Artificial neural networks modeling for lead removal from aqueous solutions using iron oxide nanocomposites from bio-waste mass.

Heavy metal ions in aqueous solutions are taken into account as one of the most harmful environmental issues that ominously affect human health. Pb(II) is a common pollutant among heavy metals found in industrial wastewater, and various methods were developed to remove the Pb(II). The adsorption method was more efficient, cheap, and eco-friendly to remove the Pb(II) from aqueous solutions. The removal efficiency depends on the process parameters (initial concentration, the adsorbent dosage of T-Fe3O4 nanocomposites, residence time, and adsorbent pH). The relationship between the process parameters and output is non-linear and complex. The purpose of the present study is to develop an artificial neural networks (ANN) model to estimate and analyze the relationship between Pb(II) removal and adsorption process parameters. The model was trained with the backpropagation algorithm. The model was validated with the unseen datasets. The correlation coefficient adj.R2 values for total datasets is 0.991. The relationship between the parameters and Pb(II) removal was analyzed by sensitivity analysis and creating a virtual adsorption process. The study determined that the ANN modeling was a reliable tool for predicting and optimizing adsorption process parameters for maximum lead removal from aqueous solutions.

Increased propionate concentration in Lactobacillus mucosae-fermented wet brewers grains and during in vitro rumen fermentation.

AIMS: This study was conducted to isolate and identify propionate-producing bacteria that can be used as an inoculum in improving wet brewers grains and rumen fermentation via increasing propionate concentration. METHODS AND RESULTS: A strain of Lactobacillus that exhibits high levels of propionate production was identified and characterized as Lactobacillus mucosae 521129 by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and phylogenetic analyses. Wet brewers grains were fermented through L. mucosae inoculation and resulted in an increase in propionate concentration. Fermented wet brewers grains were used in in vitro rumen fermentation and revealed that L. mucosae-fermented wet brewers grains produced more gas and had higher accumulations propionate and total volatile fatty acid (VFA) than the control. The fewest methanogen DNA copies were detected in L. mucosae-fermented wet brewers grains. CONCLUSION: Identified L. mucosae improved the fermentation of wet brewers grains and the in vitro rumen fermentation via increasing propionate and total VFA concentrations. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The presented research provided the identification of L. mucosae 521129 as a propionate producer and was metabolically profiled. Furthermore, data present the putative application of this organism in improving the fermentation of wet brewers grains and in vitro rumen fermentation.

Disruption of effective connectivity from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to the orbitofrontal cortex by negative emotional distraction in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been associated with abnormal cognitive and emotional functions and these dysfunctions may be dependent on the disruption of dynamic interactions within neuronal circuits associated with emotion regulation. Although several studies have shown the aberrant cognitive-affective processing in OCD patients, little is known about how to characterize effective connectivity of the disrupted neural interactions. In the present study, we applied effective connectivity analysis using dynamic causal modeling to explore the disturbed neural interactions in OCD patients. METHOD: A total of 20 patients and 21 matched healthy controls performed a delayed-response working memory task under emotional or non-emotional distraction while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: During the delay interval under negative emotional distraction, both groups showed similar patterns of activations in the amygdala. However, under negative emotional distraction, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) exhibited significant differences between groups. Bayesian model averaging indicated that the connection from the DLPFC to the OFC was negatively modulated by negative emotional distraction in patients, when compared with healthy controls (p < 0.05, Bonferroni-corrected). CONCLUSIONS: Exaggerated recruitment of the DLPFC may induce the reduction of top-down prefrontal control input over the OFC, leading to abnormal cortico-cortical interaction. This disrupted cortico-cortical interaction under negative emotional distraction may be responsible for dysfunctions of cognitive and emotional processing in OCD patients and may be a component of the pathophysiology associated with OCD.

Effects of ß-Glucan on the Release of Nitric Oxide by Macrophages Stimulated with Lipopolysaccharide.

