Enhancing road performance of lead-contaminated soil through biochar-cement solidification: An experimental study.

The effectiveness of cement-based solidification for remediating heavy metal-contaminated soil diminishes at high levels of contamination. To overcome this limitation, the potential of a biochar-cement composite curing agent to enhance the properties of Pb 2+ contaminated soil was investigated in this study. The permeability, unconfined compressive strength (UCS), and leaching characteristics of the biochar-cement composite material were assessed under varying biochar contents. The results revealed that the addition of 1-5 wt% biochar in cement significantly improved the UCS of the solidified soil. However, excessive biochar contents had a detrimental effect on the strength of samples. Additionally, the incorporation of 3.0% biochar reduced the hydraulic conductivity and porosity to 7.75 × 10-9 cm/s and 43.12%, respectively. Moreover, the biochar-cement composite material exhibited remarkable efficiency in treating highly concentrated Pb2+ contaminated soil, with leaching concentration decreasing significantly with increasing biochar content, falling below the Chinese hazardous waste identification standard. Overall, the utilization of a biochar-cement composite curing agent in the solidification of heavy metal-contaminated soil could be considered a promising subgrade filler technique.

Kurtosis, a new variable with possible diagnostic value in analysis of jaw muscle surface EMG.

BACKGROUND: There is a need for methods to compare differences of voltage levels and distribution anomalies in the study of skeletal muscle function. Calculating the kurtosis values has been found to be of value. AIM: The aim was to record and analyse voltage and kurtosis levels of SEMG recorded bilaterally in the masseter and anterior temporalis areas during rest and clenching and to compare the kurtosis levels between controls and patients with TMJ disc dysfunction. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Twenty-three healthy subjects and 21 patients with TMJ disc dysfunction were taken part in this study. Recordings were made with the BioPAK EMG System. Gain was adjusted to record the data within the range of ±2000 µV. SEMG was recorded in four facial areas, the right masseter, left masseter, right anterior temporalis, and left anterior temporalis areas. Kurtosis levels of SEMG, at clenching with maximal force, and mandibular rest, were compared between the control and patient groups. RESULTS: The kurtosis levels of clenches were significantly higher in patients in all four areas with sensitivity, 38.1% to 61.9%, and specificity, 82.6% to 100.0%. No differences were found in kurtosis levels during mandibular rest. CONCLUSION: The results support that kurtosis values of SEMG recorded during clenching have a potential diagnostic interest.

Cerebral Spreading Depression Transient Disruption of Cross-Frequency Coupling in the Rat Brain: Preliminary Observations.

Normal brain function requires an integrated, simultaneous communication between brain regions in a coordinated manner. In our studies on cortical spreading depolarization (CSD) induced electrically in the rat brain while recording electrocorticography (ECoG) and delta wave activity, we found for the first time that CSD suppressed delta wave activity, which began even before the CSD was fully developed. We pursued this observation to determine whether repeated CSD suppressed delta wave activity in rats. CSD was produced by electrical stimulation of the neocortex while recording the development of CSD and changes in the coupling of low-frequency band cross coupling to four typical physiological neuronal activity frequency bands, i.e., 5-7 Hz, 8-12 Hz, 13-30 Hz, and 30-80 Hz. Band-pass filters were applied to achieve the corresponding physiological band signals. Besides the cross-frequency coupling (CFC) analysis, the distribution of delta wave density in time domain was analyzed. We calculated the delta wave density per 30 seconds but represent the density as frequency per minute. A Generalized Linear Models (GLM) was used to carry out the CFC analysis in Matlab. Because delta waves dominated the ECoG recorded, we modeled the higher-frequency amplitude envelope as a function of low-frequency phase using a spline basis. Besides the CFC analysis, we also characterized the distribution of the delta wave density in time domain. Four CFC, Theta, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma were at very small values after CSD, and after about 8 minutes, the CFC recovered to the pre-CSD level. CFC were seen to decrease before a CSD occurred at the higher-frequency bands and tended to decrease quickly. Whether the attenuated CFC by CSD has long-term consequences remains to be determined. Future studies will explore the impact of cortical CSD on CFC with deeper brain structures, including the thalamus and the caudate putamen.

Is SEMG recorded "hyperactivity" during mandibular rest a sign of dysfunctional jaw muscle activity and temporomandibular disorders (TMD)?

