Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is closely associated with the high risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. Exosomal circRNAs can exert significant roles in the pathology of various diseases. ...Nevertheless, the role of exosomal circRNAs in DKD progression remains barely known. Circular RNA DLGAP4 has been reported to be in involved in acute ischemic stroke. In our study, we found exosomal circ_DLGAP4 was increased in the exosomes isolated from HG-treated mesangial cells (MCs), DKD patients, and DKD rat models compared with the corresponding normal subjects. Then, we observed that exo-circ_DLGAP4 significantly promoted proliferation and fibrosis of MCs cells. Moreover, to study the underlying mechanism of circ_DLGAP4 in regulating DKD, bioinformatics method was consulted and miR-143 was predicted as its target. The direct correlation between miR-143 and circ_DLGAP4 was validated in MCs. MCs proliferation and fibrosis were increased by circ_DLGAP4, which could be decreased by mimic-miR-143. Next, elevated expression of Erb-b2 receptor tyrosine kinase 3 (ERBB3) is involved in various diseases. However, the function of ERBB3 in DKD development remains poorly known. Next, ERBB3 was predicted as the downstream target for miR-143. It was displayed that circ_DLGAP4 promoted proliferation and fibrosis of MCs by sponging miR-143 and regulating ERBB3/NF-κB/MMP-2 axis. Meanwhile, the loss of exo-circ_DLGAP4 induced miR-143 and repressed ERBB3/NF-κB/MMP-2 expression in MCs. Subsequently, in vivo assays were performed and it was proved that overexpression of circ_DLGAP4 markedly promoted DKD progression in vivo via modulating miR-143/ERBB3/NF-κB/MMP-2. In conclusion, we indicated that exosomal circ_DLGAP4 could prove a novel insight for DKD development.
Compact Nonlinear Yagi-Uda Nanoantennas Xiong, Xiaoyan Y Z; Jiang, Li Jun; Sha, Wei E I ...
Scientific reports,
01/2016, Letnik:
6, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Nanoantennas have demonstrated unprecedented capabilities for manipulating the intensity and direction of light emission over a broad frequency range. The directional beam steering offered by ...nanoantennas has important applications in areas including microscopy, spectroscopy, quantum computing, and on-chip optical communication. Although both the physical principles and experimental realizations of directional linear nanoantennas has become increasingly mature, angular control of nonlinear radiation using nanoantennas has not been explored yet. Here we propose a novel concept of nonlinear Yagi-Uda nanoantenna to direct second harmonic radiation from a metallic nanosphere. By carefully tuning the spacing and dimensions of two lossless dielectric elements, which function respectively as a compact director and reflector, the second harmonic radiation is deflected 90 degrees with reference to the incident light (pump) direction. This abnormal light-bending phenomenon is due to the constructive and destructive interference between the second harmonic radiation governed by a special selection rule and the induced electric dipolar and magnetic quadrupolar radiation from the two dielectric antenna elements. Simultaneous spectral and spatial isolation of scattered second harmonic waves from incident fundamental waves pave a new way towards nonlinear signal detection and sensing.
In view of the importance of inert-atmosphere sludge pyrolysis for effective waste recycling and carbon emission reduction, this study probed the effects of temperature (300–700 °C) and atmosphere ...(100% N
2
, 10 CO
2
/90% N
2
, or 100% CO
2
) on the properties of biochar and gases obtained by sludge pyrolysis in a horizontal tube furnace. The emissions of NO, SO
2
, H
2
S, and CO increased with increasing temperature, as the inhibitory effect of CO
2
on the formation of these gases (observed at <500 °C) concomitantly weakened and was superseded by the reaction of CO
2
with carbon at higher temperature to afford gaseous products. The specific surface area (S
BET
) and pore volume of the biochar produced in the presence of CO
2
increased with increasing temperature up to 500 °C, while at higher temperatures the inhibitory effect of CO
2
on pore structure development resulted in a decreased S
BET
and an increased macropore content. These results show that pyrolysis is an effective treatment method for sludge; it can remove 48% N and 50% S in sludge and mitigate the emission of polluting gases. When CO
2
participates in the pyrolysis reaction, the S
BET
of biochar increases significantly. In general, sludge biochar has the potential to be applied as fuel and as an adsorbent.
