Plastic pollution of the aquatic environment is a major concern considering the disastrous impact on the environment and on human beings. The significant and continuous increase in the production of plastics causes an enormous amount of plastic waste on the land entering the aquatic environment. Furthermore, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are reported as the main source of microplastic and nanoplastic in the effluents, since they are not properly designed for this purpose. The application of advanced wastewater treatment technologies is mandatory to avoid effluent contamination by plastics. A concrete solution can be represented by membrane technologies as tertiary treatment of effluents in integrated systems for wastewater treatment, in particular, for the plastic particles with a smaller size (< 100 nm). In this review, a survey of the membrane processes applied in the plastic removal is analyzed and critically discussed. From the literature analysis, it was found that the removal of microplastic by membrane technology is still insufficient, and without the use of specially designed approaches, with the exception of membrane bioreactors (MBRs). Full article

The reaction of silica with various cations in a solution and with hydroxide ions generated by water electrolysis was investigated as a means of preventing the formation of silica scales in geothermal binary power generation. Through batch and continuous experiments, it was found that all silica in the cathode phase of a reaction device could be removed if the necessary amounts of magnesium and calcium were present. This occurs because a silica-magnesium-calcium compound is produced via a polymerization reaction with cations in a solution and with hydroxide ions generated by electrolysis. Analysis by inductively coupled plasma and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy shows that this material has the formula 2CaO-5MgO-8SiO₂-H₂O, and thus is likely generated by the reaction proposed by Sheikholeslami et al. (2019). Increasing the current sent through the reaction solution subsequently produces calcium carbonate. This technique for the separation of silica and calcium from aqueous solutions can be operated continuously without channel clogging, which indicates the possibility of practical applications. However, overly high currents promote the migration of protons from the anode to cathode phases, which inhibits the formation of precipitates due to a neutralization reaction. The proposed method is an effective approach for removing silica from a solution in geothermal binary power generation; although, a means of suppressing the effects of proton generation will be necessary if the process is also to be used to remove calcium ions. Full article

Grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems are now a common part of the modern power network. A recent development in the topology of these systems is the use of transformerless inverters. Although they are compact, cheap, and efficient, transformerless inverters suffer from chronic leakage current. Various researches have been directed toward evolving their performance and diminishing leakage current. This paper introduces the application of a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm to govern and improve the performance of a grid-tied neutral-point-clamped (NPC) 3-φ transformerless inverter powered by a PV panel. The transformerless inverter was linked to the grid via an inductor/capacitor (LC) filter. The filter elements, as well as the internal impedance of the grid, were considered in the system model. The discrete model of the proposed system was determined, and the algorithm of the MPC controller was established. Matlab’s simulations for the proposed system, controlled by the MPC and the ordinary proportional–integral (PI) current controller with sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM), were carried out. The simulation results showed that the MPC controller had the best performance for earth leakage current, total harmonic distortion (THD), and the grid current spectrum. Also, the efficiency of the system using the MPC was improved compared to that using a PI current controller with SPW modulation. Full article

Climate change, and specifically global temperature increase, is expected to alter plant phenology. Temperate deciduous fruit trees have cultivar-specific chill and heat requirements to break dormancy and bloom. In this study, we aimed to estimate chill and heat requirements (in chill portions, CP, and growing degree hours, GDH, respectively) of 25 almond (30–36 years) and 12 apple (14–26 years) cultivars grown under a Mediterranean climate. The set included early and late blooming genotypes. Long-term phenological and temperature records were analyzed by means of partial least squares (PLS) regression. The main difference between early and late genotypes was chill requirement, ranging from 8.40 CP of early genotypes to 55.41 CP of extra-late genotypes. However, as chill requirements are quite easily attained by all almond cultivars in this study, year-to-year variations in actual blooming dates for each genotype are governed by variability of mean forcing temperatures. In contrast, different chill and heat combinations resulted in similar mean blooming dates for the studied apple cultivars. Mean temperature in both chilling and forcing phases determined their blooming time in the location studied. Overlaps and gaps between both phases were obtained. Despite some limitations, the PLS analysis has proven to be a useful tool to define both chilling and forcing phases. Nevertheless, since the delineation of these phases determine the total amount of CP and GDH, further efforts are needed to investigate the transition of these phases. Full article

