A tropical version of the high‐resolution (300 m) UK Met Office forecast model (UM) using the MORUSES urban canopy parametrization (UCP) is adapted for Singapore. High‐resolution urban surface ...parameters are determined using a methodology based on Voronoi polygons applied to a 3D building database. The model is evaluated for clear sky and calm conditions at the neighbourhood scale by comparing its predictions with two sources of observations: energy balance data from an eddy covariance flux tower located in a low‐rise residential area, and a network of sensors measuring screen‐level temperature across the city. The model is able to reproduce the diurnal cycle of the surface energy balance fluxes. Net radiation is overestimated which likely follows from an underestimation in cloud cover and effective surface albedo. This overestimation partly explains the overestimation of the sensible‐ and latent‐heat fluxes. The higher model sensible‐heat flux is further hypothesised to be related to the overestimation of modelled canyon sensible‐heat flux. Its peak exhibits a 1 h delay, similar to simulated roof and canyon surface temperature. The model captures the diurnal cycle of temperature at a height of 20.5 m above ground and at screen level. A night‐time cold bias of 0.1–1.1 K and an overestimation of the daytime peak value are observed at both heights. These deviations are smaller than those predicted by other UCPs reported in the literature. A simple method to estimate the capability of an urban model to qualitatively distinguish screen‐level temperature differences across different urban morphologies is developed which shows that MORUSES is clearly able to represent the impacts of different neighbourhoods on the thermal environment.
This study tests the performance of a tropical version of the UK Met Office forecast model with MORUSES urban canopy parametrization in a tropical city. The model reproduces the diurnal cycle of net radiation and sensible‐ and latent‐heat fluxes with some discrepancies. Air temperature is closely reproduced in the inertial sublayer and at screen‐level. Further, a simple new method which proves that the model properly differentiates between neighbourhoods with respect to the impact on screen‐level temperature is presented.
Understanding the tectonic evolution of the North China Craton and its destruction mechanism requires the knowledge of eastern North China's fine crustal velocity structure. Using the two-year record ...of 342 ChinArray stations deployed in eastern North China, we obtain the Rayleigh wave phase velocity via ambient noise interferometry and Rayleigh wave ellipticity from ∼1000 teleseismic events. High-resolution sedimentary thickness and crustal 3D S-wave velocity structure are obtained by jointly inverting these observations. The results show that the Bohai Bay Basin is infilled with thick sediments and the Central Bohai Sea is the current depocenter with sedimentary thickness up to about 6 km. The crust and uppermost mantle beneath the Bohai Bay Basin are characterized by low velocity, indicating a high internal temperature of the crust. An upwelling of mantle thermal material under the crust of the Bohai Bay Basin continuously modifies the crust, suggesting that bottom-up thermochemical erosion is likely the primary control factor of crustal modification and thinning in this area. The uplift areas around the basin generally exhibit high velocity with weaker crustal modification, showing the heterogeneity of craton modification. Moreover, localized low-velocity zones observed beneath the Chifeng Volcanos, Dalainor Volcanos, and Kuandian Volcanos indicate the residual magmatism beneath these Quaternary volcanos. Furthermore, the magmatism beneath the Chifeng and Dalainor Volcanos shares a common magmatic source.
•High-resolution 3-D S wave velocity model from joint inversion of Rayleigh wave phase velocity and ellipticity.•Bottom-up thermochemical erosion is the main control factor of crustal modification and thinning in Bohai Bay Basin.•Residual magmatism beneath the Chifeng Volcanos, Dalainor Volcanos and Kuandian Volcanos is observed.
Self‐assembly is an appealing strategy for preparing nanospheres with different interiors, which are essential for their applications. Although many assembly strategies have been proposed, ...controlling the assembly processes from kinetic aspects is a big challenge. Here, by employing the different reaction kinetics of the assembly precursors, a sequential assembly strategy is proposed to tailor the interior structure of porous carbon spheres. Through changing the feeding interval of resin and silica precursors from 0 to 60 min, their nucleation order can be controlled in the assembly process to prepare porous carbon spheres (≈450 nm in size) with tunable type (i.e., hollow or solid) and size (from less than 100 nm to around 230 nm) of interiors. The hollow spheres exhibit over three times the catalytic activity of the core–shell counterparts for activating peroxymonosulfate to remove organic water contaminants, and the activity can be further improved by decreasing the cavity size. These results show the great significance of the sequential assembly strategy for interior engineering of nanospheres. This work opens up a new approach for rational design and synthesis of interior‐structured nanospheres.
