Improving sulfonamide antibiotics removal from swine wastewater by supplying a new pomelo peel derived biochar in an anaerobic membrane bioreactor.

Sulfonamide antibiotics (SMs), as a class of antibiotics commonly used in swine industries, pose a serious threat to animal and human health. This study aims to evaluate the performance of an anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) with and without supplying a new pomelo peel derived biochar to treat swine wastewater containing SMs. Results show that 0.5 g/L biochar addition could increase more than 30% of sulfadiazine (SDZ) and sulfamethazine (SMZ) removal in AnMBR. Approximately 95% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) was removed in the AnMBR at an influent organic loading rate (OLR) of 3.27 kg COD/(m3·d) while an average methane yield was 0.2 L/g CODremoved with slightly change at a small dose 0.5 g/L biochar addition. SMs inhibited the COD removal and methane production and increased membrane fouling. The addition of biochar could reduce the membrane fouling by reducing the concentration of SMP and EPS

Use of the industrial property system in Colombia (2018): A supervised learning application

The purpose of this paper is to establish ways to predict the spatial distribution of the use of the intellectual property system from information on industrial property applications and grants (distinctive signs and new creations) and copyright registrations in 2018. This will be done using supervised learning algorithms applied to information on industrial property applications and grants (trademarks and new creations) and copyright registrations in 2018. Within the findings, 4 algorithms were identified with a level of explanation higher than 80%: (i) Linear Regression, with an elastic network regularization; (ii) Stochastic Gradient Descent, with Hinge loss function, Ringe regularization (L2) and a constant learning rate; (iii) Neural Networks, with 1,000 layers, with Adam’s solution algorithm and 2,000 iterations; (iv) Random Forest, with 10 tree

FTO influences adipogenesis by regulating mitotic clonal expansion

The fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene plays a pivotal role in regulating body weight and fat mass; however, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Here we show that primary adipocytes and mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) derived from FTO overexpression (FTO-4) mice exhibit increased potential for adipogenic differentiation, while MEFs derived from FTO knockout (FTO-KO) mice show reduced adipogenesis. As predicted from these findings, fat pads from FTO-4 mice fed a high-fat diet show more numerous adipocytes. FTO influences adipogenesis by regulating events early in adipogenesis, during the process of mitotic clonal expansion. The effect of FTO on adipogenesis appears to be mediated via enhanced expression of the pro-adipogenic short isoform of RUNX1T1, which enhanced adipocyte proliferation, and is increased in FTO-4 MEFs and reduced in FTO-KO MEFs. Our findings provide novel mechanistic insight into how upregulation of FTO leads to obesity

Robust nonfullerene solar cells approaching unity external quantum efficiency enabled by suppression of geminate recombination

Nonfullerene solar cells have increased their efficiencies up to 13%, yet quantum efficiencies are still limited to 80%. Here we report efficient nonfullerene solar cells with quantum efficiencies approaching unity. This is achieved with overlapping absorption bands of donor and acceptor that increases the photon absorption strength in the range from about 570 to 700 nm, thus, almost all incident photons are absorbed in the active layer. The charges generated are found to dissociate with negligible geminate recombination losses resulting in a short-circuit current density of 20 mA cm−2 along with open-circuit voltages >1 V, which is remarkable for a 1.6 eV bandgap system. Most importantly, the unique nano-morphology of the donor:acceptor blend results in a substantially improved stability under illumination. Understanding the efficient charge separation in nonfullerene acceptors can pave the way to robust and recombination-free organic solar cells

Structural basis of signal sequence surveillance and selection by the SRP–FtsY complex

Signal-recognition particle (SRP)-dependent targeting of translating ribosomes to membranes is a multistep quality-control process. Ribosomes that are translating weakly hydrophobic signal sequences can be rejected from the targeting reaction even after they are bound to the SRP. Here we show that the early complex, formed by Escherichia coli SRP and its receptor FtsY with ribosomes translating the incorrect cargo EspP, is unstable and rearranges inefficiently into subsequent conformational states, such that FtsY dissociation is favored over successful targeting. The N-terminal extension of EspP is responsible for these defects in the early targeting complex. The cryo-electron microscopy structure of this 'false' early complex with EspP revealed an ordered M domain of SRP protein Ffh making two ribosomal contacts, and the NG domains of Ffh and FtsY forming a distorted, flexible heterodimer. Our results provide a structural basis for SRP-mediated signal-sequence selection during recruitment of the SRP receptor