BACKGROUND: Some authors state that above-normal surface electromyography (SEMG) levels during mandibular rest (MR) are a general sign of temporomandibular disorders (TMD). OBJECTIVE: The aim was to compare SEMG levels in the masseter and anterior temporalis areas during MR between patients with disc displacement (DD) and subjects identified as healthy. The hypothesis was that average SEMG levels would be higher in the patients during MR before and after repeated clenches with maximal effort. METHODS: Thirty-six healthy subjects, and 42 patients with DD, were included. SEMG levels were recorded bilaterally in the temporalis and masseter areas during MR before clenching and after repeated clenches with maximal effort. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to compare the means of the log-transformed SEMG-values for the subject groups. RESULTS: The mean MR levels in the four areas before clenching ranged from -0.19 log (µV) to 1.20 log(µV) in healthy subjects and from -0.22 log(µV) to 0.96 log(µV) in patients. The mean MR levels in the four areas after repeated clenches ranged from -0.19 log (µV) to 1.04 log(µV) in healthy subjects and from -0.27 log(µV) to 0.93 log(µV) in patients. The MANOVA test showed no significant differences in the means for MR for the four areas between the groups at the 5% significance level. CONCLUSION: The hypothesis that jaw muscle SEMG levels during MR are on average generally higher in TMD patients is not supported. A possible explanation for the previous findings is that activity in other muscles was mislabelled as jaw muscle activity.

Quantitative assessment of cerebral connectivity deficiency and cognitive impairment in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.

It is common knowledge that alcohol consumption during pregnancy would cause cognitive impairment in children. However, recent works suggested that the risk of drinking during pregnancy may have been exaggerated. It is critical to determine whether and up to which amount the consumption of alcohol will affect the cognitive development of children. We evaluate time-varying functional connectivity using magnetoencephalogram data from somatosensory evoked response experiments for 19 teenage subjects with prenatal alcohol exposure and 21 healthy control teenage subjects using a new time-varying connectivity approach, combining renormalised partial directed coherence with state space modeling. Children exposed to alcohol prenatally are at risk of developing a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) characterized by cerebral connectivity deficiency and impaired cognitive abilities. Through a comparison study of teenage subjects exposed to alcohol prenatally with healthy control subjects, we establish that the inter-hemispheric connectivity is deficient for the former, which may lead to disruption in the cortical inter-hemispheric connectivity and deficits in higher order cognitive functions as measured by an IQ test, for example. We provide quantitative evidence that the disruption is correlated with cognitive deficits. These findings could lead to a novel, highly sensitive biomarker for FASD and support a recommendation of no safe amount of alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

Comparison of Quantitative and Qualitative Oxygen Extraction Fraction (OEF) in Acute Stroke Patients with Large Vessel Occlusion.

The superficial temporal artery-middle cerebral artery bypass (STA-MCA) bypass surgery developed by Donaghy and Yarsagil in 1967 provided relief for patients with acute stroke and large vessel occlusive vascular disease. Early reports showed low morbidity and good outcomes. However, a large clinical trial in 1985 reported a failure of extracranial-intracranial (EC/IC) bypass to show benefit in reducing the risk of stroke compared to best medical treatment. Problems with the study included cross overs to surgery from best medical treatment, patients unwilling to be randomized and chose EC/IC surgery, and loss of patients to follow-up. Most egregious is the fact that the study did not attempt to identify and select the patients at high risk for a second stroke. Based on these shortcomings of the EC/IC bypass study, a carotid occlusion surgery study (COSS) was proposed by Dr. William Powers and colleagues using qualitative hemispheric oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) by positron emission tomography (PET) between the contralateral and ipsilateral hemispheres with a ratio of 1.16 indicative of hemodynamic compromise. To increase patient enrollment, several compromises were made mid study. First. The ratio threshold was lowered to 1.12 and the level of occlusion in the carotid reduced from 70% to 60%. Despite these compromises the study was closed for futility, apparently because the stroke rate in the medically treated group was too low. Thus, the question as to the benefit of EC/IC bypass surgery remains unresolved. In our NIH funded study Quantitative Occlusive Vascular Disease Study (QUOVADIS), we used quantitative OEF to evaluate stroke risk and compared it to the qualitative count-rate ratio method used in the COSS study and found that these two methods did not identify the same patients at increased risk for stroke, which may explain the reason for the failure of the COSS study as our results show that qualitative OEF ratios do not identify the same patients as quantitative OEF.