A sequential assembly approach is developed by simply changing the feeding interval of the carbon and silica precursors for preparing the porous carbon spheres with tunable type (i.e., hollow or solid) and size of interiors. The interior engineering of the carbon spheres significantly enhances their performance in catalytic water decontamination through peroxymonosulfate activation.
Composting is an effective methodology for the treatment of organic waste like pig manure (PM) before land application. However, nitrogen loss through NH
3 volatilization during the thermophilic ...phase is one of the major disadvantages of composting. The presence of Cu and Zn in compost arising from pig feed additives is also an issue. In this study the effects of bamboo charcoal (BC) and bamboo vinegar (BV) added to composting piles on nitrogen conservation and immobility of Cu and Zn during PM composting was investigated. Total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN) loss and mobility of Cu and Zn decreased with increased BC addition. TKN loss and mobility of Cu and Zn in the treatment with 9% BC at the end of composting significantly decreased by 65%, 35% and 39% respectively, as compared to the control. Addition of BV further decreased TKN loss. After composting, TKN loss in the treatment with 3% BC
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0.4% BV was 23% lower than that in the treatment with 9% BC. The final results indicated that by adding BC or BC
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BV into PM composting is an effective method to reduce TKN loss and control the mobility of Cu and Zn.
Summary Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is a highly malignant neoplasm and lacks of effective treatment, characterized by dense desmoplastic stroma rich in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), ...which have been indicated to facilitate tumor progression in several types of human cancer. However, the clinical relevance of CAFs in ICC has not been fully characterized. Here, we evaluated the histological phenotype of CAFs and immunohistochemical expressions of α-SMA, FSP-1, and PDGFRβ in 71 ICC cases, and found that immature CAF phenotype was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis (P = .045), advance TNM stage (P = .025) and poor 5-year overall survival (OS) (38.5% vs. 78.6%, P = .015). In addition, α-SMA, FSP-1, and PDGFRβ were positively expressed in stromal fibroblasts in 63.4% (45/71), 84.5% (60/71), and 78.9% (56/71) of patients, respectively. Positive expression of α-SMA was correlated with poor differentiation (P = .032); FSP-1 expression in stromal fibroblasts was linked with lymph node metastasis (P = .022) and immature phenotype (P = .048). What's more, positive expression of FSP-1 in cancer cells was observed in 22.5% (16/71) of cases and was correlated with worse 5-year OS (36.4% vs.76.7%, P = .014). Importantly, in multivariate analysis, histological CAF phenotype was an independent prognostic factor for OS in ICC. Our findings demonstrated histological categorization of CAFs was a useful predictor for prognosis, providing new evidence that CAFs play crucial role in tumor progression and can serve as potential therapeutic targets in ICC.
Active oxygen species (AOS) play key roles in many important catalytic reactions relevant to clean energy and environment. However, it remains challenging to characterize the active sites for ...producing AOS and to image the surface properties of AOS, especially on multicomponent metallic catalyst surfaces. Herein, we utilize tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) to probe the local generation and diffusion of OH radicals on a Pd/Au(111) bimetallic catalyst surface. The reactive OH radicals can be catalytically generated from hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) at the metal surface, which then oxidizes the surface adsorbed thiolate, a reactant that is used as the TERS probe. By TERS imaging of the spatial distribution of unreacted thiolate molecules, we demonstrate that the Pd surface is active for generation of OH radicals and the Pd step edge shows much higher activity than the Pd terrace, whereas the Au surface is inactive. Furthermore, we find that the locally generated OH radicals at the Pd step edge could diffuse to both the Au and the Pd surface sites to induce oxidative reactions, with a diffusion length estimated to be about 5.4 nm. Our TERS imaging with few-nanometer spatial resolution not only unravels the active sites but also characterizes in real space the diffusion behavior of OH radicals. The results are highly valuable to understand AOS-triggered catalytic reactions. The strategy of using reactants with large Raman cross sections as TERS probes may broaden the application of TERS for studying catalysis with reactive small molecules.
