Cancer has remained among the top ten causes of death in Taiwan since 1982. Uterine sarcoma is a rare gynecologic cancer, and chemotherapy is one type of cancer treatment. Doxorubicin (Dox) is widely ...used for treating several cancers, including uterine sarcoma, however, multidrug resistance (MDR) is a major clinical problem and a critical cause of treatment failure. The ethanolic extracts of adlay testa (ATE) exhibited significant anticancer activities against many cancer types.
In this study we investigated the antitumor effects of the hexane fraction of the adlay testa ethanolic extracts (ATE-Hex) on the human uterine sarcoma cancer cell line MES-SA, as well as on the multidrug-resistant human uterine sarcoma cancer cell line MES-SA/Dx5.
The MTT assay was performed to assess the effects of the extracts of different parts of the adlay on the proliferation of human uterine sarcoma cells (MES-SA and MES-SA/Dx5) and human uterine smooth muscle cells (HUtSMCs). To determine whether ATE-Hex has a chemosensitizing effect on drug-resistant uterine sarcoma cells, the MTT assay was performed to examine the synergistic effects of ATE-Hex, the chemotherapeutic drug Dox alone, and in combination. Rhodamine accumulation was analyzed using fluorescence detection. Apoptotic cells were analyzed via flow cytometry. In addition, employing a flame ionization detector (GC/FID) gas chromatography was also developed as the analysis platform for ATE-Hex.
The results demonstrated that ATE-Hex exhibited the best effects of inhibition on MES-SA and MES-SA/Dx5 cells. Co-treatment of ATE-Hex and Dox could synergistically inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells. ATE-Hex reduced the rhodamine efflux in MES-SA/Dx5 cells, indicating that ATE-Hex could reduce the expression of P-gp. In addition, our results showed that treatment with ATE-Hex alone or in combination with Dox significantly inhibited the growth of cancer cells and induced apoptosis by increasing the sub-G1 phase and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) being cleaved. Flow cytometry revealed that ATE-Hex induced apoptosis.
These results suggest that ATE-Hex can inhibit human uterine sarcoma cancer cells by inducing apoptosis and increasing the chemosensitivity of the multidrug-resistant human uterine sarcoma cancer cell MES-SA/Dx5 to Dox. Furthermore, the combination of ATE-Hex and Dox could decrease MDR and increase the synergistic effect.
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•Nitrogen rich species quinazolines are charming target against convulsions.•This review collates the current research finished on quinazoline scaffold as anticonvulsants reported in literature by ...researchers in the years (2015–2020).•This work is helpful for researchers who planning to design and development of quinazoline as anticonvulsant.
Epilepsy is one of the most frequent chronic neurological disorder extremely threatening the life and good health. More than 70 million individuals suffering from epilepsy worldwide and it required long-term therapy. Many epileptic patients not fully satisfied with currently available treatment likewise, frequent drugs have shown a lack of efficacy, side effects, and drug interaction. Therefore, the search for antiepileptics with greater selectivity and lesser toxicity continues to be the focus and task in medicinal chemistry. Quinazoline represents a distinct class of biologically active nitrogen heterocyclic nucleus with great anticonvulsants potential. In the past few years, persistent medicinal chemistry efforts have developed diverse structurally functionalized potential quinazoline derivatives for anticonvulsant potential. This work report covers most current efforts taken in the design, development, and anticonvulsant efficacy of quinazoline analogs from 2015 to 2020.
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The Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is a production management system serving as the information center in the enterprise to improve manufacturing transparency. It is the middle layer connecting ...the manufacturing process on the shop floor and the business process on the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) level. On the one hand, the MES guides the execution of rough production plans into detailed operations on the shop floor. On the other hand, it provides the firm with critical key performance indicators (KPIs), enabling commercial decisions. The support from the MES, such as production fine planning, performance analysis, and product tracing, can help manufacturers to be efficient and gain more competitiveness in the global market. However, in the food and beverage industry, which faces strict regulations, growing competitiveness, customer demand changing, and suffer from low-profit margins, the implementation of the MES did not become widespread. This article intends to present the particular characteristics of the food and beverage manufacturing process, analyze the potential benefits and barriers of the MES implementation in the food and beverage industry through literature review. The solutions to solve the MES implementation issues and the research areas that need to be explored in order to meet the MES requirements from the food and beverage industry are also discussed in this article.
•Characteristics and requirements from the food and beverage industry.•Benefits of the MES to the food and beverage manufacturing process.•Integrating and customizing efforts increase the complexity of MES implementation.•Food and beverage manufacturers have limited resources to implement the MES.•Standard information model, SOA, and MDE for MES are considered as solutions.
