Search Results (17,325)

Physical clogging limits managed aquifer recharge (MAR), yet the threshold-crossing time alone may not predict subsequent performance. Constant-head columns packed with borosilicate glass beads or quartz sand received a 50 mg L⁻¹ silica suspension (0.9–2.7 μm) for 240 h. Hydraulic heads and discharge yielded relative apparent hydraulic-conductivity trajectories ($K_r$); X-ray computed tomography supported box-counting and block-network analyses. Sustained crossings below $K_r=0.60$, 0.50, and 0.40 occurred at 44/46, 61/59, and 88/78 h for the glass-bead/quartz-sand columns. Despite similar 0.60 and 0.50 crossing times, $K_r$ values at 240 h were 0.475 and 0.043, respectively. The glass-bead trajectory rebounded after its minimum and remained above 0.40. Interface box-counting slopes depended on imaging branch and segmentation threshold, but the regional $D_2$ and $D_3$ ranks remained positively associated within each medium. Removing the highest-flow 5% of flow-carrying edges caused conductance-proxy losses of 0.521–0.692 across three capacity laws, greater than under random removal. For the two tested cases, threshold persistence, subsequent direction, and terminal state provided complementary evidence of hydraulic stability; broader application requires replicated tests across particle and loading conditions while retaining the distinction between obstruction probability and flow-path consequence. Full article

Background/Objectives: Routine biomarkers and clinical scores do not directly assess functional immune responsiveness in suspected sepsis. We evaluated whether the TNF-α Release Assay (TARA), a whole-blood LPS-induced functional assay, is associated with an early cytokine-low immune phenotype in Emergency Department (ED) patients. Methods: In this prospective single-center cohort, adults with suspected sepsis and NEWS2 ≥ 3 were sampled at presentation, at 4 h and, when available, at 24 h. Immune phenotypes were defined independently of TARA by unsupervised k-means clustering of 12 circulating cytokines at 4 h, and a continuous Low-Response Cytokine Score (LRCS) was derived, with higher values indicating lower global cytokine concentrations. Results: Among 152 patients, three phenotypes were identified: C1 cytokine-low (n = 56), C2 inflammatory/intermediate (n = 63), and C3 IFN-γ/MCP-3/IL-17A-high (n = 33). Indicative TARA low-response status was independently associated with a higher LRCS after adjustment for clinical covariates and procalcitonin (PCT), both at presentation (β = 0.33; 95% CI, 0.14–0.53; p = 0.001) and at 4 h (β = 0.38; 95% CI, 0.19–0.57; p < 0.001). Indicative TARA low-response results at 4 h were most frequent in C1 and least frequent in C3 (75% vs 45%). Exploratory clinical comparisons showed lower recorded early escalation in C1, whereas Sepsis-3 final diagnosis and in-hospital mortality were similar across phenotypes. Conclusions: A TARA low-response status was independently associated with an early circulating cytokine-low phenotype defined without reference to TARA or outcomes, providing information complementary to routine biomarkers and clinical severity scores. These exploratory findings support TARA as a complementary functional immune readout but require external validation and clinical-impact evaluation. Full article

The urgent need for novel glioblastoma (GBM) therapies has motivated the exploration of EGFR G-quadruplex (G4) targeting, which suppresses oncogene transcription independently of kinase activity. However, existing EGFR G4 ligands lack subtype selectivity. Through computer-aided design and systematic bioisosteric modifications of the 1H-imidazo[4,5-f][1,10]phenanthroline scaffold, we synthesized a series of derivatives. We evaluated their G4 interactions by molecular docking, UV-Vis, FRET, ITC, and CD. Compound 3, bearing a 6-bromopiperonyl group, exhibited nanomolar affinity for EGFR G4 (Kd = 102 nM) with ~146-fold selectivity over K-Ras G4, stabilizing it via end-stacking. It potently inhibited U87-MG glioblastoma cell proliferation (IC₅₀ = 0.49 μM), with a wide safety margin relative to normal HMC3 microglia (safety index = 14.18). Mechanistically, compound 3 triggered DNA damage, mitochondrial oxidative stress, and sequential multi-organelle damage to mitochondria, lysosomes, and the endoplasmic reticulum, while impairing cell migration and invasion. These findings establish compound 3 as a uniquely selective EGFR G4 stabilizer, offering a promising multi-organelle-damage strategy for glioblastoma therapy. Full article

