Experimental Study on the Factors of the Oil Shale Thermal Breakdown in High-Voltage Power Frequency Electric Heating Technology

We conducted an experimental study on the breakdown process of oil shale by high-voltage power frequency electric heating in-situ pyrolyzing (HVF) technology to examine the impact mechanisms of the electric field intensity, initial temperature, and moisture content on a breakdown, using Huadian oil shale samples. A thermal breakdown occurred when the electric field intensity was between 100 and 180 V/cm. The greater the electric field intensity, the easier the thermal breakdown and the lower the energy consumption. The critical temperature of the oil shale thermal breakdown ranged from 93 to 102 °C. A higher initial temperature increases the difficulty of breakdown, which is inconsistent with the classical theory of a solid thermal breakdown. The main factor that affects the electrical conductivity of oil shale is the presence of water, which is also a necessary condition for the thermal breakdown of oil shale. There should be an optimal moisture content that minimizes both the breakdown time and energy consumption for oil shale’s thermal breakdown. The thermal breakdown of oil shale results from heat generation and dissipation. The electric field intensity only affects the heat generation process, whereas the initial temperature and moisture content impact both the heat generation and dissipation processes, and the impacts of moisture content are greater than those of the initial temperature.© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Metabolomics in retinal diseases: an update

Retinal diseases are a leading cause of visual loss and blindness, affecting a significant proportion of the population worldwide and having a detrimental impact on quality of life, with consequent economic burden. The retina is highly metabolically active, and a number of retinal diseases are associated with metabolic dysfunction. To better understand the pathogenesis underlying such retinopathies, new technology has been developed to elucidate the mechanism behind retinal diseases. Metabolomics is a relatively new “omics” technology, which has developed subsequent to genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics. This new technology can provide qualitative and quantitative information about low-molecular-weight metabolites (M.W. < 1500 Da) in a given biological system, which shed light on the physiological or pathological state of a cell or tissue sample at a particular time point. In this article we provide an extensive review of the application of metabolomics to retinal diseases, with focus on age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy (DR), retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), glaucoma, and retinitis pigmentosa (RP)

Quantitative and functional post-translational modification proteomics reveals that TREPH1 plays a role in plant thigmomorphogenesis

Plants can sense both intracellular and extracellular mechanical forces and can respond through morphological changes. The signaling components responsible for mechanotransduction of the touch response are largely unknown. Here, we performed a high-throughput SILIA (stable isotope labeling in Arabidopsis)-based quantitative phosphoproteomics analysis to profile changes in protein phosphorylation resulting from 40 seconds of force stimulation in Arabidopsis thaliana. Of the 24 touch-responsive phosphopeptides identified, many were derived from kinases, phosphatases, cytoskeleton proteins, membrane proteins and ion transporters. TOUCH-REGULATED PHOSPHOPROTEIN1 (TREPH1) and MAP KINASE KINASE 2 (MKK2) and/or MKK1 became rapidly phosphorylated in touch-stimulated plants. Both TREPH1 and MKK2 are required for touch-induced delayed flowering, a major component of thigmomorphogenesis. The treph1-1 and mkk2 mutants also exhibited defects in touch-inducible gene expression. A non-phosphorylatable site-specific isoform of TREPH1 (S625A) failed to restore touch-induced flowering delay of treph1-1, indicating the necessity of S625 for TREPH1 function and providing evidence consistent with the possible functional relevance of the touch-regulated TREPH1 phosphorylation. Bioinformatic analysis and biochemical subcellular fractionation of TREPH1 protein indicate that it is a soluble protein. Altogether, these findings identify new protein players in Arabidopsis thigmomorphogenesis regulation, suggesting that protein phosphorylation may play a critical role in plant force responses

Mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of physical exercise on multiple sclerosis: focus on immune cells

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a prevalent neuroimmunological illness that leads to neurological disability in young adults. Although the etiology of MS is heterogeneous, it is well established that aberrant activity of adaptive and innate immune cells plays a crucial role in its pathogenesis. Several immune cell abnormalities have been described in MS and its animal models, including T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, dendritic cells, neutrophils, microglia/macrophages, and astrocytes, among others. Physical exercise offers a valuable alternative or adjunctive disease-modifying therapy for MS. A growing body of evidence indicates that exercise may reduce the autoimmune responses triggered by immune cells in MS. This is partially accomplished by restricting the infiltration of peripheral immune cells into the central nervous system (CNS) parenchyma, curbing hyperactivation of immune cells, and facilitating a transition in the balance of immune cells from a pro-inflammatory to an anti-inflammatory state. This review provides a succinct overview of the correlation between physical exercise, immune cells, and MS pathology, and highlights the potential benefits of exercise as a strategy for the prevention and treatment of MS

Fast Correlation Attacks on Grain-like Small State Stream Ciphers and Cryptanalysis of Plantlet, Fruit-v2 and Fruit-80

