Comprehensive Study of Liptinite-Rich Coal from the Pliocene Jinsuo Basin and the Eocene Shenbei Basin (China)

Considering the significance of liptinite maceral group to the hydrocarbon generative potential, a comprehensive petrographical, biomarker and isotopic study is performed on liptinite-rich coal to determine the origin of organic matter (OM), depositional conditions and maturity. The samples were collected from the Pliocene Jinsuo Basin (samples YNP and YND) and Eocene Shenbei Basin (sample SB) in China. The obtained results indicate mixed gymnosperm (Pinacea) and angiosperm sources of OM in the sporinite dominated YNP sample. The immature OM (Rr=0.25%) was deposited under oxidizing conditions with pronounced microbial activity. The OM of the resinite-rich YND sample was mostly derived from woody parts of plants and deposited under reducing conditions. The presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at low maturity level (Rr=0.23%) is indicative for certain post-depositional events and/or palaeo-wildfires, that may be responsible for the observation of two kinds of resinite in this sample. The main sources of OM in the resinite-rich sample SB (Rr = 0.46%) were species of the conifer families Cupressaceae and Pinaceae. The OM was deposited under reducing conditions, with a very limited microbial activity. The δ2D values of all extracted liptinite-rich coal are lower than that of coal/kerogen, and falls in the range of lipids and resins

Occurrence and genetic mechanism of pyrite in the No. 9 coal seam in magmatic erosion area of the Handan coalfield

The No. 9 coal of Yunjialing Coal Mine in Handan Coalfield, which is subject to obvious magmatic intrusion, is taken as the research object. Optical microscope observation, electron probe energy spectrometry (EPMA-EDS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) and other analytical tests were used to analyze the enrichment characteristics of whole sulfur, sulfur forms and minerals, to study the occurrence of sulfur and pyrite in the coals, and to explore the sources of different types of pyrite. The results show that the No. 9 coal of Yunjialing Coal Mine in Handan Coalfield is a high-sulfur coal (0.61%～7.12%), sulfide sulfur is the main form of sulfur in the coal (1.18%～4.90%), followed by organic sulfur (0.56%～2.16%) with a little sulphate sulfur (0.01%～0.06%). The No. 9 coal of Yunhailing coal mine was deposited in the transitional environment of sea and land phases, and seawater intrusion provided abundant sulfur source for the No. 9 coal seam, the gas-liquid materials brought about by neutral magmatism during the Yanshan period elevate the total sulfur content in the No. 9 coal of the Yunjialing Caol Mine, especially the total sulfur content of the upper coal plies are significantly higher than the total sulfur content of the whole coal seam. The microscopic occurrence of pyrite in the No. 9 coal mainly includes massive pyrite, disseminated pyrite and fissure-filled pyrite, and is characterized by multi-stage evolution. Massive pyrite is mainly formed in the early diagenetic stage, the high temperature and gas-liquid materials brought about by neutral magmatism during the Yanshan period modified the morphology of pyrite in the coal, resulting in the activation and recrystallization of pyrite in the coal into a massive fraction. Inorganic sulfur from the high-temperature-affected portion of the pyrite diffused into the surrounding coal body and sequestered as organic sulfur, increasing the organic sulfur content of the upper coal plies

A bibliometric and visualization analysis on the association between chronic exposure to fine particulate matter and cancer risk

Introduction:As one of the major pollutants in ambient air pollution, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has attracted public attention. A large body of laboratory and epidemiological research has shown that PM2.5 exposure is harmful to human health.MethodsTo investigate its association with the commonly observed PM-related cancer, a bibliometric study was performed on related publications from 2012 to 2021 from a macroscopic perspective with the help of the Web of Science database and scientometric software VOSviewer, CiteSpace V, HistCite, and Biblioshiny.ResultsThe results indicated that of the 1,948 enrolled documents, scientific productions increased steadily and peaked in 2020 with 348 publications. The most prolific authors, journals, organizations, and countries were Raaschou-Nielsen O, Science of the Total Environment, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and China, respectively. The top five keywords in frequency order were “air pollution,” “particulate matter,” “lung cancer,” “exposure,” and “mortality.”DiscussionThe toxic mechanism of carcinogenicity was explained and is worthy of further investigation. China and the US collaborated most closely, and it is hoped the two countries can strengthen their collaboration to combat air pollution. There is also a need to identify the components of PM2.5 and refine the models to assess the global burden of disease attributed to PM2.5 exposure

FTIR characteristics of charcoal with different combustion degrees as an indication of the genesis by and their significances for formation of fusinite in coal

