Fabrication of a Novel Z-Scheme AgBiO/BiOCl Heterojunction with Excellent Photocatalytic Performance towards Organic Pollutant.

A novel and highly efficient photocatalyst of a AgBiO/BiOCl heterojunction has been developed via a facile water bath and in situ precipitation method. The photocatalytic activities of the catalysts were investigated by the degradation of ciprofloxacin (CIP) under visible-light irradiation (>420 nm). The experiment results revealed that the photocatalytic performance of the optimized AgBiO/BiOCl heterojunction was much higher than pure AgBiO and BiOCl.

Association between residential environment and emotional wellbeing among older adults in China: the mediating effect of health lifestyle.

Introduction: The association between the residential environment and emotional wellbeing (EWB) in older adults has received extensive attention from gerontologists, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the mediating mechanism of how residential environment affects emotional wellbeing has not been fully explored. This study examined the effects of the residential environment on EWB and the mediating role of health lifestyle.

Methods: This study analyzed the survey data of 493 rural and 515 urban older adults from 2021 Chinese General Social Survey.

Value of brain tissue oxygen saturation in neonatal respiratory distress syndrome: a clinical study.

Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS) is one of the major causes of pre-term mortality and morbidity among very-low-birth-weight infants (VLBWI) in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Some of the neonates pass away despite admission and care in intensive care units (ICUs). The present clinical trial seeks the application value of elevating oxygen saturation in the brain cells of pre-term neonates born with NRDS.

Construction of Z-scheme AgCl/BiOCl heterojunction with oxygen vacancies for improved pollutant degradation and bacterial inactivation.

A facile Z-scheme AgCl/BiOCl heterojunction photocatalyst with oxygen vacancies was fabricated by a water-bath method. The structural, morphological, optical and electronic properties of as-synthesized samples were systematically characterized. The oxygen vacancies were confirmed by EPR, which could optimize the band-gap of the AgCl/BiOCl heterojunction and improve the photo-induced electron transfer.

Blocking brown adipocyte β-adrenoceptor attenuates blood-spinal cord barrier impairment and chronic postsurgical pain in a rat model of preoperative stress.

Preoperative stress has been recognized as an independent risk factor for chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP). However, the underlying mechanisms of CPSP influenced by preoperative stress remain elusive. Previous studies indicated that excessive stress could induce disruption of the blood-spinal cord barrier (BSCB).

Least-squares method constrained by phase smoothness for correcting illumination fluctuation errors in phase-shifting profilometry: erratum.

This erratum corrects an error in Eq. (29) of the original paper, Appl. Opt.

Least-squares method constrained by phase smoothness for correcting illumination fluctuation errors in phase-shifting profilometry.

Phase-shifting fringe projection profilometry usually suffers from the errors induced by illumination fluctuations. As a result, ripple-like artifacts that have the same periods as fringes appear on the phase map. Because the illumination fluctuations cannot be simply modeled using fringe harmonics, their induced errors are difficult to remove by use of a phase-shifting algorithm.

Harmonics elimination in phase-shifting fringe projection profilometry by use of a non-filtering algorithm in frequency domain.

In phase-shifting fringe projection profilometry, fringe harmonics caused by device nonlinearities as well as other factors may badly ruin the measurement results. Generally, the used phase-shifting algorithm enables restraint of effects of harmonics below a certain order depending on the number of phase shifts. When reducing the number of phase shifts for efficiency, high order harmonics will affect the phase-measuring results because of aliasing caused by insufficient sampling rate.

Quasi-pointwise two-step phase-shifting profilometry with the fringe parameters estimated statistically.

Fringe projection profilometry is a popularly used three-dimensional measurement technique in which phase-measuring algorithms based on two-step phase shifting are usually used because of their best tradeoff between measurement resolution and speed. Most two-step phase-shifting algorithms involve neighboring or other spatial operations, thus having degraded accuracies at edges and discontinuities of the measured object surface. Pointwise two-step algorithms enable overcoming this issue.

Joint least-squares algorithm correcting phase-shift errors and detector nonlinearity simultaneously in phase-shifting interferometry.

Phase-shifting interferometry may suffer from the errors caused by the miscalibration of the phase shifter and the nonlinearity of the detector simultaneously. These errors are not easy to eliminate because they are generally coupled with each other in interferograms. For solving this issue, we suggest a joint least-squares phase-shifting algorithm.

Construction of a novel two-dimensional AgBiO/BiOBr step-scheme heterojunction for enhanced broad-spectrum photocatalytic performance.

Efficient S-scheme heterojunction photocatalysts were prepared through growth of AgBiO on BiOBr. The self-assembled hierarchical structure of AgBiO/BiOBr was formed from flower-like AgBiO and plate-like BiOBr. The optimized AgBiO/BiOBr heterojunction possessed excellent visible-light photocatalytic degradation efficiency (83%) for ciprofloxacin (CIP) after 120 min, with 1.

Mechanism of simultaneous lead and chromium removal from contaminated wastewater by a schwertmannite-like mineral.

In this study, a schwertmannite-like mineral was synthesized for the removal of lead (Pb) and chromium (Cr) from contaminated wastewater. A shaking flask test was performed (150 r/min, 1 h) with FeSO·7HO, HO, NaSiO, and CaCl added for the mineral synthesis reaction. Results show that optimal performance was achieved with the addition of 1.

The Arabidopsis Mitochondrial Pseudouridine Synthase Homolog FCS1 Plays Critical Roles in Plant Development.

As the most abundant RNA modification, pseudouridylation has been shown to play critical roles in Escherichia coli, yeast and humans. However, its function in plants is still unclear. Here, we characterized leaf curly and small 1 (FCS1), which encodes a pseudouridine synthase in Arabidopsis.

