Unveiling the pollution and risk of atmospheric (gaseous and particulate) polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a heavily polluted Chinese city: A multi-site observation research

Linfen, one of the most polluted cities in China, releases huge amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into the atmosphere. The pollution characteristics of Linfen's PAHs, along with their emission sources and health risks, were scarcely discussed. This study conducted a multi-site observation campaign in Linfen during the non-heating and heating periods (2018–2019) using passive air samplers. Sixteen PAHs were analyzed for the gaseous and particulate samples collected at the 15 sites in the urban, rural, and background areas. The PAH concentrations in Linfen's atmosphere were 225.7 ± 81.9 ng m−3 during the heating period and 139.9 ± 47.5 ng m−3 during the non-heating period, annually averaged to 168.1 ± 58.6 ng m−3, which was predominantly contributed by the rural and urban emissions. Combustion was highly responsible for the PAHs, including the burning of coal for industrial production and winter heating, coupled with the utilization of oils by automobile engines. The spatiotemporal variations of PAHs were associated with the discrepancy of emission intensity rather than that of emission type. The BaP equivalent concentrations for the rural and urban areas were 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than the various international standards, indicating the considerable carcinogenic risk for the majority of local residents. These findings are informative for better understanding the atmospheric PAH pollution in a typical resource-based Chinese city.This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41001344, 42205099), the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (164320H116), the Special Science and Technology Innovation Program for Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutralization of Jiangsu Province (BE2022612), and the Postdoctoral Research Foundation of China (2021M700792, 2023T160111).Peer reviewe

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Simulation of Arrhythmogenic Effect of Rogue RyRs in Failing Heart by Using a Coupled Model

Cardiac cells with heart failure are usually characterized by impairment of Ca2+ handling with smaller SR Ca2+ store and high risk of triggered activities. In this study, we developed a coupled model by integrating the spatiotemporal Ca2+ reaction-diffusion system into the cellular electrophysiological model. With the coupled model, the subcellular Ca2+ dynamics and global cellular electrophysiology could be simultaneously traced. The proposed coupled model was then applied to study the effects of rogue RyRs on Ca2+ cycling and membrane potential in failing heart. The simulation results suggested that, in the presence of rogue RyRs, Ca2+ dynamics is unstable and Ca2+ waves are prone to be initiated spontaneously. These release events would elevate the membrane potential substantially which might induce delayed afterdepolarizations or triggered action potentials. Moreover, the variation of membrane potential depolarization is indicated to be dependent on the distribution density of rogue RyR channels. This study provides a new possible arrhythmogenic mechanism for heart failure from subcellular to cellular level

Analyzing Jeanne's Character and its Tragic Elements in Une vie from Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's 'Three Elements' Perspective

<p>This paper, following Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's "three elements" theory, delves into the factors contributing to Aunt Jeanne's personality and her tragic fate. Commencing with an examination of Aunt Jeanne's familial and life context, alongside the historical backdrop and the experiences of female characters like Joanna and the Baroness, this study applies Hippolyte Adolphe Taine's "three elements" - race, environment, and era - to facilitate a systematic analysis. This approach enables a deeper exploration of Aunt Jeanne's character and the tragic elements within her story. The study uncovered Aunt Jeanne as a tragic figure embodying trait such as timidity, sentimentality, low self-esteem, and heightened sensitivity.</p&gt

Wireless Optoelectronic Photometers For Monitoring Neuronal Dynamics In The Deep Brain

