A novel polymer-coated nitrogen (N) fertilizer was developed using bio-based polyurethane (PU) derived from liquefied locust sawdust as the coating material. The bio-based PU was successfully coated on the surface of the urea fertilizer prills to form polymer-coated urea (PCU) fertilizer for controlled N release. Epoxy resin (EP) was also used to further modify the bio-based PU to synthesize the interpenetrating network (IPN), enhancing the slow-release properties of the PCU. The N release characteristics of the EP-modified PCU (EMPCU) in water were determine at 25 °C and compared to that of PCU and EP-coated urea (ECU). The results showed that the EP modification reduced the N release rate and increased the longevity of the fertilizer coated with bio-based PU. A corn growth study was conducted to further evaluate the filed application of the EMPCU. In comparison to commercial PCU and conventional urea fertilizer, EMPCU was more effective and increased the yield and total dry matter accumulation of the corn. Findings from this work indicated that bio-based PU derived from sawdust can be used as coating materials for PCU, particularly after EP modification. The resulting EMPCU was more environmentally friendly and cost-effective than conventional urea fertilizers coated by EP.

Chronic allograft dysfunction (CAD) induced by kidney interstitial fibrosis is the main cause of allograft failure in kidney transplantation. Endothelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EndMT) may play an important role in kidney fibrosis. We, therefore, undertook this study to characterize the functions and potential mechanism of EndMT in transplant kidney interstitial fibrosis. Proteins and mRNAs associated with EndMT were examined in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) treated with transforming growth factor‐beta1 (TGF‐β1) at different doses or at different intervals with western blotting, qRT‐PCR and ELISA assays. Cell motility and migration were evaluated with motility and migration assays. The mechanism of EndMT induced by TGF‐β1 was determined by western blotting analysis of factors involved in various canonical and non‐canonical pathways. In addition, human kidney tissues from control and CAD group were also examined for these proteins by HE, Masson's trichrome, immunohistochemical, indirect immunofluorescence double staining and western blotting assays. TGF‐β1 significantly promoted the development of EndMT in a time‐dependent and dose‐dependent manner and promoted the motility and migration ability of HUVECs. The TGF‐β/Smad and Akt/mTOR/p70S6K signalling pathways were found to be associated with the pathogenesis of EndMT induced by TGF‐β1, which was also proven in vivo by the analysis of specimens from the control and CAD groups. EndMT may promote transplant kidney interstitial fibrosis by targetting the TGF‐β/Smad and Akt/mTOR/p70S6K signalling pathways, and hence, result in the development of CAD in kidney transplant recipients.

Background In the string correction problem, we are to transform one string into another using a set of prescribed edit operations. In string correction using the Damerau-Levenshtein (DL) distance, the permissible edit operations are: substitution, insertion, deletion and transposition. Several algorithms for string correction using the DL distance have been proposed. The fastest and most space efficient of these algorithms is due to Lowrance and Wagner. It computes the DL distance between strings of length m and n , respectively, in O ( m n ) time and O ( m n ) space. In this paper, we focus on the development of algorithms whose asymptotic space complexity is less and whose actual runtime and energy consumption are less than those of the algorithm of Lowrance and Wagner. Results We develop space- and cache-efficient algorithms to compute the Damerau-Levenshtein (DL) distance between two strings as well as to find a sequence of edit operations of length equal to the DL distance. Our algorithms require O ( s min{ m , n }+ m + n ) space, where s is the size of the alphabet and m and n are, respectively, the lengths of the two strings. Previously known algorithms require O ( m n ) space. The space- and cache-efficient algorithms of this paper are demonstrated, experimentally, to be superior to earlier algorithms for the DL distance problem on time, space, and enery metrics using three different computational platforms. Conclusion Our benchmarking shows that, our algorithms are able to handle much larger sequences than earlier algorithms due to the reduction in space requirements. On a single core, we are able to compute the DL distance and an optimal edit sequence faster than known algorithms by as much as 73.1% and 63.5%, respectively. Further, we reduce energy consumption by as much as 68.5%. Multicore versions of our algorithms achieve a speedup of 23.2 on 24 cores.

No abstract

The Fe0.1Ni0.9S2 catalyst can maintain its own metallic phase as a conductive channel for fast electron transfer and a thin layer of Fe0.1Ni0.9OOH serves as an active catalytic phase for the OER.