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•Wastewater biofilm formation was monitored by UTDR in-situ and non-destructively.•Biofilm thickness and relatively dense degree could be obtained by UTDR continuously.•3D wavelet ...analysis visualize the relative biofilm development process over time.•A quick method for estimating bio-carrier applicability for wastewater is presented.
Biofilm development plays an important role in facilitating wastewater treatment. The ultrasonic time domain reflectometry (UTDR) is presented for the first time as a tool to assess the initial biofilms development process on bio-carriers. The experiments were carried out with bio samples gathered from practical municipal wastewater and industrial wastewater, respectively. The in-situ and non-invasive UTDR technique was applied to visualize and evaluate the biofilm development process on slices through using the 2D and 3D wavelet analysis by a false color scale. Especially, the distinguished biofilms thickness was observed during the initial biofilm development process via a differential signal, and the relatively dense degree of biofilm were also obtained at the same time. The UTDR measurement could distinguish the initial adherence, reversible adhesion and irreversible adhesion during the initial biofilm formation process. In addition, the UTDR response correlates well with the off-line measurements of the biofilm thickness via an atomic force microscope and optical coherence tomography, suggesting that UTDR-based characterization is a useful tool for in-situ investigating the dynamic processes of predefined biofilm development used for wastewater treatment.
In practices, most industrial products are subject to sudden failure and only failure information can be collected, which presents a great challenge for reliability prediction of modern devices. To ...address this issue, our paper proposes a dynamic reliability estimation and control for industrial products under regular failure trials. The failure trial is performed at different operational time points of the products, which provides sole data source for evaluating the status of industrial products. We use Bayesian approach to dynamically estimate the industrial products when the failure trial is available. The estimated reliability is updated using a point estimate with new available data. To maintain the reliability of products at a desirable status, a reliability control method is presented to monitor the confidence interval of reliability distribution. The lower limit of confidence interval is maintained above a control limit, which indicates that a corresponding quality-assurance action is preferable. The proposed reliability estimation and control approach is demonstrated using a case of light-emitting diodes under failure trials at production process. The obtained results indicate the effectiveness of our estimation and control model.
N6‐methyladenosine (m6A) modification plays a crucial role in cancer progression. However, the role of m6A modification‐mediated autophagy underlying non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) gefitinib ...resistance remains unknown. Here, we discovered that m6A methyltransferase KIAA1429 was highly expressed in NSCLC gefitinib‐resistant cells (PC9‐GR) as well as tissues, and KIAA1429 high expression was associated with poor survival. In addition, silent KIAA1429 repressed gefitinib resistance in NSCLC and reduced tumor growth in vivo. Mechanistically, KIAA1429 stabilized WTAP, a significant player in autophagy, by binding to the 3′ untranslated regions (3′‐UTR) of WTAP. In a word, our findings indicated that KIAA1429 could elevate NSCLC gefitinib resistance, which may provide a promising targeted therapy for NSCLC patients.
KIAA1429 promotes autophagy in NSCLC by stabilizing WTAP mRNA in an m6A independent manner.
Septic shock is defined as a subset of sepsis, which is associated with a considerably high mortality risk. The caspase-11 non-canonical inflammasome is sensed and activated by intracellular ...lipopolysaccharide (LPS) leading to pyroptosis, it plays a critical role in septic shock. However, there are few known drugs that can control caspase-11 non-canonical inflammasome activation. We report here that goitrin, an alkaloid from
, shows protective effects in LPS-induced septic shock and significant inhibitory effect in caspase-11 non-canonical inflammasome pathway. Male C57BL/6J were injected intraperitoneally with LPS (20 mg/kg) to induce experimental septic shock. The results demonstrated that the survival rates of mice pretreated with goitrin or Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) inhibitor TKA-242 increased, and LPS-induced hypothermia and lung damage improved by inhibiting inflammatory response. Elucidating the detailed mechanism, we surprisingly found goitrin is really different from TAK-242, it independent of the TLR4 signal activation, but significantly inhibited the activation of caspase-11 non-canonical inflammasome, including cleaved caspase-11 and N-terminal fragment of gasdermin D (GSDMD-NT). Furthermore, with a nonlethal dose of the TLR3 agonist poly(I:C)-primed and subsequently challenged with LPS to induce caspase-11-mediated lethal septic shock, the efficacy of goitrin had been verified. Those results revealed the effect of goitrin in protective against LPS-induced septic shock via inhibiting caspase-11 non-canonical inflammasome, which provided a new therapeutic strategy for clinical treatment of septic shock.
