Application of biochar for the treatment of retting effluent and use as growth substrate

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Let\u27s Talk: Judicial Decisions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

An investigation of Supreme Court Confirmation hearings reveals many queries posed to nominees reference specific court cases, especially recent decisions, and with questioning often divided along partisan lines. These findings indicate that the hearings are more substantive than is commonly assumed

Anaerobic digestion of aqueous pyrolysis condensate enhanced by biochar: a circular economy approach

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Hepatitis B virus-related post-infectious glomerulonephritis: A case report

Hepatitis B virus infection is an uncommon cause of acute glomerulonephritis. We present a case of acute glomerulonephritis revealing a chronic viral  hepatitis B. A 45 year-old man was admitted in the nephrology department of Hassan II university hospital (Fez, Morocco) for nephritic syndrome with  advanced acute kidney injury. The investigations have revealed viral hepatitis B with a positive HBV-DNA and Others viral serology tests were negative. Renal biopsy showed a diffuse and global endocapillary proliferation without extra-capillary proliferation; and global deposits of C3 and Ig G On  immunofluorescence. There wasn't any other infectious cause. We thus retained the diagnosis of hepatitis B virus-associated acute  glomerulonephritis. He was given entecavir and corticosteroids. Three months later, the evolution was marked by the normalization of renal function, negativity of proteinuria and HBV DNA became undetectable. There was no relapse of glomerulonephritis and HBV viral load was still negative after one year follow-up

Self-assembly of binary nanoparticle dispersions: from square arrays and stripe phases to colloidal corrals

The generation of nanoscale square and stripe patterns is of major technological importance since they are compatible with industry-standard electronic circuitry. Recently, a blend of diblock copolymer interacting via hydrogen-bonding was shown to self-assemble in square arrays. Motivated by those experiments we study, using Monte Carlo simulations, the pattern formation in a two-dimensional binary mixture of colloidal particles interacting via isotropic core-corona potentials. We find a rich variety of patterns that can be grouped mainly in aggregates that self-assemble in regular square lattices or in alternate strips. Other morphologies observed include colloidal corrals that are potentially useful as surface templating agents. This work shows the unexpected versatility of this simple model to produce a variety of patterns with high technological potential.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, submitte

COI metabarcoding of zooplankton species diversity for time-series monitoring of the NW Atlantic continental shelf

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Bucklin, A., Batta-Lona, P., Questel, J., Wiebe, P., Richardson, D., Copley, N., & O’Brien, T. COI metabarcoding of zooplankton species diversity for time-series monitoring of the NW Atlantic continental shelf. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9, (2022): 867893, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.867893.Marine zooplankton are rapid-responders and useful indicators of environmental variability and climate change impacts on pelagic ecosystems on time scales ranging from seasons to years to decades. The systematic complexity and taxonomic diversity of the zooplankton assemblage has presented significant challenges for routine morphological (microscopic) identification of species in samples collected during ecosystem monitoring and fisheries management surveys. Metabarcoding using the mitochondrial Cytochrome Oxidase I (COI) gene region has shown promise for detecting and identifying species of some – but not all – taxonomic groups in samples of marine zooplankton. This study examined species diversity of zooplankton on the Northwest Atlantic Continental Shelf using 27 samples collected in 2002-2012 from the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Mid-Atlantic Bight during Ecosystem Monitoring (EcoMon) Surveys by the NOAA NMFS Northeast Fisheries Science Center. COI metabarcodes were identified using the MetaZooGene Barcode Atlas and Database (https://metazoogene.org/MZGdb) specific to the North Atlantic Ocean. A total of 181 species across 23 taxonomic groups were detected, including a number of sibling and cryptic species that were not discriminated by morphological taxonomic analysis of EcoMon samples. In all, 67 species of 15 taxonomic groups had ≥ 50 COI sequences; 23 species had >1,000 COI sequences. Comparative analysis of molecular and morphological data showed significant correlations between COI sequence numbers and microscopic counts for 5 of 6 taxonomic groups and for 5 of 7 species with >1,000 COI sequences for which both types of data were available. Multivariate statistical analysis showed clustering of samples within each region based on both COI sequence numbers and EcoMon counts, although differences among the three regions were not statistically significant. The results demonstrate the power and potential of COI metabarcoding for identification of species of metazoan zooplankton in the context of ecosystem monitoring.This publication resulted in part from support provided by the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR). Funds were also contributed by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant OCE-1840868) and by national SCOR committees

Temporal Effects in a Security Inspection Task: Breakdown of Performance Components

Data from certified screeners performing an x-ray inspection task for 4 hours, or 1000 images, were analyzed to identify the nature of the vigilance decrement. The expected vigilance decrement was found, with performance measured by probability of detection (PoD) and probability of false alarm [P(FA)] decreasing from hour 1 to hour 4. Correlations between PoD and P(FA) indicate that sensitivity between hours remained the same, however a shift in criterion (Beta) occurred. Significant decreases in both detection and stopping time were found from the first hour to the second, third, and fourth hour. Evidence of changes in the search component of the time per item was found to account for part of the vigilance decrement. As the task continued, participants spent less time actively searching the image, as opposed to other activities. Evidence is provided for truncation of active search as security inspection continues

Stereocomplex Formation of Densely Grafted Brush Polymers

In this report, we explore the capability of macromolecules to interdigitate into densely grafted molecular brush copolymers. We demonstrate that by using the tendency for stereocomplexation between poly(l-lactide) and poly(d-lactide) as a driving force complementary linear polymers and brush copolymers can form a stereocomplex. However, stereocomplex formation between complementary brush copolymers is restricted and only partially observed when the side chains are of a critical molecular weight

Letter to the Editor: 1H and 15N sequential assignment and solution secondary structure of 15N labelled human pancreatic ribonuclease

Several members of the RNase A (bovine pancreatic ribonuclease) superfamily exhibit anticancer activity. Among the mammalian members of the superfamily, most of the antitumour activity studies have been carried out with a dimeric RNase from bovine seminal vesicles (BS-RNase) (Youle and D’Alessio, 1997). These studies show that dimer formation is crucial for cytotoxicity. Investigations are underway to transfer by protein engineering the structural determinants responsible for the antitumour activity of BS-RNase to a human immunocompatible backbone (Piccoli et al., 1999). Knowledge of the 3D structures of the involved proteins is central to rationally fulfil this objective. As a first step, human pancreatic ribonuclease (HPRNase), a 127-residue monomeric protein (Beintema et al., 1984) was constructed (Russo et al., 1993). The expressed recombinant protein was undistinguishable from the natural product isolated from human pancreas (Weickmann et al., 1981). Here, we present the assignment of practically all of its 1H and 15N spectral resonances, as well as its secondary structure in aqueous solution. The cytotoxic activity of ribonucleases has been related to their ability to evade the cytosolic ribonuclease inhibitor (RI) (Murthy and Sirdeshmukh, 1992). The structure of HP-RNase will be useful to introduce changes in it in order to increase its resistance to RI.This work was supported by the European Commission under the INCO-Copernicus Project No. IC15 CT 96-0903. The assistance of the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores (Spain) and OMFB (Hungary) (project E26/97) is gratefully acknowledged

Synthetic, enzyme kinetic, and protein crystallographic studies of C-[béta]-D-glucopyranosyl pyrroles and imidazoles reveal and explain low nanomolar inhibition of human liver glycogen phosphorylase

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