Key hydrodynamic principles for controlling algal blooms using emergency reservoir operation strategies.

Reservoir operation strategies with low cost and high efficiency have been proposed to control algal blooms. However, the key hydrodynamic principle for performing reservoir operation strategies is still unknown, posing an obstacle to practical applications. To address this challenge, we proposed short-term emergency reservoir operation strategies (EROSs), established a three-dimensional (3D) eutrophication model of the Zipingpu Reservoir, and designed six 14-day reservoir operation cases to explore the mechanism of EROSs in controlling algal blooms. Large outflows with rapid water exchange should be adopted early in EROSs to control algal blooms in the reservoir. Small variations in the surface water temperature or the mixed layer depth/euphotic layer depth (Zmix/Zeu) ratio were found for different EROSs, indicating that these variations might not have been responsible for the differences in the algal blooms in the reservoir. The EROSs induced high surface flow velocity (Vs) and depth-averaged velocity (Vd) values in the reservoir, thereby controlling algal blooms by inhibiting algal growth and disrupting algal accumulation in the upper water layers. The flow of Vs against the direction of the water intake was detected during the execution of the EROSs, suggesting that increasing Vs might enhance water retention in the reservoir. Increasing Vd not only promoted water exchange to disrupt algal accumulation but also enhanced Vs to inhibit algal growth. Moreover, Vd demonstrated a strong linear relationship with the inhibition ratio of algal blooms. These results demonstrate that Vd is the key hydrodynamic indicator for performing EROSs and that accelerating Vd to exceed 0.039 m s-1 in the near-dam region can control algal blooms. Overall, in this study, we develop a novel EROS and elucidate corresponding principles for the use of EROSs to control algal blooms in reservoirs.

Robust quasi-uniform surface meshing of neuronal morphology using line skeleton-based progressive convolution approximation.

Creating high-quality polygonal meshes which represent the membrane surface of neurons for both visualization and numerical simulation purposes is an important yet nontrivial task, due to their irregular and complicated structures. In this paper, we develop a novel approach of constructing a watertight 3D mesh from the abstract point-and-diameter representation of the given neuronal morphology. The membrane shape of the neuron is reconstructed by progressively deforming an initial sphere with the guidance of the neuronal skeleton, which can be regarded as a digital sculpting process. To efficiently deform the surface, a local mapping is adopted to simulate the animation skinning. As a result, only the vertices within the region of influence (ROI) of the current skeletal position need to be updated. The ROI is determined based on the finite-support convolution kernel, which is convolved along the line skeleton of the neuron to generate a potential field that further smooths the overall surface at both unidirectional and bifurcating regions. Meanwhile, the mesh quality during the entire evolution is always guaranteed by a set of quasi-uniform rules, which split excessively long edges, collapse undersized ones, and adjust vertices within the tangent plane to produce regular triangles. Additionally, the local vertices density on the result mesh is decided by the radius and curvature of neurites to achieve adaptiveness.

Analysis of Prognostic Alternative Splicing Reveals the Landscape of Immune Microenvironment in Thyroid Cancer.

BACKGROUND: The incidence of thyroid cancer (THCA) continues to increase in recent decades. Accumulating evidence showed that the unbalanced alternative splicing (AS) promotes the occurrence of cancers and leads to poor prognosis of patients. However, the research on alternative splicing events in THCA is lacking, and its underlying mechanism is not fully understood. This study identifies a novel prognostic signature based on AS events to reveal the relationship of AS with tumor immune microenvironment. METHODS: Based on the AS data, transcriptional data, and clinical information, the differentially expressed alternative splicings (DEASs) were screened out. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression and multi-Cox regression analyses were employed to identify prognostic results related to AS events and establish a prognostic signature. The predictive ability of the signature was assessed by Kaplan-Meier (K-M) survival curve, risk plots, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Furthermore, correlations between tumor-infiltrating immune cells, immune checkpoints, immune score and prognostic signature were analyzed. RESULTS: According to the LASSO regression analysis, a total of five AS events were selected to construct the signature. K-M survival curve showed that the higher the risk score, the worse the OS of the patients. Risk plots further confirmed this result. ROC curves indicated the high predictive efficiency of the prognostic signature. As for tumor immune microenvironment, patients in the high-risk group had a higher proportion of immune cells, including plasma cell, CD8+ T cell, macrophages (M0 and M2), and activated dendritic cell. Immune checkpoint proteins, such as PDCD1LG2, HAVCR2, CD274, etc., were significantly higher in the high-risk group. We also found that the ESTIMATE score, stromal score, and immune score were lower in the high-risk group, while the result of tumor purity was the opposite. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, a prognostic signature consisting of five AS events in THCA was established. Furthermore, there was an inextricable correlation between immune cell infiltration, immune checkpoint proteins, and AS events. This study will provide a basis for THCA immunotherapy in the future.

