No abstract

Urinary stone is conceptualized as a chronic metabolic disorder punctuated by symptomatic stone events. It has been shown that the occurrence of calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) during stone formation is regulated by crystal growth modifiers. Although crystallization inhibitors have been recognized as a therapeutic modality for decades, limited progress has been made in the discovery of effective modifiers to intervene with stone disease. In this study, we have used metabolomics technologies, a powerful approach to identify biomarkers by screening the urine components of the dynamic progression in a bladder stone model. By in-depth mining and analysis of metabolomics data, we have screened five differential metabolites. Through density functional theory studies and bulk crystallization, we found that three of them (salicyluric, gentisic acid and succinate) could effectively inhibit nucleation in vitro. We thereby assessed the impact of the inhibitors with an EG-induced rat model for kidney stones. Notably, succinate, a key player in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, could decrease kidney calcium deposition and injury in the model. Transcriptomic analysis further showed that the protective effect of succinate was mainly through anti-inflammation, inhibition of cell adhesion and osteogenic differentiation. These findings indicated that succinate may provide a new therapeutic option for urinary stones.

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has become the main choice of remote sensing detection method for monitoring large surface subsidence and deformation caused by underground coal mining. Time Series InSAR (TS-InSAR) has been intensively researched in mining-caused deformation monitoring for its ability to provide surface deformation time series, with Short Baseline Subset InSAR (SBAS-InSAR) and Permanent Scatter InSAR (PS-InSAR) being two classical methods. To obtain the incline and curvature in mining areas and assess the building damage, this paper exploits the results from SBAS-InSAR and PS-InSAR methods for the estimation of surface incline and curvature, following the principle of directional derivatives, and the surface beneath the villages and the industrial square near the 7221 Grout-filled working face, in the Huaibei mining area of Anhui Province, China, was analyzed. The estimated surface incline and curvature with SBAS-InSAR were within the threshold values specified for Class I damage, while PS-InSAR showed less than 1% measurements which exceeded this threshold. This paper provides a method for monitoring the surface deformation beneath the buildings around the mine area. Meanwhile, the dynamic analysis of the damage degree of buildings provides a basis for the determination of the influence range with grout-filled working faces.

No abstract

A novel natural polymeric adsorbing material γ-cyclodextrin immobilized starch (CS-γCD) was prepared by introducing host functional molecule γ-cyclodextrin (γ-CD) into starch, using epichlorohydrin (ECH) as a cross-linking agent and sodium hydroxide as a catalyst, via the aqueous-phase synthesis method. The γ-cyclodextrin content in CS-γCD was up to 8.15% determined by the bromocresol green (BCG) hyperchromic spectrophotometric method. The structures of CS-γCD were characterized by infrared spectrum (FT-IR), 13 C-nuclear magnetic resonance spectrum ( 13 C-NMR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). We investigated the adsorption performances and kinetics of CS-γCD to three different kinds of dyestuff including methylene blue (MB), methyl purple (MP), and congo red (CR). The results showed the adsorbing capacities of CS-γCD to three kinds of dyes had obviously increased compared with native starch and diatomite, and the CS-γCD was also found to have a significant advantage in adsorption of macro-molecule dye such as CR over other adsorbing materials. The adsorption behaviors of CS-γCD on the three dyestuffs could be better described by a Langmuir model (R 2 >0.99), but also had relatively high correlation to Freundlich model. The pseudo second-order model could better describe the adsorption behaviors. The CS-γCD could be enzymolysised, while its degradation rate was much lower than native starch, which indicated that CS-γCD had a relatively higher structural stability and longer service life, these characters could be beneficial for the popularization and application of CS-γCD in fields of wastewater treatment and environment remediation.