Optimization of Operating Parameters for Coal Low-Temperature Ashing: A Suitable and Efficient Treatment Method for Mineral Analysis in Coal

Low-temperature oxygen-plasma ashing plus X-ray diffraction analysis is one of the effective techniques to identify minerals in coal. However, previous publications have not provided any details of the exact low-temperature degrees and corresponding working conditions of ashers, and this could lead to two adverse effects without proper operating guidance: (1) a relatively high temperature (e.g., >150 °C) may cause alteration of minerals (particularly clay minerals), and (2) a relatively low temperature (e.g., (004) and kaolinite d(002) can be clearly distinguished by LTAs-XRD analysis. In addition, different low temperatures have certain influence on the crystal structure of minerals. When the power rises to above 300 W (about 150 °C), the crystal structure of minerals undergoes changes. The symmetry and integrity of the mineral peaks became worse, and destructive interference occurred between the spacing of reflection planes, resulting in significant decrease in diffraction peak intensity; thus, some trace minerals were unable to be identified. The study on the working parameters of the instrument would be helpful to ash coals more effectively and make qualitative and quantitative analysis of minerals more accurate

METTL3-Mediated m6A Methylation Regulates Muscle Stem Cells and Muscle Regeneration by Notch Signaling Pathway

The Pax7+ muscle stem cells (MuSCs) are essential for skeletal muscle homeostasis and muscle regeneration upon injury, while the molecular mechanisms underlying muscle stem cell fate determination and muscle regeneration are still not fully understood. N6-methyladenosine (m6A) RNA modification is catalyzed by METTL3 and plays important functions in posttranscriptional gene expression regulation and various biological processes. Here, we generated muscle stem cell-specific METTL3 conditional knockout mouse model and revealed that METTL3 knockout in muscle stem cells significantly inhibits the proliferation of muscle stem cells and blocks the muscle regeneration after injury. Moreover, knockin of METTL3 in muscle stem cells promotes the muscle stem cell proliferation and muscle regeneration in vivo. Mechanistically, METTL3-m6A-YTHDF1 axis regulates the mRNA translation of Notch signaling pathway. Our data demonstrated the important in vivo physiological function of METTL3-mediated m6A modification in muscle stem cells and muscle regeneration, providing molecular basis for the therapy of stem cell-related muscle diseases

Study of coherent J/ψJ/\psi production in lead-lead collisions at sNN \sqrt{{\mathrm{s}}_{\mathrm{NN}}} = 5 TeV

International audienceCoherent production of J/ψ mesons is studied in ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5 TeV, using a data sample collected by the LHCb experiment corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 10 μb$^{−1}$. The J/ψ mesons are reconstructed in the dimuon final state and are required to have transverse momentum below 1 GeV. The cross-section within the rapidity range of 2.0 < y < 4.5 is measured to be 4.45 ± 0.24 ± 0.18 ± 0.58 mb, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third originates from the luminosity determination. The cross-section is also measured in J/ψ rapidity intervals. The results are compared to predictions from phenomenological models.[graphic not available: see fulltext