Recent progress towards in-situ biogas upgrading technologies

Biogas is mainly produced from the anaerobic fermentation of biomass, containing methane with an extensive range between about 50% and 70%. Higher methane content biogas has higher energy and heat value, which needs biogas upgrading. There are mainly two types of biogas upgrading technologies (ex-situ and in-situ). This manuscript presents a review of technologies on in-situ biogas upgrading. These technologies comprise H2 addition technology (e.g., continuous stirring tank reactor (CSTR), hollow fiber membrane (HFM), nano-bubble (NB) technology, upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB)), high-pressure anaerobic digestion (HPAD), bioelectrochemical system (BES), and additives (e.g., ash, biochar, and iron powder). The results confirm the excellence of H2-addition technology, with the highest average CH4 content obtained (HFM: 92.5%) and one of the few full-scale cases reported (Danish GasMix ejector system: 1110 m3). Meanwhile, newly pop-up technology such as HPAD delivers appropriate CH4 content (an average of 87%) and is close to the full-scale application (https://bareau.nl/en/for-professionals/). More importantly, the combo between HPAD and H2-addition technology is prominent as the former improves the low gas-to-liquid obstacle confronted by the latter. Additionally, recently emerging BES can't stand out yet because of limited efficiency on CH4 content or constraint full-scale application behaviors (disability to operate at high current density). However, its combination with H2-addition technology to form the Power to Gas (PtG) concept is promising, and its commercial application is available (http://www.electrochaea.com/). Hydrogenotrophic methanogens are imperative players in all reviewed technologies for the generation of upgraded CH4

Construction of Shanghai Diabetes Clinical Database and real-world study

Objective·To construct a clinical database of diabetes in Shanghai, mine the value of clinical data, and carry out real-world study.Methods·The data were extracted from Shanghai Link Healthcare Database. All original clinical data have undergone standard processes such as desensitization, encryption, cleaning, standardization, information extraction and structuring, and clinical data were analyzed by the method of medical statistics or machine learning according to different research contents.Results·The database has imported the clinical data of 150 million visits and treatment records of 2.12 million diabetic patients in 37 municipal hospitals over a ten-year period from 2013 to 2022. The overall analysis showed the basic characteristics and development trends of all aspects of diabetes disease in real-world settings, the potential risks of diabetes are discovered by constructing retrospective cohort, and the inherent patterns of the disease are revealed by using machine learning methods such as cluster analysis and network analysis.Conclusion·The establishment of Shanghai Diabetes Clinical Database can not only summarize and show the clinical status of diabetes, but also obtain more scientific achievements with realistic clinical value by real-world clinical data study

ISP1-anchored Polarization of GCβ/CDC50A Complex Initiates Malaria Ookinete Gliding Motility

该工作历时四年，由博士毕业生高涵（第一作者）、博士生杨振科和王旭（共同第一作者）、硕士生钱鹏戈和洪仁杰完成；袁晶教授为通讯作者；厦门大学为第一完成单位。 该工作揭示了疟疾病原疟原虫通过媒介按蚊传播过程中的关键步骤---控制动合子运动的环磷酸鸟苷cGMP信号的激活机制。 疟原虫属于顶复体亚门原生动物，每年导致数亿人口感染疟疾和超过40万病人死亡。疟原虫通过雌性按蚊在哺乳动物宿主间传播。疟疾病人被按蚊叮咬吸血，疟原虫雌雄配子在按蚊消化道中受精形成合子，进一步变形发育为具有运动能力的新月形动合子。只有获得运动能力的动合子，才能穿越按蚊消化道单层上皮细胞，成功感染按蚊媒介。在本研究中，通过大量基因修饰模型，发现GCβ缺失导致动合子运动完全丢失，进而失去按蚊感染和传播能力。研究还发现，GCβ由细胞质均匀分布改变为在动合子顶体突出一侧聚集，并且GCβ聚集和动合子成熟完全同步，显示GCβ聚集可能直接激活cGMP信号。 本工作还发现GCβ结合蛋白CDC50A，后者承担分子伴侣功能，在动合子转化和成熟动合子中，稳定GCβ。此外，进一步筛选发现动合子内膜复合物蛋白ISP1，能够结合和锚定GCβ/CDC50A复合物，在成熟动合子中维持复合物的聚集。本研究为深入开展寄生性原生动物的发育转化和信号调控提供了线索和借鉴。【Abstract】Ookinete gliding motility is essential for penetration of the mosquito midgut wall and transmission of malaria parasites. Cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) signaling has been implicated in ookinete gliding. However, the upstream mechanism of how the parasites activate cGMP signaling and thus initiate ookinete gliding remains unknown. Using real-time imaging to visualize Plasmodium yoelii guanylate cyclase β (GCβ), we show that cytoplasmic GCβ translocates and polarizes to the parasite plasma membrane at “ookinete extrados site” (OES) during zygote to ookinete differentiation. The polarization of enzymatic active GCβ at OES initiates gliding of matured ookinete. Both the P4-ATPase-like domain and guanylate cyclase domain are required for GCβ polarization and ookinete gliding. CDC50A, a co-factor of P4-ATPase, binds to and stabilizes GCβ during ookinete development. Screening of inner membrane complex proteins identifies ISP1 as a key molecule that anchors GCβ/CDC50A complex at the OES of mature ookinetes. This study defines a spatial-temporal mechanism for the initiation of ookinete gliding, where GCβ polarization likely elevates local cGMP levels and activates cGMP-dependent protein kinase signaling.We thank Dr. David Baker (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) for his comments on this manuscript. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81522027, 31772443, and 31501912), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (20720160069, 20720150165, and 2013121033), the China's 1000 Young Talents Program, the “111” Project of the Ministration of Education of China (B06016), and the Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH (X.S.). The authors thank Cindy Clark, NIH Library Writing Center, for manuscript editing assistance. 该研究得到国家自然科学基金委、中组部“青年千人计划”和厦门大学校长基金的资助

