consecutive patients with ASD ( n=16) and VSD ( n=16), as shown on transthoracic echocardiography and right heart catheter examination, were treated with a percutaneous catheter occlusion. The patients comprised 13 males and 19 females with a mean age of 25.6±9.15. Patients were randomly assigned into two groups within half an hour after ASD or VSD occlusion. Group A cases were treated with 3 mg/kg/day enteric-coated aspirin tablets for 6 months, while patients in group B received 5 mg/kg/day enteric-coated aspirin tablets for 6 months. Results: The rates of platelet aggregation (PAG) in the immediate postoperative ASD/VSD occlusion were significantly higher than those in the preoperative ASD/VSD occlusion (adenosine diphosphate [ADP]-induced PAG: 64.98%±7.65% vs. 86.33%±6.54%, p<0.05; arachidonic acid [AA]-induced PAG: 62.92%±9.11% vs. 86.96%±6.90%, p<0.05, respectively). After treatment with aspirin, the GMP-140 levels presented a clearly defined downward trend in the immediate postoperative period (3 mg/kg/day aspirin: 18.30±3.42 vs. 13.37±1.80, p<0.05; 5 mg/kg/day aspirin: 18.30±3.42 vs. 13.41±1.60, p<0.05), but no obvious difference was observed considering the GMP-140 levels in the 4 days after occlusion (all p>0.05). Conclusion: Our study showed that the GMP-140 serum level and PAG were increased after ASD and VSD occlusion, and patients may have a trend of decreased GMP-140 serum levels after the ASD or VSD occlusion surgeries after the treatment with aspirin. Daily oral administration of 3 and 5 mg/kg/day aspirin can induce a significant decrease in PAG of patients after VSD/ASD occlusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic facial expression recognition has made considerable gains in the body of research available due to its vital role in human-computer interaction. So far, research on this problem or problems alike has proposed a wide verity of techniques and algorithms for both information representation and classification. Very recently, Farajzadeh et al. in Int J Pattern Recognit Artif Intell 25(8):1219-1241, () proposed a novel information representation approach that uses machine-learning techniques to derive a set of new informative and descriptive features from the original features. The new features, so called meta probability codes (MPC), have shown a good performance in a wide range of domains. In this paper, we aim to study the performance of the MPC features for the recognition of facial expression via proposing an MPC-based framework. In the proposed framework any feature extractor and classifier can be incorporated using the meta-feature generation mechanism. In the experimental studies, we use four state-of-the-art information representation techniques; local binary pattern, Gabor-wavelet, Zernike moment and facial fiducial point, as the original feature extractors; and four multiclass classifiers, support vector machine, k-nearest neighbor, radial basis function neural network, and sparse representation-based classifier. The results of the extensive experiments conducted on three facial expression datasets, Cohn-Kanade, JAFFE, and TFEID, show that the MPC features promote the performance of facial expression recognition inherently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The deformable part model is one of the most effective methods for object detection. However, it simultaneously computes the scores for a holistic filter and several part filters in a relatively high-dimensional feature space, which causes the problem of low computational efficiency. This paper proposes an approach to select compact and effective features by learning a sparse deformable part model using L1-norm latent SVM. A stochastic truncated sub-gradient descent method is presented to solve the L1-norm latent SVM problem. Convergence of the algorithm is proved. Extensive experiments are conducted on the INRIA and PASCAL VOC 2007 datasets. A highly compact feature in our method can reach the state-of-the-art performance. The feature dimensionality is reduced to 12% of the original one in the INRIA dataset and less than 30% in most categories of PASCAL VOC 2007 dataset. Compared with the features used in L2-norm latent SVM, the average precisions (AP) have almost no drop using the reduced feature. With our method, the speed of the detection score computation is faster than that of the L2-norm latent SVM method by 3 times. When the cascade strategy is applied, it can be further speeded up by about an order of magnitude. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The distribution in water and sediment, the sources/sinks and the risk of perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in Lake Taihu, China were investigated. The total PFCs concentration was 164 to 299ngL−1 in water and 5.8 to 35ngg−1 (dw) in sediment. The highest concentrations of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) in water were 29.2ngL−1 and 136ngL−1. PFOS was largely associated with sediment, whereas short chain PFCs predominated in water. The partition coefficient (K d) was positively correlated with the organic carbon fraction (ƒoc) for PFOS but not for the other PFCs. The organic carbon normalized partition coefficient (K oc) increased by 0.51 log units for each additional CF2 moiety from perfluoro-butanesulfonate (PFBS) to PFOS. For the same chain length but different functional groups, the log K oc of PFOS was 1.35 units higher than