Structural evolution in synthetic, Ca-based sorbents for carbon capture

The carbonation of CaO-based materials at high temperatures (e.g. > 600°C) is a promising method of capturing CO₂ emitted from, e.g. the combustion of carbonaceous fuels. The resulting CaCO₃ can be regenerated by calcination at a temperature at which the equilibrium partial pressure exceeds that of the local partial pressure of CO₂ (e.g. 950°C). A process involving repeated cycles of carbonation and calcination of a calcareous material is called calcium looping. The capacity of a CaO-based sorbent to accept and reject CO₂ over many cycles is governed by a number of factors, such as chemical composition, surface morphology and pore structure, all of which often evolve with cycling. The present paper investigates the underlying mechanisms controlling the evolution of the micro-structures of a series of synthetic sorbents consisting of CaO mixed with the inert supports Ca₁₂Al₁₄O₃₃ and MgO. These sorbents were subjected to cycles of calcination and carbonation and were characterised using a variety of in situ and ex situ techniques. It was found that the balance between the degree of surface cracking during calcination and the extent of sintering during carbonation was responsible for changes in uptake during cycling, giving an increase in uptake for the supported CaO and a decrease for the unsupported CaO.The authors would like to thank the Australian Synchtrotron for the award of beamtime, and Justin Kimpton and Qinfen Gu for their help with the design and operation of the in situ gas flow capillary XRD cell. Mr Zlatko Zaracevic is acknowledged for the BET measurements. W.L acknowledges funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme. B.G acknowledges the EU Research Fund for Coal and Steel (project number RFCR-CT-2012-00008). M.T.D acknowledges funding from the Cambridge Commonwealth Trusts and Trinity College, Cambridge and the EU ERC for an advanced fellowship for CPG. D.S.S acknowledges financial support by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). C.D.L acknowledges funding by the Australian Research Council (Discovery Projects).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2015.09.01

Gold nanorods as a contrast agent for Doppler optical coherence tomography

Purpose: To investigate gold nanorods (GNRs) as a contrast agent to enhance Doppler optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging of the intrascleral aqueous humor outflow. Methods: A serial dilution of GNRs was scanned with a spectral-domain OCT device (Bioptigen, Durham, NC) to visualize Doppler signal. Doppler measurements using GNRs were validated using a controlled flow system. To demonstrate an application of GNR enhanced Doppler, porcine eyes were perfused at constant pressure with mock aqueous alone or 1.0×10 12 GNR/mL mixed with mock aqueous. Twelve Doppler and volumetric SD-OCT scans were obtained from the limbus in a radial fashion incremented by 30°, forming a circular scan pattern. Volumetric flow was computed by integrating flow inside non-connected vessels throughout all 12 scans around the limbus. Results: At the GNR concentration of 0.7×1012 GNRs/mL, Doppler signal was present through the entire depth of the testing tube without substantial attenuation. A well-defined laminar flow profile was observed for Doppler images of GNRs flowing through the glass capillary tube. The Doppler OCT measured flow profile was not statistically different from the expected flow profile based upon an autoregressive moving average model, with an error of -0.025 to 0.037 mm/s (p = 0.6435). Cross-sectional slices demonstrated the ability to view anterior chamber outflow ex-vivo using GNR-enhanced Doppler OCT. Doppler volumetric flow measurements were comparable to flow recorded by the perfusion system. Conclusions: GNRs created a measureable Doppler signal within otherwise silent flow fields in OCT Doppler scans. Practical application of this technique was confirmed in a constant pressure ex-vivo aqueous humor outflow model in porcine eyes. © 2014 Wang et al