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), as a non-destructive method, is widely used for the identification of compounds and the characterization of molecular structures. In order to characterize the changes in the chemical structure of charcoal under different combustion temperatures, and thus to provide a theoretical basis for the formation of fusinite in coal, plant samples (charcoal) from modern wildfires with different degrees of combustion were selected to quantify their chemical structures using FTIR. The results shown that the sample reflectance was positively proportional to the combustion temperature. The sample No. 1 with maximum combustion temperature had the highest degree of combustion, which was measured to reach 518 ℃. The aromatic structure was dominated by tri-substituted benzene rings in all samples except the highest combustion sample No. 1, but dehydrocondensation occurred with increasing combustion temperature, resulting in a reduction of tri-substituted content of benzene rings to 20.5%. The tetra-substituted content was elevated due to dehydroaromatization of the naphthenic structure, while the change in the penta-substituted content was related to the cyclization of aliphatic chain and the decarboxylation of benzene ring. With the increase of combustion temperature, the CC content gradually increased due to the formation of aromatic hydrocarbons or the shedding of molecular side chains after dehydrogenation of cycloalkanes, reached 32% in the sample No. 1. The content of C－O first decreased and then increased. In the sample No. 1, the content of alkyl ether and aryl ether was the lowest, and the content of phenolic hydroxyl group was the highest, which may be the generation of phenolic substances by thermal breakage of ether bond under high temperature combustion. The CO content increased and then decreased to as low as 5.6% in the sample No. 1, which was due to the poor stability of the bond. Due to the influence of combustion temperature, the content of fatty substances varied greatly, with an overall gradual increase in methylene content, a decrease in methyl group, and an increase in branching degree. There were five types of hydrogen bonds in the samples, with ether-oxygen hydrogen bonds predominating in samples affected by low temperature (>55%). Cyclic hydrogen bonds and hydroxyl-N hydrogen bonds appeared in sample No. 1, while the content of ether-oxygen hydrogen bonds decreased significantly to 13.2%, which was attributed to the reduction of oxygen-containing functional groups caused by the increasing temperature. Comparison of reflectance and FTIR characteristics of fusinite in coal revealed that the characteristics of fusinite (semifusinite) in coal were very similar to those of charcoal, which might be produced mainly by wildfires. These changes indicated the effect of combustion temperature on the chemical structure in charcoal, reflecting the process of organic molecular structure changed with temperature in charcoal, and providing a theoretical basis for the evolution of organic matter and the formation of fusinite in coal

Geochemical characteristics of rare earth elements in Late Permian coals in Western Henan and indicative meaning

With the wide application of rare earth metals in high-tech fields such as medical treatment and new materials, its strategic position has been increasing. As a major country in rare earth, China supplies rare earth products of different varieties and grades to all countries in the world, making great contributions to the development of emerging industries in the world .In order to explore the enrichment degree, occurrence state and sedimentary environment of rare earth elements in late Permian coal in western Henan, 20 stratified coal samples from No.21 coal in Huixiang mining area in western Henan were taken as the main research object. The rare earth elements and major elements in stratified coal samples were measured by ICP-MS and XRF, and the content characteristics and enrichment degree of rare earth elements in coal samples were discussed. The occurrence state and sedimentary environment of rare earth elements in samples were discussed by correlation analysis and characteristic parameters .The results show that the mass concentration of REY is 35.29-133.61 μg/g, and the average concentration is 79.14 μg/g, which is slightly higher than the average concentration of REY in the world coal, but obviously lower than the average concentration of REY in China coal. The REY content is low, and LREY is mainly enriched. There is a significant positive correlation between REY and ash content (Ad), SiO2, Al2O3 and other major oxides in the No.21 coal of Huixiang mining area, indicating that REY mainly occurs in clay minerals .The negative anomalies of Ce and Eu elements and slight positive anomalies of (Gd/Gd)N* in the samples in the study area indicate that the study area is mainly affected by terrigenous sources and the coal forming environment is a weakly acidic reducing environment

A scientometric analysis of research trends on targeting mTOR in breast cancer from 2012 to 2022

Over the past decade, thousands of articles have been published on the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) and its role in breast cancer. However, the variability and heterogeneity of academic data may impact the acquisition of published research information. Due to the large number, heterogeneity, and varying quality of publications related to mTOR and breast cancer, sorting out the present state of the research in this area is critical for both researchers and clinicians. Therefore, scientometric techniques and visualization tools were employed to analyze the large number of bibliographic metadata related to the research area of mTOR and breast cancer. The features of relevant publications were searched from 2012 to 2022 to evaluate the present status of research and the evolution of research hotspots in this particular field. Web of Science was utilized to extract all relevant publications from 2012 to 2022. Subsequently, Biblioshiny and VOSviewer were utilized to obtain data on the most productive countries, authors, and institutions, annual publications and citations, the most influential journals and articles, and the most frequently occurring keywords. In total, 1,471 publications were retrieved, comprising 1,167 original articles and 304 reviews. There was a significant rise in publications between 2015 and 2018, followed by a sharp decline in 2019 and a rebound since then. The publication with the highest number of citations was a 2012 review authored by Baselga et al. The United States had the highest number of publications, citations and connections among all countries. Oncotarget had the highest number of published articles among all the journals, and José Baselga had the strongest links with other authors. Excluding the search topics, the most frequently used words were “expression” (n = 297), “growth” (n = 228), “activation” (n = 223), “pathway” (n = 205), and “apoptosis” (n = 195). mTOR is crucially involved in breast cancer pathogenesis, but its exact mechanism of action remains controversial and warrants further investigation. The scientometric analysis provides a distinct overview of the existing state of research and highlights the topical issues that deserve further exploration