This research analyzed the effect of ß-glucan that is expected to alleviate the production of the inflammatory mediator in macrophagocytes, which are processed by the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) of Escherichia. The incubated layer was used for a nitric oxide (NO) analysis. The DNA-binding activation of the small unit of nuclear factor-κB was measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-based kit. In the RAW264.7 cells that were vitalized by Escherichia coli (E. coli) LPS, the ß-glucan inhibited both the combatant and rendering phases of the inducible NO synthase (iNOS)-derived NO. ß-Glucan increased the expression of the heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) in the cells that were stimulated by E. coli LPS, and the HO-1 activation was inhibited by the tin protoporphyrin IX (SnPP). This shows that the NO production induced by LPS is related to the inhibition effect of ß-glucan. The phosphorylation of c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNK) and the p38 induced by the LPS were not influenced by the ß-glucan, and the inhibitory κB-α (IκB-α) decomposition was not influenced either. Instead, ß-glucan remarkably inhibited the phosphorylation of the signal transducer and activator of transcription-1 (STAT1) that was induced by the E. coli LPS. Overall, the ß-glucan inhibited the production of NO in macrophagocytes that was vitalized by the E .coli LPS through the HO-1 induction and the STAT1 pathways inhibition in this research. As the host immune response control by ß-glucan weakens the progress of the inflammatory disease, ß-glucan can be used as an effective immunomodulator.

Effect of Total Mixed Ration with Fermented Feed on Ruminal In vitro Fermentation, Growth Performance and Blood Characteristics of Hanwoo Steers.

In this study, two experiments were conducted to evaluate the total mixed ration with fermented feed (TMRF) and total mixed ration (TMR) by rumen in vitro fermentation and their effects on the growth performance and blood characteristics of Hanwoo steers. In experiment 1, three Hanwoo steers (600±47 kg), each permanently fitted with a ruminal cannula were used. In this experiment, three diets designated as T1, TMRF (18.4% fermented feed, tall fescue, mammoth wild rye forage and whole crop barley); T2, TMRF (17.7% fermented feed, rice straw and whole crop barley); and T3, TMR (rice straw, whole crop barley and probiotics, but no fermented feed), which were subjected to rumen in vitro fermentation for 48 h. The results demonstrated that DM disappearance rate gradually increased with advancing fermentation time, but T1 and T2 were higher than the T3 (p<0.05) from 3 h to 12 h, but insignificant (p>0.05) at 24 and 48 h. None of the specific VFAs were affected except for acetic and non volatile lactic acids, which were produced more in T2 than in T1 and T3 at 24 h and 48 h of incubation. A/P was lower in T1 and T2 than inT3 at 24 h (p<0.05) and 48 h (p>0.05) of incubation. These results confirmed that TMRF-related treatment shows a superior performance to that of TMR during the ruminal fermentation period. In experiment 2, the three diets in experiment 1 plus 1 more control diet (concentrates, probiotics and 2% rice straw of body weight) were fed to the 48 Hanwoo steers (160±10 kg) for a period of 168 d. The results demonstrated that the daily and total live weight gain and feed efficiency were higher (p<0.05) in the TMRF and TMR groups than in the control group. SGOT, SGPT and BUN (p<0.05) were reduced in TMRF relative to the control and TMR groups by 168 d which confirmed that TMRF shows better blood profiles than the TMR and control groups. Overall, these results appear to show that TMRF has better in vitro ruminal characteristics than those of TMR; growth performance and blood profiles were also found to be superior in TMRF than in the TMR and control groups. Thus, our findings suggest that TMRF-based feed supplies are favorable for Hanwoo cattle.

Intermediate valence state in YbB4revealed by resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy.

We report the temperature dependence of the Yb valence in the geometrically frustrated compoundYbB4from 12 to 300 K using resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy at the YbLα1transition. We find that the Yb valence,v, is hybridized between thev = 2 andv = 3 valence states, increasing fromv=2.61±0.01at 12 K tov=2.67±0.01at 300 K, confirming thatYbB4is a Kondo system in the intermediate valence regime. This result indicates that the Kondo interaction inYbB4is substantial, and is likely to be the reason whyYbB4does not order magnetically at low temperature, rather than this being an effect of geometric frustration. Furthermore, the zero-point valence of the system is extracted from our data and compared with other Kondo lattice systems. The zero-point valence seems to be weakly dependent on the Kondo temperature scale, but not on the valence change temperature scaleTv.

Modeling and optimization of process parameters of biofilm reactor for wastewater treatment.