Hierarchical Neural Network Architecture In Keyword Spotting

Keyword Spotting (KWS) provides the start signal of ASR problem, and thus it is essential to ensure a high recall rate. However, its real-time property requires low computation complexity. This contradiction inspires people to find a suitable model which is small enough to perform well in multi environments. To deal with this contradiction, we implement the Hierarchical Neural Network(HNN), which is proved to be effective in many speech recognition problems. HNN outperforms traditional DNN and CNN even though its model size and computation complexity are slightly less. Also, its simple topology structure makes easy to deploy on any device.Comment: To be submitted in part to IEEE ICASSP 201

Production of mobile invertebrate communities on shallow reefs from temperate to tropical seas

Primary productivity of marine ecosystems is largely driven by broad gradients in environmental and ecological properties. By contrast, secondary productivity tends to be more variable, influenced by bottom-up (resource-driven) and top-down (predatory) processes, other environmental drivers, and mediation by the physical structure of habitats. Here, we use a continental-scale dataset on small mobile invertebrates (epifauna), common on surfaces in all marine ecosystems, to test influences of potential drivers of temperature-standardized secondary production across a large biogeographic range. We found epifaunal production to be remarkably consistent along a temperate to tropical Australian latitudinal gradient of 28.6°, spanning kelp forests to coral reefs (approx. 3500 km). Using a model selection procedure, epifaunal production was primarily related to biogenic habitat group, which explained up to 45% of total variability. Production was otherwise invariant to predictors capturing primary productivity, the local biomass of fishes (proxy for predation pressure), and environmental, geographical, and human impacts. Highly predictable levels of epifaunal productivity associated with distinct habitat groups across continental scales should allow accurate modelling of the contributions of these ubiquitous invertebrates to coastal food webs, thus improving understanding of likely changes to food web structure with ocean warming and other anthropogenic impacts on marine ecosystems

Negative Effect of Smoking on the Performance of the QuantiFERON TB Gold in Tube Test.

False negative and indeterminate Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) results are a well documented problem. Cigarette smoking is known to increase the risk of tuberculosis (TB) and to impair Interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) responses to antigenic challenge, but the impact of smoking on IGRA performance is not known. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of smoking on IGRA performance in TB patients in a low and high TB prevalence setting respectively. Patients with confirmed TB from Denmark (DK, n = 34; 20 smokers) and Tanzania (TZ, n = 172; 23 smokers) were tested with the QuantiFERON-TB Gold In tube (QFT). Median IFN-γ level in smokers and non smokers were compared and smoking was analysed as a risk factor for false negative and indeterminate QFT results. Smokers from both DK and TZ had lower IFN-γ antigen responses (median 0.9 vs. 4.2 IU/ml, p = 0.04 and 0.4 vs. 1.6, p < 0.01), less positive (50 vs. 86%, p = 0.03 and 48 vs. 75%, p < 0.01) and more false negative (45 vs. 0%, p < 0.01 and 26 vs. 11%, p = 0.04) QFT results. In Tanzanian patients, logistic regression analysis adjusted for sex, age, HIV and alcohol consumption showed an association of smoking with false negative (OR 17.1, CI: 3.0-99.1, p < 0.01) and indeterminate QFT results (OR 5.1, CI: 1.2-21.3, p = 0.02). Cigarette smoking was associated with false negative and indeterminate IGRA results in both a high and a low TB endemic setting independent of HIV status

A single residue substitution in the receptor-binding domain of H5N1 hemagglutinin is critical for packaging into pseudotyped lentiviral particles