Anti-aliasing phase reconstruction via a non-uniform phase-shifting technique.

The conventional phase-shifting techniques commonly suffer from frequency aliasing because of their number of phase shifts below the critical sampling rate. As a result, fringe harmonics induce ripple-like artifacts in their reconstructed phase maps. For solving this issue, this paper presents an anti-aliasing phase-measuring technique.

Removal of Antimony(V) from Drinking Water Using nZVI/AC: Optimization of Batch and Fix Bed Conditions.

Antimony (Sb) traces in water pose a serious threat to human health due to their negative effects. In this work, nanoscale zero-valent iron (Fe) supported on activated carbon (nZVI) was employed for eliminating Sb(V) from the drinking water. To better understand the overall process, the effects of several experimental variables, including pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), coexisting ions, and adsorption kinetics on the removal of Sb(V) from the SW were investigated by employing fixed-bed column runs or batch-adsorption methods.

Adsorption of Sb(III) from Aqueous Solution by nZVI/AC: A Magnetic Fixed-Bed Column Study.

The effectiveness of nanoscale zero-valent iron(nZVI) immobilized on activated carbon (nZVI/AC) in removing antimonite (Sb(III)) from simulated contaminated water was investigated with and without a magnetic fix-bed column reactor. The experiments were all conducted in fixed-bed columns. A weak magnetic field (WMF) was proposed to increase the exclusion of paramagnetic Sb(III) ions by nZVI/AC.

Spatial phase-shifting profilometry by use of polarization for measuring 3D shapes of metal objects.

In this paper, we present a polarization spatial phase-shifting method for fringe projection profilometry. It enables us to measure the three-dimensional shape of a metal object in a fast way requiring only a single-shot implementation. With this method, a couple of projectors are equipped, in front of their lens, with linear polarization filters having orthogonal polarization directions, so that they can simultaneously cast two sinusoidal fringe patterns having different phase shifts onto the measured metal surfaces without mixture.

Adsorption Kinetics of Arsenic (V) on Nanoscale Zero-Valent Iron Supported by Activated Carbon.

The presence of arsenic (As) in drinking water is of serious concern due to its negative impact on human health. This work reports on the kinetics of nanoscale zero-valent iron (Fe) supported by activated carbon (NZVI/AC) for the removal of As (V) species from aqueous solutions. To better understand the factors affecting this process, we investigated the effects of various experimental parameters including initial As (V) concentration, adsorbent dosage, pH, temperature, and coexisting ions on the adsorption kinetics using a batch-adsorption method.

Efficient depth recovering method free from projector errors by use of pixel cross-ratio invariance in fringe projection profilometry.

In fringe projection profilometry, errors related to projectors are not easy to compensate for, as a projector is much more difficult to calibrate than a camera. Immune to projector errors, the depth recovering method based on pixel cross-ratio invariance enables circumventing this issue by calculating the depth of a point from the shift of its camera pixel instead of from its fringe phase. With this existing technique, however, one has to search three reference phase maps along epipolar lines for pixels having the same phases.

Transcriptome-wide analysis of pseudouridylation of mRNA and non-coding RNAs in Arabidopsis.

Pseudouridine (Ψ) is widely distributed in mRNA and various non-coding RNAs in yeast and mammals, and the specificity of its distribution has been determined. However, knowledge about Ψs in the RNAs of plants, particularly in mRNA, is lacking. In this study, we performed genome-wide pseudouridine-sequencing in Arabidopsis and for the first time identified hundreds of Ψ sites in mRNA and multiple Ψ sites in non-coding RNAs.

A membrane-anchored fluorescent probe for detecting K(+) in the cell microenvironment.

Cell-surface fluorescent probes are effective tools in cell biology and engineering. Here, we for the first time report a diacyllipid-aptamer conjugate-based fluorescent probe which could anchor on cell membrane for real-time tracking of potassium ions in the cell microenvironment.

Nucleic acid aptamer-mediated drug delivery for targeted cancer therapy.

Aptamers are emerging as promising therapeutic agents and recognition elements. In particular, cell-SELEX (systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment) allows in vitro selection of aptamers selective to whole cells without prior knowledge of the molecular signatures on the cell surface. The advantage of aptamers is their high affinitiy and binding specificity towards the target.

Bioaccumulation of cadmium bound to ferric hydroxide and particulate organic matter by the bivalve M. meretrix.

Ferric hydroxide and particulate organic matter are important pools of trace metals in sediments and control their accumulation by benthic animals. We investigated bioaccumulation of cadmium in bivalve Meretrix meretrix by using a simplified system of laboratory synthesized iron oxides and commercially obtained humic acids to represent the inorganic and organic matrix found in nature. The results showed that bioaccumulation characteristics were distinctly different for these two substrates.

Bioaccumulation of cadmium bound to humic acid by the bivalve Meretrix meretirx linnaeus from solute and particulate pathways.

Humic acid is an important pool of heavy metals in sediments. Generally, the presence of refractory humic matter in aquatic systems would decrease the bioavailability of Cd and hence control the bioaccumulation of Cd in benthic animals. In the present work, we applied a suspending system to determine the relative importance of particulate and dissolved fractions of humic acid as Cd sources for the bivalve Meretrix meretrix and to investigate the difference of bioaccumulation characteristics of Cd adsorbed on different fractions of humic acid.

[Influence of speciation on the bioavailability of particle-bound cadmium in sediments].

In the present work, the impact of speciation on the bioavailability of cadmium in sediments was investigated. Bioaccumulation of cadmium adsorbed on various (hydr)oxide minerals, i.e.