Capabilities for recording neural activity in behaving mammals have greatly expanded our understanding of brain function. Some of the most sophisticated approaches use light delivered by an implanted fiber-optic cable to optically excite genetically encoded calcium indicators and to record the resulting changes in fluorescence. Physical constraints induced by the cables and the bulk, size, and weight of the associated fixtures complicate studies on natural behaviors, including social interactions and movements in environments that include obstacles, housings, and other complex features. Here, we introduce a wireless, injectable fluorescence photometer that integrates a miniaturized light source and a photodetector on a flexible, needle-shaped polymer support, suitable for injection into the deep brain at sites of interest. The ultrathin geometry and compliant mechanics of these probes allow minimally invasive implantation and stable chronic operation. In vivo studies in freely moving animals demonstrate that this technology allows high-fidelity recording of calcium fluorescence in the deep brain, with measurement characteristics that match or exceed those associated with fiber photometry systems. The resulting capabilities in optical recordings of neuronal dynamics in untethered, freely moving animals have potential for widespread applications in neuroscience research

Learning-based online query evaluation for big data analytics in mobile edge clouds

The rise of big data brings extraordinary benefits and opportunities to businesses and governments. Enterprise users can analyze their consumers’ data and infer the business value obtained, such as purchasing goods correlations, customer preferences, and hidden patterns. Meanwhile, with the emerge of big data processing frameworks, such as Hadoop and Tensor-flow, more and more mobile users are embracing big data analytics by issuing queries to analyze their data. In this paper, we investigate the problem of Quality-of-Service (QoS) aware query evaluation for big data analytics in a mobile edge cloud to maximize the system throughput while minimizing the query evaluation time of each admitted query, by exploring the materialization of intermediate query results. We consider dynamic big-data query evaluations where user queries arrive one by one without the knowledge of future arrivals, and the system needs to respond to each query by accepting or rejecting the query immediately. We propose an online algorithm for query admissions within a finite time horizon, the proposed algorithm can intelligently determine whether some immediate results during a query evaluation need to be materialized for later use of other queries, by making use of the Reinforcement Learning (RL) method with predictions. We finally investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm by simulations, and results show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is promising, by achieving a higher system throughput while reducing the average evaluation cost per query by from 20% to 52% compared to the comparison benchmarks

The SUMOylation of Human Cytomegalovirus Capsid Assembly Protein Precursor (UL80.5) Affects Its Interaction with Major Capsid Protein (UL86) and Viral Replication

Human Cytomegalovirus Capsid Assembly Protein Precursor (pAP, UL80.5) plays a key role in capsid assembly by forming an internal protein scaffold with Major Capsid Protein (MCP, UL86) and other capsid subunits. In this study, we revealed UL80.5 as a novel SUMOylated viral protein. We confirmed that UL80.5 interacted with the SUMO E2 ligase UBC9 (58-93aa) and could be covalently modified by SUMO1/SUMO2/SUMO3 proteins. 371Lysine located within a ψKxE consensus motif on UL80.5 carboxy-terminal was the major SUMOylation site. Interestingly, the SUMOylation of UL80.5 restrained its interaction with UL86 but had no effects on translocating UL86 into the nucleus. Furthermore, we showed that the removal of the 371lysine SUMOylation site of UL80.5 inhibited viral replication. In conclusion, our data demonstrates that SUMOylation plays an important role in regulating UL80.5 functions and viral replication

Study on molecular mechanisms of nattokinase in pharmacological action based on label‐free liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading causes of premature death and disability in people around the world. Therefore, the prevention and treatment of CVDs has become an important subject. In this study, we verified the thrombolytic activities of a nattokinase‐like protease named NK‐01 in vivo. Label‐free liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS) technique was used in our study. NK‐01 could inhibit the activity of coagulation factors though the up‐regulation of proteinase C inhibitors and protein S. NK‐01 also could inhibit the angiotensinogen conversion to AngII and promote the degradation of kininogen to reduce the blood pressure. In addition, NK‐01 could increase the content of paraoxonase 1, which could prevent atherosclerosis. In our study, we found that NK‐01 cloud effect some key proteins which participant in CVDs associated metabolic processes such as coagulation system, blood pressure, and atherosclerosis. Taken together, the underlying molecular mechanisms for the biological beneficial of NK‐01 were investigated. Our proteomic study will provide further theoretical basis for application of NK in prevention or adjuvant treatment in biomedicine areas