N6-methyladenosine (m
A) modification is known to impact many aspects of RNA metabolism, including mRNA stability and translation, and is highly prevalent in the brain.
We show that m
A modification ...displays temporal and spatial dynamics during neurodevelopment and aging. Genes that are temporally differentially methylated are more prone to have mRNA expression changes and affect many pathways associated with nervous system development. Furthermore, m
A shows a distinct tissue-specific methylation profile, which is most pronounced in the hypothalamus. Tissue-specific methylation is associated with an increase in mRNA expression and is associated with tissue-specific developmental processes. During the aging process, we observe significantly more m
A sites as age increases, in both mouse and human. We show a high level of overlap between mouse and human; however, humans at both young and old ages consistently show more m
A sites compared to mice. Differential m
A sites are found to be enriched in alternative untranslated regions of genes that affect aging-related pathways. These m
A sites are associated with a strong negative effect on mRNA expression. We also show that many Alzheimer-related transcripts exhibit decreased m
A methylation in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, which is correlated with reduced protein levels.
Our results suggest that m
A exerts a critical function in both early and late brain development in a spatio-temporal fashion. Furthermore, m
A controls protein levels of key genes involved in Alzheimer's disease-associated pathways, suggesting that m
A plays an important role in aging and neurodegenerative disease.
Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis is a rare and almost universally fatal disease in adults. A 60-year-old female patient presented to our hospital with a 3-day history of weakness and anorexia. ...Physical examination revealed severe pallor without lymphadenopathy or hepatosplenomegaly. The initial blood test showed a hemoglobin level of 2.6 g/dL and a platelet count of 76 × 109/L. Later the patient experienced persistent high fever for 1 week without any obvious infective symptoms. Biochemical examination revealed hyperferritinemia and low natural killer cell viability. The bone marrow morphology showed hemophagocytosis and infiltration with metastatic small-cell lung cancer. The patient was diagnosed as small-cell lung cancer-related hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis. Subsequently, she underwent chemotherapy with dexamethasone and etoposide. However, the patient succumbed within 2 weeks of presentation due to rapidly progressive disease. In conclusion, we reported the first hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis case with small-cell lung cancer. It is critical to have early identification of hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis in patients with small-cell lung cancer.
Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) is a powerful technique to perform dimension reduction and pattern recognition through single-layer data representation learning. However, deep learning ...networks, with their carefully designed hierarchical structure, can combine hidden features to form more representative features for pattern recognition. In this paper, we proposed sparse deep NMF models to analyze complex data for more accurate classification and better feature interpretation. Such models are designed to learn localized features or generate more discriminative representations for samples in distinct classes by imposing L1-norm penalty on the columns of certain factors. By extending a one-layer model into a multilayer model with sparsity, we provided a hierarchical way to analyze big data and intuitively extract hidden features due to nonnegativity. We adopted the Nesterov's accelerated gradient algorithm to accelerate the computing process. We also analyzed the computing complexity of our frameworks to demonstrate their efficiency. To improve the performance of dealing with linearly inseparable data, we also considered to incorporate popular nonlinear functions into these frameworks and explored their performance. We applied our models using two benchmarking image datasets, and the results showed that our models can achieve competitive or better classification performance and produce intuitive interpretations compared with the typical NMF and competing multilayer models.
•Organic Solvent treatment is effective in dewatering and upgrading of brown coal.•Carbonyl groups and CO bonds start decomposing at 150 and 200°C in the treatment.•Aliphatic, aromatic structures and ...phenolic groups remain unaffected under 300°C.•Pyrolysis reactivity of brown coal is slightly reduced after the treatment.
Dewatering and upgrading of Yunnan brown coal in non-polar solvent (tetrahydronaphthalene, THN) were carried out at mild conditions with bench-scale apparatus, and the resultant samples were separated from the slurry and analyzed with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (13C NMR) and thermo-gravimetric analyzer coupled with mass spectroscopy (TG-MS) to explore the structure changes and variance of pyrolysis reactivity that introduced in the treatment. The results show that the solvent treatment is effective in dewatering and upgrading of Yunnan brown coal. Carboxyl groups and CO bonds in ethers, esters, alcohols start decomposing at 150 and 200°C, respectively, while the aliphatic, aromatic structures as well as phenolic groups remain relatively stable below 300°C. The coal structure becomes more associated and compact after the solvent treatment, and the pyrolysis reactivity of the treated sample is slightly lower than that of the raw coal.
