Development of treatment train based on green technologies for removal and recovery of naphthenic acids from oil-sand process affected wastewater

Each day large volumes of oil sands process-affected water (OSPW) are being produced during the extraction of bitumen in oil sands industry in northern Alberta. OSPW contains different polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), bitumen, as well as naphthenic acids (NAs), which not only are the major source of toxicity in OSPW, but also create operational problems such as corrosion of the equipment during bitumen recovery process. A recent figure indicates that about 720 billion liters of OSPW that were produced during the extraction of bitumen from Canadian oil sands industry have been stored in tailing ponds that cover approximately 170 km2. Water treatment and management strategies are urgently needed for OSPW recycling in order to reduce the withdrawal of fresh water from the Athabasca River and to permit the safe release of treated OSPW to the receiving environment by removing these compounds. OSPW is highly saline water with myriad of organic and inorganic constituents, including metals, anions, organic compounds, and suspended particles. Among all the different treatment methods, adsorption has gained significant attention due to its efficiency and fast removal rates. Recent studies on petroleum coke (PC), a relatively inexpensive and abundant feedstock, used as an adsorbent after activation, have brought renewed attention to the use of adsorption processes for OSPW treatment. The coagulation/flocculation (CF) process is widely used as a pre-treatment to other processes including adsorption. Besides adsorption, desorption of exhausted adsorbents is crucial to naphthenic acids recovery due to various industrial applications. The unique properties of the metallic soaps of naphthenic acids account for the major uses of the acid. The salts of naphthenic acids (alkali naphthenates) are applied as both emulsifying and demulsifying agents. The metallic naphthenates have also found industrial application in the fields of preservatives and driers. Copper and zinc naphthenates are effective insecticides and fungicides, and solutions of these salts in petroleum solvents are available commercially. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Aging Skin: Nourishing from Out-In. Lessons from Wound Healing

Skin lesion therapy, peculiarly in the elderly, cannot be isolated from understanding that the skin is an important organ consisting of different tissues. Furthermore, dermis health is fundamental for epidermis integrity, and so adequate nourishment is mandatory in maintaining skin integrity. The dermis nourishes the epidermis, and a healthy epidermis protects the dermis from the environment, so nourishing the dermis through the epidermal barrier is a technical problem yet to be resolved. This is also a consequence of the laws and regulations restricting cosmetics, which cannot have properties that pass the epidermal layer. There is higher investment in cosmetics than in the pharmaceutical industry dealing with skin therapies, because the costs of drug registration are enormous and the field is unprofitable. Still, wound healing may be seen as an opportunity to “feed” the dermis directly. It could also verify whether providing substrates could promote efficient healing and test optimal skin integrity maintenance, if not skin rejuvenation, in an ever aging population

Aging Skin: Nourishing from the Inside Out, Effects of Good Versus Poor Nitrogen Intake on Skin Health and Healing

Skin is the outermost defense organ which protects us from the environment, constituting around 8 % of an adult’s body weight. Healthy skin contains one-eighth of the body’s total proteins. The balance of turnover and synthesis of skin proteins is primarily dependent on the availability of sufficient nitrogen-containing substrates, namely, amino acids, essential for protein metabolism in any other tissue and body organs. The turnover of skin proteins has been shown to be rapid, and the mobilization of amino acids at the expense of skin proteins is relevant in experimental models of protein malnutrition. As a result, alterations in nutritional status should be suspected, diagnosed, and eventually treated for any skin lesions. Protein malnutrition has a dramatic prevalence in patients aged >70 or more, independent of the reason for hospitalization. The quality of nutrition and content of essential amino acids are strictly connected to skin health and integrity of its protein components. Collagen fiber deposition is highly and rapidly influenced by alterations in the essential to nonessential amino acid ratios. The most relevant nutritional factor of skin health is the prevalence of essential amino acids

Chimeric aptamers in cancer cell-targeted drug delivery

Aptamers are single-stranded structured oligonucleotides (DNA or RNA) that can bind to a wide range of targets ("apatopes") with high affinity and specificity. These nucleic acid ligands, generated from pools of random-sequence by an in vitro selection process referred to as systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), have now been identified as excellent tools for chemical biology, therapeutic delivery, diagnosis, research, and monitoring therapy in real-time imaging. Today, aptamers represent an interesting class of modern Pharmaceuticals which with their low immunogenic potential mimic extend many of the properties of monoclonal antibodies in diagnostics, research, and therapeutics. More recently, chimeric aptamer approach employing many different possible types of chimerization strategies has generated more stable and efficient chimeric aptamers with aptamer-aptamer, aptamer-nonaptamer biomacromolecules (siRNAs, proteins) and aptamer-nanoparticle chimeras. These chimeric aptamers when conjugated with various biomacromolecules like locked nucleic acid (LNA) to potentiate their stability, biodistribution, and targeting efficiency, have facilitated the accurate targeting in preclinical trials. We developed LNA-aptamer (anti-nucleolin and EpCAM) complexes which were loaded in iron-saturated bovine lactofeerin (Fe-blf)-coated dopamine modified surface of superparamagnetic iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticles (SPIONs). This complex was used to deliver the specific aptamers in tumor cells in a co-culture model of normal and cancer cells. This review focuses on the chimeric aptamers, currently in development that are likely to find future practical applications in concert with other therapeutic molecules and modalities

