Rare Earth Element Adsorption to Clay Minerals: Mechanistic Insights and Implications for Recovery from Secondary Sources

\ua9 2024 American Chemical Society.The energy transition will have significant mineral demands and there is growing interest in recovering critical metals, including rare earth elements (REE), from secondary sources in aqueous and sedimentary environments. However, the role of clays in REE transport and deposition in these settings remains understudied. This work investigated REE adsorption to the clay minerals illite and kaolinite through pH adsorption experiments and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). Clay type, pH, and ionic strength (IS) affected adsorption, with decreased adsorption under acidic pH and elevated IS. Illite had a higher adsorption capacity than kaolinite; however, >95% adsorption was achieved at pH ∼7.5 regardless of IS or clay. These results were used to develop a surface complexation model with the derived binding constants used to predict REE speciation in the presence of competing sorbents. This demonstrated that clays become increasingly important as pH increases, and EXAFS modeling showed that REE can exist as both inner- and outer-sphere complexes. Together, this indicated that clays can be an important control on the transport and enrichment of REE in sedimentary systems. These findings can be applied to identify settings to target for resource extraction or to predict REE transport and fate as a contaminant

Crohn's Disease Exacerbation Induced by Edwardsiella tarda Gastroenteritis

Exacerbations of Crohn's disease are not infrequently associated with bacterial gastroenteritis. The recognition of synchronous infections in such patients is vital for the initiation of appropriate antimicrobial therapy. Furthermore, the detection of active bacterial infections may lead the clinician to delay starting biological therapy. We report here a man presenting with an exacerbation of his Crohn's disease during a trip to Thailand. Stool cultures were positive for the unusual gut pathogen Edwardsiella tarda. The patient's symptoms resolved with concurrent antibiotic and steroid therapy. This finding demonstrates the value of performing stool culture in all patients presenting with exacerbations of inflammatory bowel diseases

Strong Couplings of Heavy Mesons to A Light Vector Meson in QCD

We make a detailed analysis of the $BB\rho(DD\rho)$ and $B^*B\rho(D^{*}D\rho)$ strong couplings $g_{BB\rho}(g_{DD\rho})$ and $g_{B^*B\rho}(g_{D^{*}D\rho})$ using QCD light cone sum rules(LCSR). The existing some negligence is pointed out in the previous LCSR calculation on $g_{B^*B\rho} (g_{D^{\ast}D\rho}$) and an updated estimate is presented. Our findings can be used to understand the behavior of the $B,D \to \rho$ semileptonic form factors at large momentum transitions.Comment: 15 pages, latex, 2 figures, version appearing in PRD, typos correcte

Effects of stimulation of mu opioid and nociceptin/orphanin FQ peptide (NOP) receptors on alcohol drinking in rhesus monkeys

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) persists as a devastating public health problem; widely effective pharmacological treatments are needed. Evidence from rodent models suggests that stimulating brain receptors for the neuropeptide nociceptin/orphanin FQ (NOP) can decrease ethanol drinking. We characterized the effects of the mu opioid peptide (MOP) receptor agonist buprenorphine and the buprenorphine analog (2S)-2-[(5R,6R,7R,14S)-N-cyclopropylmethyl-4,5-epoxy-6,14-ethano-3-hydroxy-6 methoxymorphinan-7-yl]-3,3-dimethylpentan-2-ol (BU08028), which stimulates MOP and NOP receptors, in a translational nonhuman primate model of AUD. Rhesus monkeys drank a 4% ethanol solution 6 h per day, 5 days per week via an operant behavioral panel in their home cages. To assess behavioral selectivity, monkeys responded via a photo-optic switch to earn food pellets. After characterizing the acute effects of BU08028 (0.001–0.01 mg/kg, i.m.) and buprenorphine (0.003–0.056 mg/kg, i.m.), the drugs were administered chronically using a model of pharmacotherapy assessment that incorporates clinical aspects of AUD and treatment. Acutely, both drugs decreased ethanol drinking at doses that did not affect food-maintained responding. During chronic treatment, effects of BU08028 and buprenorphine were maintained for several weeks without development of tolerance or emergence of adverse effects. BU08028 was ~0.5 and 1.0 log units more potent in acute and chronic studies, respectively. The selective NOP receptor agonist SCH 221510 also selectively decreased ethanol intakes when given acutely (0.03–1.0 mg/kg, i.m.), whereas the MOP antagonist naltrexone (1.7–5.6 mg/kg, i.m.) decreased both ethanol intake and food pellets delivered. These data demonstrate that bifunctional MOP/NOP agonists, which may have therapeutic advantages to MOP-selective drugs, can decrease alcohol drinking in nonhuman primates.</p