► Effects of limestone on coal samples of different Si/Al were carefully studied. ► The essences of influences on AFTs, slag viscosity, temperature of critical temperature and type of slag were ...discussed. ► The prediction methods are raised for guiding the use of limestone. ► A new method for predicting critical temperature is presented.
Experiments were conducted on the selected ashes with different additions of CaCO3 for understanding the effects on slag flow properties including ash fusion temperatures, slag viscosity, temperature of critical viscosity and type of slag. ICP-AES, XRD and FTIR analyses were applied to determine the component and structure of the slags. Factsage was used to calculate liquidus temperatures in the SiO2–Al2O3–CaO–FeO system and to predict formed mineral matters and proportion of solid phase as a function of temperatures. The results show that the liquidus temperature calculated by Factsage well predicts the variation of ash fusion temperatures. Slag viscosity behavior changes with increasing addition of CaCO3 because the formation process of solid phase is different. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrum indicates that Ca2+ leads to break polymerized Si–O–Si into Si–O, so the increasing Ca2+ in slag results in the decrease of viscosity above liquidus temperature. Below liquidus temperature, solids content decreases with increasing addition of CaCO3 above the temperature of critical viscosity (Tcv). Meanwhile, it is found that the rate of solid formation is related with Tcv and a new prediction method of Tcv based on that was proposed. Moreover, the type of slag changed with addition of CaCO3 was predictable by XRD analysis. The prediction on ash fusion temperature, Tcv and type of slag is expected to serve as a reference for adding flux to regulate coal/ash properties suitable for slag tapping gasification technology.
Recently, novel biotechnologies to quantify RNA modifications became an increasingly popular choice for researchers who study epitranscriptome. When studying RNA methylations such as ...N6-methyladenosine (m6A), researchers need to make several decisions in its experimental design, especially the sample size and a proper statistical power. Due to the complexity and high-throughput nature of m6A sequencing measurements, methods for power calculation and study design are still currently unavailable. In this work, we propose a statistical power assessment tool, magpie, for power calculation and experimental design for epitranscriptome studies using m6A sequencing data. Our simulation-based power assessment tool will borrow information from real pilot data, and inspect various influential factors including sample size, sequencing depth, effect size, and basal expression ranges. We integrate two modules in magpie: (i) a flexible and realistic simulator module to synthesize m6A sequencing data based on real data; and (ii) a power assessment module to examine a set of comprehensive evaluation metrics.
With the background of rural revitalization, the urgent demand for energy conservation and improved living quality arises alongside the issues of high energy consumption and low comfort in ...residential buildings. Located in a region with a hot summer and cold winter climate, Hanzhong faces significant energy consumption for heating and cooling throughout the year, considering both winter insulation and summer heat insulation. Based on the energy consumption simulation and analysis of folk dwellings in Hanzhong, this paper employs a single-objective optimization method to explore the optimization of building envelope structures, including the window-to-wall ratio, bay width, number of floors, orientation, and floor height. Additionally, it investigates building layout, spatial organization, regional design methods, and energy acquisition. Through energy consumption simulation and validation of thermal comfort evaluation index PMV-PPD, design strategies such as building scale, layout organization, indoor and outdoor buffer space design, and building material selection are proposed to effectively improve indoor thermal comfort during the winter and summer seasons. This research provides insights and references for the low-carbon design and optimization of residential buildings.
•Ash flow properties of low-rank coal with high Fe2O3 and CaO were detailed studied.•The effect of kaolinite and coal GP with high SiO2 was investigated.•Mineral transformation and viscosity with ...kaolinite and coal GP were discussed.•Coal blending method has a larger tapping temperature range.•Coal blending method is superior in improving ash flow properties.