Study of e+e−→ppˉe^+e^- \rightarrow p\bar{p} in the vicinity of ψ(3770)\psi(3770)

Using 2917 $\rm{pb}^{-1}$ of data accumulated at 3.773~$\rm{GeV}$, 44.5~$\rm{pb}^{-1}$ of data accumulated at 3.65~$\rm{GeV}$ and data accumulated during a $\psi(3770)$ line-shape scan with the BESIII detector, the reaction $e^+e^-\rightarrow p\bar{p}$ is studied considering a possible interference between resonant and continuum amplitudes. The cross section of $e^+e^-\rightarrow\psi(3770)\rightarrow p\bar{p}$, $\sigma(e^+e^-\rightarrow\psi(3770)\rightarrow p\bar{p})$, is found to have two solutions, determined to be ($0.059\pm0.032\pm0.012$) pb with the phase angle $\phi = (255.8\pm37.9\pm4.8)^\circ$ ($<$0.11 pb at the 90% confidence level), or $\sigma(e^+e^-\rightarrow\psi(3770)\rightarrow p\bar{p}) = (2.57\pm0.12\pm0.12$) pb with $\phi = (266.9\pm6.1\pm0.9)^\circ$ both of which agree with a destructive interference. Using the obtained cross section of $\psi(3770)\rightarrow p\bar{p}$, the cross section of $p\bar{p}\rightarrow \psi(3770)$, which is useful information for the future PANDA experiment, is estimated to be either ($9.8\pm5.7$) nb ($<17.2$ nb at 90% C.L.) or $(425.6\pm42.9)$ nb

Effect of nanoscale curvature sign and bundle structure on supercritical H2 and CH4 adsorptivity of single wall carbon nanotube

The adsorptivities of supercritical CH(4) and H(2) of the external and internal tube walls of single wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) were determined. The internal tube wall of the negative curvature showed the higher adsorptivities for supercritical CH(4) and H(2) than the external tube wall of the positive curvature due to their interaction potential difference. Fine SWCNT bundles were prepared by the capillary force-aided drying treatment using toluene or methanol in order to produce the interstitial pore spaces having the strongest interaction potential for CH(4) or H(2); the bundled SWCNT showed the highest adsorptivity for supercritical CH(4) and H(2). It was clearly shown that these nanostructures of SWCNTs are crucial for supercritical gas adsorptivity.ArticleADSORPTION-JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ADSORPTION SOCIETY. 17(3):643-651 (2011)journal articl

Supervisor-subordinate proactive personality congruence and psychological safety: A signaling theory approach to employee voice behavior

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.03.001Building on person-supervisor fit and signaling theory, this study explores the joint effects (i.e., congruence) of supervisor and subordinate proactive personality on subordinate voice behavior through subordinate perceived psychological safety. We examined our hypotheses using cross-level polynomial regressions and response surface analyses. The results indicated that supervisor-subordinate congruence in proactive personality led to higher levels of subordinate perceived psychological safety. Additionally, subordinates in the congruent dyads with high proactive personalities perceived higher levels of psychological safety than those in the congruent dyads with low proactive personalities. Furthermore, supervisor-subordinate congruence in proactive personality had an indirect effect on voice via subordinate perceived psychological safety. Theoretical implications for proactive personality, voice, and person-supervisor fit literatures are discussed. This study highlights that organizations should focus more on creating conditions, perhaps through supervisor-focused changes, that engender psycho- logical safety as opposed to focusing attention exclusively on proactive traits exhibited by eThis research was supported by a grant funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10901010), awarded to Dr. Minya Xu, and grants funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71872190 and 71502179), Guangdong Province Higher Vocational Colleges & Schools Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme (2018), and a Fulbright Scholarship sponsored by the U.S. government, awarded to Dr. Xin Qin. This research also received support from Center for Statistical Science in Peking University, and Key Laboratory of Mathematical Economics and Quantitative Finance (Peking University), Ministry of Education, China.This research was supported by a grant funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10901010), awarded to Dr. Minya Xu, and grants funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71872190 and 71502179), Guangdong Province Higher Vocational Colleges & Schools Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme (2018), and a Fulbright Scholarship sponsored by the U.S. government, awarded to Dr. Xin Qin. This research also received support from Center for Statistical Science in Peking University, and Key Laboratory of Mathematical Economics and Quantitative Finance (Peking University), Ministry of Education, China