With the rapid growth of solar energy, recycling and reuse of end-of-life solar modules have become a critical issue. In light of this, a simple, yet environmentally friendly, ball milling process ...was used to transform the recycled Si of waste solar cells into a lithium ion battery anode material. The ball-milled recycled Si was further combined with a carbon fiber paper (CP) substrate to fabricate a composite electrode. The milling time and rotation speed were optimized to form a Si/SiOx/Al2O3 active material with a moderate primary particle size, agglomeration extent, and oxidation states of Si and Al. These features allow the recycled Si to exhibit promising cycling and rate performances. Additionally, introducing a hydrothermally treated CP substrate can further improve the electrochemical performance of the composite electrode, delivering a high discharge capacity of 1603 mA h g−1 after 100 cycles (capacity retention of approximately 91% (200 mA g−1)) and 813 mA h g−1 at 2000 mA g−1, due to the presence of nitrogen-containing groups, particularly the pyridinic-N group. This is evidenced by the reduced solid electrolyte interface and charge transfer resistances and the increased ion diffusion coefficient of the Si/SiOx/Al2O3-based cell.
Spoken content retrieval refers to directly indexing and retrieving spoken content based on the audio rather than text descriptions. This potentially eliminates the requirement of producing text ...descriptions for multimedia content for indexing and retrieval purposes, and is able to precisely locate the exact time the desired information appears in the multimedia. Spoken content retrieval has been very successfully achieved with the basic approach of cascading automatic speech recognition (ASR) with text information retrieval: after the spoken content is transcribed into text or lattice format, a text retrieval engine searches over the ASR output to find desired information. This framework works well when the ASR accuracy is relatively high, but becomes less adequate when more challenging real-world scenarios are considered, since retrieval performance depends heavily on ASR accuracy. This challenge leads to the emergence of another approach to spoken content retrieval: to go beyond the basic framework of cascading ASR with text retrieval in order to have retrieval performances that are less dependent on ASR accuracy. This overview article is intended to provide a thorough overview of the concepts, principles, approaches, and achievements of major technical contributions along this line of investigation. This includes five major directions: 1) Modified ASR for Retrieval Purposes: cascading ASR with text retrieval, but the ASR is modified or optimized for spoken content retrieval purposes; 2) Exploiting the Information not present in ASR outputs: to try to utilize the information in speech signals inevitably lost when transcribed into phonemes and words; 3) Directly Matching at the Acoustic Level without ASR: for spoken queries, the signals can be directly matched at the acoustic level, rather than at the phoneme or word levels, bypassing all ASR issues; 4) Semantic Retrieval of Spoken Content: trying to retrieve spoken content that is semantically related to the query, but not necessarily including the query terms themselves; 5) Interactive Retrieval and Efficient Presentation of the Retrieved Objects: with efficient presentation of the retrieved objects, an interactive retrieval process incorporating user actions may produce better retrieval results and user experiences.
Produced water is a by-product of industrial operations, such as hydraulic fracturing for increased oil recovery, that causes environmental issues since it includes different metal ions (e.g., Li
, K
..., Ni
, Mg
, etc.) that need to be extracted or collected before disposal. To remove these substances using either selective transport behavior or absorption-swing processes employing membrane-bound ligands, membrane separation procedures are promising unit operations. This study investigates the transport of a series of salts in crosslinked polymer membranes synthesized using a hydrophobic monomer (phenyl acrylate, PA), a zwitterionic hydrophilic monomer (sulfobetaine methacrylate, SBMA), and a crosslinker (methylenebisacrylamide, MBAA). Membranes are characterized according to their thermomechanical properties, where an increased SBMA content leads to decreased water uptake due to structural differences within the films and to more ionic interactions between the ammonium and sulfonate moieties, resulting in a decreased water volume fraction, and Young's modulus increases with increasing MBAA or PA content. Permeabilities, solubilities, and diffusivities of membranes to LiCl, NaCl, KCl, CaCl
, MgCl
, and NiCl
are determined by diffusion cell experiments, sorption-desorption experiments, and the solution-diffusion relationship, respectively. Permeability to these metal ions generally decreases with an increasing SBMA content or MBAA content due to the corresponding decreasing water volume fraction, and the permeabilities are in the order of K
> Na
> Li
> Ni
> Ca
> Mg
presumably due to the differences in the hydration diameter.
