Photoactuators with integrated optical‐to‐mechanical energy conversion capacity have attracted growing research interest in the last few decades due to their unique features of remote control and ...their wide applications ranging from bionic robots, biomedical devices, and switches to motors. For the photoactuator design, the energy conversion route and structure assembly are two important parts, which directly affect the performance of the photoactuators. In particular, the architectural designs at the molecular, nano‐, micro‐, and macro‐ level, are found to play a significant role in accumulating molecular‐scale strain/stress to macroscale strain/stress. Here, recent progress on photoactuators based on photochemical and photothermal effects is summarized, followed by a discussion of the important assembly strategies for the amplification of the photoresponsive components at nanoscale to macroscopic scale motions. The application advancement of current photoactuators is also presented.
Photoactuators can directly convert optical energy into a mechanical output with unique advantages, including wireless actuation, remote control, and an abundant source of light. Recent advances in photoactuators based on photochemical and photothermal effects are briefly summarized with an emphasis on the significant assembly strategies for the conversion of photoinduced effects at the nanoscale to macroscopic motion.
Studies on ultraviolet light-emitting diode (UV-LED) water disinfection have shown advantages, such as safety, flexible design, and lower starting voltages. However, information about reactivation ...after UV-LED disinfection is limited, which is an important issue of UV light-based technology. In this study, the photoreactivation and dark repair of Escherichia coli after UV-LEDs and low pressure (LP) UV disinfection were compared. Four UV-LED units, 265 nm, 280 nm, the combination of 265 + 280 (50%), and 265 + 280 (75%) were tested. 265 nm LEDs was more effective than 280 nm LEDs and LP UV lamps for E. coli inactivation. No synergic effect for disinfection was observed from the combination of 265 and 280 nm LEDs. 265 nm LEDs had no different reactivation performances with that of LP UV, while 280 nm LEDs could significantly repress photoreactivation and dark repair at a low irradiation intensity of 6.9 mJ/cm2. Furthermore, the UV-induced damage of 280 nm LEDs was less repaired which was determined by endonuclease sensitive site (ESS) assay. The impaired protein activities by 280 nm LEDs might be one of the reasons that inhibited reactivation. A new reactivation rate constant, Kmax, was introduced into the logistic model to simulate the reactivation data, which showed positive relationship with the maximum survival ratio and was more reasonable to interpret the results of photoreactivation and dark repair. This study revealed the distinct roles of different UV lights in disinfection and reactivation, which is helpful for the future design of UV-LED equipment.
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•265 nm LEDs was more effective for E. coli disinfection.•No synergic effect for disinfection from the combination of 265 and 280 nm LEDs.•280 nm LEDs significantly reduced the reactivation processes.•Protein-damaging may be one reason that inhibited the reactivation.•New reactivation rate constant with clear physical meaning was introduced.
•Summarized the over-growth risks of non-pathogenic CRB.•Presented the genus, sources and chlorine resistance of all the isolated CRB strains.•Demonstrated the lack of widely-accepted method to ...evaluate chlorine resistance.•Proposed a recommended evaluating method for chlorine resistance.•Proposed a quantitative definition of chlorine-resistant bacteria.
Chlorine-resistant bacteria (CRB) are commonly defined as bacteria with high resistance to chlorine disinfection or bacteria which can survive or even regrow in the residual chlorine. Chlorine disinfection cannot completely control the risks of CRB, such as risks of pathogenicity, antibiotic resistance and microbial growth. Currently, researchers pay more attention to CRB with pathogenicity or antibiotic resistance. The microbial growth risks of non-pathogenic CRB in water treatment and reclamation systems have been neglected to some extent. In this review, these three kinds of risks are all analyzed, and the last one is also highlighted. In order to study CRB, various methods are used to evaluate chlorine resistance. This review summarizes the evaluating methods for chlorine resistance reported in the literatures, and collects the important information about the typical isolated CRB strains including their genera, sources and levels of chlorine resistance. To our knowledge, few review papers have provided such systematic information about CRB. Among 44 typical CRB strains from 17 genera isolated by researchers, Mycobacterium, Bacillus, Legionella, Pseudomonas and Sphingomonas were the five genera with the highest frequency of occurrence in literatures. They are all pathogenic or opportunistic pathogenic bacteria. In addition, although there are many studies on CRB, information about chlorine resistance level is still limited to specie level or strain level. The difference in chlorine resistance level among different bacterial genera is less well understood. An inconvenient truth is that there is still no widely-accepted method to evaluate chlorine resistance and to identify CRB. Due to the lack of a unified method, it is difficult to compare the results about chlorine resistance level of bacterial strains in different literatures. A recommended evaluating method using logarithmic removal rate as an index and E. coli as a reference strain is proposed in this review based on the summary of the current evaluating methods. This method can provide common range of chlorine resistance of each genus and it is conducive to analyzing the distribution and abundance of CRB in the environment.