The aim of the study was to determine correlations between the concentration of thiamine in systems and indicators of the antioxidative activity of ethanol tea extracts in the presence of soybean oil. Variability of the thiamine form was assumed by comparison of the influence of thiamine hydrochloride or thiamine pyrophosphate and fermentation of ethanol tea extracts. The study provides practical knowledge about the antioxidative activity of ethanol tea extracts in products containing fat and thiamine. The study showed that all tea extracts exhibited higher antioxidative activity in the presence of thiamine amounts of 0.1 and 0.8 mg/100 g. The antioxidative activity of ethanol tea extracts was significantly reduced when the concentrations were higher than the natural level for foods (over 1.0 mg/100 g). The systems containing white tea extract were the most vulnerable, whereas those with black tea were the least vulnerable. The presence of thiamine pyrophosphate in the system was more strongly correlated with reduced activity of the extracts than the presence of thiamine hydrochloride. Full article

In ecology, G-functions can be employed to define a growth function G for a population b, which can then be universally applied to all individuals or groups $b_i$ within this population. We can further define a strategy $v_i$ for every group $b_i$ . Examples for strategies include diverse behaviour such as number of offspring, habitat choice, and time of nesting for birds. In this work, we employ G-functions to investigate the evolutionary stability of the bacterial cooperation process known as quorum sensing. We employ the G-function ansatz to model both the population dynamics and the resulting evolutionary pressure in order to find evolutionary stable states. This results in a semi-linear parabolic system of equations, where cost and benefit are taken into account separately. Depending on different biological assumptions, we analyse a variety of typical model functions. These translate into different long-term scenarios for different functional responses, ranging from single-strategy states to coexistence. As a special feature, we distinguish between the production of public goods, available for all subpopulations, and private goods, from which only the producers can benefit. Full article

Penta-O-galloyl-β-D-glucose (PGG) is a gallotannin polyphenolic compound that occurs naturally in fermented Rhus verniciflua. The present study aimed to examine the effect of PGG on UVB-induced skin aging and its molecular mechanisms in HaCaT human keratinocytes and SKH-1 hairless mice models. PGG suppressed UVB-induced matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1) expression in HaCaT cells by inhibiting phosphorylation of RAF/MEK/ERK, MKK3/6/p38, and c-Jun. UVB-induced ERK and p38 signaling pathways that induce the MMP-1 expression were mediated by PAK1 in HaCaT cells. PGG suppressed PAK1 and JNK1 kinase activities, and directly bound both PAK1 in an ATP-competitive manner and JNK1 in an ATP-noncompetitive manner. Consistently, PGG decreased UVB-induced wrinkle formation, epidermal thickness, type 1 collagen and MMP-13 expression in mouse skin. Overall, these results indicate that PGG exhibits anti-photoaging effects in vitro and in vivo by the suppression of PAK1 and JNK1 kinase activities, and may be useful for the prevention of skin aging. Full article

Transportation efficiency is a problem of particular interest in multi-channel confluent water supply engineering. Transportation efficiency depends not only on the system control strategy but also on the pressure loss (pressure difference between the inlet and outlet) and pressure drop (amplitude of outlet pressure fluctuations) of its structure. In this article, sensitivity analyses of the pressure loss and pressure drop to changes in multi-channel confluent water supply geometry are presented. An experimental set-up was established to validate computational fluid dynamic (CFD) predictions and obtain the boundary conditions for two-channel synchronous switching. The influences of the geometric structure varies by the clustered pipe diameter (40 mm < Dc < 80 mm), main pipe diameter (30 mm < Do < 80 mm), channel pitch (60 mm < L < 400 mm) and number of channels (2 ≤ n ≤ 4); those variables were investigated with the help of CFD simulations. The results showed that configuration “C” can be considered a costless method of decreasing pressure loss (β_C(2.05) < β_A(2.42) < β_B(2.64)) and that the different configurations are insensitive to pressure drop. The variations of the influence of channel pitch and clustered pipe diameter on pressure loss have extremes at L/d = 5 and Dc/d = 2.5, respectively, but the effect on pressure drop is not obvious. The main pipe diameter and the inlet velocity have more significant influences on efficiency. The results can be used to choose the proper geometry of multi-channel confluent water supply to enable energy savings. Full article

Melanoidins from real foods and model systems have received considerable interest due to potential health benefits. However, due to the complexity of these compounds, to date, the exact structure of melanoidins and mechanism involved in their biological activity has not been fully elucidated. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the total phenolic content, antioxidant properties, and structural characteristics of high-molecular weight (HMW) melanoidin fractions isolated by dialysis (>12.4 kDa) from raw and roasted cocoa beans of Criollo, Forastero, and Trinitario beans cultivated in various area. In vitro antioxidant properties of all studied HMW cocoa fractions were evaluated by four different assays, namely free radical scavenging activity against DPPH^● and ABTS^●+ radicals, ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), and metal-chelating ability. Additionally, the structure–activity relationship of isolated HMW melanoidin fractions were analyzed using attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). The results show that roasting at a temperature of 150 °C and a relative air humidity of 0.3% effectively enhances the total phenolics content and the antioxidant potential of almost all HMW cocoa melanoidin fractions. The ATR-FTIR analysis revealed that the various mechanisms of action of HMW melanoidins isolates of different types of cocoa beans related to their structural diversity. Consequently, the results clearly demonstrated that HMW cocoa fractions isolated from cocoa beans (especially those of Criollo variety) roasted at higher temperatures with the lower relative humidity of air possess high antioxidant properties in vitro. Full article

