21 research outputs found
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The impact of wind energy on plant biomass production in China
Global wind power expansion raises concerns about its potential impact on plant biomass production (PBP). Using a high-dimensional fixed effects model, this study reveals significant PBP reduction due to wind farm construction based on 2404 wind farms, 108,361 wind turbines, and 7,904,352 PBP observations during 2000-2022 in China. Within a 1-10 km buffer, the normalized differential vegetation and enhanced vegetation indices decrease from 0.0097 to 0.0045 and 0.0075 to 0.0028, respectively. Similarly, absorbed photosynthetically active radiation and gross primary productivity decline from 0.0094 to 0.0034% and 0.0003-0.0002 g*C/m2 within a 1-7 km buffer. Adverse effects last over three years, magnified in summer and autumn, and are more pronounced at lower altitudes and in plains. Forest carbon sinks decrease by 12,034 tons within a 0-20 km radius, causing an average economic loss of $1.81 million per wind farm. Our findings underscore the balanced mitigation strategies for renewable energy transition when transiting from fossil fuels
Genomic Characterizations of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Viruses (PEDV) in Diarrheic Piglets and Clinically Healthy Adult Pigs from 2019 to 2022 in China
Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a major causative pathogen of diarrheic disease. In this study, the prevalence and evolution of PEDV was evaluated using intestinal samples collected from six provinces of China in 2019â2022. PEDV could not only be detected in diarrheic piglets but also in adult pigs without enteric diseases. The complete genomes of five temporal and geographical representative PEDV strains were determined. Genome-based phylogenetic analysis indicated that XJ1904-700 belongs to the G2-a subgroup, while the other strains are clustered within the S-INDEL subgroup. Recombination analyses supported that JSNJ2004-919 is an inter-subgroup recombinant from SD2014-like (G2-b), CHZ-2013-like (G2-b) and CV777-like (G1-b) isolates, while FJFZ2004-1017 is an intra-subgroup recombinant from XM1-2-like (S-INDEL) and LYG-2014-like (S-INDEL) isolates. Both JSNJ2004-919 and FJFZ2004-1017 were from adult pigs, providing evidence that adult pigs may also serve as the host of PEDV reservoirs for virus evolution. Overall, this study provides new insights into PEDVâs prevalence and evolution in both diseased piglets and clinically healthy adult pigs
Electrospun Fibers Derived from Peptide Coupled Amphiphilic Copolymers for Dorsal Root Ganglion (DRG) Outgrowth
Developing scaffolds with appropriate mechanical/structural features as well as tunable bioactivities are indispensable in the field of tissue engineering. This study focused on one such attempt to electrospin the copolymer of L-lactic acid (L-LA) and functional monomer (3(S)- [(benzyloxycarbony)methyl]-1,4-dioxane-2,5-dione, BMD) with small peptide modifications for the purpose of neural tissue engineering. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) micrographs showed fabricated electrospun copolymer as porous and uniform nanofibrous materials with diameter in the range of 800â1000 nm. In addition, the modified scaffolds displayed a lower contact angle than poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) indicating higher hydrophilicity. To further incorporate the bioactive functions, the nanofibers were chemically coupled with small peptide (isoleucine-lysine-valine-alanine-valine, IKVAV). The incorporation of IKVAV onto the electrospun fiber was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and such incorporation did not affect the surface morphology or fiber diameters. To demonstrate the potential of applying the designed scaffolds for nerve regeneration, dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons were cultured on the nanofibers to examine the impact on neurite outgrowth of DRGs. The results indicated that the fabricated nanofibrous matrix with small peptide might be a potential candidate for neural tissue engineering
Molecularly Imprinted Fluorescent Hollow Nanoparticles as Sensors for Rapid and Efficient Detection λ-Cyhalothrin in Environmental Water
Molecularly imprinted fluorescent polymers have shown great promise in biological or chemical separations and detections, due to their high stability, selectivity and sensitivity. In this work, molecularly imprinted fluorescent hollow nanoparticles, which could rapidly and efficiently detect λ-cyhalothrin (a toxic insecticide) in water samples, was reported. The molecularly imprinted fluorescent sensor showed excellent sensitivity (the limit of detection low to 10.26 nM), rapid detection rate (quantitative detection of λ-cyhalothrin within 8 min), regeneration ability (maintaining good fluorescence properties after 8 cycling operation) and appreciable selectivity over several structural analogues. Moreover, the fluorescent sensor was further used to detect λ-cyhalothrin in real samples form the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal Water. Despite the relatively complex components of the environmental water, the molecularly imprinted fluorescent hollow nanosensor still showed good recovery, clearly demonstrating the potential value of this smart sensor nanomaterial in environmental monitoring
The Effect of Salinity on Membrane Fouling Characteristics in an Intermittently Aerated Membrane Bioreactor
