Removal of Methyl Orange from Aqueous Solution by Calcium Alginate/Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes Composite Fibers

AbstractAdsorbent of calcium alginate/multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CA/MWCNTs) composite fiber was prepared by wet spinning. Adsorptions of methyl orange (MO) anionic dyes onto CA/MWCNTs composite fiber were investigated with respect to MWCNTs content, initial dye concentration and pH values. Results illustrated that introduction of MWCNTs could obviously increase the adsorption capacity (qe) of MO onto CA/MWCNTs composite fibers. The equilibrium adsorption data were analyzed using two widely applied isotherms: Langmuir and Freundlich. The results showed that Langmuir isotherm fitted the experimental results well

Gaussian Modelling Characteristics of Peripheral Arterial Pulse: Difference between Measurements from the Three Trimesters of Healthy Pregnancy

Arterial pulse wave analysis has been attempted to monitor the maternal physiological changes of circulatory system during pregnancy. This study aimed to quantify the difference of Gaussian modelling characteristics derived from radial pulses measured from the three trimesters of healthy pregnant women. Radial pulses were recorded from seventy pregnant women between gestational week 11-13, week 20-22 and then week 37-39. They were then normalized and decomposed into three independent Gaussian waves for deriving four key modelling characteristic parameters: including the peak time interval (T) and peak amplitude ratio (R) between the first and second Gaussian waves (T1,2 and R1,2), and their corresponding values between the first and third Gaussian waves (T1,3 and R1,3). Post-hoc multiple comparisons after analysis of variance was then applied to study the within-subject differences in Gaussian modelling characteristics between the three trimesters. The key results were that T1,2 and T1,3 increased significantly (T1,2: 12.8±1.3 vs 13.2±1.3, p<0.05; T1,3: 39.5±4.3 vs 45.4±5.1, p<0.001), and R1,3 decreased significantly from the first to second trimester (0.60±0.15 vs 0.53±0.11, p<0.001). From the second to third trimester, T1,2 decreased significantly (13.2±1.3 vs 12.8±1.2, p<0.01), and T1,3 and R1,3 decreased slightly but non-significantly. Since larger T1,2 and T1,3 and smaller R1,3 are associated with more compliant peripheral arteries, our results indicated that peripheral arteries become more compliant from the first to second trimester and then have a tendency of returning to baseline during normal pregnancy. In conclusion, this study has quantitatively demonstrated significant changes of Gaussian modelling characteristics derived from radial pulses at the three trimesters of normal pregnant women, suggesting that these modelling characteristics could be used as parameters in monitoring maternal physiological changes during normal pregnancy

Changes of Arterial Pulse Waveform Characteristics with Gestational Age during Normal Pregnancy

Arterial pulse waveform analysis has been widely used to refect physiological changes in the cardiovascular system. This study aimed to comprehensively investigate the changes of waveform characteristics of both photoplethysmographic (PPG) and radial pulses with gestational age during normal pregnancy. PPG and radial pulses were simultaneously recorded from 130 healthy pregnant women at seven gestational time points. After normalizing the arterial pulse waveforms, the abscissa of notch point, the total pulse area and the refection index were extracted and compared between diferent measurement points and between the PPG and radial pulses using post-hoc multiple comparisons with Bonferrioni correction. The results showed that the efect of gestational age on all the three waveform characteristics was signifcant (all p<0.001) after adjusting for maternal age, heart rate and blood pressures. All the three waveform characteristics demonstrated similar changing trends with gestational age, and they were all signifcantly diferent between the measurements from gestational week 12–15 and the others (all p<0.05, except for the PPG total pulse area between the first and second measurement points). In conclusion, this study has comprehensively quantifed similar changes of both PPG and radial pulse waveform characteristics with gestational age

Arterial Pulse Waveform Characteristics Difference between the Three Trimesters of Healthy Pregnant Women

During pregnancy, the pregnant mother undergoes significant physiological changes in order to accommodate the developing fetus. In recent years, arterial pulse wave has been widely used to reflect these physiological changes. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes of radial pulse and photoplethysmography (PPG) pulse waveform characteristic with gestational age in normal pregnant women. 40 pregnant women volunteers were recruited from February 2016 to September 2016 from the Haidian Maternal Child Health Hospital in Beijing. Both radial pulses and PPG pulses were recorded simultaneously using a PowerLab data collection system at a sampling rate of 1000Hz for offline analysis. Their pulses were measured from each pregnant woman at three trimesters (first trimester between week 11-13; second trimester between week 20-22 and the third trimester between week 3739). Three waveform characteristics (total pulse area; pulse area1: the area before the notch position; pulse area2: the area after the notch position) were derived. The results showed that the total pulse area and pulse area2 from both radial and PPG pulses decreased significantly between two paired consecutive trimesters (all P<0.01, except the comparisons between the second and third trimesters for PPG pulses). In summary, this study has quantified the pulse waveform characteristic differences in terms of pulse areas between the three trimesters, providing useful scientific evidence to better understand the cardiovascular physiological changes during normal pregnancy

