This paper deals with the thermal performances of shape-stabilized phase change materials (SSPCMs) for energy saving in various fields. Two SSPCMs were prepared by impregnating coconut oil and palm ...oil, as phase change materials (PCMs), into exfoliated graphite nanoplatelets (xGnP), as a supporting material. Coconut oil and palm oil are types of organic fatty acid ester PCMs made from under-used and renewable feedstocks. However, they have a major drawback, namely their low thermal conductivity. To improve the thermal conductivity of organic fatty acid ester PCMs, xGnP can be effective. Therefore we prepared form-stable organic fatty acid ester PCMs with xGnP, using the vacuum impregnation method. In this study we used coconut oil and palm oil, which have latent heat capacities of 110.4 and 127.3J/g and melting points of 26.78 and 17.26°C, respectively. The organic fatty acid ester PCMs were incorporated into the porous structure of xGnP. The thermal conductivity of the produced SSPCMs were over 400% higher than pure fatty-acid ester PCM. Also, the latent heat were 82.34 and 77.18J/g, respectively. The characteristics of the organic fatty acid ester PCMs were determined by using SEM, DSC, FT-IR, TGA and TCi.
•We prepared thermal enhanced fatty acid-based organic PCMs by xGnP.•Organic fatty acid ester PCMs made from under-used and renewable feedstocks.•xGnP led to the thermal conductivity and thermal resistance of PCMs.•Both fatty acid-based organic PCMs and xGnP were bonded by physical bonding.
The headspace method is used frequently for measuring the emissions rates of chemical compounds from building materials when operating labeling systems for these materials. A numerical investigation ...of transient formaldehyde concentration distribution in confined small glass desiccators was conducted in this study. To clarify the impact of the desiccator geometry on the formaldehyde emission and diffusion characteristics, three-dimensional (3D) laser-based measurement was first conducted to define the detailed inner geometries of the different commercial desiccators. A petri dish containing water was used as the sorbent for test specimens of formaldehyde emission sources produced inside the desiccators. Fundamental experiments concerning formaldehyde emission rates and sorption onto the sorbent were next performed using high- and low-emission types of building materials in the desiccators. Transient and steady numerical analyses were conducted for formaldehyde emissions from the building materials, molecular diffusion, and sorption onto the water sorbent. Transient analysis of the formaldehyde diffusion field over 24 h revealed that the total amount of dissolution of formaldehyde in the water was not significantly affected by the desiccator geometry in the building material of the inner diffusion control type. For evaporative/external diffusion emission-type, however, the formaldehyde emission rate was strongly affected by the desiccator shape. To obtain reproducible emission rate measurements in desiccators with different geometrical shapes, substantial adjustment is needed for the relative positions of the emission source and the sorbent in terms of the equivalent diffusion length, Ld.
•Formaldehyde diffusion and sorption in desiccator were analyzed.•Ld was proposed as a parameter represents geometric differences between desiccators.•Different formaldehyde sorption rates in water can be unified by adjusting the Ld.
Siloxanes, widely used in various consumer and industrial products, are emerging concerns of contaminants. Despite this, limited studies have been conducted on contamination and time trends on ...siloxanes in coastal environments. In the present study, four cyclic and 15 linear siloxanes were measured in sediments collected from an artificial saltwater lake in Korea during 2001-2016 to investigate contamination, time trends, and ecotoxicological concerns. Cyclic siloxanes were detected in all sediment samples, whereas linear siloxanes were not frequently detected. The highest siloxane concentrations were observed in creeks passing through various industrial complexes, indicating that industrial activities predominantly contributed to siloxane contamination in coastal environments. Decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) and dodecylcyclohexasiloxane (D6) were predominant siloxanes in sediments over the last two decades. Siloxane concentrations significantly increased in creek sediments from 2008 to 2016, whereas those in inshore and offshore regions significantly decreased due to a strong dilution effect by the operation of tidal power plant. This suggests that consumption patterns and coastal development activities are crucial factors determining the contamination and time trends in the sedimentary siloxanes. The sedimentary concentrations of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and D5 exceeded several thresholds, raising the potentials for ecological risks to aquatic organisms.
lncRNAs have important roles in regulating cancer biology. Accumulating evidence has established a link between the dysregulation of lncRNAs and microRNA in cancer progression. In previous studies, ...miR-7-5p has been found to be significantly down-regulated in mesenchymal-like lung cancer cell lines and directly regulated EGFR. In this work, we investigated the lncRNA partner of miR-7-5p in the progression of lung cancer.
