Chinese industrial air pollution emissions based on the continuous emission monitoring systems network

As the world's largest industrial producer, China has generated large amount of industrial atmospheric pollution, particularly for particulate matter (PM), SO2 and NOx emissions. A nationwide, time-varying, and up-to-date air pollutant emission inventory by industrial sources has great significance to understanding industrial emission characteristics. Here, we present a nationwide database of industrial emissions named Chinese Industrial Emissions Database (CIED), using the real smokestack concentrations from China's continuous emission monitoring systems (CEMS) network during 2015-2018 to enhance the estimation accuracy. This hourly, source-level CEMS data enables us to directly estimate industrial emission factors and absolute emissions, avoiding the use of many assumptions and indirect parameters that are common in existing research. The uncertainty analysis of CIED database shows that the uncertainty ranges are quite small, within ±7.2% for emission factors and ±4.0% for emissions, indicating the reliability of our estimates. This dataset provides specific information on smokestack concentrations, emissions factors, activity data and absolute emissions for China's industrial emission sources, which can offer insights into associated scientific studies and future policymaking

Development of titanium dioxide nanoparticles/nanosolution for photocatalytic activity

Biological and chemical contaminants by man-made activities have been serious global issue. Exposure of these contaminants beyond the limits may result in serious environmental and health problem. Therefore, it is important to develop an effective solution that can be easily utilized by mankind. One of the effective ways to overcome this problem is by using titanium dioxide (TiO2). TiO2 is a well-known photocatalyst that widely used for environmental clean-up due to its ability to decompose organic pollutant and kill bacteria. Although it is proven TiO2 has an advantage to solve this concern, its usefulness unfortunately is limited only under UV light irradiation. Therefore, the aim of this work was to investigate the potential of TiO2 that can be activated under visible light by the incorporation of metal ions (Fe, Ag, Zr and Ag-Zr). In this study, sol-gel method was employed for the synthesis of metal ions incorporated TiO2. XRD analysis revealed that all samples content biphasic anatase-brookite TiO2 of size 3 nm to 5 nm. It was found that the incorporation of these metal ions did not change the morphology of TiO2 but the crystallinity and optical properties were affected. The crystallinity of anatase in the biphasic TiO2 was found to be decreased and favored brookite formation. PL analysis showed metal ions incorporation suppressed the recombination of electron-hole pairs while the band gap energy of TiO2 (3.2 eV) was decreased by the incorporation of Fe (2.46 eV) and Ag (2.86 eV). Among this incorporation, Ag-Zr incorporated TiO2 showed highest performance for methyl orange degradation (93%) under fluorescent xxv light irradiation for 10 h. This follows by Zr-TiO2 (82%), Fe-TiO2 (75%) and Ag�TiO2 (43%). Meanwhile, the highest antibacterial performance was exhibited by Ag�TiO2. TEM images showed that E.coli bacterium was killed within 12 h after treated with Ag-TiO2. The results obtained from the fieldwork study established that Ag-Zr incorporation have excellent performances for VOC removal and antibacterial test. The VOC content after treated with Ag-Zr-TiO2 fulfilled the Industry Code of Practice on Indoor Air Quality 2010 which is lower than 3 ppm. In addition, the percentage of microbes also found to be decrease around 45 % within 5 days of monitoring

Effects of ACE inhibition on endothelial progenitor cell mobilization and prognosis after acute myocardial infarction in type 2 diabetic patients

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the chemotactic response of endothelial progenitor cells to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors in T2DM patients after acute myocardial infarction, as well as the associated prognosis. METHODS: Sixty-eight T2DM patients with acute myocardial infarction were randomized to either receive or not receive daily oral perindopril 4 mg, and 36 non-diabetic patients with acute myocardial infarction were enrolled as controls. The numbers of circulating CD45−/low+CD34+CD133+KDR+ endothelial progenitor cells, as well as the stromal cell-derived factor-α and high-sensitivity C reactive protein levels, were measured before acute percutaneous coronary intervention and on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 14, and 28 after percutaneous coronary intervention. Patients were followed up for 6 months. Chinese Clinical Trial Registry: ChiCTR-TRC-12002599. RESULTS: T2DM patients had lower circulating endothelial progenitor cell counts, decreased plasma vascular endothelial growth factor and α levels, and higher plasma high-sensitivity C reactive protein levels compared with non-diabetic controls. After receiving perindopril, the number of circulating endothelial progenitor cells increased from day 3 to 7, as did the plasma levels of vascular endothelial growth factor and stromal cell-derived factor-α, compared with the levels in T2DM controls. Plasma high-sensitivity C reactive protein levels in the treated group decreased to the same levels as those in non-diabetic controls. Furthermore, compared with T2DM controls, the perindopril-treated T2DM patients had lower cardiovascular mortality and occurrence of heart failure symptoms (

Differential regulation of auxin and cytokinin during the secondary vascular tissue regeneration in Populus trees

