Bioavailability-based risk assessment of various heavy metals via multi-exposure routes for children and teenagers in Beijing, China.

Assessing the health risks of sensitive population, such as children and teenagers, through multiple exposure routes (MERs) such as ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact is critical for policy creation that protects or reduces exposure to pollutants for all populations. Heavy metal (HM) contents in food and environmental media in Beijing, capital of China, were collected. Furthermore, on the basis of considering the bioavailability of HMs, we evaluated the multiple environmental routes and health risks to HMs in children and teenagers of eight age groups (2-<3, 3-<4, 4-<5, 5-<6, 6-<9, 9-<12, 12-<15, and 15-<18) in Beijing, China by Monte Carlo simulation approach. The main findings are as follows: lead exposure in children aged 2-<3 years exceeds the exposure dose (0.3 µg·kg-1·d-1) of 0.5 point reduction in intelligence quotient. Moreover, children aged 2-<3 and 6-<9 years have relatively high non-carcinogenic risk (NCR) of 1.32 and 1.30, respectively. The carcinogenic risk (CR) for children aged 6-<9 and 9-<12 years is 2.73×10-6 and 2.39×10-6, respectively. Specifically, the contributions of oral ingestion, dermal contact, and inhalation to the NCR were 69.5%, 18.9%, and 11.6%, respectively. Moreover, the combined NCR contributions of copper, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic (As) were about 69.4%. The contributions of the above three routes to the CR were 93.4%, 4.1%, and 2.5%, in that order, with the largest CR contribution of As being about 92.0%. This study can provide new ideas for accurately assessing the exposure and health risks of HMs in the population, and we believe that it is necessary to update the national standards for food and soil based on the bioavailability of HMs.

The Effect of Molten Phosphate on Corrosion of 316 Stainless Steel, Alloy 625, and Titanium TA8 in Supercritical Water Oxidation Conditions.

The early formation of phosphate oxide formed on 316 stainless steel (316 SS), nickel-based Alloy 625, and titanium alloy TA8 exposed in supercritical water (400 °C, 25 MPa) containing phosphate, chloride, and oxygen was investigated. Phosphate corrosion products of austenitic stainless steel displayed the severest spallation. Stable phosphates oxide films were inclined to form on Alloy 625. TiO2 and Ti2O3 are the two main components of oxide films on TA8. There is a strong synergistic effect between phosphates, oxygen, and supercritical water, leading to severe corrosion. The corrosion behavior of the three alloys at the top and bottom of the reaction tube was compared. Both at the top of the reaction tube and at the bottom of the reaction tube, TA8 showed an increase in mass. 316 SS and alloy 625 showed mass gain at the top and mass loss at the bottom. The alloys' detailed molten corrosion mechanism after exposure to supercritical water is discussed.

Coupling Effect of Hydrostatic Pressure and Erosion on Corrosion Behavior of X70 Steel in Simulated Seawater.

The corrosion behavior of X70 steel under the coupling effect of pressure and erosion in simulated seawater was investigated by using corrosion loss, electrochemical tests, SEM, AFM, XPS, and Raman spectroscopy. The coupling effect of pressure and erosion could induce changes in the amounts and compositions of the corrosion products and increase pitting. The rate of the combined corrosion of X70 steel represents a downtrend, which still displays a higher corrosion rate than only immersion at the same pressure. This means that the coupling of pressure and erosion will accelerate corrosion, but the effect of erosion is weakened by pressure. The larger the pressure is, the more erosion is weakened. The pressure reduces the water cutting force by increasing the liquid viscosity and reduces the surface hardness changes under high pressure by generating magnetite, which is closely bound to the substrate.

Optical asymmetric JTC cryptosystem based on binary phase modulation and image superposition-subtraction operation.

The joint transform correlator (JTC) cryptosystem is a simple and practical optical cryptosystem. But its identical key in both encryption and decryption brings security risks in the key distribution and management. To overcome these drawbacks, we first create a trapdoor one-way function based on image superposition and subtraction operation. Then combined with the one-way binary phase modulation, an optical asymmetric JTC cryptosystem is proposed in this paper. These two kinds of trapdoor one-way functions are not only effective and implementable, but also can greatly enhance the ability of our proposal to resist various attacks. In addition, we select the structured spiral phase mask (SSPM) controlled by its structural parameters as the key mask of the JTC cryptosystem to facilitate the key transmission. When the structural parameters of the SSPM are protected by the RSA algorithm during encryption and decryption, not only the security of the proposed cryptosystem can be enhanced, but also the key distribution and management will be improved. This also makes our proposal conform more closely to the basic agreement of the public key cryptosystem. Simulation analysis and initial experimental results verified the correctness and feasibility of our proposal.

RASSF4 inhibits cell proliferation and increases drug sensitivity in colorectal cancer through YAP/Bcl-2 pathway.

