Strategy to mitigate substrate inhibition in wastewater treatment systems.

Global urbanization requires more stable and sustainable wastewater treatment to reduce the burden on the water environment. To address the problem of substrate inhibition of microorganisms during wastewater treatment, which leads to unstable wastewater discharge, this study proposes an approach to enhance the tolerance of bacterial community by artificially setting up a non-lethal high substrate environment. And the feasibility of this approach was explored by taking the inhibition of anammox process by nitrite as an example.

High-Throughput Monitoring of Pathogenic Fungal Growth Using Whole Slide Imaging for Rapid Antifungal Susceptibility Assessment.

Invasive fungal infections are a major health threat with high morbidity and mortality, highlighting the urgent need for rapid diagnostic tools to detect antifungal resistance. Traditional culture-based antifungal susceptibility testing (AFST) methods often fall short due to their lengthy process. In our previous research, we developed a whole-slide imaging (WSI) technique for the high-throughput assessment of bacterial antibiotic resistance.

Tunability-selective lithium niobate light modulators via high-Q resonant metasurface.

Herein, we propose and demonstrate an efficient light modulator by intercalating the nonlinear thin film into the optical resonator cavities, which introduce the ultra-sharp resonances and simultaneously lead to the spatially overlapped optical field between the nonlinear material and the resonators. Differential field intensity distributions in the geometrical perturbation-assisted optical resonator make the high quality-factor resonant modes and strong field confinement. Multiple channel light modulation is achieved in such layered system, which enables the capability for tunability-selective modulation.

A predictive model for determining the nitrite concentration in the effluent of an anammox reactor using ensemble regression tree algorithm.

Anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) is a cost-effective biological nitrogen removal method for treating wastewater. Nitrite has strong negative effect on microbial activity of anammox bacteria, while the conventional equitment available for determining nitrite on-line is challenging due to high price. By knowing the concentration of nitrite in the effluent, its concentration in the reactor can be controlled accordingly.

Integrating Sensor Ontologies with Niching Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm.

Sensor ontology provides a standardized semantic representation for information sharing between sensor devices. However, due to the varied descriptions of sensor devices at the semantic level by designers in different fields, data exchange between sensor devices is hindered. Sensor ontology matching achieves data integration and sharing between sensors by establishing semantic relationships between sensor devices.

Insight into thermal regulation of supercapacitors via surface-engineered phase change microcapsules.

Constructing efficient thermal management system to settle the thermal runaway of energy storage devices via employing phase change microcapsules (MEPCMs) is of great significance. However, it is still a challenge that the conventional MEPCMs go against the electrochemical performance and hardly be homogenously fixed in the electrodes. In order to conquer these long-standing critical issues, we designed a novel electrochemically active double-shell phase change microcapsule by introducing polypyrrole on the surface of dense amine resin shell of the conventional inert MEPCM.

Corrigendum: Chief executive officer collectivism and corporate pollution abatement behavior: Evidence from industrial firms in China.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.

Chief Executive Officer Collectivism and Corporate Pollution Abatement Behavior: Evidence From Industrial Firms in China.

This study examines the relationship between chief executive officers (CEOs)' collectivistic cultural background and corporate pollution abatement behavior among industrial firms in China. Using hand-collected data on birthplaces of CEOs of the industrial firms, we provided robust evidence that CEOs born in provinces with a higher level of collectivistic culture promote corporate pollution abatement performance. This study further shows that firms exhibit significant differences in their emission reduction behavior when firms are subjected to environmental regulation shocks: firms with collectivistic CEOs tend to reduce more pollution than firms with individualistic CEOs without sacrificing their firms' production.

Corporate Competing Culture and Environmental Investment.

Using Chinese listed companies as research setting, this paper constructs a measure of corporate competing culture through textual analysis on firms' management discussion and analysis (MD&A) disclosures, and examines the impact of corporate competing culture on environmental investment. The results show that competing culture has a significant and positive impact on firms' environmental investment, and the results remain robust to a battery of robustness tests. Moreover, the mediating analysis indicates that competing culture promotes corporate environmental investment through enhancing firms' internal control quality.

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) enabled bio-applications: A critical review.

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) are nanoscale spherical vesicles released from Gram-negative bacteria. The lipid bilayer membrane structure of OMVs consists of similar components as bacterial membrane and thus has attracted more and more attention in exploiting OMVs' bio-applications. Although the endotoxic lipopolysaccharide on natural OMVs may impose potential limits on their clinical applications, genetic modification can reduce their endotoxicity and decorate OMVs with multiple functional proteins.

Micro Expression Recognition via Dual-Stream Spatiotemporal Attention Network.

Microexpression can manifest the real mood of humans, which has been widely concerned in clinical diagnosis and depression analysis. To solve the problem of missing discriminative spatiotemporal features in a small data set caused by the short duration and subtle movement changes of microexpression, we present a dual-stream spatiotemporal attention network (DSTAN) that integrates dual-stream spatiotemporal network and attention mechanism to capture the deformation features and spatiotemporal features of microexpression in the case of small samples. The Spatiotemporal networks in DSTAN are based on two lightweight networks, namely, the spatiotemporal appearance network (STAN) learning the appearance features from the microexpression sequences and the spatiotemporal motion network (STMN) learning the motion features from optical flow sequences.

A whole area scanning-enabled direct-counting strategy for studying blocking efficiency in mitigating protein-solid surface binding.

The study of protein-solid surface binding as well as blocking efficiency of blocking agents plays an important role in the development of high-performance immunoassays. Although conventional colorimetric based assays are widely employed to monitor protein non-specific binding on the surface of microplate wells and evaluate the performance of blocking agents, there is still a great need to develop new methods to achieve the same goal from a new perspective. In this study, an innovative whole area scanning (WAS)-enabled direct-counting strategy was developed and validated through studying the blocking efficiency of different blocking agents on the non-specific binding of streptavidin-alkaline phosphatase conjugate (Strep-ALP, a model protein) to the surface of 96-well microplates.