The Age of Synthetic Realities: Challenges and Opportunities

Synthetic realities are digital creations or augmentations that are contextually generated through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods, leveraging extensive amounts of data to construct new narratives or realities, regardless of the intent to deceive. In this paper, we delve into the concept of synthetic realities and their implications for Digital Forensics and society at large within the rapidly advancing field of AI. We highlight the crucial need for the development of forensic techniques capable of identifying harmful synthetic creations and distinguishing them from reality. This is especially important in scenarios involving the creation and dissemination of fake news, disinformation, and misinformation. Our focus extends to various forms of media, such as images, videos, audio, and text, as we examine how synthetic realities are crafted and explore approaches to detecting these malicious creations. Additionally, we shed light on the key research challenges that lie ahead in this area. This study is of paramount importance due to the rapid progress of AI generative techniques and their impact on the fundamental principles of Forensic Science

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Coarse particulate air pollution and daily mortality a global study in 205 cities

Please read abstract in the article.The National Natural Science Foundation of China; the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan; the Medical Research Council-UK; Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; the Australian Research Council the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Project Exhaustion ; the Natural Environment Research Council UK; the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council; and an Emerging Leader Fellowship of the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.http://www.atsjournals.org/journal/ajrccm2023-06-07hj2023Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorolog

Estimation Of Personal Ozone Exposure Using Ambient Concentrations And Influencing Factors

Evidence is limited regarding whether ambient monitoring can properly represent personal ozone exposure. We conducted a longitudinal panel study to measure personal exposure to ozone using real-time personal ozone monitors. Corresponding ambient ozone concentrations and possible influencing factors (meteorological conditions and activity patterns) were also collected. We used linear mixed-effect models to analyze personal-ambient ozone concentration associations and possible influencing factors. Ambient ozone concentrations were around two to three times higher than personal ozone (43.1 μg/m3 on average) and their correlations were weak with small slopes (0.35) and marginal R square (RM2) values (0.24). Larger RM2 values were found under high temperature (\u3e29.5 °C), low humidity (\u3c62.1%), good ventilation conditions (\u3e4 h) and for individuals spent longer time outdoors (\u3e0.6 h). In final model, personal ozone exposure was positively associated with ambient concentrations and ventilation conditions, but inversely correlated with ambient temperature and humidity. The models explained \u3e50% of personal ozone concentration variabilities. Our results highlight that ambient ozone concentration alone is not a suitable surrogate for individual exposure assessment. Meteorological conditions (temperature and humidity) and activity patterns (windows opening and outdoor activities) that affecting personal ozone exposure should be taken into account

Infrared Bird Target Detection Based on Temporal Variation Filtering and a Gaussian Heat-Map Perception Network

Flying bird detection has recently attracted increasing attention in computer vision. However, compared to conventional object detection tasks, it is much more challenging to trap flying birds in infrared videos due to small target size, complex backgrounds, and dim shapes. In order to solve the problem of poor detection performance caused by insufficient feature information of small and dim birds, this paper suggests a method of detecting birds in outdoor environments using image pre-processing and deep learning, called temporal Variation filtering (TVF) and Gaussian heatmap perception network (GHPNet), respectively. TVF separates the dynamic background from moving creatures. Using bird appearance features that are brightest at the center and gradually darker outwards, the size-adaptive Gaussian kernel is used to generate the ground truth of the region of interest (ROI). In order to fuse the features from different scales and to highlight the saliency of the target, the GHPNet network integrates VGG-16 and maximum-no-pooling filterer into a U-Net network. The comparative experiments demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms those that are state-of-the-art in detecting bird targets in real-world infrared images