Beyond “Big Eaters”: The Versatile Role of Alveolar Macrophages in Health and Disease

Macrophages act as immune scavengers and are important cell types in the homeostasis of various tissues. Given the multiple roles of macrophages, these cells can also be found as tissue resident macrophages tightly integrated into a variety of tissues in which they fulfill crucial and organ-specific functions. The lung harbors at least two macrophage populations: interstitial and alveolar macrophages, which occupy different niches and functions. In this review, we provide the latest insights into the multiple roles of alveolar macrophages while unraveling the distinct factors which can influence the ontogeny and function of these cells. Furthermore, we will highlight pulmonary diseases, which are associated with dysfunctional macrophages, concentrating on congenital diseases as well as pulmonary infections and impairment of immunological pathways. Moreover, we will provide an overview about different treatment approaches targeting macrophage dysfunction. Improved knowledge of the role of macrophages in the onset of pulmonary diseases may provide the basis for new pharmacological and/or cell-based immunotherapies and will extend our understanding to other macrophage-related disorders.     

Relationship of the different Ca sites in the matrix with luminescence properties of orange‒red emitting Li0.04Ca0.96-xSiO3:Smx phosphors

Li_0.04Ca_0.96-xSiO₃:Sm_x orange?red emitting phosphors were synthesized using the sol-gel method. X-ray diffraction, Rietveld refinement of XRD patterns, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and ?uorescence spectrophotometry were used to characterize the crystal structure, sites of cationic Ca and luminescence properties of the prepared phosphors. The relationship of the different Ca sites in the matrix with the luminescence properties was analysed. The results indicate that the prepared phosphors reveal a β-CaSiO₃ phase with a monoclinic crystal structure and space Group P21/a. As the Sm³⁺ concentration increases, the unit cell volume of phosphors and the Ca–O band lengths of different Ca sites decrease due to substitution of Ca²⁺ by smaller Sm³⁺ ions. By excitation at 404 nm, Li_0.04Ca_0.96-xSiO₃:Sm_x phosphors exhibit warm orange?red light, corresponding to the electron transitions from ⁴G_5/2 → ⁶H_5/2 (567 nm), ⁴G_5/2 → ⁶H_7/2 (605 nm) and ⁴G_5/2 → ⁶H_9/2 (651 nm) of Sm³⁺. The concentration quenching phenomenon appears at Sm³⁺ concentrations beyond 0.02. The refinement results demonstrate that three cationic Ca sites, named Ca1, Ca2 and Ca3, exist in the β-CaSiO₃ host lattice. The Ca²⁺ ions at Ca1 and Ca2 sites are coordinated with six oxygen ions, leading to the same coordination number (CN). The Ca²⁺ ion located at Ca3 site has seven coordination numbers. The Ca1 site possesses a smaller lattice distortion and better symmetry than those of Ca2 and Ca3 sites. However, the Ca3 site exhibits the largest lattice distortion and poor symmetry. The Sm³⁺ present in symmetric Ca1 sites in the matrix illustrates the strong emission intensity, long luminescence lifetimes and good thermal stability.     

Various density light field image coding based on distortion minimization interpolation

In recent years, the light field (LF) as a new imaging modality has attracted wide interest. The large data volume of LF images poses great challenge to LF image coding, and the LF images captured by different devices show significant differences in angular domain. In this paper we propose a view prediction framework to handle LF image coding with various sampling density. All LF images are represented as view arrays. We first partition the views into reference view (RV) set and intermediate view (IV) set. The RVs are rearranged into a pseudo sequence and directly compressed by a video encoder. Other views are then predicted by the RVs. To exploit the four dimensional signal structure, we propose the linear approximation prior (LAP) to reveal the correlation among LF views and efficiently remove the LF data redundancy. Based on the LAP, a distortion minimization interpolation (DMI) method is used to predict IVs. To robustly handle the LF images with different sampling density, we propose an Iteratively Updating depth image based rendering (IU-DIBR) method to extend our DMI. Some auxiliary views are generated to cover the target region and then the DMI calculates reconstruction coefficients for the IVs. Different view partition patterns are also explored. Extensive experiments on different types LF images also valid the efficiency of the proposed method.     