Social media makes it easy for individuals to publish and consume news, but it also facilitates the spread of rumors. This paper proposes a novel deep recurrent neural model with a symmetrical network architecture for automatic rumor detection in social media such as Sina Weibo, which shows better performance than the existing methods. In the data preparing phase, we filter the posts according to the followers of the user. We then use sequential encoding for the posts and multiple embedding layers to get better feature representation, and multiple recurrent neural network layers to capture the dynamic temporal signals characteristic. The experimental results on the Sina Weibo dataset show that: 1. the sequential encoding performs better than the term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF) or the doc2vec encoding scheme; 2. the model is more accurate when trained on the posts from the users with more followers; and 3. the model achieves superior improvements over the existing works on the accuracy of detection, including the early detection. Full article

Chronic kidney disease is associated with an increased cardiovascular risk, and altered biological properties of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) may play a role in these events. This study aimed to describe the HDL proteome from non-diabetic hemodialysis patients and identify potential pathways affected by the dysregulated expression of HDL proteins. HDL were sampled from nine non-diabetic hemodialysis (HD) and eight control patients. Samples were analyzed using a nano-RSLC coupled with a Q-Orbitrap. Data were processed by database searching using SequestHT against a human Swissprot database and quantified with a label-free quantification approach. Proteins that were in at least five of the eight control and six of the nine HD patients were analyzed. Analysis was based on pairwise ratios and the ANOVA hypothesis test. Among 522 potential proteins, 326 proteins were identified to be in the HDL proteome from HD and control patients, among which 10 were significantly upregulated and nine downregulated in HD patients compared to the control patients (p < 0.05). Up and downregulated proteins were involved in lipid metabolism, hemostasis, wound healing, oxidative stress, and apoptosis pathways. This difference in composition could partly explain HDL dysfunction in the chronic kidney disease (CKD) population and participate in the higher cardiovascular risk observed in this population. Full article

microRNAs (miRNAs) bind to mRNAs and inhibit their expression through post-transcriptionally regulating gene expression. Here, we elaborate upon the concise summary of the role of miRNAs in carcinogenesis with specific attention to precursor respiratory pathogenesis caused by cigarette smoke modulation of these miRNAs. We review how miRNAs are implicated in cigarette-smoke-driven mechanisms, such as epithelial to mesenchymal transition, autophagy modulation, and lung ageing, which are important in the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and potential progression to lung cancer. Extracellular vesicles are key to inter-cellular communication and sharing of miRNAs. A deeper understanding of the role of miRNAs in chronic respiratory disease and their use as clinical biomarkers has great potential. Therapeutic targeting of miRNAs may significantly benefit the prevention of cancer progression. Full article

Understanding urban tree responses to drought, salt stress, and co-occurring stresses, as well as the capability to recover afterward, is important to prevent the cited stresses’ negative effects on tree performance and ecological functionality. We investigated the impact of drought and salinity, alone and in combination, on leaf water potential, gas exchange, chlorophyll a fluorescence, xanthophyll cycle pigments, and isoprene emission of the urban tree species Liquidambar styraciflua L. Generally, drought had a rapid negative impact, while the effect of salt stress was more long lasting. Both stressors significantly decreased photosynthesis, transpiration, and stomatal conductance, as well as the maximum quantum efficiency of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) and the photochemical efficiency of PSII (ΦPSII), but increased nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ). Under stress conditions, a strong negative correlation between the PSII efficiency and the xanthophyll cycle pigment composition indicated a nocturnal retention of zeaxanthin and antheraxanthin in a state primed for energy dissipation. Drought and salt stress inhibited isoprene emission from leaves, although its emission was less responsive to stresses than stomatal conductance and photosynthesis. Full recovery of photosynthetic parameters took place after rewatering and washing off of excess salt, indicating that no permanent damage occurred, and suggesting downregulation rather than permanent impairment of the photosynthetic apparatus. Sweetgum trees were capable of withstanding and surviving moderate drought and salt events by activating defense mechanisms conferring tolerance to environmental stresses, without increasing the emission in the atmosphere of the highly reactive isoprene. Full article