Due to its environmental efficacy and economic effectiveness, a unique approach for extracting functional thermally sensitive bioactive components from food was recently developed. Cloud point extraction is one of the most effective alternative methods for extracting a wide range of organic and inorganic components from green surfactants. The extraction method is cloud point extraction by phase separation, which is a quick and easy approach that requires very little solvent and just a small amount of very non-flammable and non-volatile surfactant that is environmentally benign. The theoretical results of cloud point extraction's application in the food industry are summarized in this article. While presenting a series of introductions on how to extract cloud points, the benefits and applications of cloud points have been studied. The method of using cloud point extraction in food samples has been explained in this article. This method is simple, safe, cost-effective, and widely used to measure a variety of tissue samples, and it can detect analytes down to nanograms per millimeter. Spectrophotometric measurement of low levels of cadmium in some vegetables was also developed in the current study as one of the most important applications of the cloud point extraction method in the food industry.

Hitherto, a considerable amount of research has been carried out to investigate the equilibrium condition of adsorption process; nevertheless, there is no comprehensive study to evaluate the surface adsorption properties of MOFs. Therefore, the adsorption mechanism and equilibrium capacity of MOFs have not been fully understood. Furthermore, the mass transfer mechanism is still unknown and so it is not possible to predict the adsorption process using MOFs. In this work, a new metal–organic framework (MOF) named UIO-66–MnFe2O4 was synthesized as an adsorbent for oily wastewater treatment. In this way the effects of temperature, amount of adsorbent, adsorption time, pH, and pollutant initial concentration were studied in the treatment of oily wastewater using the UIO-66-MnFe2O4 MOF through the adsorption process. Furthermore, to examine the process of surface adsorption, different adsorption kinetic models (pseudo-first-order, pseudo-second-order, and Elovich) have been performed for the removal of oily pollutants on MOF adsorbents and the surface adsorption mechanism has been discussed carefully. Moreover, to investigate the mass transfer mechanism of oily pollutants in the surface adsorption process, different mass transfer models (Weber and Morris, liquid film diffusion, and Bangham and Burt) have been investigated on porous adsorbents, and finally the mass transfer mechanism of the adsorption process has been proposed.

ObjectiveBovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic respiratory infectious disease of domestic livestock caused by intracellular Mycobacterium bovis infection, which causes ~$3 billion in annual losses to global agriculture. Providing novel tools for bTB managements requires a comprehensive understanding of the molecular regulatory mechanisms underlying the M. bovis infection. Nevertheless, a combination of different bioinformatics and systems biology methods was used in this study in order to clearly understand the molecular regulatory mechanisms of bTB, especially the immunomodulatory mechanisms of M. bovis infection.MethodsRNA-seq data were retrieved and processed from 78 (39 non-infected control vs. 39 M. bovis-infected samples) bovine alveolar macrophages (bAMs). Next, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was performed to identify the co-expression modules in non-infected control bAMs as reference set. The WGCNA module preservation approach was then used to identify non-preserved modules between non-infected controls and M. bovis-infected samples (test set). Additionally, functional enrichment analysis was used to investigate the biological behavior of the non-preserved modules and to identify bTB-specific non-preserved modules. Co-expressed hub genes were identified based on module membership (MM) criteria of WGCNA in the non-preserved modules and then integrated with protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks to identify co-expressed hub genes/transcription factors (TFs) with the highest maximal clique centrality (MCC) score (hub-central genes).ResultsAs result, WGCNA analysis led to the identification of 21 modules in the non-infected control bAMs (reference set), among which the topological properties of 14 modules were altered in the M. bovis-infected bAMs (test set). Interestingly, 7 of the 14 non-preserved modules were directly related to the molecular mechanisms underlying the host immune response, immunosuppressive mechanisms of M. bovis, and bTB development. Moreover, among the co-expressed hub genes and TFs of the bTB-specific non-preserved modules, 260 genes/TFs had double centrality in both co-expression and PPI networks and played a crucial role in bAMs-M. bovis interactions. Some of these hub-central genes/TFs, including PSMC4, SRC, BCL2L1, VPS11, MDM2, IRF1, CDKN1A, NLRP3, TLR2, MMP9, ZAP70, LCK, TNF, CCL4, MMP1, CTLA4, ITK, IL6, IL1A, IL1B, CCL20, CD3E, NFKB1, EDN1, STAT1, TIMP1, PTGS2, TNFAIP3, BIRC3, MAPK8, VEGFA, VPS18, ICAM1, TBK1, CTSS, IL10, ACAA1, VPS33B, and HIF1A, had potential targets for inducing immunomodulatory mechanisms by M. bovis to evade the host defense response.ConclusionThe present study provides an in-depth insight into the molecular regulatory mechanisms behind M. bovis infection through biological investigation of the candidate non-preserved modules directly related to bTB development. Furthermore, several hub-central genes/TFs were identified that were significant in determining the fate of M. bovis infection and could be promising targets for developing novel anti-bTB therapies and diagnosis strategies.

For the surface adsorption process, a wide range of studies have been carried out to describe the adsorption process. However, no extensive study has been carried out to investigate the pre-treatment method effect on the separation process. The purpose of the present study is to improve the performance of the membrane process in the treatment of oily wastewater. For this purpose, the effects of pre-treatment, membrane modification, and operational parameters were investigated on the microfiltration membrane system. Two methods of coagulation and surface adsorption were used as pre-treatment, and then a modified polysulfone (PSf) membrane containing TiO2 nanoparticles was applied in the microfiltration process. In order to reduce the membrane fouling and increase the permeate flux, the surface of the nanoparticle was modified. In order to check the performance of coagulation, pretreatments of polyferric sulfate (PFS) and polyferric chloride (PFC) were applied. The results showed that the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) reduction of 98% can be obtained using 1 g/L of PFS coagulant at pH = 6, while only 81% of COD was removed using 1 g/L PFC. It was also found that the best pH for the performance of this type of coagulant was measured as pH = 10 and the removal efficiency for 1 and 2 g/L of PFC coagulant was obtained as 96.1% and 91.7%, respectively. The results show that in the case of using a coagulant of less than 1 g/L, using PFS is more efficient than PFC; meanwhile, in more than 1 g/L of coagulant, this effect is reversed and the use of PFS will be less efficient than PFC. The performance of the PSf-TiO2 membrane fabricated by the Nonsolvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) method was investigated using modified nanoparticles with an initial size of 10 nm at different operating conditions. The results show that the permeate flux and the rejection can be increased to 563 L/h m2 and 99%, respectively, using the modified PSf membrane. The results of this paper showed that the performance of the adsorption process can be improved by using the coagulation process as a pre-treatment method.

The has retracted this article because it shows significant overlap with a previously published thesis by Déborah Carolina Carvalho dos Anjos [1]. The author, Heba Saed Kariem Alawamleh, has agreed to the Editor-in-Chief decision to retract the article.The online version of this article contains the full text of the retracted article as Supplementary Information.