In molecular-level fluidic transport, where the discrete characteristics of a molecular system are not negligible (in contrast to a continuum description), the response of the molecular water system ...might still be similar to the continuum description if the time and ensemble averages satisfy the ergodic hypothesis and the scale of the average is enough to recover the classical thermodynamic properties. However, even in such cases, the continuum description breaks down on the material interfaces. In short, molecular-level liquid flows exhibit substantially different physics from classical fluid transport theories because of (i) the interface/surface force field, (ii) thermal/velocity slip, (iii) the discreteness of fluid molecules at the interface and (iv) local viscosity. Therefore, in this study, we present the result of our investigations using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with continuum-based energy equations and check the validity and limitations of the continuum hypothesis. Our study shows that when the continuum description is subjected to the proper treatment of the interface effects via modified boundary conditions, the so-called continuum-based modified-analytical solutions, they can adequately predict nanoscale fluid transport phenomena. The findings in this work have broad effects in overcoming current limitations in modeling/predicting the fluid behaviors of molecular fluidic devices.
Synbiotics, a conjunction between prebiotics and probiotics, have been used in aquaculture for over 10 years. However, the mechanisms of how synbiotics work as growth and immunity promoters are far ...from being unraveled. Here, we show that a prebiotic as part of a synbiotic is hydrolyzed to mono- or disaccharides as the sole carbon source with diverse mechanisms, thereby increasing biomass and colonization that is established by specific crosstalk between probiotic bacteria and the surface of intestinal epithelial cells of the host. Synbiotics may indirectly and directly promote the growth of aquatic animals through releasing extracellular bacterial enzymes and bioactive products from synbiotic metabolic processes. These compounds may activate precursors of digestive enzymes of the host and augment the nutritional absorptive ability that contributes to the efficacy of food utilization. In fish immune systems, synbiotics cause intestinal epithelial cells to secrete cytokines which modulate immune functional cells as of dendritic cells, T cells, and B cells, and induce the ability of lipopolysaccharides to trigger tumor necrosis factor-α and Toll-like receptor 2 gene transcription leading to increased respiratory burst activity, phagocytosis, and nitric oxide production. In shellfish, synbiotics stimulate the proliferation and degranulation of hemocytes of shrimp due to the presence of bacterial cell walls. Pathogen-associated molecular patterns are subsequently recognized and bound by specific pattern-recognition proteins, triggering melanization and phagocytosis processes.
•Current applications of synbiotics in aquaculture.•Steps for establishing a synergistic synbiotic.•Synbiotic metabolism and molecular crosstalk with host.•Mechanisms of actions in improving growth and immune responses of host.•Highlight notes for further investigations.
The determination of plant species from field observation requires substantial botanical expertise, which puts it beyond the reach of most nature enthusiasts. Traditional plant species identification ...is almost impossible for the general public and challenging even for professionals that deal with botanical problems daily, such as, conservationists, farmers, foresters, and landscape architects. Even for botanists themselves, species identification is often a difficult task. In this research, we proposed using two methods for the problem of plant species identification from leaf patterns. Firstly, we use a traditional recognition shallow architecture with extracted features histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) vector, then those features used to classifying by SVM algorithm. Secondly, we apply a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) for recognition purpose. We experimented on leaves data set in the Flavia leaf data set and the Swedish leaf data set. We want to compare a tradition method and a method consider as current state-of-the-art.
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•Brown algal was hydrothermally carbonized to modify surface physicochemistry.•ZnCl2-activated hydrochar produced mesoporous biochar.•Algal biochar showed superior ciprofloxacin ...removal in different conditions.•Electrostatic interaction, H-bond and π-EDA were major adsorption mechanism.
In this study, biochar derived from brown algal Ascophyllum nodosum was synthesized through hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) coupling with ZnCl2 chemical activation and applied as a sustainable adsorbent for antibiotic removal from water exemplified by ciprofloxacin (CIP). Various surface analysis techniques such as Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and zeta potential were used to clarify the surface properties of prepared biochars. The adsorption performance of biochars was investigated using batch adsorption experiments with a variety of parameters (initial pH, ionic types, temperature and water matrixes). The application of prepared biochar in CIP removal showed a good result of adsorption capacity (150–400 mg g−1) in different conditions. Overall, algal biochars, as a product recycled from biowaste, demonstrated a novel and promising adsorbent for effective and sustainable method for removal of antibiotics from water.
In this report, undoped, mono and co‐doped perovskite strontium titanate (SrTi1−(x+y)MoxVyO3) were synthesized by the sol‐gel method, and their physical and optical properties were investigated. ...Furthermore, the photocatalytic degradation activities of the synthesized powders were conducted in 10 ppm methylene blue solution under visible‐light irradiation. A maximum degradation efficiency of 91.5% was achieved in SrTi0.9Mo0.05V0.05O3 powder whereas only 59.9% of degradation was found in undoped SrTiO3. The improved efficiency in co‐doped SrTiO3 was due to the doping of metal cations, Mo+6 and V+5 in the host lattice, which created impurity defect states thereby effectively reducing the bandgap energy of the semiconductor.
