Adiponectin inhibits oxidization-induced differentiation of T helper cells through inhibiting costimulatory CD40 and CD80

Adiponectin is a multifunctional adipokine that has several oligomeric forms in the blood stream, which broadly regulates innate and acquired immunity. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to observe the differentiation of T helper (Th) cells and expression of costimulatory signaling molecules affected by adiponectin. The mRNA and protein expression levels of adiponectin and its receptors in oxidized low density lipoprotein cholesterol-treated endothelial cells were assayed by real time PCR and immunofluorescence. The endothelial cells were then treated with adiponectin with or without adipoR1 or adipoR2 siRNA and co-cultured with T lymphocytes. The distribution of Th1, Th2 and Th17 subsets were assayed by flow cytometry. The effects of adiponectin on costimulatory signaling molecules HLA-DR, CD80, CD86 and CD 40 was also assayed by flow cytometry. The results showed that endothelial cells expressed adiponectin and its receptor adipoR1 and adipoR2, but not T-cadherin. Adiponectin suppressed Th1 and Th17 differentiation through adipoR1 receptor, contributed to the inhibition of CD80 and CD40, and inhibited differentiation of Th1 and Th17 by inhibiting antigen presenting action.</div

Greenness, Perceived Pollution Hazards and Subjective Wellbeing: Evidence from China

Urbanisation from the developing world has been phenomenal and renewed the interest of studying the connection between urban greenness and subjective wellbeing. This paper responds to this greenness-wellbeing connection by shifting its focus towards systematically exploring the influences of urban greenness, perceived pollution hazards, and their interaction terms on subjective wellbeing. Using a combination of green view data and individual survey data in Beijing, we find that perceived pollution hazards about the disposal of waste, polluted water, and air pollution have significant interaction effects with eye-sensored greenness exposures on subjective wellbeing. Findings of this study suggest that policies geared towards mitigating particular domains of pollution hazards and improving green landscape should work together for shaping people’s quality of life.</p

A Cleaner Process for Selective Recovery of Valuable Metals from Electronic Waste of Complex Mixtures of End-of-Life Electronic Products

In recent years, recovery of metals from electronic waste within the European Union has become increasingly important due to potential supply risk of strategic raw material and environmental concerns. Electronic waste, especially a mixture of end-of-life electronic products from a variety of sources, is of inherently high complexity in composition, phase, and physiochemical properties. In this research, a closed-loop hydrometallurgical process was developed to recover valuable metals, i.e., copper and precious metals, from an industrially processed information and communication technology waste. A two-stage leaching design of this process was adopted in order to selectively extract copper and enrich precious metals. It was found that the recovery efficiency and extraction selectivity of copper both reached more than 95% by using ammonia-based leaching solutions. A new electrodeposition process has been proven feasible with 90% current efficiency during copper recovery, and the copper purity can reach 99.8 wt %. The residue from the first-stage leaching was screened into coarse and fine fractions. The coarse fraction was returned to be releached for further copper recovery. The fine fraction was treated in the second-stage leaching using sulfuric acid to further concentrate precious metals, which could achieve a 100% increase in their concentrations in the residue with negligible loss into the leaching solution. By a combination of different leaching steps and proper physical separation of light materials, this process can achieve closed-loop recycling of the waste with significant efficiency

Greenness, Perceived Pollution Hazards and Subjective Wellbeing: Evidence from China

Urbanisation from the developing world has been phenomenal and renewed the interest of studying the connection between urban greenness and subjective wellbeing. This paper responds to this greenness-wellbeing connection by shifting its focus towards systematically exploring the influences of urban greenness, perceived pollution hazards, and their interaction terms on subjective wellbeing. Using a combination of green view data and individual survey data in Beijing, we find that perceived pollution hazards about the disposal of waste, polluted water, and air pollution have significant interaction effects with eye-sensored greenness exposures on subjective wellbeing. Findings of this study suggest that policies geared towards mitigating particular domains of pollution hazards and improving green landscape should work together for shaping people’s quality of life.</p

Infrared polarizer based on direct coupling to surface-plasmon polaritons

We propose a new type of reflective polarizer based on polarization-dependent coupling to surface-plasmon polaritons (SPPs) from free space. This inexpensive polarizer is relatively narrowband but features an extinction ratio of up to 1000 with efficiency of up to 95% for the desired polarization (numbers from a calculation), and thus can be stacked to achieve extinction ratios of 106 or more. As a proof of concept, we experimentally realized a polarizer based on nanoporous aluminum oxide that operates around a wavelength of 10.6 um, corresponding to the output of a CO2 laser, using aluminum anodization, a low-cost electrochemical process