Simultaneously achieving high energy-storage density and power density under low electric fields in NBT-based ceramics

Aiming at the problem that power density and energy density are difficult to obtain simultaneously under low field, a novel composition (1-x)Na_0·5Bi_0·5TiO₃-xBaZn_1/3Ta_2/3O₃((1-x)NBT-xBZT) was designed and fabricated via solid-state methods. With the addition of BZT, the crystal lattice, structural symmetry, grain size, and dense degree were all increased proved by XRD, Raman, and Archimedes drainage method et al. Because of the enhancement of relaxor behavior, the x=0.10 sample displayed a high permittivity ε_r of 2871±15% and a low dielectric loss tan δ ≤ 0.025 in the wide temperature range of 60–400 ^oC. This ceramic also showed maximum recoverable energy density W_d (2.07 J/cm³) with high efficiency η (71.5%) under a low field of 150 kV/cm. Moreover, pulse discharge testing proved that this ceramic possessed both a significant discharge energy density W_D (0.96 J/cm³) and a record high power density P_D (108.54 MW/cm³). This work provided a promising material for high power and energy applications.     

Directed Evolution of a Cp*RhIII-Linked Biohybrid Catalyst Based on a Screening Platform with Affinity Purification

Directed evolution of Cp*Rh^III-linked nitrobindin (NB), a biohybrid catalyst, was performed based on an in vitro screening approach. A key aspect of this effort was the establishment of a high-throughput screening (HTS) platform that involves an affinity purification step employing a starch-agarose resin for a maltose binding protein (MBP) tag. The HTS platform enables efficient preparation of the purified MBP-tagged biohybrid catalysts in a 96-well format and eliminates background influence of the host E. coli cells. Three rounds of directed evolution and screening of more than 4000 clones yielded a Cp*Rh^III-linked NB(T98H/L100K/K127E) variant with a 4.9-fold enhanced activity for the cycloaddition of acetophenone oximes with alkynes. It is confirmed that this HTS platform for directed evolution provides an efficient strategy for generating highly active biohybrid catalysts incorporating a synthetic metal cofactor.     

Laboratory Studies to Determine Suitable Chemicals to Improve Oil Recovery from Garzan Oil Field

Garzan oil field is located at the south east of Turkey. It is a mature oil field and the reservoir is fractured carbonate reservoir. After producing about 1% original oil in place (OOIP) reservoir pressure started to decline. Waterflooding was started in order to support reservoir pressure and also to enhance oil production in 1960. Waterflooding improved the oil recovery but after years of flooding water breakthrough at the production wells was observed. This increased the water/oil ratio at the production wells. In order to enhance oil recovery again different techniques were investigated. Chemical enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods are gaining attention all over the world for oil recovery. Surfactant injection is an effective way for interfacial tension (IFT) reduction and wettability reversal. In this study, 31 different types of chemicals were studied to specify the effects on oil production. This paper presents solubility of surfactants in brine, IFT and contact angle measurements, imbibition tests, and lastly core flooding experiments. Most of the chemicals were incompatible with Garzan formation water, which has high divalent ion concentration. In this case, the usage of 2-propanol as co-surfactant yielded successful results for stability of the selected chemical solutions. The results of the wettability test indicated that both tested cationic and anionic surfactants altered the wettability of the carbonate rock from oil-wet to intermediate-wet. The maximum oil recovery by imbibition test was reached when core was exposed 1-ethly ionic liquid after imbibition in formation water. Also, after core flooding test, it is concluded that considerable amount of oil can be recovered from Garzan reservoir by waterflooding alone if adverse effects of natural fractures could be eliminated.     

