Akkermansia muciniphila, a common colonizer in the intestinal mucus layer of humans, has gradually been considered as promising candidate for the next‐generation probiotic, given its physiological ...benefits from animal and human studies. This article comprehensively reviewed A. muciniphila from the published peer‐reviewed articles in the aspects of its role in the host physiology and commonly consumed food that can boost its abundance, which should provide useful and fundamental information for scientists and engineers and even ordinary consumers. Akkermansia muciniphila is not only a crucial biomarker that indicates the physiology of human beings but also has huge potential to become a probiotic given its physiological benefits in various clinical scenarios. Current barriers in terms of regulations, necessity for large‐scale clinical experiments and production feasibility need to be resolved before A. muciniphila can be widely applied as the next‐generation probiotic.
Lengthening doctorate and post-doctorate training allow science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) Ph.Ds. to persist in high-intensity academic research environments at the cost of ...significant lifetime earnings. Using the largest longitudinal survey of U.S. Ph.D. recipients, I construct career paths for 135,599 STEM research doctorate holders over six job types and two employment statuses. Examining Ph.D. cohorts in four major STEM fields from 1950 to the present, I find evidence that the increasingly prevalent postdoctoral position allow STEM Ph.Ds. to remain in high-intensity academic research positions, albeit not necessarily on the tenure-track. However, these research opportunities come with an approximately $3,700 deduction in annual earnings per postdoctoral year. Taken together, STEM Ph.Ds. must weigh the non-pecuniary costs of remaining in academic research with this earnings loss to determine if postdoctoral positions are a worthwhile investment.
Summary Background Patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck have few treatment options. We aimed to assess the safety, tolerability, and antitumour activity ...of pembrolizumab, a humanised anti-programmed death receptor 1 (PD-1) antibody, in patients with PD-L1-positive recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Methods This study was an open-label, multicentre, phase 1b trial of patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Patients were eligible for enrolment if they were aged 18 years or older, had a confirmed diagnosis of recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, and had any level of PD-L1 expression (ie, at least 1% of tumour cells or stroma that were PD-L1-positive by immunohistochemistry). Patients received pembrolizumab 10 mg/kg intravenously every 2 weeks. Primary outcomes were safety in the per-protocol population and the proportion of patients with centrally reviewed overall response per Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors (RECIST, version 1.1). Overall response was analysed in the full analysis set, which was defined as all patients who had received at least one dose of pembrolizumab, had measurable disease at baseline, and one post-baseline scan or patients without a post-baseline scan who discontinued therapy because of disease progression or a drug-related adverse event. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , number NCT01848834 and is ongoing, but no longer enrolling patients. Findings Of the 104 patients screened between June 7, 2013, and Oct 3, 2013, 81 (78%) were PD-L1-positive. Of these, 60 patients with PD-L1-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck were enrolled and treated: 23 (38%) were HPV-positive and 37 (62%) were HPV-negative. Pembrolizumab was well tolerated, with 10 (17%) of 60 patients having grade 3–4 drug-related adverse events, the most common of which were increases in alanine aminotransferase and in aspartate aminotransferase, and hyponatraemia, each occurring in two of 60 patients; one patient developed a grade 3 drug-related rash. 27 (45%) of 60 patients experienced a serious adverse event. There were no drug-related deaths. The proportion of patients with an overall response by central imaging review was 18% (eight of 45 patients; 95% CI 8–32) in all patients and was 25% (four of 16 patients; 7–52) in HPV-positive patients and 14% (four of 29 patients; 4–32) in HPV-negative patients. Interpretation Pembrolizumab was well tolerated and demonstrated clinically meaningful antitumour activity in recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, supporting further study of pembrolizumab as anticancer therapy for advanced head and neck cancers. Funding Merck & Co.
Analyzing and understanding the structure and morphology of crystalline polymers has been and remains to be a major challenge. Some of the issues have resisted analyses for decades. The present ...account illustrates how individual contributions help build a body of knowledge that must cover length scales ranging from submolecular features to morphology and correlates them with bulk properties. Emphasis is put on structures and morphologies as formed spontaneously. Possible extension of the research area to connected fields is illustrated with a development on supramolecular crystals.
This article explores the rich heritage of the boundary element method (BEM) by examining its mathematical foundation from the potential theory, boundary value problems, Green's functions, Green's ...identities, to Fredholm integral equations. The 18th to 20th century mathematicians, whose contributions were key to the theoretical development, are honored with short biographies. The origin of the numerical implementation of boundary integral equations can be traced to the 1960s, when the electronic computers had become available. The full emergence of the numerical technique known as the boundary element method occurred in the late 1970s. This article reviews the early history of the boundary element method up to the late 1970s.