We investigated the expression of miR-7-5p and the lncRNA after transfection with an miR-7-5p mimics using a microarray. The microarray results were validated using quantitative real time-polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR). The regulatory effects of lncRNA on miR-7-5p and its target were evaluated by changes in the expression of miR-7-5p after transfection with siRNAs for lncRNA and the synthesis of full-length lncRNA. The effect of miR-7-5p on lncRNA and the miRNA target was evaluated after transfection with miRNA mimic and inhibitor. The role of lncRNA in cancer progression was determined using invasion and migration assays. The level of lncRNA and EGFR in lung cancer and normal lung tissue was analyzed using TCGA data.
We found that LINC00240 was downregulated in lung cancer cell line after miR-7-5p transfection with an miR-7-5p mimic. Further investigations revealed that the knockdown of LINC00240 induced the overexpression of miR-7-5p. The overexpression of miR-7-5p diminished cancer invasion and migration. The EGFR expression was down regulated after siRNA treatment for LINC00240. Silencing LINC00240 suppressed the invasion and migration of lung cancer cells, whereas LINC00240 overexpression exerted the opposite effect. The lower expression of LINC00240 in squamous lung cancer was analyzed using TCGA data.
Taken together, LINC00240 acted as a sponge for miR-7-5p and induced the overexpression of EGFR. LINC00240 may represent a potential target for the treatment of lung cancer.
Significant advancements in environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis technology have led to its widespread adoption for species monitoring. However, the low DNA concentration in eDNA often raises concerns ...about PCR bias, which is a primary issue in enhancing the reliability of eDNA survey results. This study aims to identify the suitable eDNA analysis method and detection strategy for obtaining the presence data of Eurasian otters in an urban stream and to investigate the seasonal distribution patterns of Eurasian otters and their potential prey species. The eDNA survey revealed the presence of six out of the 13 mammal species recorded in fieldwork and literature reviews, including Canis lupus, Felis silvestris and Mustela sibirica. Notably, Eurasian otters were not detected in the eDNA metabarcoding conducted in April and October, despite traditional surveys confirming their presence. In contrast, qPCR assays successfully amplified Eurasian otters from the same samples that were analysed using metabarcoding. When evaluating detection criteria, based on the number of positive samples in repetitions, Eurasian otters were detected at 42.9% to 85.7% of the sampling sites in April and at all sampling sites in October. This suggests a higher detection probability of Eurasian otters in October, indicating a potential expansion of their home range during that season compared to April. Metabarcoding results revealed similar findings regarding fish species as traditional surveys, with Cyprinidae accounting for the largest proportion of fish species at the family level (April, 54.57%; October, 43.58%), followed by Gobiidae (April, 16.90%; October, 22.88%). At the species level, P. parva was the dominant fish species in Saetgang, constituting 5.68% and 6.35% of relative abundance in April and October, respectively. This implies that Eurasian otters as opportunistic predators, may increasingly take advantage of the availability of species within the family Cyprinidae, notably Pseudorasbora parva, as a food source within the study area during the months of April and October. This study highlights that qPCR is the more effective approach in urban areas to offer insights into otters’ distribution patterns, while metabarcoding is useful to provide the properties of the biological environment. Furthermore, this study indicated that it is necessary to determine the suitable eDNA analysis methods depending on the research purpose to obtain detection results effectively.
Emotion recognition in conversation is the task of recognizing the emotion in each utterance of a conversation, and it is an active field of study with various applications. Many studies have been ...conducted in well-designed settings in which all of the emotion labels in the training set are available. However, a rich dataset with emotion labels for all utterances is rare. In this study, we address this problem by resorting to few-shot learning. Specifically, we propose Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)-based prototypical networks, namely ProtoDAG, to better capture contextual information in conversations, which in turn leads to accurate emotion predictions. In our model, the DAG layers are tailored into prototypical networks, which is learned end-to-end. Our experiments with popular benchmark datasets demonstrate that our model achieves state-of-the-art results outperforming the existing few-shot learning model by a significant margin and is even competitive with fully supervised baseline models for emotion recognition in conversation.