Azelaic acid (AZA) and salicylic acid (SA) are widely used active ingredients in pharmaceutical and cosmetic formulations for the treatment of acne, rosacea, hyperpigmentation, and other dermatological conditions. Despite their frequent co-administration, analytical methods for their simultaneous determination remain limited. In the present study, a capillary electrophoresis (CE) method with indirect UV detection was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of AZA and SA in pharmaceutical and cosmetic preparations. Preliminary experiments demonstrated that direct UV detection was unsuitable because of the weak UV absorbance of AZA; therefore, indirect UV detection based on a sodium benzoate background electrolyte (BGE) was used. Following an initial one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) screening, method optimization was performed using a face-centered central composite design (CCD) to evaluate the effects of BGE concentration, BGE pH, and separation voltage on the separation. The optimum separation was achieved using a 30 mM sodium benzoate BGE at pH 6.5 containing 5% (v/v) methanol, a separation voltage of +18 kV, a capillary temperature of 20 °C, and indirect UV detection at 230 nm. Baseline separation of both analytes was achieved within 5 min. The method was validated according to the ICH Q2(R2) guideline and demonstrated satisfactory accuracy, linearity, precision, selectivity, sensitivity, and robustness. The developed procedure was successfully applied to the analysis of commercial cosmetic formulations containing AZA, SA, or both active ingredients, providing assay results consistent with the declared contents. The proposed CE method provides a simple, rapid, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly alternative for the routine quality control of pharmaceutical and cosmetic formulations containing AZA and SA. Full article

D-tagatose, a low-calorie sugar substitute, widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries, can be produced from the substrate D-galactose using L-arabinose isomerase (L-AI). L-AI genes derived from Lactobacillus fermentum (LFAI), Lactobacillus brevis (LBAI), Lactobacillus plantarum (LPAI), and Lactobacillus sakei (LSAI) for the bioconversion of D-galactose into D-tagatose using whole Escherichia coli (E. coli) cells were investigated. The temperature, time, pH, whole-cell concentration, and metal ion concentration were optimized to enhance catalytic production. The results revealed that at the low substrate concentration of 10 g/L, LFAI, LBAI, LPAI, and LSAI exhibited considerable catalytic activity, with conversion rates of 55.31%, 68.17%, 61.45%, and 58.22%, respectively. In contrast, at the high substrate concentration of 250 g/L, their conversion rates were 19.78%, 18.47%, 20.26%, and 36.24%, respectively, with LSAI demonstrating superior catalytic performance. In order to facilitate the industrial production of D-tagatose, site-directed mutagenesis was performed on LSAI. Among the engineered LSAI variants, the P99H, K142R, and L465R mutants all showed increased catalytic rates for D-tagatose. Specifically, at the high substrate concentration of 250 g/L, the P99H mutant achieved a conversion rate of 45.73%, representing a 32.7% improvement compared to the optimized LSAI. These results indicate that the designed site-directed mutagenesis strategy effectively enhanced whole-cell bioconversion performance of LSAI toward D-galactose. Full article

On-device plant disease perception must reconcile two competing demands: enough spatial detail to localise diseased tissue within a field image and a memory and compute budget small enough for microcontroller-class hardware. Single-network solutions that jointly learn a pixel-wise mask and a fine-grained disease label tend to oversubscribe both the Flash and activation SRAM of such devices. This paper presents Chroma-Sense 2.0, a two-stage lightweight pipeline that decouples the two subproblems and sizes each stage for its own budget. The two stages run sequentially on the same frame: Stage 1 is a per-channel convolutional classifier, derived from Chroma-Sense, that names the disease, and Stage 2 is a compact ESPNet segmenter that produces a binary diseased-versus-healthy mask localising it. Because the stages run one after the other rather than concurrently, the peak working memory of the pipeline is the maximum of the two stages rather than their sum. We evaluate the pipeline on the in-the-wild PlantSeg dataset using a curated 10-species, 34-class subset and a leakage-controlled protocol in which all training crops are derived from PlantSeg’s official training images and all reported metrics are measured on a held-out test set of 5002 crops built from the official test images. The segmentation stage attains a mean foreground recall of 0.97 (mean foreground IoU of 0.49; 0.53 pooled over pixels), a deliberately recall-oriented operating point. Against Fast-SCNN, a small U-Net, LR-ASPP, and DeepLabV3+, ESPNet is the smallest-footprint model (140k parameters, 193 KB Int8 Flash) while retaining the highest foreground recall; the per-channel classifier reaches accuracies comparable to much larger ImageNet-pretrained backbones (MobileNetV3 and EfficientNet) using 10–13× fewer parameters. End to end, the coupled pipeline classifies the disease correctly on 87.8% of the test crops. An on-device profile on the OpenMV H7 and H7 Plus shows that the binding constraint at 256 × 256 is the segmenter’s ≈4 MB contiguous activation arena, rather than parameter Flash: Even on the 32 MB-SDRAM H7 Plus, the usable interpreter heap is only about 4 MB, and the arena cannot be allocated as a single contiguous block from it, so on the tested firmware, the classifier runs on microcontrollers while the segmenter does not; the full pipeline instead fits the gigabyte-scale single-board-computer tier (for example, Raspberry Pi or NVIDIA Jetson Nano), and enabling the segmenter to run on microcontrollers remains the open gap. Full article

