Bimetallic Hierarchical Nanostructured Alumina Material Catalyzes Decarboxylation of Oleic Acid to Produce Long-Chain Alkanes for Bioaviation Kerosene

Standard alumina has only a small number of mesopores, which is not conducive to the mass transfer of biomacromolecules and so affects the catalytic activity in the case that this material is used as a catalyst substrate. In the present work, hierarchical nanostructured γ-Al2O3 (HNCγ-Al2O3) assembled from nanosheets was obtained after high-temperature calcination and a low-temperature hydrothermal treatment of an Al-MOF precursor. This material had a high Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area (266.8 cm3/g) and pore volume (0.64 cm3/g) together with abundant mesopores. Both monometallic and bimetallic Pt/Ni catalysts were prepared using HNCγ-Al2O3 as a carrier and applied to the decarboxylation of oleic acid to produce C8–C17 alkanes. Compared with monometallic materials, the introduction of a second metal increased the quantity and strength of acidic sites on the catalyst. A synergistic effect obtained by incorporating Pt and Ni in the bimetallic catalysts increased the number of oxygen vacancies in the materials and lowered the temperature required to reduce NiOx. At 340 °C, Pt–Ni/Al-1:3 catalyzed the decarboxylation reaction of oleic acid, giving a yield of the product C8–C17 alkanes of 85.3% after a 4 h reaction

A NOVEL RAISIN SEGMENTATION ALGORITHM BASED ON DEEP LEARNING AND MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

ABSTRACT We propose a segmentation algorithm for raisin extraction. The proposed approach consists of the following aspects. Deep learning is used to predict the number of raisins in each connected region, and the shape features such as the roundness, area, X-axis value for the centroid, Y-axis value for the centroid, axis length and perimeter of each region will be used to establish the prediction model. Morphological analysis, based on edge parameters including the polar axis, polar angle and angular velocity, is applied to search for the suitable break points that are useful for identifying the dividing lines between two adjacent raisins. To make our segmentation more accurate, some machine-learning algorithms such as the random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM) and deep learning (deep neural network, DNN) are applied to predict the number of raisins and to decide whether the raisins need more segmentation. The performance of the three models is compared, and the DNN is the most accurate.</div

The sequence of primers used in this study.

The pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) is now a more common aquaculture species in saline-alkali waters, while alkalinity stress is considered to be one of the stressors for shrimp. Thus, an understanding of the molecular response to alkalinity stress is critical for advancing the sustainability of culture in pacific white shrimp. In this study, we aimed to explore the response mechanism to acute high-alkaline stress by RNA-seq at low-alkaline (50 mg/L) and high-alkaline (350 mg/L). We identified 215 differentially expressed mRNAs (DEGs) and 35 differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMs), of which 180 DEGs and 28 DEMs were up-regulated, 35 DEGs and 7 DEMs were down-regulated, respectively. The DEGs were enriched in several pathways, including carbohydrate digestion and absorption, pancreatic secretion, starch and sucrose metabolism, antigen processing and presentation and glutathione metabolism. The DEMs involved in lysosome and ion transport related pathways were significantly up-regulated. We also achieved 42 DEGs, which were targeted by DEMs. miRNA-mRNA regulatory network was constructed by integrated analysis of miRNA-mRNA data. We detected several genes and miRNAs which were identified as candidate regulators of alkalinity stress, and expression patterns of key genes related to alkalinity stress in pacific white shrimp. Among these genes, the expression levels of most key genes enriched in ion regulation, digestion and immunity were increased, and the expression levels of genes enriched in metabolism were down-regulated. This research indicated that the homeostatic regulation and digestion changed significantly under acute alkaline stress, and the variations from metabolic and immunity can cope with the osmotic shock of alkalinity stress in pacific white shrimp. This study provides key clues for exploring the molecular mechanism of pacific white shrimp under acute alkalinity stress, and also gives scientific basis for the optimisation of saline-alkaline aquaculture technology.</div

MOESM1 of Quantitative analysis of the growth of individual Bacillus coagulans cells by microdroplet technology

Additional file 1: Fig. S1. The method of pixels counting. (A) Original photo of the droplets. (B) Adjusted image by adjusting the “threshold” and the pixels were automatically counted. Fig. S2. The growth curve of Bacillus coagulans in shake flask without (black) and with pHrodo (red). The data were obtained from three parallel experiments for each. Fig. S3. Lactic acid assay in microdroplets. (A) Fluorescence imaging of microdroplets containing broth with a range of lactic acid, 8 g/L (I), 11 g/L (II), 12 g/L (III), 14 g/L (IV). (B) The corresponding average gray value derive from the fluorescence intensity of the microdroplets in the images of Fig. S1 A

Dry weight (DW) (g) of root and aboveground tissues (combined wood, new shoots and leaves) and shoot length (cm) of three willow varieties grown in various Pb concentrations for 14 days.

<p>Values are mean ± S.D. (n = 6), and data with different letters in the same column indicate a significant difference at <i>P</i><0.05 according to Fisher's LSD test.</p><p>Dry weight (DW) (g) of root and aboveground tissues (combined wood, new shoots and leaves) and shoot length (cm) of three willow varieties grown in various Pb concentrations for 14 days.</p

Function analysis of DEGs under alkalinity stress.

(a) GO enrichment analysis of DEGs; red indicates up-regulation, green indicates down-regulation; (b) KEGG enrichment analysis of DEGs.</p

Statistical results of comparison rate between reads and reference genomes.

Statistical results of comparison rate between reads and reference genomes.</p

Differential mRNA details table; GO terms of DEGs; KEGG enrichment of DEGs.

Differential mRNA details table; GO terms of DEGs; KEGG enrichment of DEGs.</p

Two-way ANOVA analysis for Pb concentration in root, new shoots, wood, and leaves.

<p>Two-way ANOVA analysis for Pb concentration in root, new shoots, wood, and leaves.</p

Concise and efficient total synthesis of oxyphyllacinol, yakuchione-A and yakuchione-B

A concise and efficient method for the large-scale total synthesis of oxyphyllacinol (1) has been achieved in six steps with an overall yield of 46%. Simultaneously, yakuchione-A (11) was obtained in a satisfactory yield (52%) during the process. By employing a Weinreb amide (6) as the key masonry block, yakuchione-B (13) was also constructed in a great overall yield (56%) and high purity. To overcome the challenges regarding the practical scale, high purity, and reproducibility, the synthetic route that was processed takes advantage of available materials, conventional reactions, and convenient purification methods without using column chromatography.</p