The separation properties of polyamide reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membranes, widely applied for desalination and water reuse, are constrained by the permeability-selectivity upper bound. ...Although thin-film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes incorporating nanomaterials exhibit enhanced water permeance, their rejection is only moderately improved or even impaired due to agglomeration of nanomaterials and formation of defects. A novel type of TFN membranes featuring an interlayer of nanomaterials (TFNi) has emerged in recent years. These novel TFNi membranes show extraordinary improvement in water flux (e.g., up to an order of magnitude enhancement) along with better selectivity. Such enhancements can be achieved by a wide selection of nanomaterials, ranging from nanoparticles, one-/two-dimensional materials, to interfacial coatings. The use of nanostructured interlayers not only improves the formation of polyamide rejection layers but also provides an optimized water transport path, which enables TFNi membranes to potentially overcome the longstanding trade-off between membrane permeability and selectivity. Furthermore, TFNi membranes can potentially enhance the removal of heavy metals and micropollutants, which is critical for many environmental applications. This review critically examines the recent developments of TFNi membranes and discusses the underlying mechanisms and design criteria. Their potential environmental applications are also highlighted.
The nonlinear Hall effect is an unconventional response, in which a voltage can be driven by two perpendicular currents in the Hall-bar measurement. Unprecedented in the family of the Hall effects, ...it can survive time-reversal symmetry but is sensitive to the breaking of discrete and crystal symmetries. It is a quantum transport phenomenon that has deep connection with the Berry curvature. However, a full quantum description is still absent. Here we construct a quantum theory of the nonlinear Hall effect by using the diagrammatic technique. Quite different from nonlinear optics, nearly all the diagrams account for the disorder effects, which play decisive role in the electronic transport. After including the disorder contributions in terms of the Feynman diagrams, the total nonlinear Hall conductivity is enhanced but its sign remains unchanged for the 2D tilted Dirac model, compared to the one with only the Berry curvature contribution. We discuss the symmetry of the nonlinear conductivity tensor and predict a pure disorder-induced nonlinear Hall effect for point groups C
, C
, C
, D
, D
in 2D, and T, T
, C
, D
in 3D. This work will be helpful for explorations of the topological physics beyond the linear regime.
This paper proposes a digital teaching innovation path for art majors and builds a digital teaching innovation technology framework with digital teaching resource management and online and offline ...blended teaching as the main modules. In digital teaching resource management, a SCORM digital teaching resource management model is constructed, and a resource recommendation algorithm is designed in combination with a collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm. In blended teaching, a meta-learning recommendation algorithm is utilized to complete the design of a teaching system for CDIO. Finally, experimental classes and control classes were set up to carry out digital teaching practices using the Fine Arts Painting major at University A in Zhejiang Province, China, as the research object. In the analysis of students’ learning behavior performance, the score of students in the experimental class was 4.373 points higher than that of the control class, with a significant difference (P<0.05). The total drawing performance score of the experimental class students was 78.45, and the overall drawing performance was satisfactory. In the analysis of students’ learning performance scale, all the index values of the experimental class were higher than those of the control class. In terms of teachers’ teaching behavior performance, except for teaching monitoring behavior, the experimental class showed significant differences from the control class in all other teaching behavior factors.
Evidence suggests that fasting exerts extensive antitumor effects in various cancers, including colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the mechanism behind this response is unclear. We investigate the ...effect of fasting on glucose metabolism and malignancy in CRC. We find that fasting upregulates the expression of a cholesterogenic gene, Farnesyl-Diphosphate Farnesyltransferase 1 (FDFT1), during the inhibition of CRC cell aerobic glycolysis and proliferation. In addition, the downregulation of FDFT1 is correlated with malignant progression and poor prognosis in CRC. Moreover, FDFT1 acts as a critical tumor suppressor in CRC. Mechanistically, FDFT1 performs its tumor-inhibitory function by negatively regulating AKT/mTOR/HIF1α signaling. Furthermore, mTOR inhibitor can synergize with fasting in inhibiting the proliferation of CRC. These results indicate that FDFT1 is a key downstream target of the fasting response and may be involved in CRC cell glucose metabolism. Our results suggest therapeutic implications in CRC and potential crosstalk between a cholesterogenic gene and glycolysis.
