Multifunctional in-situ ferrate treatment and its removal mechanisms of membrane bioreactor residual pollutants

Membrane bioreactors (MBRs) integrate the technique of membrane separation with biologically activated sludge and produce high-quality effluent that can be used for water reclamation. However, removal of residual pollutants, including phosphorus, non-biodegradable organic matter, and microorganisms, is necessary for water reuse in areas with high human exposure to water, necessitating further water treatment. In this study, ferrate (VI) was used to remove various residual pollutants that can be contained in the MBR effluents, and the removal mechanisms were studied by comparing with ferric chloride (FeCl3). Optimal ferrate production using the in situ wet oxidation method in the synthetic MBR effluent occurred at pH 7.0 and Fe3+:OCl- = 5, with a ferrate yield of 1.8 mg L-1. Based on the results of the jar test, the optimised ferrate dosage was 7.5 mg L-1, which removed 90% of total phosphorus, 20% of dissolved organic matter, and 90% of microorganisms in the real MBR effluent. Ferrate was more effective than FeCl3 even at a lower dosage (~25%). The simultaneous oxidising, coagulating, and disinfecting properties of ferrate are expected to reduce the number of post-treatment steps for water reclamation, thus reducing the capital and operational expenses

Immunohistochemical Expression of Dual-Specificity Protein Phosphatase 4 in Patients with Colorectal Adenocarcinoma

The role of dual-specificity protein phosphatase 4 (DUSP4) appears to vary with the type of malignant tumors and is still controversial. The purpose of our study was to clarify the exact role of DUSP4 expression in colorectal adenocarcinoma. We constructed tissue microarrays and investigated DUSP4 expression by immunohistochemistry. DUSP4 was more frequently expressed in adenocarcinomas and lymph node/distant metastases compared to that in normal colorectal tissues and tubular adenomas (P<0.001). Mean DUSP4 expression score was significantly higher in malignant tumors than in benign lesions (P<0.001). DUSP4 expression was significantly correlated with older age (P=0.017), male gender (P=0.036), larger tumor size (P=0.014), nonmucinous tumor type (P=0.023), and higher T stage (P=0.040). Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed a significant effect of DUSP4 expression on both overall survival and disease-free survival in AJCC stage I (P=0.008 and P=0.003, resp., log-rank test) and male gender (P=0.017 and P=0.049, resp., log-rank test). DUSP4 protein is frequently upregulated in colorectal adenocarcinoma and may play an important role in carcinogenesis and cancer progression and may be a marker of adverse prognosis

Pim2 is required for maintaining multiple myeloma cell growth through modulating TSC2 phosphorylation

Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most common hematologic malignancy. Despite recent treatment advances, it remains incurable. Here, we report that Pim2 kinase expression is highly elevated in MM cells and demonstrate that it is required for MM cell proliferation. Functional interference of Pim2 activity either by short hairpin RNAs or by a potent and selective small-molecule inhibitor leads to significant inhibition of MM cell proliferation. Pim inhibition results in a significant decrease of mammalian target of rapamycin C1 (mTOR-C1) activity, which is critical for cell proliferation.Weidentify TSC2, a negative regulator of mTOR-C1, as a novel Pim2 substrate and show that Pim2 directly phosphorylates TSC2 on Ser-1798 and relieves the suppression of TSC2 on mTOR-C1. These findings support Pim2 as a promising therapeutic target for MM and define a novel Pim2-TSC2-mTOR-C1 pathway that drives MM proliferation

Single-stranded DNA binding protein 2 expression is associated with patient survival in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract Background SSBP2, single-stranded DNA binding protein 2, is a subunit of the ssDNA-binding complex that is involved in the maintenance of genome stability. The majority of previous studies have suggested a tumor-suppressive role of SSBP2, which is silenced by promoter hypermethylation in several human malignancies, such as hematologic malignancies, prostate cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, ovarian cancer, and gallbladder cancer. However, an oncogenic role of SSBP2 has been suggested in glioblastoma patients. We investigated the clinicopathologic significance of SSBP2 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods We constructed tissue microarrays consisting of 21 normal liver parenchyma and 213 hepatocellular carcinoma tissues with corresponding adjacent non-neoplastic tissues. SSBP2 expression was investigated by immunohistochemistry, and positive expression was defined as more than 10% of the tumor cells to show nuclear staining. We then analyzed the correlations between SSBP2 expression and various clinicopathologic characteristics, and further studied the role of SSBP2 in cell growth and migration. Results Hepatocytes were negative for SSBP2 immunohistochemistry in all normal liver samples, whereas the nuclei of normal bile duct epithelium and sinusoidal endothelium were immunoreactive. Positive immunoreactivity was found in one (0.6%) out of 180 non-neoplastic liver tissue samples adjacent to the tumor and in 16 (8.5%) out of 189 hepatocellular carcinomas. Positive SSBP2 expression was significantly correlated with tumor multifocality (P = 0.027, chi-square test), high histologic grade (P = 0.003, chi-square test), and frequent vascular invasion (P = 0.001, chi-square test). Kaplan-Meier survival curves revealed that patients with SSBP2 expression had poor prognosis in both disease-free and overall survival (P = 0.004 and P = 0.026, respectively, log-rank test). SSBP2-positive tumors also had a higher Ki-67 proliferation index (P <  0.001, t-test). Furthermore, downregulation of SSBP2 in the Huh7 cell line inhibited cell migration (P = 0.022, t-test) with altered expression of epithelial-mesenchymal transition markers. Conclusions The minority of hepatocellular carcinomas expressed SSBP2 by immunohistochemistry, whereas normal hepatocytes were negative. SSBP2-positive hepatocellular carcinomas were significantly associated with aggressive phenotypes and poor clinical outcome