Development of Auditory Evoked Responses in Normally Developing Preschool Children and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The cortical responses to auditory stimuli undergo rapid and dramatic changes during the first 3 years of life in normally developing (ND) children, with decreases in latency and changes in amplitude in the primary peaks. However, most previous studies have focused on children >3 years of age. The analysis of data from the early stages of development is challenging because the temporal pattern of the evoked responses changes with age (e.g., additional peaks emerge with increasing age) and peak latency decreases with age. This study used the topography of the auditory evoked magnetic field (AEF) to identify the auditory components in ND children between 6 and 68 months (n = 48). The latencies of the peaks in the AEF produced by a tone burst (ISI 2 ± 0.2 s) during sleep decreased with age, consistent with previous reports in awake children. The peak latencies of the AEFs in ND children and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were compared. Previous studies indicate that the latencies of the initial components of the auditory evoked potential (AEP) and the AEF are delayed in children with ASD when compared to age-matched ND children >4 years of age. We speculated whether the AEF latencies decrease with age in children diagnosed with ASD as in ND children, but with uniformly longer latencies before the age of about 4 years. Contrary to this hypothesis, the peak latencies did not decrease with age in the ASD group (24-62 months, n = 16) during sleep (unlike in the age-matched controls), although the mean latencies were longer in the ASD group as in previous studies. These results are consistent with previous studies indicating delays in auditory latencies, and they indicate a different maturational pattern in ASD children and ND children. Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm whether the AEF latencies diverge with age, starting at around 3 years, in these 2 groups of children.

High Intracranial Pressure Induced Injury in the Healthy Rat Brain.

OBJECTIVES: We recently showed that increased intracranial pressure to 50 mm Hg in the healthy rat brain results in microvascular shunt flow characterized by tissue hypoxia, edema, and increased blood-brain barrier permeability. We now determined whether increased intracranial pressure results in neuronal injury by Fluoro-Jade stain and whether changes in cerebral blood flow and cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen suggest nonnutritive microvascular shunt flow. DESIGN: Intracranial pressure was elevated by a reservoir of artificial cerebrospinal fluid connected to the cisterna magna. Arterial blood gases, cerebral arterial-venous oxygen content difference, and cerebral blood flow by MRI were measured. Fluoro-Jade stain neurons were counted in histologic sections of the right and left dorsal and lateral cortices and hippocampus. SETTING: University laboratory. SUBJECTS: Male Sprague Dawley rats. INTERVENTIONS: Arterial pressure support if needed by IV dopamine infusion and base deficit corrected by sodium bicarbonate. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Fluoro-Jade stain neurons increased 2.5- and 5.5-fold at intracranial pressures of 30 and 50 mm Hg and cerebral perfusion pressures of 57 ± 4 (mean ± SEM) and 47 ± 6 mm Hg, respectively (p < 0.001) (highest in the right and left cortices). Voxel frequency histograms of cerebral blood flow showed a pattern consistent with microvascular shunt flow by dispersion to higher cerebral blood flow at high intracranial pressure and decreased cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen. CONCLUSIONS: High intracranial pressure likely caused neuronal injury because of a transition from normal capillary flow to nonnutritive microvascular shunt flow resulting in tissue hypoxia and edema, and it is manifest by a reduction in the cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen.

Correction: Li et al. Liquid Regions of Lanthanum-Bearing Aluminosilicates. Materials 2020, 13, 450.

In the original publication [...].

Facilitating neuronal connectivity analysis of evoked responses by exposing local activity with principal component analysis preprocessing: simulation of evoked MEG.

When connectivity analysis is carried out for event related EEG and MEG, the presence of strong spatial correlations from spontaneous activity in background may mask the local neuronal evoked activity and lead to spurious connections. In this paper, we hypothesized PCA decomposition could be used to diminish the background activity and further improve the performance of connectivity analysis in event related experiments. The idea was tested using simulation, where we found that for the 306-channel Elekta Neuromag system, the first 4 PCs represent the dominant background activity, and the source connectivity pattern after preprocessing is consistent with the true connectivity pattern designed in the simulation. Improving signal to noise of the evoked responses by discarding the first few PCs demonstrates increased coherences at major physiological frequency bands when removing the first few PCs. Furthermore, the evoked information was maintained after PCA preprocessing. In conclusion, it is demonstrated that the first few PCs represent background activity, and PCA decomposition can be employed to remove it to expose the evoked activity for the channels under investigation. Therefore, PCA can be applied as a preprocessing approach to improve neuronal connectivity analysis for event related data.

The transcription factor Ron1 is required for chitin metabolism, asexual development and pathogenicity in Beauveria bassiana, an entomopathogenic fungus.