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This study provided an overview of established and emerging nanomaterial (NM)-enabled processes and devices for water disinfection for both centralized and decentralized systems. In addition to a ...discussion of major disinfection mechanisms, data on disinfection performance (shortest contact time for complete disinfection) and energy efficiency (electrical energy per order; EEO) were collected enabling assessments firstly for disinfection processes and then for disinfection devices. The NM-enabled electro-based disinfection process gained the highest disinfection efficiency with the lowest energy consumption compared with physical-based, peroxy-based, and photo-based disinfection processes owing to the unique disinfection mechanism and the direct mean of translating energy input to microbes. Among the established disinfection devices (e.g., the stirred, the plug-flow, and the flow-through reactor), the flow-through reactor with mesh/membrane or 3-dimensional porous electrodes showed the highest disinfection performance and energy efficiency attributed to its highest mass transfer efficiency. Additionally, we also summarized recent knowledge about current and potential NMs separation and recovery methods as well as electrode strengthening and optimization strategies. Magnetic separation and robust immobilization (anchoring and coating) are feasible strategies to prompt the practical application of NM-enabled disinfection devices. Magnetic separation effectively solved the problem for the separation of evenly distributed particle-sized NMs from microbial solution and robust immobilization increased the stability of NM-modified electrodes and prevented these electrodes from degradation by hydraulic detachment and/or electrochemical dissolution. Furthermore, the study of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was capable of simulating NM-enabled devices, which showed great potential for system optimization and reactor expansion. In this overview, we stressed the need to concern not only the treatment performance and energy efficiency of NM-enabled disinfection processes and devices but also the overall feasibility of system construction and operation for practical application.
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•Brief overview of NM-enabled processes and devices for water disinfection.•Evaluation of NM-enabled processes/devices based on performance and energy efficiency.•Applying contact time and electrical energy per order (EEO) for assessment of processes and devices.•Discussion of influencing factors on contact time and EEO for NM-enabled disinfection.•Summary of NMs recovery and electrode strengthening methods for practical application.
Anxiety is common in patients suffering from chronic pain. Here, we report anxiety-like behaviors in mouse models of chronic pain and reveal that nNOS-expressing neurons in ventromedial prefrontal ...cortex (vmPFC) are essential for pain-induced anxiety but not algesia, using optogenetic and chemogenetic strategies. Additionally, we determined that excitatory projections from the posterior subregion of paraventricular thalamic nucleus (pPVT) provide a neuronal input that drives the activation of vmPFC nNOS-expressing neurons in our chronic pain models. Our results suggest that the pain signal becomes an anxiety signal after activation of vmPFC nNOS-expressing neurons, which causes subsequent release of nitric oxide (NO). Finally, we show that the downstream molecular mechanisms of NO likely involve enhanced glutamate transmission in vmPFC CaMKIIα-expressing neurons through S-nitrosylation-induced AMPAR trafficking. Overall, our data suggest that pPVT excitatory neurons drive chronic pain-induced anxiety through activation of vmPFC nNOS-expressing neurons, resulting in NO-mediated AMPAR trafficking in vmPFC pyramidal neurons.
Attached microalgae cultivation could simplify the microalgae harvest process and reduce its associated cost, which has attracted much attention recently. In this paper, the reactor patterns, ...advantages, microalgae biomass productivity, influencing factors and the microalgae physicochemical properties in the attached microalgae cultivation was summarized to show the sketch of this novel microalgae cultivation. It was concluded that the attached microalgae cultivation is advantageous in achieving less water and space consumption, higher water treatment potential and higher biomass productivity compared with the traditional suspended microalgae cultivation. The accumulation of the attached microalgae biomass showed a linear increase with culture time with the largest productivity up to 20.7 g m−2 d−1. Chlorella and Scenedesmus were the top two species that have been studied in attached culture system. Cellulose acetate/nitrate membrane, polycarbonate membrane and cotton were the most popular materials used owing to their high hydrophilicity and wide availability. Flow rate, nutrients, light, CO2 and other factors could affect the attached microalgae productivity and the physicochemical property in a way different from the suspended microalgae, which were described in detail in this review. At last, some technical bottlenecks and the corresponding solvents in the attached microalgae were suggested.
•Attached cultivation could simplify microalgae harvest process and reduce its cost.•Attached microalgae showed a linear growth with the rate up to 20.7 g m−2 d−1.•Algae species, support media and nutrients affected attached microalgae growth.•Physicochemical property and their influence factors varied with culture patterns.