© 2012 Tang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background: Serological studies for influenza infection and vaccine response often involve microneutralization and hemagglutination inhibition assays to evaluate neutralizing antibodies against human and avian influenza viruses, including H5N1. We have previously characterized lentiviral particles pseudotyped with H5-HA (H5pp) and validated an H5pp-based assay as a safe alternative for high-throughput serological studies in BSL-2 facilities. Here we show that H5-HAs from different clades do not always give rise to efficient production of H5pp and the underlying mechanisms are addressed. Methodology/Findings: We have carried out mutational analysis to delineate the molecular determinants responsible for efficient packaging of HA from A/Cambodia/40808/2005 (H5Cam) and A/Anhui/1/2005 (H5Anh) into H5pp. Our results demonstrate that a single A134V mutation in the 130-loop of the receptor binding domain is sufficient to render H5Anh the ability to generate H5Anh-pp efficiently, whereas the reverse V134A mutation greatly hampers production of H5Cam-pp. Although protein expression in total cell lysates is similar for H5Anh and H5Cam, cell surface expression of H5Cam is detected at a significantly higher level than that of H5Anh. We further demonstrate by several independent lines of evidence that the behaviour of H5Anh can be explained by a stronger binding to sialic acid receptors implicating residue 134. Conclusions: We have identified a single A134V mutation as the molecular determinant in H5-HA for efficient incorporation into H5pp envelope and delineated the underlying mechanism. The reduced binding to sialic acid receptors as a result of the A134V mutation not only exerts a critical influence in pseudotyping efficiency of H5-HA, but has also an impact at the whole virus level. Because A134V substitution has been reported as a naturally occurring mutation in human host, our results may have implications for the understanding of human host adaptation of avian influenza H5N1 virusesThis work was supported by grants from the Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases of Hong Kong (RFCID#08070972), the Area of Excellence Scheme of the University Grants Committee (grant AoE/M-12/-06 of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China), the French Ministry of Health, and the RESPARI project of the Institut Pasteur International Network

Artificial Neural Network Inference (ANNI): A Study on Gene-Gene Interaction for Biomarkers in Childhood Sarcomas

Objective: To model the potential interaction between previously identified biomarkers in children sarcomas using artificial neural network inference (ANNI). Method: To concisely demonstrate the biological interactions between correlated genes in an interaction network map, only 2 types of sarcomas in the children small round blue cell tumors (SRBCTs) dataset are discussed in this paper. A backpropagation neural network was used to model the potential interaction between genes. The prediction weights and signal directions were used to model the strengths of the interaction signals and the direction of the interaction link between genes. The ANN model was validated using Monte Carlo cross-validation to minimize the risk of over-fitting and to optimize generalization ability of the model. Results: Strong connection links on certain genes (TNNT1 and FNDC5 in rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS); FCGRT and OLFM1 in Ewing’s sarcoma (EWS)) suggested their potency as central hubs in the interconnection of genes with different functionalities. The results showed that the RMS patients in this dataset are likely to be congenital and at low risk of cardiomyopathy development. The EWS patients are likely to be complicated by EWS-FLI fusion and deficiency in various signaling pathways, including Wnt, Fas/Rho and intracellular oxygen. Conclusions: The ANN network inference approach and the examination of identified genes in the published literature within the context of the disease highlights the substantial influence of certain genes in sarcomas

Impact of periodic health examination on surgical treatment for uterine fibroids in Beijing: a case-control study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>During the past 2 decades, there has been a rapid proliferation of "health examination center (HEC)" across China. The effects of their services on public's health have not been systemically investigated. This study aimed to assess the impact of periodic health examination (PHE) at HEC on surgical treatment for uterine fibroids in Beijing residents.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We identified 224 patients with a primary diagnosis of uterine fibroids who had surgical treatment at four Level-1 general hospitals in Beijing, from June 1, 2009 to October 20, 2009. Controls were women who did not have surgery for uterine fibroids, matched (1:1 ratio) for age (within 2 years). A standard questionnaire was used to inquire about whether participants had PHE at HEC during the previous 2 years.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>PHE at HEC within 2 years were associated with surgical treatment for uterine fibroids. Odds ratios was 4.05 (95% CI, 2.61-6.29 P < 0.001), after adjustment for marital status, whether have children, annual family income, health insurance, education level and self-rated uterine fibroids-related symptom severity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our study showed PHE currently provided at HEC in China were associated with significantly increased use of surgical treatment for uterine fibroids in women. Further studies are needed to assess the effects of PHE on clinical as well as on broad societal outcomes in Chinese in contemporary medical settings.</p