The effect of salinity on the membrane fouling characteristics was investigated in the intermittently aerated membrane bioreactor (IAMBR). Five different salinity loadings were set from 0 to 35âg·Lâ1 (referring to NaCl), respectively. The removal of total organic carbon (TOC) and ammonia-nitrogen (NH4+-N) was gradually decreased with increasing salinity. The variation of membrane filtration resistance, particle size distribution (PSD), extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), soluble microbial products (SMP), and relative hydrophobicity (RH) analysis revealed that salinity has a significant effect on sludge characteristics in IAMBR. The results also indicated that the membrane fouling is often caused by the integration of sludge characteristics in saline wastewater
An injectable signal-amplifying device elicits a specific immune response against malignant glioblastoma
Despite exciting achievements with some malignancies, immunotherapy for hypoimmunogenic cancers, especially glioblastoma (GBM), remains a formidable clinical challenge. Poor immunogenicity and deficient immune infiltrates are two major limitations to an effective cancer-specific immune response. Herein, we propose that an injectable signal-amplifying nanocomposite/hydrogel system consisting of granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor and imiquimod-loaded antigen-capturing nanoparticles can simultaneously amplify the chemotactic signal of antigen-presenting cells and the âdangerâ signal of GBM. We demonstrated the feasibility of this strategy in two scenarios of GBM. In the first scenario, we showed that this simultaneous amplification system, in conjunction with local chemotherapy, enhanced both the immunogenicity and immune infiltrates in a recurrent GBM model; thus, ultimately making a cold GBM hot and suppressing postoperative relapse. Encouraged by excellent efficacy, we further exploited this signal-amplifying system to improve the efficiency of vaccine lysate in the treatment of refractory multiple GBM, a disease with limited clinical treatment options. In general, this biomaterial-based immune signal amplification system represents a unique approach to restore GBM-specific immunity and may provide a beneficial preliminary treatment for other clinically refractory malignancies
Cellulose Fiber-Based Hierarchical Porous Bismuth Telluride for High-Performance Flexible and Tailorable Thermoelectrics
Porous
modification is a general approach to endowing the rigid inorganic
thermoelectric (TE) materials with considerable flexibility, however,
by which the TE performances are severely sacrificed. Thus, there
remains an ongoing struggle against the trade-off between TE properties
and flexibility. Herein, we develop a novel strategy to combine Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub> thick film with ubiquitous cellulose fibers
(CFs) via an unbalanced magnetron sputtering technique. Owing to the
nano-micro hierarchical porous structures and the excellent resistance
to crack propagation of the Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub>/CF architectures,
the obtained sample with a nominal Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub> deposition
thickness of tens of micrometers exhibits excellent mechanically reliable
flexibility, of which the bending deformation radius could be as small
as a few millimeters. Furthermore, the Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub>/CF with rational internal resistance and tailorable shapes and dimensions
are successfully fabricated for practical use in TE devices. Enhanced
Seebeck coefficients are observed in the Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub>/CF as compared to the dense Bi<sub>2</sub>Te<sub>3</sub> films,
and the lattice thermal conductivity is remarkably reduced due to
the strong phonon scattering effect. As a result, the TE figure of
merit, <i>ZT</i>, is achieved as high as âŒ0.38 at
473 K, which competes with the best flexible TEs and can be further
improved by optimizing the carrier concentrations. We believe this
developed technique not only opens up a new window to engineer flexible
TE materials for practical applications but also promotes the robust
development of the fields, such as paper-based flexible electronics
and thin-film electronics
Optical Detection of λâCyhalothrin by CoreâShell Fluorescent Molecularly Imprinted Polymers in Chinese Spirits
In
this study, fluorescent molecularly imprinted polymers (FMIPs),
which were for the selective recognition and fluorescence detection
of λ-cyhalothrin (LC), were synthesized via fluorescein 5(6)-isothiocyanate
(FITC) and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTS)/SiO<sub>2</sub> particles.
The SiO<sub>2</sub>@FITC-APTS@MIPs were characterized by Fourier transform
infrared (FT-IR), UVâvis spectrophotometer (UVâvis),
fluorescence spectrophotometer, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA),
confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM), scanning electron microscopy
(SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The as-synthesized
SiO<sub>2</sub>@FITC-APTS@MIPs with an imprinted polymer film (thickness
was about 100 nm) was demonstrated to be spherically shaped and had
good monodispersity, high fluorescence intensity, and good selective
recognition. Using fluorescence quenching as the detection tool, the
largest fluorescence quenching efficiency (<i>F</i><sub>0</sub>/<i>F</i> â 1) of SiO<sub>2</sub>@FITC-APTS@MIPs
is close to 2.5 when the concentration of the LC is 1.0 ÎŒM L<sup>â1</sup>. In addition, a linear relationship (<i>F</i><sub>0</sub>/<i>F</i> â 1= 0.0162<i>C</i> + 0.0272) could be obtained covering a wide concentration range
of 0â60 nM L<sup>â1</sup> with a correlation coefficient
of 0.9968 described by the SternâVolmer equation. Moreover,
the limit of detection (LOD) of the SiO<sub>2</sub>@FITC-APTS@MIPs
was 9.17 nM L<sup>â1</sup>. The experiment results of practical
detection revealed that the SiO<sub>2</sub>@FITC-APTS@MIPs as an attractive
recognition element was satisfactory for the determination of LC in
Chinese spirits. Therefore, this study demonstrated the potential
of SiO<sub>2</sub>@FITC-APTS@MIPs for the recognition and detection
of LC in food