Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Energy-resolved electron-yield XAS studies of nanoporous CoAlPO-18 and CoAlPO-34 catalysts

Energy-resolved electron-yield X-ray absorption spectroscopy is a promising technique for probing the near-surface structure of nanomaterials because of its ability to discriminate between the near-surface and bulk of materials. So far, the technique has only been used in model systems. Here, the local structural characterization of nanoporous cobalt-substituted aluminophosphates is reported and it is shown that the technique can be employed for the study of open-framework catalytically active systems. Evidence that the cobalt ions on the surface of the crystals react differently to those in the bulk is found

Co-Adsorption and Pure-Component Isotherm Measurements on Direct Air Capture Adsorbents Using The Dvs Vacuum

Temperature vacuum swing adsorption processes that employ amine-functionalised adsorbents are a promising technology to enable carbon dioxide removal directly from the atmosphere. These adsorbents capture carbon dioxide selectively over nitrogen from the air. They also capture significant amounts of water. The co-adsorption of carbon dioxide and water is still poorly understood due to the difficulty of measuring this effect. To date, water adsorption and co-adsorption measurements were time-consuming as breakthrough or equilibrium adsorption experiments were required for each point on an isotherm. Additionally, data required for the accurate modelling of the process includes pure-component water and carbon dioxide isotherms at a range of temperatures and co-adsorption isotherms at a range of temperatures and relative humidities. Attempting to model direct air capture (DAC) processes without this complete set of data might lead to a limited understanding of the process. As a result, process design may be sub-optimal, and the chosen operating conditions might be inefficient. Here we demonstrate how co-adsorption isotherms and purecomponent isotherms can be measured swiftly on an amine-functionalised adsorbent using the Dynamic Vapour Sorption (DVS) Vacuum instrument. We also show how the obtained data can be used to perform first-order kinetic analysis. In this study, Lewatit VP OC 1065® is chosen as an example of an amine-functionalised adsorbent, as it is believed to be similar to the sorbents used by some commercial DAC companies

Effects of X-rays on Crystal Nucleation in Lithium Disilicate

The effects of exposure to a monochromatic 10 keV X-ray beam on thermally induced crystallization of lithium disilicate glass have been investigated and rendered two unexpected findings. First, it was found that an extended exposure during the nucleation heat treatment increased the number of nucleation sites. Second, it was observed that the effects extended far beyond the sample region that was directly exposed to the X-ray beam. The effects were confined to the direction perpendicular to the polarization of the synchrotron radiation beam that was used. The effects could be attributed to photo electrons created not only by the direct X-ray beam but also by the scattered radiation. Further evidence of the influence of photo electrons due to scattered X-rays is found in the results of an online crystallization study on a lysozyme solution

Self-Decontaminating Fibrous Materials Reactive toward Chemical Threats

Polymers that possess highly nucleophilic pyrrolidinopyridine (Pyr) and primary amino (vinylamine, VAm) groups were prepared by free-radical copolymerization of <i>N</i>,<i>N</i>-diallylpyridin-4-amine (DAAP) and <i>N</i>-vinylformamide (NVF) followed by acidic hydrolysis of NVF into VAm. The resulting poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF) copolymers were water-soluble and reacted with water-dispersible polyurethane possessing a high content of unreacted isocyanate groups. Spray-coating of the nylon–cotton (NYCO), rayon, and poly­(<i>p</i>-phenylene terephthalamide) (Kevlar 119) fibers pretreated with phosphoric acid resulted in covalent bonding of the polyurethane with the hydroxyl groups on the fiber surface. A second spray-coating of aqueous solutions of poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF) on the polyurethane-coated fiber enabled formation of urea linkages between unreacted isocyanate groups of the polyurethane layer and the amino groups of poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF). Fibers with poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF) attached were compared with fibers modified by adsorption of water-insoluble poly­(butadiene-<i>co</i>-pyrrolidinopyridine) (polyBPP) in terms of the stability against polymer leaching in aqueous washing applications. While the fibers modified by attachment of poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF) exhibited negligible polymer leaching, over 65% of adsorbed polyBPP detached and leached from the fibers within 7 days. Rayon fibers modified by poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF) were tested for sorption of dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) in the presence of moisture using dynamic vapor sorption technique. Capability of the fibers modified with poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF) to facilitate hydrolysis of the sorbed DMMP in the presence of moisture was uncovered. The self-decontaminating property of the modified fibers against chemical threats was tested using a CWA simulant diisopropylfluorophosphate (DFP) in aqueous media at pH 8.7. Fibers modified with poly­(DAAP-<i>co</i>-VAm-<i>co</i>-NVF) facilitated hydrolysis of DFP with the half-lives up to an order of magnitude shorter than that of the unmodified fibers. The presented polymers and method of multilayer coating can lead to a development of self-decontaminating textiles and other materials

High and energy-efficient reversible SO 2 uptake by a robust Sc( iii )-based MOF

International audienceThe MOF-type MFM-300(Sc) is demonstrated to be an optimal adsorbent for SO2 capture combining high uptake, good stability and excellent cyclability involving a remarkable facile regeneration at room temperature. Interestingly, this MOF shows a drastic enhancement on its SO2 uptake by 40% when a small amount of ethanol is preliminary adsorbed

Postsynthetic Functionalization of Mg-MOF-74 with Tetraethylenepentamine: Structural Characterization and Enhanced CO₂ Adsorption

Postsynthetic functionalization of magnesium 2,5-dihydroxyterephthalate (Mg-MOF-74) with tetraethylenepentamine (TEPA) resulted in improved CO₂ adsorption performance under dry and humid conditions. XPS, elemental analysis, and neutron powder diffraction studies indicated that TEPA was incorporated throughout the MOF particle, although it coordinated preferentially with the unsaturated metal sites located in the immediate proximity to the surface. Neutron and X-ray powder diffraction analyses showed that the MOF structure was preserved after amine incorporation, with slight changes in the lattice parameters. The adsorption capacity of the functionalized amino-Mg-MOF-74 (TEPA-MOF) for CO₂ was as high as 26.9 wt % versus 23.4 wt % for the original MOF due to the extra binding sites provided by the multiunit amines. The degree of functionalization with the amines was found to be important in enhancing CO₂ adsorption, as the optimal surface coverage improved performance and stability under both pure CO₂ and CO₂/H₂O coadsorption, and with partially saturated surface coverage, optimal CO₂ capacity could be achieved under both wet and dry conditions by a synergistic binding of CO₂ to the amines as well as metal centers