Dynamic structural health monitoring of slender structures using optical sensors

In this paper we summarize the research activities at the Instituto de Telecomunicações—Pólo de Aveiro and University of Aveiro, in the field of fiber Bragg grating based sensors and their applications in dynamic measurements for Structural Health Monitoring of slender structures such as towers. In this work we describe the implementation of an optical biaxial accelerometer based on fiber Bragg gratings inscribed on optical fibers. The proof-of-concept was done with the dynamic monitoring of a reinforced concrete structure and a slender metallic telecommunication tower. Those structures were found to be suitable to demonstrate the feasibility of FBG accelerometers to obtain the structures’ natural frequencies, which are the key parameters in Structural Health Monitoring and in the calibration of numerical models used to simulate the structure behavior

A study on the measurement of the nucleated red blood cell (nRBC) count based on birth weight and its correlation with perinatal prognosis in infants with very low birth weights

PurposeThe aim of this study was conducted to investigate the mean nRBC count in very low births weight infants (VLBWIs) and to determine the usefulness of the nRBC as an independent prognostic factors of perinatal complications in VLBWIs.MethodsThis study was conducted on 112 VLBWIs who were hospitalized in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the author's hospital within the period from March 2003 to and May 2008. Based on the infants' nucleated red blood cells (nRBC) counts at birth, on the third day after birth, on the seventh day after birth, in the second week after birth, and in the fourth week after birth in the medical records, the correlation between nRBC or absolute nRBC counts with birth weight, gestational age, and other perinatal outcomes were retrospectively investigated.ResultsIn VLBWIs, their mean nRBC and absolute nRBC counts were showing a gradual decrease after birth, and they were consisteantly kept at low values since one week after and inversely proportional to the birth weights. The mean nRBC counts based on the stage after birth showed a significant correlation with perinatal death, necrotizing enterocolitis, and severe intraventricular hemorrhage.ConclusionThe increase in the nRBC count showed a significant correlation with having a severe intraventricular hemorrhage, necrotizing enterocolitis, and perinatal death in VLBWIs. If an increase or no decrease in the nRBC count after birth is observed, newborn-infant care precautions should be required

Weak Decays Beyond Leading Logarithms

We review the present status of QCD corrections to weak decays beyond the leading logarithmic approximation including particle-antiparticle mixing and rare and CP violating decays. After presenting the basic formalism for these calculations we discuss in detail the effective hamiltonians for all decays for which the next-to-leading corrections are known. Subsequently, we present the phenomenological implications of these calculations. In particular we update the values of various parameters and we incorporate new information on m_t in view of the recent top quark discovery. One of the central issues in our review are the theoretical uncertainties related to renormalization scale ambiguities which are substantially reduced by including next-to-leading order corrections. The impact of this theoretical improvement on the determination of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix is then illustrated in various cases.Comment: 229 pages, 32 PostScript figures (included); uses RevTeX, epsf.sty, rotate.sty, rmpbib.sty (included), times.sty (included; requires LaTeX 2e); complete PostScript version available at ftp://feynman.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de/pub/preprints/tum-100-95.ps.gz or ftp://feynman.t30.physik.tu-muenchen.de/pub/preprints/tum-100-95.ps2.gz (scaled down and rotated version to print two pages on one sheet of paper