Tissue regeneration upon wounding in plants highlights the developmental plasticity of plants. Previous studies have described the morphological and molecular changes of secondary vascular tissue (SVT) regeneration after large-scale bark girdling in trees. However, how phytohormones regulate SVT regeneration is still unknown. Here, we established a novel in vitro SVT regeneration system in the hybrid aspen (Populus tremula x Populus tremuloides) clone T89 to bypass the limitation of using field-grown trees. The effects of phytohormones on SVT regeneration were investigated by applying exogenous hormones and utilizing various transgenic trees. Vascular tissue-specific markers and hormonal response factors were also examined during SVT regeneration. Using this in vitro regeneration system, we demonstrated that auxin and cytokinin differentially regulate phloem and cambium regeneration. Whereas auxin is sufficient to induce regeneration of phloem prior to continuous cambium restoration, cytokinin only promotes the formation of new phloem, not cambium. The positive role of cytokinin on phloem regeneration was further confirmed in cytokinin overexpression trees. Analysis of a DR5 reporter transgenic line further suggested that cytokinin blocks the re-establishment of auxin gradients, which is required for the cambium formation. Investigation on the auxin and cytokinin signalling genes indicated these two hormones interact to regulate SVT regeneration. Taken together, the in vitro SVT regeneration system allows us to make use of various molecular and genetic tools to investigate SVT regeneration. Our results confirmed that complementary auxin and cytokinin domains are required for phloem and cambium reconstruction.Peer reviewe

Generation of Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cells From Mouse Bone Marrow Cells.

Oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) are a subtype of glial cells responsible for myelin regeneration. Oligodendrocytes (OLGs) originate from OPCs and are the myelinating cells in the central nervous system (CNS). OLGs play an important role in the context of lesions in which myelin loss occurs. Even though many protocols for isolating OPCs have been published, their cellular yield remains a limit for clinical application. The protocol proposed here is novel and has practical value; in fact, OPCs can be generated from a source of autologous cells without gene manipulation. Our method represents a rapid, and high-efficiency differentiation protocol for generating mouse OLGs from bone marrow-derived cells using growth-factor defined media. With this protocol, it is possible to obtain mature OLGs in 7-8 weeks. Within 2-3 weeks from bone marrow (BM) isolation, after neurospheres formed, the cells differentiate into Nestin+ Sox2+ neural stem cells (NSCs), around 30 days. OPCs specific markers start to be expressed around day 38, followed by RIP+O4+ around day 42. CNPase+ mature OLGs are finally obtained around 7-8 weeks. Further, bone marrow-derived OPCs exhibited therapeutic effect in shiverer (Shi) mice, promoting myelin regeneration and reducing the tremor. Here, we propose a method by which OLGs can be generated starting from BM cells and have similar abilities to subventricular zone (SVZ)-derived cells. This protocol significantly decreases the timing and costs of the OLGs differentiation within 2 months of culture

A review on cloud computing security

Cloud computing is a technology that maintain the data and application by using the central remote server with the internet connection. By utilizing cloud computing, user can reduce their costs as they no need to purchase their own hardware and software. However cloud computing still has many issues concerning securities, such as privacy issues, loss of data and stolen of data. Some security issues over cloud services including confidentiality, integrity, availability, privacy and attacks are concerned by the users. This paper reviews some of the issues and its current solutions

Detection of entangled states supported by reinforcement learning

Discrimination of entangled states is an important element of quantum enhanced metrology. This typically requires low-noise detection technology. Such a challenge can be circumvented by introducing nonlinear readout process. Traditionally, this is realized by reversing the very dynamics that generates the entangled state, which requires a full control over the system evolution. In this work, we present nonlinear readout of highly entangled states by employing reinforcement learning (RL) to manipulate the spin-mixing dynamics in a spin-1 atomic condensate. The RL found results in driving the system towards an unstable fixed point, whereby the (to be sensed) phase perturbation is amplified by the subsequent spin-mixing dynamics. Working with a condensate of 10900 {87}^Rb atoms, we achieve a metrological gain of 6.97 dB beyond the classical precision limit. Our work would open up new possibilities in unlocking the full potential of entanglement caused quantum enhancement in experiments

Diagnosis Analysis of 4 TCM Patterns in Suboptimal Health Status: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

Background. We illustrated an example of structure equation modelling (SEM) in the research on SHS to explore the diagnosis of the Sub optimal health status (SHS) and provide evidence for the standardization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) patterns in SHS. And the diagnosis of 4 TCM patterns in SHS was evaluated in this analysis. Methods. This study assessed data on 2807 adults (aged 18 to 49) with SHS from 6 clinical centres. SEM was used to analyze the patterns of SHS in TCM. Parameters in the introduced model were estimated by the maximum likelihood method. Results. The discussed model fits the SHS data well with CFI = 0.851 and RMSEA = 0.075. The direct effect of Qi deficiency pattern on dampness pattern had the highest magnitude (value of estimate is 0.822). With regard to the construct of “Qi deficiency pattern”, “fire pattern”, “stagnation pattern” and “dampness pattern”, the indicators with the highest load were myasthenia of limbs, vexation, deprementia, and dizziness, respectively. It had been shown that estimate factor should indicate the important degree of different symptoms in pattern. Conclusions. The weights of symptoms in the respective pattern can be statistical significant and theoretical meaningful for the 4 TCM patterns identification in SHS research. The study contributed to a theoretical framework, which has implications for the diagnosis points of SHS