PFOA. PFOS exhibited the highest affinity for sediment through the partition mechanism, and ƒoc affected the sediment as a sink of PFOS. Although there was no immediate health impact by the intake of the water alone, the consumption of aquatic products may cause potential health risks for animals/humans on the time scale of months to years. The relationship between the concentration, water-sediment distribution, bioaccumulation and toxicity should be considered in determining the water standards of PFCs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Four new coordination complexes with quinoline-2-carboxylate ion (quin-2-c),[Mn(quin-2-c)(H2O)3Cl]•H2O(1), Cd(quin-2-c)2(H2O)2(2), Co(quin-2-c)2(H2O)2(3), Ni(quin-2-c)2(H2O)2(4)(quin-2-c = quinoline-2-carboxylic acid ion), have been synthesized and characterized by IR and single crystal X-ray diffraction. Complex 1 and 3 forms 3-D structure vis hydrogen bonds and π–π contacts, and Complex 2 forms 2-D layers vis hydrogen bonds and π–π contacts. Complex 4 takes a 2-D hydrogen-bonding net structure. Complex 3 and 4 with the same coordination structure display different hydrogen bonds, which may suggest some connection between the radii of the metal ions and hydrogen bonds. Furthermore, the luminescence properties and electrochemical properties of 1 to 4 were studied. All this work may offer guidance for design of biological labels based on quinoline-2-carboxylic acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex networks describe a wide range of systems in nature and society. To understand complex networks, it is crucial to investigate their community structure. In this paper, we develop an online community detection algorithm with linear time complexity for large complex networks. Our algorithm processes a network edge by edge in the order that the network is fed to the algorithm. If a new edge is added, it just updates the existing community structure in constant time, and does not need to re-compute the whole network. Therefore, it can efficiently process large networks in real time. Our algorithm optimizes expected modularity instead of modularity at each step to avoid poor performance. The experiments are carried out using 11 public data sets, and are measured by two criteria, modularity and NMI (Normalized Mutual Information). The results show that our algorithm's running time is less than the commonly used Louvain algorithm while it gives competitive performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three complexes based on fluconazole, namely, {[Co2(HFlu)(dpa)2(H2O)2]·H2O}n(1), {[Zn(HFlu)(IPA)]·H2O}n(2), and {[Mn(HFlu)2(IPA)(H2O)]·H2O}n(3) (HFlu?=?fluconazole, 2-(2,4-difluoro-phenyl)-1,3-bis(1,2,4-triazol-1-yl)-propan-2-ol; H2dpa?=?diphenic acid; H2IPA?=?isophthalic acid) have been synthesized. Single-crystal X-ray analysis revealed that1is a 2-D-network framework containing a trinuclear Co(II) unit,2is a 3-D framework, and3is 1-D double chain structure with a Mn2metallocyclic core. The complexes have also been characterized by elemental analyses, IR, UV/vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, and thermal gravimetry. The phase purity of these polymers has been confirmed via powder X-ray diffraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three complexes based on fluconazole, {[Cd(HFlu)(bptc)]·4.5HO} ( 1), {[Cd(HFlu)(OH-BDC)]·8HO} ( 2), {[Mn(HFlu)(OH-BDC)]·8HO} ( 3). (HFlu = fluconazole; Hbptc = 3,3′,4,4′-biphenyltetracarboxylic acid; OH-HBDC = 5-hydroxyisophthalic acid) have been synthesized and structurally characterized. Complex 1 is a 1D loop-containing chain with a large number of free water molecules, which are further interconnected via O-H···O and O-H···N hydrogen bonds to form a 3D supramolecular framework. Complex 2 and 3 are both a 1D tubular structure with the distorted dinuclear cadmium rectangular shaped cavity and a large number of free water molecules are accommodated in the 1D tubular structure. The photoluminescent properties of the coordination polymers have also been investigated. Graphical Abstract: Three 1-D complexes based on fluconazole have been reported, together with their photoluminescent properties. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new coordination complexes, formulated as [Cd2(3-NPA)(phen)4(H2O)2]2(1) and [Zn(3-NPA)(phen)(H2O)]n(2) (3-NPAH2= 3-nitrophthalic acid, phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) have been synthesized by hydrothermal reactions of the rigid neutral ligand phen with metal ions in the presence of 3-NPAH. X-ray analysis shows that complex1is a 0D dinuclear structure that is arranged to form a 3D supramolecular framework through hydrogen bonds and π–π stacking interactions. In polymer2, the 3-NPA2−anions coordinate the Cd(II) ions in a tridentate mode to form a 1D infinite chain structure, which is connected by the hydrogen bonds and π–π stacking interactions resulting in a 3D supramolecular architecture. In addition, the two complexes were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, luminescent properties, thermo gravimetric analysis, and powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Microorganisms isolated through artificial media are often unsustainable in biodegrading microcystins (MCs) in natural water. Here we studied alternative approaches to isolate MCs-degrading bacteria using natural media. In comparison to two species (MS-1 and MS-2) isolated from artificial