Potential of the integration of coagulation and ozonation as a pretreatment of reverse osmosis concentrate from coal gasification wastewater reclamation.

Combination of coagulation and ozonation was used to treat brine derived from a three-stage reverse osmosis (RO) process during coal gasification wastewater reclamation. Effects of operating parameters on the removals of total organic carbon (TOC), color and UV absorbance at 254 nm (A254) were investigated during coagulation and ozonation. All the removal efficiencies of TOC, A254 and color of FeCl3 coagulant are about twice those of AlCl3 coagulant at the same molar dose since almost all the molecular weight fractions of RO concentrate (ROC) could be removed effectively by FeCl3 coagulant while only the fractions of molecular weight > 3 k Da could be removed effectively by AlCl3 coagulant. The TOC removal increases with the increasing of ozone dose and reaction temperature during ozonation of ROC after coagulation pretreatment. TOC and color of ROC after pretreated by coagulation could be further removed effectively during ozonation since ozonation can significant reduce the fluorescence response of all the fractions of effluent organic matter in ROC. It is unexpectedly found that the increase of A254 is observed after ozonation, this is because the intensity of absorbance at 254 nm by the low molecular weight transformation products (<2 k Da) increases significantly with the reaction time after 30 min. The coagulation coupling with ozonation is efficient in the removals of both TOC and color of ROC.

The combination of peripheral nerve grafts and acidic fibroblast growth factor enhances arginase I and polyamine spermine expression in transected rat spinal cords.

Treatment with a combination of peripheral nerve grafts and acidic fibroblast growth factor improves hind limb locomotor function after spinal cord transection. This study examined the effect of treatment on expression of arginase I (Arg I) and polyamines. Arg I expression was low in the spinal cords of normal rats but increased following spinal injury. Only fully repaired spinal cords expressed higher Arg I levels 6-14 days following repair. In 10-day repaired spinal cords, high Arg I immunoreactivity was detected in motoneurons and alternatively activated macrophages in the graft area and graft-stump edges, and high levels of the polyamine spermine were expressed by macrophages within the intercostal nerve graft. Thus, in addition to enhancing the expression of Arg I and spermine in repaired spinal cords, our treatment may recruit activated macrophages and create a more favorable environment for axonal regrowth.

[Studies on quality control of Xueyakang capsule].

OBJECTIVE: To establish the quality control standard for Xueyakang capsule. METHOD: Radix Rehmanniae, Cacumen Platycladi, Folium Artemisiae Argyi, Folium Nelumbinis were identified by TLC, and the content of quercitrin was determined by HPLC. RESULT: The TLC sports developed was fairly clear, the HPLC method showed good repeatability, and the average recovery of quercitrin was 100.7% with RSD 2.0%. CONCLUSION: The method is simple, accurate and can effectively control quality of Xueyakang capsule.

Fast generation of 3-D deformable moving surfaces.

Dynamic surface modeling is an important subject of geometric modeling due to their extensive applications in engineering design, entertainment and medical visualization. Many deformable objects in the real world are dynamic objects as their shapes change over time. Traditional geometric modeling methods are mainly concerned with static problems, therefore unsuitable for the representation of dynamic objects. Apart from the definition of a dynamic modeling problem, another key issue is how to solve the problem. Because of the complexity of the representations, currently the finite element method or finite difference method is usually used. Their major shortcoming is the excessive computational cost, hence not ideal for applications requiring real-time performance. We propose a representation of dynamic surface modeling with a set of fourth order dynamic partial differential equations (PDEs). To solve these dynamic PDEs accurately and efficiently, we also develop an effective resolution method. This method is further extended to achieve local deformation and produce n-sided patches. It is demonstrated that this new method is almost as fast and accurate as the analytical closed form resolution method and much more efficient and accurate than the numerical methods.