Epilepsy is one of the common diseases seriously threatening life and health of human. More than 50 million people are suffering from this condition and anticonvulsant agents are the main treatment. ...However, side effects and intolerance, and a lack of efficacy limit the application of the current anticonvulsant agents. The search for new anticonvulsant agents with higher efficacy and lower toxicity continues to be the focus and task in medicinal chemistry. Numbers of triazole derivatives as clinical drugs or candidates have been frequently employed for the treatment of various types of diseases, which have proved the importance of this heterocyclic nucleus in drug design and discovery. Recently many endeavours were made to involve the triazole into the anticonvulsants design, which have brought lots of active compounds. This work is an attempt to systematically review the research of triazole derivatives in the design and development of anticonvulsant agents during the past two decades.
The advent of intelligent wearable (external devices, such as watches and clothing) and insideable (implanted devices, such as identification chips or chips that control technological devices) ...human-capacity enhancing technologies has opened an ethical debate about their development and use in society. Based on data from an international sample of 1563 digital natives, a model is proposed and tested (1) that introduces ethical judgment and its five dimensions (“moral equity”, “relativism”, “utilitarianism”, “egoism” and “contractualism”) to explain intention to use intelligent capacity-enhancing technological devices; (2) that helps to explain the technological leap involved in moving from wearing technologies to incorporating them into the human body, through the moderating role that technology type has in the relationship between ethical judgment and intention to use. The results showed that: (1) Ethical judgment is key for the acceptance of wearables and insideables, and has greater explanatory capacity for insideables than for wearables; (2) “Egoism” has the highest explanatory power for intention to use insideables and “utilitarianism” is the most important dimension for intention to use wearables. Finally, a series of operational implications are proposed to guide the development and commercialisation of devices, while taking into account the ethical judgment of the users.
•The advent of human-capacity enhancing wearable and insideable technologies has opened an ethical debate.•Ethical judgment is key for the acceptance of wearables and insideables by digital natives.•Egoism has the highest explanatory power for intention to use insideables for digital natives.•Utilitarianism is the most important dimension for intention to use wearables for digital natives.
An enrichment methodology was developed for a homoacetogenic biocathode that is able to function at high concentrations of bicarbonates for the microbial electrosynthesis (MES) of acetate from carbon ...dioxide. The study was performed in two stages; enrichment of consortia in serum bottles and the development of a biocathode in MES. A homoacetogenic consortium was sequentially grown under increasing concentrations of bicarbonate, in serum bottles, at room temperature. The acetate production rate was found to increase with the increase in the bicarbonate concentration and evidenced a maximum production rate of 260 mg/L d−1 (15 g HCO3−/L). On the contrary, carbon conversion efficiency decreased with the increase in the bicarbonate concentration, which evidenced a maximum at 2.5 g HCO3−/L (90.16%). Following a further increase in the bicarbonate concentration up to 20 g HCO3−/L, a visible inhibition was registered with respect to the acetate production rate and the carbon conversion efficiency. Well adapted biomass from 15 g HCO3−/L was used to develop biocathodic catalyst for MES. An effective biocathode was developed after 4 cycles of operation, during which acetate production was improved gradually, evidencing a maximum production rate of 24.53 mg acetate L−1 d−1 (carbon conversion efficiency, 47.72%). Compared to the enrichment stage, the carbon conversion efficiency and the rate of acetate production in MES were found to be low. The production of acetate induced a change in the catholyte pH, from neutral conditions towards acidic conditions.
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•Homoacetogenic mixed consortia was enriched under high bicarbonate concentrations.•Enriched consortia showed faster adaptation (in 4 cycles) and biocathode formation.•Microbial electrosynthesis (MES) sustained at 15 g/L of bicarbonate concentrations.•MES produced acetate at 24 mg/L-day along with carbon conversion efficiency of 48%.•Catholyte pH was maintained in favorable range for stable biocathode function.
This paper presents the unique design and processing conditions of a micro-CAES device that generates, stores and delivers electrical energy with highly efficient total energy conversion. The ...micro-CAES installation is divided into six parts, where air, the energy carrier, is compressed, stored, heated and expanded in appropriate sections. We focus mainly on the post-preparation section, where the air mass flow is pulse heated and controlled by Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), and the expansion section, where multiple piston drives are used to achieve maximum energy conversion efficiency or the required amount of electricity to be fed into the grid. We discover that the controllability of expansion process performance is improved by exploiting the inertia of the following elements in multiple reciprocating engines: piston, piston rod, connecting rod, crank, and crankshaft, connected with air injection dynamics and pulse heating by Thermal Energy Storage (TES). Furthermore, we investigate the efficiency using our own zero-dimensional mathematical model illustrating the complex dynamics of air processing. The mathematical model was compared with experimental data for the single-drive air expander, showing qualitatively and quantitatively satisfying model reliability. Moreover, we performed a sensitivity analysis to determine the best number of reciprocating drives involved in the expansion section and the best operating conditions. The use of the PWM function of mass flow of air supplied the expander with an index of 0.5 together with pulsating air heating in the expander installation, including three- reciprocating drives, allows a maximum total energy conversion efficiency of 81%. The presented piston drive expander seems to be a promising solution for micro-CAES in residential and industrial applications, especially where additional low-temperature waste heat is available, and an intermittent control strategy is implemented.