media and the failure of bacterial colonies formation using water extracts of sediment (10%, w/v), five colony species (WC-1 to WC-5) appeared using concentrated water extracts of sediment that is 10-fold enhancement of nutrient level. In the simulated biodegradation test in Lake Taihu water with continuous supply of MCs, a lag phase of 6days was required for MS-1 and M-2 to degrade 13% and 15% of the added MC-RR and MC-LR, respectively, whereas the lag phase was only 3days with approximately 44% and 31% removal of the added MC-RR and MC-LR by WC-1 to WC-5. During the continuous supply experiment, degradation of MCs by MS-1 and MS-2 stopped after 3days, while degradation of MCs by WC-1 to WC-5 lasted continuously throughout the 18day test period with 2 to 6-fold enhancement of removal rate. 16S rRNA gene sequences and phylogenetic analysis indicated the potential to amplify species of MCs-degrading bacteria when natural media were used. The results suggested that the increased adaptability of bacteria obtained through concentrated natural media was responsible for the enhanced and continued biodegradation under simulated natural water conditions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Establishing a dense vertex-to-vertex anthropometric correspondence between 3D faces is an important and fundamental problem in 3D face research, which can contribute to most applications of 3D faces. This paper proposes a sparse facial deformable model to automatically achieve this task. For an input 3D face, the basic idea is to generate a new 3D face that has the same mesh topology as a reference face and the highly similar shape to the input face, and whose vertices correspond to those of the reference face in an anthropometric sense. Two constraints: 1) the shape constraint and 2) correspondence constraint are modeled in our method to satisfy the three requirements. The shape constraint is solved by a novel face deformation approach in which a normal-ray scheme is integrated to the closest-vertex scheme to keep high-curvature shapes in deformation. The correspondence constraint is based on an assumption that if the vertices on 3D faces are corresponded, their shape signals lie on a manifold and each face signal can be represented sparsely by a few typical items in a dictionary. The dictionary can be well learnt and contains the distribution information of the corresponded vertices. The correspondence information can be conveyed to the sparse representation of the generated 3D face. Thus, a patch-based sparse representation is proposed as the correspondence constraint. By solving the correspondence constraint iteratively, the vertices of the generated face can be adjusted to correspondence positions gradually. At the early iteration steps, smaller sparsity thresholds are set that yield larger representation errors but better globally corresponded vertices. At the later steps, relatively larger sparsity thresholds are used to encode local shapes. By this method, the vertices in the new face approach the right positions progressively until the final global correspondence is reached. Our method is automatic, and the manual work is needed only in training procedure. The experimental results on a large-scale publicly available 3D face data set, BU-3DFE, demonstrate that our method achieves better performance than existing methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] The assembly mechanism of PFOS molecules at the solid–water interface was studied. [•] The crystallographic orientation of surface affects the surfactant–solid interaction. [•] Monolayer, hemicylinder, and irregular assembling on different planes were found. [•] Counterion-bridging mechanism was identified at the molecular scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep neural networks provide end-to-end tools to learn effective representations from data directly. The deep structure makes it possible to model a complicated pattern, even if it has a variety of changes. This leads to a problem that noises and outliers are usually treated as a specific pattern, which is also learned in the network. It is one reason for overfitting incapable of being addressed sufficiently in deep networks. This paper proposes a new method called subdomain contraction (SDC) to tackle the problem. The idea is that our approach inclines to learn more about the shared features between the subsets of the samples but less about the specific features found in only one or two subsets. To this end, the SDC loss penalizes the distribution distance between sub-domains in the feature space to constrain the sharing level of features. By applying the SDC loss term, the data drive the learning process to an optimal tradeoff between modeling noises and the varieties of the pattern. In this manner, the SDC models the pattern as much as possible and ignores most noises, thus improving the generalization ability. The SDC loss can be efficiently computed in minibatches and can also work collaboratively with other regularization methods such as dropout to further improve the performance. Extensive experiments demonstrate that SDC can improve the effectiveness and robustness of representation learning in deep networks against noises, and the superiority is most remarkable with noisy data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An effective sorbent to remove the perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) simultaneously