Energy security and environmental pollution have been important topics over the world.With depletion of traditional fossil fuels, it is necessary to find new kinds of substitute energies that are green and renewable. Co-pyrolysis/gasification of mixture of waste (i.e. plastics) and biomass is a potential solution and H2 is an ideal energy carrier with wide range of use. This paper aims to develop a new catalyst Ni-CaO-C and to examine its performance under optimal operating conditions of pyrolysis/gasification of plastics and biomass for H2 production. Experimental studies adjusting Ni loads and support ratios of catalyst were performed to explore the catalytic activity and CO2 adsorption capability of the new catalyst. Operating conditions such as feedstock ratio, pyrolysis temperature, reforming temperature and water injection flowrate were also examined experimentally to find optimal operating conditions. Consequently, experiment results indicated that high H2 production (86.74 mol% and 115.33 mmol/g) and low CO2 concentration (7.31 mol%) in the gaseous products can be achieved with new catalyst Ni-CaO-C under the optimal operating conditions. Therefore, this study points to effective new approaches to increase H2 production from the pyrolysis/gasification of waste plastics and biomass.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still one of the malignant tumors with high morbidity and mortality in China and worldwide. Although alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) as well as core fucosylated AFP-L3 have been widely used as important biomarkers for HCC diagnosis and evaluation, the AFP level shows a huge variation among HCC patient populations. In addition, the AFP level has also been proved to be associated with pathological grade, progression, and survival of HCC patients. Understanding the intrinsic heterogeneities of HCC associated with AFP levels is essential for the molecular mechanism studies of HCC with different AFP levels as well as for the potential early diagnosis and personalized treatment of HCC with AFP negative. In this study, an integrated N-glycoproteomic and proteomic analysis of low and high AFP levels of HCC tumors was performed to investigate the intrinsic heterogeneities of site-specific glycosylation associated with different AFP levels of HCC. By large-scale profiling and quantifying more than 4,700 intact N-glycopeptides from 20 HCC and 20 paired paracancer samples, we identified many commonly altered site-specific N-glycans from HCC tumors regardless of AFP levels, including decreased modifications by oligo-mannose and sialylated bi-antennary glycans, and increased modifications by bisecting glycans. By relative quantifying the intact N-glycopeptides between low and high AFP tumor groups, the great heterogeneities of site-specific N-glycans between two groups of HCC tumors were also uncovered. We found that several sialylated but not core fucosylated tri-antennary glycans were uniquely increased in low AFP level of HCC tumors, while many core fucosylated bi-antennary or hybrid glycans as well as bisecting glycans were uniquely increased in high AFP tumors. The data provide a valuable resource for future HCC studies regarding the mechanism, heterogeneities and new biomarker discovery.

Energy security and environmental pollution are two major concerns worldwide. H2 from pyrolysis/gasification of biomass and waste plastics is a clean energy source. However, relatively low yield and composition of H2 is produced using this technology, thus preventing its commercialisation. Catalyst is key to promote H2 production. This paper aims to explore whether newly developed dual-support catalyst Ni-CaO-C can catalyse gasification of volatiles from pyrolysis of different plastics (e.g. high density polyethylene -HDPE, polypropylene -PP and polystyrene -PS) and biomass (e.g. pine sawdust) for H2 production. Experiments with and without catalysts were performed to test the performance of catalyst Ni-CaO-C. Impact of changing operating conditions (i.e. feedstock ratio, reforming temperature and water injection flowrate) on H2 production were also investigated. Results show that catalysts (Ni-Al2O3 or Ni-CaO-C) can effectively promote H2 production. The H2 production using catalyst Ni-CaO-C is much better than catalyst Ni-Al2O3. The catalytic effect of Ni-CaO-C rank in the sequence of HDPE > PP > PS. Plastic content in feedstock is suggested to be less than 40 wt% (for HDPE and PP) and 30 wt% (for PS) when mixing with biomass to reach high H2 production. When the feedstock ratio is constant, high H2 yield (i.e. 80.36 mmol/g) is achieved under relatively 2 low reforming temperature at 700 °C and water injection flowrate at 5 mL/h. However, under the same conditions, PP and PS only have H2 yields at 59.35 mmol/g and 38.51 mmol/g. PS requires even higher temperature (800°C) and water injection flowrate (10 mL/h) to ensure acceptable H2 yields. The new findings presented in this paper can help large scale commercial application of pyrolysis/gasification technologies for biomass and waste plastics.

It is widely acknowledged that inflammatory indices may serve as effective prognosis indicators for various malignancies. In the present study, the prognostic value of systemic inflammatory biomarkers for patients undergoing curative resection for intrahepatic cholangiocellular carcinoma (ICC) was investigated. Clinical data of ICC patients who underwent curative resection between September 2008 and July 2017 were collected. Inflammatory indictors were analyzed using the Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve. Indictors that were significantly associated with the overall survival (OS) were used to establish a systemic inflammation-based score system and tested via nomogram using R software. The neutrophil To lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and lymphocyte to macrophages ratio (LMR) were significantly associated with the OS and disease-free survival of the patients. High NLR and low LMR were associated with worse clinicopathological and survival outcomes. The univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that tumor T stage, incisal margin, NLR and LMR were associated with the OS of the patients. The systemic inflammation-based scoring system based on LMR and NLR demonstrated a stronger discriminatory capacity and may serve as a useful prognostic parameter for patients undergoing curative resection for ICC. Low LMR and high NLR were observed to be associated with poor prognosis and worse clinical outcomes for patients with ICC undergoing curative surgery. A combined inflammation-based scoring system based on LMR and NLR may effectively predict the outcomes and serve as a novel prognostic predictor for these patients.