Self-assembling nanofibrous bacteriophage microgels as sprayable antimicrobials targeting multidrug-resistant bacteria

Abstract Nanofilamentous bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) are biofunctional, self-propagating, and monodisperse natural building blocks for virus-built materials. Minifying phage-built materials to microscale offers the promise of expanding the range function for these biomaterials to sprays and colloidal bioassays/biosensors. Here, we crosslink half a million self-organized phages as the sole structural component to construct each soft microgel. Through an in-house developed, biologics-friendly, high-throughput template method, over 35,000 phage-built microgels are produced from every square centimetre of a peelable microporous film template, constituting a 13-billion phage community. The phage-exclusive microgels exhibit a self-organized, highly-aligned nanofibrous texture and tunable auto-fluorescence. Further preservation of antimicrobial activity was achieved by making hybrid protein-phage microgels. When loaded with potent virulent phages, these microgels effectively reduce heavy loads of multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli O157:H7 on food products, leading to up to 6 logs reduction in 9 hours and rendering food contaminant free

Scientometric analysis of lipid metabolism in breast neoplasm: 2012–2021

Introduction: In recent years, more and more studies have proved that lipid metabolism plays an essential role in breast cancer’s proliferation and metastasisand also has a specific significance in predicting survival.Methods: This paper collected data from 725 publications related to lipid metabolism in breast neoplasm from 2012 to 2021 through the Web of Science Core Collection database. Bibliometrix, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace were used for the scientometrics analysis of countries, institutions, journals, authors, keywords, etc.Results: The number of documents published showed an increasing trend, with an average annual growth rate of 14.49%. The United States was the most productive country (n = 223, 30.76%). The journals with the largest number of publications are mostly from developed countries. Except for the retrieved topics, “lipid metabolism” (n = 272) and “breast cancer” (n = 175), the keywords that appeared most frequently were “expression” (n = 151), “fatty-acid synthase” (n = 78), “growth” (n = 72), “metabolism” (n = 67) and “cells“ (n = 66).Discussion: These findings and summaries help reveal the current research status and clarify the hot spots in this field

Effect of high-elasticity anti-rutting additive on viscoelastic behavior of asphalt binder and its modification mechanism

High-elasticity anti-rutting additives, one of the most promising modifiers of asphalt mixtures, were commonly utilized for mixtures by mixing with aggregates directly. However, their interaction with the asphalt binder and their modification mechanism remain unclear. Accordingly, to understand the rheological behavior of asphalt binder modified with high-elasticity anti-rutting additives, three additives were added into asphalt binder to prepare high-elasticity modified asphalts (HEMAs) via a high-speed shear mixer, and the typical attributes of viscoelastic properties were investigated by the rotational viscosity (RV) test, frequency sweep test, as well as bending beam rheometer test. Following that, the relation between the macro-rheological behavior and microscopic mechanism was incorporated by applying Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), atomic force microscope (AFM), and fluorescence microscopy (FM) analysis, respectively. Results indicate that the incorporation of high-elasticity additives into base asphalt causes a remarkable increase in RV along with a decline in temperature susceptibility. Likewise, a higher proportion of elasticity behavior is indicated for HEMAs, for which the wider temperature range of elasticity dominance also occurs. Regarding modification mechanism, the interaction between the asphalt and additives is physical co-blending, without new characteristic peaks appearing in FTIR spectrum. The AFM test reveals the grouping effect of “bee-structures” conduces the agglomeration of wax crystals and macromolecular components, thus increasing the elasticity and RV of HEMAs. However, the poor compatibility between the ARA-U additive and asphalt leads to unsatisfactory low-temperature performance. Significantly, a large area percentage of “sea-island structure” implies better compatibility of ARA-N, which strongly confirms the existence of the plateau region in master curve. It recommends employing anti-rutting additives that are compatible with the asphalt and enable moderately increase its elasticity, which ensure considerable entanglement and sufficient network in the asphalt-additive system, so that balanced performance can be achieved for the asphalt binder