The iron and steel industry (ISI) is energy-intensive and is responsible for approximately 25% of the global direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from industrial sectors. As the largest steel ...producer and consumer, China bears the primary responsibility for saving energy and reducing GHG emissions; accordingly, they have developed many strategies for GHG abatement. However, owing to the high investment costs and long equipment service lives, the ISI must carefully weigh the cost and emission reduction potential of these approaches. This review discusses research findings aimed at technological improvements and ultra-low carbon technologies relevant to the ISI, emphasizing their cost-effectiveness and development prospects. Based on the life cycle analysis method, this review establishes a comprehensive analytical framework to integrate the results from different studies to consider more factors in the design of GHG emission reduction strategies. The results indicate that the full application of mainstream technological improvements can reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 43%. Furthermore, combining these strategies with ultra-low carbon technologies can achieve a reduction of 80%–95%. The marginal cost reduction associated with implementing such technological improvements is in the range of −5 to 0.5 USD/kgCO2. Applying carbon capture, utilization, and storage strategies or hydrogen-based technologies in China's ISI for deep decarbonization scenarios is expected to lead to cost reductions between 12 and 35 billion USD by 2050. We propose that China's ISI requires technological improvements in the short term and should prioritize ultra-low carbon technology development for the long term.
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•Discussion of researches and pilot projects aimed at technological improvements of the iron and steel industry.•Review and potential of ultra-low carbon emission technologies in the iron and steel industry.•Overview of energy consumption and GHG emissions of the iron and steel industry.•Development strategies designed based on analysis of cost and GHG mitigation potential.
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disorder with numerous symptoms categorized via serves hyperglycemia effect along with altered fat, protein and carbohydrate metabolism mainly resultant from ...defects in insulin action/secretion or both. The aim of the current experimental study was to comfort the neuroprotective effect of ganoderic acid against the streptozotocin (STZ)-induced type I diabetes mellitus in mice and explore the underlying mechanism. Differentiation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes effect; hepatic and glucose consumption effect of ganoderic acid was estimated on HepG2 cell lines and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR). FFA content was estimated in adipose and hepatic tissues. Ganoderic acid induced the 3T3-L1 preadipocytes differentiation. The mRNA expression of PPAR was increased in the high glucose-treated group in HepG2 and ganoderic acid treatment down-regulated the mRNA expression of PPAR. Ganoderic acid exhibited the inhibitory effect of α-glucosidase and α-amylase. Ganoderic acid demonstrated the reduced blood glucose and increase insulin level and also reduced the free fatty in hepatic and adipose tissue. Histopathological study showed the enhancement of β-cells in ganoderic acid-treated mice. Finally, their prebiotic effects on gut microbiota were illustrated via enhancing the population of diabetes resistant bacteria and also reducing the quantity of diabetes sensitive bacteria. Ganoderic acid attenuated STZ induced T1DM in mice via inflammatory pathways.
Phthalic acid esters (PAEs) have long been known as the most widely used plasticizer with a broad range of industrial application. PAEs are ubiquitous in different environments and our daily life due ...to their large and widespread application. Recent PAEs research mainly focused on their environmental fate (including leaching, migration, transformation) and toxicology and risk assessment. With the comprehensive recognition of their potential hazard, the elimination of PAEs has attracted worldwide concerns. Although many factors may contribute to the degradation of PAEs, the dominant role of biodegradation was widely reported. Many PAEs-degrading bacteria were isolated, metabolites and metabolic pathways were proposed, and enzymes involved in the degradation were identified. The current paper presents an overview of available reports about PAEs-degrading bacteria and related molecular mechanisms. The metabolic pathways deduced from the identified intermediates were presented. The upstream and downstream pathways of PAEs metabolism were summarized, including the aerobic and anaerobic pathways of phthalic acid (PA) degradation. Known enzymes involved in the hydrolysis of ester bonds were characterized according to their properties. Based on phylogenetic analysis, all these enzymes were distributed in four families of esterases and one unknown family. For these five families, conserved sequence motifs were identified and the biological properties of these motifs were characterized. Challenges and emerging opportunities are also discussed.
As promising candidates in the field of artificial muscles, ionic‐polymer–metal composites (IPMCs) still cannot simultaneously provide large deformations and fast responses, which has limited their ...practical applications. In this study, to overcome this issue, a Nafion‐based IPMC with high‐quality metal electrodes is fabricated via novel isopropanol‐assisted electroless plating. The IPMC exhibits a large tip displacement (35.3 mm, 102.3°) under a low direct‐current driving voltage and ultrafast response (>10 Hz) under an alternating‐current (AC) voltage. Furthermore, the simultaneous integration of a large deformation and fast response can be achieved by the IPMC under a high‐frequency (19 Hz) AC voltage, where the largest bending amplitude is 5.9 mm and the highest bending speed reaches 224.2 mm s−1 (596.2° s−1). Additionally, the lightweight IPMC exhibits a decent load capacity and can lift objects 20 times heavier. The outstanding performances of the Nafion IPMC are demonstrated by mimicking biological motions such as petal opening/closing, tendril coiling/uncoiling, and high‐frequency wing flapping. This study paves the way for the fabrication of lightweight actuators with simultaneous large displacements and fast responses for promising applications in biomedical devices and bioinspired robotics.
