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•A Fenton-like reaction was proposed as an effective sludge dewatering process.•Uniform design was used to optimize this sludge dewatering process.•The mechanism for the enhanced ...dewatering performance was elucidated.
The presence of high moisture content in sewage sludge aggravates the disposal costs and restricts its application. Sewage sludge is traditionally conditioned by dosing organic/inorganic chemicals. However, after the treatment, the moisture content and inorganic solid mass remain to be a high level. In this work, a Fenton-like dewatering process, i.e., a combination of sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide and ferric sulfate, was developed. Uniform design was used to optimize the composite conditions, and the effects of Fenton-like treatment on sludge dewatering were examined. The results show that, after the treatment of the Fenton-like reaction, the moisture content of sludge cake and the dry solid mass decreased from 80.0% to 66.1% and from 12.9 to 10.6g/L, respectively. The mechanism for the enhanced dewatering performance was explored, and the degradation of abundant extracellular polymeric substances, the lysis of the sludge cells, and the release of bound water and typical metals within the sludge flocs were found to be mainly responsible for the enhanced dewatering performance. In addition, a surface thermodynamic analysis with the extended DLVO theory shows that the higher hydrophobicity and the less stable sludge flocs also contributed to the decrease in moisture content. Our results confirm that such a Fenton-like treatment exhibited excellent performance in enhancing sludge dewatering and metal leaching and is a promising pretreatment approach for sludge disposal.
Complete colonic duplication (Figure 1E) and double appendixes (Figure 1F) were discovered through the laparoscopy. ...instead of excision of the duplicated colon, the patient was treated with ...anastomosis of the duplicated colon to the native colon (Figure 1E), alongside ligation of the fistula and resection of the duplicated appendix. Colonic and rectal duplications are rare congenital malformations, accounting for less than 20% of all enteric duplications. 1 Hindgut duplications, which include colonic and rectal duplications, can be categorized into three classes: small intra-mesenteric duplications, presacral midline masses, and side-by-side tubular duplications. CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Generative modeling, which learns joint probability distribution from data and generates samples according to it, is an important task in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Inspired by ...probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics, we propose a generative model using matrix product states, which is a tensor network originally proposed for describing (particularly one-dimensional) entangled quantum states. Our model enjoys efficient learning analogous to the density matrix renormalization group method, which allows dynamically adjusting dimensions of the tensors and offers an efficient direct sampling approach for generative tasks. We apply our method to generative modeling of several standard data sets including the Bars and Stripes random binary patterns and the MNIST handwritten digits to illustrate the abilities, features, and drawbacks of our model over popular generative models such as the Hopfield model, Boltzmann machines, and generative adversarial networks. Our work sheds light on many interesting directions of future exploration in the development of quantum-inspired algorithms for unsupervised machine learning, which are promisingly possible to realize on quantum devices.
Iron is an essential metal ion in the human body and usually dysregulated in cancers. However, a comprehensive overview of the iron‐related genes and their clinical relevance in cancer is lacking. In ...this study, we utilized the expression profiling, proteomics, and epigenetics from the Cancer Genome Atlas database to systematically characterized the alterations of iron‐related genes. There were multiple iron‐related genes with dysregulation across 14 cancers and some of these ectopic changes may be associated with aberrant DNA methylation. Meanwhile, a variety of genes were significantly associated with patient survival, especially in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma. Then differentially expressed genes were validated in clinical samples. Finally, we found deferoxamine and erastin could inhibit proliferation in various tumor cells and influence the expression of several iron‐related genes. Overall, our study provides a comprehensive analysis of iron metabolism across cancers and highlights the potential treatment of iron targeted therapies for cancers.
We systematically analyzed dysregulation of iron metabolism genes using transcriptomics, epigenomics and proteomics data from the TCGA project. Our results showed that iron metabolism was dysregulated across different cancer types.