from simulating plating wastewater was prepared in this study. The removal of Cr was pH-dependent. However, PFOS removal on organo-montmorillonites (Mts) was not sensitive to pH changes. The presence of micelles and hemi-micelles resulted in an enhanced PFOS sorption capacity which reached 1,000 mg/g on the hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTMAB) modified montmorillonite. The cationic surfactants on organo-Mts were largely responsible to the hydrophobic partition. For Cr(VI), the stable coordination compounds between amido, sulfhydryl groups and HCrO were beneficial to its sorption on AET-Mt and AET-HDTMAB-Mt (AET, 2-aminoethanethiol hydrochloride). The result indicated that the AET-HDTMAB-Mt was highly effective for removing both PFOS and Cr(VI) simultaneously, and their sorption capacities reached 890 and 14 mg/g respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trajectory-clustering-based methods have shown a good performance in counting moving objects in densely crowded scenes. However, they still fall into trouble in complex scenes, such as with the close proximity of moving objects, freely moving parts of objects, and different object size in different locations of the scene. This paper proposes a new method combining velocity and location-specific spatial clues in trajectories to deal with these problems. We first extract the velocities of a trajectory over its life-time. To alleviate confusion around the boundary regions between close objects, extracted velocity information is utilized to eliminate unreal-world feature points on objects' boundaries. Then, a function is introduced to measure the similarity of the trajectories integrating both of the spatial and the velocity clues. This function is employed in the Mean-Shift clustering procedure to reduce the effect of freely moving parts of the objects. To address the problem of various object sizes in different regions of the scene, we suggest a technique to learn the location-specific size distribution of objects in different locations of a scene. The experimental results show that our proposed method achieves a good performance. Compared with other trajectory-clustering-based methods, it decreases the counting error rate by about 10%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (HDTMAB) immobilized hollow mesoporous silica spheres were prepared for the efficient removal of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) from aqueous solution. Besides the traditional sorption behavior including sorption kinetics as well as effect of solution pH and temperature, the effect of increasing volume which simulated the natural river where the rate of solute and solvent was relatively constant and solution volume was always changing was investigated. The result indicated that the residual PFOS concentrations in aqueous phase decreased with increasing solution pH and ionic strength, whereas they increased with increasing temperature. The HDTMAB immobilized material still maintained high efficiency after increasing volume, that is, the removal kept more than 99% after the treatment when the initial PFOS concentration was 1mgL−1. The uptake behavior and morphology of spheres which was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the additional HDTMAB and mesoporous shell were responsible for the enhanced sorption of PFOS. It was concluded that electrostatic interaction and Ca-bridge role played an important role in the sorption of PFOS on the mesoporous SiO2 hollow spheres, whereas, hydrophobic interaction contributed to the nice sorption performance of PFOS on the HDTMAB immobilized sorbent. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Multi-source remote-sensing data were used to study the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon oil spill: Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 m data and advanced synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images were used to delineate the extent of the oil spill; QuikScat data were used to derive the wind field; and MODIS Ocean Colour data were used to demonstrate the variability of chlorophyll-a concentration (Chl-a) and sea surface temperature (SST). No significant changes were found in marine phytoplankton in the first few months after the oil spill. However, a big phytoplankton bloom was observed after 10 months, when Chl-a increased from 0.1 to 1.0 mg m–3. After considering the time-series variability of Chl-a and SST and the spatial variability of Chl-a and bathymetry, we concluded that this phytoplankton bloom was probably related to the Lebanon oil spill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method was studied for marine harmful algal blooms (HABs) mitigation using clay, soil, or sand modified with xanthan and calcium hydroxide. Results showed that xanthan could trap and wrap Amphidinium carterae cells via bridging and netting interactions due to its superior salt compatibility in seawater. The maximum cell removal efficiency was 55% when xanthan was used alone. The removal effect of xanthan was enhanced by the addition of appropriate calcium hydroxide that decreased the repulsive interaction between anionic xanthan and negatively charged algal cells. Three kinds of minerals (clays, soils, and sands) were ineffective in removing algal cells before treatment. When xanthan and calcium hydroxide were used together as modifiers, the removal