The ability to monitor and quantify glutathione (GSH) in live cells is essential in order to gain a detailed understanding of GSH‐related pathological events. However, owing to their irreversible ...response mechanisms, most existing fluorescent GSH probes are not suitable for this purpose. We have developed a ratiometric fluorescent probe (QG‐1) for quantitatively monitoring cellular GSH. The probe responds specifically and reversibility to GSH with an ideal dissociation constant (Kd) of 2.59 mm and a fast response time (t1/2=5.82 s). We also demonstrate that QG‐1 detection of GSH is feasible in a model protein system. QG‐1 was found to have extremely low cytotoxicity and was applied to determine the GSH concentration in live HeLa cells (5.40±0.87 mm).
Given the green light: A ratiometric fluorescent probe (QG‐1) for monitoring and quantifying variations in cellular glutathione (GSH) was developed. The probe shows a fluorescence shift from red to green upon binding GSH and exhibits specificity and reversibility, with an appropriate dissociation constant for sensing species with high cellular abundance (Kd=2.59 mm) and a fast response time (t1/2=5.82 s).
This report aims to study the relationship between sarcopenia of elderly in community and inflammatory factors IL-6 and TNF-α.
A total of 441 elders who undertook physical examinations were included ...into this study. The age of these subjects were >60, in which 235 subjects were male and 206 subjects were female. According to the diagnostic standards of sarcopenia set by EWGSOP and AWGS, these subjects were divided into two groups: sarcopenia, and non-sarcopenia groups. The living habits, disease status, biochemical indexes, and levels of IL-6 and TNF-α of these subjects were investigated.
The morbidity rate of sarcopenia was 17.02% in male subjects and 18.9% in female subjects. In elderly subjects >80 years old, morbidity rate was 25.3% in male subjects and 35.1% in female subjects. The history of smoking in patients with sarcopenia was long, and their regular exercise history was short (P < 0.01). Furthermore, differences in handgrip strength (HG), fat-free mass (FFM), bone mineral content (BMC), plasma albumin (ALB) and serum creatinine (Cr), and body fat content (FAT) in patients between the sarcopenia and non-sarcopenia groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Moreover, differences in IL-6 and TNF-α levels between these two groups were statistically significant (P < 0.05). In addition, BMI was positively correlated to TNF-α levels, and ALB was negatively correlated to IL-6; while BMI and VFA were positively correlated to TNF-α levels, and SMM, HDL-C, Hb, HG were negatively correlated to IL-6 level (P < 0.05). Multiple linear regression analysis suggested plasma ALB and BMI were the independent risk factors of TNF-α, while VFA was the independent risk factor of IL-6.
The onset of sarcopenia was associated with poor exercise habits, disease history, and nutritional status. The emergence of sarcopenia was accompanied by increased levels of inflammation factors TNF-α and IL-6. Plasma albumin, BMI, and VFA were inflammatory factor predictors of TNF and IL-6.
Controllable synthesis of morphology and composition of functional material through a similar method is very necessary to understand the related properties. In this study, we report a facile ...solvothermal route to synthesize a series of bismuth oxyiodide compounds, including BiOI, Bi7O9I3, and Bi4O5I2 hierarchical microspheres, under relatively mild conditions through only adjusting the types of alcohols. It was found that the viscosity of alcohol played key roles in determining the morphologies and compositions of the final products. UV–visible diffuse-reflectance spectra and theoretic calculations indicated that bismuth oxyiodides with different ratios of Bi:O:I clearly possessed different light absorption and energy band structures. As a result, the as-synthesized BiOI, Bi7O9I3, and Bi4O5I2 hierarchical microspheres displayed morphology- and composition-dependent photocatalytic activities for the degradation of rhodamine B (RhB) and colorless phenol under visible-light irradiation. On the basis of experimental results, the difference of photocatalytic activity of these bismuth oxyiodide compounds was discussed. Furthermore, hierarchical bismuth oxyiodide microspheres were also evaluated as adsorbents for removing phosphate from aqueous solution. The results showed that Bi7O9I3 and Bi4O5I2 hierarchical microspheres had good adsorption capabilities for phosphate in water because of their larger surface areas and hierarchical porous structures.
Feature selection is a useful pre-processing technique for solving classification problems. As an almost parameter-free optimization algorithm, the bare bones particle swarm optimization (BPSO) has ...been applied to the topic of optimization on continuous or integer spaces, but it has not been applied to feature selection problems with binary variables. In this paper, we propose a new method to find optimal feature subset by the BPSO, called the binary BPSO. In this algorithm, a reinforced memory strategy is designed to update the local leaders of particles for avoiding the degradation of outstanding genes in the particles, and a uniform combination is proposed to balance the local exploitation and the global exploration of algorithm. Moreover, the 1-nearest neighbor method is used as a classifier to evaluate the classification accuracy of a particle. Some international standard data sets are selected to evaluate the proposed algorithm. The experiments show that the proposed algorithm is competitive in terms of both classification accuracy and computational performance.
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