A new kinetic model for biogas production from co-digestion by batch mode

Coming out from the growth kinetics, the Gompertz model has been developed and considered as the best one for simulating the biogas production from anaerobic digestion. However, the model has failed to describe the starting point of the process, and no-sense of lag phase constant has been pointed out. Thus, the goal of this study is to develop a new kinetic model of biogas production with meaningful constants that can alternate the Gompertz model. The kinetic constants of the model were determined by applying the least squares fitting method for experimental data. The experimental data were taken from running seven batch reactors of co-digestion of vegetable, sludge and horse manure under 37oC, pH of 6.7, and total solids of 2.5%. The result of the high coefficient of determination (0.9611-0.9906) demonstrated that the new biogas production kinetic model was feasible to simulate the biogas generation process. This finding has opened a new choice that can deal with simulation of the biogas production. Moreover, co-digestion of vegetable, horse manure, and sludge was also evaluated under strong attention. The biogas potential was in the range of 183-648 Nml/g-VS with the best carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of 16. Vegetable waste played a major role in producing the biogas yield while horse manure and sludge contributed to balancing nutrient of the digestion process. Also, the strong correlation between carbon-to-nitrogen ratio and kinetic constants confirmed that the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio was the key factor that influenced biogas generation

Sequential bottlenecks drive viral evolution in early acute Hepatitis C virus infection

Hepatitis C is a pandemic human RNA virus, which commonly causes chronic infection and liver disease. The characterization of viral populations that successfully initiate infection, and also those that drive progression to chronicity is instrumental for understanding pathogenesis and vaccine design. A comprehensive and longitudinal analysis of the viral population was conducted in four subjects followed from very early acute infection to resolution of disease outcome. By means of next generation sequencing (NGS) and standard cloning/Sanger sequencing, genetic diversity and viral variants were quantified over the course of the infection at frequencies as low as 0.1%. Phylogenetic analysis of reassembled viral variants revealed acute infection was dominated by two sequential bottleneck events, irrespective of subsequent chronicity or clearance. The first bottleneck was associated with transmission, with one to two viral variants successfully establishing infection. The second occurred approximately 100 days post-infection, and was characterized by a decline in viral diversity. In the two subjects who developed chronic infection, this second bottleneck was followed by the emergence of a new viral population, which evolved from the founder variants via a selective sweep with fixation in a small number of mutated sites. The diversity at sites with non-synonymous mutation was higher in predicted cytotoxic T cell epitopes, suggesting immune-driven evolution. These results provide the first detailed analysis of early within-host evolution of HCV, indicating strong selective forces limit viral evolution in the acute phase of infection

Modulating proton conductivity through crystal structure tuning in arenedisulfonate coordination polymers

The functional group-directed structures of coordination polymers (CPs) and metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) have made them key candidates for proton exchange membranes in fuel cell technologies. Sulfonate group chemistry is well established in proton conducting polymers but has seen less exploration in CPs. Here, we report solvent-directed crystal structures of Cu²⁺ and Ca²⁺ CPs constructed with naphthalenedisulfonate (NDS) and anthraquinone-1,5-disulfonate (ADS) ligands, and we correlate single crystal structures across this set with proton conductivities determined by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Starting from the Cu²⁺-based NDS and aminotriazolate MOF designated Cu-SAT and the aqueous synthesis of the known Ca²⁺-NDS structure incorporating water ligands, we now report a further five sulfonate CP structures. These syntheses include a direct synthesis of the primary degradation product of Cu-SAT in water, solvent-substituted Ca-NDS structures prepared using dimethylformamide and dimethylsulfoxide solvents, and ADS variants of Cu-SAT and Ca-NDS. We demonstrate a consistent 2D layer motif in the NDS CPs, while structural modifications introduced by the ADS ligand result in a 2D hydrogen bonding network with Cu²⁺ and aminotriazolate ligands and a 1D CP with Ca²⁺ in water. Proton conductivities across the set span 10ˉ⁴ to >10ˉ³ S cmˉ¹ at 80 °C and 95% RH. These findings reveal an experimental structure–function relationship between proton conductivity and the tortuosity of the hydrogen bonding network and establish a general, cross-structure descriptor for tuning the sulfonate CP unit cell to systematically modulate proton conductivity

Effective Suppressing Phase Segregation of Mixed-Halide Perovskite by Glassy Metal-Organic Frameworks.