Self-assembly of rigid building blocks with explicit shape and symmetry is substantially influenced by the geometric factors and remains largely unexplored. We report the selective assembly behaviors ...of a class of precisely defined, nanosized giant tetrahedra constructed by placing different polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) molecular nanoparticles at the vertices of a rigid tetrahedral framework. Designed symmetry breaking of these giant tetrahedra introduces precise positional interactions and results in diverse selectively assembled, highly ordered supramolecular lattices including a Frank-Kasper A15 phase, which resembles the essential structural features of certain metal alloys but at a larger length scale. These results demonstrate the power of persistent molecular geometry with balanced enthalpy and entropy in creating thermodynamically stable supramolecular lattices with properties distinct from those of other self-assembling soft materials.
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•Swine wastewater is a suitable medium for microalgae growth and biomass production.•Pollutants in swine wastewater can be removed by harvesting microalgae.•Correlations between ...microalgae and toxicants/bacteria need further investigation.•Harvested biomass from wastewater has great potential to convert into bioenergy.
Ever-increasing swine wastewater (SW) has become a serious environmental concern. High levels of nutrients and toxic contaminants in SW significantly impact on the ecosystem and public health. On the other hand, swine wastewater is considered as valuable water and nutrient source for microalgae cultivation. The potential for converting the nutrients from SW into valuable biomass and then generating bioenergy from it has drawn increasing attention. For this reason, this review comprehensively discussed the biomass production, SW treatment efficiencies, and bioenergy generation potentials through cultivating microalgae in SW. Microalgae species grow well in SW with large amounts of biomass being produced, despite the impact of various parameters (e.g., nutrients and toxicants levels, cultivation conditions, and bacteria in SW). Pollutants in SW can effectively be removed by harvesting microalgae from SW, and the harvested microalgae biomass elicits high potential for conversion to valuable bioenergy.
Antibiotics and hormones in swine wastewater have become a critical concern worldwide due to the severe threats to human health and the eco-environment. Removal of most detectable antibiotics and ...hormones, such as sulfonamides (SAs), SMs, tetracyclines (TCs), macrolides, and estrogenic hormones from swine wastewater utilizing various biological processes were summarized and compared. In biological processes, biosorption and biodegradation are the two major removal mechanisms for antibiotics and hormones. The residuals in treated effluents and sludge of conventional activated sludge and anaerobic digestion processes can still pose risks to the surrounding environment, and the anaerobic processes' removal efficiencies were inferior to those of aerobic processes. In contrast, membrane bioreactors (MBRs), constructed wetlands (CWs) and modified processes performed better because of their higher biodegradation of toxicants. Process modification on activated sludge, anaerobic digestion and conventional MBRs could also enhance the performance (e.g. removing up to 98% SMs, 88.9% TCs, and 99.6% hormones from wastewater). The hybrid process combining MBRs with biological or physical technology also led to better removal efficiency. As such, modified conventional biological processes, advanced biological technologies and MBR hybrid systems are considered as a promising technology for removing toxicants from swine wastewater.
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•Biological antibiotics and hormones treatment process for swine wastewater was reviewed.•Mechanisms of antibiotics/hormones removal can be biosorption and biodegradation.•Conventional AS and AD are ineffective for antibiotics & hormones removal.•MBRs/hybrid MBRs and constructed wetlands can improve toxicants removal.•Modified conventional bioreactors are also efficient in antibiotics and hormones removal.
Groundwater resources are under increasing threat from growing demand, wasteful use, and contamination. Here, conceptual and mathematical models are provided that will help decision-making on the ...management and remediation of groundwater resources.
Strength of structural materials and fibers is usually increased at the expense of strain at failure and toughness. Recent experimental studies have demonstrated improvements in modulus and strength ...of electrospun polymer nanofibers with reduction of their diameter. Nanofiber toughness has not been analyzed; however, from the classical materials property trade-off, one can expect it to decrease. Here, on the basis of a comprehensive analysis of long (5–10 mm) individual polyacrylonitrile nanofibers, we show that nanofiber toughness also dramatically improves. Reduction of fiber diameter from 2.8 μm to ∼100 nm resulted in simultaneous increases in elastic modulus from 0.36 to 48 GPa, true strength from 15 to 1750 MPa, and toughness from 0.25 to 605 MPa with the largest increases recorded for the ultrafine nanofibers smaller than 250 nm. The observed size effects showed no sign of saturation. Structural investigations and comparisons with mechanical behavior of annealed nanofibers allowed us to attribute ultrahigh ductility (average failure strain stayed over 50%) and toughness to low nanofiber crystallinity resulting from rapid solidification of ultrafine electrospun jets. Demonstrated superior mechanical performance coupled with the unique macro-nano nature of continuous nanofibers makes them readily available for macroscopic materials and composites that can be used in safety-critical applications. The proposed mechanism of simultaneously high strength, modulus, and toughness challenges the prevailing 50 year old paradigm of high-performance polymer fiber development calling for high polymer crystallinity and may have broad implications in fiber science and technology.
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