High Temperature Heat Storage for Solar Thermal Electricity Generation and Solar Fuels and Chemicals.

For high temperature solar applications, advanced storage materials with higher capacity than the existing refractory materials are required. For this, the composite salt/ceramic thermal energy storage concept has been proposed. The paper presents the results on salt/ceramicmaterial development and on calculations of their use in solar thermal central receiver plants

Electrodialysis as a sample processing tool for bulk organic matter and target pollutant analysis of seawater

Electrodialysis (ED) is an advancing seawater sample processing tool that enables the separation of analytes from the often interfering salt matrix. In this study, we present the evaluation of a laboratory scale ED system for both dissolved organic matter (DOM) and target pollutant analysis of seawater. The developed sample processing protocol yields reproducible data and was found to be robust towards moderate changes in sample composition. At the final salinity of 0.1, the average recovery of DOM in the form of dissolved organic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus (DOC, DON and DOP) was 44, 53 and 89%, respectively. DOM loss occurred mainly in the late stage of the ED process. When investigating specific ED processing parameters, it was discovered that the initial sample salinity does not influence DOM recovery. The final salinity, by contrast, is a dominant influence factor on DOM recovery. Furthermore, DOC and DOP recoveries could be improved by 8% by refining the electrical current in the ED cell. Surprisingly, adjustments of the sample pH did not lead to any improvements in DOM recovery. The experiments with target analytes showed that the recovery of individual molecules is determined by their n-octanol water partition coefficients logKow. High recoveries > 80% were achieved for compounds with medium logKow of −1 to 3. Hydrophobic compounds with logKow > 3 were lost through surface adsorption to the system walls and tubing. Small, polar and charged compounds with logKow < −1 are prone to loss via ED membrane passage, which occurred predominantly in the late stage of the ED process. Consequently, sample processing with ED was deemed beneficial for the LC-MS or GC–MS analysis of polar target compounds, because they are often difficult to enrich from seawater. Furthermore, during LC-MS or GC–MS analyses, matrix-dependent ion suppression was reduced in ED isolates, giving rise to increased signal responses of 25 to 620%, which resulted in improved instrumental sensitivity

Low levels of circulating methylated IRX3 are related to worse outcome after transcatheter aortic valve implantation in patients with severe aortic stenosis

Abstract Background Aortic stenosis (AS) is one of the most common cardiac diseases and major cause of morbidity and mortality in the elderly. Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is performed in such patients with symptomatic severe AS and reduces mortality for the majority of these patients. However, a significant percentage dies within the first two years after TAVI, such that there is an interest to identify parameters, which predict outcome and could guide pre-TAVI patient selection. High levels of cardiac fibrosis have been identified as such independent predictor of cardiovascular mortality after TAVI. Promoter hypermethylation commonly leads to gene downregulation, and the Iroquois homeobox 3 (IRX3) gene was identified in a genome-wide transcriptome and methylome to be hypermethylated and downregulated in AS patients. In a well-described cohort of 100 TAVI patients in which cardiac fibrosis levels were quantified histologically in cardiac biopsies, and which had a follow-up of up to two years, we investigated if circulating methylated DNA of IRX3 in the peripheral blood is associated with cardiac fibrosis and/or mortality in AS patients undergoing TAVI and thus could serve as a biomarker to add information on outcome after TAVI. Results Patients with high levels of methylation in circulating IRX3 show a significantly increased survival as compared to patients with low levels of IRX3 methylation indicating that high peripheral IRX3 methylation is associated with an improved outcome. In the multivariable setting, peripheral IRX3 methylation acts as an independent predictor of all-cause mortality. While there is no significant correlation of levels of IRX3 methylation with cardiac death, there is a significant but very weak inverse correlation between circulating IRX3 promoter methylation level and the amount of cardiac fibrosis. Higher levels of peripheral IRX3 methylation further correlated with decreased cardiac IRX3 expression and vice versa. Conclusions High levels of IRX3 methylation in the blood of AS patients at the time of TAVI are associated with better overall survival after TAVI and at least partially reflect myocardial IRX3 expression. Circulating methylated IRX3 might aid as a potential biomarker to help guide both pre-TAVI patient selection and post-TAVI monitoring. Graphical abstrac

GDF-15 is an inhibitor of leukocyte integrin activation required for survival after myocardial infarction in mice

Inflammatory cell recruitment after myocardial infarction needs to be tightly controlled to permit infarct healing while avoiding fatal complications such as cardiac rupture. Growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15), a transforming growth factor-\u3b2 (TGF-\u3b2)-related cytokine, is induced in the infarcted heart of mice and humans. We show that coronary artery ligation in Gdf15-deficient mice led to enhanced recruitment of polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) into the infarcted myocardium and an increased incidence of cardiac rupture. Conversely, infusion of recombinant GDF-15 repressed PMN recruitment after myocardial infarction. In vitro, GDF-15 inhibited PMN adhesion, arrest under flow and transendothelial migration. Mechanistically, GDF-15 counteracted chemokine-triggered conformational activation and clustering of \u3b2(2) integrins on PMNs by activating the small GTPase Cdc42 and inhibiting activation of the small GTPase Rap1. Intravital microscopy in vivo in Gdf15-deficient mice showed that Gdf-15 is required to prevent excessive chemokine-activated leukocyte arrest on the endothelium. Genetic ablation of \u3b2(2) integrins in myeloid cells rescued the mortality of Gdf15-deficient mice after myocardial infarction. To our knowledge, GDF-15 is the first cytokine identified as an inhibitor of PMN recruitment by direct interference with chemokine signaling and integrin activation. Loss of this anti-inflammatory mechanism leads to fatal cardiac rupture after myocardial infarction

"GIS works!" - But why, how, and for whom? Findings from a systematic review

This article presents the findings from systematically reviewing 26 empirical research studies published from 2005 to 2014 on the use of GIS for learning and teaching. By employing methods of narrative synthesis and qualitative content analysis, the study gives evidence about the state of knowledge of competence-based GIS education. The results explain what factors and variables effect GIS learning in terms of technology use, major subject contents, learning contexts, and didactic and pedagogical aspects. They also show what facets of knowledge, process skills, and affect the research literature has investigated. The analysis of the type and quality of the methods used indicates that current GIS education research is a heterogeneous field that needs a systematic research framework for future efforts, according to empirical education research