Ammonia-responsive gelatin-based composite films containing cobalt metal–organic frameworks (Co–MOFs) synthesized using gallic acid as an organic ligand were developed and evaluated as intelligent packaging materials. Co–MOFs were incorporated into gelatin films at concentrations of 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10.0% (w/w, based on gelatin). The effects of Co–MOF incorporation on the physicochemical, structural, thermal, mechanical, and sensing properties of gelatin films were systematically investigated. Increasing Co–MOF content reduced film moisture content (from 14.47 to 13.25–13.58%) and swelling capacity (from 599.37 to 484.88–547.30%), while increasing solubility (from 39.09 to 48.88%), water vapor permeability (WVP; from 1.652 to 2.054 g·mm/m²·h·kPa), and moisture sorption behavior. Sorption isotherm analyses based on the Guggenheim–Anderson–de Boer (GAB) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) models confirmed enhanced water adsorption capacity and increased specific surface area in the films (from 356.13 to 455.74 m²/g). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analyses demonstrated successful incorporation of Co–MOFs into the gelatin matrix, revealing good dispersion at low and moderate concentrations and partial aggregation at higher loadings. The incorporation of Co–MOFs improved the thermal stability of the films, while only a moderate reduction in mechanical strength was observed with increasing filler content. The composite films exhibited rapid and concentration-dependent colorimetric responses toward ammonia vapor. After 120 min of exposure, the color difference (ΔE) increased from less than 1 in the control film to approximately 12, 15, 24, and 27 for G/Co–MOF2.5, G/Co–MOF5, G/Co–MOF7.5, and G/Co–MOF10 films, respectively. Films containing higher amounts of Co–MOF showed faster response kinetics and greater color differences, enabling clear visual detection of ammonia. These findings demonstrate that gelatin/Co–MOF composite films based on gallic acid-derived metal–organic frameworks are promising intelligent packaging materials for monitoring food freshness and spoilage through ammonia detection. Full article

High-water-content dredged clay is a water-rich sediment that requires sustainable, resource-oriented treatment, but conventional ordinary Portland cement (OPC) stabilization is hindered by excessive water-to-binder ratios, suppressed hydration, and high carbon emissions. This study investigated corn straw biochar (CSB) as a partial OPC substitute for the low-carbon stabilization of kaolin-based simulated dredged clay. CSB prepared at 200–1000 °C under different holding times was characterized by water absorption, thermogravimetry, and SEM. Clay specimens with an initial water content of 80% (1.5 w_L) were prepared using 5–12% total binder, CSB:OPC ratios of 5:5–8:2, and curing ages of 7 and 28 d, and were evaluated by UCS, pH, SEM/ESEM, EDS, and life-cycle-based mechanical–environmental assessment. CSB developed honeycomb-like interconnected pores and a lamellar carbon skeleton, reaching 1476.10% water absorption at 700 °C for 30 min. The optimum CSB–OPC specimen reached approximately 136–137 kPa at 28 d, exceeding the OPC-only control of about 102 kPa. Strength improvement was associated with alkalinity maintenance, Ca–Si-rich hydration products, pore filling, and CSB–clay interfacial adsorption, embedding, and encapsulation. Properly carbonized CSB shows potential as an internal-curing, low-carbon co-binder for simulated dredged clay, but its field applicability requires further validation. Full article