Solar energy‐driven water evaporation is a promising sustainable strategy to purify seawater and contaminated water. However, developing solar evaporators with high water evaporation rates and ...excellent salt resistance still faces a great challenge. Herein, inspired by the long‐range ordered structure and water transportation capability of lotus stem, a biomimetic aerogel with vertically ordered channels and low water evaporation enthalpy for high‐efficiency solar energy‐driven salt‐resistant seawater desalination and wastewater purification is developed. The biomimetic aerogel consists of ultralong hydroxyapatite nanowires as heat‐insulating skeletons, polydopamine‐modified MXene as a photothermal material with broadband sunlight absorption and high photothermal conversion efficiency, polyacrylamide, and polyvinyl alcohol as reagents to lower the water evaporation enthalpy and as glues to enhance the mechanical performance. The honeycomb porous structure, unidirectionally aligned microchannels, and nanowire/nanosheet/polymer pore wall endow the biomimetic aerogel with excellent mechanical properties, rapid water transportation, and excellent solar water evaporation performance. The biomimetic aerogel exhibits a high water evaporation rate (2.62 kg m−2 h−1) and energy efficiency (93.6%) under one sun irradiation. The superior salt‐rejecting ability of the designed water evaporator enables stable and continuous seawater desalination, which is promising for application in water purification to mitigate the global water crisis.
A lotus stem‐inspired aerogel water evaporator with vertically aligned channels and low water evaporation enthalpy is fabricated using ultralong hydroxyapatite nanowires, polyacrylamide, polyvinyl alcohol, and polydopamine‐modified MXene, which exhibits a high water evaporation rate and high energy efficiency as well as stable and salt‐rejecting seawater desalination.
Water pollution and freshwater shortage have deteriorated the global water crisis. Developing sustainable methods to alleviate contaminated water has become an urgent affair. Herein, inspired by ...water transportation and transpiration of natural trees, the authors report an ultralong hydroxyapatite nanowires‐based biomimetic aerogel with vertically aligned channels and multiple functions for continuous flow catalysis, water disinfection, solar energy‐driven water purification, and seawater desalination. Ultralong hydroxyapatite nanowires act as carriers to immobilize catalyst nanoparticles and serve as building blocks to assemble with chitosan to form the biomimetic aerogel with structure‐function integration. Benefiting from the interconnected cellular structure, unidirectional aligned channels, nanowire‐interwoven networked pore wall, and evenly distributed catalyst nanoparticles, the biomimetic aerogel exhibits high catalytic activity (97.6% treatment efficiency) and permeability (1786 L m−2 h−1), excellent recyclability and stability in continuous flow catalytic degradation of methylene blue solely driven by gravity. The biomimetic aerogel exhibits excellent performance for bacteria removal and anti‐biofouling. The superior photothermal conversion and heat confinement properties enable the biomimetic aerogel with a high efficiency (86.7%) for solar energy‐driven seawater desalination and wastewater purification under one sun irradiation. The multifunctional biomimetic aerogel has promising applications in catalytic reactions, wastewater remediation, and environmental engineering.
A tree‐inspired multifunctional aerogel with vertically aligned channels is fabricated from ultralong hydroxyapatite nanowires, immobilized palladium nanoparticles, and chitosan through a unidirectional freeze‐drying approach. The biomimetic aerogel exhibits high performances in gravity‐driven continuous flow catalytic reactions, water disinfection, and solar energy‐driven water purification and seawater desalination.
The two T cell inhibitory receptors PD-1 and TIM-3 are co-expressed during exhausted T cell differentiation, and recent evidence suggests that their crosstalk regulates T cell exhaustion and ...immunotherapy efficacy; however, the molecular mechanism is unclear. Here we show that PD-1 contributes to the persistence of PD-1
TIM-3
T cells by binding to the TIM-3 ligand galectin-9 (Gal-9) and attenuates Gal-9/TIM-3-induced cell death. Anti-Gal-9 therapy selectively expands intratumoral TIM-3
cytotoxic CD8 T cells and immunosuppressive regulatory T cells (T
cells). The combination of anti-Gal-9 and an agonistic antibody to the co-stimulatory receptor GITR (glucocorticoid-induced tumor necrosis factor receptor-related protein) that depletes T
cells induces synergistic antitumor activity. Gal-9 expression and secretion are promoted by interferon β and γ, and high Gal-9 expression correlates with poor prognosis in multiple human cancers. Our work uncovers a function for PD-1 in exhausted T cell survival and suggests Gal-9 as a promising target for immunotherapy.