Lead mixed-halide perovskites offer tunable bandgaps for optoelectronic applications, but illumination-induced phase segregation can quickly lead to changes in their crystal structure, bandgaps, and optoelectronic properties, especially for the Br–I mixed system because CsPbI3 tends to form a non-perovskite phase under ambient conditions. These behaviors can impact their performance in practical applications. By embedding such mixed-halide perovskites in a glassy metal-organic framework, a family of stable nanocomposites with tunable emission is created. Combining cathodoluminescence with elemental mapping under a transmission electron microscope, this research identifies a direct relationship between the halide composition and emission energy at the nanoscale. The composite effectively inhibits halide ion migration, and consequently, phase segregation even under high-energy illumination. The detailed mechanism, studied using a combination of spectroscopic characterizations and theoretical modeling, shows that the interfacial binding, instead of the nanoconfinement effect, is the main contributor to the inhibition of phase segregation. These findings pave the way to suppress the phase segregation in mixed-halide perovskites toward stable and high-performance optoelectronics

Trans-ancestry genome-wide association study identifies 12 genetic loci influencing blood pressure and implicates a role for DNA methylation

We carried out a trans-ancestry genome-wide association and replication study of blood pressure phenotypes among up to 320,251 individuals of East Asian, European and South Asian ancestry. We find genetic variants at 12 new loci to be associated with blood pressure (P = 3.9 × 10-11 to 5.0 × 10-21). The sentinel blood pressure SNPs are enriched for association with DNA methylation at multiple nearby CpG sites, suggesting that, at some of the loci identified, DNA methylation may lie on the regulatory pathway linking sequence variation to blood pressure. The sentinel SNPs at the 12 new loci point to genes involved in vascular smooth muscle (IGFBP3, KCNK3, PDE3A and PRDM6) and renal (ARHGAP24, OSR1, SLC22A7 and TBX2) function. The new and known genetic variants predict increased left ventricular mass, circulating levels of NT-proBNP, and cardiovascular and all-cause mortality (P = 0.04 to 8.6 × 10-6). Our results provide new evidence for the role of DNA methylation in blood pressure regulation

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b

We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run

Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world3 and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health4,5. However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol—which is a marker of cardiovascular risk—changed from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million–4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.</p

Search for gravitational-wave transients associated with magnetar bursts in advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo data from the third observing run

Gravitational waves are expected to be produced from neutron star oscillations associated with magnetar giant f lares and short bursts. We present the results of a search for short-duration (milliseconds to seconds) and longduration (∼100 s) transient gravitational waves from 13 magnetar short bursts observed during Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA’s third observation run. These 13 bursts come from two magnetars, SGR1935 +2154 and SwiftJ1818.0−1607. We also include three other electromagnetic burst events detected by FermiGBM which were identified as likely coming from one or more magnetars, but they have no association with a known magnetar. No magnetar giant flares were detected during the analysis period. We find no evidence of gravitational waves associated with any of these 16 bursts. We place upper limits on the rms of the integrated incident gravitational-wave strain that reach 3.6 × 10−²³ Hz at 100 Hz for the short-duration search and 1.1 ×10−²² Hz at 450 Hz for the long-duration search. For a ringdown signal at 1590 Hz targeted by the short-duration search the limit is set to 2.3 × 10−²² Hz. Using the estimated distance to each magnetar, we derive upper limits upper limits on the emitted gravitational-wave energy of 1.5 × 1044 erg (1.0 × 1044 erg) for SGR 1935+2154 and 9.4 × 10^43 erg (1.3 × 1044 erg) for Swift J1818.0−1607, for the short-duration (long-duration) search. Assuming isotropic emission of electromagnetic radiation of the burst fluences, we constrain the ratio of gravitational-wave energy to electromagnetic energy for bursts from SGR 1935+2154 with the available fluence information. The lowest of these ratios is 4.5 × 103