Short- and long-term effects of manganese, zinc and copper ions on nitrogen removal in nitritation-anammox process

This study provided a deep insight into the impacts of trace elements (Mn2+, Zn2+ and Cu2+) on nitritation-anammox process. For short-term exposure, all the three elements could improve the nitrogen removal rate (NRR) and the optimal concentrations were 2.0 mg/L, 2.0 mg/L and 0.5 mg/L for Mn2+, Zn2+ and Cu2+, respectively. Accordingly, the NRR were enhanced 54.62%, 45.93% and 44.09%. The long-term experiments were carried out in lab-scale sequencing batch reactors. The surprising results showed that only Mn2+ addition could enhance the long-term nitritation-anammox process, and the NRR increased from 0.35 ± 0.01 kg N/m3/d (control, no extra trace element addition) to 0.49 ± 0.03 kg N/m3/d. Vice versa, the amendment of Zn2+ reduced the NRR to 0.28 ± 0.02 kg N/m3/d, and Cu2+ had no significant effect on the NRR (0.36 ± 0.01 kg N/m3/d). From the analysis of microbial community structure, it was explained by the increasing abundance of anaerobic ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AnAOB) only in Mn2+ treatment, whereas Zn2+ predominantly promoted ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB). Additionally, the majority of Mn2+ was identified inside AnAOB cells, and Zn2+ and Cu2+ were mainly located in AOB. Our results indicated the synergistic effects of trace elements on nitritation-anammox, both short-term encouraging activities of AnAOB and long-term altering microbial community structure. This work implies the importance of trace elements addition in nitritation-anammox process

Delivery of costimulatory blockade to lymph nodes promotes transplant acceptance in mice

The lymph node (LN) is the primary site of alloimmunity activation and regulation during transplantation. Here, we investigated how fibroblastic reticular cells (FRCs) facilitate the tolerance induced by anti-CD40L in a murine model of heart transplantation. We found that both the absence of LNs and FRC depletion abrogated the effect of anti-CD40L in prolonging murine heart allograft survival. Depletion of FRCs impaired homing of T cells across the high endothelial venules (HEVs) and promoted formation of alloreactive T cells in the LNs in heart-transplanted mice treated with anti-CD40L. Single-cell RNA sequencing of the LNs showed that anti-CD40L promotes a Madcam1+ FRC subset. FRCs also promoted the formation of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in vitro. Nanoparticles (NPs) containing anti-CD40L were selectively delivered to the LNs by coating them with MECA-79, which binds to peripheral node addressin (PNAd) glycoproteins expressed exclusively by HEVs. Treatment with these MECA-79-anti-CD40L-NPs markedly delayed the onset of heart allograft rejection and increased the presence of Tregs. Finally, combined MECA-79-anti-CD40L-NPs and rapamycin treatment resulted in markedly longer allograft survival than soluble anti-CD40L and rapamycin. These data demonstrate that FRCs are critical to facilitating costimulatory blockade. LN-targeted nanodelivery of anti-CD40L could effectively promote heart allograft acceptance

Multi-Barley Seed Detection Using iPhone Images and YOLOv5 Model

As a raw material for beer, barley seeds play a critical role in producing beers with various flavors. Unexcepted mixed varieties of barley seeds make malt quality uncontrollable and can even destroy beer flavors. To ensure the quality and flavor of malts and beers, beer brewers will strictly check the appropriate varieties of barley seeds during the malting process. There are wide varieties of barley seeds with small sizes and similar features. Professionals can visually distinguish these varieties, which can be tedious and time-consuming and have high misjudgment rates. However, biological testing requires professional equipment, reagents, and laboratories, which are expensive. This study aims to build an automatic artificial intelligence detection method to achieve high performance in multi-barley seed datasets. There are nine varieties of barley seeds (CDC Copeland, AC Metcalfe, Hockett, Scarlett, Expedition, AAC Synergy, Celebration, Legacy, and Tradition). We captured images of these original barley seeds using an iPhone 11 Pro. This study used two mixed datasets, including a single-barley seed dataset and a multi-barley seed dataset, to improve the detection accuracy of multi-barley seeds. The multi-barley seed dataset had random amounts and varieties of barley seeds in each image. The single-barley seed dataset had one barley seed in each image. Data augmentation can reduce overfitting and maximize model performance and accuracy. Multi-variety barley seed recognition deploys an efficient data augmentation method to effectively expand the barley dataset. After adjusting the hyperparameters of the networks and analyzing and augmenting the datasets, the YOLOv5 series network was the most effective in training the two barley seed datasets and achieved the highest performance. The YOLOv5x6 network achieved the second highest performance. The mAP (mean Average Precision) of the trained YOLOv5x6 was 97.5%; precision was 98.4%; recall was 98.1%; the average speed of image detection reached 0.024 s. YOLOv5x6 only trained the multi-barley seed dataset; the trained performance was greater than that of the YOLOv5 series. The two datasets had 39.5% higher precision, 27.1% higher recall, and 40.1% higher mAP than when just using the original multi-barley seed dataset. The multi-barley seed detection results showed high performance, robustness, and speed. Therefore, malting and brewing industries can assess the original barley seed quality with the assistance of fast, intelligent, and detected multi-barley seed images

