Start-up performance and granular sludge features of an improved external circulating anaerobic reactor for algae-laden water treatment

AbstractThe microbial characteristics of granular sludge during the rapid start of an enhanced external circulating anaerobic reactor were studied to improve algae-laden water treatment efficiency. Results showed that algae laden water was effectively removed after about 35d, and the removal rates of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and algal toxin were around 85% and 92%, respectively. Simultaneously, the gas generation rate was around 380mL/gCOD. The microbial community structure in the granular sludge of the reactor was complicated, and dominated by coccus and filamentous bacteria. Methanosphaera, Methanolinea, Thermogymnomonas, Methanoregula, Methanomethylovorans, and Methanosaeta were the major microorganisms in the granular sludge. The activities of protease and coenzyme F420 were high in the granular sludge. The intermittent stirring device and the reverse-flow system were further found to overcome the disadvantage of the floating and crusting of cyanobacteria inside the reactor. Meanwhile, the effect of mass transfer inside the reactor can be accelerated to help give the reactor a rapid start

Association between PNPLA8 gene polymorphism and schizophrenia in male patients

Abnormal phospholipid metabolism in the brain plays an important role in neuropsychiatric diseases. Phospholipase A2 is crucial for maintaining normal neuro-physiological function. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between polymorphisms of the membrane-associated calcium-independent phospholipase A2 gamma (PNPLA8) gene and schizophrenia in Han Chinese in north China. The PCR-based ligase detection reaction was applied to detect 3 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the PNPLA8 gene among 201 Chinese pedigrees. The genotypic frequency of the PNPLA8 polymorphisms did not deviate from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium both in affected offspring and parental groups. Haploid relative risk (HRR) and transmission disequilibrium tests (TDT) showed that the 3 SNPs were not associated with schizophrenia (p>0.05), but further analysis with TDT showed that the rs40876 polymorphism was associated with schizophrenia in males (χ2=4.667, p=0.031). Our data suggest that rs40876 in PNPLA8 may be associated with schizophrenia in males

Empowering LLM to use Smartphone for Intelligent Task Automation

Mobile task automation is an attractive technique that aims to enable voice-based hands-free user interaction with smartphones. However, existing approaches suffer from poor scalability due to the limited language understanding ability and the non-trivial manual efforts required from developers or end-users. The recent advance of large language models (LLMs) in language understanding and reasoning inspires us to rethink the problem from a model-centric perspective, where task preparation, comprehension, and execution are handled by a unified language model. In this work, we introduce AutoDroid, a mobile task automation system that can handle arbitrary tasks on any Android application without manual efforts. The key insight is to combine the commonsense knowledge of LLMs and domain-specific knowledge of apps through automated dynamic analysis. The main components include a functionality-aware UI representation method that bridges the UI with the LLM, exploration-based memory injection techniques that augment the app-specific domain knowledge of LLM, and a multi-granularity query optimization module that reduces the cost of model inference. We integrate AutoDroid with off-the-shelf LLMs including online GPT-4/GPT-3.5 and on-device Vicuna, and evaluate its performance on a new benchmark for memory-augmented Android task automation with 158 common tasks. The results demonstrated that AutoDroid is able to precisely generate actions with an accuracy of 90.9%, and complete tasks with a success rate of 71.3%, outperforming the GPT-4-powered baselines by 36.4% and 39.7%. The demo, benchmark suites, and source code of AutoDroid will be released at url{https://autodroid-sys.github.io/}

GPR43 protects human A16 cardiomyocytes against hypoxia/reoxygenation injury by regulating nesfatin1

Background: The purpose of this study is to investigate the regulatory role of G coupled-protein receptor 43 (GPR43) during myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury and to explore the relevant molecular mechanism. Materials and methods: AC16 hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) model was established to simulate I/R injury in vitro. Gain- and loss-of-function experiments were conducted to regulate GPR43 or nesfatin1 expression. Cell viability and apoptosis was examined adopting CCK-8 and TUNEL assays. Commercial kits were applied for detecting ROS and inflammatory cytokines. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and western blotting were conducted to measure the expression level of critical genes and proteins. Results: GPR43 was downregulated in H/R-mediated AC16 cells. GPR43 overexpression or the GPR43 agonist greatly inhibited H/R-induced cell viability loss, cell apoptosis, and excessive production of ROS and pro-inflammatory cytokines in AC16 cardiomyocytes. Co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) assay identified an interaction between GPR43 and nesfatin1, and GPR43 could positively regulate nesfatin1. In addition, the protective role of GPR43 against H/R injury was partly abolished upon nesfatin1 knockdown. Eventually, GPR43 could inhibit H/R-stimulated JNK/P38 MAPK signaling in AC16 cells, which was also hindered by nesfatin1 knockdown. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated the protective role of GPR43 against H/R-mediated cardiomyocytes injury through up-regulating nesfatin1, providing a novel target for the prevention and treatment of myocardial I/R injury