The aggressive proliferation of tumor cells often requires increased glucose uptake and excessive anaerobic glycolysis, leading to the massive production and secretion of lactate to form a unique ...tumor microenvironment (TME). Therefore, regulating appropriate lactate levels in the TME would be a promising approach to control tumor cell proliferation and immune suppression. To effectively consume lactate in the TME, lactate oxidase (LOX) and catalase (CAT) were displayed onto Aquifex aeolicus lumazine synthase protein nanoparticles (AaLS) to form either AaLS/LOX or AaLS/LOX/CAT. These complexes successfully consumed lactate produced by CT26 murine colon carcinoma cells under both normoxic and hypoxic conditions. Specifically, AaLS/LOX generated a large amount of H
O
with complete lactate consumption to induce drastic necrotic cell death regardless of culture condition. However, AaLS/LOX/CAT generated residual H
O
, leading to necrotic cell death only under hypoxic condition similar to the TME. While the local administration of AaLS/LOX to the tumor site resulted in mice death, that of AaLS/LOX/CAT significantly suppressed tumor growth without any severe side effects. AaLS/LOX/CAT effectively consumed lactate to produce adequate amounts of H
O
which sufficiently suppress tumor growth and adequately modulate the TME, transforming environments that are favorable to tumor suppressive neutrophils but adverse to tumor-supportive tumor-associated macrophages. Collectively, these findings showed that the modular functionalization of protein nanoparticles with multiple metabolic enzymes may offer the opportunity to develop new enzyme complex-based therapeutic tools that can modulate the TME by controlling cancer metabolism.
The fundamental unit of chromatin, the nucleosome, is an intricate structure that requires histone chaperones for assembly. ATAD2 AAA+ ATPases are a family of histone chaperones that regulate ...nucleosome density and chromatin dynamics. Here, we demonstrate that the fission yeast ATAD2 homolog, Abo1, deposits histone H3-H4 onto DNA in an ATP-hydrolysis-dependent manner by in vitro reconstitution and single-tethered DNA curtain assays. We present cryo-EM structures of an ATAD2 family ATPase to atomic resolution in three different nucleotide states, revealing unique structural features required for histone loading on DNA, and directly visualize the transitions of Abo1 from an asymmetric spiral (ATP-state) to a symmetric ring (ADP- and apo-states) using high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM). Furthermore, we find that the acidic pore of ATP-Abo1 binds a peptide substrate which is suggestive of a histone tail. Based on these results, we propose a model whereby Abo1 facilitates H3-H4 loading by utilizing ATP.
The heterogeneity of urban landscapes has effects on the environmental characteristics and fish composition of individual urban streams, even within a single water system. It is, therefore, ...imperative to assess the influence of physiochemical properties on urban streams by analyzing the spatial distribution of fish communities at the local scale. However, conventional fish surveys encounter time and labor constraints when selecting and surveying dense sampling points under 2 km in stream networks. In this study, environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding was used as an innovative survey methodology to identify the effects of land use and stream order on fish composition and tolerance guild in an urban area. The eDNA sampling was conducted in 31 sites of the Anyang stream network in Korea, including part of the stream undergoing ecological restoration. The eDNA survey detected 12 of 17 species (70.6%) that appeared in the historical data, and 12 of 18 species (66.7%) identified in a conventional field survey with kick nets and casting nets. The proportions of urban area, forest and grassland were positively correlated with abundance (
p
< 0.05) and richness (
p
< 0.05) in multiple regression analyses, while the proportion of agricultural area showed a negative correlation (
p
< 0.05). For abundance, richness, and diversity within the fish community from first- to third-order streams, there was a significant decrease in sensitive species (
p
< 0.05) alongside a significant increase in tolerant species (
p
< 0.01) across all three indices. The results of this study highlight variations in fish composition across sites within the local scale of the urban stream network, underscoring the need for detailed monitoring to understand the ecological function of urban streams.
Heritage architecture, which considers the local climate, building materials, and construction methods, can contribute to the energy efficiency and sustainability of buildings. Retrofitting ...strategies can be applied to existing buildings to improve their energy performance while maintaining or enhancing their thermal comfort. This study involved an analysis of the indoor environment status at the Yonsei University Stimson Hall (completed in 1920), a building on the former Yonhee College (now Yonsei University). The analysis included temperature and humidity measurements over a one-year period in four rooms with different usage schedules and occupant types. It was found that the number of occupants and the usage schedule influenced the temperature distribution in the rooms. In addition, the effects of the retrofitting strategies on the building energy consumption were investigated. It was verified that the improvement in windows and the application of roof-type photovoltaic systems resulted in annual energy savings of up to 90.46% compared with reference buildings. In conclusion, the findings demonstrate the influence of variables such as usage schedule, occupant type, and season on the indoor climate, as well as the potential benefits and drawbacks of retrofitting strategies on energy consumption and thermal comfort.
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