Synthesis of Ag@Pd Nanocubes and Pd-based Nanoframes via One-shot Injection of a Halide-free Precursor for Continuous Production in a Flow Reactor.

Noble-metal open nanostructures have remarkable catalytic capabilities toward a wide range of reactions. In particular, Pd-based open nanostructures have been synthesized and validated for superior catalytic performance toward formic acid oxidation. However, most of the syntheses are based on dropwise addition, making it challenging to increase the production volume.

Continuous-Flow and Scalable Synthesis of Pd@Pt Core-Shell Nanocrystals with Enhanced Activity toward Oxygen Reduction.

We report a scalable method based on continuous-flow reactors for conformally coating the surfaces of facet-controlled Pd nanocrystals with uniform, ultrathin shells made of Pt. The key to the success of such an approach is the identification of a proper polyol to generate the Pt atoms at a relatively slow rate to ensure adequate surface diffusion and thus the formation of uniform shells in a layer-by-layer fashion. We first demonstrate the concept using the production of Pd@Pt (n = 2-5) core-shell icosahedral nanocrystals and then have the strategy successfully extended to the syntheses of Pd@Pt cubic and octahedral nanocrystals.

HirMTL: Hierarchical Multi-Task Learning for dense scene understanding.

In the realm of artificial intelligence, simultaneous multi-task learning is crucial, particularly for dense scene understanding. To address this, we introduce HirMTL, a novel hierarchical multi-task learning framework designed to enhance dense scene analysis. HirMTL is adept at facilitating interaction at the scale level, ensuring task-adaptive multi-scale feature fusion, and fostering task-level feature interchange.

Third-generation D-lactic acid production using red macroalgae Gelidium amansii by co-fermentation of galactose, glucose and xylose.

Macroalgae biomass has been considered as a promising renewable feedstock for lactic acid production owing to its lignin-free, high carbohydrate content and high productivity. Herein, the D-lactic acid production from red macroalgae Gelidium amansii by Pediococcus acidilactici was investigated. The fermentable sugars in G.

Efficiency and ecological safety of herbicide haloxyfop-R-methyl on removal of coastal invasive plant Spartina alterniflora.

Spartina alterniflora is a global invasive plant and has caused considerable damage to coastal wetland ecosystem. This study evaluated the efficiency and ecological safety of herbicide haloxyfop-R-methyl (HPME) in removing S alterniflora in Laizhou Bay. The results showed that the density of regenerated S.

Enhanced cellulosic d-lactic acid production from sugarcane bagasse by pre-fermentation of water-soluble carbohydrates before acid pretreatment.

After several rounds of milling process for sugars extraction from sugarcane, certain amounts of water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC) still remain in sugarcane bagasse. It is a bottleneck to utilize WSC in sugarcane bagasse biorefinery, since these sugars are easily degraded into inhibitors during pretreatment. Herein, a simple pre-fermentation step before pretreatment was conducted, and 98 % of WSC in bagasse was fermented into d-lactic acid.

Prognostic Utility of Cardiac MRI Myocardial Strain Parameters in Patients With Ischemic and Nonischemic Dilated Cardiomyopathy: A Multicenter Study.

Prior small single-center studies have yielded conflicting results regarding the prognostic significance of myocardial strain parameters derived from feature tracking (FT) on cardiac MRI in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic utility of FT parameters on cardiac MRI in patients with ischemic and nonischemic DCM and to determine the optimal strain parameter for outcome prediction. This retrospective study included 471 patients (median age, 61 years; 365 men, 106 women) with ischemic ( = 233) or nonischemic ( = 238) DCM and left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) less than 50% who underwent cardiac MRI at any of four centers from January 2011 to December 2019.

One-pot d-lactic acid production using undetoxified acid-pretreated corncob slurry by an adapted Pediococcus acidilactici.

Inhibitor tolerance is still a bottleneck for lactic acid bacteria in lignocellulose biorefinery, while it is hard to obtain one engineered strain with strong tolerance to all inhibitors. Herein, a robust adapted d-lactic acid producing strain Pediococcus acidilactici XH11 was obtained by 111 days' long-term adaptive evolution in undetoxified corncob prehydrolysates. The adapted strain had higher inhibitors tolerance compared to the parental strain, primarily due to its increased conversion capacities of four typical aldehyde inhibitors (furfural, HMF, vanillin, and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde).

Co-expression of Xylose Transporter and Fructose-Bisphosphate Aldolase Enhances the Utilization of Xylose by Lactococcus lactis IO-1.

The raw material cost of lactic acid fermentation accounts for the main part of the production cost, and this necessitates the exploration of the efficient use of cheap raw materials in lactic acid production. We compared the outcomes of the homologous expressions of xylose transporters (xylFGH, xylE, araE, and xylT), 6-phosphofructokinase (pfkA), fructose-bisphosphate aldolase (fbaA), and their co-expression in Lactococcus lactis IO-1 on lactic acid production using xylose as the raw material. We found that the production rate of lactic acid on xylose fermentation by L.

One-pot fermentation for erythritol production from distillers grains by the co-cultivation of Yarrowia lipolytica and Trichoderma reesei.

A co-fermentation process involving Yarrowia lipolytica and Trichoderma reesei was studied, using distillers grains (DGS) as feedstocks for erythritol production. DGS can be effectively hydrolyzed by cellulase in the single-strain culture of T. reesei.

Eelgrass (Zostera marina) and its epiphytic bacteria facilitate the sinking of microplastics in the seawater.