This review identifies and analyses the interfacial challenges of aqueous zinc-ion batteries and discusses the design strategies for addressing the defined interfacial issues from the perspectives of ...electrolyte optimization, electrode modification and separator improvement.
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Aqueous zinc-ion batteries have advantages over lithium-ion batteries, such as low cost, and good safety. However, their development is currently facing several challenges. One of the main critical challenges is their poor electrode–electrolyte interface. Addressing this requires understanding the physics and chemistry at the electrode–electrolyte interface, including the cathode-electrolyte interface and anode-electrolyte interface. This review first identifies and analyses the interfacial challenges of aqueous zinc-ion batteries. Then, it discusses the design strategies for addressing the defined interfacial issues from the perspectives of electrolyte optimization, electrode modification, and separator improvement. Finally, it provides corrective recommendations and strategies for the rational design of electrode–electrolyte interface in aqueous zinc-ion batteries towards their high-performance and reliable energy storage.
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•Four pilot-scale CWs differing in plant species and planting patterns were compared.•Nutrients, antibiotics and ARGs in aquaculture wastewater were efficiently removed.•Microbial ...structure and diversity spatially differed in four CWs.•Treatment performances of CWs attributed to the plant physiological features.
Four horizontal subsurface flow pilot-scale constructed wetlands (CWs) named as S1, S2, M1 and M2 were constructed to treat aquaculture wastewater. And two different plant species (Iris pseudacorus and Phragmites australis) were cultivated in single and mixed planting patterns in these four CWs. The removal rate of conventional pollutants (nutrient and organic compounds), antibiotics including enrofloxacin (ENR), sulfamethoxazole (SMZ), and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) were evaluated among those CWs. The total nitrogen and NH4+–N removal rates of all CWs were 73.24%–91.46% and 61.20%–92.27%, respectively. CWs with mixed planting patterns, such as M1 (planted with Iris pseudacorus at the forepart and Phragmites australis at the back) and M2 (alternate cultivation with Iris pseudacorus and Phragmites australis) showed better performances than CWs planted with single plant species, such as S1 (Iris pseudacorus) and S2 (Phragmites australis). However, S1 and S2 exhibited higher removal efficiencies for emerging contaminants: S1 had removal efficiencies of 77.64%, 68.70%, and 58.21% for ENR, SMZ, and total ARGs, respectively, and S2 had removal efficiencies of 81.11%, 64.94%, and 56.26% for ENR, SMZ, and total ARGs, respectively. Compared with single planting, the dominant genera in mixed planting exhibited lower relative abundance in anaerobes and higher percent of bacteria associated with nitrogen metabolism, indicating that different plant physiological characteristics affected the microbial community structures of the CWs.
Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) leads to extensive degradation of the quality of life of patients. Glycyrrhizic acid (GA) has been reported to exert neuroprotective effects on status epilepticus. ...Herein, the current study set out to explore the functional mechanism of GA in TLE young rats. Firstly, TLE young rat models were established using the lithium chloride and pilocarpine regimen and then subjected to treatment with different doses of GA, miR‐194‐5p‐antagomir, or/and sh‐prostaglandin‐endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2) to observe changes in iron content, glutathione and malondialdehyde levels, and GPX4 (glutathione peroxidase 4) and PTGS2 protein levels in the hippocampus. Neuronal injury and apoptosis were assessed through HE, Nissl, and TUNEL staining. Additionally, the expression patterns of miR‐194‐5p were detected. The binding site of miR‐194‐5p and PTGS2 was verified with a dual‐luciferase assay. Briefly, different doses of GA (20, 40, and 60 mg/kg) reduced the epileptic score, frequency, and duration in TLE young rats, along with reductions in iron content, lipid peroxidation, neuronal injury, and apoptosis in the hippocampus. Silencing of miR‐194‐5p partly annulled the action of GA on inhibiting ferroptosis and attenuating neuronal injury in TLE young rats. Additionally, PTGS2 was validated as a target of miR‐194‐5p. GA inhibited ferroptosis and ameliorated neuronal injury in TLE young rats via the miR‐194‐5p/PTGS2 axis. Overall, our findings indicated that GA exerts protective effects on TLE young rats against neuronal injury by inhibiting ferroptosis through the miR‐194‐5p/PTGS2 axis.