Abstract
Glucose electrolysis offers a prospect of value-added glucaric acid synthesis and energy-saving hydrogen production from the biomass-based platform molecules. Here we report that ...nanostructured NiFe oxide (NiFeO
x
) and nitride (NiFeN
x
) catalysts, synthesized from NiFe layered double hydroxide nanosheet arrays on three-dimensional Ni foams, demonstrate a high activity and selectivity towards anodic glucose oxidation. The electrolytic cell assembled with these two catalysts can deliver 100 mA cm
−2
at 1.39 V. A faradaic efficiency of 87% and glucaric acid yield of 83% are obtained from the glucose electrolysis, which takes place via a guluronic acid pathway evidenced by in-situ infrared spectroscopy. A rigorous process model combined with a techno-economic analysis shows that the electrochemical reduction of glucose produces glucaric acid at a 54% lower cost than the current chemical approach. This work suggests that glucose electrolysis is an energy-saving and cost-effective approach for H
2
production and biomass valorization.
Wafer‐scale fabrication of high‐performance uniform organic electronic materials is of great challenge and has rarely been realized before. Previous large‐scale fabrication methods always lead to ...different layer thickness and thereby poor film and device uniformity. Herein, the first demonstration of 4 in. wafer‐scale, uniform, and high‐performance n‐type polymer monolayer films is reported, enabled by controlling the multi‐level self‐assembly process of conjugated polymers in solution. Since the self‐assembly process happened in solution, the uniform 2D polymer monolayers can be facilely deposited on various substrates, and theoretically without size limitations. Polymer monolayer transistors exhibit high electron mobilities of up to 1.88 cm2 V−1 s−1, which is among the highest in n‐type monolayer organic transistors. This method allows to easily fabricate n‐type conjugated polymers with wafer‐scale, high uniformity, low contact resistance, and excellent transistor performance (better than the traditional spin‐coating method). This work provides an effective strategy to prepare large‐scale and uniform 2D polymer monolayers, which could enable the application of conjugated polymers for wafer‐scale sophisticated electronics.
Using a multi‐level self‐assembly strategy, an n‐type polymer monolayer field‐effect transistor is obtained on wafer‐scale. These devices offers high performance, high air‐stability, and high uniformity. The strategy enhances the formation of wafer‐scale and uniform polymer monolayers. Transistor arrays on a 4 in. wafer exhibit electron mobilities of up to 1.88 cm2 V−1 s−1, among the highest reported until now for n‐type monolayer organic transistors.
Sluggish charge kinetics and low CO2 affinity seriously inhibit CO2 photoreduction. Herein, the synchronous promotion of charge separation and CO2 affinity of Bi4Ti3O12 is realized by coupling corona ...poling and surface I‐grafting. Corona poling enhances ferroelectric polarization of Bi4Ti3O12 by aligning the domains direction, which profoundly promotes charge transfer along opposite directions across bulk. Surface I‐grafting forms a surface local electric field for further separating charge carriers and provides abundant active sites to enhance CO2 adsorption. The two modifications cooperatively further increase the ferroelectric polarization of Bi4Ti3O12, which maximize the separation efficiency of photogenerated charges, resulting in an enhanced CO production rate of 15.1 μmol g−1 h−1 (nearly 9 times) with no sacrificial agents or cocatalysts. This work discloses that ferroelectric polarization and surface ion grafting can promote CO2 photoreduction in a synergistic way.
Synergistic polarization engineering on bulk and on the surface of Bi4Ti3O12 is realized by coupling corona poling and surface I‐grafting, which strengthen ferroelectric polarization for facilitating the separation and transfer of photogenerated charge carriers and enrich the reactive sites, largely improving the photocatalytic activity for reducing CO2 into CO.
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