A Nafion ionic‐polymer–metal composite (IPMC) actuator with the integration of a large deformation and fast response is fabricated via a novel isopropanol‐assisted electroless plating method. This Nafion IPMC with outstanding performance can serve as lightweight actuators by mimicking biological motions, such as bionic flowers, bionic tendrils, and bionic flying insects.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is the most common type of idiopathic interstitial pneumonia and has one of the poorest prognosis. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying IPF progression ...remain largely unknown. In this study, we determined that IL-24, an IL-20 subfamily cytokine member, was increased both in the serum of IPF patients and the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) of mice following bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis. As a result, IL-24 deficiency protected mice from BLM-induced lung injury and fibrosis. Specifically, loss of IL-24 significantly attenuated transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1) production and reduced M2 macrophage infiltration in the lung of BLM-induced mice. Mechanistically, IL-24 alone did not show a perceptible impact on the induction of M2 macrophages, but it synergized with IL-4 to promote M2 program in macrophages. IL-24 suppressed IL-4-induced expression of suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 (SOCS1) and SOCS3, through which it enhanced signal transducer and activator of transcription 6/peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (STAT6/PPARγ) signaling, thereby promoting IL-4-induced production of M2 macrophages. Collectively, our data support that IL-24 synergizes with IL-4 to promote macrophage M2 program contributing to the development of pulmonary fibrosis.
In this paper, a high order compact finite difference is established for the time multi-term fractional sub-diffusion equation. The derived numerical differential formula can achieve second order ...accuracy in time and four order accuracy in space. A unconditionally stable and convergent difference scheme is presented, and a rigorous proof for the stability and convergence is given. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed difference schemes.
Functionally graded materials (FGMs) are desirable in a variety of applications. Due to a lack of understanding of design and manufacturing methods, it remains a challenge to engineer FGMs. Gradient ...patterns and performance shown in biological materials present motifs for designing FGMs. The bottom-up characteristic of additive manufacturing (AM) enables unparalleled control over material and structure, making AM a perfect candidate for FGMs. The integration of the two provides an unprecedented opportunity for developing next generation advanced materials. In this review, we firstly detail the biological gradient materials/structures in terms of their functions. Subsequently, the art-of-the-state AM methods for fabricating FGMs are reviewed, with a focus on the technology types of AM that can prepare biomimetic material and structural FGMs, especially emphasizing the multiform gradients induced by processing parameters. Then, the performance and application cases of FGMs created by AM are summarized. Finally, an outlook for further developments of AM technologies towards FGMs is provided.
Cyber-physical-social system (CPSS) has drawn tremendous attention in industrial applications such as industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). As the fundamental component of IIoT, bearings play an ...increasingly important role in CPSS for IIoT. Better understanding of bearing working conditions and degradation patterns so as to more accurately predict the remaining useful life (RUL), becomes an urgent demand for industrial prognostics in IIoT. The data-driven approach has indicated good potential, but the prediction accuracy is still not satisfactory. This paper proposes a new method for the prediction of bearing RUL based on deep convolution neural network (CNN). A new feature extraction method is presented to obtain the eigenvector, named the spectrum-principal-energy-vector. The eigenvector is suitable for deep CNN. In the prediction phase, we propose a smoothing method to deal with the discontinuity problem found in the prediction results. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to propose such a smoothing method for bearing RUL prediction. Experiments show that our method can significantly improve the prediction accuracy of bearing RUL.
We present the light-quark mass dependence of the Λ(1405) resonance at leading order in a renormalizable framework of covariant chiral effective field theory. The meson-baryon scattering amplitudes, ...which are obtained by solving the scattering equation within time-ordered perturbation theory, follow the quark mass trajectory of the Coordinated Lattice Simulations consortium. At Mπ≈200 MeV and MK≈487 MeV, our parameter-free prediction of Λ(1405) poles is consistent with the recent lattice results of BaSc Collaboration Phys. Rev. Lett. 132, 051901 (2024). Varying the pion mass from 135 MeV to 400 MeV, we present the evolution of double-pole positions of Λ(1405): the higher pole remains a resonance around the K¯N threshold; whereas the lower pole undergoes a transition from resonance to a virtual state, and ultimately to a bound state of the πΣ system, which could be verified by the forthcoming lattice QCD simulations.
Faced with the increasing colorectal cancer (CRC) cases, the interrogation of pivotal molecules in CRC appears to be vitally important. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are well-known regulators of ...gene expression at transcriptional, post-transcriptional or epigenetic level, among which the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network is a common way that lncRNAs exert their properties. The current study aimed to provide a new insight into improving the outcomes of CRC patients. Our study detected that ELFN1-AS1 expression was elevated in CRC tissues and cells, and ELFN1-AS1 upregulation was correlated with poor prognosis of CRC sufferers. Besides, it was viewed that ELFN1-AS1 knockdown impeded the proliferation and migration abilities as well as activated the apoptosis ability of CRC cells. In subsequence, mechanism assays also displayed that ELFN1-AS1 targeted miR-4644 to augment TRIM44 level. Finally, rescue experiments confirmed that TRIM44 took part in the ELFN1-AS1-medatied promotional influences on CRC cells proliferation and migration. In conclusion, ELFN1-AS1 exerted pro-proliferation, anti-apoptosis and pro-migration functions on CRC cells by acting as a sponge of miR-4644 to increase TRIM44 expression at mRNA and protein level, providing an additional molecule responsible for the carcinogenesis and progression for CRC.
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