The RASSF family proteins have been implicated in the development of human cancers. To date, the expression pattern and biological significance of RASSF4 in colorectal cancers (CRC) have not been fully investigated. In the current study, we explored expression pattern of RASSF4 in 118 CRC specimens and 30 adjacent 'normal' colon tissues by immunohistochemistry. The results showed that RASSF4 was downregulated in CRC tissues compared with adjacent 'normal' tissues. RASSF4 downregulation significantly associated with advanced tumour-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, T status, positive node status and high Ki-67 index. Analysis of TCGA dataset also supported RASSF4 downregulation in CRC tissues. Ectopically expressed RASSF4 in LoVo cells inhibited cell growth, colony formation, cell cycle progression and increased the sensitivity to 5-FU treatment. Annexin V/PI apoptosis assay showed that RASSF4 overexpression increased 5-FU-induced apoptosis and downregulated the mitochondrial membrane potential. In addition, Western blot demonstrated that RASSF4 overexpression repressed YAP and Bcl-2 while upregulating p21 expression. YAP knockdown abolished the role of RASSF4 on Bcl-2. ChIP assay showed that TEAD4, a major YAP binding transcription factor, could bind to the promoter regions of Bcl-2. In conclusion, our data showed that RASSF4 was downregulated in human CRC. RASSF4 regulated malignant behaviour through YAP/Bcl-2 signalling in CRC cells.

Review of the destruction of organic radioactive wastes by supercritical water oxidation.

Organic materials, such as ion exchange resins, plastic, oils, and solvents, are widely used in the operation and decommission of nuclear facilities. The generated radioactive organic wastes are both radioactive and organic; therefore, the degradation of such wastes becomes more difficult. Due to delays in the disposal of radioactive organic wastes, potential safety risks are increasing. With the advantages of degrading refractory organics rapidly and thoroughly, supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) has become a potential alternative way to degrade radioactive organic wastes. This review focused on the degradation characteristics of different radioactive wastes from the perspective of potential practical applications. Some improved methods for facilitating the degradation of radioactive wastes by SCWO are considered and analyzed. Moreover, the kinetics and intermediate pathways of radioactive organic wastes are further analyzed. The distribution, migration and transformation of radionuclides during the SCWO reaction, as well as the further processing of radionuclides in gas-, liquid- and solid-phase products, were summarized and discussed. Furthermore, some fruitful areas for further work were reviewed for the highly efficient degradation of radioactive organic wastes. This review can provide useful information and guidance for the industrial applications of SCWO treatment for radioactive wastes.

Effects of hydrogen peroxide, sodium carbonate, and ethanol additives on the urea-based SNCR process.

The issue of secondary pollutants represents a classic problem in the urea-based selective non-catalytic reduction (SNCR) process. Therefore, this study took to investigate the evolutions of secondary pollutants when including additives during the urea-based SNCR process. Results indicated that additives, namely hydrogen peroxide, sodium carbonate, and ethanol, clear improved denitration efficiency between 750 °C - 925 °C due to the increase of OH groups. Compared to rates without any additives, the "temperature window" width of hydrogen peroxide, sodium carbonate, and ethanol increased by 30%, 30%, and 52%, respectively. The temperature at the maximum denitration efficiency was decreased by 25 °C with the addition of ethanol. The addition of hydrogen peroxide, sodium carbonate, and ethanol decreased the amount of ammonia leakage at 725 °C - 900 °C. Besides, the emissions of HNCO and N2O were decreased by adding sodium carbonate during 725 °C - 900 °C. Therefore, the addition of sodium carbonate proved to be beneficial for reducing the secondary pollutant emissions in SNCR. This study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the urea-based SNCR process in combustion.

Ciphertext-only attack on the JTC-based cryptosystem with sizes and locations of the plaintext and the key code unknown.

We demonstrate an effective ciphertext-only attack (COA) method on a joint transform correlator-based cryptosystem with sizes and locations of the plaintext and the key code unknown. In this paper, we first obtain the signal domain support by using the method, which is based on the geometry of the autocorrelation support of the object. And then, the hybrid input-output algorithm is used to retrieve the plaintext. Compared with the work on COA recently reported by Zhang et al., our proposed method needs fewer resources and much fewer iteration times for binary image to retrieve the plaintext. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the validity of the presented method.

Asymmetric optical cryptosystem based on coherent superposition and equal modulus decomposition.

A novel asymmetric cryptosystem based on coherent superposition, which is free from silhouette problem, is proposed. Being different from the phase-truncated Fourier transform-based cryptosystem, the encryption process uses equal modulus decomposition (EMD) to create an effective trapdoor one-way function. As a result, the proposed method achieves high robustness against the special attack based on iterative Fourier transform. Simulation results are presented to prove the validity of the proposed system.