Changes of predominant species/biovars and sequence types of Brucellaisolates, Inner Mongolia, China

BACKGROUND: Human brucellosis incidence in China was divided into 3 stages, high incidence (1950-1960s), decline (1970-1980s) and re-emergence (1990-2000s). Human brucellosis has been reported in all the 32 provinces, of which Inner Mongolia has the highest prevalence, accounting for over 40% of the cases in China. To investigate the etiology alteration of human brucellosis in Inner Mongolia, the species, biovars and genotypes of 60 Brucella isolates from this province were analyzed. METHODS: Species and biovars of the Brucella strains isolated from outbreaks were determined based on classical identification procedures. Strains were genotyped by multi locus sequence typing (MLST). Sequences of 9 housekeeping genes were obtained and sequence types were defined. The distribution of species, biovars and sequence types (STs) among the three incidence stages were analyzed and compared. RESULTS: The three stages of high incidence, decline and re-emergence were predominated by B. melitensis biovar 2 and 3, B. abortus biovar 3, and B. melitensis biovar 1, respectively, implying changes in the predominant biovars. Genotyping by MLST revealed a total of 14 STs. Nine STs (from ST28 to ST36), accounting for 64.3% of all the STs, were newly defined and different from those observed in other countries. Different STs were distributed among the three stages. ST8 was the most common ST in 1950-1960s and 1990-2000s, while ST2 was the most common in 1970-1980s. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of biovars and sequence types of Brucella strains from Inner Mongolia has changed over time in the three stages. Compared with those from other countries, new sequence types of Brucella strains exist in China

Association Analysis of MET

To investigate the association of MET SNPs with gender disparity in thyroid tumors, as well as the metastasis and prognosis of patients, 858 patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), 556 patients with nodular goiter, and 896 population-based normal controls were recruited. The genotyping of MET SNPs was carried out using the Sequenom MassARRAY system. The distribution of MET SNPs (rs1621 and rs6566) was different among groups. Gender stratification analysis revealed a significant association between the rs1621 genotype and PTC in female patients (P=0.037), but not in male patients (P>0.05). For female patients, the rs1621 AG genotype was significantly higher in patients with PTC than in normal controls (P=0.01) and revealed an increasing risk of PTC (OR: 1.465, 95% CI: 1.118–1.92). However, association analysis of the rs1621 genotype with metastasis and prognosis revealed no significant correlation in both male and female patients. The findings of our study showed that polymorphism of SNP locus rs1621 in MET gene may be associated with gender disparity in PTC. Higher AG genotypes in rs1621 were correlated with PTC in female patients, but not in male patients

Scenarios of temporal environmental alterations and phytoplankton diversity in a changing bay in the East China Sea

In the context of global change, the stressors of warming and eutrophication have significant ecological implications in coastal waters. In order to examine the diversity of phytoplankton and its relationship with water quality, we conducted a survey of phytoplankton community compositions and their correlation with environmental changes over four seasons in a eutrophic bay located in the East China Sea. Through a systematic analysis, we identified diatoms and dinoflagellates as the primary dominant groups, with the species Skeletonema costatum, Skeletonema marinoi, Biddulphia sinensis, Thalassiosira eccentrica, Leptocylindrus danicus, Coscinodiscus oculus-iridis, Coscinodiscus jonesianus, and Chaetoceros knipowitschi as the most abundant species in all seasons. Significant seasonal alterations were observed in both environmental settings and phytoplankton species richness, dominance, and abundance. The phytoplankton community varied in its response to diverse aquatic environments and was principally affected by temperature, silicic acid concentrations, and suspended solids. Elevated temperatures were found to promote an increase in phytoplankton abundance. However, no clear evidence of diatom and dinoflagellate succession in relation to N:P ratio was observed across seasons. Water quality analysis illustrated that the majority of the study area exhibited a mid-eutrophic with severe organic pollution. The abundance of phytoplankton was significantly influenced by eutrophication and organic pollution. The accelerated warming process related to coastal nuclear power plants and nutrient regime alterations significantly affect the temporal shift of the phytoplankton community. These findings contribute valuable insights into the effects of eutrophic environments on the structure of phytoplankton communities in coastal aquatic systems