Ceramic Microbial Fuel Cells Stack: Power generation in standard and supercapacitive mode

© 2018 The Author(s). In this work, a microbial fuel cell (MFC) stack containing 28 ceramic MFCs was tested in both standard and supercapacitive modes. The MFCs consisted of carbon veil anodes wrapped around the ceramic separator and air-breathing cathodes based on activated carbon catalyst pressed on a stainless steel mesh. The anodes and cathodes were connected in parallel. The electrolytes utilized had different solution conductivities ranging from 2.0 mScm-1 to 40.1 mScm-1, simulating diverse wastewaters. Polarization curves of MFCs showed a general enhancement in performance with the increase of the electrolyte solution conductivity. The maximum stationary power density was 3.2 mW (3.2 Wm-3) at 2.0 mScm-1 that increased to 10.6 mW (10.6 Wm-3) at the highest solution conductivity (40.1 mScm-1). For the first time, MFCs stack with 1 L operating volume was also tested in supercapacitive mode, where full galvanostatic discharges are presented. Also in the latter case, performance once again improved with the increase in solution conductivity. Particularly, the increase in solution conductivity decreased dramatically the ohmic resistance and therefore the time for complete discharge was elongated, with a resultant increase in power. Maximum power achieved varied between 7.6 mW (7.6 Wm-3) at 2.0 mScm-1 and 27.4 mW (27.4 Wm-3) at 40.1 mScm-1

Association between Alcohol Consumption and Cancers in the Chinese Population—A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Alcohol consumption is increasing worldwide and is associated with numerous cancers. This systematic review examined the role of alcohol in the incidence of cancer in the Chinese population.Medline/PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI and VIP were searched to identify relevant studies. Cohort and case-control studies on the effect of alcohol use on cancers in Chinese were included. Study quality was evaluated using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Data were independently abstracted by two reviewers. Odds ratios (OR) or relative risks (RR) were pooled using RevMan 5.0. Heterogeneity was evaluated using the Q test and I-squared statistic. P<.01 was considered statistically significant.Pooled results from cohort studies indicated that alcohol consumption was not associated with gastric cancer, esophageal cancers (EC) or lung cancer. Meta-analysis of case-control studies showed that alcohol consumption was a significant risk factor for five cancers; the pooled ORs were 1.79 (99% CI, 1.47–2.17) EC, 1.40 (99% CI, 1.19–1.64) gastric cancer, 1.56 (99% CI, 1.16–2.09) hepatocellular carcinoma, 1.21 (99% CI, 1.00–1.46) nasopharyngeal cancer and 1.71 (99% CI, 1.20–2.44) oral cancer. Pooled ORs of the case-control studies showed that alcohol consumption was protective for female breast cancer and gallbladder cancer: OR 0.76 (99% CI, 0.60–0.97) and 0.70 (99% CI, 0.49–1.00) respectively. There was no significant correlation between alcohol consumption and lung cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, cancer of the ampulla of Vater, prostate cancer or extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Combined results of case-control and cohort studies showed that alcohol consumption was associated with 1.78- and 1.40-fold higher risks of EC and gastric cancer but was not significantly associated with lung cancer.Health programs focused on limiting alcohol intake may be important for cancer control in China. Further studies are needed to examine the interaction between alcohol consumption and other risk factors for cancers in Chinese and other populations

Quantifying primaquine effectiveness and improving adherence: a round table discussion of the APMEN Vivax Working Group.

The goal to eliminate malaria from the Asia-Pacific by 2030 will require the safe and widespread delivery of effective radical cure of malaria. In October 2017, the Asia Pacific Malaria Elimination Network Vivax Working Group met to discuss the impediments to primaquine (PQ) radical cure, how these can be overcome and the methodological difficulties in assessing clinical effectiveness of radical cure. The salient discussions of this meeting which involved 110 representatives from 18 partner countries and 21 institutional partner organizations are reported. Context specific strategies to improve adherence are needed to increase understanding and awareness of PQ within affected communities; these must include education and health promotion programs. Lessons learned from other disease programs highlight that a package of approaches has the greatest potential to change patient and prescriber habits, however optimizing the components of this approach and quantifying their effectiveness is challenging. In a trial setting, the reactivity of participants results in patients altering their behaviour and creates inherent bias. Although bias can be reduced by integrating data collection into the routine health care and surveillance systems, this comes at a cost of decreasing the detection of clinical outcomes. Measuring adherence and the factors that relate to it, also requires an in-depth understanding of the context and the underlying sociocultural logic that supports it. Reaching the elimination goal will require innovative approaches to improve radical cure for vivax malaria, as well as the methods to evaluate its effectiveness

Management and 1-year outcomes of patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation and chronic kidney disease: Results from the prospective garfield-af registry

Background-—Using data from the GARFIELD-AF (Global Anticoagulant Registry in the FIELD–Atrial Fibrillation), we evaluated the impact of chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage on clinical outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods and Results-—GARFIELD-AF is a prospective registry of patients from 35 countries, including patients from Asia (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand). Consecutive patients enrolled (2013–2016) were classified with no, mild, or moderate-to-severe CKD, based on the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative guidelines. Data on CKD status and outcomes were available for 33 024 of 34 854 patients (including 9491 patients from Asia); 10.9% (n=3613) had moderate-to-severe CKD, 16.9% (n=5595) mild CKD, and 72.1% (n=23 816) no CKD. The use of oral anticoagulants was influenced by stroke risk (ie, post hoc assessment of CHA2DS2-VASc score), but not by CKD stage. The quality of anticoagulant control with vitamin K antagonists did not differ with CKD stage. After adjusting for baseline characteristics and antithrombotic use, both mild and moderate-to-severe CKD were independent risk factors for all-cause mortality. Moderate-to-severe CKD was independently associated with a higher risk of stroke/systemic embolism, major bleeding, new-onset acute coronary syndrome, and new or worsening heart failure. The impact of moderate-to-severe CKD on mortality was significantly greater in patients from Asia than the rest of the world (P=0.001). Conclusions-—In GARFIELD-AF, moderate-to-severe CKD was independently associated with stroke/systemic embolism, major bleeding, and mortality. The effect of moderate-to-severe CKD on mortality was even greater in patients from Asia than the rest of the world

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe