Browsing by Author "Liu C"

Under anoxic conditions, aqueous Fe(II) (Fe(II)aq)-induced recrystallization of iron (oxyhydr)oxides changes the speciation and geochemical cycle of trace elements in environments. Oxidation of trace element, i.e., As(III), driven by Fe(II)aq-iron (oxyhydr)oxides interactions under anoxic condition was observed previously, but the oxidative species and involved mechanisms are remained unknown. In the present study, we explored the formed oxidative intermediates during Fe(II)aq-induced recrystallization of goethite under anoxic conditions. The methyl phenyl sulfoxide-based probe experiment suggested the featured oxidation by Fe(IV) species in Fe(II)aq-goethite system. Both the M?ssbauer spectra and X-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopic evidenced the generation and quenching of Fe(IV) intermediate. It was proved that the interfacial electron exchange between Fe(II)aq and Fe(III) of goethite initiated the generation of Fe(IV). After transferring electrons to goethite, Fe(II)aq was transformed to labile Fe(III), which was then transformed to Fe(IV) via a proton-coupled electron transfer process. This highly reactive transient Fe(IV) could quickly react with reductive species, i.e. Fe(II) or As(III). Considering the ubiquitous occurrence of Fe(II)-iron (oxyhydr)oxides reactions under anoxic conditions, our findings are expected to provide new insight into the anoxic oxidative transformation processes of matters in non-surface environments on earth. ? 2021 Elsevier B.V.

To investigate the rock particle breakage behavior subject to impact load, a series of split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) tests were conducted on selected Nishan rock and Shoushan rock particles within gravel size range at different strain rates. Both rock particles exhibit a typical strain softening macrobehavior and their dynamic peak strengths increase with strain rate. A dynamic increasing factor (DIF) is used to describe this strain rate effect. Based on the SHPB test, a constitutive model is proposed for the two types of rock particles to describe their dynamic stress–strain behavior considering strain rate effect and damaging effect. Grain size distribution of fractured rock particles was analyzed, which reflected the fragmentation characteristics quantitatively. A fractal theory was used to describe the fragmentation characteristics and dynamic strength of both types of rock particles. Dynamic strength was found to vary differently with fractal dimension for Nishan rock and Shoushan rock. ? 2021, OWZ.

Sulfide partial denitrification (SPD) is an alternative pathway for nitrite production accompanied with elemental sulfur (S0) production for nitrate removal from wastewater with anammox. In this study, the SPD granular sludge was cultivated for the first time in an upflow anaerobic sludge bed (UASB) reactor to reach the efficacy of maximum nitrate-to-nitrite transformation ratio of 92% and an in-situ maximum NO3?-N reduction rate of 2.46 kg-N/m3-d, both much higher than literature results. Mature granules had an average particle size of 2.52 mm and hold smooth surface with excess rod bacteria. The elements Ca and S, and proteins in extracellular polymeric substances contributed to granule structure's stability. Enriched Thiobacillus genus was proposed to accumulate nitrite at moderate HRT (2–6 h). The immobilized functional strains assist efficient partial nitrification reactions to be realized with formed S0 as byproduct. ? 2021

Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and/or polypyrrole (PPy) are mixed with chitosan (CS) binder materials for screen-printing supercapacitors (SCs) on arc atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (APPJ)-treated carbon cloth. The performance of gel-electrolyte rGO/CS, PPy/CS, and rGO/PPy/CS SCs processed by a dielectric barrier discharge plasma jet (DBDjet) was assessed and compared. DBDjet processing improved the hydrophilicity of these three nanocomposite electrode materials. Electrochemical measurements including electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), cyclic voltamme-try (CV), and galvanostatic charging-discharging (GCD) were used to evaluate the performance of the three types of SCs. The Trasatti method was used to evaluate the electric-double layer capacitance (EDLC) and pseudocapacitance (PC) of the capacitance. The energy and power density of the three types of SCs were illustrated and compared using Ragone plots. Our experiments verify that, with the same weight of active materials, the combined use of rGO and PPy in SCs can significantly increase the capacitance and improve the operation stability. ? 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

In this paper, low-pressure 95%Ar–5%H2, pure Ar, and 95%Ar–5%O2 plasmas were used for post-treatment of ruthenium (Ru) deposited on nickel foam (NF) (Ru/NF). Ru/NF was then tested as a catalyst for a hydrogen evolution reaction. Significant improvement in electrocatalytic activity with the lowest overpotential and Tafel slope was observed in an alkaline electrolyte (1 M KOH) with 95%Ar–5%O2 plasma processing on Ru/NF. Linear scanning electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV) also indicate the lowest interfacial impedance and largest electrical double layer capacitance. Experimental results with 0.1 M phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolytes were also demonstrated and compared. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

The growing Earth Observation (EO) satellite data requires an open and freely accessible exploitation tool to facilitate the development and sustainability of applications on land use and land cover change, water resources, forest monitoring, and etc. Open Data Cube (ODC) was initiated by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) to provide a solution with new computing technologies. ODC can promote free and open EO satellite data and application algorithms, and lower the technical barriers for users on exploiting the data. This project aims to develop the ODC protocol in Taiwan and apply it on a case study - forest monitoring after the attack of typhoon Morako in Taimali river basin, the eastern of Taiwan. Firstly, the strategic implementation, the platform, and the infrastructure of Taiwan Data Cube (TWDC) are initiated. And, the TWDC is applied on forest monitoring between 2000 and 2016 using Landsat-7 images. Finally, the improvement and perspective of TWDC protocol are discussed. In the future, (1) the Formosat series images will be prepared as Analysis Ready Data (ARD), (2) the software environment will be improved on data management and user interactive interface, and (3) the protocol of TWDC will be duplicated to developing countries on international cooperation projects under the collaboration with CEOS and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). © 2019 IEEE.