Magnetic field-enhanced photocatalytic nitrogen fixation over defect-rich ferroelectric Bi2WO6

Photocatalytic N₂ fixation is a promising and sustainable manufacturing process of ammonia (NH₃); however, the NH₃ production rate by this method is very low, thus severely restricting further application of this sustainable technology. Therefore, developing an efficient photocatalyst for N₂ fixation under mild conditions is urgently required. Herein, ferroelectric Bi₂WO₆ materials with different surface oxygen defects were prepared, and the concentration of corresponding defects was controlled by adjusting the thermal reduction time. The abundant oxygen defects in Bi₂WO₆ can provide more reactive sites to promote the effective adsorption of N₂, and the photogenerated charge carrier can be efficiently separated benefiting from the internal electric field. These would weaken the N₂ triple bond and reduce the activation energy barrier for the conversion of N₂ to NH₃ under mild conditions. In the absence of sacrificial agents and cocatalysts, the optimized Bi₂WO₆ with oxygen defects shows an indigenous NH₃ yield of 132.175 μmol·g^-1·L^-1·h^-1, which is more than two times higher than that of the original Bi₂WO₆. Surprisingly, the Bi₂WO₆ with oxygen defects produced more than eight times NH₃ (471.13 μmol·g^-1·L^-1·h^-1) than that of the original Bi₂WO₆ when assisted by an external magnetic field, thus providing a new perspective for further enhancing the N₂ fixation performance.     

Towards artificial intelligence at scale in the chemical industry

In the Industry 4.0 era, the chemical industry is embracing broad adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methods. This article provides a holistic view of how the industry is transforming digitally towards AI at scale. First, a historical perspective on how the industry used AI to aid humans in better decision-making is shown. Then state-of-the-art AI research addressing industrial needs on reliability and safety, process optimization, supply chain, material discovery, and reaction engineering is highlighted. Finally, a vision of the plant of the future is illustrated with critical components of AI-ready culture, model life cycle management, and renewed role of humans in chemical manufacturing.     

中压进汽腔的流场数值模拟比较

通过数值模拟计算,对中压对称进汽和切向进汽两种结构的流场进行了分析比较,结果表明,单一切向进汽腔的总压损失更小,出口汽流角的周向分布均匀度更好。更进一步,为整体评估中压进汽腔的流场以及对叶片级的流动影响,对中压进汽腔及第1级叶片的整体流体域流场情况进行了分析比较,结果表明,采用大几何角静叶的切向进汽腔气动性能最优;当采取切向进汽腔时,需合理选择第1级静叶几何角并耦合计算,才能实现进汽腔的气动优化。     

超精密气体静压系统节流器法向随机微振动研究

以无气腔平面节流器为研究对象,对节流器流固耦合法向随机微振动进行了理论仿真和实验研究。受限于节流器厚度与气膜厚度尺寸的差异和输入初始边界条件,建立了节流器的COMSOL仿真简化模型,对节流器-气膜微流场进行双向流固耦合数值模拟。仿真结果表明,节流器的法向随机微振动幅值关于节流器中心对称,且由中心向边缘逐渐增大;微振动幅值随气体入口流速的增大而增大。实验采用纳米级激光测振仪,依次测量供气压力为0.1,0.2,…,0.5 MPa时尺寸为75 mm×50 mm×14 mm的HEXAGON双环联结型节流器多个不同位置的法向振动,实验结果表明,法向随机微振动幅值分布特性与仿真结果一致,关于节流器中心对称,且由中心向边缘逐渐增大,验证了节流器法向微振动的"跷跷板"振动形式;在0.5 MPa供气压力下,边缘振动幅值超过1 nm。对实验数据进行功率谱密度分析,结果表明不同供气压力下法向随机微振动均在9.4 kHz和10.6 kHz处产生较大功率,可认为与节流器-气膜流固耦合系统的固有频率有关。研究结果有效地揭示了节流器法向随机微振动的特性,为气体静压系统避开随机共振区、优化气体静压系统的设计提供了理论指导。