The reported chemical structures of tricyclic acridone alkaloids (1–6) from Severinia buxifolia and Pleiospermium alatum were reinvestigated through a comparison of the nuclear magnetic resonance ...(NMR) spectral data of similar compounds and a comprehensive study of their two‐dimensional (2D) NMR spectra. The structures of 1–5 were further confirmed by a comparison of their spectral data with those of the authentic samples and standards. The different chemical shifts caused by substituted functional groups in the tricyclic acridones were summarized according to the results in the present study. Furthermore, the synthetic compound 10 (N‐methyl‐1,3‐dihydroxy‐4,5,6‐trimethoxyacridine‐9‐one) has not been reported from any natural sources in the previous literature. In addition, the chemical structures of macranthanine (21) and 7‐hydroxy‐noracronycine (22) from Glycosmis macrantha were also revised.
The 1H and 13C NMR data of tricyclic (1–20) and two polycyclic acridone alkaloids (21 and 22) were reinvestigated. The different chemical shifts caused by substituted functional groups in the tricyclic acridones were summarized according to the results in the present study. These results are potentially useful for the determination of the acridone structures with multiple substitutions.
Metal artifact reduction (MAR) techniques can improve metal artifacts of computed tomography (CT) images.
This work focused on conducting a quantitative analysis to compare the effectiveness of four ...commercial MAR techniques on three types of metal implants (hip implant, spinal implant, and dental filling) with a self-made acrylic phantom.
A cylindrical phantom was made from acrylic with a groove in the middle, and then three types of metal implants were placed in the groove. The phantom was scanned by four CT scanners and four commercialized MAR techniques were used to analyze the images. The techniques used were single-energy metal artifact reduction (SEMAR, Canon), smart metal artifact reduction software (Smart-MAR, GE), iterative metal artifact reduction (IMAR, Siemens), and metal artifact reduction for orthopedic implants (OMAR, Philips). Quantitative analysis methods included objective and subjective analysis.
The expected value of SEMAR, Smart-MAR, IMAR, and OMAR were 36.6, 37.8, 5.0, and 2.3, respectively. SEMAR and Smart-MAR achieved optimal results.
This study successfully evaluated the effects of four commercial MAR techniques on three types of metal implants in a phantom. All MAR techniques effectively reduced metal artifacts, but the effect was not significant with dental fillings due to high-density material.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The effect of the phosphor curvature in the range 0.1766–0.2589 mm−1 on the luminous efficacy of Y2.95Al5O12:0.05Ce3+ (YAG)‐based white‐light‐emitting diodes (WLEDs) was investigated at the similar ...correlated color temperature (CCT) of ~6300 K by tuning the concentration of YAG phosphors in the phosphor layer ranging from 7.5 to 15 wt%. It was found that both the luminous efficacy and luminous power increased monotonically with the increasing curvature. The luminous efficacy (=82.4 lm/W) and luminous power (=297.85 mW) of the YAG‐based WLED at the preferable phosphor curvature of 0.2589 mm−1 were 19.44% and 17.36%, respectively, higher than those at the curvature of 0.1766 mm−1 under 350 mA. This finding reveals that the surface curvature of phosphor layers is a critical factor which cannot be ignored for the investigation of the light output of phosphor‐converted WLEDs. Moreover, the color rendering index (CRI) enhancement of YAG‐based WLED with substitution of Y2.94Al5O12:0.05Ce3+, 0.01Pr3+ (YPrAG), Y2.45Gd0.5Al5O12:0.05Ce3+ (YGdAG), and Y2.95Al4.8Si0.2O11.8N0.2:0.05Ce3+ (YAlSiON) for YAG were assessed under the same phosphor curvature of 0.2589 mm−1 and the similar CCT ~6350 K. Taking the luminous efficacy, preparation cost of phosphors, and CRI into consideration, we suggest that the YGdAG is a preferable candidate for replacing the YAG for use in WLEDs among the four kinds of phosphors. Compared with the YAG (7.5 wt%)‐based WLED, the YGdAG (7 wt%)‐based WLED exhibited an improved CRI, less preparation cost of phosphors, and the acceptable reduction in luminous efficacy under 350 mA.
We report the design strategy and synthesis of a structurally locked GFP core chromophore p -LHBDI, its ortho-derivative, o -LHBDI, and H2BDI possessing both para- and ortho-hydroxyl groups such that ...the inherent rotational motion of the titled compounds has been partially restricted. o -LHBDI possesses a doubly locked configuration, i.e., the seven-membered ring hydrogen bond and five-membered ring C(4-5-10-13-14) cyclization, from which the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer takes place, rendering a record high tautomer emission yield (0.18 in toluene) and the generation of amplified spontaneous emission. Compared with their unlocked counterparts, a substantial increase in the emission yield is also observed for p -LHBDI and H2BDI in anionic forms in water, and accordingly the structure versus luminescence relationship is fully discussed based on their chemistry and spectroscopy aspect. In solid, o -LHBDI exhibits an H-aggregate-like molecular packing, offers narrow-bandwidth emission, and has been successfully applied to fabricate a yellow organic light emitting diodes (λmax = 568 nm, ηext = 1.9%) with an emission full width at half-maximum as narrow as 70 nm.