In this study, ZnAl-layered double hydroxide (ZnAl-LDH) was functionalized with 2-phenylbenzimidazole-5-sulfonic acid (PBSA) to prepare ZnAl-PBSA-LDH using a simple one-step method. The ...electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) result of the solution phase demonstrated excellent corrosion inhibition performance of ZnAl-PBSA-LDH. Subsequently, 0.6 wt.% ZnAl-PBSA-LDH with shielding effects and active inhibition was incorporated into the water-based epoxy (WEP) for preparing the high-performance anti-corrosion coating (6-ZPL/WEP). The EIS test illustrated that the 6-ZPL/WEP coating maintained a high low-frequency impedance modulus (|Z
|) after 30 days of immersion, which is nearly two orders of magnitude higher compared to that of the blank coating. These results demonstrated that ZnAl-PBSA-LDH could efficiently improve the corrosion resistance of the WEP coating. Therefore, this study introduces new insights into the use of layered double hydroxides (LDHs) in the domain of anti-corrosion.
Display omitted
► Applications of TiO2 film electrodes in organic pollutants degradation are reviewed. ► TiO2 nanostructured electrodes have shown high efficiency in PEC degradation. ► Influencing ...factors of PEC degradation of organic pollutants are discussed. ► Improvement of PEC degradation by doped TiO2 film electrodes are demonstrated. ► The kinetic model of PEC degradation of organic pollutants is highlighted.
Photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) technology involved applying an electrical bias to a TiO2 film electrode, has been widely applied to the degradation of refractory organic pollutants, owing to its high degradation efficiency. This paper reviews recent developments in the PEC degradation of recalcitrant organic contaminants using a TiO2 film electrode. The preparation and application of various TiO2 film electrodes have been investigated, as well as the parameters that influence PEC activity such as the crystal structure, the film thickness and substrate material, the applied electrical bias, the solution pH and conductivity. The improvement of PEC activity by doping the TiO2 film electrode with metal and non-metal ions has been discussed. The mechanism and kinetics for the PEC degradation of organic pollutants have also been highlighted.
With the high G value of vibration, outstanding sieving behaviors of a flip-flow screen are more likely to appear, but structural damages are aggravated under the high amplitude vibration. ...Considering rubber springs role on the vibration energy dissipation, viscoelasticity of rubber springs (i.e., shear springs and vibration isolation springs), is noticed to deal with the above contradiction. However, when rubber springs experience large amplitude vibration, viscoelastic responses influence more on the amount of damping than in the linear (i.e., small amplitude) vibration regime, as the frequency dependence of rubber springs is noteworthy. For this purpose, the Generalized Maxwell model is used to depict the frequency dependence of rubber springs and the practical damping is converted to a series damping parameters of the system, numerical models of the flip-flow screen under startup and shutdown modes and steady working conditions are proposed and verified firstly. Secondly, in order to explore kinetics responses of the elastic screen panel under different rubber springs damping coefficients, nonlinear finite element model of which is established. Finally, effects of rubber springs nonlinear damping on screen frames vibrations and screen panels nonlinear responses are studied. Results indicate that hysteretic damping of rubber springs can effectively solve the conflict between vibration strength and structural reliability of the flip-flow screen, since the low sensitivities of maximum stresses and the high sensitivities of accelerations to rubber springs damping are found.
A new method for feature subset selection in machine learning, FSS-MGSA (Feature Subset Selection by Modified Gravitational Search Algorithm), is presented. FSS-MGSA is an evolutionary, stochastic ...search algorithm based on the law of gravity and mass interactions, and it can be executed when domain knowledge is not available. A wrapper approach, over Naive-Bayes, ID3, K-Nearest Neighbor and Support Vector Machine learning algorithms, is used to evaluate the goodness of each visited solution. The key to the success of the MGSA is to utilize the piecewise linear chaotic map for increasing its diversity of species, and to use sequential quadratic programming for accelerating local exploitation. Promising results are achieved in a variety of tasks where domain knowledge is not available. The experimental results show that the proposed method has the ability of selecting the discriminating input features correctly and can achieve high accuracy of classification, which is comparable to or better than well-known similar classifier systems. Furthermore, the MGSA is tested on ten functions provided by CEC 2005 special session and compared with various modified Gravitational Search Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, and Genetic Algorithm. The obtained results confirm the high performance of the MGSA in solving various problems in optimization.
PDF