Ndt80-like transcription factor Ron1 is best known for its essential role in the regulation of N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) catabolism. Ron1 was again found to be essential for sensing GlcNAc in Beauveria bassiana. Importantly, our study revealed that Ron1 is involved in the metabolic processes of chitin and asexual development. To further investigate the novel functions of Ron1 in B. bassiana, extracellular chitinase activity in the ΔRon1 mutant was found to decrease by 84.73% compared with wild type. The deletion of Ron1 made it difficult for the fungus to accumulate intracellular GlcNAc. Furthermore, transcriptomic analysis revealed that Ron1 exerted a significant effect on global transcription and positively regulated genes encoding chitin metabolism in respond to chitin nutrition. Yeast one-hybrid assay confirmed that Ron1 could bind to specific cis-acting elements in the promoters of chitinase and hexokinase. In addition, ΔRon1 displayed an impaired chitin component of the cell wall, with a chitin synthetase (ChsVII) predicted to function downstream of Ron1. Finally, the virulence of ΔRon1 mutant was significantly reduced in the Galleria mellonella insect model through cuticle infection or cuticle bypassing infection. These data functionally characterize Ron1 in B. bassiana and expand our understanding of how the transcription factor Ron1 works in pathogens.

Hymecromone: a clinical prescription hyaluronan inhibitor for efficiently blocking COVID-19 progression.

Currently, there is no effective drugs for treating clinically COVID-19 except dexamethasone. We previously revealed that human identical sequences of SARS-CoV-2 promote the COVID-19 progression by upregulating hyaluronic acid (HA). As the inhibitor of HA synthesis, hymecromone is an approved prescription drug used for treating biliary spasm. Here, we aimed to investigate the relation between HA and COVID-19, and evaluate the therapeutic effects of hymecromone on COVID-19. Firstly, HA was closely relevant to clinical parameters, including lymphocytes (n = 158; r = -0.50; P < 0.0001), C-reactive protein (n = 156; r = 0.55; P < 0.0001), D-dimer (n = 154; r = 0.38; P < 0.0001), and fibrinogen (n = 152; r = 0.37; P < 0.0001), as well as the mass (n = 78; r = 0.43; P < 0.0001) and volume (n = 78; r = 0.41; P = 0.0002) of ground-glass opacity, the mass (n = 78; r = 0.48; P < 0.0001) and volume (n = 78; r = 0.47; P < 0.0001) of consolidation in patient with low level of hyaluronan (HA < 48.43 ng/mL). Furthermore, hyaluronan could directly cause mouse pulmonary lesions. Besides, hymecromone remarkably reduced HA via downregulating HAS2/HAS3 expression. Moreover, 89% patients with hymecromone treatment had pulmonary lesion absorption while only 42% patients in control group had pulmonary lesion absorption (P < 0.0001). In addition, lymphocytes recovered more quickly in hymecromone-treated patients (n = 8) than control group (n = 5) (P < 0.05). These findings suggest that hymecromone is a promising drug for COVID-19 and deserves our further efforts to determine its effect in a larger cohort.

BbWor1, a Regulator of Morphological Transition, Is Involved in Conidium-Hypha Switching, Blastospore Propagation, and Virulence in Beauveria bassiana.

Morphological transition is an important adaptive mechanism in the host invasion process. Wor1 is a conserved fungal regulatory protein that controls the phenotypic switching and pathogenicity of Candida albicans. By modulating growth conditions, we simulated three models of Beauveria bassiana morphological transitions, including CTH (conidia to hyphae), HTC (hyphae to conidia), and BTB (blastospore to blastospore). Disruption of BbWor1 (an ortholog of Wor1) resulted in a distinct reduction in the time required for conidial germination (CTH), a significant increase in hyphal growth, and a decrease in the yield of conidia (HTC), indicating that BbWor1 positively controls conidium production and negatively regulates hyphal growth in conidium-hypha switching. Moreover, ΔBbWor1 prominently decreased blastospore yield, shortened the G0/G1 phase, and prolonged the G2/M phase under the BTB model. Importantly, BbWor1 contributed to conidium-hypha switching and blastospore propagation via different genetic pathways, and yeast one-hybrid testing demonstrated the necessity of BbWor1 to control the transcription of an allergen-like protein gene (BBA_02580) and a conidial wall protein gene (BBA_09998). Moreover, the dramatically weakened virulence of ΔBbWor1 was examined by immersion and injection methods. Our findings indicate that BbWor1 is a vital participant in morphological transition and pathogenicity in entomopathogenic fungi. IMPORTANCE As a well-known entomopathogenic fungus, Beauveria bassiana has a complex life cycle and involves transformations among single-cell conidia, blastospores, and filamentous hyphae. This study provides new insight into the regulation of the fungal cell morphological transitions by simulating three models. Our research identified BbWor1 as a core transcription factor of morphological differentiation that positively regulates the production of conidia and blastospores but negatively regulates hyphal growth. More importantly, BbWor1 affects fungal pathogenicity and the global transcription profiles within three models of growth stage transformation. The present study lays a foundation for the exploration of the transition mechanism of entomopathogenic fungi and provides material for the morphological study of fungi.