Marine microplastics have received considerable attention as a global environmental issue. However, despite the constant accumulation of microplastics in the ocean, their transport processes and mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study investigated microplastics in the sediments of seagrass meadows and nearby regions without seagrass along the Shandong coast and found that the sediment in the seagrass meadows was a sink for microplastics.

Hydroxyapatite Nanorods Function as Safe and Effective Growth Factors Regulating Neural Differentiation and Neuron Development.

Neural stem cell (NSC) transplantation is one of the most promising therapeutic strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. However, the slow spontaneous differentiation of NSCs often hampers their application in neural repair. Although some biological growth factors accelerate the differentiation of NSCs, their high cost, short half-life, and unpredictable behavior in vivo, as well as the complexity of the operation, hinder their clinical use.

Direct conversion of cheese whey to polymalic acid by mixed culture of Aureobasidium pullulans and permeabilized Kluyveromyces marxianus.

Cheese whey is an abundant and low-cost feedstock with lactose as its main component, but the inability to metabolize lactose prevents Aureobasidium pullulans from using cheese whey directly. In this study, Kluyveromyces marxianus was permeabilized to obtain nonviable but biocatalytic cells for lactose hydrolysis, and the mixed culture of A. pullulans and permeabilized K.

[Characteristics and composition of vegetation carbon storage in natural grassland in Ning-xia, China.].

We measured the total vegetation carbon stock in the widely distributed natural grassland of meadow steppe (MS), warm steppe (WS), steppe desert (SD) and desert steppe (DS)] in Ningxia, using survey and sampling method. The results showed that the average carbon rate of vege-tation, shrubs and root were 0.40, and that of litter was 0.

[Carbon sequestration characteristics of typical temperate natural grasslands in Ningxia, China].

To accurately estimate ecosystem carbon storage of natural grassland in Ningxia, we examined ecosystem carbon storage in four types of typical temperate natural grasslands, including meadow steppe, warm steppe, steppe desert, and desert steppe in Ningxia. The results showed that the total vegetation biomass of meadow steppe, warm steppe, steppe desert and desert steppe were 1178.91, 481.

Dynamic growth models for Caragana korshinskii shrub biomass in China.

The Caragana korshinskii shrub is a widely distributed plant found in arid regions and plays an important role in ecological environment protection. Accurate estimations of shrub biomass are particularly important for natural resource management decision making. 114 individual C.

Isolation and Characterization of a Novel Cold-Active, Halotolerant Endoxylanase from sp. Nov. JL3085.

We cloned a xylanase gene () from marine bacterium sp. nov. JL3085 and recombinantly expressed it in BL21.

CT differential diagnosis of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 in symptomatic suspects: a practical scoring method.

Background: Although typical and atypical CT image findings of COVID-19 are reported in current studies, the CT image features of COVID-19 overlap with those of viral pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. Hence, it is difficult to make an exclusive diagnosis.

Methods: Thirty confirmed cases of COVID-19 and forty-three cases of other aetiology or clinically confirmed non-COVID-19 in a general hospital were included.

One-step utilization of non-detoxified pretreated lignocellulose for enhanced cellulolytic enzyme production using recombinant Trichoderma reesei RUT C30 carrying alcohol dehydrogenase and nicotinate phosphoribosyltransferase.

Cell growth of Trichoderma reesei is greatly inhibited by furan derivatives (furfural and HMF) generated during pretreatment of lignocellulose, and the cellulase production is hence suppressed. In this study, a novel recombinant strain of T. reesei with high tolerance to furans was constructed by homologously co-expressing nicotinate phosphoribosyltransferase and alcohol dehydrogenase.

Diagnostic performance between CT and initial real-time RT-PCR for clinically suspected 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) patients outside Wuhan, China.

Introduction: Chest CT is thought to be sensitive but less specific in diagnosing the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The diagnostic value of CT is unclear. We aimed to compare the performance of CT and initial RT-PCR for clinically suspected COVID-19 patients outside the epicentre-Wuhan, China.

Effect of Hydroxyapatite Nanorods on the Fate of Human Adipose-Derived Stem Cells Assessed In Situ at the Single Cell Level with a High-Throughput, Real-Time Microfluidic Chip.

The fate of stem cells at the single cell level with limited communication with other cells is still unknown due to the lack of an efficient tool for highly accurate molecular detection. Moreover, the conditional sensitivity of biological experiments requires a sufficient number of parallel experiments to support a conclusion. In this work, a microfluidic single cell chip is designed for use with a protein chip to investigate the effect of hydroxyapatite (HAp) on the osteogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells (hADSCs) in situ at the single cell level.

Response of phytoplankton assemblages to nitrogen reduction in the Laizhou Bay, China.

The response of phytoplankton assemblages to decreases in nitrogen loading is an essential index to assess the recovery of aquatic ecosystems from eutrophic status. However, a positive signal is hard to observe from short-term operations considering ecosystem complexity. Here, we used decadal data from the Laizhou Bay, China to track the seasonal and annual variations in phytoplankton assemblages after ammonia reduction in the Xiaoqing and Yellow Rivers.

Production of cellulase by from pretreated straw and furfural residues.

In this study, furfural residues were used as a substrate for cellulase production by the fungi . The results indicated that a low pH and the presence of lignin in the furfural residues have an obvious impact on cellulase production by . After pH adjustment, furfural residues could be used for cellulase production by , with a higher filter paper activity (FPA) and a higher activity of CMCase compared to that yielded from furfural residues with pH unadjusted.