In order to meet the demand of slagging for entrained flow gasifier, addition of refractory agent kaolinite and coal with high SiO2 and Al2O3 contents was applied to improve ash flow properties of low-rank coal including fusion temperature and viscosity. The FACTsage software package was used to predict proportion of solid phase and minerals as a function of temperature. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was carried out to identify the major crystalline phases in ash. The results show that the variation of ash fusion temperatures (AFTs) with addition of kaolinite is similar to that with addition of coal with high SiO2 and Al2O3 contents. It first decreases with increasing amount of kaolinite addition and coal with high SiO2 and Al2O3 contents, and then decreases and reaches a minimum value before increasing again. The location of ash composition in pseudoternary phase diagram and mineral changes in ash can be used to explain the variation of ash fusion temperatures of low-rank coal with addition of kaolinite or coal with high SiO2 and Al2O3 contents. Viscosity of slag also increases with increasing additions of kaolinite and coal with high SiO2 and Al2O3 contents. The sensitivity of slag viscosity to temperature excursion decreases with increasing of kaolinite addition and coal with high SiO2 and Al2O3 contents, because the sensitivity of the SiO2–Al2O3–‘FeO’–CaO–MgO system to temperature excursions decreases with increasing kaolinite addition and coal with high SiO2 and Al2O3 contents. Meanwhile, coal blending method has a larger tapping temperature range and shows a better effect on improving ash flow properties for entrained flow gasifier.
•Quartz, kaolinite, and calcite removed from coal leads to the decreasing of S/A.•The ash fusion characteristics were obviously influenced by the content of coal washing.•A proper coal washing must ...be considered in gasification.
Gasification has been deemed as the most promising method for the thermochemical conversion of Shanxi high ash coals, although the use of these high ash coals leads to high consumption of coal and oxygen, low syngas yield and cold gas efficiency. In order to improve gasification efficiency, it is necessary to reduce the ash content of these Shanxi high ash coals. In this work, three representative Shanxi high ash coals were floated with ZnCl2 flotation agent to obtain floated coal samples with different ash contents. The mineral evolution during coal washing and its effect on ash fusion characteristics were thoroughly investigated. A radio frequency oxygen plasma furnace, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SIROQUANT were used to analyze the variation of mineral compositions of the floated coals. Quartz (SiO2), kaolinite (Al2(Si2O5)(OH)4), calcite (CaCO3), and tobelite (NH4Al3Si3O10(OH)2) were main mineral which were found in Shanxi high ash coals, and the high contents of quartz and kaolinite led to high AFTs (ash fusion temperatures) of these coals. As mineral content decreased, the contents of quarts, kaolinite, and calcite in the floated coals were obviously lowered, and this resulted in the decrease of S/A (mass ratio of SiO2/Al2O3) of the coal ashes. The ash fusion temperatures of Shanxi high ash coals were therefore significantly influenced by the extent of coal washing. Furthermore, the content of amorphous material in coals increased obviously with the decrease of ash content. These results have important implication in the selection of the appropriate coal washing procedure prior to gasification of these coals.
Display omitted
Flow property of coal ash and slag is an important parameter for slag tapping of entrained flow gasifier. The viscosity of slag with high contents of calcium and iron exhibits the ...behavior of a crystalline slag, of which viscosity sharply increases when temperature is lowered than temperature of critical viscosity (TCV). The fluctuation in temperature near the TCV can cause an accumulation of slag inside the gasifier. In order to prevent slag blockage, it is necessary to adjust the ash composition by additive to modify the flow property of coal rich in calcium and iron. Main components of coal gangue are Al2O3 and SiO2, which is a potential additive to modify the ash flow properties of these coals. In this work, we investigated the ash flow properties of a typical coal rich in calcium and iron by adding coal gangue with different SiO2/Al2O3 ratio. The results showed that the ash fusion temperatures (AFTs) firstly decreased, and then increased with increasing amount of coal gangue addition. Chemical composition of coal ash rich in calcium and iron moved from gehlenite primary phase to anorthite, quartz and corundum primary phases. The slags with coal gangue addition behaved as a glassy slag, of which the viscosity gradually increased as temperature decreased. Besides, a high SiO2/Al2O3 ratio of coal gangue was beneficial to modify the slag viscosity behavior. Addition of coal gangue with a high SiO2/Al2O3 ratio impeded formation of crystalline phases during cooling. This work demonstrated that coal gangue addition was an effective way to improve the ash flow properties of the coal rich in calcium and iron for the entrained flow gasifier.
PDF