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are functional materials with tunable structural, surface, and adsorption properties. In this study, multicationic LDHs were synthesised and evaluated as adsorbents for chromate(VI). Among the investigated materials, the tetracationic Mg₂Cu_0.5Zn_0.5Al₁ composition exhibited consistently high mass-normalised Cr(VI) uptake in the screening experiments and was therefore selected for detailed investigation. Therefore, its chloride and carbonate forms were selected as model materials to examine the role of interlayer anions in Cr(VI) uptake and pH-dependent stability. The chloride form exhibited a higher adsorption capacity (70 mg/g) than the carbonate form (34 mg/g), indicating that more weakly bound interlayer anions may increase the accessibility of adsorption sites and promote anion exchange during adsorption. In contrast, the carbonate form showed greater structural stability, as confirmed by reduced cation leaching over a wide pH range. The behaviour of Cr(VI) in equilibrium solution was analysed as a function of its initial concentration, which allowed a simple description of Cr(VI) sorption over a wide range of initial pH values. XRD, FTIR, and XPS analyses supported partial interlayer anion exchange and changes in the coordination environment of surface metal centres after Cr(VI) sorption. Adsorption energies of 13–16.4 kJ/mol further suggested that Cr(VI) uptake cannot be assigned to a single interaction type but involves electrostatic interactions, anion exchange, and surface complexation. These results demonstrate that the interlayer anion is a key factor governing both the Cr(VI) adsorption efficiency and aqueous stability of LDH-based adsorbents. Full article

The intensification of mariculture has increased nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in aquaculture wastewater. Conventional treatments often prove inefficient under saline conditions. To address this challenge, we developed an innovative aerobic denitrification reactor using Pseudomonas chloritidismutans K14, specifically tailored for seawater systems. Our study examined the effects of hydraulic retention time (HRT) and carbon-to-nitrogen (C/N) ratio on pollutant removal and critically assessed the physiological benefits for hybrid grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus ♀ × Epinephelus lanceolatus ♂). At an optimal HRT of 8 h and a C/N ratio of 8, the system achieved high removal efficiencies: 95.5% for NH₄⁺-N, 92.4% for NO₂⁻-N, 93.8% for NO₃⁻-N, 92.8% for total nitrogen (TN), and 84.8% for chemical oxygen demand (COD), along with a 47.3% reduction in total phosphorus (TP). More importantly, the system significantly enhanced grouper health by improving growth performance, digestive enzyme activities, and antioxidant capacity, along with a trend toward improved nonspecific immune indicators. The feed conversion ratio was optimized to 2.28, with a weight gain rate of 117.07%. Our findings establish this optimized aerobic denitrification system as an integrated strategy that effectively combines water purification with indirect health benefits, offering a sustainable solution for mariculture. Full article

Spent brewer’s yeast (SBY) is a protein-rich by-product of the brewing industry and a valuable source of intracellular nutrients and bioactive compounds. In the present study, a cascade extraction process was developed to obtain bioactive compounds from this biomass. Pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment in continuous-flow mode was applied to achieve irreversible plasma membrane permeabilization of the cells. Following PEF treatment, the primary water fraction containing released intracellular compounds was recovered, and the residual biomass was incubated with 0.2% (v/v) Alcalase for 6 h at 40 °C. The enzymatic treatment generated hydrolysates characterized by high levels of protein and free amino nitrogen and strong antioxidant activity. Ultrafiltration analysis revealed that the <3 kDa fraction retained approximately 78% of the recovered protein and 90% of the overall antioxidant capacity. The biocompatibility of the water extracts was evaluated using HepG2, HaCaT, and A375 cell lines. They were well tolerated and enhanced cell viability in HaCaT and A375 cells after 48 h exposure. These findings demonstrate the potential of the proposed cascade extraction process for more efficient utilization of SBY biomass through the generation of value-added products for nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, and pharmaceutical applications. Full article

To overcome the limitations of insufficient driving force in traditional microbial desalination batteries, this paper constructs a microbial anode-membrane capacitive deionization (B-MCDI) coupling system. For the first time, direct coupling between extracellular electron transfer in Shewanella oneidensis and double-layer adsorption at the MCDI cathode is achieved at the circuit and material levels, realizing self-driven, low-energy desalination. High-specific-surface-area carbon felt is used as the anode, and a stable electrogenic biomembrane (output voltage >400 mV) is formed after directional domestication with Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. Activated carbon is used as the cathode to construct the MCDI electrode. In the three-chamber reactor, the desalination chambers are separated by cation and anion exchange membranes. Under the drive of the bioelectric field, Na⁺ and Cl⁻ selectively permeate into the cathode and anode chambers, respectively, effectively suppressing the co-ion effect. Under optimal operating conditions (external resistance 1000 Ω, initial NaCl concentration 2.0 g/L), the system achieved a cumulative desalination rate of 85.1% after 12 h of operation, with a salt adsorption capacity of 162.1 mg/g, an average desalination rate of 13.51 mg/(g·h), and an energy consumption of only 0.58 kWh/m³. This demonstrates that bioelectric energy can effectively provide targeted power to drive capacitive adsorption and desalination. Under initial NaCl concentrations of 1.0 g/L and 3.0 g/L, the highest desalination rates reached 78% and 68%, respectively. The maximum instantaneous desalination rate occurred within 0.5–1.0 h (64 mg/h under 2.0 g/L conditions), exhibiting a three-stage kinetic characteristic of “fast-slow-equilibrium”. The energy consumption in this study was only 0.51 kWh/m³, further demonstrating the high energy efficiency of bioelectrically coupled MCDI in low-salinity treatment areas. Therefore, this B-MCDI can serve as a theoretically feasible proof-of-concept technology for desalination of brackish water that meets the requirements of self-driven, low-energy consumption, and has promising applications in decentralized water supply systems in areas with limited energy supply or no available electricity. Full article