The Stroke Riskometer mobile application is a novel, validated way to provide personalized stroke risk assessment for individuals and motivate them to reduce their risks. Although this app is being ...used worldwide, its reliability across different countries has not yet been rigorously investigated using appropriate methodology. The Generalizability Theory (G-Theory) is an advanced statistical method suitable for examining reliability and generalizability of assessment scores across different samples, cultural and other contexts and for evaluating sources of measurement errors. G-Theory was applied to the Stroke Riskometer data sampled from 1300 participants in 13 countries using two-facet nested observational design (person by item nested in the country). The Stroke Riskometer demonstrated strong reliability in measuring stroke risks across the countries with coefficients G relative and absolute of 0.84, 95%CI 0.79; 0.89 and 0.82, 95%CI 0.76; 0.88 respectively. D-study analyses revealed that the Stroke Riskometer has optimal reliability in its current form in measuring stroke risk for each country and no modifications are required. These results suggest that the Stroke Riskometer's scores are generalizable across sample population and countries permitting cross-cultural comparisons. Further studies investigating reliability of the Stroke Riskometer over time in longitudinal study design are warranted.
Heat transfer across an interface between a monolayer coated solid substrate and fluid has been extensively analyzed through a series of non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations. The effect of ...the monolayer was studied by varying its atomic mass (
m
M
) and interaction energy between monolayer particles (
MM
). Even though the fluid adsorption plays a role in heat transfer at the solid-fluid interface, we found that the interfacial thermal resistance (Kapitza resistance) is highly affected by the insertion of monolayer without any further change in the liquid structure near the solid surface. The Kapitza length monotonically increases with the increase of
m
M
irrespective of
MM
. The observations were explained by analysis of the overlap of the phonon spectrum at the interface using vibrational density of states. The effect of the monolayer on the Kapitza length was summarized by a fourth polynomial function that demonstrates the contribution of both
m
M
and
MM
with respect to each other on the Kapitza resistance within the parametric range studied.
At the interface between monolayer coated solid substrate and fluid, the effect of interfacial mismatch on Kapitza length due to the monolayer particles has been extensively analyzed through a series of non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation.
Recommendations are prevalent in Web applications (e.g., search ranking, item recommendation, advertisement placement). Learning from bandit feedback is challenging due to the sparsity of feedback ...limited to system-provided actions. In this work, we focus on batch learning from logs of recommender systems involving both bandit and organic feedbacks. We develop a probabilistic framework with a likelihood function for estimating not only explicit positive observations but also implicit negative observations inferred from the data. Moreover, we introduce a latent variable model for organic-bandit feedbacks to robustly capture user preference distributions. Next, we analyze the behavior of the new likelihood under two scenarios, i.e., with and without counterfactual re-weighting. For speedier item ranking, we further investigate the possibility of using Maximum-a-Posteriori (MAP) estimate instead of Monte Carlo (MC)-based approximation for prediction. Experiments on both real datasets as well as data from a simulation environment show substantial performance improvements over comparable baselines.
Grouper aquaculture is a rapidly growing and dynamic industry within Vietnamese aquaculture and an important source of local employment and income generation. Information on the state of current ...production practices and profitability for specific crops across different geographic locations and stages of production is difficult to obtain. This research contributes to wider efforts to address this knowledge gap by providing indicative findings on current market characteristics, production practice, and profitability of a ‘new’ aquaculture crop in Vietnam: Hybrid grouper (E. lanceolatus X E. fuscoguttatus). Participants in the study identified Hybrid grouper as the most important crop for grow out farms and the second most important crop for nursery farms due to strong market demand and sales prices, fast growth rate, and higher survival compared to other grouper crops. Research utilised a survey of 12 grouper farms in the Northern (Hai Phong) and Central (Khanh Hoa) provinces of Vietnam in mid-2018 to determine indicative financial production characteristics and gross margins (annual net sales revenue minus cost of goods sold) of nursery, cage, and pond enterprises that currently culture Hybrid grouper. Farmers indicated that the Hybrid grouper industry was segmented into three distinct phases of production: spawning, larval rearing and grow out. Few grouper farmers specialise in more than one area. Farmers in both study regions reported that Hybrid grouper were desirable due to the strong market demand and high sale prices, fast growth rate, and higher survival compared to other grouper crops. Farms had different economic characteristics between region and type, major differences were seen in the species cultured, number of people employed and age of farms. All farms interviewed generated annual net sales revenue exceeded the cost of goods sold. Earthen pond farms in Central Vietnam generated a median gross margin of US$ 8741 per year, Central region nurseries US$ 8059, and Northern Sea cage farms US$ 4562. Relative importance, calculated by contribution to total farm income, indicated that Hybrid grouper is the most important crop for grow out farms in both regions and second most important for nursery farms. Central region grow out farms generate higher gross margins than Northern Sea cage farms, which is a result of Central region grouper growing faster, having higher survival rates, and selling for more per kg than those grown out in the Northern region. The main changes to the industry since 2010 have been the introduction of Hybrid grouper as a new crop, the increase in average grouper sale price, and the move to full life-cycle aquaculture. Average sale price for grouper has increased from US$ 7.7–9.6/kg (adjusted to 2019 US$) to US$ 9–15/kg. The findings indicate that the most significant constraints to the growth and diversification of the grouper aquaculture industry in Vietnam are the limited availability of Hybrid fingerlings due to difficulties in larval rearing, and increases in feed costs due to a lack of domestic feed suppliers. Notwithstanding these constraints, the higher gross margins of Hybrid grouper relative to other financially viable grouper crops suggests continued, albeit moderated, growth of grouper aquaculture in Vietnam.
•Economic impacts from the new crop, Hybrid Grouper (E. lanceolatus x E. fuscoguttatus), for aquaculture in Vietnam.•Update of the growth of grouper aquaculture in Vietnam (last reviewed in 2010).•Identification of key areas constraining the establishment of Hybrid Grouper industry.•Overview of Hybrid Grouper farming, highlights the segmentation of the industry and roles played by different enterprises.
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