The fast correlation attack (FCA) is one of the most important cryptanalytic techniques against LFSR-based stream ciphers. In CRYPTO 2018, Todo et al. found a new property for the FCA and proposed a novel algorithm which was successfully applied to the Grain family of stream ciphers. Nevertheless, these techniques can not be directly applied to Grain-like small state stream ciphers with keyed update, such as Plantlet, Fruit-v2, and Fruit80. In this paper, we study the security of Grain-like small state stream ciphers by the fast correlation attack. We first observe that the number of required parity-check equations can be reduced when there are multiple different parity-check equations. With exploiting the Skellam distribution, we introduce a sufficient condition to identify the correct LFSR initial state and derive a new relationship between the number and bias of the required parity-check equations. Then a modified algorithm is presented based on this new relationship, which can recover the LFSR initial state no matter what the round key bits are. Under the condition that the LFSR initial state is known, an algorithm is given against the degraded system and to recover the NFSR state at some time instant, along with the round key bits. As cases study, we apply our cryptanalytic techniques to Plantlet, Fruit-v2 and Fruit-80. As a result, for Plantlet our attack takes $2^{73.75}$ time complexity and $2^{73.06}$ keystream bits to recover the full 80-bit key. Regarding Fruit-v2, $2^{55.34}$ time complexity and $2^{55.62}$ keystream bits are token to determine the secret key. As for Fruit-80, $2^{64.47}$ time complexity and $2^{62.82}$ keystream bits are required to recover the secret key. More flexible attacks can be obtained with lower data complexity at cost of increasing attack time. Especially, for Fruit-v2 a key recovery attack can be launched with data complexity of $2^{42.38}$ and time complexity of $2^{72.63}$. Moreover, we have implemented our attack methods on a toy version of Fruit-v2. The attack matches the expected complexities predicted by our theoretical analysis quite well, which proves the validity of our cryptanalytic techniques

An incentive mechanism for data sharing based on blockchain with smart contracts

© 2020 Data sharing techniques have progressively drawn increasing attention as a means of significantly reducing repetitive work. However, in the process of data sharing, the challenges regarding formation of mutual-trust relationships and increasing the level of user participation are yet to be solved. The existing solution is to use a third party as a trust organization for data sharing, but there is no dynamic incentive mechanism for data sharing with a large number of users. Blockchain 2.0 with smart contract has the natural advantage of being able to enable trust and automated transactions between a large number of users. This paper proposes a data sharing incentive model based on evolutionary game theory using blockchain with smart contract. The smart contract mechanism can dynamically control the excitation parameters and continuously encourages users to participate in data sharing

Neu-P11, a novel melatonin receptor agonist, could improve the features of type-2 diabetes mellitus in rats

Objective: Melatonin (Mel) and its receptors are promising for glycemic control in patients with type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and its complications, but there is significant heterogeneity among studies. This study aims to investigate the effects of Mel receptor agonist Neu-P11 on glucose metabolism, immunity and islet function in T2DM rats. Methods: In this study, SD rats were treated with high fat diet and streptozotocin (STZ) to establish T2DM model. Glucose oxidase method was used to measure blood glucose level. Glucose and insulin tolerance tests were used to assess glucose metabolism. HE staining was used to observe the pancreatic tissue injury. The apoptosis of islet β cells was analyzed by TUNEL and insulin staining. ROS levels and immune cell expression were analyzed by flow cytometry. IF was used to analyze the activation of microglia. The IgA, IgG, IgM, TNF-α, IL-10, IL-1β, IFN-γ, C-peptide and Insulin levels were determined by ELISA. The expression of CD11b, CD86, cleaved caspase3, p21, and P16 proteins were analyzed by western blot. Results: The results showed that the blood glucose level increased, insulin resistance occurred, spleen coefficient and ROS levels increased, humoral immunity in peripheral blood decreased, and inflammation increased in the model group compared to the control group. After Mel and Neu-P11 treatment, the blood glucose level decreased significantly, insulin sensitivity improved, spleen coefficient and ROS levels decreased, humoral immunity in peripheral blood enhanced, and inflammation improved in T2DM rats. Brain functional analysis of T2DM rats showed that microglia cells were activated, TNF-α and IL-β levels were increased, and IL-10 levels were decreased. Mel and Neu-P11 treatment reversed these indexes. Functional analysis of islet in T2DM rats showed that islet structure inflammation was impaired, islet β cells were apoptotic, p21 and p16 protein expressions were increased, and blood C-peptide and insulin were decreased. Mel and Neu-P11 treatment restored the function of pancreatic β cells and improved the damage of pancreatic tissue. Conclusion: Melatonin and its receptor Neu-P11 can reduce blood glucose level, enhance humoral and cellular immunity, inhibit microglia activation and inflammation, and repair islets β cell function, improve the characterization of T2DM related diseases