With the cars in our country's rapid increase, the limited quantity of traditional car washing shop has been unable to satisfy people's needs. Responding to this problem the author designed a set of ...self-service car washing machine control system based on ARM, and a set of remote monitoring system based on 4G mobile network. The terminal control system adopted high speed, low power microcontroller LPC4350 as the control core; adopted RFID read-write module to realize IC card consumption; adopted EM770W 4G module for the washing machine terminal could connect to 4G mobile network. Through MODBUS protocol, the remote monitoring system based on KINGVIEW6.55 could communicate with the terminal system, and realized the real-time monitoring and recording the washing machines' working parameters regularly. Because the designed system realized the unattended self-service washing, so it greatly reduced the maintenance workload, and improved the work efficiency.
Ceramic tiles are now widely used in indoor and outdoor decoration projects. Aiming at the shortcomings of the existing ceramic tile cutting machine, a ceramic tile cutting robot is designed. PLC is ...used as the control core of the robot to make the size adjustment of ceramic tile cutting convenient and flexible, the cutting error is small, the tile section is smooth and tidy, and the breakage rate is low, which improves the efficiency of ceramic tile cutting and reduces the labour intensity of workers.
•An enhanced particle shifting technique (PST) is presented to overcome the deficiencies of traditional PSTs.•The volume-non-conservation issue is tackled by introducing a corrective cohesion force ...between particles.•The non-physical gap issue is alleviated by introducing a different free-surface treatment.•Four benchmarks are implemented to validate the effectiveness and stability of the present scheme.•Satisfactory numerical results are obtained in WCSPH simulations of violent free-surface flows.
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The non-conservation of total fluid volume, caused by the accumulating errors on the potential energy of the fluid, has been a serious numerical issue in a Weakly-Compressible SPH (WCSPH) simulation when transitional Particle Shifting Techniques (PSTs) are employed to prevent disordered particle distribution and the tensile instability from negative pressures. This paper is dedicated to, within the framework of WCSPH, developing an enhanced version that remedies the aforementioned deficiency of the traditional PSTs, and meanwhile improves the quality of the particle distribution in the vicinity of a free-surface region. To this end, a Corrective Cohesion Force (CCF) between a target particle and its interacting particles is introduced to provide adaptive compensation corresponding to the particle repositioning. Four classical benchmarks are implemented to validate the effectiveness and stability of the present PST. It is demonstrated that the new PST incorporating with the CCF shows satisfactory performance to improve the conservation of total fluid volume, and to obtain more uniform particle distribution in the proximity of the free-surface. In addition, the newly-developed PST also maintains the accuracy and stability inherited from the traditional versions, suggesting that it can be treated as an ideal alternative with regard to the traditional PSTs in a WCSPH simulation, especially for a long-term-duration case with violent free-surface evolutions.
Autophagy and pulmonary disease Liao, Shi-xia; Sun, Peng-peng; Gu, Yan-hui ...
Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease,
2019, Volume:
13
Book Review, Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Autophagy is a process of cell self-renewal that is dependent on the degradation of the cytoplasmic proteins or organelles of lysosomes. Many diseases, such as metabolic diseases, cancer, ...neurodegenerative diseases, and lung diseases, have been confirmed to be associated with elevated or impaired levels of autophagy. At present, studies have found that autophagy participates in the regulation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, acute lung injury, lung cancer, and other pulmonary diseases. Using recent literature on the signal transduction mechanisms of autophagy and the effects of autophagy signalling on lung diseases, this review intends to clarify the mechanisms of lung disease to guide the treatment of related diseases.
The reviews of this paper are available via the supplemental material section.
Aptamer biosensor for label-free thrombin detection based on a tapered fiber-optic interferometer has been proposed and demonstrated. The biosensor probe can be easily fabricated by tapering a ...commercial double-cladding fiber down to 5 μm in diameter and it provides a high refractive index sensitivity of 1660 nm/RIU. The changes are determined by tracing the wavelength shift of the dip in the transmission spectrum with variable surrounding refractive index. With the help of the surface functionalization of thrombin-binding aptamers, the proposed fiber-optic biosensor proves its capability in label-free detection of thrombin with a lowest detectable concentration of 0.1 μm, together with high specificity in various concentrations of pure and mixed thrombin solutions.
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