Involvement of BbTpc1, an important Zn(II)2Cys6 transcriptional regulator, in chitin biosynthesis, fungal development and virulence of an insect mycopathogen.

Chitin is one of the major components of the fungal cell wall and contributes to the mechanical strength and shape of the fungal cell. Zn(II)2Cys6 transcription factors are unique to the fungal kingdom and have a variety of functions in some fungi. However, the mechanisms by which Zn(II)2Cys6 proteins affect entomopathogenic fungi are largely unknown. Here, we characterized the Zn(II)2Cys6 transcription factor BbTpc1 in the insect pathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana. Disruption of BbTpc1 resulted in a distinct changes in vegetative growth and septation patterns, and a significant decrease in conidia and blastospore yield. The ΔBbTpc1 mutant displayed impaired resistance to chemical stresses and heat shock and attenuated virulence in topical and intrahemocoel injection assays. Importantly, the ΔBbTpc1 mutant had an abnormal cell wall with altered wall thickness and chitin synthesis, which were accompanied by transcriptional repression of the chitin synthetase family genes. In addition, comparative transcriptomics revealed that deletion of BbTpc1 altered fungal asexual reproduction via different genetic pathways. These data revealed that BbTpc1 regulates fungal development, chitin synthesis and biological control potential in B. bassiana.

The Tudor Domain-Containing Protein BbTdp1 Contributes to Fungal Cell Development, the Cell Cycle, Virulence, and Transcriptional Regulation in the Insect Pathogenic Fungus Beauveria bassiana.

Beauveria bassiana is an insect pathogenic fungus that serves as a model system for exploring the mechanisms of fungal development and host-pathogen interactions. Clinical and experimental studies have indicated that SND1 is closely correlated with the progression and invasiveness of common cancers as a potential oncogene, but this gene has rarely been studied in fungi. Here, we characterized the contributions of an SND1 ortholog (Tdp1) by constructing a BbTdp1 deletion strain and a complemented strain of B. bassiana. Compared with the wild-type (WT) strain, the ΔBbTdp1 mutant lost conidiation capacity (∼87.7%) and blastospore (∼96.3%) yields, increased sensitivity to chemical stress (4.4 to 54.3%) and heat shock (∼44.2%), and decreased virulence following topical application (∼24.7%) and hemocoel injection (∼40.0%). Flow cytometry readings showed smaller sizes of both conidia and blastospores for ΔBbTdp1 mutants. Transcriptomic data revealed 4,094 differentially expressed genes (|log2 ratio| > 2 and a q value of <0.05) between ΔBbTdp1 mutants and the WT strain, which accounted for 41.6% of the total genes, indicating that extreme fluctuation in the global gene expression pattern had occurred. Moreover, deletion of BbTdp1 led to an abnormal cell cycle with a longer S phase and shorter G2/M and G0/G1 phases of blastospores, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay confirmed that the level of phosphorylated cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (Cdk1) in the ΔBbTdp1 strain was ∼31.5% lower than in the WT strain. In summary, our study is the first to report that BbTdp1 plays a vital role in regulating conidia and blastospore yields, fungal morphological changes, and pathogenicity in entomopathogenic fungi. IMPORTANCE In this study, we used Beauveria bassiana as a biological model to report the role of BbTdp1 in entomopathogenic fungi. Our findings indicated that BbTdp1 contributed significantly to cell development, the cell cycle, and virulence in B. bassiana. In addition, deletion of BbTdp1 led to drastic fluctuations in the transcriptional profile. BbTdp1 can be developed as a novel target for B. bassiana development and pathogenicity, which also provides a framework for the study of Tdp1 in other fungi.

Hypermethylated PCDHGB7 as a Biomarker for Early Detection of Endometrial Cancer in Endometrial Brush Samples and Cervical Scrapings.