The efficiency of heavy metal in biofilm reactors depends on absorption process parameters, and those relationships are complicated. This study explores artificial neural networks (ANNs) feasibility to correlate the biofilm reactor process parameters with absorption efficiency. The heavy metal removal and turbidity were modeled as a function of five process parameters, namely pH, temperature(°C), feed flux(ml/min), substrate flow(ml/min), and hydraulic retention time(h). We developed a standalone ANN software for predicting and analyzing the absorption process in handling industrial wastewater. The model was tested extensively to confirm that the predictions are reasonable in the context of the absorption kinetics principles. The model predictions showed that the temperature and pH values are the most influential parameters affecting absorption efficiency and turbidity.

Quadrupolar ordering and exotic magnetocaloric effect in RB4 (R = Dy, Ho).

The interplay of charge, spin, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom has recently received great interest due to its potential to improve the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) for the purpose of magnetic cooling applications. Here, a new mechanism for a large entropy change with low magnetic fields in rare-earth tetraborides, especially for Ho1-xDyxB4 (x = 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0), is proposed. For x = 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0, the maximum entropy changes of the giant inverse MCE are found to be 22.7 J/kgK, 19.6 J/kgK, and 19.0 J/kgK with critical fields of 25 kOe, 40 kOe, and 50 kOe, respectively. For all compounds, systematic study on how the entropy changes as a function of the field and temperature is performed to investigate their correlation with consecutive double transitions, i.e., the magnetic dipolar order at T = TN and the quadrupolar order at T = TQ (TQ < TN). Based on Landau theory, it is found that this behaviour is attributed to the strong coupling between magnetic dipoles and quadrupoles in the presence of strong spin-orbit coupling and geometric frustration. Our work offers new insights into both academic and industrial interests in the discovery of giant MCE with various applications for magnetic cooling systems.

The role of protein kinase Calpha in U-87 glioma invasion.

To investigate the hypothesis that protein kinase Calpha (PKCalpha) is functional glial tumor cell invasion, stable PKCalpha sense and antisense transfected U-87 cell lines were established and PKCalpha expression characterized by Western blot and PKC activity assays. Invasion assays including barrier migration (Koochekpour et al., Extracellular matrix proteins inhibit proliferation, upregulate migration and induce morphological changes in human glioma lines. Eur. J. Cancer, 1995, 31, 375-380; Merzak et al., CD44 mediates human glioma cell adhesion and invasion in vitro. Cancer Res., 1994, 54, 3988-3992; Merzak et al., Cell surface gangliosides are involved in the control of human glioma cell invasion in vitro. Neurosci. Lett., 1994, 177, 11-16), and spheroid confrontation were used to study the relationship between PKCalpha expression and invasiveness. PKCalpha overexpressing clones show increased barrier migration (1.5x) relative to the control transfected clones. PKCalpha inhibited clones exhibited reduced invasiveness, to < 50%. In coculture with PKCalpha overexpressing clones, the remaining normal fetal rat brain aggregate volume was significantly decreased (up to 200%) but 90% of the initial brain volume was left in PKCalpha inhibited clone in the rat brain aggregate tumor spheroid confrontation. This effect was not associated with significant growth inhibition. We conclude that expression of PKCalpha in glioma-derived cell lines appears to be central to glioma invasion in vitro.

Cellular distribution of isozymes of protein kinase C in septal olfactory epithelium of mice.

To determine the presence of protein kinase C (PKC) isozymes in the septal olfactory epithelium of mice (mSOE), western blotting and immunohistochemistry were performed using antibodies against PKC isozymes. With the exception of PKC-betaI, all of the PKC isozymes were detected in the whole lysate of septal tissue layer and apparent molecular weights for each isoform were found. PKC-alpha, PKC-gamma and PKC-epsilon were detected in the olfactory glandular cells of the lamina propria, and PKC-betaI and PKC-betaII were located in the microvillar cells. Neither novel PKC nor atypical PKC was detected in olfactory glandular cells or microvillar cells, except for PKC-epsilon. PKC-lambda was localized in the mucous layer of the mSOE. Meanwhile, PKC-delta and PKC-xi were distributed in the receptor cells in the mSOE. These data demonstrate the isoform-specific expression of PKC in mSOE and suggest a role for the novel and atypical types of PKC in olfactory transduction.

Simple bone cyst of the axis.

A 12-year-old girl presented with a 1-month history of posterior neck pain and a large cyst in the second cervical vertebra. She underwent complete curettage of the cyst wall without any kind of bone graft, and the surgical result was good. Microscopic findings in the cyst wall were consistent with simple bone cyst, which is very rare in the spine.