Synthesis of Bio-Compatible SPION–based Aqueous Ferrofluids and Evaluation of RadioFrequency Power Loss for Magnetic Hyperthermia

Bio-compatible magnetic fluids having high saturation magnetization find immense applications in various biomedical fields. Aqueous ferrofluids of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with narrow size distribution, high shelf life and good stability is realized by controlled chemical co-precipitation process. The crystal structure is verified by X-ray diffraction technique. Particle sizes are evaluated by employing Transmission electron microscopy. Room temperature and low-temperature magnetic measurements were carried out with Superconducting Quantum Interference Device. The fluid exhibits good magnetic response even at very high dilution (6.28 mg/cc). This is an advantage for biomedical applications, since only a small amount of iron is to be metabolised by body organs. Magnetic field induced transmission measurements carried out at photon energy of diode laser (670 nm) exhibited excellent linear dichroism. Based on the structural and magnetic measurements, the power loss for the magnetic nanoparticles under study is evaluated over a range of radiofrequencies

Luminescent Organic–Inorganic Hybrids of Functionalized Mesoporous Silica SBA-15 by Thio-Salicylidene Schiff Base

Novel organic–inorganic mesoporous luminescent hybrid material N, N′-bis(salicylidene)-thiocarbohydrazide (BSTC-SBA-15) has been obtained by co-condensation of tetraethyl orthosilicate and the organosilane in the presence of Pluronic P123 surfactant as a template. N,N′-bis(salicylidene)-thiocarbohydrazide (BSTC) grafted to the coupling agent 3-(triethoxysilyl)-propyl isocyanate (TESPIC) was used as the precursor for the preparation of mesoporous materials. In addition, for comparison, SBA-15 doped with organic ligand BSTC was also synthesized, denoted as BSTC/SBA-15. This organic–inorganic hybrid material was well-characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and photoluminescence spectra, which reveals that they all have high surface area, uniformity in the mesostructure. The resulting materials (BSTC-SBA-15 and BSTC/SBA-15) exhibit regular uniform microstructures, and no phase separation happened for the organic and the inorganic compounds was covalently linked through Si–O bonds via a self-assemble process. Furthermore, the two materials have different luminescence range: BSTC/SBA-15 presents the strong dominant green luminescence, while BSTC-functionalized material BSTC-SBA-15 shows the dominant blue emission

Scoring of senescence signalling in multiple human tumour gene expression datasets, identification of a correlation between senescence score and drug toxicity in the NCI60 panel and a pro-inflammatory signature correlating with survival advantage in peritoneal mesothelioma

Background: Cellular senescence is a major barrier to tumour progression, though its role in pathogenesis of cancer and other diseases is poorly understood in vivo. Improved understanding of the degree to which latent senescence signalling persists in tumours might identify intervention strategies to provoke "accelerated senescence" responses as a therapeutic outcome. Senescence involves convergence of multiple pathways and requires ongoing dynamic signalling throughout its establishment and maintenance. Recent discovery of several new markers allows for an expression profiling approach to study specific senescence phenotypes in relevant tissue samples. We adopted a "senescence scoring" methodology based on expression profiles of multiple senescence markers to examine the degree to which signals of damage-associated or secretory senescence persist in various human tumours. Results: We first show that scoring captures differential induction of damage or inflammatory pathways in a series of public datasets involving radiotherapy of colon adenocarcinoma, chemotherapy of breast cancer cells, replicative senescence of mesenchymal stem cells, and progression of melanoma. We extended these results to investigate correlations between senescence score and growth inhibition in response to similar to 1500 compounds in the NCI60 panel. Scoring of our own mesenchymal tumour dataset highlighted differential expression of secretory signalling pathways between distinct subgroups of MPNST, liposarcomas and peritoneal mesothelioma. Furthermore, a proinflammatory signature yielded by hierarchical clustering of secretory markers showed prognostic significance in mesothelioma. Conclusions: We find that "senescence scoring" accurately reports senescence signalling in a variety of situations where senescence would be expected to occur and highlights differential expression of damage associated and secretory senescence pathways in a context-dependent manner