Endometrial cancer (EC) is one of the most common gynecologic cancers in developed countries. Presently, it is imperative to develop a reliable, noninvasive, or minimally invasive detection method for EC. We explored the possibility of using DNA methylation marker from endometrial brush samples (with a "Tao brush") and cervical scrapes (with a "Pap brush") for early detection of EC. We analyzed the methylation data of EC and normal endometrial tissues from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) data sets. An optimized methylation-sensitive restriction enzyme combined with real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR (MSRE-qPCR) was used for methylation detection. Included in the training set were 143 endometrial tissues, 103 Tao, and 109 Pap brush samples. The validation set included 110 Tao and 112 Pap brush samples. PCDHGB7 was significantly hypermethylated in EC compared with normal endometrial tissues in the TCGA and GEO data sets (AUC >0.95), which was verified in clinical samples. In the Pap brush samples, the AUC was 0.86 with 80.65% sensitivity and 82.81% specificity, whereas the Tao brush samples exhibited higher specificity (95.31%). The combination of Tao and Pap brush samples significantly increased the sensitivity to 90.32%. In the validation set, the final model yielded a sensitivity of 98.61%, specificity of 60.53%, positive predictive value of 82.56%, and negative predictive value of 95.83%. These results demonstrate the potential application of the novel methylation marker, hypermethylated PCDHGB7, in cervical scrapings and endometrial brush, which provides a viable, noninvasive, or minimally invasive method for early endometrial cancer detection across different clinical features and histologies to supplement current hysteroscopy diagnosis.

Liquid Regions of Lanthanum-Bearing Aluminosilicates.

The Al2O3-SiO2, La2O3-Al2O3, and La2O3-SiO2 binary phase diagrams were estimated by Redlich-Kister expression. La4.67Si3O13 (=La4.67(SiO4)3O) was introduced to improve the existing phase diagrams. The Al2O3-SiO2-La2O3 ternary phase diagram extrapolated by Kohler method was optimized. Then, the liquidus of Al2O3-SiO2-La2O3 system at 1600 °C was compared with Al2O3-SiO2-RE2O3 (RE = Rare Earth Elements) systems and experimental results in other literature. The high temperature experiments were conducted in the tube furnace at 1500 °C. Then the field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were employed to verify the calculated liquid region and precipitates phase at 1500 °C. Moreover, the liquidus of binary systems were compared with FactSage results and experiments. The optimized ternary phase diagram shows the relatively reliable region of liquid phase, and it is significant to the seal glass of solid oxide fuel cells and other fields being related to RE containing silicates.

Direct Activation of Cortical Neurons in the Primary Somatosensory Cortex of the Rat in Vivo Using Focused Ultrasound.

We address the recent controversy over whether focused ultrasound (FUS) activates cortical neurons directly or indirectly by initially activating auditory pathways. We obtained two types of evidence that FUS can directly activate cortical neurons. The depth profile of the local field potential (LFP) in the barrel cortex of the rat in vivo indicated a generator was located within the cortical gray matter. The onset and peak latencies of the initial component p1 were 3.2 ± 0.25 ms (mean ± standard error of the mean) and 7.6 ± 0.12 ms, respectively, for the direct cortical response (DCR), 6.8 ± 0.40 and 14.3 ± 0.54 ms for the FUS-evoked LFP (4 MHz, 3.2 MPa, 50 or 300 µs/pulse, 1-20 pulses at 1 kHz) and 6.9 ± 0.51 and 15.8 ± 0.94 ms for the LFP evoked by 1-ms deflection of the C2 whisker projecting to the same area. The peak latency of the FUS p1 was statistically (t-test) longer than the DCR, but shorter than the whisker p1 at p < 0.005.

Effects of chlorine on the volatilization of heavy metals during the co-combustion of sewage sludge.

To clarify the volatilization of heavy metals (Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) in sewage sludge during co-combustion in cement kiln, effects of addition and types of four chlorides and temperature on the volatilization of heavy metals in raw meal with 25wt.% sewage sludge were investigated. The results showed that the volatilization of Cu, Ni, and Pb increased significantly with increase of chlorides addition, while no obvious change in the volatilization of Zn was observed. The effectiveness of chlorides on the volatilization of heavy metals depended on their release capacity of chlorine radicals and the chlorine combined capacity of heavy metals. Higher calcination temperature resulted in dramatically increase in the volatilization of heavy metals due to easier formation of volatile heavy metal chlorides. The results will provide a guideline for co-combusting heavy metals contained solid wastes in cement kiln on the basis of security.