Nitrogen Removal Efficiency for Pharmaceutical Wastewater with a Single-Stage Anaerobic Ammonium Oxidation Process

A single-stage anaerobic ammonium oxidation (ANAMMOX) process with an integrated biofilm–activated sludge system was carried out in a laboratory-scale flow-through reactor (volume = 57.6 L) to treat pharmaceutical wastewater containing chlortetracycline. Partial nitrification was successfully achieved after 48 days of treatment with a nitrite accumulation of 70%. The activity of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) decreased when the chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration of the influent was 3000 mg/L. When switching to the single-stage ANAMMOX operation, (T = 32–34 °C, DO = 0.4–0.8 mg/L, pH = 8.0–8.5), the total nitrogen (TN) removal loading rate and efficiency were 1.0 kg/m3/d and 75.2%, respectively, when the ammonium concentration of the influent was 287 ± 146 mg/L for 73 days. The findings of this study imply that single-stage ANAMMOX can achieve high nitrogen removal rates and effectively treat pharmaceutical wastewater with high concentrations of COD (1000 mg/L) and ammonium

An efficient and facile synthesis of flavanones catalyzed by N-methylimidazole

N-Methylimidazole used as an efficient catalyst for the cyclization of 2’- hydroxychalcones to the corresponding flavanones in DMSO was investigated. The scope of this process has been studied and various flavanones were obtained exclusively in good yields

The application of MALDI-TOF MS in food microrganisms research

Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry(MALDI-TOF MS) technology has been widely used in food,medicine,chemical,and other fields.This paper reviews that the detection principles and characteristics of MALDI-TOF MS technology and its application in food microbiological identification,classification,traceability analysis.MALDI-TOF MS technology has advantages of rapid,accurate and efficient in microbiological detection.With the standardization of sample handling,improvemant of databases,and the problems of bioinformatics tool application,being solved,this technology will be important assistive tool in the field of microbiological detection and identification

The application of glycine betaine to alleviate the inhibitory effect of salinity on one-stage partial nitritation/anammox process

One-stage partial nitritation/anammox (PN/A) has been proposed as a sustainable method for removing nitrogen from various wastewater. However, the activities of ammonium-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and anammox bacteria are often inhibited by the exposure to salinity, thereby hindering their wide application in treating industrial wastewater with high salinity. This study reports that the addition of glycine betaine (GB), which is a compatible solute, could alleviate the inhibitory effects of salinity on both AOB and anammox, thereby improving nitrogen removal performance in a one-stage PN/A system. Short-term tests showed that with an addition of GB higher than 1\ua0mM, the activity of AOB and anammox under salinity of 30\ua0g/L could be increased by at least 45% and 51%, respectively. The half-inhibitory concentration of AOB and anammox rose with increasing GB concentration, with 1\ua0mM\ua0GB being the optimal cost-effective dosage. Long-term experiments also demonstrated that 1\ua0mM\ua0GB addition could enhance nitrogen removal performance and shorten recovery time by 42.9% under a salinity stress of 30\ua0g/L. Collectively, GB addition was found to be a feasible and effective strategy to the counteract adverse effects of salinity on PN/A process. Practitioner points: Glycine betaine (GB) could improving performance of the PN/A process by alleviating the inhibitory effects of salinity on both AOB and anammox bacteria. A GB concentration of 1\ua0mM was found to be optimum in terms of effectiveness and cost. GB addition was a feasible and effective strategy to remain stabilized in the community structure of PN/A sludge. GB could optimize the nitrogen removal performance and shorten the recovery time of PN/A process under saline stress

Research advancement of detection methods of <i>Listeria monocytogenes</i>

Listeria monocytogenes is a food-borne pathogen of both human beings and animals,which has been widely recognized over the world.L.monocytogenes can be found in dairy products,vegetables,meat and other food,so it has caused great threat to human health.How to detect the trace of L.monocytogenes is a key link in the process of food-borne disease prevention and control.A wide variety of culture and alternative methods have been developed in order to detect this pathogen in food.The current articl introduces the traditional detection method and all kinds of rapid methods such as immunoassay,biosensors,Bacteriophage-based detection methods and molecular biological assay