This study for the first time bioreduced Te(IV) using elemental sulfur (S0) as electron donor, achieving 91.17%±0.8% conversion with reaction rate of 0.77 ± 0.01 mg/L/h in a 60-day cultivation. Characterization using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray power diffraction analyses confirmed that most removed Te(IV) was reduced to elemental Te(0) deposits, while ion chromatogram analysis showed that most S(0) was oxidized to sulfite and sulfate. High-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing indicated that the Te(IV) reduction coupled to S(0) oxidation was mediated synergistically by a microbial consortia with S(0)-oxidizing bacteria (Thiobacillus) to generate volatile fatty acids as metabolites and Te(IV)-reducing bacteria (Rhodobacter) to consume formed volatile fatty acids to yield Te(0). The synergy between these two strains presents a novel bioremediation consortium to efficiently treat Te(IV) wastewaters. ? 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Purpose: Directly extracting the respiratory phase pattern of the tumor using cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) projections is challenging due to the poor tumor visibility caused by the obstruction of multiple anatomic structures on the beam's eye view. Predicting tumor phase information using external surrogate also has intrinsic difficulties as the phase patterns between surrogates and tumors are not necessary to be congruent. In this work, we developed an algorithm to accurately recover the primary oscillation components of tumor motion using the combined information from both CBCT projections and external surrogates. Methods: The algorithm involved two steps. First, a preliminary tumor phase pattern was acquired by applying local principal component analysis (LPCA) on the cropped Amsterdam Shroud (AS) images. In this step, only the cropped image of the tumor region was used to extract the tumor phase pattern in order to minimize the impact of pattern recognition from other anatomic structures. Second, by performing multivariate singular spectrum analysis (MSSA) on the combined information containing both external surrogate signal and the original waveform acquired in the first step, the primary component of the tumor phase oscillation was recovered. For the phantom study, a QUASAR respiratory motion phantom with a removable tumor-simulator insert was employed to acquire CBCT projection images. A comparison between LPCA only and our method was assessed by power spectrum analysis. Also, the motion pattern was simulated under the phase shift or various amplitude conditions to examine the robustness of our method. Finally, anatomic obstruction scenarios were simulated by attaching a heart model, PVC tubes, and RANDO® phantom slabs to the phantom, respectively. Each scenario was tested with five real-patient breathing patterns to mimic real clinical situations. For the patient study, eight patients with various tumor locations were selected. The performance of our method was then evaluated by comparing the reference waveform with the extracted signal for overall phase discrepancy, expiration phase discrepancy, peak, and valley accuracy. Results: In tests of phase shifts and amplitude variations, the overall peak and valley accuracy was −0.009 ± 0.18 sec, and no time delay was found compared to the reference. In anatomical obstruction tests, the extracted signal had 1.6 ± 1.2 % expiration phase discrepancy, −0.12 ± 0.28 sec peak accuracy, and 0.01 ± 0.15 sec valley accuracy. For patient studies, the extracted signal using our method had −1.05 ± 3.0 % overall phase discrepancy, −1.55 ± 1.45% expiration phase discrepancy, 0.04 ± 0.13 sec peak accuracy, and −0.01 ± 0.15 sec valley accuracy, compared to the reference waveforms. Conclusions: An innovative method capable of accurately recognizing tumor phase information was developed. With the aid of extra information from the external surrogate, an improvement in prediction accuracy, as compared with traditional statistical methods, was obtained. It enables us to employ it as the ground truth for 4D-CBCT reconstruction, gating treatment, and other clinic implementations that require accurate tumor phase information. © 2020 American Association of Physicists in Medicine

The explosive development of nanotechnology has caused an increase in unintended biohazards in humans and in the ecosystem. Similar to particulate matter, nanoparticles (NPs) are strongly correlated with the increase in incidences of cardiovascular diseases, yet the mechanisms behind this correlation remain unclear. Within the testing concentrations of 0.1-10 μg/ml, which did not cause a marked drop in cell viability, zinc oxide NPs (ZnO-NPs) induced intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) messenger RNA, and protein expression in both concentration- and time-dependent manner in treated human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). ZnO-NPs treatment cause the activation of Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1 (Rac1)/cell division control protein 42 homolog (Cdc42) and protein accumulation of mixed lineage kinase 3 (MLK3), followed by c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and transcription factor c-Jun activation. Induction of ICAM-1 and phosphorylation of JNK and c-Jun could be inhibited by either JNK inhibitor SP600125 or Rac guanosine triphosphatase inhibitor NSC23766 pretreatment. In addition, pretreatment with NSC23766 significantly reduced MLK3 accumulation, suggesting the involvement of Rac1/Cdc42-MLK3-JNK-c-Jun signaling in the regulation of ZnO-NPs-induced ICAM-1 expression, whereas these signaling factors were not activated in zinc oxide microparticles (ZnO-MPs)-treated HUVECs. The increase of ICAM-1 expression on ZnO-NPs-treated HUVECs enables leukocytes to adhere and has been identified as an indicator of vascular inflammation. Our data are essential for safety evaluation of the clinical usage of ZnO-NPs in daily supplements, cosmetics, and biomedicines. ? The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Toxicology. All rights reserved.