The research on semiconductor electrocatalysts has developed into an active field of study in the past decade. By constructing heterojunctions, one may efficiently overcome the limitations of semiconductors’ broad band gaps and low conductivity. This work uses a single-step hydrothermal approach to load nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots onto TiO₂ nanoparticles, resulting in an excellent N−CQDs/TiO₂ catalyst with an Ohmic contact effect for better NORR electrocatalytic performance under ambient circumstances. The ammonia production rate is 4242.24 μg·h⁻¹·mg⁻¹ at an applied potential of −0.90 V vs. RHE (in a 0.10 M K₂SO₄ electrolyte), and the Faradaic efficiency is 88.02%. When compared to the unmodified TiO₂ catalytic performance, the ammonia generation rate doubles, and the Faradaic efficiency increases by 42.90%. A detailed investigation of the microstructure, charge transfer, NO adsorption, and reaction pathways of N−CQDs/TiO₂ was performed using density functional theory (DFT) computations. According to the theoretical results, nitrogen doping creates an uneven charge distribution on carbon quantum dots, enhancing NO adsorption by N−CQDs. The Ohmic contact between N−CQDs and TiO₂ facilitates charge transfer. The ICOHP value is more negative during NO adsorption on N-doped carbon quantum dots, decreasing the N=O interaction and boosting the NORR, according to crystal orbital Hamilton population (COHP) research. We have established the excellent performance and catalytic mechanism of the N−CQDs/TiO₂ catalyst based on these discoveries, giving strong theoretical and experimental evidence for the creation of effective catalysts for nitrogen oxide reduction processes. Full article

The variable-coefficient Korteweg–de Vries equation $u_t+f\left(t\right)u{u}_x+g\left(t\right)u_{xxx}+h\left(t\right)u_x+\sigma \left(t\right)u=0$ is bilinearized by the Hirota method after gauge and Galilean reductions, and exact N-soliton solutions are shown to exist precisely under the integrability condition $\sigma +{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t}}ln(g/f)=0$, equivalent to reducibility to the constant-coefficient equation. Closed-form laws are obtained for the soliton amplitude $A=3k_1^{2}g/f$, width, velocity, and trajectory; the two-soliton collision is proved strictly elastic, with a coefficient-independent phase shift and no fusion or fission; the conservation laws are recast as exactly modulated invariants; and a constructive coefficient-programming design realizes prescribed-amplitude and shape-preserving solitons. The physically derived variable-depth equation satisfies the condition only at constant depth, so that a generic sloping bottom admits only the adiabatic single-soliton regime ($A\propto D^{-1}$), compared structurally with the classical shoaling laws. Every solution is verified by direct symbolic substitution. Full article

Enhancers regulate genes over long genomic distances by physically looping to interact with promoters, a process highly dependent on specific protein recruitment and local histone modifications. We identified 1399, 1394, and 4063 enhancer-associated chromatin loops in GM12878, K562, and HepG2 cell lines, respectively, and found that dual-function proteins, characterized by both activating and repressing activities, preferentially localized at loop-anchored enhancers. Although protein co-localization patterns varied among cell types, CTCF, RAD21, SMC3, and ZNF143 consistently co-localized with one another at these enhancers. Furthermore, enhancer-associated loops localized primarily to the A compartment. Enhancers anchored in A-A loops showed greater enrichment of H3K4me1, H3K4me2, H3K9ac, and H3K27ac than those anchored in B-B loops. However, in K562 cells, enhancers anchored in B-B loops exhibited minor changes in active histone modification enrichment compared to their A-A counterparts, and even showed higher proportions of H3K4me2 and H3K9ac enrichment for enhancer–promoter loops. Nevertheless, across all three cell lines, A-A enhancer–promoter loops with both active anchors exhibited significantly higher target gene expression than other A-A loops and B-B loops. Our study suggests that enhancer-associated loop formation correlates with dual-function protein co-localization and active histone modification enrichment, which may collectively contribute to target gene transcription. Full article