Photodynamic therapy with photofrin reduces invasiveness of malignant human glioma cells.

In this study we investigated the influence of Photofrin-based photodynamic therapy (PDT) on the migration of two human glioma cell lines in vitro. U87 and U25ln tumour cells were treated with Photofrin at various doses and subjected to a fixed optical (632 nm) dose of 100 mJ/cm(2). Photofrin cytotoxicity was determined using MTT and colony forming assays. Using a matrigel artificial basement membrane migration assay, we demonstrated that low doses of subcytotoxic PDT treatment, such as PDT with 2.5 micro g/ml Photofrin on U87 cells and 1 micro g/ml on U25ln cells, significantly ( p<0.001) inhibited in vitro migration of both cell lines. Furthermore, in a qualitative spheroid confrontation assay, subcytotoxic PDT of co-cultures between tumour spheroids and brain aggregates resulted in an absence of progressive tumour invasion and destruction of the brain aggregate. In conclusion, our data indicate that low-dose subcytotoxic PDT with Photofrin significantly inhibits invasiveness of U87 and U25ln cells.

Rapid degradation of PrxI and PrxII induced by silica in Rat2 cells.

Peroxidases of the peroxiredoxin (Prx) family catalyze the reduction of H(2)O(2) and lipid peroxides. The effects of H(2)O(2), 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol 13-acetate (TPA), and silica on the abundance of two cytosolic isoforms of Prx (PrxI and PrxII) were examined in Rat2 cells. TPA induces the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in various mammalian cell types, and silica induces the production of ROS in Rat2 cells. Whereas H(2)O(2) and TPA did not affect the concentration of PrxI or Prx II, silica triggered a rapid degradation of both Prx enzymes. Silica also induced degradation of the NF-kappaB inhibitor IkappaB-alpha. N-Acetylcysteine and diphenyleneiodonium, both of which inhibit the accumulation of intracellular ROS, each blocked silica-induced degradation of IkappaB-alpha but had no effect on that of the Prx enzymes, suggesting that ROS do not contribute to Prx proteolysis. The silica-induced degradation of Prx enzymes was also insensitive to the proteasome inhibitors MG132 and lactacystin, whereas IkappaB-alpha proteolysis was completely blocked by these inhibitors. Experiments with the Ca(2+) ionophore A23187 indicated that a Ca(2+)-dependent protease such as calpain might contribute substantially to silica-induced degradation of PrxII, but only moderately to that of PrxI. These results indicate that silica increases cellular oxidative stress not only by inducing ROS production, but also by triggering the degradation of Prx enzymes that are responsible for elimination of cellular ROS. Such aggravated oxidative stress might be important in the initial pathogenesis of silica-associated pulmonary diseases.

Potentials and limitations of adenovirus-p53 gene therapy for brain tumors.

We investigated the antineoplastic potentials of recombinant adenovirus containing wild-type p53 cDNA (Ad5CMV-p53) for malignant gliomas. In four human glioma cell lines (U-251 and LG expressing endogenous mutant p53, and U-87 and EFC-2 expressing wild-type p53) and two rat glioma cell lines (9L and C6, each expressing mutant and wild-type p53), gene transfer efficiency determined by X-gal staining and Western blotting was varied (10-99% at 10-500 multiplicity of infection, MOI). Growth inhibitory effect was drastic (>90% at 100 MOI) in U-251 cells and only moderate or minimal in other cell lines harboring wild-type p53 or low gene transfer efficiency. Ex vivo transduction of U-251 cells with Ad5CMV-p53 suppressed the in vivo tumorigenicity of the cells. Histopathologic examination for Ad5CMV-p53 toxicity to rat brains showed inflammatory reactions in half of the tested brains at 10(8) MOI. U-251 cells were inoculated intracerebrally in nude mice and injected Ad5CMV-p53 into the tumor, in which neither the tumor suppression nor the survival benefit was observed. In conclusion, heterogeneity of the cellular subpopulations of malignant glioma in p53 status, variable and insufficient gene delivery to tumor, and adenoviral toxicity to brain at higher doses may be limiting factors to be solved in developing adenovirus-p53 gene therapy for malignant gliomas.