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•Original construction of the air expander includes multi-piston-drives.•The micro-CAES with air preheat and PWM control strategy ware implemented.•Obtained maximum efficiency of piston-drive micro-CAES is 81%.•Generated electrical power could be control with overall efficiency change up to 10%.
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•A novel ECOFB-MES was applied to restore practical polluted urban water bodies.•The TN removal load of ECOFB-MES was 12.7–16.6 times higher than normal ECOFB.•ECOFB-MES increased TC ...removal efficiency of sediment by 2.4 times.•MES enhanced pollutants removal via electrons compensation under low-carbon water.
An innovative ecological floating bed coupled with sedimental microbial electrochemical system (ECOFB-MES) was designed for urban water remediation. A demonstration-scale ECOFB-MES of approximately 500 m2 was firstly constructed to perform the remediation of 8040 m2 urban water located in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. During one-year operation, the COD, NH4+–N, NO3¯–N and TP concentrations stabilized around 10.3 ± 4.0 mg/L, 0.04 ± 0.02 mg/L, 0.61 ± 0.27 mg/L and 0.12 ± 0.05 mg/L from May 2021 to December 2021. The COD, TN and TP removal loads in April when MESs were connected were 72.47 g/d/m2, 4.26 g/d/m2 and 0.39 g/d/m2, which were 3.6, 15.3 and 2.8 times higher than those in January (open circuit). The average TC removal efficiency of sediment near anode was 36.7 %, which was 2.4 times higher than that of sediment far from anode (15.5 %). The average current of the MESs improved from 0.6 ± 0.1 mA to 32.0 ± 2.9 mA with reducing external resistance gradually, which was responsible for higher TC removal efficiency and lower dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration (7.78 ± 1.35 mg/L), which could enhance nitrogen removal. The MES enhanced the total number of species and the bacteria diversity of polyester fibers and roots in the same coupled system. The dominant functional bacteria such as Pseudomonas, Gemmobacter, Aeromonas and Arthrobacter beneficial for oxygen reduction and nitrogen removal were found on biocathode, and this indicated that biocathode of present system could reduce nitrate mainly through heterotrophic nitrification and aerobic denitrification. Results from the president research indicated that the ECOFB-MES provides a rewarding reference for practical application of polluted urban water remediation.
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•R. sphaeroides was cultivated by microbial electrosynthesis (MES) with CO2.•CO2 was the sole carbon source for biomass formation on the electrode.•Electrode-driven electron/proton ...transfer enabled photoautotrophic H2 production.•The effects of different nitrogen sources on H2 production were examined.•The coulombic efficiencies for photoautotrophic H2 production were compared.
Conventional photoheterotrophic H2 production by purple sulfur bacteria requires additional organic substrates as the carbon and energy sources. This study examined the novel photoautotrophic H2 production of Rhodobacter sphaeroides with concomitant CO2 uptake in microbial electrosynthesis (MES). Under an applied potential of −0.9 V vs. Ag/AgCl to the cathode, Rhodobacter sphaeroides produced hydrogen with CO2 as the sole carbon source under illumination. The initial planktonic cells decreased rapidly in suspension, whereas biomass formation on the cathode surface increased gradually during MES operation. The electron and carbon flow under photoautotrophic conditions in MES were estimated. Glutamate, as the nitrogen source, enhanced hydrogen production significantly (328 mL/L/day) compared to NH4Cl (67 mL/L/day) during seven days of operation. The photoautotrophic condition with 6000 lx presented CO2 consumption and simultaneous biomass formation on the cathode electrode. MES-driven electron and proton transfer enabled the simultaneous production of hydrogen and CO2 uptake.
A van der Waals (vdW) Schottky junction between two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is introduced here for both vertical and in-plane current devices: Schottky diodes and ...metal semiconductor field-effect transistors (MESFETs). The Schottky barrier between conducting NbS2 and semiconducting n-MoS2 appeared to be as large as ∼0.5 eV due to their work-function difference. While the Schottky diode shows an ideality factor of 1.8–4.0 with an on-to-off current ratio of 103−105, Schottky-effect MESFET displays little gate hysteresis and an ideal subthreshold swing of 60–80 mV/dec due to low-density traps at the vdW interface. All MESFETs operate with a low threshold gate voltage of −0.5 ∼ −1 V, exhibiting easy saturation. It was also found that the device mobility is significantly dependent on the condition of source/drain (S/D) contact for n-channel MoS2. The highest room temperature mobility in MESFET reaches to approximately more than 800 cm2/V s with graphene S/D contact. The NbS2/n-MoS2 MESFET with graphene was successfully integrated into an organic piezoelectric touch sensor circuit with green OLED indicator, exploiting its predictable small threshold voltage, while NbS2/n-MoS2 Schottky diodes with graphene were applied to extract doping concentrations in MoS2 channel.
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