A CRISPR-Cas12a-based specific enhancer for more sensitive detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Background: Real-time reverse transcription-PCR (rRT-PCR) has been the most effective and widely implemented diagnostic technology since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, fuzzy rRT-PCR readouts with high Ct values are frequently encountered, resulting in uncertainty in diagnosis.

Methods: A Specific Enhancer for PCR-amplified Nucleic Acid (SENA) was developed based on the Cas12a trans-cleavage activity, which is specifically triggered by the rRT-PCR amplicons of the SARS-CoV-2 Orf1ab (O) and N fragments.

Wide-field, high-resolution lensless on-chip microscopy via near-field blind ptychographic modulation.

We report a novel lensless on-chip microscopy platform based on near-field blind ptychographic modulation. In this platform, we place a thin diffuser in between the object and the image sensor for light wave modulation. By blindly scanning the unknown diffuser to different x-y positions, we acquire a sequence of modulated intensity images for quantitative object recovery.

A Multifunction Lipid-Based CRISPR-Cas13a Genetic Circuit Delivery System for Bladder Cancer Gene Therapy.

The treatment of bladder cancer has recently shown minimal progress. Gene therapy mediated by CRISPR provides a new option for bladder cancer treatment. In this study, we developed a versatile liposome system to deliver the CRISPR-Cas13a gene circuits into bladder cancer cells.

Genetically Engineered Bacterial Outer Membrane Vesicles with Expressed Nanoluciferase Reporter for Bioluminescence Kinetic Modeling through Noninvasive Imaging.

Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) produced by Gram-negative bacteria play significant roles in the biomedical field as they can be facilely functionalized using genetic engineering tools and thus often serve as a versatile multifunctional nanoparticles for a variety of applications. In this study, we investigated the multifaceted bioluminescence kinetics of a NanoLuc luciferase-expressed outer membrane vesicle produced by . This multifunctional OMV emits strong blue luminescence at 460 nm after mixing with the substrate furimazine, which potentially can be used for bioluminescence-based optical imaging.

Modulation of SRSF2 expression reverses the exhaustion of TILs via the epigenetic regulation of immune checkpoint molecules.

The elevated expression of immune checkpoints by the tumor microenvironment is associated with poor prognosis in several cancers due to the exhaustion of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), and the effective suppression of the expression of these genes is key to reversing the exhaustion of TILs. Herein, we determined that serine/arginine-rich splicing factor 2 (SRSF2) is a target for blocking the tumor microenvironment-associated immunosuppressive effects. We found that the expression of SRSF2 was increased in exhausted T cells and that SRSF2 was involved in multiple immune checkpoint molecules mediating TILs' exhaustion.

A Simple SERS-Based Trace Sensing Platform Enabled by AuNPs-Analyte/AuNPs Double-Decker Structure on Wax-Coated Hydrophobic Surface.

In this work, a simple and versatile SERS sensing platform enabled by AuNPs-analyte/AuNPs double-decker structure on wax-coated hydrophobic surface was developed using a portable Raman spectrometer. Wax-coated silicon wafer served as a hydrophobic surface to induce both aggregation and concentration of aqueous phase AuNPs mixed with analyte of interest. After drying, another layer of AuNPs was drop-cast onto the layer of AuNPs-analyte on the substrate to form double-decker structure, thus introducing more "hot spots" to further enhance the Raman signal.

Preparation, characterization and application of a protein hydrogel with rapid self-healing and unique autofluoresent multi-functionalities.

A smart hydrogel with dual self-healing and autofluoresent functionalities is presented. The protein hydrogel is fabricated by denaturing bovine serum albumin in a basic environment. Upon gelation, autofluorescence is induced and the protein hydrogel can be excited by a wide range of spectrum, ranging from 320 to 520 nm.

Dual functional rhodium oxide nanocorals enabled sensor for both non-enzymatic glucose and solid-state pH sensing.

Both pH-sensitive and glucose-responsive rhodium oxide nanocorals (RhO NCs) were synthesized through electrospinning followed by high-temperature calcination. The as-prepared RhO NCs were systematically characterized using various advanced techniques including scanning electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, and then employed as a dual functional nanomaterial to fabricate a dual sensor for both non-enzymatic glucose sensing and solid-state pH monitoring. The sensing performance of the RhO NCs based dual sensor toward pH and glucose was evaluated using open circuit potential, cyclic voltammetry and amperometric techniques, respectively.

A high-performance electrochemical sensor for biologically meaningful l-cysteine based on a new nanostructured l-cysteine electrocatalyst.

As a new class of l-cysteine electrocatalyst explored in this study, Au/CeO composite nanofibers (CNFs) were employed to modify the screen printed carbon electrode (SPCE) to fabricate a novel l-cysteine (CySH) electrochemical sensor with high performance. Its electrochemical behavior and the roles of Au and CeO in the composite toward electro-oxidation of CySH were elucidated and demonstrated using cyclic voltammetry and amperometry techniques for the first time through the comparison with pure CeO NFs. More specifically, the Au/CeO CNFs modified SPCE possessed greatly enhanced electrocatalytic activity toward CySH oxidation.

Protecting-group-free total synthesis of aplykurodinone-1.

A concise, stereoselective, and protecting-group-free total synthesis of aplykurodinone-1 from Hajos-Parrish ketone was described. The synthetic approach features a sequence of aerobic allylic oxidation and elimination of alcohol 9. The key intermediate for this synthesis was formed by a stereoselective intramolecular radical cyclization.