Precipitation of calcium carbonate followed by the adhesion of precipitates to equipment surfaces is the main problem of mineral scaling in cooling water systems. Many chemicals and antiscalants have ...been widely used to mitigate the mineral scaling problems. Hydrolyzed polymaleic anhydride (HPMA) was synthesized and used as antiscalant. The effect of Synthesized HPMA on the crystal of calcium carbonate was investigated through the calcium carbonate precipitation experiments. The synergetic effect of synthesized HPMA with 1-hydroxyethane-1,1-diphosphonic acid (HEDP) and polyacrylic acid (PAA) was also investigated. It was indicated that the order of the ability to prevent the precipitation of Ca
2+ from bulk solution was HEDP
/
HPMA
/
PAA
>
HEDP
≈
HPMA
>
PAA. The morphologies and the crystal structure of the precipitates were investigated using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-ray Diffractometer (XRD). It was indicated that HPMA could change the morphologies and crystal structures of CaCO
3 precipitates. The irregular framboid spherical shape and vaterite crystal was observed in the presence of HPMA. HEDP and PAA could enhance the effect of synthesized HPMA on the crystal of calcium carbonate. The synthesized HPMA together with HEDP and PAA showed higher antiscale efficiency and synergetic effect on the crystal of calcium carbonate.
► Hydrolyzed polymaleic anhydride (HPMA) was synthesized. ► The order of the ability to prevent the precipitation of Ca
2+ from bulk solution was HEDP
/
HPMA
/
PAA
>
HEDP
≈
HPMA
>
PAA. ► HPMA could change the morphologies and crystal structures of CaCO
3 precipitates. ► HEDP and PAA could enhance the effect of synthesized HPMA on the crystal of calcium carbonate.
•A organic-based aging biofilm with the PN/PS ratio of 20.17 was characterized.•Four commercial proteases and amylases were tested.•Better performances of proteases on MLSS and PN/MLSS removal and ...DOC/MLSS raising.•Distinguishing mechanisms of the treating process were found for the two proteases.
Effective removal of aging biofilm deserves to receive more attention. This study aimed to characterized aging biofilm from a full-scale moving bed biofilm reactor treating pharmaceutical wastewater and evaluate the hydrolysis effects of biofilm by different enzymatic treatments. Results from FTIR and biochemical composition analyses showed that it was a predominately organic-based biofilm with the ratio of total protein (PN) to polysaccharide (PS) of 20.17. A reticular structure of extracellular polymeric matrix (EPM) with filamentous bacteria as the skeleton was observed on the basal layer through SEM–EDS test. Among the four commercial proteases and amylases from Genencor®, proteases were shown to have better performances than amylases either on the removal of MLSS and PN/MLSS or on DOC (i.e., dissolved organic carbon)/MLSS raising of biofilm pellets. Difference of dynamic fluorescence characteristics of dissolved organic matters after treated by the two proteases indicated distinguishing mechanisms of the treating process.
Total ionizing dose (TID) response of pMOS transistors featuring a commercial 65 nm CMOS technology was studied by X-ray irradiation up to 1 Grad (SiO2), which emulated total dose target in the LHC ...upgrade. After irradiation, dramatic reduction of drain current was observed, the degradation level showed a strong dependency on gate width. At total doses higher than 208 Mrad(SiO2), the off-state leakage was heightened by more than one order of magnitude, which was attributed to the gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) due to the positive charge trapping in STI and/or gate oxide. The subthreshold swing (SS) and the threshold voltage remained practical constant even at 1 Grad (SiO2) total dose. The degradation in the drain current can be partially explained by the radiation induced narrow channel effect due to the positive charge trapping in STI. However, from the comparison results under two bias conditions during irradiation, there must be other mechanisms contributing together. Damage of the gate oxide could be another mechanism contributing to the dramatic drain current reduction.
Effects of different static magnetic field (MF) intensities (10-50 mT) on the activity of activated sludge were compared at low temperature (5°C). The TTC dehydrogenase activity (TTC-DHA) achieved ...the maximum of 8.12 mg TF/gSS at the MF intensity of 40 mT. MF intensity enhanced from 20 mT to 40 mT could promote microorganisms to produce more unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) to stimulate the TTC-DHA and adapt to low temperature. At 30 mT, the Gram-negative bacteria with better cold adaptability were greatly enriched, which ensured the cold resistance of low-temperature reactor. The PLFA diversity strengthened by MF was higher than that of control when MF intensities changed from 20 mT to 50 mT and reached the maximum of 1.31 at 20 mT. Optimal MF intensity is supposed to be a potential pathway to strengthen the activity and cold resistance of activated sludge microorganisms in biological wastewater treatment under low temperature.
This paper proposes a condition-based maintenance strategy for multi-component systems under degradation failures. The maintenance decision is based on the minimum long-run average cost rate (LACR) ...and the maximum residual useful lifetime (RUL), respectively. The aim of this paper is to determine the optimal monitoring interval and critical level for multi-component systems under different optimization objectives. A preventive maintenance (PM) is triggered when the degradation of component exceeds the corresponding critical level. Afterwards, the paper discusses the relationship between the critical level and the monitoring interval with regards to the LACR and RUL. Methods are also proposed to determine the optimal monitoring interval and the critical level under two decision models. Finally, the impact of maintenance decision variables on the LACR and RUL is discussed through a case study. A comparison with conventional maintenance policy shows an outstanding performance of the new model.
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