Topological Singularity Induced Chiral Kohn Anomaly in a Weyl Semimetal

The electron-phonon interaction (EPI) is instrumental in a wide variety of phenomena in solid-state physics, such as electrical resistivity in metals, carrier mobility, optical transition and polaron effects in semiconductors, lifetime of hot carriers, transition temperature in BCS superconductors, and even spin relaxation in diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers for quantum information processing. However, due to the weak EPI strength, most phenomena have focused on electronic properties rather than on phonon properties. One prominent exception is the Kohn anomaly, where phonon softening can emerge when the phonon wavevector nests the Fermi surface of metals. Here we report a new class of Kohn anomaly in a topological Weyl semimetal (WSM), predicted by field-theoretical calculations, and experimentally observed through inelastic x-ray and neutron scattering on WSM tantalum phosphide (TaP). Compared to the conventional Kohn anomaly, the Fermi surface in a WSM exhibits multiple topological singularities of Weyl nodes, leading to a distinct nesting condition with chiral selection, a power-law divergence, and non-negligible dynamical effects. Our work brings the concept of Kohn anomaly into WSMs and sheds light on elucidating the EPI mechanism in emergent topological materials.Comment: 30 pages, 4 main figures, 11 supplementary figures and 1 theoretical derivation. Feedback most welcom

Research on Dynamic Economic Dispatch Optimization Problem Based on Improved Grey Wolf Algorithm

The dynamic economic dispatch (DED) problem is a typical complex constrained optimization problem with non-smooth, nonlinear, and nonconvex characteristics, especially considering practical situations such as valve point effects and transmission losses, and its objective is to minimize the total fuel costs and total carbon emissions of generating units during the dispatch cycle while satisfying a series of equality and inequality constraints. For the challenging DED problem, a model of a dynamic economic dispatch problem considering fuel costs is first established, and then an improved grey wolf optimization algorithm (IGWO) is proposed, in which the exploitation and exploration capability of the original grey wolf optimization algorithm (GWO) is enhanced by initializing the population with a chaotic algorithm and introducing a nonlinear convergence factor to improve weights. Furthermore, a simple and effective constraint-handling method is proposed for the infeasible solutions. The performance of the IGWO is tested with eight benchmark functions selected and compared with other commonly used algorithms. Finally, the IGWO is utilized for three different scales of DED cases, and compared with existing methods in the literature. The results show that the proposed IGWO has a faster convergence rate and better global optimization capabilities, and effectively reduces the fuel costs of the units, thus proving the effectiveness of IGWO

Enhancing Docosahexaenoic Acid Production of <i>Isochrysis galbana</i> from Starch-Rich Food Processing Byproducts

Leftover dough, a byproduct in steamed bread processing, is rich in starch, which is a carbohydrate source for microorganisms. Carbon and nitrogen are the two most abundant nutrients in the medium of Isochrysis galbana. In this study, the leftover dough hydrolysates were used as carbon resources for the cultivation of Isochrysis galbana for docosahexaenoic acid production under different NaNO3 concentrations. The results showed that hydrolysates and NaNO3 concentration affected cell growth and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) accumulation significantly. The maximum biomass concentration of 4.18 g L−1 and maximum DHA yield of 341.3 mg L−1 were obtained with 50.0 mL L−1 hydrolysates. The DHA yield of Isochrysis galbana with 300.0 mg L−1 NaNO3 was 8.9-fold higher than that of the control. The results showed that the DHA production of Isochrysis galbana from starch-rich food processing byproducts was enhanced

Enhancing Docosahexaenoic Acid Production of Isochrysis galbana from Starch-Rich Food Processing Byproducts

Leftover dough, a byproduct in steamed bread processing, is rich in starch, which is a carbohydrate source for microorganisms. Carbon and nitrogen are the two most abundant nutrients in the medium of Isochrysis galbana. In this study, the leftover dough hydrolysates were used as carbon resources for the cultivation of Isochrysis galbana for docosahexaenoic acid production under different NaNO3 concentrations. The results showed that hydrolysates and NaNO3 concentration affected cell growth and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) accumulation significantly. The maximum biomass concentration of 4.18 g L&minus;1 and maximum DHA yield of 341.3 mg L&minus;1 were obtained with 50.0 mL L&minus;1 hydrolysates. The DHA yield of Isochrysis galbana with 300.0 mg L&minus;1 NaNO3 was 8.9-fold higher than that of the control. The results showed that the DHA production of Isochrysis galbana from starch-rich food processing byproducts was enhanced

Identification of a Molecular Activator for Insulin Receptor with Potent Anti-Diabetic Effects

Insulin exerts its actions through the insulin receptor (IR) and plays an essential role in diabetes. The inconvenient daily injection and undesirable side-effects associated with insulin injection demand novel drugs for the diseases. To search for bioactive insulin mimetics, we developed an in vitro screening assay using phospho-IR ELISA. After screening the small molecule chemical libraries, we have obtained a compound (5,8-diacetyloxy-2,3-dichloro-1,4-naphthoquinone) that provokes IR activation by directly binding to the receptor kinase domain to trigger its kinase activity at micromolar concentrations. This compound selectively activates IR but not other receptors and sensitizes insulin's action. Moreover, it elevates glucose uptake in adipocytes and has oral hypoglycemic effect in wild-type C57BL/6J mice and db/db and ob/ob mice without demonstrable toxicity. Hence, this promising compound mimics the biological functions of insulin and is useful for further drug development for diabetes treatment

Identification of a molecular activator for insulin receptor with potent anti-diabetic effects (Journal of Biological Chemistry (2011) 286, (37379-37388))

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