Metagenomic reconstructions of caecal microbiome in Landes, Roman and Zhedong White geese

1. The caecal microbiota in geese play a crucial role in determining the host’s health, disease status and behaviour, as evidenced by extensive epidemiological data. The present investigation conducted 10× metagenomic sequencing of caecal content samples obtained from three distinct goose species, namely Landes geese, Roman geese and Zhedong White geese (n = 5), to explore the contribution of the gut microbiome to carbohydrate metabolism. 2. In total, 337GB of Illumina data were generated, which identified 1,048,575 complete genes and construction of 331 metagenomic bins, encompassing 78 species from nine phyla. Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Bacteria were identified as the dominant phyla while Prevotella, Bacteroides, Streptococcus, and Subdoligranulum were the most abundant genera in the caecum of geese. 3. The genes were allocated to 375 pathways using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genome (KEGG) analysis. The most abundant classes in the caecum of geese were confirmed to be glycoside hydrolases (GHs), glycosyl transferases (GTs), as identified through the carbohydrate-active enzyme (CAZyme) database mapping. Subdoligranulum variabile and Mediterraneibacter glycyrrhizinilyticus were discovered to potentially facilitate carbohydrate digestion in geese. 4. Notwithstanding, further investigation and validation are required to establish a connection between these species and CAZymes. Based on binning analysis, Mediterraneibacter glycyrrhizinilyticus and Ruminococcus sp. CAG:177 are potential species in LD geese that contribute to the production of fatty liver.</p

DS_10.1177_0022034519882618 – Supplemental material for CD103⁺ T and Dendritic Cells Indicate a Favorable Prognosis in Oral Cancer

Supplemental material, DS_10.1177_0022034519882618 for CD103+ T and Dendritic Cells Indicate a Favorable Prognosis in Oral Cancer by Y. Xiao, H. Li, L. Mao, Q.C. Yang, L.Q. Fu, C.C. Wu, B. Liu and Z.J. Sun in Journal of Dental Research</p

Accessibility and Dispersion of Vanadyl Sites of Vanadium Silicate-1 Nanoparticles Deposited in SBA-15

Vanadium silicalite-1 (VS-1) nanoparticles dispersed onto the mesoporous walls of SBA-15 silica have characteristics different from those of the full-grown VS-1. In particular, the vanadium-binding site differs extensively. Here, we monitor the local environment of VO2+ with different electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) techniques to obtain information about the heterogeneity of the vanadyl sites, the effect of a calcination/reduction cycle, and the subsequent adsorption of 13CO2 and NH3 to the vanadyl sites for both full-grown VS-1 and VS1-SBA15. Furthermore, two-cycle CO2 and NH3 adsorption experiments were performed. While the latter showed no chemisorption of CO2 at 373 K for both materials, clear evidence was found for ligation of CO2 to vanadyl in full-grown VS-1 by the detection of a strong 13C hyperfine value. This strong binding was not detected for the vanadyl centers in VS1-SBA15. Chemisorption of NH3 was detected for all samples both by two-cycle adsorption experiments and by EPR

sj-docx-1-jdr-10.1177_00220345211073072 – Supplemental material for GSDME Is Related to Prognosis and Response to Chemotherapy in Oral Cancer

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-jdr-10.1177_00220345211073072 for GSDME Is Related to Prognosis and Response to Chemotherapy in Oral Cancer by S. Wang, M.J. Zhang, Z.Z. Wu, S.W. Zhu, S.C. Wan, B.X. Zhang, Q.C. Yang, Y. Xiao, L. Chen and Z.J. Sun in Journal of Dental Research</p

Correcting thermal-emission-induced detector saturation in infrared reflection or transmission spectroscopy

We found that temperature-dependent infrared spectroscopy measurements (i.e., reflectance or transmittance) using a Fourier-transform spectrometer can have substantial errors, especially for elevated sample temperatures and collection using an objective lens (e.g., using an infrared microscope). These errors arise as a result of partial detector saturation due to thermal emission from the measured sample reaching the detector, resulting in nonphysical apparent reduction of reflectance or transmittance with increasing sample temperature. Here, we demonstrate that these temperature-dependent errors can be corrected by implementing several levels of optical attenuation that enable "convergence testing" of the measured reflectance or transmittance as the thermal-emission signal is reduced, or by applying correction factors that can be inferred by looking at the spectral regions where the sample is not expected to have a substantial temperature dependence