Quorum sensing in different subcommunities becomes the key factor affecting the humification of the aerobic composting system with sauerkraut fermentation wastewater.

Aerobic composting is an effective and harmless method to treat Sauerkraut fermentation wastewater (SFW). Given the limited understanding of the effect of quorum sensing (QS) on humification in subcommunities under acidic environments, a large-scale analysis was conducted to identify features that impact the response of QS to humification in different subcommunities. The results showed that the addition of SFW directly affected humification in subcommunities A and C, and the abundances of functional genes related to carbon fixation and carbon degradation were significantly increased at 7 and 15 d, respectively. In addition, subcommunity B indirectly affected humus production but regulated carbon metabolic pathways such as glycolysis/gluconeogenesis and pentose phosphate by QS with subcommunities B. These findings provide a novel perspective for analysing the regulation of humification in aerobic composting and suggest that composting has potential applications in organic wastewater treatment.

Dribble Deficit quantifies dribbling speed independently of sprinting speed and differentiates between age categories in pre-adolescent basketball players.

The aims of this study were to a) quantify the relationships between sprinting and dribbling speed measured using dribble time and Dribble Deficit and b) assess the difference between age categories in sprinting and dribbling speed in pre-adolescent basketball players. Pre-adolescent, male basketball players (Total, N = 81; Under-10, n = 32, Under-9, n = 49) completed two trials of different tasks including 20-m linear sprints without dribbling, 20-m linear sprints dribbling with dominant and non-dominant hands, and change-of-direction (COD) sprints with and without dribbling. Sprinting time, dribbling time and Dribble Deficit were then calculated for each trial. Spearman rank correlations were used to assess the relationships between outcome measures for Under-9 and Under-10 players separately and combined. The Mann-Whitney U test with effect sizes (ES) was used to assess differences in outcome measures between Under-9 and Under-10 players. Moderate-to-very large significant relationships (p <0.05) between linear and COD sprinting time and dribbling time using dominant and non-dominant hands were found in Under-9, Under-10 and all players combined. Trivial-to-moderate relationships were found between sprinting time and Dribble Deficit in all age categories across linear and COD paths. Quicker performance times (p <0.05) were found for Under-10 compared to Under-9 players in all outcome measures (ES: small-to-moderate), except for COD sprinting time (p >0.05; ES: small). Dribble Deficit measures dribbling speed independently of sprinting speed across linear and COD paths in pre-adolescent basketball players and differentiates between age categories.

Factors influencing the reduction of U(VI) by magnetite.

Under suboxic and anoxic environments, magnetite is one corrosion product of iron being used in nuclear waste canisters. Previous studies have reported a complete reduction of U(VI) on the surfaces of biogenic and natural magnetite crystals, while incomplete reductions to U(V)/U(IV)-containing species have been observed on chemosynthetic magnetite. To date, the reasons behind such disparities remain poorly studied. This study shows that uranyl nitrate or uranyl acetate is mainly reduced to UO2+x oxides (e.g., U4O9, U3O8, etc.) by chemosynthetic magnetite under acidic conditions. When extra zero valent-iron was added, the reaction rate was significantly increased, and an improved but still incomplete U(VI) reduction was observed. Nitrate and ferric ions are ubiquitous in natural environment. Results demonstrate that the nitrate ion associated with uranyl and the ferric ion contained in magnetite or generated from U(VI) reduction have a non-negligible oxidative effect on the final products, which could mainly account for the incomplete reduction of U(VI) by chemosynthetic magnetite in the absence or presence of extra zero valent-iron observed in this study. Furthermore, the surface loading of uranium in U-Fe systems can, in part, unravel the discrepancies in various observations. An enhanced understanding of the U-Fe reaction mechanism can facilitate predictions of the extent of uranium mobility with respect to nuclear waste disposal and radioactive decontamination.

Lentivirus-mediated PLCγ1 gene short-hairpin RNA suppresses tumor growth and metastasis of human gastric adenocarcinoma.

Targeted molecular therapy has gradually been a potential solution in cancer therapy. Other authors' and our previous studies have demonstrated that phosphoinositide-specific phospholipase γ (PLCγ) is involved in regulating tumor growth and metastasis. However, the molecular mechanism underlying PLCγ-dependent tumor growth and metastasis of gastric adenocarcinoma and whether PLCγ may be a potential target for tumor therapy in human gastric adenocarcinoma are not yet well determined. Here, we investigated the role of PLCγ inhibition in tumor growth and metastasis of human gastric adenocarcinoma using BGC-823 cell line and a nude mouse tumor xenograft model. The results manifested that the depletion of PLCγ1 by the transduction with lentivirus-mediated PLCγ1 gene short-hairpin RNA (shRNA) vector led to the decrease of tumor growth and metastasis of human gastric adenocarcinoma in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, the Akt/Bad, Akt/S6, and ERK/Bad signal axes were involved in PLCγ1-mediated tumor growth and metastasis of human gastric adenocarcinoma. Therefore, the abrogation of PLCγ1 signaling by shRNA could efficaciously suppress human gastric adenocarcinoma tumor growth and metastasis, with important implication for validating PLCγ1 as a potential target for human gastric adenocarcinoma.

A genome shuffling-generated Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolate that ferments xylose and glucose to produce high levels of ethanol.

Genome shuffling is an efficient approach for the rapid improvement of industrially important microbial phenotypes. This report describes optimized conditions for protoplast preparation, regeneration, inactivation, and fusion using the Saccharomyces cerevisiae W5 strain. Ethanol production was confirmed by TTC (triphenyl tetrazolium chloride) screening and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). A genetically stable, high ethanol-producing strain that fermented xylose and glucose was obtained following three rounds of genome shuffling. After fermentation for 84 h, the high ethanol-producing S. cerevisiae GS3-10 strain (which utilized 69.48 and 100% of the xylose and glucose stores, respectively) produced 26.65 g/L ethanol, i.e., 47.08% higher than ethanol production by S. cerevisiae W5 (18.12 g/L). The utilization ratios of xylose and glucose were 69.48 and 100%, compared to 14.83 and 100% for W5, respectively. The ethanol yield was 0.40 g/g (ethanol/consumed glucose and xylose), i.e., 17.65% higher than the yield by S. cerevisiae W5 (0.34 g/g).

A multi-objective hybrid genetic based optimization for external beam radiation.

A multi-objective hybrid genetic based optimization algorithm is proposed according to the multi-objective character of inverse planning. It is based on hybrid adaptive genetic algorithm, which combines the simulated annealing, uses adaptive crossover and mutation, and adopts niched tournament selection. The result of the test calculation demonstrates that excellent converge speed can be achieved using this approach. Key words- Inverse Planning Multi-objective optimization Genetic algorithm Hybrid.