Enhancing laccase stability and activity for dyes decolorization using ZIF-8@MWCNT nanocomposite

The continuous use of chemical dyes in various industries, and their discharge into industrial effluents, results in severe problems to human life and water pollution. Laccases have the ability to decolorize dyes and toxic chemicals in industrial effluents as green biocatalysts. Their possible industrial applications have been limited by poor reusability, low stability, and loss of free laccase action. In this research, laccase was immobilized on zeolitic imidazolate framework coated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Laccase@ZIF-8@MWCNTs) via metal affinity adsorption to develop an easy separable and stable enzyme. The optimum reaction conditions for immobilized laccase are at a pH of 3.0 and a temperature of 60?℃. The immobilized laccase was enhanced in storage and thermal stability. The results indicated that Laccase@ZIF-8@MWCNTs still maintained 68% of its original activity after 10 times of repeated use. Most importantly, the biocatalytic system was applied for decolorization of different dyes (20?mg·L^?1) without a mediator, and up to 97.4% for Eriochrome black T and 95.6% Acid red 88 was achieved in 25 min. Biocatalysts with these properties may be used in a variety of environmental and industrial applications.     

Query optimization mechanisms in the cloud environments: A systematic study

The goal of a query optimizer is to provide an optimal Query Execution Plan (QEP) by comparing alternative query plans. In a distributed database system over cloud environment, the relations required by a query plan may be stored at multiple sites. This leads to an exponential increase in the number of possible equivalent plan alternatives to find an optimal QEP. Although it is not computationally reasonable to explore exhaustively all possible plans in such large search space. Although query optimization mechanisms are important in the cloud environments, to the best of our knowledge, there exists no complete and systematic review on investigating these issues. Therefore, in this paper, four categories to study these mechanisms are considered which are search‐based, machine learning‐based, schema‐based, and security‐based mechanisms. Also, this paper represents the advantages and disadvantages of the selected query optimization techniques and investigates the metrics of their techniques. Finally, the important challenges of these techniques are reviewed to develop more efficient query optimization techniques in the future.     

A Novel Model of Sybil Attack in Cluster-Based Wireless Sensor Networks and Propose a Distributed Algorithm to Defend It

Wireless Personal Communications - Today, Wireless Sensor Networks are widely employed in various applications including military, environment, medical and urban applications. Thus, security...     

Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase in Aged Female Mice and Human Explanted Hearts Following Ischemic Injury

Myocardial infarction (MI) accounts for a significant proportion of death and morbidity in aged individuals. The risk for MI in females increases as they enter the peri-menopausal period, generally occurring in middle-age. Cytochrome (CYP) 450 metabolizes N-3 and N-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) into numerous lipid mediators, oxylipids, which are further metabolised by soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), reducing their activity. The objective of this study was to characterize oxylipid metabolism in the left ventricle (LV) following ischemic injury in females. Human LV specimens were procured from female patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) or non-failing controls (NFC). Female C57BL6 (WT) and sEH null mice averaging 13–16 months old underwent permanent occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) to induce myocardial infarction. WT (wild type) mice received vehicle or sEH inhibitor, trans-4-[4-(3-adamantan-1-yl-ureido)-cyclohexyloxy]-benzoic acid (tAUCB), in their drinking water ad libitum for 28 days. Cardiac function was assessed using echocardiography and electrocardiogram. Protein expression was determined using immunoblotting, mitochondrial activity by spectrophotometry, and cardiac fibre respiration was measured using a Clark-type electrode. A full metabolite profile was determined by LC–MS/MS. sEH was significantly elevated in ischemic LV specimens from patients, associated with fundamental changes in oxylipid metabolite formation and significant decreases in mitochondrial enzymatic function. In mice, pre-treatment with tAUCB or genetic deletion of sEH significantly improved survival, preserved cardiac function, and maintained mitochondrial quality following MI in female mice. These data indicate that sEH may be a relevant pharmacologic target for women with MI. Although future studies are needed to determine the mechanisms, in this pilot study we suggest targeting sEH may be an effective strategy for reducing ischemic injury and mortality in middle-aged females.     

LBAA: A novel load balancing mechanism in cloud environments using ant colony optimization and artificial bee colony algorithms

Recently, cloud computing has been recognized as an effective paradigm for offering an on-demand platform, software services, and an efficient infrastructure to cloud clients. Due to the exponential growth of cloud tasks and the rapidly increasing number of cloud users, scheduling and balancing these tasks among involved heterogeneous virtual machines becomes an Non-deterministic Polynomial hard (NP-hard) optimization problem considering significant constraints, such as high rate of resource usage, low scheduling time, and low implementation cost. Therefore, various meta-heuristic algorithms have been widely used to tackle the issue. The current paper proposes a novel load balancing mechanism using the ant colony optimization and artificial bee colony algorithms, called LBAA, which aims to balance the load division among systems in data centers. The simulation outcomes confirm that our algorithm outperforms previous works regarding response time, imbalance degree, makespan, and resource utilization up to 25%, 15%, 12%, and 10%, respectively.