High dosage and longer duration of antiviral treatment has been suggested to treat cryoglobulinemia patients. We aimed to investigate the efficacy of antiviral treatment in cryoglobulinemia patients ...and analyze the associated factors of persistent cryoglobulinemia.
Totally 148 patients after completion of anti-HCV treatment were enrolled in our study. Serum cryoglobulinemia precipitation was assessed and analyzed for the associated factors after antiviral therapy.
Fifty-one (34.5%) out of 148 patients were positive for serum cryoglobulinemia after completion of antiviral therapy. In multivariate analysis, advanced fibrosis (Odds Ratio OR- 4.13, 95% Confidence Interval 95% CI- 1.53-11.17, p = 0.005) and platelet counts (OR-0.98, 95% CI- 0.97-0.99, p = 0.010) were independently and significantly associated with persistent cryoglobulinemia. The factors associated with the persistent cryoglobulinemia in SVR patients were advanced fibrosis (OR-1.93, 95% CI- 1.02-3.65, p = 0.041) and platelet count (OR-0.98, 95% CI- 0.96-0.99, p = 0.041) by multivariate analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed persistent (OR-4.83, 95% CI- 1.75-13.36, p = 0.002) was significantly associated with advanced fibrosis in patients with cryoglobulinemia follow up after antiviral therapy.
The prevalence of the persistent cryoglobulinemia is 34.5% after completing antiviral therapy and it is associated with advanced fibrosis, also HCV clearance.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The primary cilium is an antenna‐like organelle protruding from the cell surface that can detect physical and chemical stimuli in the extracellular space to activate specific signaling pathways and ...downstream gene expressions. Calcium ion (Ca2+) signaling regulates a wide spectrum of cellular processes, including fertilization, proliferation, differentiation, muscle contraction, migration, and death. This study investigated the effects of the regulation of cytosolic Ca2+ levels on ciliogenesis using chemical, genetic, and optogenetic approaches. We found that ionomycin‐induced Ca2+ influx inhibited ciliogenesis and Ca2+ chelator BATPA‐AM‐induced Ca2+ depletion promoted ciliogenesis. In addition, store‐operated Ca2+ entry and the endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ sensor stromal interaction molecule 1 (STIM1) negatively regulated ciliogenesis. Moreover, an optogenetic platform was used to create different Ca2+ oscillation patterns by manipulating lighting parameters, including density, frequency, exposure time, and duration. Light‐activated Ca2+‐translocating channelrhodopsin (CatCh) is activated by 470‐nm blue light to induce Ca2+ influx. Our results show that high‐frequency Ca2+ oscillations decrease ciliogenesis. Furthermore, the inhibition of cilia formation induced by Ca2+ may occur via the activation of Aurora kinase A. Cilia not only induce Ca2+ signaling but also regulate cilia formation by Ca2+ signaling.
Increases in cytosolic Ca2+ achieved by optogenetic and chemical manipulations inhibit ciliogenesis, whereas depletion of cytosolic Ca2+ promotes ciliogenesis. In addition, higher frequency Ca2+ oscillation waves significantly inhibited ciliogenesis. On the contrary, the major form of Ca2+ influx via store‐operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE) negatively regulates ciliogenesis. Inhibition of Ca2+‐induced ciliogenesis can be achieved by activating Aurora A.
This study investigates the long-term effects of deoxynivalenol (DON) consumption on avian growth performance, on the proliferation, apoptosis, and DNA damage of spleen cells, and on intestinal ...integrity. Two hundred and eight 5-day-old black-feathered Taiwan country chickens were fed diets containing 0, 2, 5, and 10 mg/kg of DON for 16 weeks. Body weight gain of male birds in the 2 mg/kg group was significantly lower than that in the 5 mg/kg group. At the end of trial, feeding DON-contaminated diets of 5 mg/kg resulted in heavier spleens. Moreover, the increase in DON induced cellular proliferation, apoptosis, and DNA damage signals in the spleen, the exception being female birds fed 10 mg/kg of DON showing reduced proliferation. Expression of claudin-5 was increased in jejunum of female birds fed 2 and 5 mg/kg of DON, whereas decreased expression levels were found in male birds. In conclusion, our results verified that DON may cause a disturbance to the immune system and alter the intestinal barrier in Taiwan country chickens, and may also lead to discrepancies in growth performances in a dose- and sex-dependent manner.
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