Growth and Simultaneous Valleys Manipulation of Two-Dimensional MoSe2-WSe2 Lateral Heterostructure

The covalently bonded in-plane heterostructure (HS) of monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) possesses huge potential for high-speed electronic devices in terms of valleytronics. In this study, high-quality monolayer MoSe2-WSe2 lateral HSs are grown by pulsed-laser-deposition-assisted selenization method. The sharp interface of the lateral HS is verified by morphological and optical characterizations. Intriguingly, photoluminescence spectra acquired from the interface show rather clear signatures of pristine MoSe2 and WSe2 with no intermediate energy peak related to intralayer excitonic matter or formation of MoxW(1-x)Se2 alloys, thereby confirming the sharp interface. Furthermore, the discrete nature of laterally attached TMDC monolayers, each with doubly degenerated but nonequivalent energy valleys marked by (KM, K???M) for MoSe2 and (KW, K???W) for WSe2 in k space, allows simultaneous control of the four valleys within the excitation area without any crosstalk effect over the interface. As an example, KM and KW valleys or K???M and K???W valleys are simultaneously polarized by controlling the helicity of circularly polarized optical pumping, where the maximum degree of polarization is achieved at their respective band edges. The current work provides the growth mechanism of laterally sharp HSs and highlights their potential use in valleytronics

Molecular beam epitaxy of large-area SnSe2 with monolayer thickness fluctuation

The interest in layered materials is largely based on the expectation that they will be beneficial for a variety of applications, from low-power-consuming, wearable electronics to energy harvesting. However, the properties of layered materials are highly dependent on thickness, and the difficulty of controlling thickness over a large area has been a bottleneck for commercial applications. Here, we report layer-by-layer growth of SnSe2, a layered semiconducting material, via van der Waals epitaxy. The films were fabricated on insulating mica substrates with substrate temperatures in the range of 210 degrees C-370 degrees C. The surface consists of a mixture of Nand (N +/- 1) layers, showing that the thickness of the film can be defined with monolayer accuracy (+/- 0.6 nm). High-resolution transmission electron microscopy reveals a polycrystalline film with a grain size of similar to 100 nm and clear Moire patterns from overlapped grains with similar thickness. We also report field effect mobility values of 3.7 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) and 6.7 cm(2) V-1 s(-1) for 11 and 22 nm thick SnSe2, respectively. SnSe2 films with customizable thickness can provide valuable platforms for industry and academic researchers to fully exploit the potential of layered materials.clos

Voltage control of magnetism in Fe3-x GeTe2/In2Se3 van der Waals ferromagnetic/ferroelectric heterostructures

Abstract We investigate the voltage control of magnetism in a van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure device consisting of two distinct vdW materials, the ferromagnetic Fe3-x GeTe2 and the ferroelectric In2Se3. It is observed that gate voltages applied to the Fe3-x GeTe2/In2Se3 heterostructure device modulate the magnetic properties of Fe3-x GeTe2 with significant decrease in coercive field for both positive and negative voltages. Raman spectroscopy on the heterostructure device shows voltage-dependent increase in the in-plane In2Se3 and Fe3-x GeTe2 lattice constants for both voltage polarities. Thus, the voltage-dependent decrease in the Fe3-x GeTe2 coercive field, regardless of the gate voltage polarity, can be attributed to the presence of in-plane tensile strain. This is supported by density functional theory calculations showing tensile-strain-induced reduction of the magnetocrystalline anisotropy, which in turn decreases the coercive field. Our results demonstrate an effective method to realize low-power voltage-controlled vdW spintronic devices utilizing the magnetoelectric effect in vdW ferromagnetic/ferroelectric heterostructures

Impact of Selenium Doping on Resonant Second-Harmonic Generation in Monolayer MoS₂

We have investigated strong optical nonlinearity of monolayer MoS_{2(1–<i>x</i>)}Se_2<i>x</i> across the exciton resonance, which is directly tunable by Se doping. The quality of monolayer alloys prepared by chemical vapor deposition is verified by atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and photoluminescence analysis. The crystal symmetry of all of our alloys is essentially <i>D</i>_3<i>h</i>, as confirmed by polarization-dependent second-harmonic generation (SHG). The spectral structure of the exciton resonance is sampled by wavelength-dependent SHG (λ = 1000–1800 nm), where the SHG resonance red-shifts in accordance with the corresponding optical gap. Surprisingly, the effect of compositional variation turns out to be much more dramatic owing to the unexpected increase of <i>B</i>-exciton-induced SHG, which indeed dominates over the <i>A</i>-exciton resonance for <i>x</i> ≥ 0.3. The overall effect is therefore stronger and broader SHG resonance where the latter arises from different degrees of red-shift for the two exciton states. We report the corresponding absolute SHG dispersion of monolayer alloys, χ⁽²⁾, as a function of Se doping. We believe that our finding is a critical step toward engineering highly efficient nonlinear optical van der Waals materials working in a broader performance range