Case Study for Processing Phosphate Ores Worldwide

The characteristics of phosphate ores from different sources can vary significantly. The target specifications for marketable phosphate concentrates can also vary for each end user. The impurities associated with phosphate reserves include clay, silica quartz, silicates, carbonate minerals, iron oxide minerals, organics, etc. Among the technologies for processing phosphate ores, flotation is most commonly used to separate phosphate from those impurities. Examples of processing phosphate ores around the world with ArrMaz CustoFloat® (CF) and CustAmine® (CA) collectors with approaches such as reagent scheme and flowsheet will be presented

HybrUR: A Hybrid Physical-Neural Solution for Unsupervised Underwater Image Restoration

Robust vision restoration for an underwater image remains a challenging problem. For the lack of aligned underwater-terrestrial image pairs, the unsupervised method is more suited to this task. However, the pure data-driven unsupervised method usually has difficulty in achieving realistic color correction for lack of optical constraint. In this paper, we propose a data- and physics-driven unsupervised architecture that learns underwater vision restoration from unpaired underwater-terrestrial images. For sufficient domain transformation and detail preservation, the underwater degeneration needs to be explicitly constructed based on the optically unambiguous physics law. Thus, we employ the Jaffe-McGlamery degradation theory to design the generation models, and use neural networks to describe the process of underwater degradation. Furthermore, to overcome the problem of invalid gradient when optimizing the hybrid physical-neural model, we fully investigate the intrinsic correlation between the scene depth and the degradation factors for the backscattering estimation, to improve the restoration performance through physical constraints. Our experimental results show that the proposed method is able to perform high-quality restoration for unconstrained underwater images without any supervision. On multiple benchmarks, we outperform several state-of-the-art supervised and unsupervised approaches. We also demonstrate that our methods yield encouraging results on real-world applications

c-Lysozyme promotes proliferation of chicken embryonic fibroblast through bFGF pathway

The egg white (EW) contains the majority of bioactive components which maintain embryo growth and differentiation. The discovery of new growth promoting factor in egg white will provide vital clue to understand the developmental regulation of early chicken embryo. The egg white heated with different temperatures (63.5, 70 and 95°C) underwent testing on its growth-promoting effect on chicken fibroblast in vitro. The purified c-lysozyme and the expression of related genes in basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) pathway were analyzed to ascertain its growth-promoting mechanism. 13 h after egg white treatment, more fibroblast synchronized with serum starvation transited into S phrase from G0/G1 in EW group than in the control group (CM) and reached the phase of peak proliferation at 15 h after treatment. It was found that c-lysozyme had the function of promoting cells growth and was decided by gradient heat inactivation of egg white. The addition of more than 0.25 mg/ml c-lysozyme produced significant increase in the cellular proliferation during 48 to 72 h of culture. At 13 h after c-lysozyme treatment, the bFGF, cyclin D, cyclin A and CDK2 were up-regulated significantly and promoted the transition from G0/G1 into S phrase and the accurate completion of S phrase. C-Lysozyme contains a growth-activating domain to promote the cell proliferation besides its anti-microbe domain.Key words: c-Lysozyme, fibroblast, fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR), cell cycle

Overexpression of Toll-Like Receptor 4 Contributes to Phagocytosis of Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium via Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase Signaling in Sheep

Background/Aims: Phagocytosis of bacteria by monocytes/macrophages can trigger the immune response and the clearance of bacteria. This innate immune response involves Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). However, much remains unknown about the mechanism of TLR4-regulated phagocytosis of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. typhimurium) within sheep monocytes/macrophages. Here, we aimed to address these knowledge gaps by infecting transgenic sheep overexpressing TLR4 with S. typhimurium and examining the phagocytic mechanisms involved. Methods: Transgenic sheep were generated by microinjection of the constructed plasmids into fertilized eggs. Monocytes/macrophages isolated from sheep blood were stimulated with LPS and S. typhimurium. Phagocytosis-related factor expression, phagocytic ability, and adhesion were then determined. TLR4/phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling was inhibited to investigate if this pathway is involved in changes in bacterial internalization in sheep. Results: We found that TLR4 overexpression effectively activated the PI3K signaling pathway and upregulated the expression of scavenger receptors. Additionally, actin polymerization and adhesive capacity were both enhanced in TLR4-overexpressing sheep monocytes/macrophages. TLR4 inhibition decreased S. typhimurium phagocytosis by reducing the actin polymerization and adhesive capacity of cells. Furthermore, inhibition of PI3K markedly impaired TLR4-dependent phagocytosis by restraining actin polymerization and scavenger receptor expression and reduced the adhesive capacity of the monocytes/macrophages. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that overexpression of TLR4 enhances phagocytosis through PI3K signaling and the subsequent activation of actin polymerization and scavenger receptors in sheep monocytes/macrophages infected with S. typhimurium

Mechanochemically accelerated deconstruction of chemically recyclable plastics

Plastics redesign for circularity has primarily focused on monomer chemistries enabling faster deconstruction rates concomitant with high monomer yields. Yet, during deconstruction, polymer chains interact with their reaction medium, which remains underexplored in polymer reactivity. Here, we show that, when plastics are deconstructed in reaction media that promote swelling, initial rates are accelerated by over sixfold beyond those in small-molecule analogs. This unexpected acceleration is primarily tied to mechanochemical activation of strained polymer chains; however, changes in the activity of water under polymer confinement and bond activation in solvent-separated ion pairs are also important. Together, deconstruction times can be shortened by seven times by codesigning plastics and their deconstruction processes