efficiency increased to 83-89% within 30 min using 300 mg L clays, soils, or sands modified with 20 mg L xanthan and 100 mg L calcium hydroxide. After several hours, 95-98% cell removal was achieved and there was no significant difference in the removal efficiencies among clays, soils, and sands after being modified with xanthan and calcium hydroxide. Thus, the method would provide an alternative modification approach to suppress and mitigate HABs using local soils/sands and polymers in marine systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wenying Lake in Datong, China, has been drying for the last several years. Analysis of standard penetration test data revealed that a missing waterproof layer of silt soil and silty clay in the south part of the lake, resulting from frequent flood flushing, was responsible for the water loss from the lake. Accordingly, 6.7 × 105 m2 of geosynthetic clay liner (GCL) was used in May 2010 to repair the area of sediment exhibiting the water leakage, equivalent to 15.6% of the total lake bottom area. Approximately 4.1 × 106 m3 of floodwater was then diverted from upstream rivers to the lake. Eight months later, about 0.9 × 106 m3 of the water was retained, with the water loss being reduced from 4.0 to 1.1 m3 m−2 year−1. Ecologically safe and cost-effective clay materials also can be used to furthermore improve the water retention characteristics. Modelling results indicated that capping the whole lake with a 2 cm layer of bentonite with a permeability coefficient of 5.0 × 10−9 cm s−1 could reduce the sediment water leakage to 0.04 m3 m−2 year−1. The quality of the retained water after GCL treatment project was poor, with a total nitrogen concentration of 11.0 mg L−1 and sulphate 307.0 mg L−1, which were 5 and 300 times higher, respectively, than the Chinese class V surface water standard. Restoration of aquatic vegetation in the lake and constructed wetlands near the lake inlets could be helpful to improve the lake's water quality over the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) of arsenate adsorption on TiO2 surfaces was calculated using self-consistent multiple-scattering methods, allowing a structural analysis of experimental spectra. A quantitative analysis of the effect of disorder revealed that the broadening and weakening of the characteristic absorption in experimental XANES was due to the structural disorder of the arsenate-TiO2 adsorption system. The success with calculating the scattering amplitude of a specific set of paths using the path expansion approach enables the scattering contributions of different coordination shells to the XANES to be sorted out. The results showed that the scattering resonances from high-level shells inherently overlapped onto the first-shell scattering amplitudes, and formed the fine structures in the XANES region. A variation in one oscillatory feature could be due to several structural changes affecting specific single/multiple-scattering amplitudes. Therefore, direct assignments of spectral features with structural elements should be based on adequate theoretical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effect of adsorption mode on photodegradation of H-acid in TiO suspension was studied using DFT calculation, UV-Vis spectroscopy, FTIR, and ionic chromatography. At pH 2.5, H-acid was adsorbed on TiO surfaces by one dissociated sulfonic group. The adsorbed sulfonic group was attacked by surface ·OH, resulting in the production of SO and the cleavage of the naphthalene ring. At pH 5.0, H-acid was adsorbed on TiO surfaces by two sulfonic groups. The two adsorbed sulfonic groups were simultaneously attacked by surface ·OH, leading to a faster initial production of SO and initial degradation rate of H-acid than those under pH 2.5. Microscopic adsorption structures may be more important than adsorption amount in controlling the photodegradation pathways of organic pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Reaction pathway information of transition states and intermediate species is crucial for understanding the adsorption mechanism of pollutants at mineral–water interfaces. However, it has been difficult to obtain such information using existing experiments. Here, the activation barriers, transition states, intermediate species and surface complexes of arsenate adsorption on TiO2 surfaces were studied using DFT-based reaction pathway calculations. The results indicated that the bidentate binuclear (BB) adsorption structure was formed through a monodentate mononuclear (MM) metastable-equilibrium adsorption (MEA) state. A two-step adsorption mechanism was proposed on the basis of the detailed picture of bond breaking and bond formation during each reaction step. When the adjacent surface sites were occupied, the transform from MM mode to BB mode was greatly inhibited so that both MM and BB coexisted in the equilibrium adsorption sample. The BB complex was energetically more stable than the MM complex, and so, the adsorption irreversibility was fundamentally related to the ratio BB:MM in the final equilibrium state. This mechanism may also explain the initial concentration effect, where, for the given adsorption experiment of arsenate on TiO2 under the same thermodynamic conditions, both equilibrium constants and the BB:MM ratio in equilibrium adsorption samples changed with the reaction kinetics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]